Original Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution (1972)
Original Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution
NOTE: Bantam edition / September 1972 paperback
Not sixty grams of carbohydrate on this diet but zero grams. During the first week on this diet, you cut your intake of carbohydrates down to what is biologically zero.
This creates a unique chemical situation in the body, the one favorable to the fastest possible burning of your body’s stored fat. Ketones are excreted, and hunger disappears. You see, the first fuel your body burns for energy comes from the carbohydrates you eat and drink. If any carbohydrate is available, your body burns this rather than stored fat-and maintains its old metabolic pathways. But carbohydrates, as such, are not stored in the body beyond forty-eight hours. So when no carbohydrate is taken in, your body must draw upon the major reserve source of fuel-the stored fat.
It is forced to take a different metabolic pathway. In this process your body converts from being a carbohydrate-burning engine.
This is The Diet Revolution: the new chemical situation in which ketones are being thrown off-and so are those unwanted pounds, all without hunger. A gradual addition of carbohydrate to keep your body burning it’s fat as fuel. We must maintain this chemical situation if you’re to continue to lose without hunger. And if we add carbohydrate very gradually in tiny amounts-we can do just this… keep your body converted into a fat-burning engine. So that is just what we do. The second week you might add a few grams of carbohydrate to your diet.
Every week thereafter a little more carbohydrate (around five grams) may be returned to the diet.
The Diet Revolution Rules (Level One):
1. Don’t count calories
2. Eat as much of the allowed foods as you need to avoid hunger.
3. Don’t eat when you are not hungry.
4. Don’t feel you must finish everything on your plate just because it is there.
5. Drink as much water or calorie free beverages as thirst requires. Don’t restrict fluids… but it is not necessary to force them either.
6. Frequent small meals are preferable.
7. If weakness results from rapid weight loss, you may need salt.
8. Every day, take a high-strength multivitamin pill.
9. Read the labels on “low-calorie” drinks, syrups, desserts. Only those with no carbohydrate content are allowed.
The First Life-Changing Week, eat nothing that is not on the list:
(Sometimes a single stick of chewing gum, or putting milk in your coffee could put you right back to level one by upsetting the new chemical balance in your body. Yes, even that much carbohydrate can turn off your fat mobilizing hormone.)
Meat: Steaks, Corned beef, Lamb chops, tongue, Hamburgers, Bacon, Any kind of meat in any quantity—except meat with fillers such as sausage, hot dogs, meatballs, most packaged “cold cuts”
Fowl: Duckling, Turkey, Chicken, Anything with wings, No stuffing
Desserts: Gelatin with artificial sweeteners
Condiments: Salt, pepper, mustard, horseradish, vinegar, vanilla, and other extracts; artificial sweeteners; any dry powdered spice that contains no sugar
Drinks: Water, Mineral water, Vichy, Club soda; Beef or Chicken broth, bouillon; Sugar free diet soda; coffee*, tea, decaffeinated coffee
*Special note on caffeine and Diet Cola. Because most heavy people have some hypoglycemia, coffee, tea and diet colas, which contain caffeine, should be limited to six servings a day (cups). If you know you have low blood sugar, better limit it to three.
Fish: All fish, including canned salmon, tuna; any kind of seafood, including oil-packed and smoked, except oysters, clams, mussels, scallops, and pickled fish
Eggs: Boiled, fried, scrambled, poached, omelet – any style and without limitations
Salads: Two small green salads a day (each less than one cupful, loosely packed) made only of leafy greens, celery, or cucumbers and radishes. Dressings with vinegar, oil, salt, dry spices, herbs, grated cheese, or anchovies. Or else a sour pickle in place of a salad. Plus… green olives.
Butter & Mayonnaise Fats: Butter, margarine (head New Diet Revolution & eat no margarine with trans-fat, oils, shortening (not such a great idea), lard & mayonnaise (fats have no carbohydrates).
Juice: Juice of one lemon or lime
Cheese: Four ounces a day of any hard aged cheese. No cream cheese or cheese spreads.
Heavy Cream: Four teaspoons a day. (Cream has less carbohydrate than milk – so don’t use milk)
Diet Revolution Salad Material: Celery, Chicory, Chinese cabbage, Chives, Cucumber, Endive, Escarole, Fennel, lettuce, Olives (Green or Black), Onions, Pickles (Sour or Dill), Parsley, Peppers, Radishes, Scallions, watercress.
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