Atkins Diet
Phase I: Induction
During the Induction phase, you reduce your consumption of carbohydrates to 20 grams per day, and eliminate simple sugars and unrefined grains. (By way of comparison, a medium apple contains about 20 grams of carbohydrates.) You compensate for the loss of carbohydrates by eating more protein.
Phase II: Ongoing Weight Loss
In Phase II, you begin to add carbohydrates back into your diet eating 25 grams of carbohydrates per day in the first week, 30 grams per day in the second week, and continuing until you stop losing weight. You then reduce your daily carbohydrate consumption by 5 grams, and continue losing weight although much slower than you were in Phase I.
Phase III: Pre-Maintenance
In phase III, you add 10 carbohydrates per day back to your diet, as long as you continue to lose weight.
Phase IV: Lifetime Maintenance
In Phase IV you begin the eating habits that Dr. Atkins recommends you continue for the rest of your life. Participants gear their eating habits towards meats (including poultry and fish), nuts, seeds and vegetables. Fruits and starches are eaten occassionally. Participants also take nutritional supplements to ensure that they ingest adequate vitamins and minerals.
Who created the diet?
Dr. Robert Atkins first released the diet in 1972, in the book Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution.
Medical Studies
No long-term studies of the health effects of the Atkins diet have been published. There is currently a 2-year study underway that puts 360 men and women on the Atkins diet or the US Department of Agriculture's standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
However, several short-term studies have recently been published that suggest that low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets (such as Atkins) may help their participants lose weight at least as well as high-carb, low-fat diets.
One study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that: "The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss ... than did the conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. The low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease."
