Im so confused by all the anti atkins info

[Carbonegativo]

what is the truth? for every article and study you find that praises atkins..there are double that bashing the atkins approach and I have read some horrible personal stories about atkins as well...high cholesterol, heart disease, high blood pressure, high sodium...I just dont get it...

What the book says makes perfect sense to me but I already have high cholesterol and I dont want to make it worse....

I was thinking of doing a healthier version of atkins like...chicken breasts..fish...salads...and olive oil instead of butter and other fats....

Please help me? tell me if you have gotten a check up and have had improved cholesterol numbers ? anything...I am just so torn thanks so much guys!!

[heatherdazy]

All of the negative stories I've read seem to be under the impression that atkins is just all bacon and cheese all the time.

The truth is if you actually follow the guidelines in DANDR, you'll be eating tons of veggies, chicken, fish, salads, as well as beef, butter, etc.

[peanutte]

I'll second what Heather said. If you do an unhealthy version of Atkins, relying too much on salty, processed lunch meat as well as too much ham and bacon and not enough vegetables, then yeah, I don't think your body would thank you. But I eat way more fresh vegetables now than I did before, and I don't eat high-fat meat all the time; I have some bacon, sure, but I also have a lot of chicken breast and fish and other stuff.

You can use a website like fitday to track all your daily nutrition. I use it to keep my fat/protein/carbohydrate balance in the proportions I want, and I pay attention to my sodium intake.

People in the mainstream want to discredit Atkins because they are absolutely brainwashed to believe that the only healthy way to eat is low-fat. If the book speaks to you, trust the book, not those articles and anecdotes. Most of the time, "studies" that show how "unhealthy" Atkins is aren't even having their subjects follow Atkins by the book!

Another really good resource for up-to-date information about low-carbing and how it works is Dr. Michael Eades's blog.

[2big4mysize]

try to remember Dr Atkins was a cardiologist using his eating plan on his patients. he saw vast improvements in blood lipid panels for folk who saw him with high cholesterol issues.

Some folk genetically produce high amounts of triglycerides and no amount of drugs nor diet is going to lower it back to what is considered normal but it can be dropped significantly compared to where it started.

actually butter if you examine the fats that are actually in it is pretty healthy as it is all short chains. now that fake margerine stuff is dangerous.

[chocoholic1]

If it makes you feel any better....My cholesterol was 220 and trig were over 100....after just 4 months of strict Atkins...my cholesterol was 174 and my Trig tumbled to 48!!! My doctor knew I was on Atkins and was completely shocked!

[oceandiva]

All my numbers dropped after and my doc is very supportive of being on Atkins because of this drop. Nothing else has worked so well for me.

[peanutte]

I'll be interested to hear what my doctor has to say when I tell him I've stopped taking my blood pressure medication because my blood pressure since starting Atkins two months ago is normal-to-kinda-low without it!

[suzanneyea]

You can find find studies that support or refute any diet plan. If it works for you, meaning your health improves, then do not worry about a "scientific study." Most of these anti Atkins studies are funded by groups that make money on low fat products, directly or indirectly.

[Bring it on]

Originally Posted by suzanneyea

You can find find studies that support or refute any diet plan. If it works for you, meaning your health improves, then do not worry about a "scientific study." Most of these anti Atkins studies are funded by groups that make money on low fat products, directly or indirectly.

Amen to what Suzanne said!

If you really analyze the OWL part of Atkins. You do have a huge variety of foods to choose from and you should be eating a lot of veggies etc.

As far as cholesterol. This is after only a few months. My cholesterol total stayed about the same. My Hdl (the good) went from 32 to 48) huge jump.
My trigs went from 200 something to 87. (huge improvement) My HDL ( the bad) went up 20 points. However, my lypoprotein (a) (which is bad) Went from 66 to 11. This is only after two months. At the same time I added fish oil, Which may account for my rise in LDL because it can take your VLDL and turn it into LDL. ( which is better).

My Hdl to LDL ratio and Hdl to total improved very significantly.

I just wanted to give you my story. As I was also so worried about cholesterol. I will see but I think with more time my LDL will come down also.

I took a leap of faith and said to myself that I will try this and get blood tests every six months. Worst case scenario, I change plans.

Best of luck.

[Whoami]

I am in agreement with pretty much everyone else here.
I start to read the anti-Atkins research/info but as soon as I read something along the lines of, "of course this diet isn't healthy. Any diet that restricts intake of vegetables and fruits is ridiculous,' then I stop reading, because obviously THEY stopped reading.

