What are your thoughts on people with Heart Disease being placed on the Atkins Diet? Someone I know has Congestive Heart Failure and has had one heart attack already. His doctor placed him on Atkins (he needs to lose about 60-70lbs). I just can't understand how someone with heart disease can eat the foods that are acceptable on Atkins. And what I can't understand more is that a doctor would recommend it. Maybe I am missing something?
I've never heard of this. I know a few people with heart problems and their doctors recommended South Beach, not Atkins. Maybe it's just a case where the doc wanted him to lose weight and figured with Atkins he'd actually follow the diet? Just a guess.
__________________ The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. -- Carlos Castaneda
To be honest, I've done the Atkins Diet, and in fact, I'm doing it again now. In the first couple of weeks, my cholesterol did spike, although it still wasn't all that high. But, after a few weeks of being on it, the numbers were incredibly low and have remained there. My cholesterol has gotten so low that my doc has actually told me that I need to eat more "crap". My triglycerides are so incredibly low that they can't even be measured except for <10.
Not only does it typically help people with lowering their individual and overall cholesterol numbers, you'll also lose an incredible amount of fat without giving up too much muscle mass in a rather short amount of time. Furthermore, if you follow the recommendations made by Atkins in his book, it also helps to teach you a new and better way to eat -- ultimately, a much healthier way to eat. The first 2 weeks are the induction phase, which is actually the phase that has garnered most of the media's attention. That's when you are to cut out almost completely all carbs. You're only allowed 20 grams of carbs per day for those first 2 weeks. The intention here is to break a supposed addiction to carbohydrates, specifically sugar. After that first 2 weeks, you're expected to increase your daily carb to 25 for the third week, 30 for the fourth week, 35 for the fifth week, and so on until your weight loss begins to level out. Then, whatever carb intake you are at, that should be your maintenance level.
As you increase your carb intake, Atkins encourages you to being eating GOOD foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains and at the same time begin reducing the amount of protein you're taking in. By the time you hit maintenance, you should have developed a rather balanced diet for yourself that you can easily maintain whether you eat in or out and you should have a decent idea as to how many carbs, proteins, fats, and calories just about anything you eat has in them. Also, I found myself looking much more closely at nutrional labels and just being more aware of what I'm putting into my body.
Dr. Atkins typically prescribed high protein diets to his diabetic patients and he began finding that after some time, his patients were no longer diabetic.
Does that help?
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Thanks...yes, it does. I just worry that this person will see he can eat bacon and steak, and stick to eating the crap all the time, and not increase the veggies. But that is just a problem on his end....not with the diet itself.
Do you know of any long-term studies that have been done with the diet? I always worry about long-range effects when any new diet or drug comes out.
As far as studies go, there are others on this board better at finding those than I. I do know the Atkins Diet was introduced by Dr. Atkins in the 50's/60's and then resurfaced in the 90's. Also, the concept of high protein/low carb diets have been around since the dawn of time. So much so in fact that our bodies were originally designed to process primarily proteins and fats as carbs were not readily available. As far as humanity is concerned, the mass introduction of carbs into our diets is more or less a "modern" thing, especially when you consider all the processed carbs we have available to us today. You can do some searches on "Ketogenic" diets or "ketosis". That's basically what Atkins is. It relies on our most basic way of breaking down protein through ketosis for energy.
Also, keep in mind, that Atkins is not meant to be a long-term commitment as far as HIGH protein is concerned. When I'm on a maintenance level, I'm taking in about 150 carbs per day which equates to 600 calories, or about 30% of a 2000 kcal/day diet. And, that's right in line with today's thinking about a balanced diet of 40% protein, 30% fat, 30% carbs, or 40/30/30. For me to "work" up to 150 carbs per day, it took 28 weeks. Within that same time frame, I'd also lost 30 pounds and 4 inches on my waist. Now, some people may think that 28 weeks is a long-term commitment, but not I.
One word of caution, though. You need to up your daily intake of water/fluids. High protein diets do tend to dehydrate you and can lead to some muscle damage. Some people have contended that it can also lead to kidney damage, but to my knowledge that hasn't been proven except in people with a rare pre-existing kidney malady -- I can't recall the name offhand.
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I think diets like Atkins get a bad rap because people just go crazy with eating ONLY meat and fat and never really work their way up through the process to re-introducing good, un-processed carbs into their lifestyle. Some people complain that it's difficult to stay on an Atkins diet, but once you get through the induction phase and the first few weeks of upping your carb intake, you can really choose some nice tasting foods that have quite a variety of flavors and textures, so I ask "How can it get boring?" Especially, these days with all the low-carb foodstuffs available in any grocery store. Heck, there's even low-carb pasta of all things. Also, anything that's made of whole wheat is much lower in carbs than anything made with white (processed) flour. Hence, the re-introduction of HEALTHY grains.
One more thing to keep in mind is that overindulgence in one day shouldn't really throw you off any diet as it really depends on what you've eaten during the course of a week, plus the level of exercise you've accomplished. When you consider that in order to lose one pound a week, which is reasonable, you need to reduce your caloric intake by 3500 calories a week, that's a calorie deficit of 500 per day. So, if you cheat one day, make up for that cheat as soon as possible over the next 6 days and you'll still be on target for the week.
An aunt of mine lost quite a bit of weight while doing Atkins a few years back and she's maintained her "new" physique rather easily. But, what she does is to watch her carb intake more closely during the week, but allows herself "indulgences" on the weekends to keep her honest for the other 5 days per week. Her caloric intake on the week remains the same as well as her protein/fat/carb intake levels, so she's able to maintain a great looking shape while still remaining very healthy, according to her doc.
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I think the Atkins craze has been detrimental for some people, including my parents. Instead of actually following the diet recommendations, they incorporate parts of it into their nutritional planning (the parts they like). Fatty meats, cheeses, bacon, sausage... hey, that's all good for you now! Plus many restaurant chains have put "Atkins friendly" abominations on their menus... such as giant lard-ridden "low carb" burritos that must be 1,500 calories a pop. They don't lose weight because they are eating way too many calories.
Just this past weekend, my Mom pulled a package of cauliflower with processed cheese sauce out of the freezer and then looked disappointed when I said I didn't want it. What's wrong with just eating the cauliflower part??? LOL.
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