This guy really freaked me out...could he be right? (very long)
hi....I've been on Atkins 4 weeks, lost 15 lbs, and am 50 lbs away from goal. I feel pretty content on Atkins, losing weight this way is mostly effortless, and I'm never hungry. But I'm pretty early in the game! I was going about my merry way when I get this low carb newsletter in my e-mail this a.m. ( fabulousfoods.com, if you care to read it) I clicked on a link called "Low Carb Special Report", and find that it is really an advertisement for a book (shame on them!). The book is by Gregory Ellis and he is a low carb believer, but thinks the Atkins plan is flawed. Heres some of what he says:
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For me, I was excited because I knew that I could help so many people who had mistakenly gone down the Atkins trail. (A correctly applied low-carbohydrate diet is one thing and the Atkins's Version of a low-carbohydrate diet is another thing.)
I began asking Atkins "survivors" for their height and weight to see if they ever reached a normal bodyweight. Most responded with empty rhetoric. Of those who did respond, only 10% ever reached a normal weight range. Most were still overweight and some were still obese! (This was true, also, for Atkins himself because if you ever looked at his picture or saw him on TV, you readily saw that he was overweight, and during the 30 years since his first publication he never achieved an ideal weight.)
For most people doing Atkins, their weight loss ceases before they reach their goal and they have no clue what to do about it.
In the Induction Phase of the Atkins's diet, carbohydrates are drastically reduced. The response of the human organism to carbohydrate restriction is to automatically reduce its food intake by about 10-50%.
Oh, and this, just hot off an email I received from Pat Schroeder, above. She gave me permission to use her email but wanted to tell me that maybe it wouldn't do me any good because she actually wasn't an Atkins's Failure. She then said that she did it for only one day and couldn't do it because it was too restrictive and she felt awful by the end of the day. Was she an Atkins's Failure? Of course she was. I just keep forgetting about this particular niche of Atkins's Failures, the ones who quit within the first seven days.
Here's what happens: enzymes in your tissues break food down so it can be used for energy. You have fat-burning enzymes and carb-burning enzymes. If you're eating carbs, the body makes those enzymes and takes away a lot of the fat-burning enzymes. Now, cut your carbs, and you've got to burn fat. BUT YOU CAN'T, YOU DON'T HAVE THE ENZYMES! It takes at least a week and up to 6 months for the body to make a full complement of the fat-burning enzymes. So, in Atkins's Induction Phase you can't burn the fat too well, your body has little fuel, and you just feel awful. Plus, this Phase messes up your mineral balance and is a big-time STRESS to your body. You get what I mean?
It's hard to pinpoint the weakest part of the Atkins's Plan and/or Phases because, first of all, the whole thing is based on a flawed premise.
The early weight loss (first few days - 3 weeks) is about 70% water at first, dropping to about 20% of the weight lost by the third week. The low-carbohydrate diet accentuates the amount of water loss and this, then, comprises more of the weight loss.
Fat loss accounts for an ever-increasing percent of the loss, ranging from about 25% in the first few days to about 80% by the third week.
Lean Body Mass losses range from 5% at first to 15% of the total by the third week.
"Fast Responders" decrease their food intake the most and "slow responders" do not automatically decrease it. They are the least likely to lose.
For thirty years Atkins promoted eating as much fat and protein as one wanted. People have differing responses to this as well. The combination of Atkins's false notions with different response rates accounts for the fact that people often GAIN weight in the Induction Phase.
If weight is lost, one's calorie needs decrease and then begin to match the amount of food that the person has automatically leveled off to. Here, weight loss stops dead in its tracks.
It is because Atkins disavowed the importance of calories as the overarching factor in bodyweight regulation that there is a plateau in weight loss.
The variations in weight loss arise because of the variations in the person's automatic reduction in food intake.
Because Atkins's Plan is heavily weighted in the reduction of carbohydrates, it is what I call a mono-factor plan.
With this severely limited design, there's little chance of succeeding with his plan because it never provides the necessary menu of strategies that are needed for the meticulous control of bodyweight.
Failures to lose, and failures to lose as much as they want, are now lost souls.
The only ones left banging the Atkins's drum are those who were "fast responders" to this one intervention. It's likely some of these reached their goal weight. They are few in number, but they do exist.
This group, however, must rely for the rest of their life on using carbohydrate restriction to maintain their losses, usually no more than 30 grams per day. And, if you haven't tried living on 30 or fewer grams per day, you've got a real shock coming your way when you discover how restrictive and difficult this goal will be to achieve. So, the bottom line is that most of this group cannot live under the duress of such a restrictive diet and lifestyle and eventually succumb to a more "normal" lifestyle and, subsequently, regain their lost weight solely because they were never taught all of the pieces of the puzzle that are involved in the process of bodyweight regulation.
If that had occurred, they would have a menu of strategies to use and a maximum level of flexibility to use either one, several, or many of these effective strategies throughout their program to achieve and maintain an ideal bodyweight.
That is exactly what I teach -- the whole ball of wax.
This I can tell you: the low-carbohydrate diet, if done correctly, helps in weight loss, but Atkins's Version is so profoundly flawed and limited in its scope that the majority of users fail on it.
******************************************************okay, this guy is REALLY FREAKING ME OUT!!!!! is this for real? Am I going to be able to reach my goal weight and keep it off? Is there anyone out there who has been able to maintain for a year or more???? I really want to know if I am setting myself up for failure....please help!
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