The Atkins Essentials: A Two-Week Program to Jump-start Your Low Carb Lifestyle
368
The Atkins Essentials: A Two-Week Program to Jump-start Your Low Carb Lifestyle
368eBook
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Overview
The must-have companion to the #1 New York Times bestseller, Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, featuring the Atkins Nutritional Approach™— a celebrity-favorite diet perfect for losing weight before your wedding or to bounce back into shape post-baby, or if you just want to look and feel your best.
Millions of people around the world have already discovered the Atkins Nutritional Approach™ and the remarkable benefits of controlling carbohydrates. Now it's even easier to join the revolution, lose weight, and get healthy the proven Atkins way!
With less of the underlying science and more practical information, The Atkins Essentials gets to the meat of the most popular and effective weight control program ever, providing the basic skills necessary to enable you to lose and keep losing unwanted body fat—and to keep it off forever!
Providing clear, concise answers to your questions and concerns, The Atkins Essentials is ideal for anyone seeking a healthier lifestyle. For those new to Atkins, it is a quick and effective way to get started—and for those already on the program, it offers indispensable tips on eating out, stocking your pantry, and more.
Simply put, it is Atkins made easy:
- The ABCs of doing Atkins
- An effective two-week launch into weight-losing mode
- Personal modifications to slow or speed weight loss
- Helpful listings of acceptable and unacceptable foods
- Fourteen days' worth of delicious, controlled carb eating...
And much more!
So get ready to look great and feel great the Atkins way—it's easier than ever before!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061738319 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 08/18/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| Sales rank: | 130,547 |
| File size: | 863 KB |
Read an Excerpt
The Atkins Essentials
A Two-Week Program to Jump-start Your Low Carb Lifestyle
Chapter One
What You'll Gain from Doing Atkins
Before I started doing Atkins, I was 60 pounds overweight and had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and severe headaches. I decided to try Atkins. Within just a few days, my energy level increased and I was enjoying foods that not only tasted good but also filled me up. After about eight weeks, I had lost 40 pounds, my total cholesterol had dropped from 520 to 173 and my triglycerides went from 740 to 119. Six weeks later, my tests were even better. Because I was feeling so good, I decided to take up running and eventually ran a marathon! Today, I am 60 pounds lighter, my blood work continues to be excellent, and my headaches are practically gone. It's been two years since I started my program, and I like myself a lot more today than I used to. Both my energy level and my outlook are much improved, and not just because I'm thinner, but because I'm healthier.
-- Brendan Adams, lost 60 pounds
You already know what you'll lose on Atkins -- weight. But do you have any idea how much you have to gain? You are in for a wonderful ride. While the pounds drop off, you'll reap dozens of other fringe benefits as a result of making the switch to a controlled carbohydrate lifestyle. Some of these benefits come right away, during your first two weeks of the first phase, called Induction. Others come later and will truly change your life. So let's first take a look at the benefits you'll begin enjoying during the first two weeks on the Atkins Nutritional Approach™ (ANA).
Immediate Returnon Investment
1. Lose weight without counting calories. Although you do need to count grams of carbohydrate on Atkins -- at least until you get close to your goal weight -- this is nowhere nearly as painful as counting calories. Of course, you can lose weight by limiting the calories you eat, but the problem is that most of us end up hungry all the time -- and feel weak and miserable as well -- on a low calorie diet. And after you've lost weight this way, it almost inevitably creeps back on, because very, very few people can bear to be hungry -- and grumpy -- forever. In contrast, when you do Atkins, you can eat all the calories you need to feel satisfied -- and the fat on your abdomen, hips, thighs and wherever else it is lurking will melt away. And since you're not hungry, weak and miserable eating this way -- on the contrary, you'll feel satisfied and full of energy -- you'll be able to stay with the program and keep the weight off. That's why we regard Atkins as a lifestyle, not a diet that you go off once you've shed some weight.
WHAT ARE CARBS?
Most people think of carbohydrates only as sugars and starches such as in rice and potatoes; however, all fruits, vegetables, and grains contain carbohydrates. Other foods, such as cheese or legumes (kidney beans and their kin) contain carbohydrates along with fat and/or protein.
2. Control your cravings; curb your appetite. As you will learn in this book, carbohydrates turn into glucose, or sugar, when they're absorbed into your blood. When you eat something like a jelly doughnut, which contains a high dose of carbohydrates, it results in a sudden rise in the amount of sugar entering your bloodstream. This rise is followed by a big dip, as your body chemistry tries to adjust. When those dips occur, your body sends an urgent message to your brain: Get me more sugar! When you do Atkins and stay away from nutrient-deficient, carb-laden foods, however, your blood sugar remains relatively stable throughout the day. This means no more of the food cravings or false hunger pangs that result from those sudden blood sugar dips.
WHAT ARE "BAD" CARBS?
The carbohydrate foods you want to eliminate from your diet forever are breads and pasta made from bleached flour, foods full of sugar in all its forms (including honey and high fructose corn syrup) and convenience foods and snacks (junk foods). Highly processed and low in nutrients, these "bad" carb foods put you on the blood sugar roller coaster.
WHAT ARE "GOOD" CARBS?
During the Induction phase of Atkins, your carbs will come mostly from salad greens, plus dozens of other vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, green beans and cauliflower. Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. has developed many low carb foods that are also suitable for this phase. These carbohydrate foods are full of nutrients, as are the carb foods you will eventually add back into your regimen in later phases of the program: seeds and nuts, berries, whole grains, legumes, other fruits and even small portions of starchy vegetables such as sweet potatoes.
3. Enjoy wholesome, nutrient-dense foods. Another reason you won't be plagued by hunger when you do Atkins is the quality of the food you'll be eating. That means, bite for bite, you're consuming more of the nutrients your body needs than you do when you eat the high carb, processed foods that make up so much of the typical American diet. If you stop feeding your body empty calories, or "fillers" -- such as crackers, cookies, bagels, pasta and sugary drinks -- and instead provide it with highly nutritious foods, you'll feel satisfied sooner, and that satisfaction will last longer. The bonus? At the end of the day, you may end up eating less food without even trying.
The Atkins EssentialsA Two-Week Program to Jump-start Your Low Carb Lifestyle. Copyright © by Cindy Atkins Health & Medical Information Services. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.