Six Reasons Not to Go On the Atkins Diet

The late Dr. Robert Atkins first introduced his popular low-carb diet, the Atkins diet, in 1972. At that time, his low-carb approach clashed with the popular low-fat, low-calorie diet fad.

The Atkins diet helped correct the misinformed and potentially dangerous “fear-of-fat” mentality and helped many people achieve their weight loss goals.

When you consume too many carbohydrates, you burn some of the carbs for energy while the rest get stored as fats. Eating fewer carbs will force your body to use fat as its primary energy source. The Atkins diet aims to transform your body to burn fat for fuel instead of carbs.

But while Dr. Atkins’ work with nutrition is groundbreaking, it has its share of shortcomings because low-carb diets are bound to fail at some point. Aside from promoting a “one-size-fits-all” diet, labeling all carbohydrates as bad and using the glycemic index, here are more reasons why the Atkins diet is not an optimal eating program:

1. Ketosis – In almost all cases, the Atkins diet induces ketosis, which means that the body mainly uses fats for energy because it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates to burn as fuel. As a result, the body produces ketones – breakdown molecules generated during fat metabolism. Patients on the Atkins diet often develop a strange breath odor that can be mistaken as alcohol because of a type of ketone called acetone. Prolonged severe ketosis is potentially dangerous because it can affect a dieter’s blood acidity, which can lead to kidney and liver damage.
2. Unnecessary Counting of Carb Calories – The Atkins diet asks dieters to use a "carbohydrate gram counter" to monitor their carb calories, which is unnecessary if you’re eating the right type of carbs and foods for your unique Nutritional Type. Your body naturally tells you when it's time to start and stop eating. Counting carbs is also inconvenient and time-consuming.
3. Recommendation of Sucralose (Splenda) – Dr. Atkins advocates reduced sugar intake but he recommends the use of sucralose-based artificial sweeteners like Splenda. Splenda side effects range from headaches and digestive issues to serious kidney and liver problems.
4. Nut Intake – Low-carb diets like the Atkins diet and the South Beach Diet recommends that you eat nuts, which provide health benefits but are high in omega-6 fats. An omega-6-rich diet is a big contributing factor to many chronic degenerative diseases.
5. Insufficient Exercise – Dr. Atkins’ program only allots 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. Most overweight people need an hour to increase the mitochondria levels in their muscles, which in turn, will speed up their metabolic rate, allowing them to continue burning calories while at rest and even while sleeping.
6. Food Quality – The Atkins diet does not give enough importance to the quality of food. Steak and burgers from factory-farmed animals are fine, as well as commercially-pasteurized milk and common fish, which are often contaminated with mercury and other dangerous chemicals. For Dr. Joseph Mercola, grass-fed beef, organic raw milk, and mercury-free fish like wild Alaskan salmon, are superior food choices.

But while the Atkins diet has its flaws, it doesn’t diminish the fact that Dr. Atkins is one of the foremost nutrition pioneers of the 20th century.

Dr. Mercola attempts to refine Dr. Atkins’ groundbreaking work to the next level with his revolutionary No-Grain Diet, which would help you eat healthy, burn excess pounds and overcome the post-diet “yo-yo” effect that prevents you from keeping the extra weight off.

Why Low-Carb Diets are Bound to Fail You

A low-carb diet is an eating program that advocates a drastically reduced consumption of carbohydrates. In order to achieve weight loss, you must burn more calories than you consume. Depriving your body of carbohydrates will force your body to reach out to stored fat for energy, causing you to lose weight.

The late Dr. Robert Atkins almost single-handedly educated Americans about the low-carbohydrate diet concept when he introduced the popular Atkins diet, the most well-known low-carb diet. The main principle behind the Atkins diet is that carbohydrates increase the rate of insulin in your body, which promotes the storage of fat.

While Dr. Atkins work helped establish the link between obesity and insulin, here are 4 reasons why the Atkins diet won’t help you keep off weight in the long run, nor help reduce your risk of diseases:

1.       The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high protein diet. However, it’s a single program designed for the entire population and is basically a “one-size-fits all” diet. But one man’s food may be another man’s poison. One-third of Americans actually need a high carbohydrate diet, and, following the Atkins diet means they would be depriving their bodies of the ideal fuel that they need.

2.       Dr. Atkins labeled all carbohydrates as bad. Vegetable carbohydrates are different from the carbohydrates that come from grains, and as such, do not need to be restricted to effectively achieve weight loss. Some people actually need two-thirds of their food to be vegetable carbohydrates; so in essence, they are on a high-carbohydrate but no-grain and no-sugar diet.

3.       The Atkins diet and the South Beach Diet make the same mistake of advocating the use of the glycemic index, a tool which helps you select foods that would have a minimal effect on your blood sugar levels. However, it is an unreliable and inconsistent tool because glycemic index values just have too many exceptions. Fructose, for example, has a low glycemic index, when in reality, too much of it is a prescription for obesity.

4.       Low-carb diets like the Atkins diet, will not address the emotional factors behind a person’s poor eating habits. For Dr. Joseph Mercola, one of the keys to effectively losing weight and living a truly healthy life is by overcoming the emotional challenges that are sabotaging your food choices.

The No-Grain Diet is a healthy way to achieve weight loss. It explains why restricting grains and sugars is one of the most important things you can do to achieve good health. But before trying any specialized diet, here’s a reminder from Dr. Mercola: there is no perfect diet for everyone or every condition. Diet needs to be modified to fit a specific person based on his or her own unique genetic requirements.