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The Diet Of The Atkins Diet

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A physician by the name of Robert Atkins started the Atkins Diet in 1972 after he stumbled upon a study he read in the Journal of the American Medical Association about weight reduction through the elimination of sugar and starch. At the time he was overweight and decided to implement this study into his own life and ended up losing a significant amount of weight. This led him to promoting the diet in his own series of books. The overall premise of the diet is to start with limiting the number of carbohydrates being consumed while eating as much fat and protein you want. Then, gradually increasing the amount of healthy carbohydrates consumed. There are 4 phases to the Atkins diet: Induction, Ongoing Weight Loss, Pre-Maintenance, and …show more content…

The second phase of the Atkins diet is Ongoing Weight Loss where you slowly increase the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. Essentially you add 5 grams of carbs to your diet every week until you reach a point where you aren’t gaining or losing weight (Atkins, 2002). The third phase of the diet is Pre-Maintenance in which carbohydrate intake is slightly increased again. However, this time the increase is significant enough that the body is no longer in a state of ketosis. The key here is to find a maximum level of carbohydrates you can consume without gaining weight (Atkins, 2002). Lifetime Maintenance is the final phase of the Atkins diet. In this phase you are expected to carry out the habits acquired from the previous phases. If you find yourself gaining weight again then you can revert back to one of the previous phases. This is a permanent lifestyle you need to adapt in order to carry on with the progress you made so far (Atkins, 2002). The main reason we are limiting carbohydrates in the first place is to control the release of insulin by the pancreas. Carbohydrates are responsible for raising insulin levels, which in turn promotes glucose uptake by the cells. On the other hand, insulin initiates a pathway that inhibits fat breakdown and at the same time promotes synthesis of fatty acid, cholesterol, and glycogen. Therefore, elevated levels of insulin are associated with cardiovascular disease.

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