Posted on 08/02/2005 4:08:21 PM PDT by SmithL
In Boise, staff members of the Idaho Potato Commission gave each other gleeful high-fives when they heard the news. In Houston, the folks at the U.S. Rice Producers' Association declared "good riddance." And fruit farmers in the Central Valley said they were "happy to see them go."
Across the United States, producers of carbohydrate-laden food exulted at the decision by Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based designer of the once popular low-carbohydrate weight-loss program, to file for bankruptcy protection.
The company said it planned to reorganize and focus mainly on selling nutrition bars and shakes. But analysts and nutritionists said Atkins' bankruptcy filing effectively signaled the demise of the low-carb lifestyle and an era when tens of millions of Americans embraced high-protein diets rich in meat and cheese while eschewing carbohydrates and sugars in grains, fruits and vegetables.
"It just proves that what Atkins was trying to do was just too extreme," said Jeffrey Yankellow, a South San Francisco baking instructor and winner of the World Cup of Baking in Paris in April. "Bread has survived as a nutritional food for thousands of years, and Atkins isn't going to kill it."
In court papers, the company indicated that it was a victim of fierce competition from large food companies such as Unilever, Kraft Foods Inc. and General Mills Inc., which in the past few years rolled out their own lines of low-carb food.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Actually, I'm a calorie counter myself. But you gotta love Rolling Rock Light!
Another successful lo-carber here, I lost a lot of weight with the lifestyle. It's NOT A "DIET", in that you do it for a few weeks/months, then stop. You have to commit to doing it for good, otherwise, don't bother. It's not for everyone. Everyone has unique body chemistry and a different genetic background, some do great on it, some don't do well at all.
The recent "fad" was more harmful than good, because people "did lo-carb" without finding out what the true lifestyle is - they'd load up on the so-called "carb free" food, which was'nt, and GAIN weight. It's the same BS as the so-called "fat-free" food - sure, they took the fat out (and the flavor), but loaded it right back up with cheap fructose syrup and sugars. I laughed out loud in the grocery when I looked at a so-called "lo-carb" bread, and saw that one slice had more sugar and carbs than are allowed in two days doing strict lo-carb.
I did lo-carb to control my weight, and I continue to do it for two reasons:
One, cutting sugar and wheat from my diet made me think better, feel a thousand times better, I have more stamina, more energy, and most of all, it changed my emotional state. I went into lo-carb after pulling out of yet another cycle of depression, one I'd been fighting since high school. It was'nt serious, in that I never thought of killing myself, or anything, but I'd just get bummed out, unmotivated, negative, cranky...changing to lo-carb changed all of that. I'm now happy again, just being. I'm positive, I'm rarely if ever depressed. People remark not only on the weight loss, but the change in personality for me. Oh, and my teeth, breath, and body odor disapeared, what i thought was irritibal bowel syndrome disapeared, I no longer eat a bottle of tums a day, and I sleep 5 hours, on the dot, don't need an alarm clock, and I wake up feeling refreshed and alert. Before, I was a 8-10 hour person, got up groggy and bitter, and don't talk to me before noon kind of person. I've had my physical every year, my doctor was THRILLED with the results, and I went from borderline you-might-have-a-problem high-ish blood pressure to what my doctor called "perfect". My cholesteral ratios are fine.
My social life also VASTLY improved, if you know what I mean. (I'm single..nudge nudge, wink wink)
Two, sugar (cane and fructose-derived) and starch are evil, in the amounts this culture eats on a daily basis. There are ZERO reasons for the amounts we eat, other than food manufacturers very cynically and greedily know that the sweeter food is, the more people buy, and fructose is a cheap flavoring agent and filler. I will not EVER return to a diet that has sugars and white processed flour - when I do go off, which I do every once in a while, the sugars I go for are fruit, and flours are whole-wheat, or ryes.
It's sick, how it makes me feel now. If I have carbs, especially sugar-rich foods, I feel ill within 20 minutes. I can feel my blood pressure rise. I'll feel sick for 24hours, until I can get the crap out of my system. I'll sleep like crap, too. That's what makes it easy for me, how **bad** carbs make me feel. I question other people these days, and a lot of the time, I can pinpoint "feeling crummy" to an overindulgence of crap food.
