If you are interested in losing weight the Atkins Diet plan may be just what you are looking for. The theory behind this plan is to significantly lower your carb intake. When you lower your carb intake the body does not have that immediate energy to burn or store. What happens then is the body will naturally go to it’s next available source to get that energy, which is your stored fat.

The first step in the Atkins diet plan is called the induction phase. For the first two weeks your daily carb intake should be less than 20 grams per day. And no bad carbs at all. In addition, you get to eat all the protein you can handle. Lean meat, fish, shrimp, milk, cheese, and yogurt, just to name a few.

The only carbs you can eat will come from vegetables like sprouts, celery, cabbage, cucumbers and mushrooms. You get the idea, fresh vegetables taste the best. You can cook them, steam them, or eat them raw, it is all the same. This is the phase of the diet that you will see the most significant weight loss.

The second step in the diet plan is called the OWL, or the ongoing weight loss, phase. Your weight loss will slow down somewhat with this step because you will be slowly starting to increase your carb intake. Continue to stick with the good carbs, though, you do not want to mess things up now.

Adding 5 grams of carbs back in per week while you monitor your weight closely. When you reach the point when you are no longer losing 1-2 pounds per week back off the carbs a bit. This step should bring you within 10-15 pounds of your goal weight, so naturally it will take the longest.

The nest step is the pre-maintenance phase. This is the time you begin to increase your carb intake by 10 grams each week. When you hit the plateau, continue eating the exact same number of carbs for one month. Hopefully, you have decided to add some daily exercise in with this diet, too.

When the month is up add 10 more grams of carbs, if you begin to gain weight then decrease the carbs again by 10 grams per week until you begin to lose weight again. You should still be losing 1 pound per week during this phase. Make sure you are staying hydrated throughout this plan, as well. Stay away from pop, drink water or green tea.

When your reach you goal weight and enter into the maintenance phase you should be pretty well schooled on how many grams of carbs you can safely take in in one day. This is the amount you should stick with and not go over if you want to maintain your current weight. By the time you get to this point you should be at your goal weight and you can call yourself a success at using the Atkins diet plan.

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Moderation is one thing that you should be looking for when you are considering which healthy eating plans are the best. To put it another way, if the plan has extreme restrictions or makes wild claims, then the chances are good that it’s unhealthy. The best diets will focus on moderation in the types of food you eat, as well as the portions it recommends.

If you have been considering various plans, then you have probably seen those that make claims that can tip you off to why they may not be so good. A common example is a diet that says you can eat as much of one food as you want, but then severely limits how much you can eat of other foods. Low carb diets may be the most popular example. They let you eat all the protein and fat that you want, but try to get you to cut out as many carbohydrates as you can.

While these so-called “healthy eating plans” say you can eat all the meat, fish and eggs you want and lose weight, you need to realize there are also risks. First, people are designed to eat a whole range of foods. Yes, you may be able to lose weight on a low-carb diet, but it could have negative impact on your health if all you’re eating is meat and eggs. Second, the idea of eating all the bacon (for example) you want sounds very appealing at first, but the craving for carbohydrates is more than most people can handle, and they end up binging on carbs…and weighing more than when they started.

Any type of diet that makes similar claims should be looked at with suspicion. A diet that tells you that you can eat all of the fat you like is just as bad as any diet that tells you to eat as much sugar as you want. It just doesn’t make sense. To be fair there are also diets that tell you to cut out all fat. Surely these must be healthy eating plans, right? Not really. Again, they are too restrictive for certain foods, and that’s your clue that they may not be good for you. The truth is that there are healthy fats. Again, the key here is moderation.

Of course the appeal for all of these types of diets is the same. What happens is that a person may try a reasonable diet, but then they find they crave certain foods. Say the diet says you shouldn’t eat cheeseburgers. There’s nothing wrong with that, but then you start wishing you could eat a big, juicy cheeseburger and go off the diet. Then later on you decide you’d like to lose weight again. But here’s the catch: you look for a diet that allows you to eat the cheeseburgers you missed on the last diet. You start off doing great, but even though you can eat your burgers, the new diet doesn’t let you eat pasta. So, you go off this diet and look for one that lets you eat pasta…and you keep repeating this cycle over and over again.

But real healthy eating plans let you eat just about anything you want, but only in moderation. In other words, they make allowances for the occasional treat, but they offset it in some way; they balance it out. Such a plan is much easier to stick to and will give you long term results.

