Hello,

I ruined my health as you will because Atkins takes your insulin too low. Thus you are unable to rebuild functionality that you are losing along with your fat, such as hormones, muscle tissue and other body parts that need enough insulin to rebuild. You ruin your health with Atkins because your body adjusts your insulin and adrenal hormones (actually all of them) to what you are doing. When your try to adjust back, you gain weight more quickly because your body is trying to rebuild you even faster than before because it believes you have been in a famine and it needs to rebuild those body parts. You will also build lots of fat since insulin rebuilds both lean and fat. The real trick for the Atkins people is that even the ones who never go back to eating carbs get more insulin resistance with your body attempting to rebuild anyway. Now, you've really got a problem because there's no more carbs to take out to handle your extra insulin. It's not the food you're eating, it's the way your cells handle the food. Short term on Atkins, things do get better because you've eliminated a major cause of insulin, food! However, the insulin you really want to eliminate is the insulin that your body is releasing in an effort to rebuild you. To do this, you have to get worse before you get better and let your body rebuild itself. When you do, you will get fatter but when you are done, your body will be able to burn off the excess fat naturally without this monumental effort. Read Schwarzbein Principle II to understand this better.

As for your son, I doubt if he's been diagnosed at a person with pcos. My point is that doctors are missing a glandular cause for the insulin resistance in pcos patients which should be replaced just as someone with thyroid disease needs thyroid replacement, so things will work normally. You cannot work around a glandular dysfuction with dietary changes. However, obviously your son did not get insulin resistant from pcos or low estradiol. There are many causes of insulin problems and the trick is to find out how he got that way. Maybe he really did overeat carbohydrates. Probably in him, the zone would work as well and he wouldn't get the problems you get in Atkins. I can't tell you as I haven't studied boys as much as pcos women.

I knew I didn't get overweight through overeating and underexercising and finally found a doctor who knew what to do so I didn't have to starve myself anymore. I just wanted to share in case anyone else thinks it applies to them.