Atkin's Diet

[Malakar]

Low carb is just an empty phrase now anyway.

Indeed it is, I've even seen "Low carb bread," lol.

Anyway, this is my understanding of how weight works. Everyone has their own natural metabolism, and their own natural "hunger rate". Your hunger rate cannot be changed except apparently by going through the stomach stapling surgery, but your metabolic rate can be increased by increasing muscle mass. Weight training is the best way to stimulate muscle growth, but in order for it to be successful you must feed your body with enough protein necessary to create muscle tissue. Note that during weight training you are actually breaking down muscle tissue to stimulate growth; the actual growth occurs during subsequent rest.

As others have stated, carbs work as energy, and are stored in fats when they aren't used. Most fat people have a high natural hunger rate, with little muscle mass or exercise, and thus take in much more carbs than they need. I guess the Atkin's diet kind of tricks your stomach into thinking you ate a lot by filling it with protein, while depriving your body of carbs to force it to use up its reserves. If you exercise during the diet, the protein serves a dual purpose of building muscle as well, which will help burn more carbs.

I would only consider something like the Atkin's diet for women, because I doubt most women want to be bulky with muscle. For men, it's far better to replace the fat with muscle. In fact, it tends to be easier for fat guys to build muscle than skinny guys, because their high natural hunger rate tends to make them take in enough food to build muscle quickly. Skinny guys generally have to pay more attention to their eating habits and force themselves to eat when they're not hungry but can eat.

Another thing people tend to overlook is that a few pounds is both a lot of weight and not a lot at the same time. Two pounds is a lot of weight to gain/lose in one day, but at the same time is it not much to be immediately concerned about on the scale. Your body weight fluctuates slightly based on when you eat, drink, have bowel movements, and urinate. Thus 2 pounds could simply be a fluctuation and is thus not much to be concerned about on a daily basis, and yet, a daily loss/gain of 2 pounds is a lot. So you should look at average gains/losses over a period of time, and remember that 2 pounds per day is a lot.