Anyone who has actually READ what Dr. Atkins wrote understands that yes INDUCTION is a bit harsh, but you still absolutely MUST eat your salad vegetables, and after induction you do add back more vegetables and fruits.
Also- my husband had a double bypass about five years ago and he volunteered to do this diet again. I nagged him to get his bloodwork done before we start, and his stats go up even just a little, then I will have to wean him off of it. I'm really hoping he does ok, and I know there are LOTS of people out there who's tri's, LDL, etc have gone down using this way of life. Still I want to keep a close eye on things in case he is that rare exception.
My advice, Carbo, is to get your levels tested as recommended in the book, then go back to your doctor after a couple of months to make certain you are on the right track.

[ftblmom32]

Originally Posted by Ricardolowcarbo

Amen to what Suzanne said!

If you really analyze the OWL part of Atkins. You do have a huge variety of foods to choose from and you should be eating a lot of veggies etc.

As far as cholesterol. This is after only a few months. My cholesterol total stayed about the same. My Hdl (the good) went from 32 to 48) huge jump.
My trigs went from 200 something to 87. (huge improvement) My HDL ( the bad) went up 20 points. However, my lypoprotein (a) (which is bad) Went from 66 to 11. This is only after two months. At the same time I added fish oil, Which may account for my rise in LDL because it can take your VLDL and turn it into LDL. ( which is better).

My Hdl to LDL ratio and Hdl to total improved very significantly.

I just wanted to give you my story. As I was also so worried about cholesterol. I will see but I think with more time my LDL will come down also.

I took a leap of faith and said to myself that I will try this and get blood tests every six months. Worst case scenario, I change plans.

Best of luck.

Rich those numbers are awesome! What an improvement!! KUTGW!! I admire you because i can tell you are really educating yourself and learning what works for you. ( i.e. doing SB and back to Atkins) you will be fine, Slow and steady will win for you!! Be strong it will work for you! Think how much better you will feel this summer!! Again, keep up the good work and keep us posted!

[Carbonegativo]

Thank you all so much for all your info!!! It helped me so much, I love this site!

I am going on induction tomorrow!! but healthy atkins!! Thanks again everyone!!

Huge huggs!!

[b_daisies]

Originally Posted by suzanneyea

You can find find studies that support or refute any diet plan. If it works for you, meaning your health improves, then do not worry about a "scientific study." Most of these anti Atkins studies are funded by groups that make money on low fat products, directly or indirectly.

I totally agree. A funny little thing that I learned when I studied Statistics in university is that you can manipulate the data to say pretty much whatever you want - and this using acceptable statistical methods. That was even one of our assignments - to come up with three different conclusions with the same data set! So try not to let the studies bother you too much (I know, much easier said than done. I postponed starting Atkins for the same reason, despite knowing not to trust the stats )

[waterlily]

I just finished reading Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, and I highly recommend reading it to anyone on Atkins. Research studies have shown that some people on very low carb (induction) will show a TEMPORARY increase in their numbers because when you start burning fat for fuel, the cells release their stores into the bloodstream and can cause a rise in lab numbers for the first few months. After 6 months though, the majority of people see a significant drop.

Fascinating read about how so-called "scientific studies" conducted by people who had no clinical experience in treating obesity and weight loss have led to the government's food pyramid where carbs are the majority of food that is recommended to be consumed.

[daisyHair]

Yes... Good Calories Bad Calories.. is GREAT! So is "Sugar Blues"..

I think if you do Atkins the right way and eat your veggies.. you will do fantastic.

[Wolfgang]

Originally Posted by suzanneyea

You can find find studies that support or refute any diet plan. If it works for you, meaning your health improves, then do not worry about a "scientific study." Most of these anti Atkins studies are funded by groups that make money on low fat products, directly or indirectly.

I have to agree with Suzanne in that medical and nutritional studies are published in peer-reviewed journals. Ideally, they're not really intended for public consumption; they're a process of learning where researchers say "hey, look what I found! I wonder what this means? Maybe it means this - somebody else try it and see what you get." Sure enough, someone else tries it while modifying a variable and repeats the process. Only when there are well designed longitudinal studies over time, or when there is a research REVIEW article that looks at the "big picture" from a number of smaller studies and tries to make sense of them all together, can you count much on the results.

