The Atkins Diet: An Argument Against

Every year, hundreds of thousands of Americans attempt to alter their body weight. The majority of these people are attempting to lose fat. There is a trend in modern society that includes engaging in "fad" diets that promise rapid weight loss. This is presented as an alternative to conventional changes in lifetime diet and the implementation of an exercise regimen. Because there are over 30,000 different diets known today, this paper will focus on one of the best known and most popular diet, The Atkins Diet. Research has shown that diets such as Atkins can have serious health consequences and have shown no proof of lasting weight loss. The logical conclusion for individuals looking to lose weight, keep it off, and become healthier is to make changes in their nutrition and add regular exercise to their lives.

I am a Certified Person Fitness Trainer and have completed specialized training in exercise as well as nutrition through International Sports Science Association which is a nationally accredited fitness education service. Many people who seek personal training are doing so after they have already participated in fad/crash diets that yielded them temporary results. It is surprising to find that these people choose proper diet and exercise as a secondary option. One reason seems to be that many people who are overweight are unwilling to wait to see the results. When beginning a change in lifestyle to include healthier eating habits and exercise, it is often recommended to make small changes over the course of several weeks in order to gradually become used to new habits. This means that results are not immediately apparent in most cases and individuals get frustrated and become impatient with the process. Traditional weight loss diets promise slow weight loss of .99- to 1.98-lbs /week. (Denke 2001). Fad diets, such as the Atkins Diet, can drop up to six times that amount in one week! This phenomenon is one of the biggest contributors to the success of fad diets. Most people do not want to wait 20-40 weeks to lose forty pounds. People want what they want and, in a society so used to everything happening in an instant, they want it right now. Little do most people comprehend the health risks involved in some of these drastic weight loss strategies.

Many people want something for nothing. This attitude also applies to those wishing to lose body fat. There is no miracle means to good nutritional practices. With thousands of foods to choose from, you can easily see how many diets can exist using different food combinations and dieting angles. However, upon close examination, many of these trendy diets may be deficient in important macro and micronutrients. Most of these diets do not provide adequate nutrition. The shame of it is that this is not a secret or something that has been covered up. This is well known information. Why then would someone engage in such possibly hazardous methods to lose weight instead of conventional diet and exercise? For most people, the answer is simply that they are not willing to commit to the time and effort needed to achieve their goals in a safe and healthy way. "Our trial found that adherence level rather than diet type was the primary predictor of weight loss" (Dansinger 2005). So it ends up being that diets fail because the dieter will not adhere to that diet whether it is of the conventional or fad variety. The biggest difference is that those who have engaged in the fad diet will have put themselves at higher risk of deleterious health effects.

Margo Denke, a medical doctor, published an article in The American Journal of Cardiology which stated that low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets such as the famous "Atkins Diet" typically produce a 4.4- to 6.6-lb weight loss in the first week! How could you not want to try that when following a traditional diet regimen would take two to seven weeks to accomplish this amount of loss? This certainly makes the allure of the fad diet easy to understand. Easy to understand, that is, until the negative complications of ketogenic diets such as the Atkins Diet are revealed. Ketogenic means that there is a buildup of ketone bodies in the body. Ketones are highly acidic and, in fact, acetone is a member of the ketone family. The article by Doctor Denke stated that the ketogenic diet produces higher rates of dehydration, constipation, and kidney stones. Another alarming issue is that, since ketogenic diets affect the central nervous system, these diets may alter cognitive functions. "In a randomized weight loss study comparing a ketogenic with a nonketogenic hypocaloric diet, subjects consuming the ketogenic diet had impairments in higher order mental processing and flexibility than those following the nonketogenic diet." (Wing, Vasquez, Ryan 1995). The negative effects do not end there. Low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets exclude fruits, vegetables, and grains which are a valuable source of macronutrients. The exclusion of these nutrients can cause an array of negative effects. These diets generate a high acid load which promotes calcium mobilization from bone (Barzel, Massey 1998). The outcome is a higher likelihood of developing osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a serious disease that can limit mobility, flexibility and present a much higher risk of broken bones. For anyone who's grandmother has been laid up for six months after breaking her hip, that would seem to be a huge red flag. The list goes on and on and includes such negative effects as; kidney problems, optic neuropathy (which can lead to blindness), and diabetic progression.

All things considered, forty weeks to lose forty pounds does not sound all that bad! The problem comes when the individual reaches their body weight goal. Most people who participates in diets like Atkins report regaining the weight they lost within months of returning to their "normal" eating habits. There is hope. A study of obese women, some treated with diet alone, some with diet and aerobic exercise, and some treated with diet and