A Warning about Ketosis

If you are on a diet that includes eating more protein than carbs you could experience ketosis. This is when you notice that your urine is yellow. It is evidence that your body is burning fats.  Ketosis is a standard part of the process of losing weight on a high protein, low carb diet.

The grand daddy of this type of diet is the Atkins diet, which has been around since the seventies.  It is based on the principle of ketosis. The entire idea of forcing the body into a state of ketosis was based originally on a much lesser known medical diet (that eventually went public) called The Stillman Diet.  Dr. Stillman found out, through his research, that feeding the body more protein than it can handle could induce weight loss. The protein overload would trick the body into releasing fat through the urine.

Although ketosis is evidence of weight loss it is not good to keep your body in this state for weeks on end.. Ketosis is an abnormal body process that occurs during starvation due to lack of carbohydrate. It causes fatigue, constipation, nausea, and vomiting, none of which are part of a healthy lifestyle. Long-term side effects of ketosis are documented to include heart disease, bone density loss, and kidney damage.

A nutritional analysis of the Atkins diet by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine concluded that this diet was much too high in asteriated fat and cholesterol and pathetically low in fibre.

The review by the Physician’s committee showed that the menu plans in the Atkins diet have an outrageously high pH level for the body and that it was dangerously deficient in seven key vitamins and minerals including calcium, iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, folate, vitamin B12, and thiamine.  The high ph level is dangerous because it can create an acidic state in your body which can cause disease.

As to be expected they also found that this diet that is very heavy on butter and meat was very high in cholesterol and saturated fat and very low in fibre.  In fact if you stick religiously to an Atkins diet you are likely to only have two to seven grams of fibre a day when at least 35 grams is what is recommended.

The problem is that eating this much meat means including more toxic, artery clogging fat in your body.  The excess protein also stresses every organ in your body including the kidneys, intestines and liver. 

The result is that you get thinner but only for a short while.

The South Beach Diet is a commercial offset Atkins Diet.

Studies at Duke and the University of Pennsylvania, among others, show that six months on a high-protein, low-carb diet can result in a loss of about 20 pounds. This is the same amount that you would lose if you went on a more moderate, low fat diet where you lost only two pounds or less a week.

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