Low Carb Monster - Low Carb Diets

Low Carb Diets

There are too many low carb diets to count these days. They all their own twists on the original brainchild of Dr. Atkins, that being to lower your intake of carbohydrates to both lose weight and increase health. It was about 30 years ago now that he first wrote a book which defined his idea of the perfect diet and i still keeps the honor of being the first of all the low carb diets. Some things have changed regarding nutrition over the course of thirty years and so there have also been changes to his diet as studoes have shown that some of the fats that he allowed were indeed bad for your health. But, the diet has been modified into one that has helped many people lose weight. Although many of us have heard about all of these low carb diets, many of us do not understand what the Atkin's Diet entails. Here's a quick summary.

The mother of all low carb diets in a nutshell

Many low carb diets start with an initial two weeks to start off the diet. The Atkin's plan goes like thisin the first 14days:

No more than 20 grams of carbs per day.
No bread, sugars, potatoes, rice, or pasta.
A lot of vegetables, prepared any way you wish (counting the acrbs if need be!)
More than 8 glasses of water everyday.
Objective is to lose 8-15 by the end of this period.

After you have succeeded in the first two weeks, you move onto the pure maintenance of the low carb diets.

Here is ow Atkin's advises the dieter to keep up the weight lose:

Keep eating a lot of vegetables and drinking a lot of water.
Work up from the 20 grams of carbs slowly until you find your personal level of balance.
Start to eat nuts, grains, fruits, but slowly in order to watch for any allergies you might have.
Stay away from processed foods.
Expected weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week.

Of course there is more involved in this diet, but these are the general guidelines. Most of the other diets actually credit Dr. Atkins for having paved the way and doing the research over the course of thirty years that has been referred to by those that followed.