Weight Loss Battle: Atkins Diet Versus South Beach Diet

Which Diet is the Winner in the Weight Loss Battle?

Is the Atkins Diet For You?
The Atkins Diet is the grand daddy of the quick weight loss diets. It's based on severely limiting carbohydrates. Carbs are processed by the body to become sugar or glucose in the blood stream. Glucose is used by the body for energy and has to be released by insulin. If the carbs consumed for the day aren't enough, the body transforms the fat it has stored back into glucose for energy. That's the basis of the Atkin's Diet. Severely limit carbohydrates in the daily diet and the body has to fall back on its fat storage for energy.

Carbs also cause the blood sugar to spike which signals the body to produce insulin to remove the sugar from the bloodstream. This causes the blood sugar to drop which results in a craving for more carbs to raise it back up. Keeping the blood sugar levels at an even keel means the feelings of hunger are lessened.

The Atkins Diet's initial two week kick start program only allows 20 grams of carbs per day. The carbs from fiber are netted - subtracted from the total carb count. So for example, while 1/4 cup of blueberries has a total carb count of 5.1 grams, only 4.1 grams are counted because 1 gram is from fiber.

Protein such as fish, chicken, beef, and pork contains 0 grams. The diet also allows cheese and eggs. Seafood is tricky, some, like shrimp, have 0 grams and others like oysters, pack a walloping 12.5 grams per 6 oz.

You can have limited amounts, up to 3 cups daily, of green vegetables such as spinach, lettuce, kale, broccoli, asparagus, and cabbage. Fruit is not allowed. To give you examples of carb counts, an apple has a net 16 grams of carbs, a slice of wheat bread has 12 carbs. Alcohol in any form is not allowed during the kickoff stage. An exercise period of 30 minutes per day is mandatory.