Atkins Diet Menu

WLR's Dietitian Juliette Kellow analyses a sample day's menu on the Atkins Diet.

Typical Day’s Atkins Diet Menu

By WLR Dietitian

Juliette Kellow BSc RD

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.

You can track your fibre and calorie intake with the food diary and tools in Weight Loss Resources - try it free for 24 hours.

'Like most nutrition experts, the potential high fat content of the diet concerns me. Even if followers don’t eat huge amounts, I’m not keen on the idea of a diet that suggests it’s OK to eat large amounts.

Meanwhile, having spent years trying to encourage people to eat more fruit and veg, I find the idea of ‘banning’ or ‘limiting’ these foods appalling – this to me is a huge step backwards.'

Juliette Kellow