Hackers On Atkins 918
`Sean writes "Salon.com has published a story about Hackers on Atkins. Although going on a diet is the last thing on the minds of the stereotypical geek basking in the ambient radiation of multiple monitors for 15 hours per day, many hackers have been embracing Atkins because utilizing low-carb methods to modify the metabolism is analogous to hacking and overclocking the body. Others have been combining Atkins with other systems, such as John Walker's The Hacker's Diet. I've personally lost a hundred pounds so far and will toss in the obligatory if I can do it, anyone can ism."
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:1, Informative)
Personally I am down over 50 pounds and no side effects at all almost a year afterwards.
It works. (Score:5, Informative)
I eat low carb cereal for breakfast, have meat, veggie and sugar free jello for lunch, more meat and a salad for supper. I have beef jerky, sugar free candy and sugar free jello for snacks.
I ate a lot of fat the first week. When I got used to it, I cut the fat. I walk around the block twice after supper.
Easiest diet I ever tried. I am aiming to lose 45-50lbs total.
Re:Three word's on Atkins that says it all: (Score:5, Informative)
South Beach Instead (Score:1, Informative)
I've been using a modified version of Atkins (Score:1, Informative)
Low grain-based carbs, low saturated fat and trans-fatty acids, low refined sugar, more monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat, and more omega 3. I've lost 50 lbs in 15 weeks and I feel much more energetic. I've got about 25 lbs to go before I hit the BMI upper threshold for normal weight. The best part is that I'll have to go shopping soon for normal sized clothes.
I haven't started an exercise program and I probably wont (although I should but I am lazy as hell).
Seriously, Atkins (and it's derivatives) are the easiest diets I've ever seen. Younger and younger people are getting heart disease, diabetes, and other obesity-caused ailments. You should at least try it.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:1, Informative)
Beyond the potential damage to renal systems, (which occur as a result of glomerular scarring) there are other risks to not ingesting enough fruits and veggies. I like some blood red rare meat as much as the next guy, but fruits have many anti-oxidant compounds in them that scavenge free radicals. Veggies, have fiber in them that in addition to keeping you regular, reduce incidence of a number of cancers of the GI tract.
On top of all of that, diets high in proteins and fats (Like the Atkins diet) predispose folks to heart disease, strokes and diabetes.
Re:Hacking And Overclocking - What? (Score:5, Informative)
If by "digesting itself" you mean "digesting its fat stores", then yes, you're correct. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that's what fat is for.
There's a reason our bodies have a such mode as lipolysis; it was meant to be used once in a while.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:5, Informative)
But, drinking plenty of water both negates the problem and also lowers your hunger level in the first place. If you're getting the kind of side effects you're talking about, you're doing some other high protein, low everything else diet, not Atkins (at least, not properly).
Oh, and there's a difference between "getting thin" and "reducing your weight" for a lot of people -- for many, the risk of kidney damage from an Atkins-like diet is far lower than the risks of not losing that weight (high blood pressure, cardiovascular damage, heart disease, back and knee problems from the extra weight, etc, etc).
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:bad idea? Get the facts straight. (Score:5, Informative)
1) Atkins is not a starvation diet in any sense of the word. Sure, there are things that you should not or can not eat when on it, but it is far less restrictive than many or most other options. Most importantly, calories are not restricted. You not only are not expected to starve youself, but doing so would go against the principals of the diet plan.
2) Dr. Atkins died at the age of 72. He slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk, fell into a coma, and died a little over a week later. Neither his death nor his 2002 heart attack were in any way related to diet, as research will show.
3) It is not just 'fatasses' who find the diet effective. Many bodybuilders use Atkins or cyclic variation on the ketogenic diet in order to keep their bodies in peak shape. My father, who was athletic in his younger days but now is disabled and, due to his disablilities, physically unable to exercise has dropped close to 50 pounds on the Atkins diet, and is because of this is more able to lead a normal life.
Remember: Not all fud comes from Microsoft. The ADA has spread more than its share of misinformation. Most of the newer studies showing the Atkins plan as safe and effective were actually done to try to show that it was dangerous or ineffective. The researchers were forced to acknowledge that based on their experiments, this was not the case and it is indeed a safe and effective dietary plan.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:5, Informative)
I tend to follow the Mediterranean diet [carotids.com] but have no better science supporting it either.
This New England Journal of Medicine article agrees with my beliefs. The important thing to remember is that weight loss requires changes to diet for life! Any diet, even Atkins, only works as long as you can follow it...
