Who has fallen for the "low carb" ripoff fad?

[Speck Tater]

I've asked a couple of friends who are going "low carb" what the reasons were for that choice. They didn't have a clue. They're just following the latest fad without even giving a moments thought to the possibility that some very serious health problems could show up in people who are following it.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=571&ncid=751&e=1&u=/nm/20040622/hl_nm/health_diets_dc

Don't forget, fruits and vegies are good for you and they are just about PURE carbs! What is wrong with people that they fall for this nonsense?

(ed sp)

[Th1onein]

1. I "fell" for the low carb "fad," and I'm healthier than I've been in years

Have you read Dr. Atkin's book? Have you studied the science that underlies it? It's good science. A good book. And an excellent diet.

[Speck Tater]

4. I eat carbs, but have started exercising more and...

I'm feeling better than I have in years. And I get lots of carbs in the form of fresh fruits and vegies. I attribute the improvement to exercise and a better balanced diet.

There are a lot of doctors presenting a lot of solid evidence that low carb might make you feel better in the short run, but could cause long run serious problems.

[Deja Q]

43. Ketosis being a biggie... that destroys the kidneys... exercise is good.

I'm doing a 25 minute jaunt on the elliptical trainer in the morning, soon to add a mile walk during lunch and another 25 mins on the trainer when I get home.

My diet is fine (steamed frozen or fresh veggies, lean meats, cheating w/ hamburger helper or spices to cut down on fat content, I can still do 1400~1700 calories per day.

I'll be rid of my blubber gut in no time, I darn well tootin' hope! :D I look like a pregnant hippo on acid...

[supernova]

44. Ketosis is OK

Ketoacidosis is the kidney destroying illness you don't want.

[Shakespeare]

49. You're confusing ketosis with ketoacidosis.

Ketosis is a desired result of a low-carb diet, and is quite safe. Ketoacidosis is something entirely different, and that's the one that's dangerous.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. I have a family member that has gone Atkins

and lost quite a bit of weight and finds he has no trouble keeping it off. Before he went on the Atkins diet, he was always overweight and had tried various other types of diets without much luck (e.g. low fat etc). He does eat some fruit and lots of green veggies and salads but no starchy foods like potatoes, rice and pasta and no regular type bread (but he does eat the special Atkins low carb bread most grocery stores are carrying these days).

[Bluebear]

2. I lost 30 lbs on South Beach

although I refuse to buy "special" low carb product$.

[pocket]

3. it's not a ripoff, but

many, many people get half the info and go off on a meat & fat tear.

Not all carbs are equal.

[Speck Tater]

8. Like the 100% spam and lard diet. Boy THAT's low carb!

[supernova]

5. Lost 23 lbs

on Atkins. Plus I walk between 3-4 miles/day 4x/week.

"Low Carb" diets are really about finding which carbs work with your body if you have insulin resistance. Usually it's those veggies and fruits low on the glycemic index. It looks very familiar to those with diabetes.

It is not a steak and bacon diet.

[Sandpiper]

6. The fool and his money are soon parted

Not everyone on a low carb diet is a sucker.

The suckers are the ones who don't think twice about shelling out money for overpriced low carb speciality products.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

7. Sounds to me like you aren't familiar with how the diet works and

before giving scientists who rely on outdated studies the benefit of the doubt, it's useful to see who their masters are as most science is corporately funded nowadays.

The criticisms of low carb are based on people leaving their carb levels at the low levels of the first two weeks...not the long term reduced carb diets wherein one can have 40 or more carbs a day which is not unreasonable and doesn't rob the body of any nutrients.

Basing it on the US recommended servings is a bit foolish since those guidelines are heavily lobbied by industry and are far from completely scientific.

For the most part a calorie is a calorie is a calorie but for people prone to hyperinsulinism or a diabetic history in their family, a lower carb diet is probably the best way to protect their pancreas.

I really hate it when people post ignorant conclusionary flame bait without knowing ten times more than what they are actually going to say.

[Speck Tater]

14. I confess ignorance.

My own personal exposure to low carb diet is a handful of wacky friends who are eating only meat and lard. Well, that's an exageration, but they won't even eat a single slice of whole wheat toast because it has "carbs" in it. They are treating "carbs" as if it was rat poison, and trying to eliminate ALL carbs from their diet. That's just insane.

But regardles of how well founded the diet is, (and I concede that it may well be a good diet for weight loss) the majority of the people who jump on the band wagon treat it as a fad and go to unhealthy extremes because they no absolutely nothing about the real nature of the diet.

[supernova]

18. Bread is a no no

the first two weeks because of the flour. A single slice of bread counts as 10 carbs. That's 1/2 of your daily carb allotment used up in one item. Flour goes straight to your bloodstream, just as sugar does. That's why you forgo the bread during the first couple of weeks.

