Does Atkins Ruin Metabolism?

The Atkins diet, a type of ketogenic diet, aims at reducing your body fat levels by limiting your carbohydrate intake. While a very restrictive diet, particularly during the induction phase, the Atkins diet can allow you to lose weight and make long-term changes to your eating habits. Like other type of diets, caloric restriction remains central to your success, so tracking your food intake increases your ability to achieve your goals. Consult a health care provider before beginning any dietary program.

The Atkins Diet

The Atkins diet is a low-carbohydrate or ketogenic diet. The state of being in ketosis is when your body is primarily burning free-fatty acids as fuel. Even though you will always burn a small amount of sugar, regardless of how depleted you are, when you shift over to burning primarily ketones, you are said to be in ketosis. The primary way of achieving this is by limiting your carbohydrate intake. While not all carbohydrates must be avoid, only fibrous carbohydrates, such as the fiber found in broccoli or cauliflower, can be consumed. This is particularly true during the first two weeks, or the induction phase, when you are still trying to achieve a ketogenic state.

Metabolism

Your basal metabolic rate is the amount of calories you burn at rest over a 24-hour period. This is different for everybody, and factors that complicate this are age, gender and lean muscle tissue. A muscular, hyperactive 20 year old will have a much higher basal metabolic rate than the average great-grandmother. Methods of altering your metabolism include gaining lean muscle mass, becoming more active, and modifying your diet.

Atkins and Metabolism

The only way to determine the effects of the Atkins diet on metabolism is by controlled research, and this has been done. A 2007 study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" reveals that not only is the Atkins diet as effective as other types of diets, it is possibly more effective. Long-term negative effects on metabolism are unsafe, which research would reveal. A 2003 study published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" reveal no significant risks to using the Atkins diet long-term.

Damage to Metabolism

The previously mentioned research controlled caloric intake and avoided a common dietary pitfall of cutting calories excessively. Excessive cutting of calories, such as to 1,000 or even 800 per day, is both regrettably common and hazardous. Even in the short-term, very-low calorie diets can induce a significant loss of lean muscle mass, and slow your metabolism, according to a 1992 study in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition." It is not the type of diet, but it is what you do with the diet you choose that can wreck your metabolism.