Warren Dew wrote:

Gallstones wrote:I could never make a lifestyle out of Atkins. I LIKE vegetables and fruit and carbohydrates.

Atkins allows unlimited nonstarchy vegetables at all times, and unlimited fruit after the brief "induction" phase. It even allows bread during the "maintenance" phase, though in my opinion that's what keeps it from being more successful than it is.

If by "carbohydrates" you mean lots of refined sugar, though, you're out of luck with Atkins.

Guy McNally wrote:I successfully lost a butt load of weight with the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. The basic idea is controlling insulin, which plays a role in fat storage and in turning hunger on and off. The most radical part of the diet, as I recall, was going carb free for the first week or so. After that, however, it's just low carb for 2 meals, and sensible 3rd. It's not a high-protein diet.

When I eat a carb-rich diet, I am ALWAYS hungry. I could eat an entire pizza and never feel sated, so this diet made sense for me. On the diet, an egg (that's it, an egg) would last me from 6:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m., when I would have a chef's salad or something. I cheated on the diet and went even lower carb than it allows, however, and would only eat meat-vegetable combinations for dinner, maybe with a wee bit of rice or potato.

NO sugar of any kind, which means most commercially prepared salad dressings and sauces. I summed up the book in a 5-page Word file if anyone wants it. PM me if interested.

Warren Dew wrote:

xrayzed wrote:There was a British doco on the Atkins diet a few years ago. They took a novel approach, and actually looked at research instead of simply asking people for opinions. They developed a fairly convincing case that the Atkins diet's successes were primarily due to the high levels of protein, which meant dieters tended to feel "fuller" without consuming large quantities of carbs.

The presentation in the original post does indeed show that those on Atkins showed slightly higher protein intake than those on the other diets. That might well be part of why people can stick to the Atkins diet better than they can to some other diets.

That said, the presentation also indicates that those on Atkins reduced their caloric intake by a comparable amount to those on the other diets - from about 2000 kcal/day to about 1500 kcal/day - so satiety doesn't appear to be the full story.

xrayzed wrote:In other words they felt full at 1500 kcal/day, which is precisely what I was saying.

Warren Dew wrote:

xrayzed wrote:In other words they felt full at 1500 kcal/day, which is precisely what I was saying.

Well, except for the fact that the people in the study who followed the diets that decreased protein intake rather than increasing it also ended up at around 1500 kcal/day. Possibly they were starving while the people on Atkins felt full, but the study here doesn't address that question.