Atkins Diet Statistics Reveals Significant Fat Loss not Water Loss

by Tanya Zilberter, PhD

I included in my analysis over 600 reports about weight loss while following Dr. Atkins diet.

I included in my analysis over 600 reports about weight loss while following Dr. Atkins diet. I used feedbacks from my community members collected during the period between 1998 and 2000 when I was a guide to weight loss at About.com.



I happened to read, listen, and even view on TV, opinions expressed by MDs, nutritionists, and dietitians, that weight loss due to the diet is in fact a water loss. Hard to agree, if you look at this chart.

What you see here is: how much weight have lost every of over 600 dieters who reported both how much they've lost and for how long they have been dieting.

As you can see, the absolute champion is the person who lost an incredible 248 Lb. in 48 weeks. There're also a few people who were dieting the same 48 weeks with less Lb. lost, but still there are impressive results, from 25 to 100 plus Lb. Can anybody imagine it was pure water?

You can also see that there were failures - look at the dots sitting on the zero Lb. on the time axis. Some people were trying hard up to more than 20 weeks still losing nothing. We'll see later if they gained anything instead, here I'd like to emphasize that nobody has reported weight gain.

There were differences in what weight could be lost in the same time span: see how some of the dots are lined up vertically? For instance, while dieting for 12 weeks, some lost up to 50 Lb. and one person lost nothing. It can be easily explained by differences in exercise regiments or in cheating habits. However, there is the clear trend: the more time on diet - the more Lb. lost (the red curve). How long did it last?

Source: http://www.dietandbody.com/article1022.html

Linda

To discredit Atkins, many tests were set up to get the "blurbs" necessary.
The "It's mostly water" test was run for 3 days.
YOu can get almost any result that you want if you design the "research" to fit the requested result.

danny

I wondered where I stored the 50lb of water I lost

Lez

I lost 112+ pounds of "WATER"...That must be why 18" (1-1/2 Feet) of my waist disappeared. It must've been bloated from all that water.

I'm solidly in the camp that realizes the weight loss from Atkins dieting is not just (or even largely) water. This thread does spur something I've been curious about for awhile... would love to see a thorough analysis of weight composition... the interior of fat cells and interstitial fluids (fluids between fat cells), and everything else but especially that. There's such a wide range of 'fat' appearances for people at a certain height/weight/frame size.

People who are ill in certain ways hold a lot more fluid than others (Some diabetes conditions for instance when cellular waste products build up.... and perhaps that was also part of the in-hospital problem with Atkins himself when he was in a coma, as the body then is likely in an impaired state as far as clearing debris and fluid.)

So what I'm getting at is that I'm curious whether for some otherwise 'healthy' people, if a fair portion of weight is indeed not some uniform measure of fat but fat and the fluid that's cushioning toxins of various sorts... and whether indeed that fluid level varies a lot depending on the person and the level of cellular waste they've accumulated.

Part of healthy weight loss, it seems to me from experience, is 'clearing out' all sorts of unneeded things... you know how you often feel better, look better and everything starts to work better during weight loss... it's not just losing fat, it's a 'renewing' when your metabolic engine gets going.

There are some schools of thought that put a lot of credence in lymphatic massage and regular slightly bouncy exercise (like rebounding, or even walking) that help move the extracellular fluid (carrying wastes) around and theoretically out, so that doesn't all get trapped in the cells.

Would be interested in observations around all this. (Reading up on and looking at pictures of 'lymphedema' or 'lymphoedema' provides some good food for thought... that's often with upper arm swelling...)