Atkins Diet works if you follow the rules

by Jaime
(Winchester, NH)

I have done the Atkins Diet in the past. It was OK, and it works if you follow the rules.

It is really hard to stay away from carbs at first, if you are used to eating a lot of them. Your body has withdrawals from them. You feel kind of dizzy and nauseous the first day or two.

You have to eat only certain things on certain days. Only fruit one day. Then only vegetables. Only meat. And you slowly start combining those three foods together.

I lost about 10 pounds, but I did not follow the rules. I cheated a lot. I did the diet for about 2 months.

The Atkins diet is a good diet for diabetics. One of the downfalls about this diet, is that your cholesterol can shoot up through the roof, because this diet is eating a lot of red meat. In fact, you can eat all the red meat you want on Atkins.

It isn't hard ordering from restaurants. You just basically have to stay away from carbohydrates, and bread, and refined sugar.

Over all I think this is a good diet for people that have the will power to do it. I forget what week it is, but when you hit a certain point, you get to start adding some carbs to your meals.

Jaime

Note from Dr. Dan

Jaime,

It seems that your version of Atkins Diet was a little different than the usual. On most programs there is no "only fruit" day.

Many people make comments about diets -- similar to yours -- where they refer to "cheating. In the diets I recommend there is no such thing as "cheating."

Why no cheating? Because I think it is too negative. Nobody is perfect. No one follows a perfect diet all the time. And it's not necessary to be perfect.

You can lose weight and become healthy and still eat foods that you like and even desserts. You just can't eat unlimited amounts of desserts and sit on the couch. You know where that ends up.

Dr. Dan