New England Journal of Medicine Article [nih.gov]
BACKGROUND: Despite the popularity of the low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat (Atkins) diet, no randomized, controlled trials have evaluated its efficacy. METHODS: We conducted a one-year, multicenter, controlled trial involving 63 obese men and women who were randomly assigned to either a low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diet or a low-calorie, high-carbohydrate, low-fat (conventional) diet. Professional contact was minimal to replicate the approach used by most dieters. RESULTS: Subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet had lost more weight than subjects on the conventional diet at 3 months (mean [+/-SD], -6.8+/-5.0 vs. -2.7+/-3.7 percent of body weight; P=0.001) and 6 months (-7.0+/-6.5 vs. -3.2+/-5.6 percent of body weight, P=0.02), but the difference at 12 months was not significant (-4.4+/-6.7 vs. -2.5+/-6.3 percent of body weight, P=0.26). After three months, no significant differences were found between the groups in total or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations. The increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations and the decrease in triglyceride concentrations were greater among subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet than among those on the conventional diet throughout most of the study. Both diets significantly decreased diastolic blood pressure and the insulin response to an oral glucose load. CONCLUSIONS: The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss (absolute difference, approximately 4 percent) than did the conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. The low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease. Adherence was poor and attrition was high in both groups. Longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:2, Informative)
In fact someone following Atkins probably eats more veggies a day than the average american who doesn't follow the plan.
Unless your counting those fries with your burger and coke as part of your anti oxidant regime?
The myth about Atkins being only about high protien and fat is just that a "myth". The main point of the nutritional regime is to cut out processed sugar and "empty" or "bad" carbs, like those found in white flour, starches etc. Especially in the later phases of Atkins good carbs from fruits etc are not only ecouraged but required.
Also of note, I started Atkins because a roommate of mine has been following it for a couple years. At 5'4" 300+ lbs, with diebetes she was in far more danger of heart disease, stroke etc than she is today 150lbs lighter and her blood sugar levels are so well controlled thru her diet she doesn't even need insulin for her diabetes. Her physician not only knows she follows Atkins but is estatic she does so.
What were we eating then? (Score:1, Informative)
Okay, then, what made up our diets? It was hunted animals (PROTEIN), nuts (PROTEIN), and the occasional bit of wild vegetable, fruit or honey. The only difference now is that we know that we'll have food, so we don't need to over consume to store up. Grains and agriculture are relatively recent developments in human history, and our bodies don't seem to have adapted quickly enough.
Only works if you are fat (Score:5, Informative)
Once you get to 12-15%, you are better off going to a isocaloric diet (even percentages of fats, carbs, and protein - where most all of the fats come from the Omega3/6/9).
If you go lower total calories on that during the week and then going high carbs on the weekend (or just one day if you are highly sensitive), then you can see an anabolic rebound which is beneficial to those that are weight lifting.
It should also be noted that if you are trying to compete at all in any sort of endurance event - doing anyting low carb diet at all is about as retarded as you can get.
If you feel that you are going to do that, at the very least, try to get a lot of fruit and fruit juices so as to be able to replenish your liver glycogen levels.
But again - if you are you competetive at an endurance event, you are likely under 15% bodyfat - which means that you are wasting your time on the low carb diet.
No matter what diet you are on, as long as the calories are less than your expendatures for the day (so you can also not diet at all and just exercise more), then you will lose weight.
If you are fat - then you will see fast and great results down to about 20% bodyfat or so - then after that, you will start seeing resistance.
Depending on how long you sat at your high bodyfat levels, your leptin levels might be your worst enemy at this point - the carb loading on weekends and caloric depletions on the weekdays will help counteract that.
Once you go back to normal eating, then your leptin levels will again come back to haunt you.
So you can't just diet and then go back to eating like a pig - it is a lifestyle change.
Or you could just live life on the edge and use DNP - again, no good for endurance runners - and really no good for anyone. Especially if you are inclined towards depression at all since it prevents the conversion of tryptophan to serotonin.
Generally speaking, there is a reason the FDA banned it from diet drugs back in the day - it is dangerous - although the most effective chemical in existance for burning fat.
research about atkins (Score:2, Informative)
The source [discovery.com]
Diets are always a bad idea. It's like exchanging long term health for a few months of looking fit. The point to living well should be becoming fit, not just looking fit.
IT AINT FUCKEN EASY! (Score:3, Informative)
Free, yes. Easy? No way. I have tried excercising everyday for about 1/2 hour, and only lost about 5 pounds. That payoff is like earning less than min wage. Plus, jogging can be boring as hell, and more interesting activities like basketball leave you sore and injured often. I still excecize, but not every day.
