Dr. Atkins identified a serious problem in the American diet. My "beef" is not with his diagnosis, it is with his prescription: a diet so unnatural for humans that it almost inevitably leads to eventual weight gain and disease.
Here is the problem: refined carbohydrates cause obesity and compromise our health in dozens of ways. White flour, sugar, white rice, breads, cakes, rolls, sweets, sodas, etc. are staples of the Standard American Diet.
People are designed by nature to love carbohydrates We have sweet tasting buds at the tip of our tongue and a remarkable ability to see color. We are fruit-eating machines!
The problem is, we have developed the ability to refine carbohydrates, giving us more calories - and more pleasure - per mouthful. In westernized societies, we have got refined "junk" carbohydrates everywhere!
Where the complex nutrient value of whole food has been stripped out and the pleasure stimulating chemicals and concentrated refined carbohydrates have been left in, we call that "junk food."
These foods make you gain weight! Your body can not use them and they compromise your health. I agree wholeheartedly with Atkins - get rid of these addictive substances ASAP.
The problem with Atkins is his solution The low carb / high protein debate misses the point. You do not get rid of carbohydrate foods and simply supplant them with high protein animal foods to solve a weight problem, especially since eating animal products is not health promoting.
If you want to eat high protein foods and solve your weight problem, eat green protein. You will lose plenty of weight, fast, and promote your health at the same time, while you get the whole food carbohydrates in the same meal.
Animal products are hazardous to your health High protein animal products may be rich in protein, but they are devoid of almost everything else that promotes health. When you eat them, you are consuming cholesterol, saturated fat and animal protein.
By the way, animal protein does more to elevate your own cholesterol production than does consuming dietary cholesterol - so eating low-fat animal products like lean chicken and skim milk is still a dangerous strategy.
Nutrient poor food - whether animal or refined carbohydrate, it doesn't matter - promotes over-consumption and compromises our health and success. It is time to transcend this silly debate and focus on the important issue: is our food nutrient rich?
I'm not saying you need to become a vegetarian, or vegan, or "give up" eating meat. I don't believe in "giving up" anything. When your diet is comprised predominantly of whole food plant based nutrients, you lose weight, maintain your natural weight and you get healthy.
Why people lose weight eating low-carb (and why they can't sustain it) Low-carb eating is a great way to trick your body into relying on fat for energy, instead of carbohydrates, which are your natural primary energy source. It thrusts you into a state of ketosis, which is not a well state. It's a response to starvation. Your body says, "There is either a serious shortage of my primary fuel source (whole food carbohydrate) or I'm suffering from a physical disease and I need to conserve energy and recuperate. I'd better cut back on the hunger drive for a while and conserve my energy."
Rather than being a way to live, it's more like a way to die. Here's what Nutrient Rich expert advisor John McDougall, M.D. writes:
"When people are ill, they need to be recuperating, not gathering and preparing foods. Loss of appetite facilitates recovery. A kindness of nature for starving people is to quiet the pain of hunger. After 3 days with no food, the body enters a state of ketosis, and the pain of dying is relieved."
Low-carb diets are dangerous Low-carb dieting makes your body dysfunctional and compromising your systems. The weight loss is almost always temporary (mostly water weight!), and it is extremely psychologically and physically draining, especially at the start.
It will turn you into a slow-moving target for the variety of health problems eating a high animal protein diet causes - only cranked up a notch or two, especially during the most radical phase where you eat low to no carbohydrates at all.
Here's what the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association concluding in a report in the October 9, 2001 issue of the journal Circulation:
"High-protein diets are not recommended because they restrict healthful foods that provide essential nutrients and do not provide the variety of foods needed to adequately meet nutritional needs." There is a good reason it is under attack by the majority of the scientific health community! It is dangerous!
Low-carb dieting may enable you to lose weight, but it does not promote your health, vitality or fitness. Those are outcomes of a fundamentally-successful lifestyle oriented around the core essentials of health and high performance.
A couple of clues Dr. Atkins shared with me, personally, shortly before he died of a heart attack, that bad breath and constipation were just two of the diets "side effects." Those symptoms are not coincidences or side issues. They are signals from your body that low-carb, high animal protein diets are not health promoting.
Low-carb dieting is not part of a healthy lifestyle, even when it contains elements that are based on genuinely healthy lifestyle choices, like refusing refined sugar and processed flours.
If you eat this way, you're likely to experience serious health consequences, including increased risk for heart disease and cancer. As if the noxious breath and constipation weren't enough!
If you are "living a low-carb lifestyle" right now, I have to ask: Are you really "dying" to lose weight?
Look for the Diet Trap # 6 Article:
The Supplement Trap: An expensive and ineffective way to make up for eating junk.
About The Author -- John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder of NutrientRich.com nutrientrich.com/ and MyTrainer.com mytrainer.com/. He is the author of The Nutrient Rich Lifestyle Starter Kit, and The 7-Step Active Lifestyle Plan. John Allen helps high achieving individuals avoid trading success, for poor health, fatigue and an overweight body and dramatically improve their health and performance. His clients increase their energy and transform their body as a result of a successful lifestyle they can call their own.
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