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What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
The New York Times Magazine ^ | 07/07/2002 | GARY TAUBES

Posted on 07/05/2002 5:34:43 PM PDT by Pokey78

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To: Skip Ripley
You may not see many athletes following Atkins by name, but most of the aforementioned bodybuilding community follow a diet that's structured (High protein and fat, lo carb,) along the same lines.

I defy you to find any famous bodybuider who follows anything close to the Atkins Diet. Their diets are strictly regimented - like myself, they believe that protein, and not fat/carbs are paramount. Atkins is for the (scrawny) birds...

101 posted on 07/05/2002 7:52:12 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
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To: Dana113
I wouldn't know because I don't follow sports. Sorry.

Well I do, and the answer is close to zero. How can that be?

102 posted on 07/05/2002 7:53:19 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
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To: Arioch7
No problem, I can get a little...edgy...myself.

Re the diets followed by IFBB pros, they can get away with more dietary transgressions because of the gear and ancillary drugs.

Have you seen those magazine ads with Lee Priest? The guy looked as big around as he is tall. 16 weeks later he's ripped with 3% bodyfat? I know the copy says that he was fat for his standards, but i've seen pictures of him in prior years and he looked that fat then too. He must've had a lot of pharmaceutical help to get from A to B. I'd love to see what his intake of clen, T3and GH was running up to that show.

In short, I'm not sure we should point to the IFBB pros as dietary models for anyone...

103 posted on 07/05/2002 7:55:51 PM PDT by Skip Ripley
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To: Dana113
Damn! I guess I lost my finger for nothing. :D

No problem, as I said; I tend to sound like a jerk but I dont mean to.

If you are happy, thats cool with me. The bottom line is that it is all about the will of the person involved. I sound all preachy but the million beers I drank tonight are not helpful to training and they are the wrong kind of carbs. :D

I will be back tommorow. Good night.

104 posted on 07/05/2002 7:57:33 PM PDT by Arioch7
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To: Senator Pardek
Sorry, but fats are important to bodybuilders. Carbs are less important (particulalry to the real bodybuilders, those who do so naturally)

If I can get motivated, I'll poke around for specific examples to humor you...

105 posted on 07/05/2002 7:59:17 PM PDT by Skip Ripley
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To: Arioch7
I wonder if that person is aware of the physiological term "Ketosis".

RTFA

106 posted on 07/05/2002 7:59:43 PM PDT by WriteOn
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To: Senator Pardek
You haven't a clue. I've been on EVERY SINGLE DIET you can imagine, EVERY SINGLE EXERCISE program you can imagine. I have been obese for 50 YEARS

What worked?

ATKINS WORKED. Stop being a sheep a wake up. The article is SPOT ON.

Your cognitive dissonance has kicked in...

107 posted on 07/05/2002 8:02:39 PM PDT by chilepepper
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To: ikka
I must have had too much veggies because I barely lost any weight - however, I felt wonderful and had a lot of energy.

My wife had the same problem -- too many veggies. When she started accurately counting her carbs with a chart and a digital scale, and adjusted her carb and calorie intake, the weight started to come off.

Note that Adkins does NOT recommend a veggie-free diet.

108 posted on 07/05/2002 8:03:36 PM PDT by PhilipFreneau
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To: Senator Pardek
Right, but that's not Atkins. They do it to fool their bodies, just like they change their lifting routines. Effective, perhaps - but not Atkins.

Ummmm, I would say that if they take it out of the Atkins book, its Atkins.

Ketosis (which Atkins diet seems to be) is recommended in some circumstances for various reasons. I know of one man (and he might be a freeper) that used the usual low fat diet and got to a point where he just could not lose any more body fat. Atkins diet was his cure. He's a powerlifter himself, but as a hobby, not by profession.

In the bodybuilding circle, ketosis dieting is often cycled utilizing various patterns such as 5 days on, 2 days off.

I fear that we may begin to split hairs here. I'm only recommending keeping an open mind WRT diet. I don't buy everything that the WHO recommends, that's all.

