The Atkins Diet Topic

[jschyun]

Both say the high-fat, high-protein approach advocated by the Atkins diet was responsible

Atkins' approach is not high-fat, it is decidedly low-carb.

I was under the impression that Atkins is high-fat, at least on Induction. The recommended ratios are something like 65-70% fat, 20-25% protein, and 5% carbs (of your total caloric intake).

I've poked around on some of those Atkins support msg boards and the general consensus appears to be that more fat is desirable, since excess protein can be converted into carbs. Most ppl seem to keep their percentages in the 70% fat, 25% protein, 5% carb range.

If you're eating lots of meat, you're eating a high fat diet. Even in LEAN meats, poultry and fish, roughly 30% of total calories are fat calories, but nobody wants to eat lean meat/poultry or fish (dry) so usually it's much higher, in the 50-80% range.

Fat Calories in Meat/Poultry/Fish plus some others

Supplements are key with the Atkins diet. Frankly, this is a rich man's diet, not just because of all the meat you're eating, but because you have to swallow a fistful of vitamins every day in order to give your body the nutrients it needs, that eating meat all day won't give you. If you don't take the supplements, you are in for a rough ride.

Given the large amounts of meat that people are ingesting on this diet, I'm kind of curious to see if anyone is doing any osteoporosis monitoring for people on Atkins. Unless people are supplementing their diet with huge amounts of calcium, I imagine we'll start seeing lots of people with extremely brittle bones in the future.

As for Physicians for Responsible Medicine having a vegetarian agenda, did it ever occur to you why this would be, if indeed it is the case? You don't need supplements on a vegetarian diet full of whole grains, fruits and veggies, yet you will lose weight and be well nourished. But nobody wants to hear that. People want their steak and their waistline too. Frankly, I will side with the vegetarians on this one; it doesn't seem right to be on a diet where you need massive supplementation in order to get nutrients that the diet lacks.

--edit Plus it's cheaper. Have you seen the price of a steak lately?

Edited November 21, 2003 by jschyun (log)

[ronnie_suburban]

The hardest part is the sweets (or lack thereof)...had an Atkins Advantage peanut butter bar last night for dessert.  A relatively weak consolation prize for being good, to say the least.

=R=

Dude, NSM is bringing chocolates tomorrow. are you going to be able to resist?

No! And I plan on partaking.

=R=

[mags]

You don't need supplements on a vegetarian diet full of whole grains, fruits and veggies, yet you will lose weight and be well nourished.

Really? I was a vegetarian for several years, and a "semi-vegetarian" -- meaning I based most of my meals around starch (rice, pasta), with veg and protein on top -- for most of my adult life. And what happened was that I got fat, my blood work was a disaster, and my menstrual cycle was wildly irregular -- not a good sign for a woman (though, I guess, rather a worse sign for a man ).

On a low-carb regime, and without any medication, I have lowered my cholesterol and triglycerides, lost weight, and stabilized my menstrual cycle.

Why are you so anxious to prescribe for others? If a vegetarian diet works for you, terrific. It's not what works for me.

[budrichard]

Atkins was a charlaton and had NO scientifc data, period. the US Ag Dept (I believe) hosted a panel discussion whose panelist including Atkins and Dr Dean Ornish. I saw the discussion where Ornish got Atkins to publicly admit the he had no study information.

Catch up

Common sense, btw, is rarely common, nor is it guaranteed to make sense. That's why there's science. To someone from Haiti, it's common sense that you can mutilate a chicken to cure a cold.

This is what I read from your reference!

" Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets. "

-Dick

[Katherine]

This is what I read from your reference!

" Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets. "

There is little or no long-term information on most diets. Long-term research is expensive. It's really hard to recruit subjects and keep them participating in your research when they also must live and work in the real world. Unfortunately, what this means is that many standard dietary recommendations are based on very short-term studies of atypical subjects, laboratory studies, or speculation with no science backing it.

How else can you explain the fact that more than a decade of bombardment with the recommendation that Americans should eliminate fat from their diets has resulted in a significantly fatter and less healthy population?

Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets.

It is a fact that longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of just about all recommended weight loss regimes.

Think about it. If you wanted to test the long-term effectiveness of a vegan diet for, say, weight loss and general health, you would have to recruit a great many subjects who were not vegans and convince them to stay on a strict vegan diet (of your choosing) for a year or preferably longer, to see what happened to their health. To see what happened the other way around, you could also try to recruit vegans, and switch them to a meat-eating diet. Good luck finding enough volunteers to get any real data.