There's a rule of thumb for lo-carb - shop along the outside aisles of a grocery, anything in the aisles besides coffee, frozen veggies, peanut butter and nuts, and artiicial sweeteners, is not allowed. Most eerything in the center aisles is bad.
Do what i did. Read the labels on everything you buy, and eat, for a month. Add up how much sugar and processed flour and preservatives and additives and junk you consume.
Me, I eat meat, fish, lots of veggies, fresh ground coffee with whipping cream and Splenda, nuts, cheese...I eat WELL. It's mostly fresh, it's got very little preservatives, and it all tastes good - that's another thing, when you drop sugar, you find how much your tastebuds have been coated and numbed by sugar. I LOVE pepper now. I hated it my whole life. Fresh steamed brussel sprouts (no butter, salt or pepper) are DIVINE.
Lo-carb isn't for everyone, but for me, it was a miracle. You can parrot the "it's bad for you!" mantra as much as you like, but I did the research, and I'm LIVING the changes it did for me. Like I said, it's not for everyone. Besides, beyond nutrients that I can and do take through supplements (like potassium), can you really say that a diet based on fresh meat, fresh poultry, and fresh veggies is bad? Why do we NEED flour, or sugar? Fruit, you can argue, and during "maintainence", you can eat berries, and limited amounts of fruit.
The only answer I've been able to find, is the Government pushes grains and corn, to spur the sales of the same for subsidized American farmers, and because the multi-billion dollar conglomerates want to sell you the corn (fructose) and processed white flour.
I never met a carb I didn't love!
The shakes and bars were good for times when you were on the go but the rest was unnecessary.
And frankly the sugar free candy wrecks havoc on my system.
About all I buy is the shakes for times when I can't stop for a meal and the lo-carb wraps.
People ain't turning away from the Atkins diet, they're turning away from paying $5.00 for a loaf of bread.
What on earth were they thinking?
Or make diabetics out of the rest of us. I like summer fruit, and won't give it up, but potatoes, converted rice...gone.
In fact, I regularly buy large wheels just like the traditional product down at the Ikea store.
That way you don't have to eat so much meat.
You also have to have "new fat" in your diet in order for the body to produce the enzymes necessary to burn up the "old fat" already in your cells.
It's not the high protein that gives you the weight loss ~ rather, it's the loss of the poisonous starches and sugars.
That's true. THe extra cholesterol is what you, yourself, produce. The digestive system breaks down other fats and uses them for a variety of purposes. The excess starch is turned into excess sugar (instantly), and the body can turn that excess sugar into cholesterol on a same day basis!
Think of yourself as a big ol' honey bee, only you can't quite fly. Critters can manufacture all the sugar they require.
I don't walk 5 miles a day ~ in fact, just enough to kick my blood sugar count down to 110 or lower.
It took me about 6 months to get over the feelings of intense hunger I had with a NO CARB diet. Actually got my blood sugar down to 79, and then warm weather came, and that always kicks it up (a recent finding many diabetics have noted over the years).
I'm getting the idea that if you cut all the fat out of your diet, your body goes into overdrive producing cholesterol out of your carb intake.
-PJ
Mark
And most of it tasted really awful, and all of it was way overpriced.
One thing I noticed was that when I tried their processed foods, I began having cravings for "bad" foods. Especially the "candy." I have crohns disease, and stuff that has sugar alcohol as a sweetener does terrible things to anyone with any sort of IBS... And, as I said, I never started craving sweets until I started having them again.
Mark
Need at least 64-96 oz PLUS 8oz for every 25#'s overweight.
I plan on going back to LC soon as my GERD/Acid Reflux has returned.
Catsup I could do without, but the bun makes the HAMBURGER! :)
Which part of my losing over 50 pounds, being taken off my diabetes medication, and controlling my blood sugar on the Atkins Diet for close to two years is a fad, exactly?
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