Precision Nutrition and Atkins

A Deep Dive into Precision Nutrition

• Genetics (Nutrigenetics): How your DNA influences your response to certain foods and nutrients.
• Microbiome: The trillions of bacteria in your gut and how they interact with diet and affect metabolism.
• Metabolic profile: How your body processes and uses nutrients.
• Health status: Existing conditions or health goals.
• Lifestyle habits: Physical activity, sleep, stress and environmental exposures.
• Socioeconomic and psychosocial characteristics: Factors that influence your food choices and access.

How Atkins Works with Precision Nutrition

• Atkins Plans: Atkins has three plans (Atkins 20, Atkins 40 and Atkins 100) that you can customize depending on your goals and carb tolerance. You’ll learn how to dial in your macronutrients (carbs, protein and fat) to support stable blood sugar, efficient fat metabolism and lasting weight management. Precision Nutrition would guide you through these plans, but with a deeper understanding of your unique carbohydrate tolerance.
• Healthy Status and Genetic Factors: Your lifestyle and environment, including eating habits, may influence how your genes behave (this is known as epigenetics). If you have type-2 diabetes, higher carb diets and blood sugar spikes can trigger inflammation and insulin resistance. Research shows lowering carbs may flip the switch on those genes, allowing you to improve your blood sugar control and metabolic health. This is where Atkins 20 may be helpful, as it allows you to reset your metabolism and support your metabolic health. This is potentially another example of the power of Precision Nutrition.
• Activity Level: If you’re highly active, especially if you’re doing intense resistance training or endurance sports, you might tolerate (and even benefit from) more carbs than a sedentary person, even within a low carb framework. Precision Nutrition emphasizes aligning your carb intake with your activity levels.
• Body Composition: If you have a lot of weight to lose, and/or you have a higher proportion of visceral fat (the deep belly fat that you can’t see that surrounds your internal organs and that is linked to higher risks of heart disease, type-2 diabetes and inflammation), you might benefit from a stricter low carb approach initially (like Atkins 20 or 40). As your health improves and/or you lose weight, your carb tolerance might increase. Precision Nutrition focuses on tailoring your nutrition to meet these specific needs.

• Atkins’ Customization: Atkins offers the flexibility to introduce specific foods, allowing you to experiment and discover which foods you tolerate best and enjoy most, making this a sustainable approach to this way of eating in the long term. It's not just about what to eat, but how to integrate it into a real-life context.
• Mindful Eating: Precision Nutrition often teaches mindful eating practices, helping you tune into hunger and fullness cues, and understand the emotional aspects of eating. This can prevent overeating.
• Habit Formation: Instead of just providing a meal plan, A Precision Nutrition (with an Atkins approach) would focus on building sustainable habits. This might involve developing routines for meal prepping low carb options, identifying healthy low carb snacks or strategies for navigating social situations.
• Troubleshooting and Adjustment: Precision Nutrition acknowledges that plateaus or challenges are inevitable. Atkins could help you identify the root cause (e.g., too many hidden carbs, insufficient protein, stress, poor sleep) and adjust accordingly.

• Beyond Weight Loss: Precision Nutrition encompasses physical, mental, emotional, social and even existential well-being. This means considering how a low carb approach impacts your energy levels, mood, sleep, stress management and overall quality of life.
• Integration with Lifestyle: Precision Nutrition emphasizes that diet is just one piece of the puzzle. It would integrate the Atkins principles with recommendations for adequate sleep, stress management and appropriate physical activity (which can also influence your carb tolerance and metabolic health).