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Induction Diet – The Top Priority For The Atkins Weight Loss Plan

If you have ever heard of the induction diet and wondered what it was, then you’re in luck. The answer is simply that it’s the beginning of the Atkins Weight Loss Plan. This diet plan is famous for eliminating or reducing the intake of carbohydrates; at least that’s the popular myth. The Atkins Diet actually permits carbs, but they are kept to their absolute lowest during the induction phase. This is so the ketosis process can begin.

In fact, the induction diet can be thought of as the most vital phase of the program. If you want to try the Atkins Weight Loss Plan, then don’t skip this part as the rest of the diet hinges on this all-important phase.

The general theory of the Atkins Diet is that you can burn fat instead of muscle by replacing carbohydrates with protein. However, you should be warned that it’s a very strict regimen, and you need to follow it closely. This is even more true when going through the induction diet phase.

Most people find the induction process to be the most difficult aspect of the Atkins Weight Loss Plan. This is likely due to two reasons. One, you will have strong cravings for foods that are rich in carbohydrates, and the cravings will be at their strongest when you first start the plan. Two, you are limited to 12 grams of carbohydrates per day. That means the variety of foods you can eat is minimal. Even something like nuts–which most people think of as being high in fat and protein–are prohibited during this early stage of the diet.

Sure, there may be some foods that you can’t eat, and you may be craving carbs, but there is also some good news: you won’t be going hungry. That’s because you can eat as much of the allowed foods as you want. For example, eggs, shellfish, meat, poultry and fish are acceptable. And those can augmented with a small amount of vegetables, as long as you don’t exceed the 12 gram limit on carbohydrates. (That’s why it’s a good idea to have a form of reference that lists the carb content of any foods you want to eat.)

Avoiding pre-packaged foods will help you to keep your carb count under control. But you still need to double check before eating anything. Planning your meals carefully will also help give you more variety within the induction diet phase when doing Atkins. Yes, you may be looking forward to eating all of the bacon you want, but it can get boring after a few days, which will only increase the temptation to cheat.

Speaking of cheating on the induction diet (or any phase of the Atkins Weight Loss Plan): this is not the kind of diet you can cheat on and then resume it the next day. Atkins relies on changing the way your body works, and cheating will undo everything you’ve done so far.

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It wasn’t all that long ago that the Atkins Diet was making the news. People were excited about the idea of being able to eat all the meat they wanted and still lose a lot of weight. The interest in the diet was staggering, and enough people saw impressive results to keep the diet at the forefront for quite some time. It seemed to be more than just a regular fad diet. However, it didn’t take long for people to start questioning the potential bad effects of the Atkins Diet.

Well, the Atkins Diet is still around. It may not get nearly as much attention as it used to, but there are plenty of people who start the program on a daily basis. This is a mark in its favor as it shows it is more than just a fad diet. In fact, a lot of other diets have come and gone since Atkins made its initial splash. But what about the supposed bad effects of the Atkins diet?

Let’s clear one thing up right away: there is no consensus in the medical community as to the long term effects–good or bad–of the Atkins program. They are still worthy of debate and further research, and you should at least be aware of them before deciding to try the Atkins Diet.

On the one side, you have people who have lost a lot of weight on the diet. They are happy with how much weight they have lost, and how quickly (a loss of 5 to 10 pounds in the first week is not unheard of). They also enjoy being able to eat high protein foods, regardless of how much fat they contain. This means eating things like steak, bacon, fish, pork, chicken, beef and eggs. As long as people on the Atkins Diet take supplements and exercise while on the program, they continue to lose weight. One thing is for sure, it’s hard to argue with results.

Results are one thing, and how those results are achieved is another. Critics state that one of the bad effects of the Atkins Diet is that the weight loss comes from not only a loss of fat, but also a loss of water and muscle. So, while they’re not necessarily questioning whether or not people are losing weight, they are asking if the type of weight loss is good or not. There is also evidence that any diet that is high in saturated fat can lead to an increased risk of heart disease. If this is the case, then you need to decide if the higher risk of getting heart disease is better than risk of developing other diseases associated with obesity. Or, to put it another way, the more overweight you are, the more you may want to try the Atkins Diet.

As of now, there is no final word as to all of the effects of the Atkins Diet. The best advice is to talk to your personal doctor so you can discuss your options and see if Atkins is a good choice for you.

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