What Is the Difference Between These Four Programs
The world of dieting is vast. Wikipedia has an article on diets where they basically list the different types of diets by category. They have 155 different diets. I had not even heard of 90% of them. It opened my eyes. At least the four different diets in this blog, I had heard of.
What is a diet. Basically, the sum of food and drink that an individual habitually consumes is that person’s diet. Dieting, on the other hand, is the practice of attempting to achieve or maintain a certain weight through diet. The dietary choices that people choose are often affected by a variety of factors, including ethical and religious beliefs, clinical need, or a desire to control weight.
In the world of dieting, there are numerous different ways to manage your food and try to lose weight. Some are effective while others are outright dangerous and everything in between. From Wikipedia, it became evident that ‘fad diets’ were the least effective. Other diets were chosen due to health conditions or religion.
The most successful diets are the ones that become a lifestyle change. They become your way of eating. This means that you can lose weight and keep it off. Sure, there may be times when you splurge; however, you easily go back to what has become your way of eating.
As I mentioned, I know the four diets that are being compared in this blog. Atkins initially was a ‘fad diet.’ Today, it has become a counter-conventional movement to reset the understanding of nutrition and weight loss, and its link to health. The original Atkin’s diet is different than what the Atkin’s diet is today. All four diets are about developing a new way of eating permanently. Let’s explore the difference between them.
Table of Contents
- Two Ways to Lose Weight
- Low Carbs Vs. Low Calories
- How Atkins Works
- How Keto Works
- How Paleo Works
- How the Smoothie Diet Works
- Diet Plans Vs. Lifestyle Changes
- Which Diet is the Best?
Two Ways to Lose Weight
The two ways to lose weight are:
- Restricting the number of calories you take in.
- Increasing the number of calories you burn.
It comes down to calories in, calories out. It’s just simple math. For women, the number is usually between 1,600-2,400, and for men, it is 2,000-3,000. The difference is based mostly on muscle mass. However, it can also be affected by hormones, height, age, current weight, and more.
Losing mass is the result of all weight loss. If done properly, the lost mass comes in the form of stored body fat. However, if done improperly or poorly, it can result in lost muscle or bone density. This type of weight loss can be due to nutritional deficiencies because of the selected diet or from medical issues, illness, or other factors.
Just as there are two ways to lose weight. There are two ways to burn more fat.
- Increase the demand for exercise.
- Decrease the supply with caloric restrictions.
Most every weight loss plan takes either one or both of these paths for weight loss. There are three programs to chose from.
- Diet programs opt for caloric restriction.
- Exercise programs promote exercise to burn more calories.
- The comprehensive program does both.
The healthiest program is the comprehensive one. Just restricting calories is passive. This doesn’t help other parts of your health such as flexibility, your cardiovascular system, or your pulmonary health. Just exercising doesn’t you’re your blood sugar or cholesterol if you have not changed your eating habits.
Low Carbs Vs. Low Calories
For weight loss, there are other mechanisms at work that can also affect how effective a diet or exercise program is.
Take cardio exercise for example. It is more effective at building a strong cardio system than it is at losing weight. Now take weightlifting as another example. This might increase your weight because as you lose fat, you gain muscle. Muscles are denser than fat.
Everyone has a different body. Thus, a diet program can affect your body in different ways.
Restricting calories is a way to deprive your body of fuel and force it to use what it has. What you want to avoid is restricting calories to much so that it becomes harmful for your body.
Other diet programs are targeted to focus on a specific bodily process. Keto is such a program.
Each of the four diets in this blog operates in a slightly different way. The three that are variations on a “low carb” program are Atkins, Keto, and Paleo. The Smoothie Diet is not strictly low carb as it often contains quite a bit of dietary fiber. It works primarily through caloric restriction. For instance, drink a 300-calorie smoothie for breakfast instead of eating a 700-calorie breakfast.
Before getting to the four programs, let’s go over macronutrients and micronutrients.
Macronutrients are fats, carbohydrates, and protein. Micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes. Your body needs macronutrients in large amounts and micronutrients in small amounts.
Each macronutrient corresponds to a specific calorie amount per gram:
- Carbohydrates have 4 calories per gram.
- Proteins have 4 calories per gram.
- Fats have 9 calories per gram.
The percentage or ratio of macronutrients to consume depends on your goal. If your goal is to lose weight, the ratio will be different than if the goal is to build muscle.
As a starting point, the federal dietary recommends a macronutrient ratio baseline as:
- 45% to 60% carbohydrates
- 20% to 35% fats
- Remainder from protein
The macronutrient baseline for losing weight is recommended as:
- 45% to 65% carbohydrates
- 20% to 35% fats
- 35% protein
This ratio is the generally accepted range for a healthy diet. You don’t want to cut anyone of the three out completely as your body needs a balance of all three to function properly. This brings up the question is it better to track calories or macronutrients, aka macros for short?
