Atkinson Diet - Understanding the Atkins Diet

There are 4 stages to the atkinson diet. These are Induction, Ongoing Weight Loss, Pre Maintenance and Lifetime Maintenance.

The Induction Phase

This phase begins the dubious (healthwise) process of ketosis, which the Atkinson diet claims leads to fat loss as opposed to water loss. The idea is to severely limit your intake of carbohydrates so that the body, in an effort to get the fuel it needs for survival, will look elsewhere.

The body turns to both fat and protein as its source of fuel. It does not preferentially burn fat as is sometimes implied when the atkinson diet describes this process.

You would restrict your daily carbohydrate consumption to 20g, which is only one fifth of the minimum daily amount recommended by the American Diabetes Association.

Compare this to the zone diet which is the diet used in one of the studies the atkins site mentions as supporting fat loss on a low(er) carbohydrate diet. You would be within acceptable health ranges regarding carbohydrate intake on the zone diet, but you would still lose weight more effectively than on a conventional high carbohydrate diet (and be healthier in terms of blood sugar and risk of heart disease).

In this phase, the atkinson diet suggests your carbohydrate sources be non starchy vegetables and salads. This phase lasts 2 weeks.

The Ongoing Weight Loss Phase

One good thing about the atkinson diet is the way nutrient rich carbohydrates are emphasized, and junk food and processed food discouraged. In this phase, you would add these types of carbohydrates back into your diet in 5g increments per week, until you stopped losing weight.

So in the first week you would consume 25g carbohydrates daily, the next week 30g carbohydrates daily, the next week 35g carbohydrates daily, and so on. When you stopped losing weight you would subtract 5g from your daily consumption levels. The idea is to sustain moderate weight loss.

Pre-Maintenance

This is a transition phase designed to ease you into creating lifelong habits of restricted carbohydrate eating. You will increase your daily carbohydrate eating in 10g increments (per week) this time, as long as very gradual weight loss (less than 1 pound per week) is still achieved. This phase would be started before you had achieved your weight loss goal, but were close (within 5 - 10 pounds).

The atkinson diet recommends that if you reach the stage where you stop losing weight and you're at your ideal weight, then you should stay at that level for a couple of months. Then it is suggested you again increase your daily consumption of carbohydrates by 10g, in weekly increments, to see if you can maintain eating increased levels of carbohydrates without gaining weight.

When you start to put on weight, you would subtract 10g from your daily consumption, and that level is called by the atkinson diet your Critical Carbohydrate Level for Maintenance (CCLM).

Lifetime Maintenance

In this phase you consume the amount of carbohydrate as determined by your critical carbohydrate level for maintenance. The emphasis here is really learning to see which foods your body copes best with, and making those your staple.

This aspect - getting to know your own metabloic needs, is highly commendable. We are all individuals, and as such we metabolize things differently. For example, some people are particularly sensitive to the rate at which carbohydrates enter the blood stream, others aren't. Depending on our levels of health, our hormonal levels, our activity levels, stress levels, and vitamin deficiencies, we react differently to food.

The principle is to create lifetime practices you can stick to, that don't leave you feeling hungry or deprived, and that take into account your own metabolic needs. Generally your carbohydrate intake levels will still be lower than what is recommended by nutritionists.

Whilst I do not think that high carbohydrate consumption is recommended, I do think that you can achieve the same goals (weight loss) with BETTER health on the zone diet.

Throughout the atkinson diet there is no restriction on the amount of fat and protein you can eat. They recommend you do not eat trans fats (like margarines and hydrogenated vegetable oils), which is a good recommendation. For more information on why trans fats are so bad for your health, click here. They recommend you should take an essential fatty acid supplement.

It is also recommended by the atkinson diet to supplement your diet with multi vitamins.

There is no way to do the atkinson diet if you are vegetarian. The atkins diet emphasises animal protein and animal fat. The zone diet can be adapted to vegetarians, and is very effective in weight loss, without restricting your carbohydrate levels to the point where your body has to use compensatory mechanisms never designed for continued daily use (ketosis).

Other Atkins Diet Articles

• Atkins Food List 
• Dangers of atkins diet 
• Atkins Diet Benefits 
• Atkins Diet Information
• Use the Benefits of Dr Adkins Diet in your Life