How the Atkins Diet works

Protein diets are recently very popular, because they provide rapid weight loss. And since people still believe in the magic pill (no matter what kind of impact will have on our health), we are willing to try almost anything that appears on the market.

How does the Atkins diet work?

Dr. Robert Atkins was a pioneer of high-protein diets. The theory that he advocates, is based on the fact that carbohydrates cause excessive insulin secretion, leading to obesity and other problems associated with weight.

Atkins diet in the early days restrict carbohydrate intake to 20 to 40 grams per day. There are excluded the majority of grain foods, legumes, fruits, bread, pasta and vegetables.

You can eat free eggs, meat, butter, cheese, cream. Without a sufficiently large input of carbohydrate your body as a source of energy expends glycogen stores in muscles and liver. This leads to a quicker elimination of water.

Your body uses as energy source fats, although not so effective as during physical activity. When the body uses fats as an energy source without carbohydrates, there is production of toxic by-products ketones, which accumulates in the blood.

Ketones are eliminated by the kidneys, which have to do much more work. Dr. Atkins claims that ketones reduce feel of hunger, which motivates further weight loss.

In addition to rapid weight loss, may also occur hair loss, bad breath, bleeding gums, liver problems, acidification of the body etc. Long-term eating food that contains such a high proportion of protein is dangerous, but the effects on the body are not yet sufficiently studied. Let’s have a few rules you should adhere to if, you had decided for Atkins diet.

Eat three meals of normal size or five smaller meals. Don’t skip meals during the day and do not be without food for more than 6 hours.

Each meal, including breakfast should contain about 150 g of protein food (one medium-sized steak): you may eat pork, poultry, veal, eggs, fish or cheese. You do not need to remove fat. If you eat protein from plants, you need to add butter or olive oil. You can eat oil or grease, but do not overdo with it.

During day you can eat only 20 grams of carbohydrates. Check out how much carbohydrate contains certain vegetables – you can eat more lettuce than carrots for example.

On the day you can eat about 120 grams of cheese (not cottage cheese or rikote), 10 olives, half the avocado, 2 to 3 tablespoons cream, 30 g sour cream and meat. For sweeten can be used also the artificial sweeteners.

To satisfy the need for sweets, you can eat a specific protein Atkins chocolate bars. Every day, drink at least 8 glasses of water or other unsweetened drinks. You can drink the also beef soup. Enjoy food supplements, ones that do not contain iron and omega 3 fatty acids. Eat until you are not fed, but not full.