Atkins Diet Review
Dietitian Juliette Kellow analyses a sample day's menu on the Atkins Diet.
Dietitian Juliette Kellow analyses a sample day's menu on the Atkins Diet.
Typical Day’s Atkins Diet Menu
Breakfast
Fried egg and bacon. Plus a cup of decaff coffee with single cream.
Lunch
Chicken breast topped with melted mozzarella and 170g mixed lettuce leaves tossed with olive oil.
Dinner
8oz pan-fried rump steak served with 80g spinach topped with soured cream.
Snack
2 slices ham.
Nutrition Information
- 1245 calories
- 75g fat (of which 34g saturates)
- 129g protein
- 6g carbohydrates
- 4g fibre
How this Atkins Diet menu compares with healthy eating guidelines
This menu is reasonably low in calories and would result in a weight loss of around 1-2lb a week for many people. However, it contains way too much fat. Healthy eating guidelines recommend that fewer than one third of calories come from fat, with no more than a tenth coming from saturates. In this day’s diet, 54 percent of calories come from fat and 24 percent come from saturates.
It’s also exceptionally high in protein. Most women need around 45g of protein and men around 55g of protein a day. This day’s menu contains around three times these amounts.
It’s also very low in carbs and fibre. For good health, around half of all calories should come from carbs and we should have 18g fibre each day. Just 2 percent of calories are coming from carbs with this menu and fibre intakes are considerably lower than recommended intakes.