But as you go along, gradually adding carbs back in and getting closer to your goal weight, you may discover that you can have that slice of bread without upsetting your metabolism.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

22. Processed foods are full of all kinds of shit and are empty calories

anyway...one good thing Atkin's does is turn you to eating more nutritious foods and supplements

[supernova]

23. Yes,

And you know what? I don't even miss that stuff: crackers, pastas, etc. It's just empty calories to me now.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

19. Not Atkin's fault..he wrote a great book on the science behind it

and cautioned people of the dangers of prolonged periods on the induction phase...as he studied his own clients he modified the book.

People are idiots. With any diet, if you altered your metabolism, even switched to three Snicker's bars a day, you'd lose weight to start then gain it right back after your metabolism adjusted.

The reason some people can use Atkins and keep it off is because they don't metabolize sugars at the rate others do. Exercize is good for some but not all of it.

The best thing about Atkins is that you CAN have fruits, vegetables and potatos in small amounts after the induction phase..even grains..but you are almost eliminating ALL processed foods (white bread, pasta, bleached rice and crackers etc) from your diet....by doing this you've eliminated tons of chemicals and preservatives from your diet.

Furthermore, dietary fat does not convert to body fat...it converts to energy..sugars convert to energy but are stored as fat if you don't use them daily.

Sensibility and the ability to follow instructions are important with any diet regime...if a person follows a low fat diet to the extreme they too would get sick since certain aminos are only obtained from fats.

[KittyWampus]

38. Eating Meat Doesn't Necessarily Eliminate Tons Of Chemicals

Perdue chickens TASTE like chemicals to me... I am accustomed to organic, fresh-killed chickens.

And animal fats have built up chemical traces in them.... that's why pregnant women shouldn't eat tuna, for example.

So unless you are growing your own or going out of your way to eat organic, the chemicals are still there.

Even veggies have chemical traces in them.

[supernova]

40. It does if you eat organic

and there are organic meats to be had.

[Shakespeare]

9. I'd love to know who's underwriting this "new" group.

ADM, Monsanto, the sugar growers....there are a lot of high-powered corporations who'd love to reverse the low-carb trend and make people thing it's OK to consume lots of highly processed foods, especially high-fructose corn syrup.

[supernova]

12. Yes, all sorts of products

are marketed as "low fat" but also have high sugar content. So it's a wash in the not good for your health dept.

[Sandpiper]

13. Let's not make Low Carb Inc. out to be knights on white chargers

These guys are in it for the same reason as everyone else, to make as much money as they possibly can.

Would you care to buy an Atkins Brand candy bar? A real bargain at $2.00. And for your two bucks you're getting half the taste at twice the price.

[supernova]

20. I get a 30% discount

at my local health store on the atkins bars.

They're not necessary. I use them in the evening as a convenience, esp if I'm going out.

[Sandpiper]

25. The point of my post was

That the low carb industry is just that, and industry.

Atkins was as much a salesman as a doctor.

[supernova]

29. He was also a cardiologist

who noticed his patients tended to share certain characteristics:

Have belly fat.
Fail at other types of diets.
Have high and or uncontrolled blood sugar levels.

The products came way after the observations in the clinic.

[flamingyouth]

16. You're so right about the high-fructose corn syrup

The amazing book "Fatland" has quite an interesting story about the rise of HFCS, and lo and behold, our nation is fatter than ever. It's a great companion book to "Fast Food Nation" - I read them right around the same time. :hi:

[Sandpiper]

17. I hate it when I pick up a bottle of "juice"

Look at the ingredients and see: Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. I went to my doctor

who recommended a diet specifically for me a couple of years ago. Seems from my bloodwork and family health history, I am carbohydrate sensitive. She gave me a list of foods not to eat (including carrots and beets)and told me only to use fructose or Splenda for sweetening. She found a thyroid problem, which is being treated with prescription medicine.

I have never read the Atkins or Southbeach diets, so I have no idea how close my diet is to theirs, but I applaud the low carb choices I now have.

[tridim]

15. You can eat anything you want

if you just eat less and exercise. Moderation is the best diet ever!

[maveric]

41. How many of you will be able to stay on this diet forever?

Moderation and exercise does the trick.

[supernova]

42. exercise - less calories = weight losst only works

if you don't have a problem with insulin resistance, which is a very real medical condition.

If you have insulin resistence, you have to cut down on the foods that cause your body to produce high and sustained insulin levels. Those foods are chiefly made from flour, pototoes, rice, starches, etc.

[Speck Tater]

21. If you really want to get biological about it...

Cows eat grass because they evolved to eat what was available to them, and their system evolved to get the most good out of that food source.

Humans should eat what they evolved to eat, which would be whatever the diet of the neolithic hunter-gatherer was. Fruits, vegies, greens, some meat, eggs and fish now and then, but certainly not three times a day. Probably a lot of nibbling all day rather than gorging at three meals.

