Atkins Diet - Why it Works and Why it Doesn't

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Overall, the phase that you should be losing the most weight is the induction phase where you can expect to lose between 3-5kgs in the first week due to your body overcompensating for the lack of carbohydrates and also burning too much fat because it isn’t used to processing it efficiently. As your body gets used to the low carbohydrate situation and becomes more adapted to burning fat, it will become more efficient meaning that eventually your weight loss will progressively decrease over time. It is quite normal for this to happen and is nothing to worry about. Don't lose focus on this diet just because the slimming has slowed.

The problem most people have with following this diet is that uncertainty regarding the actual safety of the diet both long term and short term. As mentioned earlier some people are particularly scared of the many medical reports that the high protein and high fat diet that the Atkins diet recommends can have a very severe adverse affect on the cardiovascular system by accumulating huge amounts of cholesterol in the system. Although the long term affects of the diet haven’t been studied properly the fear of long term heart disease is a very valid concern about amongst those that are thinking of joining the many that have used this diet.

Another concern that many people have raised is the unpleasant affect of having your body burn fat to get energy instead of burning starches and sugars for energy. One of the most obvious side-affects is the production of substances called ketones when your body enters into the state of ketosis. Ketosis is basically the fat burning state that our bodies go into when there is a lack of carbohydrate to fuel the system sufficiently. Ketones are excreted mainly from the breath and urine and thus people who are in ketosis sometime suffer from bad breath. In addition to that, the burning of body fat to produce energy is also quite energy consuming thus you will feel a general level of tiredness and weakness that you might not have felt before. The weakness can cause dizziness, insomnia and even nausea in the first few weeks especially in the induction phase. The extra meats and fats in your diet and the absence of many fruit and vegetables can mean that you can be prone to constipation if you do not control you fiber intake properly.

The main reason for most people even thinking of this diet is that it is a very large departure from the other types of diets that are available in the market. Most other diets will require that the person restrict their calories intake and be extremely careful in choosing foods that are either light, non-oily and calorie restricted. The net result of this is that most people feel deprived in these diets and cannot succeed because they never really feel full or satiated with these diets. This however is not the case with the Atkins diet which maintains that you can eat whatever meats and fats at whatever amount as long as you keep your carbohydrate intake to a minimum. This large departure means that dieters won’t feel restricted or insatiate with their food meaning that they have a much better chance of keeping with the diet until their results are showing.

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