Living Low Carb (28 page)
Authors: Jonny Bowden
Finally, it bears mentioning that the fully developed Atkins program is a three-pronged approach to health that involves not just carbohydrate management (he later called the diet a “controlled-carbohydrate approach to eating”), but also exercise and nutritional supplementation. In his New York clinic, only a small percentage of patients came in solely for weight loss. Atkins should be remembered for his marvelous work in the field of complementary and integrative medicine as well as for his pioneering work on diet.
The Atkins Diet as a Lifestyle: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
While his last book,
Atkins for Life
, is a pretty good template for healthy living that almost anyone could benefit from (and is not wildly different from the Zone or the last stage of the Fat Flush Plan), the Atkins diet proper is likely to be most successful with, and most appreciated by, those who really have a fair amount of weight to lose and have had a great deal of difficulty getting it off. People with only 10 or 15 pounds to lose could certainly do the program, but the exacting and cautious approach to adding carbohydrates back 5 grams at a time is likely to be overkill for them.
In the next decade, I believe we will have a much better understanding of the nascent concept of metabolic typing, but even now it appears that there are some types who do very well on higher-protein, higher-fat diets and some who do not. Obviously the protein types are going to fare well on this diet and not find it nearly as difficult and restrictive as those with a different sort of metabolic blueprint.
JONNY’S LOW DOWN
Rereading the Atkins opus for the zillionth time in preparation for this book, I was once again struck by the disparity between what he actually said and what people think he said. The Atkins diet was never an “all-protein” diet; in fact, a recent statistical analysis put the induction phase at 35% protein and the maintenance phase at only 25%!
1
He stressed vegetables, talked about fiber, went to great lengths to emphasize individual responses and the need for customizing, and thought that both exercise and nutritional supplements were absolutely vital for optimal health. The later version of his book—as well as the breezier
Atkins for Life—
is heavily referenced with a superb bibliography of scientific studies
.
Atkins’s only real mistake was in portraying ketosis as identical to fat loss and making it seem as though calories didn’t matter at all. He kind of boxed himself into a corner on this one. Ketosis doesn’t cause fat loss; it is simply the by-product of fat-burning. Yes, ketosis occurs when you are burning fat for fuel, but you will dip into stored fat only if you are not getting enough fuel from the diet. If your diet is 10,000 calories made up of 90% fat and 10% protein, you will most certainly be in deep ketosis, but you will gain weight like crazy
.
I don’t think everyone who needs to lose weight must go on Atkins, but it is certainly a viable option and likely to be quite helpful for people with carb addictions, resistant metabolisms, significant insulin problems, and a fair amount of weight to lose. It deserves every one of its five stars
.
S
TUART
T
RAGER
, MD
AND
C
OLETTE
H
EIMOWITZ
, M.S
C
WHAT IT IS IN A NUTSHELL
A modern update and expansion of the Atkins Diet suitable for all sorts of people. More user-friendly than the original. Benefits from the addition of terrific exercise and motivational sections
.
About the All-New Atkins Advantage
The All-New Atkins Advantage
was written by Stuart Trager, MD and Colette Heimowitz, M.Sc, and is subtitled
The 12-Week Low-Carb Program to Lose Weight, Achieve Peak Fitness and Health, and Maximize Your Willpower to Reach Life Goals
. It’s a tall order, but the book does an awfully good job of delivering on its promise.
Trager is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon; but what’s particularly interesting about him—from a low-carb-diet point of view—is that he’s an Ironman athlete. And not just any old Ironman athlete (not that there’s such a thing as an “ordinary” Ironman!): he’s an eight-time Ironman and a top-ten finisher at the Ultraman World Championship. Meet him in person and he’s a wiry, muscular guy who looks like he could pull a tugboat across San Francisco Bay. Why is this interesting? Because Atkins—and low-carb diets in general—are frequently perceived as being antithetical to energy and athletic performance.
If this were true, someone forgot to tell Trager, or, for that matter, his coauthor, Colette Heimowitz, a highly respected nutritionist and educator who serves as vice president for education for the newly re-formed Atkins Nutritionals, and is herself a walking example of how to look 15 years younger than your age without surgery. Both Trager and Heimowitz credit the Atkins Nutritional Approach for helping them achieve peak fitness and health.
This book, therefore, is an interesting departure from the standard Atkins diet, since it’s authored by two people who clearly don’t have a weight problem, and who have adapted the principles of what was once known only as a “weight-loss diet” to people wanting to lose a few pounds and get in great shape. In other words, almost all of us.
The five principles of the All-New Atkins Advantage Program are as follows:
• Higher protein (especially at breakfast)
• Good fat (meaning no trans-fats!)
