How Does the Atkins Diet Work?

The Atkins Diet trains your body to burn its own fat as your primary energy source, enabling you to lose weight and then maintain that weight loss. Your body handles carbohydrates and fats very differently. When you use carbohydrates as your primary fuel, and you consume more carbs than the body needs for energy, it can encourage the storage of fat on your body. But when your carbohydrate consumption is controlled, you convert your body to its back-up fuel system, which is fat burning, and you burn your stored body fat for energy. A low-carb diet also reduces the need for excessive amounts the hormone insulin. Insulin is a hormone that responds to carb intake and plays a major role in weight loss and weight maintenance.

Like a hybrid car, your body can run on two fuels. Both carbohydrate and fat can power your body but it will always burn carbs before fat.

That’s not because carbs are better fuel source. It’s just that it’s easier for your body to use carbs for energy because they break down into glucose, or sugar, in your blood stream more easily after you eat them.

Fat actually supplies a steadier source of fuel. In a minute, I’ll explain why that’s desirable.

As long as you’re eating three meals a day full of carbs, your body rarely gets a chance to burn its back-up fuel: fat. That’s because neither the fat you eat nor your body fat can be burned for energy until the glucose is used up. No wonder it’s so hard to shed pounds!

But you can change that. Once you switch to a low-carb diet, your body burns primarily fat instead. And not just the fat you eat in your meals and snacks. Your body fat actually becomes your main source of energy!

And that, in a nutshell, is the secret of the Atkins Nutritional Approach.

If this sounds odd to you, it is because much of the dietary information we've been fed for many years is missing this key bit of information.

For example, we’ve been told that the best way to lose weight is to cut down on the fats we eat. But it isn’t as simple as that. It turns out that it’s not so much what you eat that impacts your weight. Instead, it’s what your body does with what you eat that makes some people slim and some people plump.

Recent research indicates that for many people, the low-fat diet approach to weight loss is not right for them. Think about it. If low-fat diets work, why are we as a nation so fat? After all, low fat has been the official weight-loss approach for decades.

Atkins takes a different approach.

The process by which your body converts the food you eat into energy and nutrients is called metabolism. As I just explained, fat and carbohydrates provide most of your day-to-day energy needs. But the two behave very differently in your body.

Let’s look at some of the differences between carbohydrates and fats as an energy source.

Carbohydrates convert relatively quickly to glucose, or sugar, which is readily available for energy use. But carbs can also cause ups and downs in your blood sugar levels. That’s why eating a candy bar can give your some quick energy when you’re feeling tired or irritable and then two hours later you get the sugar crash and are looking for more.

Finally, when you don’t use that sugar for energy, your body stores as fat. That’s right, excess carbs turn to body fat.

Now let’s compare what fats do.

Fats provide a steady source of energy without the ups and downs of glucose. Fats help moderate blood-sugar swings by slowing down the release of sugars into the blood.

Now for you to fully understand that link between excessive intake of carbohydrates and weight gain, let me very briefly explain the relationship between glucose, or blood sugar, and insulin.

You’ve probably heard about insulin as a drug people with certain kinds of diabetes need to take. But all of us, no matter how healthy, experience changes in our insulin level throughout the day.

When you eat a high-carb meal, your blood glucose level rises. To avoid it becoming too high, your pancreas sends out some insulin to help transport the glucose to your cells.

The more carbs, the more glucose is produced, and the more need for insulin. And the more insulin in your system, the more likely you are to have a weight problem. In fact, insulin is known as the fat storage hormone, because excessive amounts in your system tend to make you heavier.

You want to have a steady blood sugar level throughout the day. Insulin plays a major role in maintaining that balance. But after years of over consumption of carbs, your insulin may not work as well at clearing the glucose. So your body keeps pumping out more and more.

That’s when problems such as the metabolic syndrome and pre-diabetes can begin. We’ll talk more about them in the next pod cast, as well as how the Atkins Diet can improve your health as well as your weight.

Meanwhile, the take-away here is that by shifting your metabolism from a primarily carb-burning system to a primarily fat-burning system, you can burn your own body fat for energy. This allows you to lose weight. Once you’ve lost those extra pounds, feed your body enough healthy natural fats like olive oil, avocado, salmon, and dozens of other delicious foods and you’ll be able to maintain your healthy new weight.

You’ll learn all the ins and outs of how to do the Atkins Diets in our four interactive courses, one for each phase, on the Atkins Community Forum. We also offer five sets of FAQs for quick reference on the program as a whole.