Atkins - PRE-MAINTENANCE FOR VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS

OBJECTIVES OF PRE-MAINTENANCE (FINE-TUNING)

PRE-MAINTENANCE FOR VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, whole grains and starchy vegetables may have traditionally been important components of your meals. These are the foods that you’ll reintroduce in Phase 3, Pre-Maintenance. However, they’re also some of the very foods that may have gotten you in trouble in the past. You may find that over time you can tolerate larger portions as long as you steer clear of refined grains and most processed foods.

Advice for Vegetarians and Vegans

• Follow the general guidelines for reintroducing foods at the top of the Carb Ladder.
• Follow the basics for Pre-Maintenance and for doing Atkins as a vegetarian or avegan
• Always eat carbohydrates with fat and/or protein.
• Add back starchy vegetables followed by whole grains before higher-carb fruits (other than the berries and melon acceptable in OWL). 
• Continue to focus on foundation vegetables.
• Regard starchy vegetables and whole grains (and legumes) as side dishes, rather than the mainstays of a meal.
• Avoid white rice, white flour and other refined grains.
• Use Atkins Cuisine pasta, Shirataki pasta or whole-grain pasta instead of conventional pasta made from white flour.
• Bake with Atkins Cuisine All Purpose Bake Mix or soy flour instead of white flour.
• Continue to use low-carb productssuitable for Ongoing Weight Loss.

[ Reproduced without permission from now-defunct page on Atkins.com - links may not work ]

Atkins for Vegans

Atkins for Vegans

It’s challenging for vegans, who don’t eat eggs and dairy products, to do Atkins, but not impossible. The trick is to get sufficient protein from seeds, nuts, soy products, soy and rice cheeses, seitan, legumes and high-protein grains such as quinoa. Weight loss may proceed more slowly because of the higher carb intake than that of those following the standard Atkins program. Vegans should make the following modifications:

1. Start in Ongoing Weight Loss at 50 grams of Net Carbs so that you can have nuts, seeds and their butters, plus legumes, from the start.
2. If you don’t have much weight to lose, start in Pre-Maintenance at 60 grams of Net Carbs, in order to include small amounts of whole grains and starchy vegetables from the start.
3. Make sure you’re getting sufficient protein in plant sources.
4. In order not to interfere with fat metabolism, add extra flaxseed, olive, canola, walnut and other oils to salads and vegetables to make up for the smaller amount of fat in most of your protein sources.
5. Shakes made with plain unsweetened soymilk (or almond milk), soy (or hemp) protein, berries, and a little sweetener can make a tasty breakfast. Add some coconut milk to up the fat content and make the shake creamer.
6. You can also make shakes with silken tofu. Try it puréed with peanut or almond butter for added protein and fat.
7. Sauté silken tofu with onions and other vegetables to stand in for scrambled eggs.
8. Mayonnaise made with soy instead of eggs, mixed with crumbled tofu, chopped celery and onions, and a little curry powder makes a tasty eggless salad.
9. Silken tofu and soy creamer can be used in desserts, as can agar-agar in jellied desserts.  

When you move to Pre-Maintenance, follow the general guidelines for reintroduction and think of these foods, as well as legumes, as side dishes, rather than the mainstays of a meal. You may find that over time you can tolerate larger portions as long as you steer clear of refined grains and most processed foods. Add back starchy vegetables followed by whole grains before higher-carb fruits (other than the berries and melon acceptable in OWL). Continue to stay away from conventional pasta and other products made with white flour and other refined grains.


[ Reproduced without permission from now defunct Atkins.com web page ]

Atkins for Vegetarians

This is a copy of the content of a now-defunct page from the atkins.com web site, the links may not work but it is reproduced here for information.

The Program: Ways to Create a Custom Diet Plan, With Atkins

Atkins for Vegetarian

It’s perfectly possible to be a vegetarian—or simply minimize your intake of animal protein, add variety to your meals and trim your food budget—and still do Atkins. The typical American vegetarian often consumes far too many carbohydrates in the form of pasta and other refined grains. As long as you have at least two varieties of plant protein each day, you can get a balance of essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein). Which leads to the second challenge. Plant proteins are “packaged” with carbohydrate. Your objective is to consume enough protein without simultaneously getting so much carbohydrate that it interferes with weight loss or weight maintenance.

