[muggs]

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.

Me too!

[Aedammair]

I'm really amazed at how easily people are persuaded into taking an extreme position. I'm not against the Atkins diet, but to me it is emblematic of the tendency for the weak to prefer abstinence to temperance, as are all other diet fads. The key to good health (barring bad genetic code) is to earn your food. Hardly anyone earns their food anymore, and that's the reason so many people are fat.

When I was growing up everyone used to tell me that I would get fat as I got older because I was Italian (even though nobody else in my family was fat?), and ate all that bread and pasta. First of all the typical Italian meal I grew up on consisted of soup, meat, pasta, insalata (salad) or vegetables, and fruit and nuts for dessert (all in moderate proportions). Americans on the other hand nearly always have to have some kind of high calorie dessert after their meal; that's probably another reason so many Americans are fat.

And as far as I can tell Italians are far less obese than Americans. I was there in '97 and '00 and you had to go along way to find an overweight teenager, and in this country you don't have to go far to find a fat youngster. Between twinkies and the boob tube, they don't stand a chance.

Of one thing I am sure, as long as I earn my food, I will never be fat.