If you are a runner who is in the sport to try to lose a few (or many) pounds, what kind of diet would be best for you? Should you try out Dr. Atkins or one of the other popular diet plans? Is it safe to cut down on your carbohydrates or lose them altogether? These are some of the questions that people running to lose weight often wonder about. Let's get the skinny on all these matters. Taking up a low-carb diet when you are hard at work trying to lose weight, will certainly achieve results; but there will be a price. Certainly, you won't be performing as well as you should when your body is stuffed full of proteins and starved of carbohydrates the way the Atkins plan recommends. You may lose something of your health as well.
If you think about it, if weight-loss is your only aim, there may alternatives to running (people do claim that a long-standing weed habit just drains your body of weight, of course). The Dr. Atkins diet does have a point to make that runners could use - you do need to beware of carbohydrates - they are not all created the same. The carbs you get from refined flour (which is what they use to make all kinds of baked goods, cookies, cakes and bagels) isn't going to help you any. And while stocking up on proteins such as fish and dairy, may help you slim down a bit, it certainly won't help with your performance or your health.
What we need in a plan for running to lose weight, is an Atkins plan that you modify a little for your athletic needs. Here's how an athletic Atkins plan could go - you'll need to clear your table of all the refined carbs around. That'll be all the white rice, fried stuff, baked goods, sugar-laced cereals and even some dark-looking baked goods like pumpernickel and rye bread. The original Atkins diet wasn't meant for people who exercise hard. The body needs about a gram of high-quality carbohydrates to fuel your muscles for every minute that you work out. You'll have to make sure you fill that cleared-out space with the healthy carbs - to fuel your workouts. It would be a good idea to fill up on energy gels and sports drinks in addition to what you get at the table.
Your best carbs come from brown rice, peas, beans, whole wheat, corn and barley. And it would be a good idea to leave the health drinks and shakes aside; plenty of fresh fruit would serve you better if you ate it whole. If you need a snack, unbuttered popcorn with only a little salt should be a great idea. And now that we have the carbs out of the way, let's look at what you can do for your proteins. Lean meat, skinless chicken, fish, egg whites, soy and tofu should be fixtures at every meal of yours. Soy snacks should be great at keeping the hunger pangs away between meals. But make absolutely sure that you don't go overboard with them; and do make sure that you don't take snacks that are fried or laced with salt.
Even people who follow the regular Atkins diet don't really lose weight in any predictable sort of way. There have been studies that have followed Atkins followers for months and found that people lost anywhere between 1 pound and 40 pounds over the period; some actually went the other way and put on weight. The thing about running to lose weight is, it succeeds in keeping your weight off once you lose it. The pure Atkins diet could never make that claim.
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