If you've ever read my rants, you know how I feel about fitness/health: you have to exercise and balance your diet, not just do one thing to a radical extent. One of the worst crazes out there, but one that's unfortunately caught fire in recent months, is the Atkins diet. I mean, there's a special Atkins section in the grocery store... special menu sections and "Atkins-friendly" items in a lot of major restaurants... Atkins books everywhere you look. It worries me.
| Fact: | Atkins is right about how excessive carbohydrates will cause you to
gain weight. |
| Fact: | Atkins is right that cutting these carbohydrates is healthy. |
| Fact: | Cutting these carbohydrates severely, as Atkins suggests, will
change the way your body processes nutrients and builds and burns
fat. You'll lose some weight. |
| Fact: | With little or no carbohydrates, your body won't have the stored
fuel (glycogen) that it needs for long-term exercise or exertion, and
possibly not even short-term exertion. |
| Fact: | Eating excessive amounts of fat is bad for your heart. |
| Fact: | Most people can't maintain a high-fat, high-protein,
low-carbohydrate, high-water diet for a lifetime. |
| Fact: | If you can't maintain something for a lifetime, then it's inherently
failed. |
| Fact: | All four people I personally know who tried the Atkins diet couldn't
maintain it for long...tried it multiple times...never kept the weight
off...and today are still fat...and not on the Atkins diet. |
| Challenge: | Take a look at the sculpted physiques of people who exercise
scientifically and eat well-planned, balanced diets. Now think: have you
ever seen an Atkins diet follower who looks even remotely like that? |
There is no easy way out, no one-step fat-loss solution, no magic pill. Extreme solutions - diet, exercise, drugs, whatever - may work but they aren't the best answer. Moderate everything - cut the carbs AND the fat. Do some research, figure out how the body works and what types of foods do what, and come up with a sensible, sustainable, healthy plan. Ditto on the exercise portion. For god's sake, think about what you're doing, instead of taking any easy way out.