The Atkins diet, created by cardiologist Robert Atkins, is a popular eating plan that revolves around restricting carbs while eating mostly fat and protein. The idea behind it is to shift your metabolism to burn body fat instead of carbs for energy. To help individuals adhere to this diet, the Atkins brand offers a range of tools, including the Atkins Carb Counter app. This article provides a comprehensive review of the Atkins diet and its accompanying app, exploring its features, benefits, and potential drawbacks.
What is the Atkins Diet?
The Atkins Diet is a low-carbohydrate eating plan developed in the 1960s by cardiologist Robert C. Atkins. It is formally called the Atkins Nutritional Approach. The purpose of the Atkins Diet is to change your eating habits to help you lose weight and keep it off. The Atkins Diet also says it's a healthy lifelong approach to eating. The Atkins Diet notes that obesity and related health problems, such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, are the fault of the typical low-fat, high-carb American diet. The Atkins Diet says that you don't need to avoid fatty cuts of meat or trim off excess fat. The Atkins Diet holds that eating too many carbs - especially sugar, white flour and other refined carbs - leads to many issues. The Atkins Diet says that it leads to blood sugar imbalances, weight gain and heart problems. To that end, the Atkins Diet limits carbs. The Atkins Diet encourages eating more protein and fat.
The Atkins diet focuses on proteins and fats like meat, poultry, seafood, eggs, butter, oils, and cheese. You'll have to stay away from starchy and sugary carbs, including bread, pasta, potatoes, chips, and candy. You’ll eat carbs in veggie form at first. As you progress, you’ll add in other foods, like beans/legumes, fruits, and whole grains.
The Four Phases of the Atkins Diet
There are four phases to the standard Atkins diet, also called Atkins 20:
- Phase 1: Induction. In this strict phase, you cut out almost all carbohydrates from your diet. Instead of getting about half of your daily calories from carbohydrates, as recommended by most nutrition guidelines, you get only about 10%. In this phase, you eat protein, such as fish and shellfish, poultry, meat, eggs, and cheese, at every meal. You don't need to limit oils and fats. But you can't have most fruits, sugary baked goods, breads, pastas, grains, nuts or alcohol. You drink at least eight glasses of water a day. This is when you help your body switch from burning carbs to fat. This process is called ketosis, and you should notice weight loss quickly. You’ll eat protein, fat, and only 20 grams of carbs in veggie form daily. Some people (like vegans) may start at the next phase.
- Phase 2: Balancing. In this phase, you keep eating a minimum of 12 to 15 grams of net carbs as foundation vegetables. You also keep avoiding foods with added sugar. You can slowly add back in some carbs that are high in nutrients, such as more vegetables and berries, nuts, and seeds, as you keep losing weight. You’ll add foods back to your diet, until you learn how many carbs you can eat while still losing weight.
- Phase 3: Pre-maintenance. In this phase, you slowly keep increasing the range of foods you can eat, including fruits, starchy vegetables and whole grains. You can add about 10 grams of carbs to your diet each week. But you must cut back if your weight loss stops. Go to this level when you have about 10 pounds left to lose. You’ll learn how to maintain weight loss and lose the last few pounds.
- Phase 4: Lifetime maintenance. You move into this phase when you reach your goal weight. You'll follow this for the rest of your life, to ensure that you don’t gain back what you’ve lost.
Atkins 40
A newer version of Atkins, called Atkins 40, has more relaxed rules and allows you to start with 40 grams of carbs in the daily diet. It doesn’t exclude any food groups at first, as Atkins 20 does.
Read also: Understanding the Atkins Diet
Atkins Diet App: Features and Functionality
The Atkins Carb Counter app is a free tool designed to help users track their carb intake and stay on track with their chosen Atkins program. It offers a range of features, including:
- Barcode Scanner: This feature allows you to scan barcodes on groceries and Atkins products to get nutritional information.
- Saving Favorites: Allows you to save food items and recipes for quick reference.
- Comprehensive Food Search: Helps you find nutritional info for grocery items, restaurant meals, and Atkins-friendly recipes and products. Search by keyword for any of these items and track them instantly.
- Upgraded Meal Tracker: Allows you to track net carbs consumed daily based on your specific Atkins Program. Includes popular brands and restaurant dishes and a breakdown of fat, protein and foundation veggies.
