I have a minor problem here with Obis Atkins diet. Mainly that i cant actually use it. Heres why.

I work , oddly enough , 9-5. Thus , i require enough energy to be in my system for me to deal with clients complaints over a phone and through our computer system without nodding off , or slurring my speech, for an 8 hour period every day.

Also , i play football twice a week. Therefore , i require excessive amounts of energy giving substances in my system so that i can run around pointlessly for an hour at a time chasing an inflated pigs bladder.

Can you inform me as to how i could use Atkins in either of these situations without eating things containing carbohydrates , and therefore not giving me enough energy to do either activity.

Atkins sounds to me as though its a fantastic diet if youre

a: Unemployed
b: A Web Designer working from home.
c: Very Very Rich and not having to worry about a or b.

(BTW , the / problem for people putting apostrophes has arisen again)

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

Maybe you should stop bitching and figure out a way to either get wealthy or be a web designer. That would be the logical answer to your conundrum. Duh.

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dcomposed:11-06-05: If I was a viking invading your village, you'd be the first to get raped.
Crabby: 10/5/06: i would love to feed you fresh fruit while bathing you.

Protein actually has more energy in it than carbohydrates. If your diet is right, your body will process the protein more effectively, and you will end up with more energy than before. Fat has more energy than either protein or carbohydrates.

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Surely eating all that fatty food can\\\'t be good for your heart?

Howabout a nice warm cup of SHUTTHEFUCKUP

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

You don't eat fatty food, and you eat good fats - monounsaturates, lean meat, that kind of thing. If you avoid saturated fat, you're fine. Incidentally, 3g of fat gives the same energy as 7g of protein, so you don't have to eats lots of fat to get the energy. When you cut down on carbs, your body is able to process everything much more effectively (and get rid of the energy stored in your fat cells while it's at it).

I should start practising what I preach. The Zone is out of the bookcase now and on my computer desk where it will make me feel guilty. :)

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Where does the diet stand when it comes to vegetables? I suppose potatoes are out, but how about your carrots and lettuce and things?

Howabout a nice warm cup of SHUTTHEFUCKUP

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I have no idea who eyescream is, but his words ring true here.

Dunno about Atkins, but The Zone recommends most fruits and vegetables, with the exception of low fibre things. Sadly, this means that most grains and things are out, so no pasta, rice, or bread (unless you can dig up some special high-fibre variant). I know that Atkins lists low fibre carbs as things to avoid, too, but I don't know about fruit and vegetables...

(Incidentally, Nate, whoever eyescream is, he needs to learn how to cut out a layer - that gun is atrocious!)

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Meat + fats + fruits and vegetables is a diet that is supposed to be pretty well-suited to human digestion. I think it's what hominids ate during most of our sojourn on this planet. Grains are relative newcomers.

Of course, prehistoric humans were fairly active, to put it mildly. The average male could probably lift the likes of me over his head and snap me in half. That's why they ate all the meat (and fat and guts and brains, frankly) they could find. Also, they couldn't find as much as we can, because there were no supermarkets.

So here's my diet plan: Only eat the meat that you chase down with a spear. On bad hunting days, which are most days, eat the stuff that the women gather, and the little crops they cultivate. That's how humans evolved to eat.

Of course, you die at age 32.

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It's just, well, living in Scotland we have the highest rate of heart disease, strokes and cancer in Europe. This is mainly due to the bad diet and so we get lots of government information about what everyone should be eating to stay healty. So to then hear of a diet that says to avoid foods that are traditionally thought of as "good for you", ie fruit, veg, rice, pasta etc, and instead load up on butter and steaks just seems very very wrong to me.

Article on Atkins
And another one

Although for all I know they could just be Slimfast propaganda or something.

The thing is, these high-carb proponents have no basis for their beliefs. Seriously! They say "complex carbs are good for you" and have no real evidence to back it up. Like boorite says, Barry Sears, the author of The Zone, actually describes it as a Cro Magnon diet a few times.

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Where does the diet stand when it comes to vegetables? I suppose potatoes are out, but how about your carrots and lettuce and things?

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Bad veggies:

Potatos
Carrots
Corn
Peas
Beets
Beans

Good veggies:

Lettuce (and just about any other leafy vegetable)
Green Beans
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts

During the "induction" (first) phase, you can't have any fruit--the fructose gets treated by your body just like sugar. (During later phases you can work in low fructose-fruits, like berries.)

Regarding heart disease, Atkins blames that on complex carbohydrates and the surge of insulin they produce. I'm not sure if I believe it yet, but Atkins says that insulin is what allows fatty deposits to accumulate in arteries.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

Depends on what you mean. For athletes and other active people, there's abundant evidence that carbohydrates are extremely important in maintaining blood glucose and replacing muscle glycogen. Before exercise, it's recommended that you eat a snack or meal relatively high in carbs, low in fat and fiber, and moderate in protein (American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine, joint statement, Dec. 2000). After, a meal containing the usual stuff, including fats, is recommended.