[ExtraMSG]

Supplements are key with the Atkins diet. Frankly, this is a rich man's diet, not just because of all the meat you're eating, but because you have to swallow a fistful of vitamins every day in order to give your body the nutrients it needs, that eating meat all day won't give you. If you don't take the supplements, you are in for a rough ride.

Given the large amounts of meat that people are ingesting on this diet, I'm kind of curious to see if anyone is doing any osteoporosis monitoring for people on Atkins. Unless people are supplementing their diet with huge amounts of calcium, I imagine we'll start seeing lots of people with extremely brittle bones in the future.

First, in the whole scheme of things, supplements are rather cheap. I get 300 one-a-day style capsules for $12. If you take 2 per day, which I think is Atkin's recommendation, that's still less than $30 per year.

Second, I don't know that supplements are that key to Atkin's or other low-carb diets. Carbohydrates in the form of starches don't give you many nutrients normally. They're largely empty fuel just like fats. There are exceptions, but the place where most people get their calories -- bread, pasta, rice -- isn't going to take the place of a multi-vitamin.

I think people make a mistake by assuming what is meant by the Atkin's diet or other low-carb diets rather than actually looking at what you can eat. They also often extend Atkin's "induction" phase of the diet into eternity, assuming you would stay on that more than the first two weeks, which you don't. When I was on Atkin's (I tried it for a couple months to lose weight before a food trip), I ate plenty of vegetables. I would only take supplements on days I thought I hadn't eaten a balanced diet. I ate a lot of greens and a lot of peppers, but there are plenty of other vegetables you can essentially eat unlimited quantities of after the induction phase. And you can work in higher sugar vegetables and fruits as long as your carbs under your target amount.

btw, I probably ate more eggs than meat while on the diet. I found that I lost weight quicker when the bulk of my proteins were eggs. I also liked the ease of cooking dishes with them and the ability to use them as a filler, almost like a starch. And, they're cheap as hell.

This is what I read from your reference!

" Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets. "

Well... read as selectively as you wish and ignore everything else. The fact remains that you claimed there was no scientific evidence showing low-carb diets are healthy. But that's just not the case. And this is just one study. There are others showing much more specific data. I believe Atkin's website has links to many peer-reviewed journal articles. But you can usually search a medical/health journal for "low carbohydrate" and find studies.

[corvus]

I'm not in favour of the Atkin's Diet (or any other diet!) but it might be worth noting that the CBC took this report with a grain of salt saying that the group making the claims (Physicians for Responsible Medicine) has its own agenda (vegetarianism!) so this might be worth exploring for those concerned.

That's true.

For the most part, the PCRM are neither physicians nor are they responsible. They are a PETA front and they promote a vegan lifestyle. Here are some details about this group from The Center for Consumer Freedom:

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. PCRM is a fanatical animal rights group that seeks to remove eggs, milk, and meat from the American diet, and to eliminate the use of animals in scientific research. Despite its close ties to violent animal-rights zealots and “above ground” animal activist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), PCRM has successfully duped the media and much of the general public into believing that it represents the medical community.</a>

More details here.

[corvus]

Given the large amounts of meat that people are ingesting on this diet, I'm kind of curious to see if anyone is doing any osteoporosis monitoring for people on Atkins.  Unless people are supplementing their diet with huge amounts of calcium, I imagine we'll start seeing lots of people with extremely brittle bones in the future. 

Curiosity is good. It's how man learned that eating meat is good for him.

Eating meat seems to be good for your bones.

http://lowcarbresearch.org/lcr/results.asp?catid=204

http://atkins.com/science/researchsummaries/calcium.html

Frankly, I will side with the vegetarians on this one; it doesn't seem right to be on a diet where you need massive supplementation in order to get nutrients that the diet lacks.

It easier to get all the nutrition you need in your diet if you eat meat, fruits and vegitables and avoid grains. On the basis of nutrients per calorie, grains are the losers. Atkins got it right there.

[Callipygos]

What I am trying to say about listening to your body is this, if you want a little chocolate, have it, before you are so obsessed with it that you have cleared out the local 7-11.

I have heard this from SO many people. Exactly.