The media (and, with the internet, lots of US) read these primary sources. They make it appear that each study is a "new" finding that is somehow "the official word" on the matter when it's not intended to (and cannot) be. These media articles are secondary sources. Then someone reads several of those clippings and comes to the conclusion that X is bad and Y is good, and writes an article for another blog or nutrition website, and you've got a tertiary source. Someone reads that and then posts it as gospel on a forum, (supporting it with their own anecdotal experience) and you've got a quaternary source.

What I hate is that the researchers in these peer reviewed articles KNOW that this is how the system works and still aren't careful enough to disclaim to the audience they KNOW is reading it that their results can't be applied widely because there are still too many unknown variables.

As far as the study funding, yes, there are conflicts - but you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater. This is why they're supposed to be peer reviewed - another researcher can attack those findings by looking at the study design and doing one better. For that matter, while there are plenty of "low-fat special interest funded" studies, the same applies to us LC'ers... quite a bit of the research we look to is funded by the Atkins Foundation and others that stand to make money from more LC eaters buying their products (the egg, beef, and pork industries, maybe? Snack food manufacturers looking for a new product line?)

You have to read any research with a careful and skeptical eye, and always look for its limitations even MORE than its findings. If it's a primary source, this is easier. The farther down on the list it is (secondary, tertiary, quaternary) and the more someone is adamant that "Research Proves This Is The Way It Is," the more likely someone's got it plain wrong.

Our bodies were made to survive on almost anything short of nuclear waste. There are very few "always/never" situations when it comes to what can help us thrive. It's up to us to adjust our intakes in as informed a way as possible to reach an optimal status for our individual goals.

[phxfighter]

my motto is have all the bacon and eggs I want, all the things that are"bad" for the first 2-3 weeks, it gets me through, and then proceed to more lean, healthy alternatives that are still going to keep ketosis going. I think 4-5 weeks of ketosis is ok as long as you are healthy otherwise. JMTC

[LowCarbingCarmen]

Good Luck Everyone!

[luvmeeluvmenot]

I sure am glad someone asked that question. I wanted to ask the same thing.
I'm on my third week of induction. I was concerned about my cholesteral as well. I feel much better after reading all of your alls posts. I have read the revolution book, but, I guess I have kinda been abusing the "unlimited fat and protein" deal. I have cut back on the bacon and butter and added more chicken to my plan. I do have to admit that I eat more fresh veggies now than I have in my entire life!!

[xamier]

Originally Posted by phxfighter

I think 4-5 weeks of ketosis is ok as long as you are healthy otherwise. JMTC

Hi, I stay lightly in ketosis almost 100% of the time and if I get out, it is only for a few hours. You can stay in Ketosis for years, it is not harmful.

[Falcon]

When I started ATKINS I weighed 348 pounds and got down to 195. I didn't get a check up when I started because I was afraid of what my Dr. would tell me (dumb I know). A year later and eating all of the bad things people talk about (essentially a high fat diet) I weighed in at 195 pounds my blood work-up from my Dr. was amazing. LDL very LOW HDL's HIGH. I had lost so much weight my own Dr. couldn't believe it!! After seeing my blood work-up he started Atkins himself. Oh, all the horror stories you read about, in most cases I believe those individuals had underlying issues already. Read his book I was not successful with Atkins till I did. Good Luck.

[junkfoodmonkey]

It's so hard to actually get a genuinely neutral study of any diet!

Somebody has to fund studies, and if that somebody happens to be a food or drug manufacturer, then you get suspicious. Most of the scientists doing the study already have pre-concieved views about the diet they're studying - good or bad. Studies aren't usually done by people who have no idea what the outcome will be, they're done to prove a hypothesis the experimenters already have. Half the time when you see some study results and then read the details of what the participants were eating you realise it bears little resemblance to the diet plan it's supposedly based on. When it's reported in the media it's both dumbed down and sexed up to make it easy to understand and actually sound newsworthy. Studies of the long term effects of different diets need to be, well, long! And that's expensive. And you need lots of participants. And the results are mostly self-reported. (You can't take people for 30 or 40 years, keep 'em someplace you can control everything they eat, time their exercise etc, and then finally see if they get diabetes, heart disease, cancer etc. That's just not possible.) And how do you get people to stick to the same diet for that length of time?

And the number 1 reason - you can prove almost anything with statistics, even contradictory things with the same set of statistics! It's all about what you select, what you emphasise, what you leave out, etc.

[kathc1]

I'm with everyone else on this. What people think when they hear Atkins is the first two weeks of induction. It is so hard to get them to see beyond that. I do think that is has gotten better over the years and there are actually some studies out that are positive.

