The Atkins diet is a weight lose plan which claims dieters can lose up to 30lbs in a single month, that’s a weight loss of over 2 stones in just 30 days.

The Atkins diet plan consists of a combination of good carbohydrates, good fats and a diet meal plan of meat, fish, eggs and cheese.

The key to the Atkins diet is a severely restrict your carbohydrate in take which allows the body to adapt to a new way of burning fat, carbohydrate in take is reduced to no more than 40g a day and in some cases as little as 20g!

The Atkins Diet is based on consuming predominately pure fat and protein which means dieters are free to consume as much full fat cheese, fish, shellfish, red meat and fowl, spreads, mayonaise olive oil plus you can even cook your food in butter!

The Atkins Diet first came to light in 1972 by Dr Robert Atkins who was a cardiologist and medical graduate of the Cornell University Medical School.

Atkins worked on the theory that overweight people consume far too many carbohydrates. Dr Atkins believed that by severely reducing carbohydrates and increasing fat and protein in take the body will start burning stored body fat and dieters on the Atkins Diet will start to lose weight naturally.

The concept of the body burning its own fat for fuel occurs when the dieters body goes into a state of ketosis, which means the dieter gets energy from ketones. Ketones are carbon fragment which occur when the fat stores break down.

Although all this sounds great ketosis can have some unwanted side effect such as constipation and bad breath.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates aren't as bad for weight loss as some people think but there are two types of carbohydrates find out which type of carbohydrate will help you lose weight and which cabs you should be avoiding.