Posted on 08/03/2005 7:10:46 AM PDT by summer
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- More dieters are ditching carb counts and biting into baguettes with gusto these days. ...
This week's bankruptcy filing by the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins' old company provide fresh evidence of the low-carb diet's demise, a downward spiral that began early last year. But no single new diet has filled the void.
Observers say the only sure thing -- given the boom-and-bust nature of weight-loss trends -- is that something will pop up eventually.
''There isn't one single strong contender,'' said Anne M. Russell, editor-in-chief of Shape magazine. ''If you look at what the single largest trend is, it's weight gain.''
Chapter 11 filings by Atkins Nutritionals Inc. on Monday came about a year and a half after books like ''The Atkins Essentials'' rode the best seller charts, bread makers were back on their heels and Burger King introduced a Whopper without a bun.
But Atkins has been in decline since February 2004, said Harry Balzer, a food industry analyst at market researcher NPD Group. Balzer claims Atkins was one of those demanding diets that simply ran its course, going from fad to fade like so many others before it, including the Scarsdale and the cabbage soup diets.
How far and how fast did Atkins fall? By September 2004, surplus low-carb products were being shipped to food banks in Appalachia....
Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health, figures it might be something like a high-protein diet.
''Somebody will come up with something new,'' she said. ''There's a lot of creativity out there in Diet World."
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On the Net:
Government dietary guidelines: mypyramid.com
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
PS Thanks for the laughs. It's good for my health! :)
Through all the lambasting, I love how so many people continue to tell me that my weight loss efforts are ineffectual despite results. I need to eat more fish? More meat? Less grains? ...If you say so!
Savage had a good point on his radio show yesterday: Look at all of the societies in this world that live the longest. Look at their diets and exercise habits. The Japanese eat a lot of rice and fish. The Italians eat a lot of whole grain pasta and seafood. The French eat a lot of fatty cheeses and the like, but none of the food in these societies is "enriched" or "fortified."
American foods are packed with sodium, enriched flour, fortified this, concentrate that, high fructose corn syrup, saccharine, polyphenols, and the list goes on.
When I shop, I shop by labels. I look at nutrition information, sodium content, sugars, TYPES of sugars (sucrose, fructose, etc), calories, and the like. Eating is not supposed to make you feel tired and sluggish. It's supposed to give you energy and feel like you're running on a full tank. I eat almonds, grapes, spinach, broccoli, melon, bananas and various meats throughout my days and weeks, and I consistently have energy and feel great.
Stop with the feel-good, Atkins makes you stronger and the like. If you want to do Atkins, that's cool. If you lose weight from it, that's great. But I'm telling you, as a former Weight Watcher, Jenny Craig-er, Atkins and South Beach dieter... the best thing I've found is not limiting myself to what I can eat ("That's on the no-no list"), but instead giving myself free reign of the menu and making sure that the ingredients are unadulterated, healthy and full of the energy my body needs to make it through the day.
Like I said, if you want to do Atkins, South Beach, the Michael Jackson Children's Vitamin diet, whatever... do it up! You won't hear a gripe from me. I know what works for me, I've seen my method work for the guys I played football and weight lifted with in college, and I think that common sense, healthy, natural eating is supposed to be not only easy and fun, but simple, not burdensome.
And additionally... I continue to stand by my stance that you have to actually get up off the couch. 30 minutes of exercise a day is all it takes to help your metabolism keep up. Sugars and carbohydrates produce glucose. Glucose is the PRIMARY medium for brain functionality. If you deprive yourself of complex carbohydrates, you effectively starve your body of what it needs to perform basic cognitive skills. When I was on Atkins, I was sluggish, despondent and unhappy. Exercise was either boring or laborious. Again, you do what works for you, but my experience has been that diversity lends itself to health. Take it FWIW.
/donFlameProofSuit
Glad to brighten up your day, whatever it is that has you in the mood to troll.
Also, for those who deal problems in life, there's nothing like a sundae or daily coffee with danish to make one feel better (albeit temporarily).
Some may be able to lose 20 lbs. on a short term diet, but the above 2 issues keep most from succeeding longterm.
Americans usually fall for that sort of thing, because we don't have the real facts about (1) how healthy they are in those countries, and (2) what they actually eat. In the case of Asian countries, for example, there's a reason they're so short, and it ain't genetic.
ROTFLMAO....
True enough, but they aren't necessary--anything you get from fruit, you can get even more of from some vegetable. For example, cauliflower has more vitamin C than citrus fruit.
Yeah, he is the king of Hype. But he is also mostly right.
The "royal court" is an excellent foundation for anyone.
Weights, I must disagree with you and furey, if you lift correctly are a huge benefit.
I like to think that the body weight exercises help prevent injury for when I lift.
I try to do a little of everything though.
THE BIG QUESTION...Can you touch your nose to the ground when bridging?????
The big answer...
Hell Yeah I can.
If you haven't done it yet, the key is taking that leap of faith in knowing that your neck will not in fact snap when you put your weight down on it. Once you get past that mental hurdle, it goes pretty easily.....
