The Atkins Diet restricts your intake of carbohydrates well below what your body needs for optimal functioning, as few as 20 g a day in the first weeks, or induction phase. Your body requires about 150 g, and that's for a moderately active lifestyle. If you eat less than 150 g, your body will use anything else available for energy to keep you going. Side effects, including muscle aches and cramps, can result.
Glucose as Fuel
When you eat carbohydrates, your body converts them to glucose. Glucose is what powers your body. If your body has excess glucose because you haven't burned it all through activity, it stores it in your muscles. If the pattern continues, the excess will eventually be stored as fat. In the other extreme, when you restrict your carbohydrate intake to 20 g a day, your body will first resort to using the glucose stored in your muscles to keep itself going. When it exhausts this glucose, it affects your muscle fibers and aches can occur.
Protein as Fuel
After your body uses up the glucose stored in your muscles, and if you're still restricting your carbohydrates to a lot less than your body needs, its next choice for energy is protein. It takes this from the protein content of your muscles through a process called catabolism. Your body converts the protein in your muscles to fuel. Catabolism causes more aches as it breaks your muscles down.
Loss of Potassium
A drop in your potassium levels can also result in muscle aches and pains on the Atkins Diet. When you're eating an adequate amount of carbs and your body saves the excess in your muscles, it stores them with water in a ratio of about 3 to 1. When your body uses the glucose stored in your muscles for energy in the early days of the diet, it releases and sweeps out those three parts water. Critics of the Atkins Diet claim that this is responsible for early, quick weight loss on the diet; you may actually be losing water weight, not fat. When you lose this water, it takes potassium with it. A side effect of a depleted potassium level is muscular aches.
Tips
The traditional Atkins program begins with restricting your diet to 20 g of carbohydrates a day for a two-week period. This is when most of the side effects will occur. After this induction phase, you begin adding carbohydrates back into your diet until you stop losing weight. Atkins indicates that this is the quantity of carbs you need daily for functioning without gaining. But Atkins also indicates that you don't have to plan your diet according to this schedule. If muscle aches are bothering you, move on to Step 2 or Step 3 of the plan and increase your carbs to a level that's comfortable for you. You'll probably still lose weight, but you'll do it more slowly and without as many side effects.
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