The Unsustainable Atkins Diet

by Patanngia
(Mauritius)

A couple of years ago, after my second baby, I needed to lose a bit of weight. I decided to try the Atkins diet.

I managed two weeks on the diet, during which I lost a total of 3kg. It was great how much weight I lost, but I just could not stay on it.

I did not find it too hard to stick to and it was not that I was hungry all the time, nor even that the food I was allowed to eat was not nice.

But being a low-carb high-protein diet, I just could not bear the fact that I was not allowed to eat any fruit and quite a few of the vegetables that I love.

The types of foods allowed are also quite rich and relatively expensive. Generally, a meal would consist of some type of protein (either beef, chicken, pork or seafood) and salad.

It was also quite difficult not having cereals or bread for breakfast, and instead having to eat eggs every morning.

I have also come to believe that any diet that excludes a food group is unbalanced and essentially unhealthy. One major downside was the resulting constipation from not eating enough fibre.

I also found it strange that a diet suggests you cut out certain foods and then recommends taking a supplement to replace the vitamins, nutrients and fibre that you are losing from not eating those foods.

Yes, it was great to lose weight, but no, I would not do the Atkins diet again, and I would certainly not recommend it to anybody.