As far as eating less, your body knows very well that your intake is less than it wants, and not only cranks up the cravings to high heaven, but also lowers your metabalism to compensate, negating the effects. Being hungry all the time is miserable. It is comparable to having a slowly tighting vice on your arm. Constant discomfort.
It is going against 4 billion years of evolution that pushes us to hord food in preperation for lean days of no supply. Lean days are less likely in the modern world, but our body does not know that. Evolution is blind.
And, diet food tastes like cardboard. I would rather throw away the contents and eat the damned box! It tastes better.
Science/tech created the problem, let it also fix it without this miserable 24/hr discipline shit.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:3, Informative)
From Nausicaa.net: [nausicaa.net]
Mononoke means "The spirit of a thing". Basically, the Japanese blame mononoke for every unexplainable thing, from a major natural disaster to a minor headache. A mononoke could be the spirit of an inanimate object, such as a wheel, the spirit of a dead person, the spirit of a live person, the spirit of an animal, goblins, monsters, or a spirit of nature.
Low-carb experience (Score:5, Informative)
wrote the following after the first few months.
All remarks are still valid:
Alimentary, My Dear Watson
While I was on vacation in early July, I happened to read the NYTimes
magazine article by Gary Taubes which opened my eyes to an extent.
The import of the article was that modern dietary conventional wisdom
has it pretty much backwards, and that eating a low-fat diet is actually
the cause of the current obesity epidemic and a lot of heart disease
and diabetes.
Getting back home and doing a flurry of research revealed that Taubes
had published a similar article in in Science about a year ago.
What he documents is that the notion that fat is bad for you is
a political, not a scientific, result, and that the actual studies
don't show it at all. Since the NIH and FDA got the bee in their
bonnet about fat, they've spent more than a billion dollars trying
to prove it, and failed.
Consider an "epidemiological" study of cars. Let's assume that the
researchers believe that engine oil is a prime cause of engine trouble.
You could quite easily take a sample that showed that there was a
strong positive correlation between cars that dripped oil and ones
that broke down. Then you could just as correctly show that you
could prevent oil dripping by not putting any oil in at all.
Bingo! The "proof" of your presumed conclusion. That's about how
rigorous the basis for the antifat doctrine is.
The reality is much more complex. In fact, the famous Boehringer
Mannheim metabolic pathways chart covers an entire wall in finely
detailed arrows and chemical formulae. But a very simplified version
goes something like this: There are three basic classes of food,
called the macronutrients; they are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates.
Proteins and fats are essential for human life; carbohydrates are not.
Carbohydrates are all converted to glucose in your bloodstream. The
more you eat, the more glucose. The body reacts to glucose in the
blood with insulin, which acts to cause cells to burn glucose for
energy and convert it to fat to be stored.
A whole raft of hormonal imbalances can result when insulin is
constantly overproduced. There seems to be some general mechanism
that tries to balance anabolic and catabolic hormones. Insulin
is anabolic. Too much of it for too long and the body will either
overproduce catabolic hormones or underproduce the other anabolic
ones.
The upshot of long-term carbohydrate consumption is a phenomenon known
as "Syndrome X", so named by Gerald Reaven, MD, professor of medicine
at Stanford. It's a cluster of symptoms that tend to occur together,
including high blood pressure, high serum triglycerides, decreased HDL,
and obesity, and marks a risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Well, go to any grocery store and look what you'll find in the
so-called "heart-healthy", low-fat foods: carbohydrates. Loads
of them. Remember, it doesn't matter whether it's sugar or starch,
honey or whole wheat, it's all glucose to your bloodstream.
So it would seem that the arrogance and ignorance of the high
priesthood of health in this country has contributed to, if not
indeed largely caused, the current (real, well-documented) epidemic
and of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.
Oh, yes, one other thing for those of you who are into life extension
and know about the caloric restriction results -- one of the main
physiological markers for caloric restriction is low insulin.
Well, who can believe that? I did a bunch of research, and discovered
that there are more different opinions among dietary advisors than
among economists. The only thing that *everybody* agreed on was that
olive oil was good for you, and trans-fatty acids (margarine) was bad.
One of the more interesting subfields I ran across was the paleolithic
diet. The id
An actual tip (Score:5, Informative)
Heh.. that's not far off.. but for those of you who want to do Atkins and get stuck in awkward pizza-ordering social situations, I have two words for you:
chicken wings
Not breaded, not honey-garlic, but regular chicken wings will not 'knock you off' ketosis, and you can still eat with your pals.
