Wed, Apr-14-04, 10:08
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Senior Member
Posts: 1,186
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Plan: Meat Only
Stats: 200/169.6/175
BF:
Progress: 122%
Location: Eastern WA
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From the Agatson interview:
Quote:
From your point of view, what's wrong, if anything, with the Atkins diet?
Well, we do emphasize that our diet is a lifestyle, not a diet. The way we developed it for our heart patients, losing weight or normalizing your blood chemistry just for a few weeks or a few months does nothing to prevent a heart attack or stroke. It has to be over years.
The problem with the Atkins diet is, firstly he lumped all fats together, including saturated fats, at the beginning even trans fats, and said they're good.
They're all okay.
They're all okay.
And you're telling me trans fat's terrible.
Trans fat's terrible. Saturated fat's bad. Mediterranean oil's good. The other thing was basically lumping all carbohydrates together. And again I give Dr. Atkins credit. At that time, we didn't understand the importance of fiber or the concept of glycemic index. And he felt that you had to avoid basically all carbohydrates. You would deplete your sugar storage in your liver, and you would begin burning fat for energy. And that caused the creation of something called ketone bodies, ketosis, and he felt ketosis was the reason why we weren't hungry on the diet, and that's how we lost weight.
When you eliminate all those carbohydrates, including the vegetables with all the good nutrients, you're eliminating very important sources of vitamins and minerals, and we didn't want to do that. Also, when you go into ketosis, you lose a substantial amount of water, and particularly with older heart patients, we didn't want dehydration. So we gave our patients enough carbohydrates so that they didn't go into ketosis, and we measured that. We found still in the first two weeks, they lost their cravings for sugars and lost weight without difficulty. So you could have the healthy carbs and still lose cravings and lose weight.
The other thing about the bad fats is, as far as sugar and insulin metabolism, they are not good for it long term, whereas the good fats are, and that may be part of what makes people go off those diets and balloon up after a year. It's really important to have a transition into a lifestyle, a maintenance phase, and one that's simple, and we emphasize that very much.
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Might want to keep up with the times, before slamming the competition.
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