Fark.com has: "Atkins diet performs best in longest-running, largest head to head comparison of popular diet plans. Suck it, vegans"

You can always count on Fark. Maybe I should dust off my old login and pay a visit there.

Or not.

A good study relating to this topic can be found here.

Dr. Eades blogged about it HERE.

Dr. Mike's quote sums it up impeccably:

A great blog entry from Dr John Briffa in the UK:

Click here: Study confirms superior effectiveness of low-carb eating for weight loss


Very nicely put

This has been splattered all over the news channels and my local news. LOL I love it. They are trying to say it doesnt work, even when the results show it does. On the morning shows, they had "expert nutritionists" saying neither low carb now high grains are ideal- and that you need the right balance..yadda yadda. She went on to say how Atkins dieters have Nasty breath and other Nasty things (I have no idea what they were referring to in that latter part). And that Atkins works for the first two times you do it, but then after that it doesnt work. (huh??)

To me- What works is what is simple. Now if only i could get that through my own thick head....hehe.... I always seem to want to over complicate my diet (ie: the sugar coated butter nuts i bought from target last nigh, knowing i am super addicted to them, but still insisted on buying just to proove that yes- i can eat 1/2 a jar at one sitting. EEK)

Anyhow- Atkins is NOT going ANYWHERE!!! (Especially if we have something to say about it).

I know we humans don't want to believe simple stuff, but it is oh, so true. There is simply no evidence to the contrary. No doubt Atkins works better than other plans. Certainly burning fat for fuel leads to a loss of "unburned" fat in the urine and breath, which can count for a very small caloric "burn" (a few calories a day). But simply, there is no way to lose weight other than putting in less fuel than is used (or discarded sometimes) by the body. It really is that simple.

That said, I am not trying to be controversial. My wife and I have been doing Atkins for 60 days and we feel fabulous and have lost weight and inches. But a big reason is because a) we are not starving due to fluctuating blood glucose levels, and b) we simply cannot eat as many calories by eating fat and protein as we did eating carbs. We would have to eat most of the time. I can eat a 300 calorie piece of beef that fills me up, when it used to take 2 500 calorie donuts and half of a third to do the same. Calories count.

Obviously personal attacks and hyperbole are your preferred method of tantruming. Thus I will stop engaging in a battle of intellect with an unarmed person, and have a reaonable discussion with others.

From Atkins DANDR, p. 143: "Although there is no need to count calories, they do matter. Gaining weight results in taking in more calories than you expend through exercise, thermogenesis (the body's own heat production), and other metabolic functions. Research has shown that on a controlled carbohydrate program, more calories are burned than in a low-fat/high-carb diet, so there is a certain metabolic advantage to the controlled carb approach."

There you have it from the horse's mouth. Elsewhere in DANDR, I believe Dr Atkins states (I paraphrase), "calories do count, but carbs count more."

Anecdotal evidence on this board suggests that on a LC approach, one can consume more calories without weight gain than on other approaches, but only to a certain extent. It is possible to gain weight on LC if one overeats. But in my experience, and as others suggest, it's a lot harder.

Rachel

yes, AND or BUT, changes in the macronutrient composition of your diet will change how much energy you expend regardless of physical activity levels.

That experience is true of many people on this board. But there are also many who are now eating more calories than they did previously and are still losing or maintaining instead of gaining!

Ok, lets make this a bit clearer, shall we?

Nobody here disagrees that there is some calorie intake level on a low carb dietary approach at which a particular individual will gain bodyfat. For most of the people here that calorie intake is so high that the natural hunger limiting effect of a low carb diet makes it quite difficult to achieve.

Many others on this board do still have to exercise some restraint with calorie intake, even in the context of a low carb diet, to prevent bodyfat gain and/or continue losing.

But that individual calorie intake break even point (bodyfat equilibrium) is always much higher with a low carb dietary approach than any other. Just how much higher varies between individuals.

I don't think anyone is really arguing that for bodyfat loss to occur more calories have to be expended or exreted than you consume.

The point is, with a low carb dietary approach you burn and excrete a lot more calories. So the calories consumed on a low carb diet might indeed be greater than before low carb and bodyfat loss still occurs.

Hi-
interesting thread, and I want to thank the posters for the links to the original article and the media coverage of the study.

Elpasopop- please modify your blanket statement, and instead state that in your opinion, FOR YOU, reduced caloric intake is the reason why you think Atkins is working FOR YOU. One of the problems with large controlled studies is that all individual differences are washed out- that is rarely addressed. I respectfully disagree with you, FOR ME- an N of 1.
For ME, caloric restriction has nothing to do with my weight loss and stabilization over the last 3.5 years. LC has corrected my insulin resistance. However, I would also respectfully submit that you and I are different.Which is okay- it 's one of the things that keeps life interesting!

[BTW- a study published in the last 3 years reported that people on LC lost more weight than Low Fat, despite eating an average of 300 calories a day more than the Low Fat group. (Can somone find it- it is in this forum.)]
E

From Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, 1972, page 275:

"Q Don't calories play any role?
A There's no question - of course they do. A 1,500 calorie, ten gram diet will take more weight off-and more quickly--than a 2,000 calorie 10-gram diet. If you can cut down on your quantities, you are better off to do so -- but not when it gets to the point where you have to put up with discomfort or hunger. However, as a traditional overeater, you may have built up a mistaken impression of how much food it takes to satisfy you. On this diet there is a new level of satiety to become familiar with--try eating less and you'll find you are just as comfortable as when you ate more on a higher carboydrate diet. I'm not saying that "calories don't count.""

--page 275. This ought to end all debate really, along with Rachel's quotation from DANDR above.

Calories matter. You can't lose weight without burning more than you take in. That doesn't mean that calorie burn (including use and disposal via ketones) isn't a little different on Atkins, but it does mean that you have to account for the energy someplace.

I don't have the link handy, but the lead researcher (if anyone wants to PubMed for it) is Penelope Greene (GREENE P in PubMed) from Harvard.