by Westman, Dr. Eric C. ; Phinney, Dr. Stephen D. ; Volek, Dr. Jeff S.
A high-protein diet has been shown to increase calcium excretion in the urine, prompting concern about a negative effect on bone health. However, recent research indicates that this loss of calcium is offset by increased absorption of calcium and the net effect is increased bone mass.6 Concerns about an increased risk of developing osteoporosis in healthy individuals are likewise unfounded.7
REVIEW POINTS
• Protein requirements should be based on your height, taking into consideration your activity level and other personal factors.
• Your protein needs will best be met by including protein in each meal.
• Eating a bit more than the RDA for protein helps preserve muscle mass, especially during weight loss.
• The satiating quality of protein helps keep you from overeating.
• Our recommended protein-intake range has been linked to a reduction in obesity and improvement in many other health problems.
• You’ll be eating plenty of protein, but Atkins is not a high-protein diet.
In the next chapter, you’ll learn about the crucial role that dietary fat plays in weight control and good health. But first let’s visit with Loralyn Hamilton, who dispatched her excess pounds fourteen years ago—for good.
SUCCESS STORY 4
DOING WHAT COMES NATURALLY
For fourteen years and counting, Loralyn Hamilton has followed Atkins to keep her weight under control and boost her energy. As she’s come to know how her body works and to trust her instincts, living a low-carb lifestyle has become second nature.
VITAL STATISTICS
Current phase: Lifetime Maintenance
Daily Net Carb intake: 80–100 grams
Age: 35
Height: 5 feet, 6 inches
Before weight: 165 pounds
Current weight: 130 pounds
Weight lost: 35 pounds
What motivated you to try Atkins?
The first time I did Atkins was when I was a freshman in college. I needed to be careful about what I ate ever since I was 14, but it wasn’t until I was 19 that I put on 30 pounds. Also, I wasn’t feeling well. I was so tired that I couldn’t easily walk from one class to another, and mentally, it was very difficult. Judging from my midmorning and midafternoon sugar crashes, my doctor said that I was borderline hypoglycemic. He told me to cut back on the sugar and eat more protein. After reading about the Atkins Diet, I decided to try it. I lost 35 pounds, had a lot more energy, and the sugar crashes stopped.
Did you experience any major hurdles?
Plateaus, of course, and getting those last 5 pounds off was difficult. As a college student, it was difficult to find food that I could eat. Every time I went somewhere and ordered a cheeseburger without a bun, everyone thought I was crazy. Of course, now it is the norm.
Did you incorporate fitness into your lifestyle?
I bought a little treadmill and walked on it for 5 minutes a day, slowly getting up to 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Now I stretch and work out for about 10 minutes a day on the glider.
Did you fall off the wagon at any point?
No, but I intentionally migrated off a couple of times. Once I tried Slim-Fast, but I was hungry all the time and was not a nice person on it! When I became pregnant, I was in the Lifetime Maintenance phase and although I thought I could stay there I wasn’t really sure about the impact of it, so I took a moderately low-carb approach. I hope to become pregnant again soon, and this time I will stay in the maintenance phase.
After fourteen years, is doing Atkins second nature?
My husband eats the same way I do, which makes it easy. In fact, on our first date, we discovered we both watched our carbs. I’d never dated anyone else who did. We follow our own version of Atkins simply because we know what works for us and what doesn’t. After a while, you come to know your system. Occasionally, I’ll have a piece of bread or pancakes with sugar-free syrup. If they make me feel extra hungry the next day, I eat plenty of meat and butter and salad dressing to satiate myself.
So basically you find it easy to maintain your weight?
Yes. I weigh myself about three times a week. It’s a motivational thing for me. My weight cycles between 130 and 135 pounds. When I’m at the top end of that, I can take off the extra 3 to 5 pounds quickly, but my body doesn’t want to go below 130. If I realize I’m consuming too many carbs, I’ll have eggs for breakfast and chicken or beef and some vegetables for lunch and dinner and the pounds come off in a week or so.