The answer: If you want to lose weight or reach certain nutrition goals, tracking calories is not your best bet. It’s better to track your macronutrients. There are benefits to tracking macros instead.
- You will have a more balanced diet by focusing your eating on a variety of nutrients that give your body energy and help your digestive system work.
- You can reach your health goals faster than just focusing on calories.
- It helps you know which types of food make you feel good or bad.
- You will know which foods improve your exercise performance.
- You will be able to determine which foods help you focus or make you drag.
- It will also help shift your current eating habits to a long-term pattern for a healthier lifestyle change.
This all circles back to the fact everyone has a different body. One person might do very well on a certain diet program while another may not.
Some people do well on a high-protein diet. Others may not and instead experience digestive discomfort from consuming so much protein.
On the Keto diet, it’s best to count net carbs instead of total carbs. You get net carbs by subtracting the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbs. There’s a reason to count net carbs on the Keto diet. The body does not digest fiber. Consequently, fiber is not absorbed by the small intestine and it does not provide the body with any energy. Thus, the calories from fiber do not count.
For a low-carb diet, some people will thrive, and others will not. Some people need more carbs to perform well and feel good.
To summarize, by counting macros, you will know whether you need to increase or decrease the amount of carbs, fats, or protein.
Now to get to the four diets. Atkins, Keto, and Paleo are all low-carb programs.
How Atkins Works
The Atkin’s diet was founded by Dr. Robert Atkins, MD who had heart problems himself. Dr. Atkins first published his book Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution: The High Calorie Way to Stay Thin Forever in 1972. In 1989, Dr. Atkins founded Atkins Nutritionals to promote the sale of Atkins-branded products.
The diet gained widespread popularity until the second half of 2004. Around this time, the percentage of Americans on the diet declined to two percent and sales of Atkins brand products fell as a result. This happened about a year after Dr. Atkins died on April 17, 2003, at the age of 72.
Following Dr. Atkins death, Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 31, 2005, citing losses of $340 million.
In 2007, Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. was purchased by North Castle Partners who switched its emphasis to low-carb snacks. In 2010, the company was acquired by Roark Capital Group. Then in 2017, Roark Capital Group announced the merger of Atkins Nutritionals with Conyers Park Acquisiton Corp to form a public company known as Simply Good Foods.
The Atkins diet today focuses on net carbs which is total carbs minus fiber. It’s a low-carb program. There are three programs – Atkins 20, Atkins 40, and Atkins 100. Atkins 20 is 20 net carbs per day, Atkins 40 is 40 net carbs per day, and Atkins 100 is 100 net carbs per day. You can do intermittent fasting if you want and for the 20 and 40 program, you can align them with Keto.
With all three plans, there is a Starting Point, Next Steps, and Maintaining Your Weight Loss. You have the choice of buying Atkins products or making your meals. They do have recipes. To learn more, go to the Atkins website of today here.
The real reason why the Atkins company filed for bankruptcy, I don’t know. I did not look up the bankruptcy filing, which I could have done, to find out the reasons given by the company. I do know that there was negative publicity around the initial Atkins program.
There were two ones I remember.
- The unlimited consumption of protein and fats.
- The expense of buying the products. Initially, they wanted you to buy their products.
Under the old Atkins diet, there was negative publicity. With their current company, that negative publicity seems to have died down. However, there are still side effects.
Atkins is still a ketogenic, or Keto, program. Some of the side effects can be:
- You feel fatigued since carbs are no longer available to provide your body with energy.
- You can feel “under the weather.” Symptoms can be:
- You can get a fruity odor to your breath.
- Constipation
- Low mood
- Irritability
Today, they have different choices. They even have smoothie recipes. Their smoothie recipes are under low-carb recipes. Here’s the web page.
My bottom-line opinion? If you are an Atkins fan or user, yes, you can incorporate smoothies into your regimen. You will have to align or adapt the Smoothie Diet recipes with the Atkins program you are one or want to follow. The bottom line, you can combine both to lose weight and create a lifestyle for yourself.
How Keto Works
Keto is a ketogenic diet. It was originally created to treat people with epilepsy, especially children. It was a good option for managing epilepsy until other medicines became available. Today the ketogenic diet is usually prescribed when other options and treatments do not work for the patient.
The ketogenic diet does not cure epilepsy, it just lowers the number of seizures. Children with refractory epilepsy are more likely to benefit from the diet than trying another anticonvulsant drug. Even though the diet is hard to follow, adolescents and adults with epilepsy may also benefit from the diet. Questions remain as to why this diet works for epilepsy.
Even though Atkins, Keto, and Paleo are all low-carb diets, Keto is the ketogenic diet and is different from Atkins and Paleo. Atkins and Paleo focus on protein for the body to burn fat. Keto is centered around and focuses on fat for the body to burn fat.
