The Atkins diet

The Atkins has been around for awhile now. Atkins first appeared in the late 1970s and has grown very popular these recent years in response to the low-fat diet fad. As people on a diet had trouble with low-fat diets, they searched for a new solution and Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution book found a new audience.

A lot of people have turned to the Atkins diet and there has been a lot of hype as a result. But what are the basic principles of the Atkins diet?

The Atkins diet is guided around the question "why we get fat". According to Dr. Atkins, the over-consumption of carbohydrates and simple sugars leads to weight gain. The way your body burns the carbohydrates you eat have more to do with your waist than the amount of fat or calories that you eat. In his book, Atkins outlines a phenomenon called "insulin resistance." He theorizes that many overweight people have cells that do not work correctly.

When you consume excess carbohydrates and sugar, your body notices your sugar levels are raised. The body produces insulin from the pancreas in order to retain sugar as glycogen in the liver and muscle cells for extra energy later on. However, your body can only retain so much glycogen at once. AWhen your body reaches this limit, this causes the body to store the excess as fat. This will happen to everyone who eats too many carbohydrates.

However,people who are insulin resistant have an even harder time of storing and burning of Carbohydrates. The more insulin you produce your body starts to become resistant to the insulin. Overtime, the pancreas pumps more insulin and cells become resistant to insulin. The body does this to protect itself from the toxic effects of high insulin. They create less glycogen and more fat.

As a result, people who are insulin resistant gain lots more weight. The carbohydrates that we consume get stored as fat instead of being stored as energy. Some of the side effects are fatigue, the inability to focus, lack of memory, loss of creativity, very low blood sugar (which could turn into hypoglycemia),bloating of the intestins, sleepiness, depression and increased blood sugar. When you are insulin resistant you have more worries than just extra weight.

The cure for people who have an insulin resistant body is a low-carb diet. The focus of the Atkins diet is a reduction of carbohydrates. The foods that are not allowed on the Atkins diet include simple sugars (like cookies, sodas and sweets) and complex carbohydrates (like bread, rice and grains). Even the Carbohydrates that we are taught will make us healthy are restricted in the Atkins diet such as oatmeal, brown rice and whole wheat bread, are restricted on this diet.

On this diet you must reduce your carbohydrate consumption to less than 40 grams a day. This will put your body in a state of ketosis. Ketosis allows your body to burn fat as fuel. According to Dr. Atkins' research, the ketosis state will also affect insulin production and it will stop more fat from being formed. You begin to use stored fat as fuel and in return begin to lose weight.One of the major benefits of ketosis is that your body will not crave carbohydrates as it did before. If you've been consuming lots of carbs, you may have found that you can never have enough carbs. With carbohydrate restriction and ketosis comes a reduction in carbohydrate cravings. People who have been on the Atkins diet for long period of time report that they do not crave carbohydrates as they once did.

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