Liquid diets are generally low in calories, allowing you to lose weight quickly. According to Vanderbilt University, the problem with liquid diets lies in your ability to keep the weight off for good. The Atkins Diet program allows you to have an assortment of low-carbohydrate foods, but a diet founded on merely consuming many Atkins protein shakes does not provide enough nutrition, and may carry more risks than benefits.
Atkins Liquid-only Diet
The Atkins diet promotes weight loss by reducing your consumption of carbohydrates to a minimum while increasing your consumption of foods high in fat and protein. A variation of this diet involves simply ingesting Atkins brand liquid drinks instead of eating the foods recommended on the full Atkins diet program.
Types
Atkins protein shakes come in several flavors, with such names as Cafe Caramel and Milk Chocolate Delight. All contain similar ingredients, including milk, a soy protein blend and sunflower oil. The shakes have a comparable nutritional profile, with 15 g of protein and just 1 g of sugar per shake. When following the traditional Atkins diet plan, you can drink these shakes during any phase of the diet.
Function
Because the official Atkins diet program discourages relying on an Atkins liquid-only diet to provide all of your nutrition, another variation of this type of diet entails consuming protein shakes plus a small nightly meal. If you rely only on Atkins protein shakes to provide all of your nutrition, you are essentially following a liquid protein diet of only about 600 daily calories, much too low to sustain your health and energy.
Warnings
The Atkins protein shakes are not meant as a replacement for all of your daily meals. Following an extremely low-calorie liquid diet jeopardizes your weight-loss efforts as well -- as soon as you go off the diet, according to Vanderbilt University, you regain those lost pounds. There are also some serious health consequences, including an irregular heartbeat, so always check with your doctor before relying on these shakes as your most important nutritional meal.
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