Yeah, fats. They also recommend sodium.

I think the point is that any diet that severely restricts one type of food or nutrient (no sodium! no fat!) or overemphasizes another (all carbs! all meat!) is stupid. If you want to be healthy, look at the healthiest people and see what they eat.

So eat like the Chinese. That's what I say. Lots of rice, a little chicken here, a little pork there, some vegetables, some soy sauce... and don't eat or drink too much. They don't worry a hell of a lot about carbs or oil or any of that. We must look silly to them.

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I have no idea who eyescream is, but his words ring true here.

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Can I go with the latter? Or maybe whatever is behind door number 3? Geez, lighten up. No pun intended.

Seriously, I'm thinking of starting Weight Watchers again. I did pretty well on it and I wasn't starving. Might want to check that out.

From what I've read, east Asians tend to have portion control built into their culture. They don't eat nearly as much as we do. (The large portions at American Chinese restaurants is something they do to attract Americans, or so I've heard.) Obesity among east asians is rare, except for the elite who can afford to eat as much as they want.

For those of us for whom portion control is a difficult task, it helps to have a strategy for getting rid of stored fat. Merely reducing portions to the point where one can lose 100 extra pounds is psychological torture. You end up thinking about food all day long and not enjoying what you do eat. Atkins points out (and it seems to fit my own experience and observations) that low-fat diets tend to fail or don't last. This is because the fat in low-fat foods get replaced by carbohydrates or the "accepted" foods for the diet are chock-full of carbs. I still am not sure I believe it all, but I'm giving it a shot.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

Unfortunately, the Chinese are gaining weight-- or actually, what's really weird is that they're gaining in weight-related illnesses faster than they're gaining body mass. It seems that they're getting more fats and sugars in their diet and reducing their levels of physical activity.

Hurrah for the Western influence. Or urbanization or whatever.

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In one study I just looked at, the dropout rate on the Zone diet was 60% over 12 weeks, highest of the three tested.

They say the high-protein diets may work because it actually takes more energy to digest them. Also, ketosis suppresses hunger and so lowers caloric intake. But I'm not sure ketosis is all that safe.

Here's my weight loss plan: Eat nothing but Sudafed, pumpkin pie, and chili peppers. You'll lose weight alright.

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I don't think death and decomposition is a safe weight loss alternative, though...

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Death? No. Just explosive diarrhea and mild psychosis.

...well, and a longing for death.

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The Atkins diet puts your body into ketosis. Ketosis means that instead of your body burning carbs as energy, it burns your excess fat. You're still getting energy, just from a different source.

I've never felt the least bit tired or drained from the Atkins' diet. If anything, it's just the opposite. However, since I've been on various medicine for my ADD and depression while on the Atkins diet, I'm probably not the best to ask about energy. Maybe Wil can add something.

Fatty foods relation to heart disease is greatly over-emphasized. The true culprit is refined carbohydrates(refined sugar and refined flour).

That explains away the glaring problem with the meat-leads-to-heart-disease theory - undeveloped countries with very high meat intake, yet no refined carbohydrates, have very low occurences of heart disease.

It also explains how I ate every kind of fatty meat I wanted, yet no refined carbohydrates, and dropped 25 points on my cholesterol(bad cholesterol down, good cholesterol up), and my blood pressure dropped down to a normal range for the first time in 5 years.

Fruits are high in sugar, so I don't eat those. Starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, carrots, etc) are high in carbs too, so I don't eat them. I eat a lot of lettuce, tomatoes, acorn squash, onions, etc. The best way to find out which is high and low is to look at the label (fresh or unsweetened canned) at the store.

The thing to realize about the Atkin's diet though is that I can eat anything I want as long as I stay under 20 carbs. So I can eat pizza, or ice cream, or pour sugar down my throat if I want. The thing is that these foods are high in carbs so I it wouldn't take much of them for me to hit my 20 carb limit.

The greatest thing about the Atkins diet for me is that I EAT AS MUCH AS I WANT. I'm never hungry. I can eat whenever I want, how ever much I want. As long as I stay under 20 carbs a day, I can eat a truckload. If you're on the Atkin's diet and hungry, you're not doing it right.

The funny thing is though, that when your body goes into ketosis, before long you find your appettite diminishing. I eat less, while still eating however much I want.

That's why I strongly recommend you have your cholesterol tested now at the beginning of the diet, and later some months into it. With all the popular science counter-arguments against a high-fat, low-carb diet, only the cold hard numbers of my cholesterol and blood pressure getting better convinced me.

Being a Jungian, I strongly believe in genetic memory. (How do baby turtles know how to book it towards the ocean?) Imo, just because it works for the Chinese, doesn't mean it will work for those of European or other decent. At the same time, it doesn't mean it won't either. Despite our differences, we all belong to the species manimal, so have a lot in common.

