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Free Fitness Articles
Atkins diet and low carb diets - Healthy or dangerous
weight loss diet plan?
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Are low carb diet plans safe and healthy? How safe is Atkins
diet? Are low carb and Atkins diets dangerous to your health? These are
burning questions for people who are dieting to lose weight and hope to
include Atkins or low carb diet in their weight
loss program.
I have personally tried low carb
diets and Atkins diet and these diets made me lose
weight very quickly. Yes, these diets are very effective for fast weight
loss. However not only did I lose body fat weight, I also lost muscle weight.
I had very obvious muscle and fat loss because I can visually see my reduced
muscle mass in the mirror.
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Easy weight
loss program!
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This certainly isn’t healthy. Furthermore, the more muscle mass
that you lose, the less toned your body physique is. The end result is that
you will end up thin but yet looking flabby with lose flappy skin and terrible
muscle tone. That is an ugly way to lose weight, isn't it?
The frustrating part will be that after you are off the low
carb or Atkins diet, you will gradually gain back all the weight that you have
lost and put back on even more weight. This is because your muscles are active
tissues and they burn calories day in and day out. Since you have less muscle
mass now, your body’s metabolism or capacity to burn calories is reduced
tremendously.
That will mean that when you put on
weight again, which you will, you are putting on body fat instead of muscles
if you do not exercise. You will be fatter and less healthy than before you
went on the low carb or Atkins diet. To make matters worse, because of lesser
muscle tissues resulting in lower metabolism, lesser calories are being burnt
for energy and so you are going to get fatter than before you went on the
diet. Your weight loss objective is to lose
body fat and not muscles.
Since then I have stayed off both low carb and
Atkins diet. Both types of diets are almost similar as they require you to cut
down drastically on your consumption of carbohydrates. Atkins diet went a step
further by advocating almost no carbohydrate consumption for 2 weeks before
adding some carbs to your meals gradually.
What do doctors said about Atkins and low carb diets for
weight loss?
How safe or dangerous are low carb diet plans?
This is what Dr Lyn Steffen and Dr Jennifer Nettleton from the
University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health commentated in a Lancet
report , “Low carbohydrate diets for weight
management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis,
constipation or diarrhea, halitosis, headache and general fatigue to name a
few.”
The good doctors warned that the diet increases
protein load on the kidneys and alters the balance of acid in the body. This
also results in loss of minerals from the bone stores and affect bone
strength. The doctors went on to say that, “Our most important criterion
should be indisputable safety and low carbohydrate diets currently fall short
of this benchmark.”
Dr Atkins, the creator of the Atkins
diet died in 2003 after he was alleged to have slipped on an icy road and hurt
his head fatally. However his medical report stated that he had a history of
heart attack, hypertension and congestive heart failure.
Were Dr Atkins medical conditions related to his
low carbohydrates diet is anybody’s guess. Do you want to take the risk by
going on a low carb diet? I don’t think I will.
If I ever want to lose weight again, I will rather go on the
proven method of healthy eating and regular
exercises instead of going on unhealthy fad diets.
Do engage a qualified personal
trainer if you must. It is definitely safer and healthier than any weight
loss diet plans.
Your Fitness Coach
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