Re:What were we eating then? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:You Can't Fool Mother Nature (Score:5, Informative)
The Atkins Diet not what Mother Nature intended, and she always has her way in the end.
Mother Nature did not intend for us to sit on our asses all day, eating cheeseburgers and french fries. Compared to the previous thousand years or so, our race has been very sedentary and has eaten too much sugar the past hundred years or so.
Atkins is not about low carbs so much as balanced carbs, i.e. what humans had been eating before soda/cola was invented and the industrial revolution made [most of] us fat and lazy.
We might say the same for the typical American diet, with it's high sugar, refined carbohydrate and other oddities. If we did nothing at all, over generations (many of them) an 'American' genotype would evolve that was able to deal with the current toxins in the American diet (even pesticides), and thrive on them.
It would take a very long time, perhaps 1,000 years, for our race to evolve to the point it could consume carbohydrates without consequence. By that time, many generations would have died from diabetes and heart disease. Why wait? I am alive now.
Losing Weight != In Shape != Healthy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:diet? bollocks! (Score:3, Informative)
But really... (Score:3, Informative)
Only eat fruit.
Only eat bacon.
Only eat eggs.
You've probably heard this before, but here goes:
Eat food that is low on fast carbs. This means vegetables, no refined grain products and definitely no sugar.
Eat meat which is low on saturated fats. This means fish and fat fish such as salmon, sea-food and other lean meats.
Excercise daily.
Now, I may not exactly follow these instructions
down to the last word myself, but I try to.
Think about it; the human species as a whole has probably evolved on a low-carb, low-fat diet and lots of movement.
They didn't eat raw sugar 10 000 years ago, which is yesterday on an evolutionary timescale.
And they sure as hell didn't have a guy named Atkins tell them to eat bacon and eggs three times a day.
I call bullshit on this being a 'hackers diet'.
I'm a hacker, and to me this diet is like fixing a bug (ie. being fat) while having no understanding of the entire system (ie. the human body).
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:5, Informative)
*Tolerable* low calorie diets are fine (Score:3, Informative)
Really broken analogy (Score:5, Informative)
Beyond that, there's been a number of studies that say ALL diets cause loss of muscle mass if you don't exercise... a loss which can usually be stopped by regular exercise.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:5, Informative)
I am not a doctor, but I've been there. Eventually went for the major "case mod" and had gastric bypass about a year ago. Down 150 pounds to 260.
Can't help you on the gay or nerd things. Some crosses you just have to bear.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:3, Informative)
How about understanding that there is more than one corcumstance that will cause ketosis and they are not equal:
- Serious diabetes: No insulin in the blood, so glucose can't be used, so the body (starved for energy) frantically turns fat into ketones, but these are also ill used in the absence of insulin. Kidneys are probably ALREADY damaged by years of high blood sugars before this ever happens, as high glucose by itself is enough to damage kidneys.
-
Low carb diet: in the absence of enogugh carbs to meet all energy needs, the body turns fat into ketones which are then used for some energy needs. So far, no study that I've heard of has demonstrated that this form of ketosis harms kidneys. liver or anything else.
But if you're really concerned, you can go to your doctor every 3 to 6 months and get a workup for liver and kidney function. Typically these are unchanged or improve for people who limit carbohydrates, especially if they are doing so to address diabete.Re:An actual tip (Score:2, Informative)
It is! Re:Atkins is no good (Score:2, Informative)
In summary, a scientist found that the Atkins diet was working, and results "are something of an embarrassment to Brehm, whose research is funded by the American Heart Association, which has long advocated calorie-controlled, low-fat diets." Read the article for details...
So, I had a try, and lost the extra weight I hadn't been able to shed for the past few years. I'm only missing cake so far
And I eat my vegies now, not only meat as some think it's all Atkins is about.
No Proven Dangers. At Least Not Yet. (Score:3, Informative)
Being to lazy to sum up the article I paste the full text of the article (copied from SMH) here:
The Burning Question
October 23, 2003
Yet another study has shown that the Atkins diet works. But even the scientist in charge is baffled about why the low-carb regime reduces fat more effectively than conventional low-calorie, low-fat eating plans, Robert Matthews reports.
An academic nutritionist at the University of Cincinnati, Dr Bonnie Brehm, is at the cutting edge of research into the biggest question to hit her field in decades: does the Atkins diet work?
Most nutritionists faced with the torrent of anecdotal evidence for its effectiveness have simply parroted the mantra that more research is needed, while muttering darkly about possible long-term health effects.
Brehm and her colleagues, in contrast, have spent the past few years actually doing the research and will unveil their findings at the American Dietetic Association's annual meeting next week.
