You've probably heard that the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to make sure that you're taking in fewer calories than you burn each day. In other words, you need to eat a healthy diet and get plenty of physical exercise. While the Atkins Diet is a popular weight loss program, some aspects of the diet make it difficult to follow if you also want to exercise.
Atkins Diet Principles
In his book "Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution," Dr. Robert Atkins outlines the principles of his diet program. In essence, he suggests that the human body "forgets" how to burn fat when you supply it with the preferred fuel, carbohydrate. He further suggests that you can retrain your body to burn fat -- and therefore lose weight -- by eliminating or nearly eliminating carbohydrates from your diet. On the Atkins Diet, you reduce carbohydrate calories significantly, replacing them with protein and fat.
Atkins Effects
The Atkins Diet has a multitude of chemical and metabolic effects on the body. One of the first of these, however, is that if you eliminate carbohydrate from your diet, your brain tells your liver and muscles to convert stored fuel called glycogen into glucose. The glucose enters the bloodstream and travels to the brain, which requires it as a form of fuel. This is because the brain can't burn protein or fat, explains Dr. Lauralee Sherwood in her book "Human Physiology."
Exercise
Forcing muscles to burn their stored glycogen has tremendous effects upon your ability to exercise, because glycogen is an important fuel source for working muscles. As such, within a week or two on the Atkins Diet, your muscles will be largely glycogen-depleted and you'll likely feel quite weak with even mild exertion. As such, you may not be able to exercise while on the Atkins Diet, or may find that you can exercise only in its later, less carbohydrate-deficient stages.
Concerns
The effect that early phases of the Atkins Diet have upon your ability to exercise represent a potential problem with the diet. This is because exercise is more than just a way to lose weight -- it's also an important component of a healthy lifestyle. The American Heart Association recommends at least 30 minutes of exercise three or more times a week to maintain overall health, particularly cardiovascular health. As such, you may need to switch to a more balanced diet to ensure that you're able to get sufficient exercise.
References
- "Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution"; Robert Atkins; 1981
- "Human Physiology"; Lauralee Sherwood, Ph.D.; 2004
- American Heart Association: Exercise
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