109 posted on 07/05/2002 8:03:59 PM PDT by meyer
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To: chilepepper
I've been on EVERY SINGLE DIET you can imagine, EVERY SINGLE EXERCISE program you can imagine.

Did you stick with those programs for 5 years without cheating?

110 posted on 07/05/2002 8:04:42 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
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To: meyer
Thanks. I havn't benched that much for a year or so, but my legs are still there.

I know what you mean by the age thing. I turned 40 this past year and it is getting hard to train hard and stay injury free. I did just have surgery to address my sleep apnea (my dad and 3 of my 4 brothers have/had it as well) In the past month or so I have noticed that my body is beginning to respond like it used to to weight training. Sleep can be such a wonderful training aid!

Hang in there. Somebody has to show yup all these 20-something, pasty, sony-playing girly boy's that society is churning out!

111 posted on 07/05/2002 8:05:57 PM PDT by Skip Ripley
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To: meyer
Exactly. It's a hardcore strategy - not to be used by the average shlub who wants to pare down his beer belly.
112 posted on 07/05/2002 8:06:44 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
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To: Senator Pardek
One point of the article, as I read it, was that emphasizing low fat/hi carb diets has worsened our physical condition.

Atkins does highly recomend exercise as part of his diet, and a lot of what he says does make sense from a physiological point of view.

113 posted on 07/05/2002 8:08:04 PM PDT by FreeperinRATcage
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To: Senator Pardek
And it is only LOW FAT [the one *YOU* are suggesting], LOW CALORIE, LOW PROTEIN diets that cause muscle loss.

YOU RESONDED: LOL - again, someone putting words in my mouth (hope they're low-fat...)

Here is what you said [twice]"20% is fine, because the person who weight trains and excercises takes in a lot of calories to begin with."

Again, 20% is not fine for the reasons I gave - it causes nutritional deficiencies and muscle loss. A person cannot function properly on 20%.

Sunday July 30 12:37 PM EDT High-fat Diet Better for Female Athletes By Janice Billingsley HealthSCOUT Reporter

SUNDAY, July 30 (HealthSCOUT) -- Forget weight watching. A new study shows that a high-fat diet can help female athletes literally go that extra mile.

Nine women soccer players at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo went more than one mile farther before reaching exhaustion on a diet of 35 percent fat, says study author, Peter J. Horvath.

"That is really a striking difference," says Horvath, an associate professor at SUNY at Buffalo's School of Health Related Professions.

Women in the study went on three different diets during the second half of three menstrual periods. One month, three women were on a normal diet; another three ate a normal diet plus 415 calories of oil-roasted peanuts a day, and the remainder ate the normal diet plus an equal amount of extra calories from carbohydrate-rich energy bars. Each group switched the following month so that after three months, all had been tested on each of diet.

Each diet was tested for seven days during the luteal phase (the second half) of the menstrual cycle, when a woman's ability to metabolize fat is the greatest, Horvath says.

The peanut diet included 35 percent of calories from fat, compared with 24 percent on the energy-bar diet. The normal diet had 27 percent fat.

The energy-bar diet contained 63 percent carbohydrates, compared to 51 percent on the peanut diet. Protein and calorie intake and caloric expenditure were essentially the same in all three diets.

The endurance tests mimicked soccer play using three running methods: constant-speed, running at different rates on a treadmill and forward running with a side-step maneuver performed on a force plate. The athletes were tested until exhaustion on the seventh day of each diet.

The results showed that team members traveled 11.2 kilometers on the high-fat diet, 10 kilometers on the normal diet and 9.7 kilometers on the high-carbohydrate diet. Muscle performance, measured by the force plate, remained the same.

Columbia University's women's soccer coach Kevin McCarthy says the study's findings, originally presented at an annual meeting of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology, could be helpful.

"Outside of planning a lot of meals during the season, we stick to having [our players] eat well and get the proper mix of carbohydrates and fats. [This information] isn't dangerous or a fad. It's an easy thing to pass along to players," McCarthy says.

Horvath says a high-fat diet seems to be more of a boost to women than to men, based on previous studies he has done with male athletes.

"Men responded to calories, but women responded to fat," he says.

