A review of The Atkins Diet

The vast majority of diets are trying to get people to eat less (i.e. fewer calories). They are based on the idea that, if you eat less, your body will use up fat reserves in place of the missing energy. If only this were true!  The body will first and foremost make you hungry, to try to get you to eat more and close the calorie deficit. This is the main reason that most diets fail – because hunger is up there with war and homelessness in the list of things that are unbearable for humans.

We have known for at least fifty years that 98% of people will fail on an eat less/calorie controlled diet (Stunkard & Hume 1959 – Archives of Internal Medicine).

The group of diets that will work are those that do not restrict calories and those that do not cause hunger. The Atkins diet and other low carb diets are, therefore, in the group of those that will work.

The Atkins diet restricts carbohydrate intake to no more than 20g of carbohydrate a day (i.e. approximately two cups of salad/green vegetables a day and no other carbohydrates). No grains, no fruit, no coloured vegetables etc are allowed in the strictest phase of the diet.

The Atkins diet will work, if you can stick to such a strict regime. The main staples of the diet are then meat, fish, eggs and most cheese. This is virtually impossible for vegetarians – unless you are OK with cheese omelettes three times a day. For carnivores, it can work well and people who get on with The Atkins Diet tend to fall in love with it and not need another diet again.

The Atkins Diet is not terribly practical, as it’s difficult to have steak or shrimps in butter at the office desk. It can also be very difficult to stick to, without feeling deprived, with many wonderful and healthy foods, like brown rice and fruit, that need to be avoided.

Very low carb diets have been linked to halitosis (bad breath) and constipation. The Atkins Diet has been accused of more serious health allegations than this, but I personally consider most of the accusations against Atkins on health matters to be unfair and unfounded. Common sense tells us that we have been eating animals and little more than animals for hundreds of thousands of years, during the evolution of man and our ancestors. The idea that these real foods are responsible for heart disease, or any other modern illness, is quite absurd.

Good nutritionists would, however, advise staying away from the processed low carb foods made available for Atkins devotees. These include sweetened Jello’s and other low carb manufactured foods full of processed ingredients. Stick with the real foods, meat & fish and so on and you’ll do well.

Atkins was not the founder of the low carb diet and he acknowledged his indebtedness to those who ventured before him. William Banting (c. 1860) is often credited with being the first proponent of the low carb diet. He made the regime so famous that the early word for dieting was ‘banting’! “To bant” was the 19th century equivalent of “to diet”.

The bottom line is that I’m quite a fan of Atkins in the real food, not processed carb bar form. On the rare occasions when someone seems so carb sensitive that The Harcombe Diet doesn’t work for them, I would actually recommend that Atkins be the diet of the last resort to try. If  the opening phase of Atkins doesn’t work for someone, I can’t think of any other options!