To adapt Atkins to your needs as a ovo-lacto vegetarian:

1. Start in Phase 2, Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL), at 30 grams of Net Carbs and introduce nuts and seeds and all unsweetened dairy products except milk (whether whole, skim, low fat, or no fat) and buttermilk before berries.
2. Or, if you have no more than 20 pounds to shed and are willing to swap slower weight loss for more food variety, you may start in Phase 3, Pre-Maintenance, at 50 grams of Net Carbs.
3. Make sure to get sufficient protein in eggs, cheese and soy products. Aim for no more than 6 grams of Net Carbs per serving of protein foods in OWL.
4. Meat substitutes may be made from textured vegetable protein (TVP), soy protein (tofu and tempeh), wheat gluten (seitan), and even fungi (Quorn) among other ingredients. See Acceptable Induction Foods: Soy and Vegetarian Products for a more comprehensive list. Some of these products contain added sugars and starches and some are breaded, so read the list of ingredients carefully.
5. Get most of your carbs from foundation vegetables.
6. Most nonanimal protein sources (except for tofu and nut butters) are low in fat. Continue to get enough healthy oils in other dishes by dressing vegetables and salads with olive oil, canola oil, high-oleic safflower, walnut, flaxseed and other oils so as not to interfere with fat metabolism Also enjoy high-fat snacks such as half a Haas avocado or some olives.
7. Add back nuts and seeds before berries. Nuts and seeds contain fat and protein that will make Atkins easier to do and more effective.
8. Or, if you choose, add back legumes before other OWL-acceptable foods. But do so in extreme moderation (2-tablespoon servings), using them as garnishes on soups or salads.
9. Tempeh, made with fermented soybeans, is higher in protein than tofu and more flavorful. Sauté tempeh with veggies in a stir-fry, crumble it into chili, soup, or sauces or marinate and grill it. Avoid tempeh products that include rice or another grain until you’re in Pre-Maintenance.
10. Shakes made with plain unsweetened soymilk (or almond milk), soy (or hemp) protein, berries and a little sweetener can make a tasty breakfast.
11. Purée silken tofu with berries and other fruit in shakes, adding peanut or almond butter for added protein; or sauté firm tofu with vegetables for lunch or dinner.

If you eat no eggs and dairy:

1. Substitute crumbled silken tofu for scrambled eggs—a pinch of turmeric provides an appealing yellow hue. For baking, use an egg substitute product.
2. Even some vegetarian products, such as Quorn, as well as shakes, may contain eggs or whey. Read labels carefully.
3. Mayonnaise made with soy instead of eggs, mixed with crumbled tofu, chopped celery and onions, and a little curry powder makes a tasty eggless salad.
4. Silken tofu and soy creamer can be used in desserts, as can agar-agar in jellied desserts.

For more ideas, see Atkins for Vegans.

Pre-Maintenance and Beyond

Whole grains usually loom large for vegetarians, and starchy vegetables are often important components of meals. However, they’re among the very foods that may have gotten you in trouble in the past. Follow the general guidelines for reintroduction and think of these foods, as well as legumes, as side dishes, rather than the mainstays of a meal. You may find that over time you can tolerate larger portions as long as you steer clear of refined grains and most processed foods. Add back starchy vegetables, followed by whole grains, before higher-carb fruits (other than the berries and melon acceptable in OWL).

Book review may signal change is in the air

A book review may not be a policy statement, but it may reveal some of the thinking and views of the reviewers. The review in question is that of Nina Teicholz's journalistic tome "Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet" which explores and exposes the background and evolution of current dietary guidelines. Nina herself halved her blood triglycerides by switching to a diet of "60% fat (plenty of it saturated), 25% protein and 15% carbohydrates" however it should be noted that she is an investigative writer rather than a research scientist or n=1 experimenter.

The authors of the review are Debbie Cook and David Haslam of the UK's "National Obesity Forum" - "Debbie Cook is the Vice Chair at National Obesity Forum, and a Nurse Practitioner and Clinical Nurse Manager" and Prof David Haslam is the Chair of the National Obesity Forum and  the eminent non-executive Chair of the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

It seems likely, or at least possible, that the review will disappear in a storm of controversy, but some of the interesting extracts are :-

The UK is ready for the revelation that sugar is toxic, and that refined carbohydrates and fruit juice are detrimental to health, and has taken it fairly well. But the next big shock wave – that another macronutrient is an important, healthy and necessary part of the diet: namely saturated fat – may take some swallowing. 

 In a meticulously well researched book, we are informed and educated about why the modern world faces an epidemic of obesity, why generations of Americans religiously followed the nutritional dogma fed to them by researchers of questionable integrity.

Does low fat diet give faster fat loss than low carb ?

A recent Poster presentation (ie not fully peer reviewed published science) posed the question

"Is a Calorie a Calorie? Metabolic Fat Balance Following Selective Isocaloric Restriction of Dietary Carbohydrate Vs. Fat in Obese Adults. - Kevin D Hall et al.

and went on to describe a clinical study where about 800 calories of either fat or carbohydrate were removed from the diet of the same group of subjects in a crossover design. So the grams of protein stayed the same, and in the low fat arm the grams of carbohydrate stayed the same with the fat remaining constant in the low carb arm.