A possibly new angle: I have heard recently that there is some evidence -- only anecdotal evidence at this point -- that Atkins can lead to an increased likelihood of contracting gout in some people. I've seen something that could very well support that -- my SO's mom is on a medication which has joint pain as a possible side effect, and does indeed have this side effect -- and, she's also on Atkins.

I don't think that the argument is as simple as "Atkins gives you gout," more like if you were prone towards gout anyway, Atkins can aggravate that.

I've mentioned this to ths SO to pass on to her (haven't mentioned it to her directly, because she scares me just a wee little still...)

[Zingano]

What do people think of the Paleolithic diet? Has anyone tried it? http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/ The premise seems fairly sensible to me, and the diet just "feels" healthy - plenty of meat, fish, veg and fruit, but no wheat-based processed foods like cakes and bread. One of the more logical of the high protein diets.

I've not managed to stick to it for more than a few days though - I eat out at least twice a week, and I'm not going to be one of those whingy people who has long discussions with the waiter to change the chef's carefully designed dishes.

[tryska]

love a paleo-style diet. it's the diet i've actually felt healthiest and least restricted on. it's also the diet i lost the most amount of fat on.

of course right now i'm on a no-holds-barred eating fest, and i feel like crap, but i'm not motivated to get it together right now. *lol* that's my own issues tho.

i will say tho, when i was on the ball, it was easy for me to eat in restaurants and at home.

[Katherine]

What do people think of the Paleolithic diet? Has anyone tried it? http://www.panix.com/~paleodiet/ The premise seems fairly sensible to me, and the diet just "feels" healthy - plenty of meat, fish, veg and fruit, but no wheat-based processed foods like cakes and bread. One of the more logical of the high protein diets.

I've not managed to stick to it for more than a few days though - I eat out at least twice a week, and I'm not going to be one of those whingy people who has long discussions with the waiter to change the chef's carefully designed dishes.

At first I was pretty impressed, but I think that was with the concept-that humans should attempt to eat a diet that most closely resembles what they evolved on.

The breakdown comes when you try to decide what humans evolved on, and which foods available today should be included.

I can understand that the paleo diet wants you to avoid grains and beans, which have only been part of the human diet since the agricultural revolution, but it also has you avoid green beans (descended from beans), all root vegetables, eggs, salt, (as though these previous things were avoided by our ancestors, which is unlikely), and all dairy products. You are supposed to eat lean meat and trim all fat (again, the evidence indicates that humans went out of their way to eat the fatty parts of animals). At the same time, he recommends that we purchase perilla oil and consume quantities of it, as though our ancestors somehow did that.

To a great extent, the effectiveness of a diet results from how well people are able to stick to it. But I recall that this is not an all-or-nothing diet, and you are allowed to modify it as necessary when there's nothing else to eat.

I'd have to say I was influenced by the concept, but it's somewhat off base. That and I like my cheese.

[tryska]

i didn't read through this guys particular diet, but i when i was eatingf in a paleo style, my rule of thumb is essentially - if i can digest it raw, i'll eat it cooked. that pretty much cut out grains, legumes and potatoes. i also cut out most dairy, (i needed to do that anyways), and sugar. if i needed to sweeten it was either honey or maple syrup.

[misstenacity]

On a slightly off-kilter tangent.... (good fats):

Has anyone read/digested/thought much about Udo Erasmus? (hope I spelled that right)

In particular, I would like to hear from anyone who has done his 1-2 week "test" period - sort of like his own induction phase - where you supplement 2-5 tablespoons of omega3/6-rich oil per day. This is supposed to make your skin look lovely (since some of the fat will be used to promote suppleness, I imagine), your bowels to loosen up, and your sugar cravings to be reduced.

However, at $30-50 for a two-week supply of said good oils, it is a slightly daunting task. That and flax oil is no cod liver oil, but it ain't that tasty, either.

Comments?

Andrea

in Cedar Crest, NM

[tryska]

well with that much fat - you're skin certainly will have a glisten. I can also see the other benefits occuring as well. I'm not familiar with this induction phase, altho I have used Udo's oil before - it tastes like pumpkin seeds. I used it as i did my flax seed oil - 2tbsps per day.

[gingerly]

atkins-a cautionary tale.

[mags]

Totally tangentially, what I find really frightening about this book -- the Feeding Harry one -- is the no-hope writers they got to blurb it. Who has heard of more than one of these people? Or even one of them?

Every year at my bookstore, we hand out a clutch of joke awards. One year, one of the categories was for most pathetic blurb. The book that won had a single blurb on the back, and the guy -- the blurber -- was identified as "Mitch Gampion, Stuntman in Deliverance."