We certaily have the potential to eat more than our neolithic ancestors, but we inherited their biology and that biology will function best on the diet it evolved to function on. If we were Koalas we'd make ourselves sick eating hamburgers instead of eucalyptus leaves. Since we are humans we are making ourselves sick eating hamburgers instead of whatever our nacestors evolved to eat.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

24. Modern agriculture has only been around 5000 years

Thank the Sumerians...prior to this fruits were only around in the season they grew...granted life expectancy is different and some of that is diet...agricultural advancements...the discovery of vitamin C as the source of scurvy and the like...but one thing is for certain...processed foods have only been around a short time comparatively, lie about their nutritional value and bribe their way into the USDA and food charts

[ant]

27. and of course..

...we didn't evolve those needs while working office jobs and sitting on our asses all day.

I think most fad diets contain a nugget of truth. A high-fat diet is not good for you, hence the low-fat craze, but you need some fats, so that's out. Processed foods and certain types of carbs are not good for you, hence the low-carb craze, but you need certain carbs, so that's out. I wonder if we'll go throuhg a low-protein craze, too.

Maybe then we'll finally hit the get-off-your-ass craze and people will finally be common-sense healthy. Honestly, the greatest part about starting a regular exercise routine was learning that it allowed me to eat whatever I want and still look/feel good!

Hmmm...maybe I can market that....

[Sandpiper]

30. You'll have a hard sell

Trying to market a "diet" based around getting off your ass and getting some physical activity.

People only like to jump on the bandwagon when they feel like someone's discovered a quick fix to a long term problem.

[ant]

32. marketing, marketing, marketing

Eat All You Want And Lose Weight!!*







*Will require getting off your ass. Result may vary.

[Liberal Classic]

26. I was low carb before low carb was cool

Before you spout off about things, perhaps you should educate yourself about what a low carb diet really is. I agree that things like low carb candy and beer are absurd, but that's nothing new. I remember when everyone was cashing in on the Great Oat Bran Craze.

Due to developing an allergy to wheat gluten I had to stop eating bread. Wheat is a staple and prevalent in just about everything. I was very frustrated for a while because bread is so hard to avoid. No more pizza and beer for me.

:(

However, after cutting out things like breads and pasta and breakfast cereals, and replacing them with fruits and veggies I found that I felt better. After cutting out the soft drinks and doing some moderate exercise I started losing weight too! That was a good thing because as a computer technician I was sitting behind a desk.

In the past 5 years I have lost 75 pounds, rather slowly but surely, and this is the important thing: without starving myself all the time which is what traditional low fat diets seemed to feel like for me. But now my colesterol is down, my blood pressure is normal, and I am no longer pre-diabetic. All from a moderate change in eating habits and some regular excercise. I still have sweets sometimes, too. My favorite is candied almonds. No cakes or crusts of course, but I am not allergic to chocolate. Mmm.

Last year I finally bought the Atkins book and read it. It seemed to explain to me why it had worked. I already knew that it had, but I didn't know why. Now I do. Before anyone flames me for being a walking advertisement for Atkins, pfui! I had never heard of him until he started making the news.

Editing of typos.

[supernova]

31. Wow! Thanks for sharing your story.

I'm really starting to delve more into this food allergy business. It's amazing what you can do to your body by feeding it something it's allergic to/intolerant of.

Congrats on the weight loss! :thumbsup:

[Liberal Classic]

33. Thanks!

Allergies remain a medical mystery in so many ways. It is unknown exactly what can trigger them, why our bodies decide to treat something as a foreign invader whereas it didn't before. Treating allergic reactions is pretty well understood, but the underlying causes of them aren't. Certianly, I don't have the worst kind of food allergy; I'd have to give the nod to nut and shellfish allergies for that. I do have hay fever, and of course wheat is a grass. That part kind of makes sense. I wasn't like this when I was a child, though. Just weird.

(I sometimes idly wonder what would happen if I ate a whole bottle of wheat germ at one time. I have an adrenaline syringe, but I am too chicken to try it out.)

What did suprise me is that flour is every where in places you wouldn't expect. It's used as a filler and thickener in so many things, even in foods primarily billed as being made with rice or other grains. Especially breakfast cereals. I really had to learn to read food lables.

When the whole low-carb thing hit the news, I went out and bought the Atkins book. I just felt like yelling eureka! I hadn't been following the food pyramid in years. I couldn't. If I tried, I'd be eating rice cakes three times per day. Blegh. I honestly believe the FDA food pyramid is based on 19th science. Here's a Adobe Acrobat file from the USDA which is relevant:

http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/Pubs/Food%20Supply/foodsupplyrpt.pdf

People in the U.S. have always eaten a lot of meat. But one of the largest increases has been in consumption of sugars. Somewhere in there is a pie chart which shows carbohydrates from sugars going from 12% to 20% or so. I believe this part of the problem, at least.