Just speaking out my ass on this one, but boo's comment got me thinking.

Amen, brother.

I've always had problems with my weight. Here's a list of weight loss periods in my life (done by memory so roughly accurate):[list][*]Age 13 - lost 40 pounds - from 160 to 120[*]Age 17 - lost 20 pounds - from 200 pounds to 180 pounds [*]Age 20 - lost 50 pounds - from 220 to 170 [*]Age 22 - lost 45 pounds - from 245 to 200 [*]Age 26 - lost 100 pounds - from 385 to 285[/list]Except for this last time on the Atkin's diet, every one of those times I lost weight, I did it by limiting what I ate (1200 -1500 calories a day). That diet works, until you go off it. Then, when I started eating normal again, my body was in starvation mode, and took the food and stored it as fat, packing on the pounds at an incredible clip. I mean look at the numbers above. I lost 40 then gained 80, lost 20 then gained 40, lost 50 then gained 75, lost 45 then gained 185. It was partly due to my complete reliance on diet to the exclusion of exercise, partly due to my mindset that "when I hit my target weight, I can eat normal again", but mostly due to my body going into starvation mode. The Atkin's diet eliminates the latter (eat whenever I'm hungry), and I've eliminated the second (I don't consider myself on a diet - I say I've changed my eating lifestyle. That is, I plan on eating like this for the rest of my life - with the exception that when I hit my target weight, I will leave the induction phase and move on the stabilizing phase of the atkin's diet.) The exercising, I plan on starting to, though I really don't think it necessary due to the fat-burning nature of ketosis, which is what exercise (along with metabolism increase) would accomplish.

What are the possible health risks from it? PhreakyChinchilla said she'd heard it was dangerous too. Why though? Depletion of vitamins I can see as a possibility, but then I can take vitamins. (In fact, Atkins makes a set of vitamins specifically for each phase of his diet.) I know there's talk that vitamins may not be a substitute for the real thing, but if this is the only sleight against ketosis, it seems minor to me.

The thing about Atkins is that he doesn't say "Trust me, I'm right", he says "Get your bloodwork done, get any tests done you want and compare the numbers. Don't trust me, Trust the proof." You have to respect a guy who basically says "Here's how you can tell whether I'm full of shit or not."

And my numbers have proven him unfailingly right so far, and proven popular opinion on healthy eating to be off the mark.

If anyone's interested, I have a printout of my complete bloodwork just starting and six months into the Atkin's diet. I'd be happy to post the numbers here so you can get an idea of what kind of positive difference it makes.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

That looks like a trend, so just for giggles, I googled around and found this java polynomial interpolator. I plugged in the numbers you gave, and generated quartic equations fitting them. I hate to say it, but you're in big trouble. According to these projections, you'll be undergoing bigger and bigger fluctuations, with no end in sight. For instance, I checked what you could look forward to a decade and a half hence when you're as old as I am now. What these numbers indicate is that you'll have ballooned to a leviathan 4851 pounds (reserve your spot on the space station now!), but you'll be incredibly successful at dieting (practice makes perfect, after all) and you'll be able to shed nearly nine tons, bringing your ending weight to a svelte negative 12,662 pounds.

My unprofessional and ill-founded advice is to avoid these fad diets; they are swinging your weight harder and farther, and your body is completely losing all stability.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

A major source of protein for prehistoric humans was termites.

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That looks like a trend, so just for giggles, I googled around and found this java polynomial interpolator. I plugged in the numbers you gave, and generated quartic equations fitting them. I hate to say it, but you're in big trouble. According to these projections, you'll be undergoing bigger and bigger fluctuations, with no end in sight. For instance, I checked what you could look forward to a decade and a half hence when you're as old as I am now. What these numbers indicate is that you'll have ballooned to a leviathan 4851 pounds (reserve your spot on the space station now!), but you'll be incredibly successful at dieting (practice makes perfect, after all) and you'll be able to shed nearly nine tons, bringing your ending weight to a svelte negative 12,662 pounds.

My unprofessional and ill-founded advice is to avoid these fad diets; they are swinging your weight harder and farther, and your body is completely losing all stability.

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Luckily I stopped unhealthy diets with the Atkins one.

As for my projected weight, all I can say is start orbiting me now.

Resistance is futile.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

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What are the possible health risks from it?

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The initial weight loss is from water loss associated with the depletion of muscle glycogen. So the first hazard is dehydration. Also, this means it's not really the kind of weight loss you're after, and going off the diet will put the pounds right back on.

Then there is loss of muscle mass.

Neither kind of weight loss affects fat. Yes, in ketosis, you do "burn fat," but you also lose some other stuff you might want. There are other ways to lose fat.

Then there's kidney stones.

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