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The Foods You Can Eat
The USDA Food Pyramid recommends a diet rich in carbohydrate consumption. As you can see in the image below, the foundation of the pyramid is a recommended six to eleven servings of carbohydrates daily.
 USDA Food pyramid courtesy Food and Nutrition Information Center The USDA Food Guide Pyramid |
The Atkins food pyramid looks very different from this one. In fact, one of the reasons the Atkins diet was popular in the 1970s and has become popular again today is because it allows dieters to eat more of the foods most diets restrict or would never even allow -- such as red meat and high-fat dairy products like cheese and butter. According to the Atkins Web site, the Atkins plan helps people feel less hungry and less deprived than many other diets.
 Image courtesy AtkinsŪ The Atkins Lifestyle Food Guide Pyramid™ |
Unlike the traditional food pyramid, the Atkins pyramid places dietary emphasis on protein sources as opposed to whole grain foods. Additionaly, the Atkins plan doesn't set limits on the amount of food you eat. It only sets limits on the type of food you eat. For example, you cannot eat white rice or foods made with white flour like cake or pasta, but you can eat a large amount of fish, poultry, red meat, eggs and cheese. These foods are made up mostly of protein and fat, as opposed to carbohydrates. Furthermore, Atkins is different from most diets in that you don't need to count calories. In fact, many people on Atkins consume more calories than they were before the diet (one gram of fat contains 9 calories, while one gram of any carbohydrate contains 4 calories).
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A calorie is a measurement of energy. We tend to associate calories with food, but any sort of energy can be measured in calories. The official definition of a calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a gram of water by 1 degree C. A kilocalorie is 1,000 calories. Just to make life confusing, the "calorie" that you see on packages of food is really a "kilocalorie" in the scientific sense. It makes sense that food contains energy, because most foods burn. For example, if you have ever roasted marshmallows, you probably know that marshmallows burn. What's burning in that case is the sugar in the marshmallow. Fat burns too -- you know that if you have ever seen a grease fire. Your body "burns" fats, carbohydrates and proteins -- not with flames, but with more controlled chemical reactions that release the energy in different ways. Fats, proteins and carbohydrates have characteristic calorie measurements. One gram of fat contains almost 9 calories (kilocalories) of energy. One gram of any carbohydrate contains 4 calories (kilocalories). One gram of protein contains 4 calories (kilocalories) as well. Knowing these values, you can calculate the number of calories in any food as long as you know how many grams of fat, protein and carbohydrates it contains. |
Since the Atkins diet occurs in four phases, what you can eat will differ slightly in each phase. As you go through the phases, you are allowed more and more carbohydrates, but they should consist mostly of fiber-rich carbohydrates like leafy greens and certain vegetables. White rice, white bread, potatoes and pasta made from "white" or processed flour remain forbidden-foods for the duration of the Atkins plan. At this point, you may be asking yourself "How can someone lose weight on a diet like this?"
Let's examine how the Atkins plan can result in weight loss.
