HOLD THE LARD!: The Atkins Diet still doesn't work

Reason.com ^ | Dec. 5 2002 | Michael Fumento

[js1138]

My brother, an M.D., used the Adkins diet years ago to win a weight-loss bet with his wife. After he won (the diet worked) he blimped out again within a couple of years. the only diet that works long term is the "Hungry All The Time And Get Used To It" diet. Unless someone comes up with a magic pill without the side effects of speed.

[Crispy]

"There are about 3000 calories per pound of body fat. Supposing that you are consuming 2300 calories per day to maintain your present weight, if you drop down to 2000 calories per day by cutting equally your fat, protein and carbs, you will loose one pound every 10 days. I guarantee it and there is no more healthy way to diet."

It is not so simple. If you eat 3000 calories of just carbs, any excess will be stored as fat. If you eat 3000 calories of just fat, your body will flush most (all?) of the fat it does not use for energy. Part of the reason Atkins works so well is because it forces your body to go into ketosis. Ketosis makes it so your body burns fat for energy instead of carbs.

I am not expert on the subject by any means but I have gathered this much from my own research. Whoever told you that all calories are equal do not know what they are talking about.

[Inkie]

This is a good diet for people without risk factors for heart disease, high cholesterol, bowel cancer, etc, or for people who eat low-cal proteins like chicken and fish. You have to factor that in. For example, being a vegetarian, I tried Atkins and was eating all high-fat foods, like avocadoes, nuts, olives, tofu and cheese. My dad died of colon cancer and I am borderline in the cholesterol department. Although avocados, olives and nuts are high in the good cholesterol, overall, this was still a bad diet for me. And I also gained weight, as I could not be full without eating more than the prescribed amounts, i.e. 1/4 cup of nuts.

All this is to say that weight is not the only consideration -- your family history is very important.

[chilepepper]

spoken like a true radical materialist... except for one small fact. human metabolism is EXTREMELY COMPLICATED and does not fall into the same simple straight-forward algorithm found on a junior physics thermodynamics final.

am a programmer too and a physicist to boot, and have been fighting my weight for 40 years to boot and say that Atkins has captured a better paradigm of what is happening inside our stomachs and guts and glands vis a vis nutrition than these bozos at the AHA and their Archer-Daniels-Midland sponsored "nutrition charts"

[LibWhacker]

The only way I could lose weight by eating fat would be to take big bites out of my stomach, arms, and thighs.

In all seriousness, I did try Atkins once, and all that fat literally made me sick to my stomach. Hence, I cut back on what I ate and lost weight. Who knew I could get sick of steak?

IMO and personal experience, the author is dead on correct: Atkins is nothing more than a calorie-reduction diet.

[x]

In any event, the main issue with any diet—be it Atkins, popcorn, or jelly bean—isn't whether people can lose weight in the short-term but rather whether they can stick to the regimen and keep the pounds off not for just half a year but essentially forever.

Is this really the right assumption to make? It looks like Fumento is stacking the deck to produce the answer he wants. If a diet helps people to achieve their weight loss ends without harming their general health it is a success -- period. It may not be an optimal lifelong sustainable regimen, but it's not intended to be. Fumento's stupid, biased assumption weakens his whole article.

[chilepepper]

Ah, there is the rub: your assumption is that the "human body" has a fixed rate of calorie consumption, which is far from the truth. even when external activity *appears* to remain the same, the metabolism can vary WILDLY...

most likely the internal energy consumption is being changed by the various hormones and glands which control the metabolism based on a large number of factors: this is why some people can eat awesome amounts of food and not gain any weight, others eat just a bit and gain weight -- without some deus-ex-machina like "exercise" to explain it. this is a very very common phenomena.

[Crispy]

" Oh, yes it is, it's just that simple. What I said in the paragraph that you are referring to is absolutely true. It's guaranteed by the second law of thermodynamics. If you run a 300 calorie per day deficit, you or anyone on this planet will loose at least one pound every 10 days, I don't care what you eat. This establishes a lower limit on the amount of weight that one can expect from a given calorie deficit. If you don't believe so, please tell me how it could be otherwise. I don't think that you even understand how your comments stand in relation to my statement. It seem that you are trying to say that if one were to eat some screwed up skewed diet, they could better this by loosing even more. I don't doubt it. You are probably correct, but who cares. Everything that I said is still correct. If you have the will power to stick to a good healthy diet, you'll get where you want to go just as quickly and in better health. "

I think I am talking above your head. No point in talking about this any further. By the way it is 3500 calories per pound, not 3000. You can't even get this little fact right so I don't know how you expect anybody to believe the rest of what you are saying.

[Crispy]

" If you had half a brain, you could see that the numbers have nothing to do with the argument."

Well, I don't feel like having a flame war. I stand by everything I said. If you have some links to back up you simplistic logic, please post them.

[185JHP]

I know from personal experience that the Atkins diet works tremendously well at reducing your weight. There are costs - you lose a lot of great tasting food, like pasta, pizza and such. And there are potential health risks, although the anti-Atkns-diet people haven't been able to publish lists of autopsy reports of people that the Atkins diet has killed. NB it's not for athletes. For athletes carbs are good things.

[Amore]

Gosh, that's what I lost -- about 35 pounds. So far, my cholesterol is ok, but my triglycerides are still high. I'm not sure what that means. I've done lots better on Atkins (not craving carbs) than any other diet I can think of . . . .