Can anyone who has carefully read Dr. Atkins' books rationally conclude that he was not largely correct?

Answer 1

Atkins was certainly correct that a diet with lots of carbs is fattening. Nobody argues with that. Many people have lost weight on Atkins, no question there. That's the good news.

The bad news is that Atkins' book goes to great lengths to portray his diet as easy to follow and easy to stick with. Both claims are codswallop. Why? Because Atkins depends on controlling carb intake in 5 gram increments. You simply can't keep tabs of your carbs to that level of precision unless you record every dab of ketchup or salad dressing and count croutons and weigh your asparagus. Then you have to look up the carb values and do the math. Think about doing that for the rest of your life. Hardly anybody will -- therefore hardly anybody will stick to Atkins long term.

The other big controversy is whether it is a healthy diet. Atkins believed that a high fat diet, even high saturated fat diet, is not bad when carbs are limited. In other words, it's the combination of high fat and high carbs that causes heart disease, obesity and diabetes. Was he right? I don't know. I'm not sure that we have a definitive verdict on this. On the other hand, a low carb diet will typically eliminate a lot of snack food which is also high in saturated fat. I'm not sure that following Atkins is really higher fat than the great American diet already is.

I'm not an expert but these are my thoughts for what it's worth.

Answer 2

I thought the book was right on,I didn't like eating so much meat,but I did loose about 20 pounds and do better at avoiding carbs now,especially junk carbs.

Answer 3

carbs, fat, protein, it doesnt really matter what you eat because everything gets broken down into the same components in your body. what really matters are your proportions and how active you are. if i cut carbs out of my diet, a stay the same size as when i eat whatever i want...including reeses miniatures, mmm :) diet, no diet, exercise or no exercise i stay the same size. what does dr. atkins say to that?