Atkins For Life

Many dieters look to the Atkins diet as a way to lose weight, after trying everything else they can think of. They think of it as yet another attempt at losing those extra pounds that keep coming back, no matter what they try. But what many dieters do not understand is that the Atkins diet is not just a sometimes thing that you do when you want to lose weight. The Atkins diet was created to be a way of life. Atkins for life rather than for weight loss is the way to stay healthy and keep the weight off for your entire lifetime.

This is the reason that the Atkins diet is set up as phases. There are four phases to the Atkins for life program. The first two phases are set up to help you lose that excess weight. The second two phases are to help you stick with Atkins for life. By the time you reach the end of the program, you will be eating healthier than you ever have before, and you will be able to stick to that balanced diet for years to come. This not only helps you to keep from regaining the lost weight, but it can also help you be more healthy in general, avoiding heart disease and cancer.

The first phase of Atkins for life is the induction phase. This phase lasts for two weeks, and is the most limited in food choices. The purpose of the induction phase of the program is to help you lose a significant amount of weight, and jump start your weight loss.

The second phase of Atkins for life is the ongoing weight loss phase. This phase allows five carbs increases per day, and has a much longer acceptable food list. The purpose of this phase is to slow down your weight loss into a steady pace. Losing too much weight too fast is not healthy. This phase allows your body to continue losing the weight that you started in the first phase, but at a much slower and healthier rate. This phase should last until you are about ten to twenty pounds away from your goal weight.

The third phase of Atkins for life is the pre-management phase. This phase allows ten carbs increases per day, so long as you are still shedding that last few pounds. The purpose of this phase is to ease yourself into eating habits that will allow you to maintain your goal weight. The main idea of this phase of Atkins is to find the balance of carbs and nutrition that will allow you to be healthy and maintain a healthy weight. You should stick with this phase until you have reached your goal weight and maintained it for one month.

The final phase of Atkins for life is the lifetime management phase. This represents the way that you will maintain Atkins for life. The goal here is to keep counting those carbs, and make sure that you maintain that carbs and nutritional balance that you discovered in phase three. This phase is truly the culmination of Atkins for life.