What is the Atkins Diet?

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The cornerstone of the Atkins philosophy is a four-phase eating plan in conjunction with vitamin and mineral supplementation and regular exercise. Further, it is based upon four principles.

The Atkins Nutritional Approach rebalances your nutrition so that you improve your energy level and your appearance and gain a sense of well-being. Following this approach lays the groundwork for a lifetime of better health.

The four-phase individualized eating plan allows you to knowledgeably select which foods to eat based on your need to achieve weight loss and weight maintenance, enjoy good health and prevent disease. Food selections will differ to varying degrees depending upon the phase you are in and your individual metabolism.

The phases in the Atkins roadmap to sustained success are:

Phase 1: Induction

Restrict carbohydrate consumption to 20 grams each day, obtaining carbohydrate primarily from salad and other non-starchy vegetables.

Phase 2: Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL)

Add carbohydrate, in the form of nutrient-dense and fiber-rich foods, by increasing to 25 grams daily the first week, 30 grams daily the next week and so on until weight loss stops. Then subtract 5 grams of carbohydrate from your daily intake so that you continue sustained, moderate weight loss.

Phase 3: Pre-Maintenance

Make the transition from weight loss to weight maintenance by increasing the daily carbohydrate intake in 10-gram increments each week so long as very gradual weight loss is maintained.

Phase 4: Lifetime Maintenance

Select from a wide variety of foods while controlling carbohydrate intake to ensure weight maintenance and a sense of well-being. This lifestyle is the foundation for a lifetime of better health.

Unlike a diet, the Atkins Nutritional Approach is a lifetime nutritional philosophy, focusing on the consumption of nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods and vitanutrient supplementation. Moreover, Atkins restricts processed/refined carbohydrates (which make up more than 50 percent of many people's diets), such as high-sugar foods, breads, pasta, cereal and starchy vegetables. Core vitanutrient supplementation includes a full-spectrum multivitamin and an essential oils/fatty acid formula. This nutritional philosophy has been embraced by an estimated 20 million people worldwide since the release of Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution in the 1970s, and is the cornerstone of the treatment protocols for patients of The Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in New York City.

The Atkins Nutritional Principles

Four principles form the core of the Atkins Nutritional Approach and are supported by a solid foundation of medical and nutritional scientific research.

1. You will lose weight. It’s hard not to. Both men and women who follow the Atkins approach to weight loss readily take off pounds and inches. For the small numbers who have a truly hard-core metabolic resistance to weight loss, there are ways to overcome the barriers that prevent a successful outcome. Optimizing body weight is a valuable element of any health-oriented program because, by and large, being significantly overweight is an indicator of health problems, either now or in the future. When you've pared pounds, you'll see benefits flow in to take their place and they'll be more than merely cosmetic.


2 You will maintain your weight loss. This is where the Atkins Nutritional Approach leaves most other weight-control programs in the dust. Almost every experienced dieter has embarked on a weight-loss program, worked hard at it, lost a lot of pounds and gained them all back in a few months or perhaps a year. This is usually due to the expected consequence of low-fat, low-calorie diets: hunger. Although many people can tolerate hunger for a while, very few can tolerate it for a lifetime. Deprivation is no fun. Once the biological gap between hunger and fulfillment grows too large, the rebound can be rapid, as well as heartbreaking and humiliating. But that’s the problem with diets that restrict quantities. The Atkins program refuses to accept hunger as a way of life. People who do Atkins gradually find their effective individual level of carbohydrate intake, the tool that allows them to maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime.

3. You will achieve good health. The change is amazing. With Atkins, you meet your nutritional needs by eating healthy, wholesome foods and omitting junk food. As a result, fatigue drops from your shoulders like a heavy winter coat you mistakenly wore in summer. This occurs not merely because the pounds drop off, but because the physical consequences of a truly dysfunctional blood-sugar and insulin metabolism are reversed. People who do Atkins start feeling good long before they reach their goal weight. Once they abandon the catastrophic American diet of refined carbohydrates for whole, unrefined food, they start to live again.

4. You will lay the permanent groundwork for disease prevention. You will change your life, which - believe it or not - is even more important than looking good on the beach next summer. By following an individualized controlled carbohydrate nutritional approach that results in lower insulin production, people at high risk for chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes will see a marked improvement in their clinical parameters. All the rest of us won't have to become high-risk candidates for disease. It’s as simple as that.

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If you need a strict regimen to get started on adhering to the Atkins Nutritional Approach™, try this step-by-step approach to Induction for two weeks.

Certain people succeed much better if given a strict regimen to follow. It's likely that if you eat exactly what's presented to you in a One-Week Induction Menu that spells out precisely what to eat, you will achieve weight loss. A reminder: Two weeks on Induction won't get the job done - only a lifetime of health-oriented behavior will. Once you see how easy it is to do Atkins and how impressive your results are, you'll surely want to learn more about making Atkins a permanent way of living. People who are already familiar with the Atkins approach may find this article a helpful review of Induction.


