why do people say you don't lose fat on atkins?

[katrina428]

I hear people say you don't lose fat on atkins, just water weight, and I'm just wondering, why do people say you don't lose fat?

[Emo_Boy]

Well, the first 10 or so pounds you lose is about 90% water weight. A lot of your induction pounds are pure water. But the fat will come off. One of the problems some have with atkins is that it is very hard to measure how much lbs of fat your losing and how much muscle you are losing. You want to keep as high of a lbm as possible while losing fat. I am an Atkins supporter but to be honest every case study that has ever been conducted in the last 10 years have pointed to that it is not safe for your body to lose more than 3lbs per week and people on Atkins do lose more than that at times.

[BikerGoddess]

Well, unless I was carrying around 50lbs of water, I did lose some fat...

I think what people mean is that they or someone they know couldn't stick with it and only lost the initial water weight. *Anybody* who loses weight in *any* way, loses water weight first. Many other diets, though, after that, cause your body to start consuming muscle and organs to continue functioning. Atkins spares the muscle and burns stored body fat.

I think people assume that Atkins is like any other calorie restrictive diet, which it's not. It works on different scientific principles.

So, what happens is that once your body meets its initial glucose needs (blood sugar levels), it stores additional as glycogen. You store about 2 days' worth, bound with water. Anything extra after that is stored as fat.

When you start Atkins, you burn up blood glucose first, then tap glycogen stores, and along with all that is the water that's tied up with it. That's the water weight thing people talk about. After that, if you continue to restrict sugar/glucose fuels, your body breaks down the stored (and consumed) fat and uses ketones for fuel. Your body can use either glucose or ketones, but not both at the same time.

Once you burn the extra stored fat for fuel, you increase the amount of sugar (essentially. not giving a chemistry lesson here :wink ) in your diet until you're eating just enough to burn for immediate energy needs.

Laura

[BikerGoddess]

I am an Atkins supporter but to be honest every case study that has ever been conducted in the last 10 years have pointed to that it is not safe for your body to lose more than 3lbs per week and people on Atkins do lose more than that at times.

It's commonly accepted that a 'safe' amount to lose is 1-2lbs/week. You'll find that when averaged, it's the amount Atkins' users lose. Losing 4lbs in one week and none the next averages to 2 a week. And since you can fluctuate 7lbs or more in a day, it's not dangerous to have some weeks over 2lbs lost.

I absolutely agree that it's dangerous to lose more than 2lbs/week on a *sustained* basis, but don't get worked up over short-term fast losses.

Laura

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