With the Keto diet, as much as 90% of daily calories come from fat. Keto uses macronutrient balances with 90% from fat, 6% from protein, and 4% carbs. The numbers can be adjusted; however, fat is always the highest and carbs are always the lowest.
How does the diet work?
How the diet works is instead of the body burning carbs for energy, it forces the body to burn fats for energy. The fat stored by your body is broken into two parts, fatty acids, and ketone bodies. The liver makes the ketone bodies which go into the blood. When the body has a lot of ketone bodies in the blood, it goes into a state called Ketosis. When your body is forced to burn fat for fuel, it is also forced into a metabolic state known as ketosis.
“Getting the liver to make ketone bodies is tricky:
- It requires that you deprive yourself of carbohydrates, fewer than 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day (keep in mind that a medium-sized banana has about 27 grams of carbs).
- It typically takes a few days to reach a state of ketosis.
- Eating too much protein can interfere with ketosis.”
The keto diet is very strict and nuanced. Your body can drop out of ketosis if you eat even a hint of too many carbs. It can take up to 8 hours or more for your body to return to ketosis.
So, what can you eat on the keto diet.
“Some healthy unsaturated fats are allowed on the keto diet – like nuts (almonds, walnuts), seeds, avocados, tofu, and olive oil. But saturated fats from oils (palm, coconut), lard, butter, and cocoa butter are encouraged in high amounts.
Protein is part of the keto diet, but it doesn’t typically discriminate between lean protein foods and protein sources high in saturated fat such as beef, pork, and bacon.
What fruit and vegetables? All fruits are rich in carbs, but you can have certain fruits (usually berries) in small portions. Vegetables (also rich in carbs) are restricted to leafy greens (such as kale, Swiss chard, spinach), cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, bell pepper, onions, garlic, mushrooms, cucumber, celery, and summer squashes. A cup of chopped broccoli has about six carbs.”
I’m not a fan of the keto diet. Basically, it has two benefits.
- Helps people with epilepsy.
- It can help to control blood sugar.
The Keto Diet Has More Risks Than Benefits
(All the quoted sections are from the author McManus and were reviewed by Howard E. LeWine, MD).
“A ketogenic diet has numerous risks. Top of the list: it’s high in saturated fat. McManus recommends that you keep saturated fats to no more than 7% of your daily calories because of the link to heart disease. And indeed, the keto diet is associated with an increase in ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol, which is also linked to heart disease.
Other potential keto risks include these:
Nutrient deficiency. ‘If you’re not eating a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains, you may be at risk for deficiencies in micronutrients, including selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins B and C’ McManus says.
Liver problems. With so much fat to metabolize, the diet could make existing liver conditions worse.
Kidney problems. The kidneys help metabolize protein, and McManus says the keto diet may overload them. (The current recommended intake for protein averages 36 grams per day for women, and 56 grams for men).
Constipation. The keto diet is low in fibrous foods like grains and legumes.
Fuzzy thinking and mood swings. The brain works best when the energy source is sugar from healthy carbohydrates to function. Low-carb diets may cause confusion and irritability.
Those risks add up – so make sure that you talk to a doctor and a registered dietitian before ever attempting a ketogenic diet.
What about the other diets?
The popular low-carb diets (such as Atkins or Paleo) modify a true keto diet. But they come with the same risks if you overdo it on fats and proteins and lay off the carbs.
So why do people follow the diets?
They’re everywhere, and people hear anecdotally that they work. Theories about short-term low-carb diet success include lower appetite because fat burns slower than carbs. But concerns remain about staying on a keto diet long term. And eating a restrictive diet, no matter what the plan, is difficult to sustain. Once you resume a normal diet, the weight will likely return.”
The reviewer: Dr. Howard E. LeWine, MD, is a practicing internist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Chief Medical Editor at Harvard Health Publishing, and editor-in-chief of Harvard Men’s Health Watch. To read the full blog or see other blogs, you can go here.
How Paleo Works
The Paleo diet is a modern diet that is also known as the Paleolithic diet, Caveman diet, Stone Age diet, or Hunter-Gatherer diet. Proponents of the diet believe that people of the Paleolithic period or Stone Age period had a very different diet than we do today. The idea is that to be healthy today, we should stick with the foods that were available during the Stone Age.
There are two debates about this belief that persist to this day. The Paleo believers state that human digestion has remained essentially unchanged since the Stone Age. On the other side in the 21st century, studying the remains of early humans has shown that humans evolved rapidly in response to their changing diet. The evidence undermines the core premise of the Paleo diet. Anthropological science has also found evidence that human diets during the Stone Age were more varied and less meat-centric than previously believed.
