Is The Atkins Diet Suitable For You?
|Here at Granite Fitness, we believe that there are many ways to the path of good health. We also acknowledge that every person who wants to be healthy has specific health-related circumstances of their own, which means that they should not blindly follow any and every eating plan. Today we will be evaluating whether the Atkins diet, which focuses on high protein and low carb, is suitable for you.
Before you start down the low carb road, you should take some time to decide whether low carb is the right way for you to lose weight. Just because it has been effective for others, and indeed it has helped many, doesn’t mean it will be right for you. There are many things to consider before you start the Atkins diet. The first point requires you to do a little bit of detective work.
First, evaluate your past dieting history. If you’ve been trying to lose weight for a long period of time, you’ve no doubt tried a wide variety of diets. Let’s just be honest here! Take note of the different diets you’ve tried over the years. Write down the basics of each diet, what worked and what didn’t. Chances are that if you have been trying diets for a long time, some of them will be variations of Atkins anyway.
Sticking to the theme of history comes the second point – write down why you didn’t stay on the particular diet. Evaluate your experience with high carbohydrate diets i.e. the ones that are opposite to Atkins. These types of diets, if you find it hard to identify, are those that include most low-fat and calorie controlled diets. How did you feel while on these types of diets? Were you hungry, obsessed with food or experiencing negative reactions? Or did you feel full of energy and generally good?
Let’s now focus back on variations of the Atkins diet. Take some time and effort to think about it, and why you stopped doing it. Like all other dietary changes, the first week would probably be the hardest. But the next crucial question to ask is: how did eating low carb make you feel after the first week? Why did you stop using the low carb diet? You have to be honest, and we have to be consistent in evaluating this.
The answers to these questions will help you decide whether Atkins is right for you or not. If you’ve had good experiences with low-fat diets and bad experiences with other low carb diets, then Atkins is probably not for you. If other low-carb diets have worked but not without difficulty, then you may have been on the wrong type of low-carb diet and Atkins might work better. If you’ve had bad experiences with both types of diets, then you may have better success with a modified Atkins diet.
Your food and eating behaviours can also give you a clue to whether or not Atkins is a good choice for your weight loss efforts. Carb sensitivities are indicated by a certain set of behaviours. You may be carb sensitive if you feel like eating right after you’ve finished a meal or have strong urges to eat throughout the day. Carb sensitivity is also shown when you feel sluggish after eating. This occurs especially after you eat a meal rich in sugars and carbohydrates. If indeed you have this, then do give Atkins a shot.
Your success on the Atkins diet can also be determined by your medical and family history. If you have any pre-diabetic symptoms, or diabetes itself, a reduced carb diet like Atkins may be right for you. The Atkins plan has been shown to improve weight and control blood sugar issues.
There are a lot of good reasons to try the Atkins diet. Whether you have responded well to other low carb diets in the past or you have a medical history that warrants a controlled carbohydrate diet, the Atkins diet can meet your needs. However, as mentioned before, do proceed with caution. Oh, and the Atkins diet is associated with Paleo, so you might want to consider those too.
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Also published on Medium.
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