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| The Diet Wars #4 The ATKINS Diet | ||
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THE DIET WARS by JR Tillotson Our diet series, which began with the May, 2005 Villager, continues this month with the late Dr. Atkins' entry--until recently, one of the most popular diets ever. Atkins Unlike most other weight loss advocates, Atkins allows you to eat lots of meat and fat and promises that you will still lose weight. Nutrient-dense foods, Atkins advises, are more likely to meet your nutritional needs and promote better health than low-fat, calorie-restricted diets. The logic behind Atkins is that your body burns both carbohydrates and fat as fuel for its energy needs. Carbohydrate is the first fuel to be metabolized; cut down on your intake of carbs and your body converts from burning carbs to burning fat. The result is weight loss. The four-phase Atkins diet aims to create a regulated carbohydrate threshold below which fat burning and weight loss occurs. Atkins also recommends vitamin and mineral supplements and regular exercise. The first phase, Induction, lasts a minimum of 14 days and severely restricts your carbohydrate intake, jump-starting your body into lipolysis/ ketosis, efficiently switching your metabolism to one that primarily burns fat for energy while it stabilizes your blood sugar. Among other things, unstable blood sugar brings on fatigue, mood swings, brain fog and the inability to function at your best. Unstable blood sugar can also cause uncontrollable cravings for sugary, high carb, high-glycemic foods, making it hard to shed pounds. Breaking these addictions is an important goal of Induction. As with alcoholics, moderation won't work. Following Induction is Ongoing Weight Loss, Pre-Maintenance & Maintenance. Each phase fine-tunes the diet to keep pace with your body's changing needs. In all phases, the Atkins-friendly pantry promotes poultry, fish, beef, pork and soy products to supply protein, whole grains such as barley, oats, brown rice, fruits such as blueberries, raspberries, pears, avocados, vegetables such as salad greens, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and spinach. Vegetable and seed oils, cheese & dairy, nuts & legumes are OK. Added sugars and hydrogenated fats are NOT OK. Atkins people seem amused by AtkinsSpeak, which converts phrases to acronyms. Knowing what the letters stand for, they say, marks you as an insider. Thus, ANA (Atkins Nutritional Approach) replaces the word diet. The Atkins folk hate the word diet; they say it implies the Atkins plan is one of those unscientific, unhealthy, ineffective fads. OWL (Ongoing Weight Loss) is everybody's goal, CCLL (Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing) is the carb gram count at which you achieve OWL. Your ACE (Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium) is the carb gram count that will allow you to remain at your target weight, once you achieve it. And so on. Atkins tanks The Atkins' bankruptcy follows the failure of numerous low-carb products by the likes of Kraft, General Mills, Coke and Pepsi. Last year, Coca-Cola spent between 30 and 50 million dollars to promote low-carb C2, its biggest product launch since Diet Coke in 1982. Not to be outdone, Pepsi introduced low-carb Edge. Both sodas were expensive failures. Other companies tried low-carb doughnuts and pasta. Same dismal result. At the height of Atkins' popularity in 2004, one observer counted 3,375 new low-carb and no-carb products on the market. Many were total flops. Foodmakers are currently being urged to spend increasing amounts on bigger and better surveys to track the tastes of fickle consumers. One nervous CEO has his company monitoring blogs in a desperate bid to predict the Next Big Thing. To learn more--www://atkins.com/ takes you to Atkins' official site but there is no shortage of others. Google Atkins Diet, take your pick. NEXT TIME: a look at vegetarianism. J.R. Tillotson, a writer, illustrator and long time river villager, welcomes comments and food questions from our readers. |
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