What tips can you offer other people about maintaining their weight long term?
Most people need to realize that they will be able to incorporate the foods they love back into their lifestyle once they know their Atkins Carbohydrate Equilibrium (ACE) and therefore how their body processes carbs. Focusing on the good things you can eat and enjoy works better than focusing on those you can’t handle. You have to retrain your mind to think of the benefits. Resistance only makes you want something more. If you think of wanting an inappropriate food as something temporary, you can push through the difficult points and stay on track.
Chapter 5
MEET YOUR NEW FRIEND: FAT
The simplistic idea that eating fat makes you fat has no scientific basis, despite the old saw that you are what you eat. More accurately, you are what your body chooses to store from what you eat.
It’s time to stop thinking of dietary fat as your enemy. One more time, loud and clear: fat is a key source of energy and essential nutrients, and you cannot live without it. Counterintuitive as it may be, replacing sugars and refined carbohydrates with natural fats also plays an important role in helping with weight control. In fact, fat can be a high-energy food that gives you a metabolic edge, what we call the Atkins Edge. When you increase your intake of fat in place of carbs, you’ll experience a higher and more consistent energy level.
But first, let’s get a few terms and definitions onto the table. When scientists refer to fat, they usually use the term “fatty acids,” which are part of a group of substances called lipids. And because they are insoluble in water, dietary fats enable your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, as well as certain other micronutrients in vegetables.
MULTITASKING FATS
Fat-containing cells cushion many parts of your body, including bones and organs, and help insulate us from cold. Fatty acids are also vital ingredients in membranes, which are basically the wrappers that act as the cells’ gatekeepers, controlling what comes in and goes out. Many of our cells, including brain cells, contain specific essential fatty acids that are necessary for healthy brain function, enabling our nerves and hormonal system to transmit signals to the rest of our body, among other important functions.
All well and good, you are probably saying, but what I really want to know is, how can fat make me thin? As you already know, along with protein, fat helps increase satiety. And because fat carries flavor, it makes food more satisfying. So what? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that 500 Calories of fat give you as much satiety as 1,000 Calories of refined carbs. Which is the better choice if you want to lose weight? Fat in the diet also slows the entry of glucose into the bloodstream, moderating the highs and lows of blood sugar that can lead to renewed hunger soon after eating carbs. Bottom line: eat fats in place of carbs, and you’re less apt to overeat. These entwined properties are essential to the processes of both losing weight and then keeping it off.
Despite all these benefits, dietary fat has been demonized over the last half century. For too long, the public and even some nutrition scientists have bought into the simplistic idea that eating fat makes you fat. That’s remarkable because there’s no compelling research that shows that natural fat is bad for you. In fact, it’s just the opposite. First, in and of itself, properly selected dietary fat isn’t a threat to health. Secondly, there are now hard data to demonstrate that consuming as much as 60 percent of calories as fat in the early phases of Atkins poses no health hazard. But there is a big but— no pun i
ntended! It’s the combination of fat and a relatively high intake of carbohydrates—particularly refined ones—that can become a deadly recipe for obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and a host of other ills. We’ve touched on it before, but in this chapter, we’ll prove to you that dietary fat is fine in the context of a low-carb lifestyle.
CONFUSION OVER CALORIES
The higher calorie content per gram of fat compared to that of protein and carbohydrate has undoubtedly added to the phobia about eating fatty foods. (A gram of fat contains 9 Calories; a gram of protein or carbohydrate contains 4 Calories.) Gram for gram, reducing the amount of fat you eat would appear to be the best way to reduce calories, but the weight of food is not what counts. It’s all about what foods do once they enter your body, and fat can do wonderful things when consumed in combination with the right ratio of carbs. Statistics reveal that fat intake by Americans hasn’t changed much from 1971 to 2000.1 The same cannot be said for carbohydrates. Their intake has increased in tandem with skyrocketing rates of obesity. In actuality, people have replaced some of their dietary fat with an even greater amount of carbohydrates. The real culprit is increased calorie intake in the form of carbs, aided and abetted by a lack of regular activity. Absolute fat intake has stayed about the same or actually decreased slightly. So much for the “eat fat, get fat” misconception.
