THE ATKINS DIET

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is solely the opinion of the author and is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

Robert Atkins, MD is considered the modern “father” of the low carbohydrate diet. He was a cardiologist who found through his research that many people felt better, lost more weight and healed their Type 2 diabetes best with a low carbohydrate diet.

For weight loss, Dr. Atkins recommended an extremely low carbohydrate diet. He sold millions of copies of his books, and the books continue to sell today.

We have great respect for Dr. Atkins, who was far more than a ‘diet doctor’. He had a large practice in New York City for years, and wrote a number of books on holistic healing.

While his diet concepts were and are helpful for millions of people, the diet is not good enough, in our view. From the perspective of development science, here are changes we suggest to improve the basic Atkins dietary concepts:

1. Many more cooked vegetables. This is the most important change that is needed if one wants to follow an Atkins type of diet. Eat 70% cooked vegetables with every meal.

Also, avoid white potatoes and other nightshade family vegetables (all peppers, eggplant and all tomatoes). These are all fruits, they are too yin and are irritating foods due to their solanin content.

2. Skip salads. It is far better to cook your vegetables. We cannot absorb enough minerals from raw foods. Also, cooked vegetables are much more yang, which is important today. For more, read Raw Foods on this site.

3. Avoid ALL pork, ham or other pig products. Unfortunately, most of it contains some parasite cysts, even when well cooked.

4. Avoid all poor quality foods. The Atkins diet allows some chemicalized convenience foods, diet soda, Splenda, saccharine, alcohol and other poorer quality products. It is best not eat these.

5. Avoid most dairy products. These are not needed for development except for about 8 ounces of goat yogurt per week.

6. Restrict the amount of meat and fat. While good quality fresh meats and fat are good foods, they should be about 15-20% of one’s diet, and no more. The Atkins diet allows much too much meat and fat.

7. Avoid avocado and coconut oils. These are sub-tropical fruits and they are too yin for daily use. A little now and then is okay, but no more. Balancing yin and yang is an important factor for development. For details, read Yin And Yang Healing and other articles on this subject on this website.

8. Avoid all fish and shellfish except 3-4 cans of sardines weekly. This is important because the fish and shellfish are too high in mercury.

9. Avoid lemon and line juice. These are very yin fruits.

10. Eggs and all protein and fat should be cooked very lightly. Please avoid hard-boiled, hard-scrambled or hard-fried eggs or quiche or other hard eggs. Instead, eat soft-boiled or poached eggs only, or occasionally fried eggs with the yolks runny. Also, limit eggs to 8 per week for men and 6 per week for women.

In the maintenance stages of the Atkins diet:

11. Avoid or minimize nuts, seeds and fruits. However, do have some toasted almond butter and a little tahini daily.

12. Avoid wheat and spelt. Wheat is too hybridized to be eaten today.

13. Have dried beans at most only twice weekly. Beans are not needed for development. We are especially noticing problems with lentils, though we do not know why at this time (2019).

14. Do not increase your exercise beyond 15-30 minutes of gentle exercise. It is tempting to increase exercise as you feel better, but it is not necessary or helpful for most people. For more, read Exercise on this site.

For details about the development diet, read Food For Daily Use.

Courses | The Free Basic Program