Early versions of the Paleolithic diet have been around since the 1890’s and 1950’s. The Stone Age Diet was written in 1975 by a gastroenterologist Walter L. Voegtlin. In 1985 a controversial article written by Stanely Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The article proposed that modern humans were biologically very similar to their primitive ancestors. Thus, they were “genetically programmed” to consume a pre-agricultural food. The Paleo diet we know today became popular in the 21st century.
Initially it attracted a large internet-based following through web sites, forums, and social media. In 2002, it was further popularized by a book The Paleo Diet written by Loren Cordain, a health scientist with a Ph.D. in physical education, and also a book by the same title in 2010. He also trade marked the words “The Paleo Diet.”
What Can Be Eaten On A Paleo Diet?
It’s more about specific ingredients and does not really care about macronutrients. It also eliminates anything a caveman would not be able to get. The foods that would be excluded are all dairy products, grain-based foods, legumes, extra sugar, nutritional industry products such as refined fats and refined carbohydrates. It also avoids processed foods.
You can eat:
- Most vegetables (except corn), fruits, nuts, roots, lean meats, and organ meats.
- Fruit oils such as olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil.
- Fish, seeds, and eggs.
- Sweeteners such as ghee, honey, and maple sytup.
Paleo is more of a low sugar diet. It’s not low carb in the same sense as other carb restricted diets. The debate continues that the original paleo diet is not as healthy as people think.
If you are interested in or want to try the Paleo diet, be sure to discuss any underlying health issues with your doctor. This diet is not for those who:
- Are at risk for heart disease.
- Have kidney damage.
- Are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
However, if your doctor gives you a green light, then go for it with a Paleo diet.
How the Smoothie Diet Works
The Smoothie diet does not focus on bodily processes like Keto or changing the balance of macronutrients like Paleo or a low-carb program focused on net carbs like Atkins.
The focus of the Smoothie diet is on two things:
- Replacing unhealthy, processed foods with healthy fruits and vegetables.
- Replacing large, calorically dense meals with smaller, filling smoothies.
The 21-Day Smoothie Diet Program isn't just a list of smoothies; it is a meticulously crafted regime replete with exact smoothie recipes, savory solid meal suggestions, and convenient shopping lists. With practical weekly schedules, tips for smoothie perfection, and advice for life after the program, The Smoothie Diet is your devoted companion in the pursuit of wellness: no calorie counting, no confusion – just delicious nourishment.
Customize your lifestyle with our flexible plan that caters to your preferences – choose your meal replacement smoothies and solid meals. With a designated cheat day and optional flex days, you can ease into your transformation without the pressure of perfection. Our shopping swap guide caters to unique preferences and dietary restrictions, ensuring everyone can indulge in the journey.
Designed for longevity rather than fleeting change, this program is suited even for those managing type-2 diabetes (consultation with a doctor is advised). Insider's tip: streamline your experience with a robust blender to whisk up these energy-packed elixirs within minutes!
It is a program that leads you to a healthier lifestyle by changing the ingredients you eat.
Diet Plans Vs. Lifestyle Changes
Atkins and the Smoothie Diet do have common beliefs. As I mentioned above, the Atkins of today is updated from the original Atkins.
- They both start with a program to lose weight which is a temporary program. You can go through the initial program until you get to a good weight.
- As you go through the initial program, they both have programs to a style of eating that is healthy and avoids processed and junk food.
- The end result for both programs is to get you to a healthier lifestyle by changing the ingredients you eat.
Paleo and Keto programs are both geared to a lifestyle change. The goal for both of them is stay on the program for the rest of your life. Paleo followers are of the belief that humans today should eat the way cavemen ate thousands of years ago. Keto is focused on getting your body into Ketosis.
Both diets and lead to health issues. The medical community is not an avid supporter of the Keto diet unless you have epilepsy or blood sugar issues. For blood sugar issues, there are other healthier programs to follow.
Which Diet is the Best?
Just because I promote the Smoothie Diet, I’m not going to say it is the best diet. Everyone's body is different, and a diet that works for one person may not work for another person. The best diet is the one that you can follow into a lifestyle change without any side effects.
All the diets in this blog can be modified to continue into a lifestyle change. If you don’t see yourself being able to follow a lifestyle change with one of these diets, you might be better off going with something like the Mediterranean, Vegetarian, or Vegan program.
I’m a Pescatarian Vegetarian. This means I eat seafood, dairy, and eggs. The dairy I eat is cheese, sour cream, and yogurt. When it comes to milk, I use almond or coconut. For cream, I use Mexican crema or coconut cream. A number of the smoothies in the Smoothie Diet are compatible for me. Others, I’ve tweaked. I drink a smoothie every morning. Even my dog likes one every morning too.
What type of diet is best for you? This is a question only you can answer. I would suggest consulting with a doctor or nutritionist before starting any diet. However, this is your choice.
If you want to try the Smoothie Diet go here. It comes with a 60 day money back guarantee. You have nothing to lose except weight.