They have been studying the effectiveness of the Atkins diet in trials involving people classed as clinically obese, implying a weight of more than 92 kilograms (14 stone) in a person 175 centimetres (5 foot, 9 inches) tall. The latest results are in - and they appear to vindicate the late Dr Robert Atkins, whose diet books have sold 15 million copies over 30 years.
According to Brehm, those following Atkins's low-carbohydrate diet for four months achieved twice the weight loss of those on a conventional calorie-controlled, low-fat diet. Furthermore, the team found no evidence of harmful effects from following the diet - at least during the study.
These results are in line with those found in similar small studies now starting to emerge. As well as backing the claims made for the Atkins diet, these latest results seem to further undermine standard nutritional advice about the need to focus on cutting fat and calories.
They are something of an embarrassment to Brehm, whose research is funded by the American Heart Association, which has long advocated calorie-controlled, low-fat diets.
As a scientist, Brehm puts unearthing the truth above pleasing her paymasters - but it is this that causes most concern. She is having problems explaining her findings - and in the increasingly vociferous debate over the Atkins diet, that may well land her in trouble at next week's meeting.
The scientific world is becoming increasingly polarised over the diet, with researchers such as Brehm being given a tough time over their apparent support for what some scientists regard as the nutritional equivalent of crystal therapy. At the heart of the controversy is the science behind the Atkins diet - first published 30 years ago - and whether it is really anything more than a collection of buzzwords.
Conventional wisdom dictates that calories are the key to weight loss, and so those who lose weight must simply be consuming fewer calories than they burn up. Yet, according to Brehm, the obese people who lost weight on the Atkins diet ate and burned up essentially the same number of calories as those on the standard diet. What was very different was the proportion of body fat shed by each group, which mirrored their percentage weight loss. On the face of it, this backs the central claim of the Atkins diet: that a low-c
South Beach Diet (Score:2, Informative)
It was tough at first as we eat potatoes, lots of rice, and bread before starting the diet. We avoid potatoes and only use brown rice, and whole or sprouted grain breads now. We also try to avoid sugar but the diet book as some tasty desserts. We use to enjoy chocolate quite a bit but now we're into dark chocolate only, and in moderation. We both feel so much better as we no longer experience the highs of lows of our blood sugar going up and down because of our poor diet. My wife also had problems with high tryglyceride levels in her blood but her last blood work came base with normal tryclyceride levels and at that time she had only been on the diet for 3 weeks!
I highly recommend the South Beach Diet for anyone wanting a diet that works (If your following It!) while not feeling like you're on a diet. We eat more now that what we used to and still lose weight since we're not getting all of the bad carbs and sugars like we used to. The other thing I suggest is people look at the packages of the good they eat and note the serving size. You'll be surprised how offen a package contains 2 or more servings and eating the whole thing in one sitting helps to promote weight gain since it's more food than what a person needs IMHO.
1970's? Try ancient history. (Score:5, Informative)
Give it the damn "caveman test."
"Atkins," the "ketogenic diet," and whatever else people call it is not something new. It's not something 1970's. Think millions of years, and you'll start to approach how long it has been around.
It is simply one half of the citric acid cycle, which is part of metabolism. One half is the ketogenic, the other, glucogenic.
With respect to food and hominid metabolism, there are basically 2 states:
1. FOOD (ie. times of plenty, as in: I'm eating this starchy tuber I just dug up RIGHT NOW.)
2. NO FOOD (ie. starvation, as in: Hey Gog, remember how that starchy tuber tasted that I dug up 2 days ago?)
I'm not talking about weeks of starvation, but a time frame of only about 18-36 hours. Once you have burned through your immediate glucose stores and your liver has emptied most of its glycogen stores, what happens then? Gluconeogenesis happens then. Ketogenesis happens then. Fatty acids that represent your stored energy sources are broken down into pyruvate, alpha-ketoglutarate, succinyl-CoA, fumarate, or oxaloacetate are then converted into glucose and glycogen and wisked through the appropriate cycle to give you what you need to keep chasing that small furry animal and catch it, even though your last meal was 2 days ago.
Clearly, I can't compress 4 semesters of basic and advanced biochemistry and a few years of primary research into a single slashdot post, but the basics of human metabolism are accessable to everyone from their local public and university libraries. Go buy a text book, even. Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry is an excellent place to start.
Let's approach it from another way: There is no fat loss without lipidolysis, unless you cut it out. Whether you eat NO carbohydrates and take the nose dive into the ketogenic part of your metabolism all the time, or you eat like a supermodel (small portions of carbohydrate-filled food) and experience brief periods of the ketogenic half of the citric acid cycle, it's all the same thing, only at different rates.
