Atkins for Life: The Complete Controlled Carb Program for Permanent Weight Loss and Good Health (Hardcover)

The book "Atkins for Life" is an excellent resource book. It is filled with practical advice and tips on how to make your low carbohydrate weight loss a permanent success.

Over the years Atkins name has been maligned and sneered at as he pioneered the idea that its not the fat in our diet that makes us fat its the excessive amounts of carbohydrates we have been consuming. The low fat diet was presented to Americans as the best way and the healthiest way to lose weight. However, recent research has revealed the low fat diet to be a miserable failure. As the fat has been taken out of the diet carbohydrates have been added in their place and many Americans have become obese and unhealthy. Dr. Atkin's proposal that eating less carbs can lead to weight loss and better health has been vindicated.

The Atkins weight loss method is a 4 step approach. Phase 1 INDUCTION is where you limit your carbs to 20 grams per day to jump start your weight loss program. Phase 2 OWL or ONGOING WEIGHT LOSS allows you to slowly add back carbs until you discover the amount of carbs you can eat and still lose weight.
Phase 3 PRE-MAINTENANCE has you slow your weight loss by adding in more carbs so good eating habits become ingrained. And in Phase 4 LIFETIME MAINTENANCE you learn to enjoy a wider variety of foods and maintain your weight loss. This book "Atkins for Life" discusses each of the phases but is mainly concerned with Phase 4 LIFETIME MAINTENANCE.
You can learn what to do to lose weight with this book, but for in depth information, you would be better off selecting "Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution".

This book covers in great detail how to maintain the weight you have lost. Part One: A Lifetime Plan recaps the Atkins program. It includes information on the diet, the effect on your body, putting it into practice and how to benefit from exercise. Part Two: Eating for Life teaches you how to get your kitchen in order, and gives thirty meal plans with carb counts. It includes twenty meal plans for special occasions. 125 recipes for success are also given.

YES you can eat carbohydrates. You can have bread, cake and pizza or even wine. The key of course is knowing how many carbohydrates your body can handle each day without gaining weight. And using techniques to get the most bang from your carbohydrate buck. These techniques are taught in the book. For example if you crave bread Atkins has several pages of information to help you make the best selection. Breads are ranked on their ability to effect your insulin levels. There are also tips on how to enjoy bread without overdoing it such as eating the crust only. Atkins shares techniques like this for a variety of foods.

Comfort foods are a big issue for many. Atkins tells you what to choose or what to substitute. Eating out is another area covered. Best choices at different restaurants is given in detail. Atkins also includes mental tips to help you avoid backsliding.

Key to the book is the detailed menu plans given for 4 ranges of carb levels at 45g, 60g, 80g and 100g . Just adjust up or down so you are at your level (which you learn from his diet). Meal plans are simple and include snacks. A sample day for a 60 g plan would include 1 slice lemon zucchini bread, with an egg and ricotta cheese for breakfast. Meat loaf with whole-grain bread and salad for lunch.
Jerk shrimp with pasta or collard greens for dinner and 1/2 cup of cantaloupe for a snack. Carb counts are given so you can substitute as desired.

Crab Deviled Eggs, Cherry Muffins, Mixed Berry Shortcakes, Pinwheel Cookies, Roasted Chicken and Feta Cheese Wrap, Chocolate Souffle and Southwestern Style Pork Fajitas are among the 125 recipes. Recipes include nutritional information, but are not pictured.

The 370 page book also includes self tests and quizzes to help you stay on task. My favorite part of "Atkins For Life" has to be the success stories. There are a number of remarkable stories in the book with black and white photos included! Very inspiring!

The book "Atkins For Life" makes living a low carb life in our high carb world easier and enjoyable! I highly recommend it!

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As I explained in my review of one of Dr. Atkins' earlier books, in my experience this diet works precisely as Dr. Atkins says. I am a busy kind of guy (attorney) just like many of you. For me, a diet has to have two elements: I can't go around feeling hungry or weak while on it, and it has to work relatively quickly.

Well, this diet does both. I can now wear clothes that I had never thought I would be able to wear again. In fact, I am now at the same weight I was at when I was in college. I literally never feel hungry now that I am on this diet, even at mealtime, and I go through the day never feeling that ghastly weak, craving feeling that a low-calorie regime entails. This was vitally important to me--during the day and frankly all the time, I simply must feel energised. This diet provides that in spades. When I tried the low-calorie approach I was constantly thinking about food. Not on this diet. On this diet you are in control--you are not ruled by your desire for food or looking forward to the next meal.

As far as results go, all I can say is that results exceed all expectations. I'm back to where I was before I decided that there was a problem. I'm wearing suits I simply couldn't wear before I went on the Atkins program. Suits that have hung in my coatroom, staring balefully at me, for the past several years.

I was on this diet for 7 years back in the 1980s and finally went off it in the late 80s because weight ceased being an issue in my life (the diet worked so well). I now see that going off of it was a mistake. I won't be repeating it. This diet is not really a diet. It is a way of life.

The only downside to this diet is that you really have to watch what you order in restaurants. Restaurants love to put carbohydrate sauces and dressings on everything, and you have to watch that. However, this book tells you how to manage this problem. I eat in restaurants every day and I manage fine.

Some reviewers talk negatively about the diet and imply that this diet involves chowing down on large amounts of high-fat foods. Not so. Sure, you can have real cream in your coffee and you can enjoy that nice steak. The difference is that if you do it on this diet you will not gain weight. It is as simple as that. You can have salad and certain other green vegetables in reasonable quantities. Frankly, I probably eat a better variety of green vegetables and salads than I did before I went on this diet. The Atkins program mainly involves cutting out bread, sugary cereals, and yes (alas) most fruit. The few sacrifices it involves (and they are few and well-compensated) are well rewarded by the amazing improvement in one's body, and in the way you feel. This is a great program well-explained in this book.

If you are having trouble managing your body weight (and who, after age 40, is not?) this book and the Atkins program deserve your attention.

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Since we (dh & I) started we have each been able to shake those pounds and inches that seem to resist coming off after one reaches a certain age. For my husband, so far he has lost 15#+ and is within 15# of "normal" for him 175#, and gone from a tight 36" waist to a quite loose 34" waist. Normal (as in his youth-pre 35 years old) would be 32" and he is almost there. We are both surprised and delighted. He has been at 36-38 for the last 15 years.
For myself I have gone from a size 14 (tight)to a size 8, a loose 8. And although we both have tried to reduce before with the help of lowfat diet, restricted calories (forget that = starving!), and medication (me), I have never found weight/inch loss so easy and so satisfying = not starving.
For both of us, the best part has been the fact that there is no hanging, sagging fat, resulting from the loss. It really has been a fat conversion to muscle. WOW! Even in my youth when I weighed less, I did NOT have muscle definition as now.
IT WORKS!

And by the way, our menu plans do not consist of just meat and fat. We have found that we eat more fruit and veggies than before now, and the best part is that with this method they actually are attractive to our new palates. Though, we find ourselves from time to time thinking that a nice carbohydrate infusion e.g. dessert, rice, bread, pasta, etc., would be tasty, it is quite easy to let that thought go. Wow, this is the way to go. And as far as considering that it is for life, is not the least bit disconcerting for us.

p.s. in my pre-Atkins days I was a carboholic.

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