The Atkins Diet

The Atkins diet is a diet that was created to help people lose weight and get a healthier heart and better memory. It was created by Dr. Robert Atkins who said that people who are overweight eat too many carbohydrates. People on the Atkins diet lose weight by not eating foods with too many carbohydrates in them. The body then burns its own fat in a process called ketosis. When someone is in ketosis they get less hungry and don't eat as much food as they would. Ketosis can also cause side effects such as bad breath and constipation however. The diet says that when you eat too much sugar, the body creates insulin which tries to store the extra sugar in the liver. If the liver gets filled to the brim, the body tries to turn the sugar into fat and we get more weight than we lose. That way by getting rid of carbohydrates the body doesn't create fat and we weigh less.

There are four phases to the diet. The first phase is called Induction, the second phase is Ongoing Weight Loss or OWL, the third phase is Pre-maintenance, and the fourth phase is Lifetime maintenance. In the diet you can only eat 54 types of vegetables like brocoli and spinach a small amount of meat and 4 ounces of cheese.