Worried about your kidneys and the ketobodies? Drink the amount of water a human is SUPPOSED to drink every day, and you'll be fine. Constipation is only an artifact of the change-over from starchy foods to protein and low-residue foods. After a few days things are back to normal, and you poop the way your digestive system was supposed to, in relation to what the human diet was thousands of years ago. (clue: No McDonalds and other high-carbohydrate foods)
If your varied dietary intake + caloric control + exercise works for you, then that is absolutely wonderful (no sarcasm). I applaud your efforts, and you should feel lucky that you are a fine example of an ancient metabolism that survives in an overly starchy world. For the segment of the population that isn't so lucky, the option of carbohydrate starvation (yet eating a normal intake of fatty and amino acids) is there.
Y,IAAB. (Yes, I am a biochemist.)
Re:Hacking And Overclocking - What? (Score:5, Informative)
It's been a while since my highschool biochemistry class, but I'm pretty sure that's not the only process stimulated by carbohydrate starvation. It's true, lipolysis provides needed energy, but on the Atkins diet you have a carbohydrate deficit, specifically a glucose deficit, so your body undergoes gluconeogenesis. The brain, testes, erythrocytes and kidney medulla run exclusively on glucose, so the body has to do something when there's no glucose input.
Gluconeogenesis takes pyruvates and oxaloacetates and converts them into glucose. You get these through catabolism of amino acids, chiefly from muscle tissue. The muscle is broken down and transported to the liver for gluconeogenic processing. Alanine, cysteine, glycine, serine, & threonine can be deaminated directly or indirectly to form pryuvate and asparagine and aspartate can be made into oxaloacetates.
But what of the other amino acids? Aye, there's the rub - they're not glucogenic they're ketogenic. During a glucose deficit, muscle tissue is not selected by amino acid type, it's done indiscriminately. So you wind up with all these extra ketones floating around that the kidney needs to deal with. In some people, this is expecially rough, perhaps even to the point of scarring.
There's no getting around it - Atkins breaks down muscle as well as fat and is tough on the kidneys. Possibly balancing this is that some people on Atkins get motivated and start exercising, probably replacing that muscle mass though exercise, but there are others who don't exercise and are actually drawn to Atkins for that feature; these are the people at greatest risk. This risk, of course, needs to be weighed against the risks of their obesity, but it's not sound to call Atkins a risk-free diet.
Re:They always say it... (Score:3, Informative)
With aerobic exercise, that's about an extra pound every two weeks lost that wouldn't be lost otherwise. When I do the numbers, I come out ahead. Yeah, it's not "make or break" on any diet, and exercising won't help you eat "whatever you want" and still lose weight, but it's that little difference that makes a big difference over the course of several months.
Re:They always say it... (Score:3, Informative)
Mostly right (Score:5, Informative)
You can lose weight on reduced-calorie diets (NOT ultra-low calorie diets, those are unsafe and ineffective), but as much as 50% will be lean muscle mass, which is not the point of the excercise. It also yo-yos back a lot faster.
So you're right about the reduced carb lifestyle, it does work, and is much safer and more consistent in the long run.
For more information than you'd ever want to know about looking good nekkid, visit Testosterone Magazine [t-mag.com]. I especially recommend the Ian King 12-week workouts; they'll add inches (!!) to your chest & arms in around 3 months. For those of you just worried about fat loss and not muscle gains, check out the T-Dawg diet. Believe me, though, once the fat starts coming off you'll start seeing how fun it is to watch your body change and you'll be dying to hit the weights.
Re:Why it works (Score:3, Informative)
Considering that a large portion of people are constantly dehydrated, it's probably worth drinking more on Atkins.
Re:diet? bollocks! (Score:4, Informative)
If you say so. I just know what works for me and my personal experience. When I was religiously logging every single calorie and ounce of water that went into my body when I switched to Atkins, I found that 2000 calories per day gave me a weight loss of 1.2 pounds per week and 3000 to 3500 calories per day gave me a weight loss of 2 to 3 pounds per week. Add exercise to 3000 calories per day and I'd jump up to 3.5 to 4 pounds per week. This is well documented in various Atkins and low-carb forums where people have to increase their daily calories to get their bodies out of starvation mode.
I also know that, four or five years ago, I tried the 1200 calorie per day thing and gained weight. When I increased my caloric intake, I stopped gaining weight. At that time I was logging every single calorie and gram of fat using Excel spreadsheets so I wasn't fooling myself. Like I said, everyones' metabolism is different and each person reacts to fats, carbs, and calories differently. Atkins isn't for everyone (it didn't work for my wife at all), but it has worked wonders for me.
