As many of you know, I kind of did my weight loss backward. I read one book, lost the weight, and now am reading the diet books I didn't read while I was losing. Well, I finally got the 2002 Atkins Diet book, and boy is it a doozy. There is so much wrong with it that I decided to take an entire post here to taking it down.
I had originally decided it would be a humorous take on the book, but I'm sorry, Dr. Atkins managed to royally tick me off. So while there are humorous bits, I do get steamed by the end. I will try to keep it entertaining as I can.
Note: All references are to Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, (c) 2002.
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As far as I can tell from skimming the Internet, this is the last version of the Atkins diet actually written by its originator, a cardiologist. There have been later versions which further refine the diet and practice. I don't intend to address those in this post.
The First Impression: How Does Atkins Sell the Diet?
The first impression I got just reading the first few pages was that this diet is clearly a scam. There was a lot of unnecessary bolding and italicizing, nearly full pages of obvious questions in an attempt to get readers to agree with the author (e.g. "Don't you want to lose weight? Feel Better? Dance all night long?"), but on top of that, I got the impression that Dr. Atkins didn't understand how to write very well.
The idea with writing, especially persuasive writing, is to draw the reader in. So why Dr. Atkins would think that his readers want to fantasize about him drooling over the food he allows in his diet is beyond me.(1) I would think that, like most people, the idea should be getting the potential sucker...I mean dieter...into the scenario her or himself. That came off not only as a scam, but kind of creepy, too. It amazes me that anyone actually fell for this.
Now, anyone who has seen diet advertising knows the standard pitches. "Lose Weight While Eating the Foods You Love!" (as long as you love kale) "No Calorie Counting!" (but count other stuff) There is always some form of calorie restriction, whether it actually involves counting calories specifically or restricting portion size. The trick for the successful person who loses weight is finding the form of calorie restriction that works. But this book doesn't restrict anything but carbohydrate intake.
The Second Impression: This Can't Work As A Weight-Loss Diet
Dr. Atkins says several times in this book that this "diet" is not supposed to allow the dieter to eat unlimited amounts of meat and cheese, yet he gives no guidance on acceptable portions or ways to judge what is the difference between "eating until satisfied" and "stuffing" oneself. While he does suggest some limits on snacks, there is no standard amount of "acceptable" meat in meals, other than him stating his belief that people aren't likely to overeat steak.
Yes. And Americans aren't likely to overeat mutton(2), either, because it's both largely unavailable to us and undoubtedly expensive where it is. However, there's no guarantee we won't overeat cheaper meats like hot dogs, chicken, turkey, and so on if we were to follow this diet. There's no attempt to use anything like the Hunger Scale or other measures of fullness, just a few weak "Don't do it, please" requests.
Victim-Blaming: It's Your Fault If You Can't Give Up Carbs
There is a LOT of victim-blaming in this book. One major criticism of the Atkins diet readily available on the Internet is that it's too hard to follow long-term. I'm guessing someone told Dr. Atkins before he wrote this version of the book, because he goes after those he deluded into trying his plan like crazy for not doing well enough in following his diet. Almost every chapter of the book, once he gets into the diet plan itself, contains a supposed "question" from a dieter about the diet not working, and his answer almost inevitably is that the dieter must be doing something wrong. It's relentless.(3)
This isn't even the worst thing he does in this book, though his insistence that there's no difference between simple and complex carbohydrates is bad enough(4), plus his ban on coffee. He decides to pontificate on what food allergy really is. And that was my last straw.
Food Allergy: Just Causes Cravings (5)
Food allergies cause a lot of problems, including possibly death, but they are not and do not cause food cravings. This is just a flat-out lie by Atkins. There can be vomiting in response, especially in children. There can be complete shutdown of the hunger response, which I have experienced, in the body's attempt to save itself from a worse reaction. Itching, burning, swelling, tiredness, soreness, head fog, even a symptom called a "sense of doom" (mostly associated with nut and seed allergies) can result from eating a food to which one is allergic.
It does not cause cravings. Here, Atkins is completely ignoring all medical research and making up his own meaning for a real condition, a real disability, because he wants to. He refers to food allergies as addictions.(6) They are not.
In fact, he dedicates an entire chapter in this book to redefining food allergy the way he'd rather have it, not the way it is. And it's true. Actual research is against the lies he pushes in Chapter 26, which he titles Food Intolerances: Why We Each Require a Unique Diet.
For example, he refers to foods that are commonly seen as having low to very low allergy-causing potential, like coffee, citrus, chicken, onion, and artificial sweeteners, as "very common allergy-causing foods."(7) He also states without evidence that "Many Asians are allergic to rice, many Italians to wheat and many Mexicans to corn." (8) Actually, rice allergy is almost unknown except in Asia, where there is a low level of rice allergy.
He continues to confuse allergy with addiction and also wrongly pushes desensitization at home of foods to which one is allergic, which could cause unpleasant symptoms or death.(9) In short, given how wrongly he gets this actual medical condition, and how little he must care for the health of people by pushing ideas that would actually harm anyone with this life-threatening condition, I wouldn't trust "Dr." Atkins to get anything else right, either.
And neither should you.
So this is what I've been doing, researching the Atkins diet book. How about you? :)
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End Notes
(1) Atkins, p. 5
(2)I have never seen mature sheep meat available even in specialty grocery stores in America. Lamb is sometimes available, but usually incredibly expensive and seasonal only.
(3) p. 223, for one example
(4) P. 82-3
(5) p. 186-7
(6) p. 200
(7) p. 339
(8) p. 339
(9) p. 342