I've engaged in a lot of research and studying various diets and "fads" and such, and the Atkins approach has a lot of merit; however, it isn't realistic nor is it healthful in the long term to severely restrict carbs because the body needs them to function at its most efficient level. I read the Atkins Diet book and studied and researched and tried it. Losing weight on this diet is quite possible for many but not so effective for others - myself included. Even at its strictest phases when practiced to the letter, some body types don't respond as positively as others to the weight loss aspects. Even the maintenance levels of carb restriction are also very difficult to maintain in the long term, so a lot of people gain the weight back, and then some.
One thing that happened to me - and I credit the Atkins approach for this as it is appropriately due - is a severe skin condition my doctors diagnosed as "acne rosacea" - (but in my research I realized it was probably that combined with other things) - cleared up entirely after I adopted the Atkins principle of completely eliminating refined white flour and simple sugars. For years, I was on very high doses of antibiotics for this persistent skin condition. Every now and then, I would stop taking the medication for several days to see what happened. Invariably, the skin problem returned with a vengeance and I had to resume the antibiotics.
When I started on the Atkins Diet (to lose weight), in my reasearch I discovered that those refined carbohydrates so maligned in Atkins' approach were implicated in many disease processes as well as chronic conditions - and conditions of the skin was one of them. After a couple of weeks of eliminating those two things from my diet completely - refined white flour and sugar (and sugar derivitaves) - I stopped taking the antibiotics. My skin condition never returned, and my skin is flawless to this day. People even comment on it. And I haven't been on antibiotics since. It's been about 8 years now.
Well, I didn't lose weight - but discovered something else!
Since then, I have eaten foods with refined white flour and sugar, but it's always in moderation and my own cooking almost never includes those things. I've used substitutes like organic brown rice syrup and whole grain flours and other types of flours like spelt, rice, and all the others that are so available to us these days.
Another valuable teaching lesson from Atkins is that this diet is really more a proponent of whole foods rather than prepared and processed - with the plethora of insane and unpronounceable ingredients processed foods inject into the MAD - whole foods are the healthiest. America and other countries populations started seeing a problem with obesity when processed and refined foods were introduced into modern food supplies and marketed with such gusto. When people ate what they grew from the earth and raised from its bounty, and worked the land to sustain both their families and the animals and vegetation they needed for survival - weight problems weren't such an issue. Whole foods - meats, grains, legumes, vegetables, etc. are the ingredients for good health and maintaining a healthy weight.
All my preaching hasn't gotten me there yet, though!!! But I'm "gaining" on it!