Re:diet? bollocks! (Score:3, Informative)
If your are not exercise and lifting wights, don't expect to keep those pounds off.
Re:In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamic (Score:3, Informative)
WRT heart disease, there's nothing magic about the Atkins diet. There are peoples on earth (generally rotund Eskimos for example) who eat diets like it, and people who eat the opposite (generally skinny consumers of Asiatic diets). Across all, more saturated fat makes more heart attacks. Look, if you and the other fanatics keep this up for 50 years or so, and if you all end up dying less, I'll believe it. Until then there's no good reason to, all exiting data points against it.
Re: the mystical powers of ketosis: guess what - the energy is in the fat, not how you consume it. If you wee'd out a highly energetic fatty urine, you'd sure know it. Either the energy is burned, excreted, or stored. Energetic molecules do not make it through your kidney, unless you've got serious problems.
What you mean to say is that the body is only able to extract about 75% of the energy available in the fat, the rest goes to thermodynamic inefficiency due to an alternate metabolic pathway. That's a fine argument and there may even be cases where there's some truth to it... maybe... but basic thermodynamics still applies - inefficiency means heat. You still burn the calories, you just don't get to store them. You do not pee them out.
Furthermore, what you're saying is that one gram of fat becomes heats 2kg of body weight 1 degree plus 7/9 of a gram of fat. Gram for gram, if you're correct, carbohydrate would still be less fattening (and protein slightly less still).
Look, go for it dude. If you believe, more power to you, but stop claiming that you've discovered the holy grail. You're on a diet, neither more nor less well founded or scientific than grapefruit or whatever. Not yet anyway. Collect some data and good luck. For me, I'll stick to eating a well balanced meal and getting regular exercise. It's working fine so far.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:2, Informative)
He also had a heart attack last year. Some doctor he is!
Atkins' cardiac arrest was a result of cardiomyopathy [atkins.com], caused by an infection he contracted while overseas. Due to his otherwise excellent health, even this was non-fatal; Atkins died of complications caused by severe head trauma [slick.org].
Get your facts straight, dipshit.
late to the party... (Score:3, Informative)
I have added a few carbs back into my diet, but I watch everything I eat.
Re:More medical advice, worth absolutely nothing. (Score:3, Informative)
PLEASE don't turn to Slashdot for anything even remotely resembling advice--you'll get burned every. Single. Time.
PLEASE see your doctor and get an expert's advice. They know you, will examine you, will find out your medical history, and will have access to modern medical equipment which can aid in greatly improving your health in ways that the parent poster apparently is incapable of comprehending.
Anecdotes are NOT PROOF unless you're a die-hard acupuncturist. Advice given by someone who doesn't give two shits about you, personally, is worth exactly this: NOTHING.
Re:What about the dangers? (Score:3, Informative)
There's really no such thing as a good or safe level of ketones in your system, only what the body is nominally able to handle. Artificially seeking to boost this (thus lowering the pH of your blood, again this is basic chem), is really dangerous.
In the 70s tape worms were considered a valid way to diet (just kill off the worms when you're done, or so the theory went). Bad move, neh? Fooling around with your body chemistry via Atkins is, I feel, just the latest no-effort-required fad foolishness. The way to be right physically is pretty simple and well known, yet people persist in looking for shortcuts and cheats becuase, well, that's human nature. Sadly you can't shortcut or cheat Ma Nature...
SPORT!!! and the American way of life (Score:4, Informative)
I was born crippled with congenital dislocation of the hips, which meant that a lot of my childhood and early adulthood was spent with a lot of pain if I had to walk distances or even stand for more than 30 minutes. My mother was and is a health fanatic and put me on a number of diets which never seemed to work very well (one of them was an early version of the Atkins diet). I tried to do weightlifting/bodybuilding at school to compensate for my bad self image with a little success but stopped when I went to Uni and ballooned because I did the usual student thing of eating loads of fast food shit that I'd never had at home.
I left my home country (South Africa) and went to live in Berlin, Germany where I worked for the USAF. During this time I discovered swimming, the one sport that I could do with little pain. I was amazed. In about three quarters of a year I was as fit as hell with my four times weekly programme of 45 minutes crawling back and forth in the distance swimming lanes of the local indoor pool. I felt wonderful, for the first time in my life girls were going nuts over me and life was good.
During the dotcom years I gained massive amounts of weight due to enormously long work days and a diet of pizzas, burgers and beer.