Moreover, there’s a reason why restricting only calories may not get you the weight loss results you desire. Much as gasoline fuels a car, your body runs on energy provided by the food you eat. Just as you conserve gas by driving at a lower speed, your body conserves valuable energy when it senses that food is in short supply. This self-regulating process was a lifesaver in the days when our ancestors had to endure periods of food scarcity. When fewer calories come in, your metabolism gets stingy with the calories it expends. So calories from healthy, natural fats may be the very thing you need to get your metabolism tuned to the right mix of fuels and sustain your energy level.
WHAT HAPPENS TO DIETARY FAT?
What occurs when you eat fatty foods depends upon what else is on your plate and how your body responds to it. If you’re young and active, you may be able to eat lots of fat—and carbs—and stay slim. On the other hand, if you’ve lost that youthful resilience, live a sedentary lifestyle, and continue certain dietary habits, you’re likely to accumulate body fat. If you’re already overweight and eating lots of carbs—with or without much fat—you’ll rarely if ever tap into your excess body fat as an energy source. Instead, it just continues to accumulate, year after year. This is why the low-fat/ high-carb approach has failed to work for so many of us. But cutting down on carbs releases you from this fat-holding pattern. When your carb intake is low, your body recovers its capacity to burn fat, so your fat intake can be relatively high without any adverse effect on your weight or health.
Some people mistakenly assume that a marriage of Atkins and a low-fat diet is the best of both worlds. Not so! As long as you’re restricting carbohydrates, the dietary calories from fat are used directly for energy and are unlikely to be stored. Yummy foods such as nuts, guacamole, whipped cream, olives, pesto, butter, and chicken salad made with mayonnaise help provide satiety so you can keep your appetite under control. They also ensure an adequate calorie intake so your metabolism doesn’t dial itself down to “low,” slowing weight loss. Protein can’t do the job on its own. The tag team of fat and protein keeps you from feeling deprived.
So what happens if you try to cut out fats in an effort to coax the pounds to come off faster? In short, problems arise, all of which can be managed but require close medical supervision. So yes, doctors do sometimes put hospital patients on a low-carb and low-fat program to resolve serious metabolic issues, but such a program must be closely supervised. Eating sufficient fats is key to making Atkins work safely. So stop worrying and start enjoying the delicious foods you can eat on Atkins.
Fat metabolism is perfectly natural for your body, and the fastest path to getting into the fat-burning mode is the Induction phase, in which you wean your body away from its carb and glucose habit. It can take several weeks to fully convert your metabolism to burning primarily fat, but after the first week of restricting carbs, you’ll be most of the way there. However, even one high-carb meal will slow your conversion progress.
Another common misconception is that eating fatty foods initiates the burning of body fat. Not so. It’s simply the restriction of carbohydrates that acts as the stimulus.2 Nor is dietary fat burned before body fat. Rather, existing body fat stores intermingle with incoming dietary fat, much as the remaining fuel in your gas tank mixes with new gas when you start pumping more in. So when you’re adapted to fat metabolism, some of the ingredients in the blend burn faster; the rest are recirculated, and the blend is remixed on a regular basis. This way, your body gets to pick and choose which fats it burns and which it keeps for later. As we will tell you over and over again, you’re not what you eat. Rather, you are what your body chooses to store from what you eat. Your job is to give it good choices and let it do its job.
THE CHOLESTEROL MYTH
THE MYTH: Eating fatty foods raises cholesterol to dangerous levels.
