Am I On The Atkins Diet? Yes and No...

A friend of mine who's impressed with my progress asked me where she should start to get on track with her weight management. My initial thought was to suggest Atkins, since I use its philosophy as a base for my current regimen. But the truth is, I've been studying longevity management since I was young, when my father had his first heart attack. And I've had a lot of failures and done a lot of damage to myself - even on so called healthy diets like being totally vegan: in an effort to learn how to avoid his fate AND in effort to learn about reversing his condition. Everyone claims to be an authority on the subject of fitness but guess what, nobody yet has avoided dying. So with that said, my PERSONAL philosophy is BALANCE. And to achieve balance, knowledge (about what I'm balancing) is key.

For instance, if I have too much sodium in my diet I can either (a) reduce sodium OR (b) increase potassium and other nutrients OR (c) do both. If too sedentary, get up. If overworked, sit down. It's pretty simple. But knowing how to properly identify imbalances is a HUGE LIFELONG effort. For example, "Listening to your body" during an "Insulin Spike" is a BAD IDEA. Lol. Almost aspect of our existence has a balancing factor. My path is learning to identify and control them (to re-balanced them) in my body (and life).

To digress, I think Atkins is a good place to start and I've used it (and still do) but I don't think it's lifestyle choice for ME (or anyone really); even the maintenance phase; even the "NEW" Atkins. In fact, I feel that way about any "program" out there. They all can't argue with a balanced diet. But what that is for each person is DIFFERENT. And it will change as you change. Each diet has it's strengths and each has it's weaknesses and every person has their strengths and weaknesses to offset. For me, I like to take what I recognize as strengths from the programs I study and reduce the weaknesses for MY situation. And my best advice is make a choice to learn about yourself and the resources you need to maintain yourself personally. Atkins is a solid place to begin learning and losing weight. And the fat loss will be a motivation for you. But don't stop there is all I'm saying. :)