This was not, you understand, a book about stuntmen, movies, or squealing like a pig. It's just that Mr. Gampion was the only person known to the author who could pass -- albeit in real dim light -- for a celebrity. So didn't the author of Feeding Harry know any stuntmen?

On the other hand, it may not have been her fault: Publishers are notoriously clueless. A few years ago, St. Martin's -- which has gotten more than one lifetime-achievement award for cluelessness -- published a book by a first-time writer. Out of pure hubris, the writer had sent a copy to Saul Bellow, who never blurbs ANYTHING. But he blurbed this one. He sent St. Martin's a paragraph to the effect that this was a wonderful book, and he's a Nobel laureate, he should know.

St. Martin's said there wasn't enough room on the cover.

[ExtraMSG]

atkins-a cautionary tale.

That should have been an Onion parody.

[John Whiting]

Out of pure hubris, the writer had sent a copy to Saul Bellow, who never blurbs ANYTHING.  But he blurbed this one.  He sent St. Martin's a paragraph to the effect that this was a wonderful book . . .

That wasn't Saul Bellow, that was Augie March on the make.

[Kabi D]

As one who has used Atkins and is a type 2 diabetic,there are certain misconceptions about Atkins ,first no vegetables this is not true you can have most vegetables that grow above ground.As for fruits berries seem to work well due to their lower glycemic index.One has to do research for oneself,there are variable metabolism types out there .What is yours and how do your react to various foods,also Atins or Ketogenic diets are more controlled Carb diets as discovered by Banting almost 100 years ago this is not new.As for alcohol I think the rule is plain there are no free rides ,there are concequenses to everything that you eat the question is are you willing to pay that price??The best advice I can give is to research for yourself,know just how much protein ,fat and carbs you need on a daily basis and go for it> one last word Weight resistance training seems to be the best for insulin resistant types adn the supplement Metformin ,both which are cheap and well woth the effort.

[tanabutler]

I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere; I did a search that found no results.

Has anyone seen this?

"Low Carb Living" magazine launched in January.

Low Carb Living magazine website

[BrennaMorgan]

ATKINS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.

HOW CAN SOMEONE POSSIBLY MAINTAIN A LOW-CARB LIFESTYLE FOR THEIR ENTIRE LIVES? IT'S IMPOSSIBLE AND UNREALISTIC AS WELL AS UNHEALTHY. IN ATKINS, WHERE DOES CALCIUM, FIBER, AND NATURAL FRUIT COME IN? NO ONE CAN TELL ME THAT WHOLE WHEAT BREAD, MILK, OR APPLES MAKE A PERSON FAT. GIVE ME A BREAK. IT'S ALL ABOUT CALORIES AND BALANCE; MODERATION IS KEY.

[ExtraMSG]

BRENNAMORGAN, NO REASON TO YELL...

You really should learn a little about the diet before attacking it. For example:

* Dietary fiber is subtracted from total carbohydrates to create something referred to as "net carbs". Thus, something with high fiber is encouraged in the diet. Often, whole grain products can be eaten in moderation.

* Dairy can be eaten in moderation. (And actually without much moderation as the diet continues.) However, things like whole milk are encouraged.

* Many fruits that have low glycemic indexes are not a problem either. Berries, for example, can be eaten fairly liberally.

* Carbohydrates are slowly added to the followers diet as time goes on as long as they aren't gaining weight.

The body and the mind are quite complex. I'm a pragmatist. If it works, it's good. Atkins seems to work for many people. So why knock it.

Edited March 5, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[tanabutler]

BRENNAMORGAN, NO REASON TO YELL...

Maybe she is someone so new to the internet that she hasn't heard that typing in all capital letters is the same as shouting. (Though I did see evidence of mixed and proper capitalization elsewhere from Brenna.)

[ronnie_suburban]

BRENNAMORGAN, NO REASON TO YELL...

Maybe she is someone so new to the internet that she hasn't heard that typing in all capital letters is the same as shouting. (Though I did see evidence of mixed and proper capitalization elsewhere from Brenna.)

No, I think it's a simple case of 'the larger the typeface, the weaker the argument.'

BrennaMorgan has made several posts (on several threads) which reveal her genuine lack of understanding about low-carbing. That minor detail will not deter her from sharing her opinion with us (repeatedly).

=R=