What's sad is, I do see alot of misinformed folks doing this sort of thing with the Atkins diet. Not following *******, but adjusting the Atkins diet to something different and quite unhealthy.
Most common is cutting out both carbs and fats! This is very dangerous from a physiological standpoint. Basically, with only protein to burn, your body is tricked into going into protein-burning mode. All muscles are then in danger of being burned for fuel, including your heart muscle! Your daily intake of protein should only be around 30% of total calories, the rest should be made up of fats and carbs. On atkins, you have to eat a liberal amount of fat compared to what's commonly considered healthy. Contrary to what people think, sugar is actually what raises bad cholesterol, not fat. So long as the fats you're getting are natural, not trans-fat, it won't be bad for you. Most people following atkins correctly, with plenty of fats, have an improvement in their blood lipids and overall cardiovascular health. This is because good fats are full of nutrients that aid in cardiovascular health.
In old times, they called the sickness caused by lean-protein only diets "rabbit starvation". It occurred frequently in pioneer times when white men travelling west didn't take the time to hunt larger game or fill out their diets with vegetable matter. It causes diarrhea, slow-starvation, heart attacks, muscle degeneration. Awful stuff.
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