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Atkins: Eat Right, Not Less

Your Guidebook for Living a Low-carb and Low-sugar Lifestyle
May 24, 2018
It's a wonderful book for either beginners or long-time low-carb eaters, but there are a couple of things I don't like about it. First, she refers to the diet as "Atkins" as if it was a thing, not the "Atkins Diet" or "Dr. Atkins' diet", "doing Atkins", not doing Dr. Atkins' diet. Dr Atkins does not exist anymore in her eyes, she is the owner of "Atkins", as if it were an object. I find that incredibly disrespectful and ungrateful for the person who started and continued the low-carb movement on his own for decades. She does dedicate the book to Dr. Atkins, but his name is used in this book as if it were a brand, no more than that. Second, she insists and repeats over and over to eat 3 meals plus 2 snacks a day. The big advantage of a ketogenic diet is the loss of appetite that leads to a lower food intake, and thereby makes weight loss much easier. By insisting that her readers must eat 5 times a day, no more, no less, she is doing them a disservice. Intermittent fasting is very popular among low-carb enthusiasts (not for me) and is a great help for many in losing weight, and in having optimal health as well. Dr. Eric Westman, who learned from Dr. Robert C. Atkins himself, says over and over this simple principle of low-carb eating: "Eat when you are hungry. Stop when you are full." This principle was Dr. Atkins' advice until the end, not eating 5 times a day, no more, no less. Another aspect of this book that I find worrying is that the 100g-a-day version of low-carb eating is that hardly anyone will reach ketosis with that high a carb intake, and people who choose to start with this version, albeit easier to follow, will not benefit from the appetite-killing and cravings-killing aspect of a ketogenic way of eating. That being said, it is a very thorough book, has everything needed to start eating low-carb and wonderful recipes with appetizing colour photographs. One aspect I like about this book, contrary to the last cookbook she published and most Atkins cookbooks in the last 2 decades, is that it does not rely on Atkins commercial (net-carb) products. This book includes a recipe for a baking-mix that is homemade and can be used in some of the recipes in this book (or other recipes maybe). Another warning: some of the recipes in this wonderful book are too high-carb for the 20g-a-day version, or even the 40g-a-day version and may be too tempting for beginners or for that matter long-time followers of low-carb eating. She does explain that vegetarians and vegans can start with the 40g-a-day version, and lists the protein sources for each case, but she does not provide sample menus or special recipes for vegetarian readers. Even so, there is much of interest for vegetarians in this book and it is well worth borrowing from the library, even for a beginner, but purchasing it would not be a wise choice for vegetarians. I did not like her 2011 cookbook much, I did like the book she published in 2013 (more modest book, no pictures, excellent for beginners, but also good for others) and I also like this book published in 2017.