THE REALITY: The idea of eating less carbohydrate and more fat inevitably raises the specter of cholesterol and its relationship to cardiovascular health. But calm down. Like fats, cholesterol is a lipid. And like them, it’s essential for life, in this case normal cellular function, hormone production, and infection fighting. Unlike fat, however, cholesterol has no calories, so your body doesn’t burn it for energy. Though you do absorb some cholesterol from eating animal products—plants contain none—your own liver makes the vast majority of the cholesterol in your body from scratch, independently of how much cholesterol you eat. So, yes, the amount of cholesterol in your diet influences your cholesterol levels somewhat, but so does your genetic predisposition and, most important, the mix of other nutrients you eat. Give your body the right combination of nutrients, and it will figure out how to safely process cholesterol.
THREE “FLAVORS” OF FAT
Although most foods contain a mixture of fat—the three main classes are based on chemical structure—they’re typically categorized by their predominant fat.
• Monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) are found in olive oil, canola oil, and in walnuts and most other nuts, as well as avocados. MUFAs are usually liquid at room temperature.
• Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are always liquid both at room temperature and in the refrigerator. They’re found mostly in oils from vegetables, seeds, and some nuts. Sunflower, safflower, flaxseed, soybean, corn, cottonseed, grape seed, and sesame oils are all high in PUFAs. So are the oils in fatty fish such as sardines, herring, and salmon.
• Saturated fatty acids (SFAs) tend to remain solid at room temperature. Butter, lard, suet, and palm and coconut oils are all relatively rich in saturated fats.
Remember, most fatty foods contain more than one type of fat. For example, canola oil contains twice as much monounsaturated fat as polyunsaturated fat, so it’s considered a MUFA. And although most people assume all the fat in a steak is saturated, certain cuts of beef actually contain almost as much MUFA as SFA and even a small amount of PUFA.
THE SATURATED FAT MYTH
THE MYTH : Saturated fat is to blame for a host of health ills.
THE REALITY: Nothing could be further from the truth. Recent research actually points to the benefits of saturated fat as part of a balanced intake of natural fats. Harvard researchers found that the higher their subjects’ intake of SFAs, the less plaque they had in their arteries.3 And although some types of SFAs increase cholesterol levels, replacing dietary carbohydrate with either protein or any kind of fat lowers your blood triglyceride level and elevates HDL (”good”) cholesterol levels.4 Moreover, the number of small, dense LDL (”bad”) particles actually decreases, becoming the fluffy, less risky type.5 So where did the SFA go? When carb intake is restricted, the body makes less sa
turated fat and simultaneously burns more of it. And, strange but true, research shows that during the weight loss phases of Atkins, if you eat saturated fat, the less carbohydrate you eat, the more you reduce the saturated fat levels in your blood.6 Even in the weight maintenance phases of Atkins, the increased intake of saturated fat is associated with decreased blood levels of SFAs.
All three of these classes of fats can be healthy, but getting the right balance in your diet is important to give your body the variety it needs. At present, the American diet tends to be high in polyunsaturates, which is fine for people who eat a low-fat diet. However at higher levels of fat intake, certain PUFAs lower both “good” and “bad” cholesterol. Though the latter is desirable, the former is not—it increases the risk for heart disease—so we recommend that you not add much more PUFAs. (This advice does not apply to fatty fish, discussed below.)
MUFAs, on the other hand, lower LDL (”bad”) cholesterol and triglyceride levels without lowering HDL (”good”) cholesterol levels. The higher the proportion of these oils you eat, the better, starting with olive oil. Dress salads and vegetables alike with extra-virgin olive oil. For cooking, your best bets are virgin olive oil, canola, and high-oleic safflower oil (which is labeled for high-heat use), all rich in MUFAs and with relatively high smoke points. Safflower imparts no taste to foods. Both canola and safflower oil are inexpensive; however, canola should be refrigerated to guard against rancidity. Canola oil also can impart an off taste when heated. Feel free to cook with butter and add a pat to vegetables, meat, or fish at the table. Coconut oil is also fine in the context of a low-carb diet. Be careful not to heat oils to their smoke point or burn them, as that causes chemical changes that can turn a good fat bad.