- Progress Tracker: To track your weight loss to date and the proximity to your goal weight.
- Activity Trackers: Allow you to sync your device and incorporate steps into your daily goals.
- Program Overview and Acceptable Food Lists: Will help you discover all the delicious foods acceptable in each Phase and Program.
- Over 1,600 Recipes: Making it easy to find and fix low-carb meals.
Is the Atkins Diet Effective?
The Atkins diet is one of the best-known low-carb diets, and the research shows it can work. If you fill your day with processed carbs like white bread, pasta, and white potatoes, and you don’t eat many fruits and veggies, then this diet may be the jump-start you need to lose weight.
The initial phase in the Atkins 20 plan is limited in food choices but focused on protein, fat, and vegetables that are low carb and not starchy. In each phase, you add back food groups: first nuts, seeds, and berries; then fruits, starchy vegetables, beans, and whole grains. With the Atkins 40 plan, you can choose from a larger variety of foods and carbs but still little to no starchy foods.
With Atkins 20, the closer you get to your weight loss goal, the more variety of foods you’re allowed. Ideally, you’ll stick to their healthy list and not go back to your old ways.
If you like variety in the foods you eat, the Atkins 40 plan would likely be better for you. Of course you'll still need to keep your portion sizes under control, which may be easier as a low-carb diet can help tame hunger.
Read also: Delicious Atkins Dinners
When you’re overweight, shedding pounds can improve your health, and we know the Atkins diet works. But it’s still unclear how the higher amounts of animal protein and fat in the diet affect long-term health.
Recent research suggests that people on the Atkins diet who chose foods rich in plant fat and protein did better with their health than those who went with the diet rich in animal fat and protein.
This makes sense to me, and the Atkins 20 and Atkins 40 diets reflect this idea. They focus more on getting fat and protein from heart-healthy choices like olive oil and protein like soy and lentils.
Potential Downsides of the Atkins Diet
If you've lost weight on the Atkins diet, as with most diets, you're likely to gain it back, research shows. Also, eating too much animal fat on this type of diet can raise your chances of heart disease and cancer. You may also feel some side effects from cutting carbs, such as:
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Weakness
- Extreme tiredness (fatigue)
- Trouble pooping (constipation)
Some very low-carb diets also restrict carbs so much that they cause you not to have enough nutrients or fiber. This can cause such health problems as constipation, diarrhea and nausea.
Read also: Atkins Diet for Vegetarians
Considerations for Specific Populations
- Vegetarians and vegans: Atkins doesn’t require you to eat meat. Also, you'll skip the first phase of Atkins 20, which limits carbs too much.Vegetarians get protein from:EggsCheeseSoyNutsSeedsLegumesHigh-protein grains like quinoaVegans get protein from:LegumesSoyNutsSeedsHigh-protein grains like quinoa
- Gluten-free diet: It’s easy to stick to that eating plan when you’re on Atkins. Foods with gluten are high in carbs. People on Atkins eat less gluten than people who eat the standard American diet.
- Low-salt diet: There’s no need to add salt to any recipes for Atkins.
If you have diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, or high cholesterol, talk to your doctor before starting this diet to make sure the balance of carbs, fat, and protein is right for you. Also, the Atkins Diet recommends that you talk to your health care provider before starting the diet if you take diuretics, insulin or oral diabetes medications. Also, people with severe kidney disease shouldn't follow the diet.
Personal Experiences with the Atkins Diet
One individual's experience with the Atkins diet highlights both its potential benefits and challenges. They found it difficult to stay under the recommended carb limit, but also discovered that a stricter approach was easier to adhere to. They also noted the importance of being cautious with prepackaged, processed snacks and treats, as sugar substitutes can hinder weight-loss goals.
Transforming cooking habits was also necessary, with the need to find substitutes for favorite meals. The Atkins Carb Counter app was found to be less user-friendly than other similar apps, particularly when cooking from scratch. Cooking and eating with others also presented challenges due to dietary restrictions.
Despite these challenges, the individual experienced positive results, including fitting into skinny jeans and achieving improved blood sugar levels. This demonstrates that the Atkins diet can be effective, but it requires commitment, planning, and a willingness to adapt.