Unquestionably the royal court will prevent weight lifting injuries....for me, though, when I was doing weights, though it was fun, it did not make any noticeable difference for me. But the bodyweight and sprinting regime has made a big difference...a long ways to go, but i can see it working which is good.
That's wonderful that your cholesterol results have been so positive! :) I think just about any diet plan can have positive results, and you are absolutely correct in saying that we can find just about anything on the internet, on any topic, that would warn of possible dangers. LOL
When my girlfriend and I were talking about their low-carb diet plan she did agree that once again, like with all diets, it all comes down to self-control. She's controlling their diet through the low-carb plan and has to be ever diligent in staying on the diet. I think just about any diet plan can work for anyone who seriously wants to lose weight. I'm sure some are healthier than others but I'm not an expert on nutrition. I just take a commonsense approach and it works for me, but that's just me.
As for my friend, she lost almost 20 pounds when she first started the diet, but I haven't noticed anymore weight loss since then. As a matter of fact, I think she's put a few back on. But that doesn't mean the diet wasn't working anymore, it could be that she's not being as diligent as she was in the beginning. Her hubby hasn't shown any signs of weightloss, but he's a cheater. teehee
Haven't yet, I get to within half an inch of it though if I rock back and forth.
Still, when I showed my relatives a back bridge they freaked out saying I was going to hurt myself. My back has never felt better after starting that...
I will sprint, after my legs get better, quads are killing me (doms)...:)
Cauliflower, per 1/2 cup as 36 mg Vit C while 1 medium navel orange has 80 mg Vit C.
A medium papaya has 188 mg, even better ;)
I love this stuff.
Here's a nice little torturous workout I "invented".
100 hindu squats, 300 rope jumps and 30 hindu push ups. Should be done in about 8:45, but in any event, less than ten minutes.
That will fry your quads. Or at least it does mine. And it certainly will get the ticker going.
Yes, and the WORST thing about the low carb is that if you are a regular cheater you might as well try something else. I lost quite a bit of weight once on a low cal diet (at the time I was chasing 3 small boys around and was much younger, so I'm sure my metabolism was a bit faster than now. I don't remember what I used as my bmr but at any rate, I kept good record of what I ate every day (everything that went into my mouth) and whenever I had a deficit of 3600 kcals I would find I had lost a pound. My problem came when I started having trouble with my blood sugar (low, not diabetes). I discovered that if I ate less sugar and more fat (didn't really pay much attention to protein at the time) I felt better and my blood sugar stayed at a good level (ie, I didn't wake up at night sick and pass out on the way to the kitchen to get something into my stomach!)
This is what led me, eventually, to the low carb diet. I had known about Adkins for years, as my parents had been on it when I was in high school, and I did all the cooking. But, since I was in the fitness industry (and then went on to get a degree in Exercise Physiology) I was afraid of a low carb diet, as it was anathema to what I had been taught.
Finally, after gaining alot of weight, losing 50 lbs on another low cal diet (but this time feeling awful the entire time) and gaining all of it back over the next several years, I just decided to try Adkins again. I found my parent's old book and did it. I lost the weight not overnight, but steadily. I have certainly fallen off the wagon and even gained some back, but I have always been able to get back on and lose it again, albiet never as quickly as the first time.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that I think different people probably do better with different diets (I don't mean diets as in losing weight but diets as in what they eat that keeps them feeling good and being healthy). I'm sure there is sort of typical human diet, but I suspect that Eskimos and African Bushmen developed to deal with very different diets.
Anyway, sorry so long winded!
susie
I sprint, lift weights (almost daily) and jump rope. I really enjoy the rope!
Be careful. The Atkins people are like the Scientoligists.
I enjoyed your post, so please don't worry about being long winded. Hey, maybe you burned calories posting it and I burned some reading it. Well, we can dream, right? LOL
Seriously though, you're right that different diets work for different people. There are just so many variables that influence how each person's body will react to any particular diet.
I don't think that "cheating" on a diet is a bad thing as long as we don't toss the diet out the window BECAUSE we cheated. Some people feel as if they have failed if they "cheat", but life is too short not to cheat once in awhile. We visited our son and his wife recently and went out to eat a few times. I ordered all the naughty things and I even ordered a chocolate milkshake. Ohhhhhhhh, it was soooooooooooo worth it. teehee I felt as if I gained 10 pounds on that trip but when we returned home I got right back to watching the calories and burning off what I had indulged in.
It does get so much more difficult as we get older. I turned 49 years young this year and still feel as if I'm .....well, 49. LOL
I'm glad the Adkins diet has worked well for you and that's what counts. So nice to chat with you. :) chena
Hey now! lol It's the best tasting diet out there sans the Atkins products. Y'all can keep your nasty tasting styrofoam fat free stuff ;) j/k
Seriously though for people like my brother whose blood sugar was out of control it has been a life saver because as long as he follows the diet he doesn't even need meds. For me it was valuable in reversing the symptoms of PCOS. Others I know are having the same positive effects. It's not for everybody but for those of us whom the diet works it is a godsend.
You won't be doing much lifting without adequate carbs.
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