Atkins Diet - Lets Discuss Pros/Cons/Experiences

[surfinillini]

I am currently on atkins and have been losing weight pretty quick. I was going to do a low-cal approach but I simply was not getting enough protein into my body and was losing muscle mass and strength at a fast pace so I decided to switch to this diet.

Started this on May 1st and am going to do induction for approximately 4-6 weeks.

I am also doing my regular workouts (mostly core exercises only right now, bench/squat/deadlift/pullups/dips/abs) and some cardio (but I broke my toe playing ball so cardio is somewhat hindered). I also sprained my wrist too which has been a bitch so i was unable to workout for a couple of weeks.

May 1st - 179.6lbs
Today - May 6th - 172.4lbs


Thoughts on atkins diet. (all meat, high fat diet, under 15g of carbs a day right now, close to 0g of sugar...including sugar alcohol).

oh yea...the plan is to do induction for 4-5 weeks until I break the 150s then I will slowly ween some complex carbs back into my diet but I pretty much will say off simple-carbs and sugars until I hit my target goals of under 10% bf and 150-155lbs.

[terrapin314]

The weight from this week is mostly water weight.

My experience with Atkins and this goes back almost ten years is that this is the only diet that I can lose weight on and very successfully. I do hit a wall after a month or so and you may need to watch calories, as well as carbs then. You will have to be careful how many of the low carb processed foods you eat, as I found them to slow my progress. The "net carbs" that they advertise might be low.

However, it is very difficult to stay on long term. The boredom with carb free foods gets painful. You will do well to reintroduce some healthy carbs once you get closer to your goal weight.

[Scary_Tiger]

Not as heart healthy as a normal diet, but whatever, there are worse things to do your body.

(I still don't see a reason to do this though.)

[kerowo]

The biggest problem with Atkins is the same problem with all diets. They end. The best thing you can do is make lifestyle changes that result in your set point being where you want it to be.

[Rootabager]

Yeah all diets fail. In one of my nutrition classes they said like 99.9 percent of diets fail and that you have to make a lifestyle change.

Here is my secret to dieting. I just eat healthy things and not that much of them. On the flipside I dont eat unhealthy things.

[Rootabager]

O and drink lots of fluids

[skunkworks]

One big problem with Atkins: very, very difficult to have high-quality workouts due to low carbohydrate intake. Performance suffers across the board, and glycogen stores are exhausted quickly and not replenished adequately afterward.

If you weren't getting enough protein intake on a low-cal diet, that's kinda your fault and not really a good excuse. Were you eating too many carbs and not enough fat/protein?

[thirddan]

im with skunk on this...low carb diets do have an effect on workouts as most will tell you, although it varies by person...i would still recommend you take some kind of post workout nutrition that includes some carbs, either in the form of PWO shake or some kind of Protein + starchy carb meal after exercise to replenish glycogen etc...in the time after workout your body is primed for ingesting carbs so they don't cause you to gain fat...

[Thremp]

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One big problem with Atkins: very, very difficult to have high-quality workouts due to low carbohydrate intake. Performance suffers across the board, and glycogen stores are exhausted quickly and not replenished adequately afterward.

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This is also how you get the whole ketosis thing. With the good comes the bad.

[tdarko]

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One big problem with Atkins: very, very difficult to have high-quality workouts due to low carbohydrate intake. Performance suffers across the board, and glycogen stores are exhausted quickly and not replenished adequately afterward.

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Damn you, this is what I was going to say.

I actually haven't ever known anyone personally that was active/athletic that used Atkins for these very reasons, everyone that I have known that used this diet was women (and the occasional man) in their 30's or 40's that wanted to drop some weight w/o sweating.



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until I break the 150s then I will slowly ween some complex carbs back into my diet but I pretty much will say off simple-carbs and sugars until I hit my target goals of under 10% bf and 150-155lbs.

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You don't need Atkins to do this. Nutritional timing is how it is done. First, you don't need simple carbs period, you don't need a diet to tell you that...so just eliminate that altogether. You can have complex carbs in your diet but it is all about when you eat them, target these foods so that they are stored as energy for when you workout and then you are burning carbs NOT FAT when you workout--you will then burn fat after your workouts instead of storing the fat that you lost (your body will want to do this). It feels like this has been said about ten times in the last week but you want to burn carbs not fat when you workout and this is a problem for you--think about what you have in your body?

Complex carbs can be a bad thing and this is why Atkins has sold a [censored] load but it has targeted sedentary people.