Atkins diet
 

What does everyone think of this diet? My sister is doing it but I think it's so unhealthy to cut out all carbs. I mean I read somewhere that Atkins had actually died from this diet. What are your views on it?

It probably works temporarily but it does carry some serious health risks. Modifying the diet to include carbs would be helpful and I think that may have aleready happened.

I'm not into any kind of diet that has you eliminate any one food group. A girl at my work has "been on" this diet for like a year, but she can never fully stick to it and she doesn't seem to have lost any weight

Baldmonkee, I agree completely. I just can't agree to stick with a diet that eliminates an entire food group. I thought that carbs were essential?

yes you do need carbs, but in general we eat to much of them. I grew up eating bread to almost every meal and for dinner we always had potatoes. I am trying now to limit my carb intake a bit and eat more veggies instead.

I agree that we eat too much of them, but in reality most of us are eating too much of everything, I think a diet cut down across the board of the food groups seems more reasonable than a diet limiting just one section. I'm not anti Atkins, I just don't think it's for everyone

For awhile there it seemed like everyone around me was on this diet. Some are still one it and have lost weight but quite a few have found it to hard to stay on for any length of time. I personally never tried it because I don't mind limiting a certain food group but not totally.

Sure, we might eat too many carbs, but is that a reason to eliminate them totally? We need to cut down in every aspect of our eating, I believe.

Yes, I agree it does seem quite unhealthy. I do a low GI diet and I do worry about the high fat content in some of the foods on my plan, and I sometimes don't have the fatty things or buy a lower fat version eg. lower fat cheese. Low GI is nowhere near as extreme as Atkins, so it would be the fat intake that would worry me ( I always remember a girl at work who said she couldn't have a cup of coffee becuase she had forgotten to bring in cream - there was milk in the fridge but she wasn't allowed milk, only cream! Seems very strange!

I can't remember exactly what happen, but if you cut out carbs completely you are higher risk for some sort of illness.(I really need to research this...)
Anyway. Limited amounts of carbs is the way to go. I have also hear people who did cut carbs craved them so much that when they started to eat carbs again they overeat a lot.