Atkins, low carb diets in general (a bit long)

[devika261]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Rachel Bray <bray.262 at o...> wrote:
> Has anyone out there done the Atkins Diet or knows someone 
> who has?  I'm starting it today.  I heard the cravings for 
> bread and pasta and the such will disappear within the 
> first week or so.  Is this true?  
> 

I did the Atkins Diet last summer for 10 days, and I lost 7 pounds, 
which didn't come back when I went back to a normal diet.  I had only 
intended to do it for two weeks (the induction period), but I could 
only stick it out for ten days for two reasons.  First, I just 
couldn't deal with not eating carbs, and second, I really didn't lose 
any more weight after the first week.  I believe that the Atkins Diet 
does tell you that during the two week induction period, when you eat 
a very small amount of carbs, you should lose about 5-10 pounds.  
However, after that period, when you gradually increase your 
carbohydrate intake, you'll still lose some weight, but at a much 
slower pace.  

I actually did a project on low carb diets for my biochemistry class 
last year, and I found out some facts that you might be interested 
in.  According to a lot of papers that I read, basically what happens 
during the induction period is that your body realizes that it's not 
getting nearly enough carbs from your diet, so it mobilizes the 
carbohydrate stores that it already has in the form of glycogen.  For 
every gram of glycogen mobilized, the body also loses a certain 
amount of water (I forget exactly how much, but it's pretty 
significant).  Most of the weight you lose during the induction 
period is due to water loss, and that's why you lose so much.  That's 
also why many people gain the weight right back when they go off the 
diet.  I didn't, but that might be the exception rather than the 
rule.  
After the induction period, you can eat more carbs, so your body goes 
pretty much back to normal.  You'll lose weight more slowly now, 
often not more than a pound a week.  Now, though, your weight loss is 
due to nothing more than a lower calorie intake.  If you're cutting 
any type of food out of your diet, your calorie intake will most 
likely be less, and so that's why you keep gradually losing small 
amounts of weight.
So what's the point of all this?  Basically that the Atkins Diet, 
except for the initial induction phase, ends up giving you the same 
results as any other traditional diet.  You eat fewer calories, you 
lose weight.  If the papers I've read are correct, then it's as 
simple as that.  But then the high-fat nature of the Atkins Diet also 
has a lot of long-term consequences that aren't all that great.  For 
example, high cholesterol, heart disease, etc.  There's actually 
another paper I read that suggested that high-protein diets increase 
the risk of osteoporosis in the (very) long run.

I don't mean to scare you by all of this.  What I believe, both from 
personal experience and from the research I did, is that the Atkins 
Diet is a good thing to do for a short period of time to jump start 
your weight loss.  After that, for me at least, it just came down to 
eating a healthy, balanced, low calorie diet and making sure I got 
regular exercise.  And in the long run, that's healthier for you 
anyway.
So anyway, if this was way more information than you wanted, I'm 
sorry.  Since you're just starting the diet, I think that you should 
stick with it for a while, and you'll probably see some quick 
results. I just personally wouldn't recommend it for the long term.  
And as far as diets in general are concerned, I wish you the best of 
luck and I hope that you can find one that is most effective for 
you.  In the end, that's what counts.

--Devika :)