Word count 894, Keyword 7X, 1 Keyword link

The Atkins Diet & Low Carbohydrate Diet Programs
 

The Atkins Diet is the true father of all the low carbohydrate diets. His breakthroughs, through years of clinical research, have inspired countless other diet gurus. He was the one doctor willing to “think out of the box” concerning weight loss and truly entertain a new and radical concept.

It’s not fat that makes one fat.

It’s not calories that make one fat.

It’s not lack of exercise that makes one fat.

…And, surprisingly, it’s not even sugar.

Then what is it?

It’s INSULIN!

Insulin does two things that lead to obesity.

1.      It tells your brain you're hungry.

2.      It converts ingested sugar into stored body fat.

These are the very two things we cannot allow. So how do we fight insulin? We need to understand where insulin comes from. Our bodies are inclined to maintain a level sugar/insulin ratio in our bloodstream. Having too much of either can be deadly.

However, not all bodies are that good at this leveling process and to complicate matters, some of us eat tons and tons of sugar. So what’s a body to do?

Well, it just so happens that the human body is a veritable insulin factory. When we load sugar into our bloodstream the body attempts to compensate with a balancing load of insulin. However, as we said before, not every “body” is good at this job.

Many of our bodies (the ones around fat people) respond with an undo level of insulin – more than what is called for. Now, this excess insulin starts making us hungry and to make matters worse it is turning all the sugar we are madly gulping down our ravenous gullets, directly into body fat. It’s wild, it’s crazy, and it’s the life of fat people!! Help! How do we turn off the insulin pump and get our lives back?!

OK, I kind of lied before (just a bit). You see it is the sugar, because sugar in the blood is what triggers the body to turn on the insulin pump, and many bodies just don’t know how to turn it back off. So, the main thing to remember is -- SUGAR IS EVIL.

"What does this have to do with carbohydrates," you ask? Simple. All carbohydrates eventually turn into sugar in the body. It all turns into a very simple sugar called Glucose. So, according to the Atkins diet, what foods are high in carbohydrates?

1.      Anything naturally sweet, like sugar, honey and fruit

2.      Anything starchy, like potatoes, pasta, rice, bread and beans

Yes, starchy things aren’t sweet, and they don’t seem like sugar, but the fact is, starchy foods turn into sugar and eventually to simple glucose in the body. They just take a little longer. All carbohydrates end up, at last, as sugar in the blood and thereby trigger the old insulin pump. With no excess blood insulin, we are not as hungry and we are not converting sugar to body fat.

Another reason the Atkins diet works for weight loss is, our bodies are really quite lazy. They will always burn the easiest fuel at their disposal. Glucose is the easiest fuel to burn, yes it could burn body fat, it knows how, but why should it as long as we keep feeding it cookies and marshmallows and fudge and all kinds of simple sugars to burn. However, when there are no sugars, or starches to convert to sugar, the body turns to the next easiest thing to burn – stored body fat.

So why doesn’t the fat we eat make us fat? When you're on a low carb diet (like the Atkins diet) and the body is seeking fuel, devoid of sugars to burn, it turns to burning fat, but being lazy, it happens that stored body fat is more ready to burn than ingested fat. Therefore it feeds on your body fat, and passes on the ingested fat. 

These are the basics of Atkins diet theory. It is, however, a very complicated diet, in part because it's based on biochemical reactions. Then there are things like good carbs and bad carbs and net carbs. Also, restricted areas of food, such as fruits, carry needed nutrients, and fiber. You need to learn how a low carb diet should be supplemented.

Fortunately, 30 years of perfecting the Atkins diet have gone before, leaving us with a great legacy of knowledge, great recipes and wonderful commercial products. Besides, this is the only diet with cheesecake on its YES list. Do get a big old book and read it cover to cover. Not only will it make you a nutritional expert and help you to avoid common mistakes, it will greatly inspire you to do it and do it right.

So what can you eat?.. meat, fish, eggs, cheese, heavy cream, and lots of vegetables. These foods are very low in carbohydrates. Today, more than ever, it is easy to cook low carb meals and sweets. We even have artificial sugars that stand up to the heat of an oven without losing their sweetness. We hadn’t had that for decades.

So get your book and surround yourself with great Internet support groups and say goodbye to evil sugar forever. You're shutting down the insulin pump for good – your good!

Atkins Diet – More about Low Carb Diets