I’ve had a number of people tell me that they’re “following the Atkins diet” who weren’t. What they were doing instead was just eating meat, cheese, eggs, and fish and avoiding most everything else. Having read the Atkins diet book, my feeling is that this is a dangerous summary of Dr. Atkins’ message. My opinion (and I’m not a medical professional) is that people would do a lot better if they followed a few more of his suggestions. I call this, the “Atkins Diet for the Impatient”:
In addition to lowering carbohydrate intake, do these things:
- Take a mutlivitamin. If you’re just eating meat, you aren’t getting your RDA of a number of vitamins.
- Drink lots water. Protein-heavy diets can be hard on your kidneys, and they’ll need water to do their job. Drinking more water will also help fill you up and cause you to eat less, which will help with weight loss.
- Take a fiber supplement. Fiber is important, and meat and cheese won’t give it to you. Health considerations aside, this should also help fill you up, and therefore make your diet more effective.
- When you get tired of your low carb diet, switch to another diet–don’t just fall off the wagon and gorge yourself on doughnuts.