Atkins Diet The Atkins Diet is a popular low-carbohydrate diet and lifelong eating plan created in 1972 by cardiologist Robert C. Atkins. The Atkins Diet restricts carbohydrates while emphasizing protein and fats. The Atkins Diet has several phases for weight loss and maintenance, starting out with a very low carbohydrate eating plan. The Atkins Diet, formally called the Atkins Nutritional Approach, has been detailed in many books and is credited with launching the low-carb diet trend.

How It Works The main point of the Atkins diet is the limited consumption of carbohydrates you consume to switch the body’s metabolism from metabolizing glucose as energy over to converting stored fat to energy. So the goal of this diet is almost to trick your body to cause a process called ketosis, with the low amount of carbohydrates you consume the body then has to go to its stored fat for energy conversation, that’s where the weight loss happens.

Expert Reviews Gary D. Foster, PhD, clinical director of the weight and eating disorders program at the University of Pennsylvania, tells WebMD. "The Atkins diet works at producing weight loss. If you are looking for weight loss, yes, it works. If you are looking for improvement in triglycerides and HDL Cholesterol, yes, it works.“ Robert H. Eckel, MD, director of the general clinical research center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is more worried about the long term affect of the diet, "Our worries over the Atkins diet go way past the question of whether it is effective for losing weight or even for keeping weight off. We worry that the diet promotes heart disease… We have concerns over whether this is a healthy diet for preventing heart disease, stroke, and cancer. There is also potential loss of bone, and the potential for people with liver and kidney problems to have trouble with the high amounts of protein in these diets.