That was three years ago and I've been a depressed, lonley fat pig the whole time. A while ago I decided that work could kiss my fat butt on the hole and I started my swimming programme (3 times a week@40 minutes at 6AM in the mornings) as well as simply stopping junk food (No pizzas, burgers, beer).
Already now, only a short while later I am feeling damn good about myself and looking forward to having a social and love life again with the added plus of having a clearer mind than any fad diet could give me.
In my time working for the USAF and my one visit to the US, I noticed how damn difficult it is to buy vegetables and food you actually have to cook--most supermarkets seem to be stuffed with precooked, processed shit that is neither nutritional nor healthy and people resort to chemical crpa like olestra etc in order to avoid actually getting out of their huge fucking cars and moving their bodies.
Do sport, drop the junk food and beer and eat vegetables (not from cans). You'll be fucking amazed.
Live healthy and you'll loose weight (Score:3, Informative)
The conclussion is that, if you want to get in shape, you just have to live healthy.
This is:
- Drink plain water (no soda, beer, coffee, etc)
- Eat more fruits and vegetables, and less fatty stuff. Have you ever heard of the mediterranean diet [carotids.com]?
- Do physical exercise. Walking [americanrunning.org] is good enough and pretty easy. Biking is also excellent. Forget about elevators, and try some martial arts or any other sport you like.
Good luck!
Atkins Alternative : Less Carb, More Protien (Score:3, Informative)
Therefore, try an Atkins -style diet, with high protien foods (meat, fish etcetera. Roast meat, grilled is all good ).
Eat less carbs (pasta, chips, bread)
Don't eat fat unrestrainedly as Atkins seems to reccommend. (i.e. you dont need to be paranoid about it, but avoid butter, lard, massive fry ups)
Eat more protien! Mmmm good.
Eat lots of fruit and salad
PS Drink Lots of water contary to poular belief it does not make you fatter (bloated) but helps you stay thinner.
PPS Exercise
Exercise. (Score:3, Informative)
If one is to argue that ketosis is ok because our bodies are designed for it, surely one has to say that actually our bodies are designed for a combination of glucosis, ketosis and exercise. Arguing for just one (glocosis) is exactly what the author complains about, and then promptly goes off to do it himself.
There is also evidence to suggest that the human body has already evolved in the few thousand years that agricultural technology has been used. There is even evidence that blood groups have changed in this short period to accomodate new living practices.
My wife is a personal trainer and nutritionist and has investigated lost of different diets. Bottom line, if you want to loose weight and control your metabolism, exercise! Its the one aspect of your metabolism that has been unchanged for millions of years. You'll feel better too. Hell, you might end up meeting a pretty girl and marrying her :-)
Re:IT AINT FUCKEN EASY! (Score:3, Informative)
Fat burning doesn't really start until around 30 minutes in the exercise, plus if you're still overeating you won't loose anything.
The goal would be not to go below 500kCal of your daily requirement.
As for the jogging: Use it as a meditative exercise, my long runs are 2 1/2 hours (iPods are great) and I use it to clear my mind.
Instead of starving yourself change what you eat:
- Let go of refined foods.
- Let go of McDonalds and co, read the nutrionional guide and look at your caloric requirements and you'll realize just HOW much is in your double whopper with cheese.
- Instead of eating three meals a day break it up in more, smaller sizes.
I am hardly hungry, though I sometimes manage to crash my blood sugar when I am too deep in work, but in general I am constantly eating and snacking, just not the choclate bar that has almost 300kCal.
True, but the problem also is that people just overeat instead of looking at what they really need.
I am ~6'2" and currently weight 192 pounds (this is really bad, weight is a bad indicator), I am at ~11% Body Fat (now that is what you really want to know) and most people think I am at most 170. The point I am trying to make here is: For my height and weight I need roughly 2000kCal a DAY to maintain my body (add any exercise on top of that).
Now look in your nutrional guide and tell me exactly how much was in your breakfast burrioto you just had? Not to forget your large coffee with a kg of sugar and the Dr. Pepper you have while sitting at the desk?
My diet food consists of fresh veggies, lean protein and fruits. Occasionally I have a pop and other stuff, but it's in moderation. Tastes a hell of a lot better than "normal" food (whatever that is).
Lyposucktion?
Seriously: You need some mental discipline, it won't work any other way, instead of whining start making changes to your life and to your diet, this is not a 5 minute thing, this is something for the lifetime.
Oh, and as for Atkins and stuff: Great if people loose fat on this, but how's your cardio? Just to be thin is by far not healthy.