This is quite a good design, as it saves protein changes having an effect. It does constrain the low carb arm to a relatively high carbohydrate content (30%) because the caloric reduction takes the fat in the low fat arm down to only 7% or 15 grams a day.

From the limited data in the abstract I have tried to calculate the average intakes :-

	Baseline	Low Carb	Low Fat
Calories/day (kcal)	2720	1930	1920
Carb energy %	50	30	72
Fat energy %	35	49	7
Protein energy %	15	21	21
C grams	340	145	346
F grams	106	105	15
P grams	102	101	101

During the experiment the subjects spent time in a metabolic chamber where gas analysis, temperatures and airflow measurement allows calculation of their metabolic rate and the proportion of their energy supplied by fat and carbohydrate. The authors used this data to calculate the fat loss based entirely on "fat exhaled" rather than traditional weighing and body composition analysis.

After 5 days on the baseline diet the subjects were allocated to either Low Carb or Low Fat for 6 days, then returned after two weeks to repeat the baseline diet and the opposite arm of the calorie reduction. Weight loss was greater on low carb than low fat, 1.9±0.2 vs. 1.3±0.1 kg; p=0.05. That's more than a pound greater in less than 6 days, this is often seen as the initial weight loss of water due to carbohydrate restriction and its diuretic effect.

Despite the greater weight loss on low carb, the authors report that "body fat loss was ~67% greater after 6 days of LF vs. LC (394±40 vs. 236±30 g; p=0.0003)." At 9 cals/g that equates to 591 cals/day on LF and 354 cals/day on LC. To try and understand why, and where the apparent energy imbalance occurs, we need to calculate the oxidation rates ( "burning" ) of carbs and fat. We'll do this by assuming that the food being eaten is oxidised at the same rate and that additional energy is supplied from body reserves :-

Calories expended	2720
Change in cal exp	reported	-72	-81
Extra fat burn cals		426	-53
Extra fat burn grams		47	-6
Fat Oxidation grams	106	153	100
Fat Balance in – out	0	-48	-85
Difference LC – LF		37
Total body fat loss g	reported	236	394
Per day grams	5	47	79
Extra LF vs LC			67%
Calories expended	2720	2648	2639
From fat kcal	952	1378	899
From protein kcal	408	405	403
From carbs kcal	1360	579	1382
Accounted for kcal	2720	2362	2685
Discrepancy kcal	0	286	-46
as fat grams		32
as carbs grams		71

The two diets both saw a small but similar calorie expenditure reduction from baseline of 72 and 81 calories a day. Fat oxidation increased significantly on the low carb diet giving 50% more fat burn but the extra 47 grams/day is less than the 90 grams a day taken out of the low fat diet.

Adding up the oxidised fat, protein and assuming that the carbs eaten were oxidised gives the "Accounted for kcal" row above, as the paper didn't report carbohydrate oxidation rate. There's a shortfall of 286 calories/day in the low carb case as not enough fat is being burned to provide the measured energy output. 

Without access to more data the best explanation I can offer is that the discrepancy was supplied by about 70 grams of carbohydrate oxidation from glycogen reserves - a transient resource that would not have lasted many days at this rate. Had the experiment continued for another week then glycogen would have dropped to a new equilibrium and either fat oxidation would ramp up or some other metabolic adaptation would occur (using less energy).

On the high carb diet the glycogen reserves remain topped up by carbohydrate intake and, perhaps surprisingly, the elevated carb intake and consequent insulin levels doesn't suppress fat release to the point where it can't keep up with energy demand.

The study could perhaps be improved by doing a 2 week run-in on the test diet before the 6 days under closer observation. This would make the observed days more representative of a steady state. 

Better results from low carb than lower fat.

 There's a lot of chatter over the pond and on t'internet about a recent study comparing low carbohydrate diet advice with reduced fat.

The work was led by Drs Bazanno and Hu of Tulane University, New Orleans and funded by the US National Institutes of Health. Its stated objective was

to examine the long-term effects of a diet low in carbohydrates, as compared to one low in fat, on cardiovascular disease risk factors, including blood pressure (BP), body weight and composition, serum lipids, plasma glucose, insulin, adipocytokines (adiponectin, leptin, resistin), and C-reactive protein (CRP) among obese adults.

Fruit vs Fruit Juice

As a low carb person I eat berries and sometimes an apple, but fruit juice to me is just a sugar solution. Fruit itself seems to be universally regarded as A Good Thing (TM) and although Robert Lustig has said "the vehicle is irrelevant" when talking about fructose, and admits that he doesn't want to be the guy to say fruit is bad, the reliance on fibre as a moderator is somewhat optimistic.