Most people have heard about the Atkins diet but who exactly was Atkins? He was a doctor called Robert Atkins, who was overweight himself. He revised a diet he found in the Journal of the American Medical Association to suit his needs and called it the Atkins diet. Robert Atkins wrote several diet books about his success in the nineteen seventies.

The Atkins diet is a low carbohydrate high protein diet. The Adkins food list may include such items as, unprocessed meats that include pork, lamb, beef, veal, mutton, ham, venison and sugar free bacon. It also includes poultry such as chicken, duck, goose and quail as well as unprocessed fish such as tuna, trout and catfish. You can also eat unprocessed shellfish like clams, oysters and shrimp.

Eggs are also allowed on the food list as well as salad vegetables, most fats and some dairy products. Sugar free salad dressing is allowed as well as some other types of condiments. However, you must be careful about the beverages and sweeteners you may use while on this diet. Keep in mind while on the Atkins diet that the majority of fruits are restricted for consumption, with the exception of unsweetened strawberries, cherries, grapefruit, raspberries and cranberries.

If you can afford them, the Atkins diet has its own brand name products, such as low carbohydrate breakfast bars, quick and easy mixes, sugar free syrup and diet shake mixtures. They also offer a fourteen day starter kit to support your weight loss. If you are thinking of starting the Atkins diet for weight loss, you need to read the Atkins diet books and understand the diet fully. This can be a problem if you are short of time or hate reading.

Since you are mainly counting carbohydrate grams on the Adkins diet you do not have to count calories. There are various stages, first is the induction phase. The induction phase severely restricts consumption of many foods, and involves hardly any carb grams. The next phase you can gradually begin to add more carbohydrate grams back, but it is still very limited.

The Atkins diet support system involves gaining the support of those around you as well as online support by the means of discussion groups, a newsletter, recipes, sample menus, topics of frequently answered questions and a research library.

The Adkins diet is a good plan for many individuals to lose weight, but does not work for everybody. Some people are unable to avoid bread, potatoes, rice and pasta and can't stand it anymore and break down and cheat or just quit. They have to find another diet program that will work for them.

No matter which diet you may chose to use the hardest aspect is maintaining a healthy weight. That means keeping it off. This is especially true when you already have a predisposition to be overweight. The only means to success when it comes to maintaining your weight loss is by simply committing yourself to actively changing your habits of eating and your lifestyle. Fat Loss 4 Idiots at the link below may be just what you are searching for.