As a result of his findings, he says, "Any research that had been done on men has to be redone for females. Dietary recommendations for women athletes should be different from men's."

"An athletically fit woman's fat intake in her diet should be about 35 percent," says St. Louis dietician and personal trainer Ellie Zografakis. But she says there is no harm in higher fat intake for athletes because endurance exercise is a very efficient use of fat.

"With a diet of 35 percent fat fuel, [the athletes] would have more energy, feel more powerful," she says. Zografakis says, in fact, most of her clients don't get enough fat; only 10 to 20 percent of their calories come from fat, which she says is too low.

"Fat is taboo for all women. They are not willing to increase their fat intake," she says.

Instead, she says many women have a high carbohydrate intake -- as much as 80 percent of their diet -- which can cause bloating along with a lack of energy. Tufts University rates a number of commercial sites that offer nutrition advice for athletes.

114 posted on 07/05/2002 8:08:08 PM PDT by Dana113
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To: Arioch7
1 Why are endurance athletes very skinny when they carbo-load all the time?

Perhaps because they burn about 6000 calories per day?

2 Why are oriental cultures so thin until they eat an American "Atkins" diet?

The "American" diet is not synonomous with the "Atkins" diet. One is Ketogenic, the other is not.

115 posted on 07/05/2002 8:08:59 PM PDT by meyer
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To: Dana113
You are dragging me back into this! ;)

Ok, Protein is for building muscle. Why would I drink a protein drink to give me energy? The Glycemic window I spoke about is REAL. Carbs give you energy, that is thier function. Protein is a poor substitue for energy, read my so called last post about endurance athletes.

Every muscle has a store of energy. I can not remember the scientific terms but I think it is ATP? That is gained by CARBS> There are no two ways around it. Carbs supply that energy.

The problem is that you all think that I am demonizing protein and fat. Not true, I LOVE protein. The reality is that YOU ALL ARE DEMONIZING CARBOHYDRATES.

There are three macro-nutrients(Again... *Sigh*), they EACH have thier purposes. I would not cut ANY of the three from my diet. The hatred of carbs is ludicrous. Read my last post and HONESTLY give me an answer, you can not.

Again, I must go elsewher but I will check back but READ the stuff I have written because the crap attributed to me is worthy of a liberal forum... JUst kidding! Not realy, but I meant it in good fun.

ALL MACRO NUTRIENTS ARE NECCESARY!!!! Dig it?

116 posted on 07/05/2002 8:09:47 PM PDT by Arioch7
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To: Senator Pardek
Of course not! that is the whole point of the article. read it again! the other diets cause hunger and obesity. why do you think there is an epidemic?

Look at how obese some of the poor blacks in the ghetto are becoming - they eat a diet of almost PURE CARBOHYDRATES...

117 posted on 07/05/2002 8:10:07 PM PDT by chilepepper
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To: Senator Pardek
You are so right. I eat carbs at every meal (and a cookie, or a piece of chocolate, everyday); I tend to put on weight easily (I take it off easily too though), but the one thing I do religiously is exercise, four days a week I do some sort of aerobic exercise, and two days a week I strength train. And that, as you so wisely stated Senator, is the reason I'm not fat.

I'd much rather sweat it out for an hour and a half everyday, than eliminate my italian bread, my pizza, or my pasta portofino.

118 posted on 07/05/2002 8:10:57 PM PDT by Aedammair
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To: meyer
What the hell is a Big Mac?
119 posted on 07/05/2002 8:13:17 PM PDT by Arioch7
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To: Senator Pardek
Ok, I've heard you discuss what you don't believe in from a dietary standpoint. What DO you believe in specifically. You stated 20% fat and that is too low for me. I'm more of a 30% fat, 50%-60% protien, 10-20% clean carb guy. I'd rather sacrifice carbs for protien, since my body can make it's own glucose if it has to...

I must stress that the fats I try to include are CLEAN. I don't eat bacon, sausage, fatty red meat or pork. I don't use margarine or like products.. I eat fatty fish, Flax oil in my protien shakes and some nuts.

120 posted on 07/05/2002 8:13:47 PM PDT by Skip Ripley
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