Dr. Atkins: The Original Low Carb Diet?

One of my favorite Dr. Atkins titles

After reading countless diets for "permanent" weight loss, it occurred to me that not everyone out there remembers that the late Dr. Atkins went through a tough time back when he first published his book in the 1970s.  I personally didn't get exposed to his work until 1992 and it seemed like medical professionals of the status quo were far from convinced.  
The good doctor built his work on his equally brilliant predecessors' work, but it sometimes amazes me how many people publish without acknowledging his contributions.  They will just bolt some comments onto his principles, come up with an eye-catching title, and publish without much clinical research if any.  I would state that if you had to follow any of the low carb diets in existence, you would be hard pressed to find a better one than his re-released best seller in 2002.


This book is broken down into five parts and it's a quick, comfortable read at around 500 pages.  In part one, he starts educating you and painting a picture of what you'll need to do to achieve your weight loss goals.  Make no mistake.  This system is all about losing weight and specifically from fat reserves instead of lean muscle.  Dr. Atkins goes through all of the basics phrases he's coined for things you'll experience on this kind of diet.  He touches on some medical processes without getting so deep you drop the book to find a medical terminology text.  He points out what many opponents of his low carb diet write and defends his position.  I think he does a pretty good job, but if you've been on the diet yo-yo for a while, I suggest you judge for yourself.  I've heard very intelligent people say absurd things about low carb diets like "...as soon as you get off that diet and go back to eating carbs, you'll blow up to twice the size."  I usually bite my tongue rather than mention that  people who go back to eating the way they used to prior to diets usually end up worse off regardless of the type of diet.  The proof is in the result and thank goodness my tongue is low carb.  I can't convince most people that strength training with compound barbell movements has more benefits than jogging.  That doesn't mean it isn't true, but you can only lead a horse to water, right?

Part two gets right into the work of explaining exactly how to do the Atkins diet.  Ironically, some people who do the diet only know and do the induction phase.  They use it to drop weight after they fall off the wagon and are back to their old ways / weight.  They do this because it  works (temporarily) and they can continue their carb addiction while maintaining the facade of good health.  Atkins tries to prevent this by showing that there are multiple phases to this diet with specific milestones for each.  It is possible to regress, but he encourages you limit this.  Upon reaching the final phase, he even recommends using the unique minutiae learned during your previous milestones to slow your weight loss down to the point of virtual stagnation in order to prevent overshooting your goal.  This is meant to reduce the risk of relapse into old habits when initiating the changes required to stop losing weight.  It is a brilliantly simple, yet sophisticated plan.

Part three goes over the psychological aspects of weight loss in order to help make you better understand the many regression traps and how to avoid them.  This is where he outlines his definition of a healthy life style and the importance of exercise.  It is in this chapter that he also touches on supplementation and, regrettably, the point where a some information has become a little outdated based on more recent studies on some of the supplements.

Part four is all about his theories of low carb diet's role in disease prevention and his experiences with clients who share some of the most prevalent diseases associated with being overweight.

 And finally, part five is filled with Atkins recipes and a carbohydrate calorie counter section (say that 3X fast) because it isn't all that easy to remove carbs from your diet in a world where almost everything contains carbs.    



And while some of his recipes aren't a bad start, they don't come close to dishes like my Maria's variation on a Closet Cooking full carb recipe for Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Popper Burgers.  MMMMMMM!!!!!

Just follow the link to the site that has the recipe and vary it to rid yourself of the unwanted carbs.  There are others there that will do the work equally well once you've read and understood the principles in the book.  Dr. Atkins teaches that eating low carb can be very satisfying by embracing the protein and much maligned fats while ridding yourself of the processed carbs that have become a staple of the American diet.

Please be advised that I am not a dietitian or nutritionist nor do I claim to be associated with any medical group.  I am a former, elite level, light weight power lifter.  I've used low carb diets to decrease fat while maintaining muscle mass in order to lift in progressively lighter weight classes.  I've watched obese friends and associates lose the equivalent weight of entire human beings to become healthy adults who are off of their high blood pressure medication.  I do not endorse a moderate to high carbohydrate diet for anyone who isn't looking to gain weight.  That being said, any hard gainer out there who can't seem to gain regardless of what they do needs to note that carbs will make you gain weight quickly.  In the end, it is a tool like any other in our tool box.  Since most need to lean without losing muscle, carbs are reduced.  If you are a skinny rail of a person, then carbs should be increased.  It's all about insulin, blood sugar, and the consequences of varying them.

Therefore, I hope anyone reading this will go to the local library / book store and check out Dr. Atkins' book.  It is an old best seller, but as far as I am concerned, it is still one of the best weight loss diets out there.  And I think the late Dr. Atkins was a courageous guy who saw something that didn't add up and called it.  We owe him thanks.

Stay strong!