What is the Atkins Diet?

The Atkins Diet is a low carbohydrate diet invented in the 1960's by cardiologist Dr. Robert C Atkins. The Atkins Diet offered a new approach to losing fat, maintaining muscle mass and also fulfilling hunger cravings within the dieter.

While many diets simply advocate eating less of everything, this could cause a person to lose muscle mass and bone density also. With the Atkins Diet, fat is the only body component specifically targeted and lost, making it every dieters dream.

Carbohydrates are a nutrient which provides the body with its main source of energy – glucose. Carbohydrates can be anything from bread to rice to green vegetables. Carbohydrates tend to yield glucose quickly into the blood stream and to the muscles, and any glucose which isn't used is stored as fat. Many people mistakenly believe the fat on meat is what causes fat, this generally isn't true. Fat on meat however can be broken down by the body into glucose but this process is much, much slower therefore generally no fat is put on by consuming fat.

The body is highly adaptable and goes on the search for what it needs in other foods and drinks consumed. For instance, by starving the body of carbohydrates, the body then begins to metabolise body fat for glucose. The result is a person can function as normal energy-wise because glucose is being manufactured from your body's fat, but you will also lose a great deal of weight in a very short space of time. The Atkins diet is extremely popular among celebrities who quickly discovered the health benefits and the way it helped them maintain their much-needed slender appearances.

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