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What
Atkins Diet Foods Can I Eat
Atkins diet
foods are easy to find and available everywhere. There are many
varieties to choose from, whether you pick prepackaged low-carb diet
foods or make your own meals. No matter how you want to do the Atkins
plan, there is a solution out there for you.
Perhaps the Atkins diet appealed to so many dieters because it seemed
simple. Many dieters prefer to have strict rules and regulations to
guide them through weight loss. Meat is good. Carbs are bad. These
mantras were heard all around our country. Restaurants saw dramatic
changes in what their customers were ordering. Even bars felt the fad
as diet coke and bicardi became a slogan and billboards promoting the
diet-friendly cocktail sprung up over cities.
You’ll need to keep the Atkins food pyramid in mind when you make food
choices. The Atkins pyramid looks much different than the USDA Food
Guide Pyramid. The base of the pyramid consists of protein sources such
as eggs, fish, beef, chicken and tofu. On a daily basis, your diet
should consist primarily of these foods. The second tier has low
glycemic vegetables like salad greens, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus
and spinach.
The third tier is made up of berries and avocado. Fruits should be used
on an occasional basis after the initial stages of the Atkins diet.
Vegetable and seed oils, cheese, dairy, nuts and legumes are used
sparingly and in appropriate portions. While the FDA pyramid has oils
and fats at the top peak, the Atkins pyramid places whole grain foods
in this spot. Whole grain foods should be used very occasionally and
don’t make up the mainstay of the Atkins diet.
Most people on the Atkins eating plan think about trying the Atkins
bars. Though these have their place in the diet, they should be used
with caution. The Atkins company is no longer run by Dr. Atkins, as he
has passed on, and some of the changes they have made do not
necessarily reflect his idea of what this eating plan is all about.
Atkins bars are not a no-no, and they certainly have a place in this
eating plan, but a person should use caution. Try them one or two days
for one week to be sure they agree with your body, and then add more in
if you like. It might be tempting to try them early on, but anyone
hoping to succeed should give it a few months before they try them to
be sure their system is ready to handle them without adverse affects to
their eating plan. When it comes to finding something simple and easy,
the Atkins bars are great when appropriate.
When you start the Atkins plan, you’ll need to make sure you understand
which foods are acceptable for your stage of the program. The Induction
phase is the most restrictive, but it only lasts two weeks.
The focus of meat in the Atkins diet was much easier to implement and
more easily accepted than an anti-meat diet would have been. I cannot
imagine a large cross-section of America easily letting go of their
barbeque anytime soon. The Atkins diet did come under some scrutiny
from those that thought it did not do enough to promote the eating of
fruits and vegetables. Others believed that a strict no carbohydrate
diet was too much for systems that were used to carbs and had been
ingesting them all of their lives.
A good resource for keeping track of the appropriate Atkins foods is an
online diet program. There are several available. Some are free and
some have a small monthly fee. The programs require you to register and
then they provide you with personal weekly menu plans based on your
needs and your carbohydrate gram level. There are normally printable
weekly shopping lists that make picking up your Atkins diet foods from
the grocery store easy and quick.
Atkins diet food is easy to find once you know what you are looking
for. The books, food pyramid and online resources can help you make
better food choices and stay on the diet for the long term.
This
information is
not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and
informational purposes only
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