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I have looked at both sides. I'm a certified trainer, trained at Cooper Institute Hospital in Dallas, Texas. The topics I mentioned I have studied at great length with information from the sources I mentioned along with others. The body needs carbs to run just like a car needs gas. Bad gas makes the car run badly and causes it not to perform at top level. This will cause other problems with the car like going out of time or misfiring. The same thing happens without carbs. The body runs out of energy during extended draw, and there have been numerous problems with stones like was mentioned. The high protein low carb diets are proven to be useful in quick weight loss for a limited time, but, too many times, that is inconsistent as it is very little more than water loss which will return at first few drinks.

I recommend a balanced diet with no less than 50% carbs and preferred 60%. With proper exercise, the carbs will burn and you will feel better. I do not believe in losing weight for anything other than health purposes. It is not how you look, but how you feel and how healthy you are. These adds for washboard abs and shrinking buttocks are a falacy as your genes have a lot to say about your shape.

Don't be fooled like a lot of people with one-size-fits-all books about weight loss that are written to make money and don't tell the whole truth all the time. They are the illusion of health, not the reality. Short term weight loss is not the answer to good health. And these diets can be nothing else but short term as the longer you stay on these diets, the better the chance of the fore mentioned health problems.

Red

The body runs out of energy during extended draw,

Exactly how often do you see a person who is 50+ pounds overweight in an extended energy draw?!? I didn't start running or working out again until after I lost 25.

If you'd bother to read the Atkins book, you'd see that the whole program is set up to INCREASE carb intake after the "induction" phase to find the level at which you maintain a steady weight. Once I'd lost that 25, and started exercising again, I was back up to about 70g of carbs per day, which is more than adequate for a regular 30-minute workout every other day. Once again, just about every nay-sayer has no clue what the Atkins diet is really about.

I started Atkin's in the summer and was down from 260 to 210 at one point. My lax holiday eating has got me back up to 225. At the first of the year I plan on going back on Atkins. While i was on Atkins, i felt great, got a good nights sleep and had plenty of energy. I have noticed since going off for the holidays I'm tired and have problems sleeping. Like most people that bash Atkin's you seem to have no grasp of the way of eating that he called for. You should only get carbs from natural sources ( vegetables ). After the initial weight loss, you find the right amount of carbs to maintain your target weight. He also believed in drinking alot of water and moderate exercise. The increased water intake prevents stones as well as bringing your body into proper hydration. By the way the origins of the food pyramid were founded from a group paid by the wheat and grain producers.

The body needs carbs to run just like a car needs gas.

False - the body has NO need of carbohydrates and can survive indefinitely without them.

The body runs out of energy during extended draw, and there have been numerous problems with stones like was mentioned.

Actually during any thing more than 45 minutes of strenuous exercise carbs are a non issue. Run for 45 minutes and your body exhausts its glycogen. You are burning fat. As to the kidney stones - the standard elevated calcium argument that is run out is moot. After 6 or so weeks on low carb levels normalize.

I recommend a balanced diet with no less than 50% carbs and preferred 60%.

I will stick with Atkins and the Eades and Wolfgang Lutz. That diet may work for an athlete but anyone who lives a normal life will steadily become a hog.

Don't be fooled like a lot of people with one-size-fits-all books about weight loss that are written to make money and don't tell the whole truth all the time. They are the illusion of health, not the reality. Short term weight loss is not the answer to good health. And these diets can be nothing else but short term as the longer you stay on these diets, the better the chance of the fore mentioned health problems.

Well my Wife and I have been on the diet 7 years. We both are lighter, have no digestion problems, (at least when my wife is not pregant or breastfeeding) no need for Prosac or Zantac, dramatically fewer headaches, better skin, rock stable blood sugar etc. When we were eating 50 to 60 % carb that wasn't the case.

It is you who has been fooled by one size fits all diets. Fat consumption has fallen from ~40% to ~32% from 1970 to the present with an associate rise in carb consumption. This is a dream scenario for all of your nutrition teachers however strangely enough obesity and diabetes have EXPLODED! By your reasoning things should have gone the other way. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good Hypothesis! Doctor Atkins has been talking about the effect of excess carb consumption for years. What did he say was the ultimate outcome? Obesity and Diabetes. He called it Diabesity. The clowns who said he was wrong want us to cut out more fat and eat more grain!!!! Give me good meat, green and yellow vegetables, dairy and fish thank you.

Read Wolfgang Lutz's book "Life without Bread". The Eades' "Protein Power Life Plan", later Atkins books, Mercola's books including "The No Grain Diet" etc.

I have been reading the opposition for years. I bought the low fat BS. I believed in "the carbohydrate advantage". I was wrong. My wife gave me a book that allowed me to look at the ridiculous Atkins' point of view. It was Protein Power. If she had given me Atkins' book I would not have read it and investigated further. It would have been my loss.

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation."

-Herbert Spencer-