Dear Georgie,
My husband is starting the Atkins diet! On the bright side, I think this will make some things easier for me because he will be watching what he is eating and having less temptations around. But I'd love some reading on this, either for my knowledge or anything I should have him read. I'm concerned about his health. - Joan

The elements which can (but don't have to) make a low carb diet detrimental to health include:

• ​High fat intake. Diets which are higher than about 40% calories from fat are causally linked to the development of insulin resistance, leptin resistance, obesity, increased appetite and decreased satiety, increased inflammation, and unhealthy changes in gut flora which increase risk for further weight gain and abdominal pains/digestive pain when fibers or carbohydrates are reintroduced. (a-j).
  
• Decreases in mental well-being (some but not all studies have found that low carbohydrate intake is related to worse moods). (k, l)
  

• Impaired athletic ability (particularly speed/power) (m, n)

The first 3 you can do something about by making specific choices within the Atkins Diet parameters, but the last 2 are directly due to low carbohydrate intake, and you can't raise carbohydrate intake and be on the Atkins diet.

To maximize fiber: get as many vegetables as the phase will allow. Use avocado for some of your fats, since it also provides a good amount of fiber. Chia and flax seeds can also help provide fiber without many digestible carbohydrates. Don't use carbohydrate allowances for sugars or white bread. Use them for plants!

To minimize the health risks of a high fat diet, don't go sky high in fat (you don't have to put butter in your coffee), include seafood twice a week, choose more olive oil, nuts and avocado and less fatty red meat (bacon, hamburger, steak), and use cheese and butter less often. A Mediterranean diet pattern including 1-3 tablespoons (15-45 mL) of olive oil every day has been shown to improve triglycerides and markers of inflammation, so think in spoonfuls, not glugs straight from the bottle (o).

Also, if the individual is in a calorie deficit (calorie deficit = weight decreasing) then the risks to cholesterol levels and blood lipids are reduced. Even an "artery-clogging diet" doesn't have so many damaging effects to a person if they are losing weight, the weight loss benefits to blood lipids are very significant.

Lastly, while it's not a physical health issue, dietary monotony and restriction can be unfavorable for mental health and a person's relationship with food. Being unable to eat bread, beans, rice, desserts, etc isn't something most people are willing to do forever, so they do the low carb thing for a while and within 6 to 12 months, most people are back to eating carbs. So to "bring out the best" of this phase, I'd try to emphasize some helpful diet skills that your husband can practice and maintain, even after the diet is over. Even if he doesn't stay on a low carb diet forever (most people don't) he can practice cooking and enjoying vegetables in place of starches with dinner, looking for high fiber foods, reading food labels, appreciating whole foods, and get in a habit of choosing olive oil, avocado and seafood frequently.

Best of luck to you both! Feel free to pass on the links below or send a link to this article.

References ​

There’s something we’ve noticed a lot of the time when people have trouble with emotional eating or stress eating — eating is the only thing they do to treat themselves.

Problems, Stress, or Emotion

When people try to work with emotional eating, they assume that the treats they eat are the problem. They remove treats, and then tro to white knuckle not eating them when they have stressful or emotional days. Eventually, something happens, and they can’t hold on any longer — they break down and have even more treats. Then they feel terrible.

Or, sometimes they assume that their emotions are the problem. It’s easy to think “If I didn’t have these emotions, I wouldn’t have an issue!” Like, the assumption that what you need is a life without problems or stress. The only problem there is that most of the clients we see actually have really stressful lives. They have important jobs or families or even charities they sit on boards for, they have all of these big priorities in their lives, and they have to work with those things. And all of these important things in their lives have normal cycles of ups and downs. Sometimes they’re really stressful. Sometimes it’s really emotional.

Two things we need to look at:

1.) You’re human. You’re going to have emotions. You’re going to have stress. We need to accept that that’s a normal and recurring part of life.

2.) We need to look at what is really effective self-care.

It’s About Choices

The goal isn’t to never have treats again. We aren’t even saying that you can never soothe yourself with food again. The goal, simply, is flexibility. We want you to have more than one option.

If the only thing you have to soothe yourself with is food, you’re going to gain weight.

