When most people think of dieting, they conjure images of rice cakes and salads with no dressing. The Atkins diet is a diet in which you can lose weight and still eat foods like steak, bacon, eggs and salads with ranch dressing. The Atkins diet has a specific approach to be followed that promotes weight loss. According to the Mayo Clinic, the Atkins diet, along with other low carbohydrate diets may decrease your appetite and lower your cholesterol levels.
Step 1
Start the Induction phase by eating less than 20 g of carbohydrates a day. The Atkins website states that during the first phase of the diet, which lasts approximately one week, you can eat mostly protein foods like meat, and also healthy fats and green leafy vegetables. This part of the diet is designed to decrease your appetite and make your body enter ketosis, where it burns fat for energy instead of burning carbohydrates for energy. Since you can only eat up to 20 g of carbohydrate during the Induction phase, be sure to look up the carbohydrate content of foods in a carbohydrate counter book or online and record what you eat each day.
Step 2
Discover your Critical Carbohydrate Level (CCL), which is the amount of carbohydrates you can eat each day while still losing weight, during the second phase of the Atkins diet, called Ongoing Weight Loss. To do this, gradually increase your intake of carbohydrates from 20 g per day until you stop losing weight. Find that number of carbohydrates by using your food journal, and eat just under that number of carbohydrates so that you continue losing weight. You can do this by adding in new foods like melons, beans and lentils which are not allowed during the Induction phase. The Atkins website states that you should stay in the Ongoing Weight Loss phase until you are within 10 pounds of your goal weight, at which time you can switch to the third phase of the diet.
Step 3
Find your Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium (ACE) during stage three, which is the Pre-Maintenance stage of the Atkins diet. According to the Atkins website, the Pre-Maintenance phase allows you to keep slowly adding in more carbohydrates until you reach an equilibrium where you are not gaining or losing weight, but are consistently staying the same weight.
Step 4
Continue with the Atkins diet for the fourth phase, which is Lifetime Maintenance. The Mayo Clinic states that the Atkins diet for lifetime maintenance includes foods like dairy, eggs, meat, vegetables, fruits and some whole grain. You can be more lenient with this final phase of the diet, as you will have gotten to your goal weight, though you still watch your carbohydrate intake.
Step 5
Exercise at least 150 minutes a week, as recommended by the Atkins diet website. They state that people who exercise at least 150 minutes a week along with the Atkins diet lose more weight than those who don't. You can break that 150 minutes up in a way that is convenient to you, such as doing about 40 minutes of aerobics or jogging four times a week.
Tips and Warnings
- See your doctor for a full physical before starting the Atkins diet. Make sure your doctor says you are healthy enough to exercise and that your doctor knows you are going on the Atkins diet.
Things You'll Need
- Scale
- Carbohydrate counter
- Food journal
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