Not shown in this file is the change in activity levels. A lot more people have sit down jobs now than 100 years ago. That's got to count for something.

[leftistagitator]

37. You know what I think did it...

When you stopping drinking soda and started exercising. Fruits and veggies are great too, but I think if you hadn't been allergic to wheat and kept eating it you'd be fine. I, also being a computer person with some weight I could lose, started exercising last year and cutting the obviously unhealthy stuff from my diet like fast foods and soda about 16 months ago. I lost almost all the extra weight I was caring, about about 95 pounds of mass weight, but probably about 110 pounds of fat given how much stronger I am now. The funny thing is I eat several potatoes a day, I can't get enough of them, so I guess the low carb people would say I must be a high carb person. But I'm of the opinion that if you do the daily exercises, cut out the fast food and junk food, you can eat any way you like.

And I'm not sure I trust Atkins due to the lack of long term research into the Atkins way of life, and the fact that it directly contradicts all of the things that nutritionists have been saying for years. The Atkins people blame the nutritionists for Americans being fat, but the simple fact is that most people don't do what nutritionists tell them too, and they won't exercise, so I hardly see how it's fair to blame fatness on low-fat dieting.

[Liberal Classic]

39. Getting rid of sugary drinks and exercise

Is enough to get anyone to lose weight.

Just because nutricians have been saying the same things for years, does not make them right or Dr. Atkins wrong.

I still eat potatoes and brown rice. What I don't eat is white flour and a lot of spagetti.

[Beaker]

45. I'm "allergic" to dietary starch...

I have a condition called "ankylosing spondylitis", an autoimmune disorder linked to being positive for the HLA-B27 gene, DNA-wise.
it's involved and technical, and you can read about it here: http://www.kickas.org/molecular_mimicry.shtml
if you go in for that kind of thing.

what happens:
everyone has various organisms living in their digestive track to help break down and absorb the food we eat. Klebsiella is the bacteria involved in the digestion of starch. when you eat bread, pasta, etc..., the klebsiella feed on the starch, and multiply; since klebsiella is a nasty little bacteria, the immune system takes note of the sudden growth of the little buggers, and dispatches anti-bodies to bring the klebsiella under control. through a process of 'molecular mimicry, with the HLA-B27 gene, the antibodies recognize good tissue as invasive, and sets about attacking it, and long story short- through a glacially slow and painful process, my spine ends up becoming fused due to my body's reaction to starch.

[TrustingDog]

28. what nonsense.

these fad diets are. sheeeesh but people are stupid.

[gpandas]

34. yeah, some speak of additives in food...

and then bite into a hormone-laden, chemical -laden piece of dead flesh. on edit-many times dead pig flesh.

[Misunderestimator]

35. Count me in...

Never have much trouble maintaining my weight as long as I limit the carbs... not cut them out altogether, just limit them... I don't have cravings for carbs like I used to, and I have a healthy diet and am able to maintain a healthy weight.

I think the biggest objection to the low-carb fad is that people go overboard with it. And they do. And it's unhealthy. But to just cut it all the way back to the basics, if you simply limit your carbohydrate intake, you'll be better off.

[LynneSin]

36. I'm on low carbs and believe me, I eat fruits & vegetables

<sigh>

Folks who don't read the books and follow through with the diet still assume we go out and slaughter a cow each day for our meals.

For the first few weeks, we do a very low carb diet to help wein us from the addictive junk carbs we have eaten for so long. During that initial phase I ate plenty of vegetables (except starchy ones) and a few fruits. As the weeks went on I started to add more of these foods back into my diet.

I appreciate the lower carb products out there but honestly, many of that is really just 'sugar free'

[pagerbear]

46. Why are people so passionate about this subject?

[Shakespeare]

50. Couple of reasons....

1. We have a very emotional--in some cases addictive--attachment to carbs, especially sugar and processed products. They taste good, they're "comfort" foods, and our bodies crave them like crazy. People can be very defensive about being told not to eat them.

2. There is a definite corporate interest in getting people to continue eating all the highly processed starches. While there is absolutely nothing unhealthy about a diet composed primarily of fresh fruits and vegetables and lean, healthy meat, big agriculture wants us to think we should really be eating 8-10 servings a day of breads and other starches--because that's where they're making their money.

[formernaderite]

47. Considering the low carb makes you give up sugars...it's a very good start

Basically it forces people to give up highly processed foods, and simple sugars. I don't think every diet is great for every one...but this one seems to at least make Americans think about the amount of sugar they consume.

[testing123]

48. I am on the all carb diet

I don't care I am past the age of looking good.