This reminds me of an article I saw many years ago. Identical twins went on a diet. One chose a WW type diet and the other did a low carb diet. The one that did low carb did not lose muscle but lost more weight. I wish I could find it. I'll search and see what I can find.

[LoveMontana]

We have been living the Atkins life style since 1997 and have both astounded our doctors by the improvement in our blood lipids.
Both of us have HDL in the 140 range and tryglicerides hover around 42. We are both in our 60's and aren't dead yet.

[strick1]

Reading everyone's thoughts have eased my mind. I was searching for a diet for my daughter and I, as WW did not work for us. I was concerned about the negative writings about the Atkins diet, even though I know someone whom it worked perfect for. My mind has been put at ease. Thank you

[sndral]

Historically, when Atkins became popular there was an anti low carb backlash from the mainstream. The mantra of low calorie/fat was so ingrained that anyone who dared to suggest you could lose weight w/out cutting calories/fat was perceived to be a threat. Then actual studies started to be conducted and all of the doomsday predictions of the status quo were not found to be true.
I tend to be a sceptic about the diet du jour, what is accepted as 'truth' is often shown to be folly a decade or more later. How long did it take for the theory that the world is flat to be rejected, for example? The government's carb heavy nutritional guidelines & low fat advice have been around for years and americans are fatter than they ever have been and are getting fatter. For me that's pretty good empirical evidence that the normal carb laden american diet is a disaster. We are learning more about metabolism but there is a lot we just don't know yet. Thus my woe is what works for my body, which for me happens to be lower carb.

[kgriffen]

There is no direct connection between the amount of cholesterol you eat and the concentration of cholesterol in your blood. Your body makes 80% of the cholesterol in your system. In most people, eating cholesterol has little or no effect on this amount. In about 30 percent of the population, eating cholesterol does in fact increase the concentration of cholesterol in the blood, but it increases the "good" cholesterol.

More importantly, there is absolutely no connection between the level of total cholesterol in your bloostream and atherosclerosis, which is what what we should be worried about.

As Ricardolowcarbo intimated above, it is the small dense LDL, and in particular Oxidized LDL that is the major predictor of Coronary Heart Disease, as are Triglycerides. As cholesterol levels are measured by weight not number, an increasing LDL score (as can happen on Atkins) means nothing. It actually, in most cases, signifies an increase in LDL size, not number of particles. Larger LDL is better. In almost all cases, anecdotal or otherwise, Atkins will improve your Lipid profile.

[gdlovins360]

I get tired of the misinformation and ignorance about atkin's. Sometimes when people comment on how healthy and vibrant I seem, I say I'm on the caveperson nutritional program, eating the way our bodies were originally designed to consume-proteins, fats, leafy collectables, nuts, some berries. I do this when I anticipate a screwed up face or a fight. I have a guy at work who just won't quit, he's so resistant due to the total blind acceptance of the low-fat thing.

Last month's O (Oprah)magazine had a blurb about 3 different studies by respected academic and scientific institutions comparing 4 or 5 of the most currently well known plans. Atkin's came out markedly ahead in the match up, in almost all of the criteria, such as weight loss, health parameters, maintence of weightloss, etc. Then the magazine itself identified the diet in terms of Induction(something like the all protein and no carb diet), perpetrating the erroneous conception that Atkin's begins and ends there.

I'm so glad I found LCF, and have experience people here to help me develop the healthiest adherence to Atkin's. It really has changed my life and my relationship to food.

[peanutte]

Good to hear, gdlovins. I'm glad it has made a positive impact on your life. It irritates the hell out of me when people treat Induction like that's all there is to Atkins!

[mcarr36]

I was on cholesterol medication for 5 years prior to starting Atkins. My entire family is on medication. My doctor felt my very high cholesterol was caused by a combination of my diet and heredity. My diet prior to Atkins was low calorie and fairly low fat. I was told I would probably never be off of the medication. I was a little afraid to start Atkins because of the higher fat allowed and encouraged on the plan. However, I really wanted to lose a few pounds and I decided to give it a try. I only had a few pounds to lose when I began Atkins. I lost the weight within a few months and have been maintaining for 7 years. I am a strict low carber and I love it!!! Here is the best news, I have been off of the cholesterol medication for 6 years now! At first, my doctor was so astonished by my blood test results that she made me retake the test twice. She was convinced the lab had made a mistake. My doctor continues to test my bood every year and I continue to have normal cholesterol readings!!! Atkins is amazing.