First of all, Dr. Atkins doesn't advise losing more than one pound a day. (People with a lot of excess weight may lose more than a pound a day in the beginning. And you may very well lose water weight this fast in the beginning, and that is also OK.) That's about as fast as a normal human body can dump pounds safely and comfortably. Go faster, and your metabolism won't have had time to adjust. You'll be losing an excessive amount of water and minerals and you may feel fairly awful. Back off and listen to your body.


An important health warning: None of the weight-loss phases of Atkins is appropriate for pregnant women or nursing mothers, and people with severe kidney disease should not do Atkins at all.

Before you begin, you should understand the Atkins Nutritional Principles for weight loss:




During the Induction phase of Atkins your body switches from primarily burning carbohydrates to burning fat as its main energy source.


Controlling carbohydrate intake stabilizes blood-sugar levels, producing diverse and favorable physical effects. You will achieve these benefits by switching to the slower-burning fuel found in proteins and fats.


Typical results of these changes are a decrease in appetite, reduced sugar cravings and dramatic increases in energy.
To jump-start your weight loss, your carbohydrate intake during Induction should be no more than 20 grams a day in the form of vegetables and other acceptable food choices. In this phase you will be eating no breads, sugars, grains, potatoes, rice, pastas or fruits. Once your carbohydrate intake goes below a certain threshold, you will primarily burn your body fat for fuel. Since your body stores enough carbohydrate reserve to fuel it for approximately 48 hours, it will take that long for the process to start. You may feel hungry and out of sorts for the first two to three days. Be patient and persist.

You will follow these basic rules:




Eat three meals a day. Stabilizing the blood sugar is the basic tool of controlled carbohydrate weight loss, and to achieve this you should not go longer than six waking hours without eating acceptable food. You can, however, eat four or five smaller meals a day, as long as you don't exceed 20 grams of carbohydrates.


You are permitted to eat liberal amounts of eggs, meat and fish, including beef, pork, chicken, turkey, duck, wild game, shellfish, veal and lamb. Eat until you feel pleasantly full, but do not gorge.


Liberal amounts of fats and oils are permitted. This includes butter, olive oil, mayonnaise and any oil that is liquid at room temperature. (Consume no hydrogenated oils or other trans fats - including margarine.)


Herbs and spices are permitted as long as they do not contain sugar.


Cheese (aged, full-fat, firm, soft, semisoft) is limited to three to four ounces daily. Fresh cheese, such as cottage cheese and farmer's cheese, is too high in carbohydrates for Induction.


You may have up to three cups of loosely packed (measured raw) salad vegetables each day. This includes all leafy green vegetables, mushrooms, celery, radishes, green peppers and cucumbers. Click here for other permissible salad vegetables.


Other vegetables low in carbohydrates (see Acceptable Foods) are limited to one cup daily. (If you have a cup of these veggies, consume only two cups of salad vegetables.)

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There are a number of dos and dont's you must adhere to for successful weight loss.




You must:

Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of pure water daily. This can be filtered, mineral or spring water (not seltzer). You may also have unlimited amounts of herbal tea (without sugar), but these do not count toward your total of eight glasses.


Drink only decaffeinated coffee and tea and use only acceptable sweeteners (see below).


Treat aspartame (NutraSweet® or Equal®) with caution. Avoid whenever possible. This includes products sweetened with these ingredients, such as diet sodas and diet Jell-O. Instead use sucralose, (Splenda®) or saccharin (Sweet'n Low®).


Check labels on other products that purport to be low- or controlled carb.


When eating out, be careful you're not consuming "hidden" carbohydrates in sauces or breaded products. Tell your waiter that you would like your food prepared free of sugar, flour and cornstarch.


At a minimum, take a good daily multivitamin with minerals, including potassium, magnesium and calcium, but without iron.


Unless you are physically unable to do so, exercise every day, even if it's just a walk around the block. This is an important part of the program in all phases and will certainly increase the rate at which you lose weight. That's because exercise not only causes you to burn calories, it also accelerates your metabolism.




You can:

Have a snack of a permissible food an hour or two after a meal if you wish.




You must not:

Overeat. You may have heard that you can eat as much as you desire of the acceptable foods. Not so. Stuff yourself with steaks and cheeseburgers, and some of that protein will convert to glucose in your body. Instead, simply eat the amount that allows you to feel satisfied.


Drink alcohol in any form.


Use more than three packets of sucralose (Splenda) daily. (More and more products are being made with Splenda so if you use any, don't forget to include those grams in your tally.)


Cheat. It takes two to three days for the body to switch from burning carbohydrates (in the form of glucose) to fat burning. One cheat and you're back to a glucose-burning metabolism, and you can lose the effects of two or three days of fat burning.




You must not eat any of the following:

Sugar (in any form, including corn syrup, honey and maple syrup)


Milk or yogurt (cream is allowed in limited amounts)


Fruit and fruit juice


Flour products (breads, pasta, crackers, etc.)


Grains or cereals


Beans and legumes


Starchy or high-sugar vegetables (potatoes, yams, corn, peas, parsnips, beets, carrots)


Sweet condiments (such as most ketchups, barbeque sauce and balsamic vinegar)


French dressing, Thousand Island dressing (check labels for carb count)


Cottage cheese, farmer's cheese and other fresh cheeses


Nuts and seeds