• Low sugar (plenty of vegetables and low-sugar fruits like berries)
• High fiber (at least 25 grams a day)
• Adequate vitamins and minerals
According to the authors, following just these five principles will give you a huge advantage in attaining your goals from the point of weight management and the point of better health. It’s hard to disagree with that.
One thing that distinguishes
The All-New Atkins Advantage
from previous Atkins books (especially the original) is the emphasis on motivation and fitness. There are some good motivational tips, taken right out of the contemporary life-coach playbook, including relaxation techniques, journaling, and exercises to change negative thinking. Stretching exercises are recommended and clearly illustrated, as are weight-training exercises. The exercise prescription is a tad conventional (cardio 2–4 times a week, strength training 2–3 times, stretching frequently); but if you follow it, you will see results. Later in the program, you also incorporate a “fitness challenge,” such as seeing how long it takes you to walk a mile. It’s a pretty comprehensive program, well written, visually appealing and user-friendly.
The four stages of Atkins are explained well and clearly and perhaps in a more approachable (and flexible) way than in the previous books, certainly more so than in the original
Atkins Diet Revolution
. The whole look of the program—though not necessarily the fundamentals—has been modernized and updated.
As with the “original” Atkins, the program begins with the “induction” phase. That’s the very first stage of Atkins, the one where you “induce” weight loss with a mere 20 grams of carbs a day. (It’s this stage which many people wrongly assume to be the whole Atkins diet.) As in the “original,” you add back 5 grams of carbs a week.
In this book, they’ve made the process of adding back carbs in 5-gram increments ridiculously easy. There are week-long meal plans for each level of carb intake, beginning with 7 days’ worth of meals and snacks that contain no more than 20 grams of carbs per day total, followed with a week’s worth of 25-gram plans, and so on up to the 80-gram-per-day level, which presumably would be for people well into the 3rd phase (“premaintenance”) or 4th phase (“maintenance”).
Truth be told, by the time this book was written, Atkins had become a nutritional-products company, so there’s more than a little hawking of Atkins products (bars and shakes) incorporated into the suggested menus. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because the products are good ones, among the best of the “low-carb” bars and shakes. They have no trans-fats, a fair amount of fiber, no sugar, and a decent amount of protein, plus they taste pretty good. Plus, if you wanted to, you could do the program without
any
products, since the menus that incorporate them are merely suggestions.
The book has a nice clear description of what they call “The Atkins Carbohydrate Ladder.” These are carbohydrate foods in the suggested order of reintroduction into your menu. The first rung on the ladder is salad and other low-glycemic vegetables like asparagus and spinach. The next rung is seeds and nuts, followed by berries. Next level is legumes, and the one after that is fruits other than berries (apples, oranges, grapes). Next comes starchy vegetables (sweet potatoes), and last is whole grains.
In keeping with the whole “individualized” approach to the New Atkins Advantage, the authors explain that there’s no “right” or “wrong” about which foods you must include in the carbohydrate ladder as you begin reintroducing carbs during phases 2 to 4 of the eating plan. “The question of how high you can climb on the ladder—and when you will do so—will depend entirely on your metabolism and your activity level. Some people can climb quite high—and those individuals will be able to enjoy legumes, whole grains, and starchier vegetables in later phases of the program,” they write. “A few lucky individuals can even enjoy some of these foods in Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL—or phase 2). Others may find that in Lifetime Maintenance, they cannot or rarely tolerate items at the top of the Carbohydrate Ladder.
The point is that everyone needs to ascend gradually in order to find out what he or she can tolerate without instigating weight gain or cravings
.” (Emphasis mine.)
The All-New Atkins Advantage: Who It Works for, Who Should Look Elsewhere
This program is likely to work for many people, but like the original Atkins, it’s especially good for people who are terribly insulin-resistant and have a lot of weight to lose. These people seem to benefit the most from the rigorous first stage of induction. The later stages—particularly the maintenance phase—sound to me like a pretty good way to eat in general, and should have broad appeal to a wide range of people, including those who are very fit and active.
If you’re not one who does well with very careful monitoring of carb levels in 5-gram increments, you’re likely to find this frustrating; if you like things spelled out for you and are good at sticking to a program, you’ll probably find it very appealing.
JONNY’S LOW DOWN
A breezier, friendlier, more-inclusive version of Atkins with an expanded reach, likely to appeal not only to those who have a lot of weight to lose but to active, fit people who feel better on lower carb intakes. There’s a lot more recognition of individual differences and a lot less rigidity than in the original. The addition of the exercise program plus motivational and life-coaching tips makes this a far more comprehensive program than the original Atkins Diet
.