The Atkins Diet is based on the simple idea that when you stop eating carbohydrates, your body starts burning fat, causing you to shed pounds quickly. It may also reduce your risk for some diseases. A study published in "Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism" in September 2009 by Asher Elhayany and his colleagues found that people who followed a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet were at a lower risk for developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
Although it sounds daunting to cut out all carbs, the good news is that you can eat whenever you want on the Atkins diet--you just have to choose the right foods.
Step 1
Eat no more than 20g of carbohydrates a day for the first two weeks. This is the first phase of the Atkins Diet, "Induction." Stock your kitchen with protein-rich foods like chicken, turkey, beef, fish, shellfish, pork, veal, eggs; natural fats like olive oil, canola oil, and butter; and leafy greens and other low-carbohydrate vegetables.
Clean out your cupboards and refrigerator to get rid of high-carbohydrate foods. These include bread, pasta, chips, crackers, cookies, candy, ice cream, potatoes and rice.
Step 2
Increase your net carbohydrate intake by 5g each week. During the second phase of the diet, "Ongoing Weight Loss," you slowly increase your net carbohydrate intake while maintaining weight loss. In the first week of this phase, you eat 25 grams of carbs; in the second week you increase it to 30, adding five additional net carbs each week, until you stop losing weight. The maximum number of carbohydrates you can eat before you stop losing weight is called your Critical Carbohydrate Level for Losing--that's the magic number that you want to continue consuming each day until you are within 10 lbs. of your target weight. Get the additional carbohydrates by adding new vegetables, berries, nuts and seeds to your diet.
Step 3
Add 10g net carbs to your daily intake each week and observe how your weight changes. This is the third phase of the Atkins Diet, called "Pre-maintenance." The goal of this phase is to determine the maximum number of net carbohydrates you can eat without gaining or losing weight. When you have found the number of carbs you can eat without gaining or losing weight, move on to the final phase, "Maintenance."
Step 4
Continue eating the number of carbs each day that keeps your weight stable. This final phase of Atkins is called "Maintenance."
Tips and Warnings
- Most high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets include a lot of saturated and unsaturated fats, and some people worry that this will increase levels of "bad" cholesterol and boost their heart disease risk. However, a 2006 study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" by Thomas Halton and his colleagues reported that over the course of 20 years, low-carbohydrate diets did not increase heart disease risk.
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