Whats everyones thoughts on atkins?

[Ming Yue]

It was horrible for kung fu. I was a freakin' slug. No wind, no strength. I'd go home and collapse after class.

also the phrase "sweet breath" is a euphamism. ketosis makes your mouth taste like something died under your tongue.

Don't do Atkins, RD. Cut out sugar, convenience foods and simple carbs, eat lots of lowfat dairy, grains and fruit and veggies, lean protein and drink water all day.

[Ming Yue]

oh yea, and another charming side effect is constipation. My boss stayed on Atkins for months (he talked me into trying it) and he had to take lots and lots of fiber supplements just to be comfortably regular. The train just was not leaving the station.

[Royal Dragon]

I have no plans of trying it again. Last time I did it just tanked, and I was only doing it 3 weeks. I actually GAINED weight.

My Ex Debbie's doing it, not that she needs to lose more than 5.

Apparently she lost 50 on it two years ago, and swears by it. She was working out then, but does not admit that now.

My freind the ER nurse thinks she is nutts, and threatened to hurt me if I tried it with her.

[norther practitioner]

So no more girl, now maybe a few new girls from match.. and the whole diet thing..

good luck....


lol

[Royal Dragon]

No, I'm not doing it, just want to understand why everyone (outside of it's supporters) say it's so harmfull.

As for Match, I have like 6 of them I'm juggling right now, but that has nothing to do with this thread, that's one for the main board!

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by Ming Yue
Atkins made me feel horrible. I was training my usual amount (3-4x a week, 2-3 hours at a time). I was low energy, I fatigued easily, and I got headaches.

the people I know who have tried it say the same thing. It makes sense - your major sources of energy are carbs and fats, and you are cutting one. I'm curious though - were you fatigued while training, or afterward?

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by Ming Yue
It was horrible for kung fu. I was a freakin' slug. No wind, no strength. I'd go home and collapse after class.

nevermind, there's my answer. I was wondering because the body's main source of energy while working out is carbs. While resting, it's fat...after the workout, it seems like you'd get a second wind because of that.

[Ming Yue]

I would be fatigued during and then never get the nice rush afterwards.

I didn't stay on it very long... evenutally I might have adjusted to it, but I listen to my body and it hated Atkins.

[SevenStar]

what happened to the weight you lost because of it? the ones that I know re-gained it almost instantly.

[Ming Yue]

in the three weeks I was on it I lost about 10lbs and have kept it off. I consistently get a lot of excercise though, I think most people don't exercise on Atkins and then regain the weight after the diet because they return to "normal" eating AND don't work out.

[Royal Dragon]

Debbie lost 50, pretty much stopped working out, and only gained back 5

[MoreMisfortune]

son i had lost 55 i think, without any atkins, ODDkins, or WANkins (oh wait... that i did)

i regained some 10 or 15, i dont know
mostly for slacking + lakc of motivation + boring plateu

it really pains me that after all the hard work i had done for that weight loss i still dont feel good enough to even take me focking shirt of and go to the beach
its sad to be me!
yes, i do look that bad!

[Royal Dragon]

See, I think there is a falacy in weight loss. Everyone promotes "Thier" diet or method by trashing others...mostly by saying other methods are only temporary. Example "XYZ lost 50 on ZXY plan". The reply is "Oh yeah, but that plan sux they allways gain it back when they stop"

Well, as soon as you stop ANY plan, and go back to sucking down Cheesburgers, fries and double helpings, your GONNNAAA gain the weight back!!

Also, since I have been looking into this, the results on Atkins aren't all that impressive. It seems at the one year mark, atkins weigth loss is no more significant than eating a diet of raw friuts and veggies, keeping your animal intake sensible while controlling portion size and just exerciseing more.

So when it comes to us, our best bet is to just practice our art, and eat healthy.

Others, Like Debbie, can do what they want, and what works for them, even if it's harmfull.

[Mighty Mungbean]

As a general lurker without much to say, I did want to add in to this discussion. I'm a newly certified personal trainer and "fitness professional" (by no means an expert) and I'm really bugged by this whole Atkin's/South Beach bs. Not only is it unhealthy but it ultimately cuts into my bottom line. Potential clients who could truly benefit from my services risk taking their health in an adverse direction just so that they may take the easy way out. Many don't realize that exclusively focusing on the short term often brings problems in the long term.

From what I read there is a great deal of good sense amongst the posters here about what constitues a good diet. Avoiding highly processed foods is certainly the best piece of advice. The second is listening to your body and the cues it gives you. One thing I did want to add, however, is the frequency of eating. The latest school of thought is smaller more frequent meals throughout the day. Instead of three square meals, try grazing slowly through the day spreading your calorie intake over five or six small meals, eating every two to three hours. My layman's understanding is that eating this way allows your body to relax about storing food for energy. It gets used to eating more often and doesn't need to store as much fat as it's prepped to take in new nutrition on a more frequent basis.

[Andy62]

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From the NY Post:

According to a revealing new biography by Lisa Rogak titled "Dr. Robert Atkins: The True Story of the Man Behind the War on Carbohydrates," Atkins was notorious for bedding his patients and nurses.

"Atkins had developed a reputation as being good in bed, and, inevitably, a number of women - who may or may not have benefited from his take on weight-loss - visited the office and became his patient solely to have sex with him," Rogak wrote.

One unnamed woman now old enough to be receiving Social Security said she remembered how she stuck to the Atkins' diet even though she secretly thought it was unhealthy.

"I could always lose the weight, that wasn't the problem," she shared. "I just wanted to jump his bones."

He apparently was infamous among his friends for hiring pretty nurses at his practice.

"He liked women with nice-looking ankles," recalled Bernard Raxlen, a physician colleague.

More than a few times, Atkins would romance a nurse for a couple weeks, then cast her aside for the next good-looking woman who walked into his office, Rogak wrote.

Atkins' luck with the ladies went all the way back to his college days, when he always was dressed to the nines and loved to please a crowd with his Danny Kaye impressions, Rogak wrote.

"Boy, did he date," recalled Larry Stein, a Dayton, Ohio, real-estate developer who was Atkins' fraternity brother when they attended the University of Michigan in the 1950s.

"Though he never dated any one girl on a steady basis. . . . They were knockouts."

His constant flirtations didn't always go over well though. While doing postgraduate medical training in Boston, several nurses had to carefully orchestrate plans to avoid Atkins when making after-work plans.

"He flirted with all of us, waiting to see if he could talk one of us into going home with him for the night," remembered former nurse Barbara Stinson.

As word of his diet spread, his fame grew and so did his prowess with women.

But his catting around apparently came to an end when he met his wife, Veronica Luckey, a classy divorc?e who wouldn't put up with his cheating ways, when he was 56.

"Veronica made it clear from the beginning that she would not put up with any philandering," Rogak wrote.

They stayed married until Atkins died in April 2003 after slipping on an icy Manhattan sidewalk.

She was his staunchest defender when criticism arose after his death about the risks of his famous high-fat, high-protein diet.

"I want him to be remembered for his courage," Veronica Atkins is quoted as saying.

Originally published on January 8, 2005