So, what we really need to do is build a personal library of “real life treats.” We need to look at what actually makes us happy. It could be as simply as petting your dog or cat, listening to music, getting outside and going for a walk, reading, going to a movie. These are all things that make us feel better, that don’t involve food.

The goal is to have more than one option. If you have a rough day and you’re used to going straight for food, you’re still going to have that habit. We just want to loosen that up. Maybe try going for a walk first, and then if you still want the food treat, then try that.

It’s About Self Care

If you’re really feeling down, cookies probably sound awesome. But after you eat the cookies, you don’t actually feel any better. Likely you feel worse.

Food treats often do a really poor job for self-care.

Instead, you want to take a look at what is actually effective self care for you. When you feel bad, what if you called a friend? What if you had some really good alone time? What if you meditated? What if you get a massage? Or watched your favorite funny movie?

There are things that you can do to take care of yourself that are going to do a much better job of taking care of you than food. You want to start putting together your personal list. You want to have options of things that are good for you.

It’s About Your Values

Lastly, it’s about what’s important to you in life. Make a list of things that matter to you, people who matter to you, and who you want to be about food and health.

If you want to be someone who has a reasonable, balanced, healthy relationship with food, what does that mean to you when you have a bad day? It might mean that sometimes you have food treats and other times you have real life treats. That sounds balanced and reasonable.

Ultimately, the goal is flexibility.

If your only answer is to eat food treats, that probably doesn’t fit your values and goals. We want you to have lots of options.

Most of the time, have treats when you want to have treats because it’s a special occasion. Have treats when you’re hanging out with your best friend. Or have treats just because, and have your favorite treat in the world. But have those treats intentionally, and enjoy them and feel good about them.

And when you have a stressful or emotional day, take a look at what self-care is going to be best for you.

Meal planning is much simpler than most people have been led to believe. Diets deliberately complicate things for marketing purposes. As long as there is a “magic food” or “secret macro ratio” that makes it work, you’ll always need to buy another diet.

There is no secret, it’s just basics of feeling full, repeated over and over again. Let’s take a look:

The master element of consistency and success: Taste

1. Flavor profile

News and diets live on crying wolf about the evil magic of carbohydrates, or protein, or fat, or whatever. In truth, people are going to feel the most full with some of all of the above in each meal.

People get freaked out about carbohydrates, like “I gain weight any time I even see carbs!!!!” This is false. Most people eat five servings of carbohydrates at a meal. Have you ever tried one serving?

Why it can work to cut out carbohydrates: Because most people have 4-5 servings of carbohydrates at every meal. Obviously this is too much.

What works best for fullness and weight loss: One serving of carbohydrates at every meal. A totally reasonable and healthy amount.

The last thing we want to look at is adding flavor. For some reason, when people first start eating healthy, they assume that it has to be flavorless and tasteless, which is a super sad way to go.

Go to a local spice shop and get a spice mix for your protein and a spice mix for your vegetables. Add sauces. Add salsa or green chile. Add garlic. Add onions. Put salt and pepper on everything. Get Mexican seasoning and cumin and cilantro. Get Italian seasoning and oregano and basil. Maybe even grow your own basil!

Don’t be afraid to add flavor.

People make a silly mistake with health food — they buy diet books! You can throw away all of your diet books. Replace them with cookbooks! Cookbooks are these amazing books that are filled with delicious meals you can eat. They literally teach you how to cook stuff, and make it taste good. You may find that sometimes you want to adjust the ratios of protein, carbohydrates, and fat in a recipe. Or you may find that some recipes are predominantly carbohydrates, and you need to add a protein. Feel free to adjust the meals to suit your needs. And then, definitely use the chefs’ flavor knowledges to make your meal taste good!

It’s Really Is As Simple As 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

There’s no magic to it. Just combine the 4 elements of fullness, to create meals that are healthy and satisfying. Then make sure to add flavor!

The four elements of fullness:

1. Protein

2. Vegetables

3. Carbohydrates

4. Fat

The master element of consistency and success: Taste

1. Flavor profile

Lastly, you know that if your scale weight is trending up, your portions are too big. If the scale weight is trending down, your portion sizes are just right for weight loss.

Don’t let any gimmicky infomercials or hypey magazine articles try to convince you that it’s any more complicated than that. Keep it simple, stay consistent, and you’ll hit all of your goals.

Josh Hillis