Posted on 03/16/2003 1:57:19 PM PST by Pharmboy
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (Reuters) - It has been months since Tina Moore last bit into a bagel or a slice of toast.
"Protein is good. Carbs are bad," says 41-year-old Moore, who altered her diet five years ago in a bid to lose weight.
Moore, the owner of a hair salon, is one of the estimated 15 million-plus Americans seen as devoted followers of dieting guru, Dr. Robert Atkins, who recommends eating protein for those who want to rid themselves of unwanted weight and keep the pounds off.
"Carbs and sugar ... they give you a quick high, then you get really low. You get tired and hungry," said Moore, who sees herself as a reformed "carbohydrate addict."
The hamburger patty is good, the hamburger bun bad, according to the teachings of Atkins, who has turned his philosophies into a dieting revolution, starting with his first book, "Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution," in 1972.
Atkins books -- his latest, "Atkins for Life," was published this year -- routinely top best-seller lists. Atkins companies have racked up millions of dollars in sales of specialty low-carb food products and carb-counting scales.
But the popularity of Atkins' eating advice, now appealing to another generation, is fraying the nerves of some food companies who rely on the consumer appetite for carbohydrate-laden foods such as pastas and pizzas, cakes, cookies and cereals, to add heft to their own bottom lines.
They claim Atkins is falsely disparaging food groups that serve as a foundation for American eating. And that by teaching people to severely limit the use of flour-based products, Atkins is eating into sales of some bread and cereal products in the United States.
"Our industry has to do something, and soon. It is starting to become a mainstream belief that carbohydrates are bad," said Judi Adams, director of the Wheat Foods Council, a consortium of industry players that includes ConAgra, General Mills and Kellogg Co.
"This Atkins diet -- or, I call it Fatkins diet -- is going out unchallenged. People are starting to believe it," Adams said.
Part of the consortium's push will be in Washington, where federal health officials are starting talks on revisions to the nation's 11-year-old Food Guide Pyramid.
Wheat Foods will be actively involved in defending the grains, Adams said.
Currently, the pyramid puts bread, cereals, rice and pasta as the foundation for healthy eating, recommending six to 11 servings a day. But some are pushing for changes that would move grains off the foundation, and cut back servings.
SLIM PICKINS
There is limited funding for the anti-Atkins campaign, as most food companies spend their advertising dollars on product specific programs to tout such things as new Berry-Burst Cheerios, recently released by General Mills.
So, with only a slender budget to try to counter the Atkins phenomenon, the Wheat Foods Council is aiming its "educational" campaign" at nutritionists and the medical community.
The strategy is a direct attack on Atkins: Americans who follow the Atkins diet increase their risk of health problems that include cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, kidney damage and some cancers, the Wheat Foods Council says.
Adding insult to injury, it claims that Atkins followers can also suffer headaches, constipation and bad breath.
The council says obesity is not specifically tied to carbohydrates but is the simple result of lazy overeaters.
"Healthful grain-based foods have become the scapegoat for weight gain, when overeating and underexercising are at issue," said Carol Pratt, a Kellogg nutrition and regulatory affairs expert, and incoming chairwoman for Wheat Foods.
FEWER COOKIES AND CAKES
Consumer eating habits are hard to track, but the latest Consumer Expenditure Survey of the U.S. Department of Labor does indicate a possible shift away from grain-based foods.
According to the government survey, consumer spending in 2001 for ready-to-eat and cooked cereals, pasta, flour, flour mixes and bakery products dropped from the previous year even as consumer spending for meat, poultry, fish and eggs and other similar products increased for the third year in a row.
Moreover, the 0.2 percent decrease in spending came as the consumer price index (news - web sites) for those foods grew 2.9 percent. As well, wheat consumption in the United States dropped 4 percent from 1997 to 2001, according to industry research.
"I'm very much concerned," said Mark Dirkes, spokesman for Interstate Bakeries, the nation's largest wholesale baker and the maker of Wonder Bread. "He (Atkins) has run a very effective campaign. That just can't be good for our industry."
CLEANING OUT THE CABINETS
Among Atkins preachings: the elimination of "white flour-laden junk food" from kitchen cabinets, and research that Atkins says shows carbohydrates work to slow the body's burning of fat and make people feel hungrier faster.
And after decades of rejecting Atkins' theories, some new scientific research studies, including work by Harvard University, have started lending credence to Atkins' ideas.
Colette Heimowitz, director of research at the Atkins Health and Medical Information Services says over-consumption of bread, cereal and baked products is partly to blame for overweight Americans. Products made with white flour, sugars and hydrogenated oils are the worst.
Still, she says, Atkins is not looking to go to war with the food companies, and that even Atkins die-hards allow for an occasional doughnut or cookie.
"We teach people how to respect it and, on rare occasions, have it in moderation," she said. "We know people can't stay away from it forever."
Foods marketed to diabetics are far too high in carbs for my locarb eating habits. I had assumed that these foods would be a resource. Got me thinking that diabetics are being done a disservice.
The real culprit, IMO, is the liberal thinking about consumption. A high-protein diet is NOT cheap--you are consuming more than your proper "share" by consuming so much meat.
I could swear my nails, hair and skin have a better texture. Good luck on that swimsuit. I've picked out one in Speigels for spring vacation...size 9.
Talk about slow, it took me a full year to lose my 25, but 25 was what I had to lose. The first plateau was discouraging, lasted a month like you said after I had lost 12 steadily over four months. But since I wasn't hungry, I continued on locarb. I was starting to like the other benefits--not feeling famished at ten in the morning and wanting a nap at three.
After a month of nothing, suddenly five were gone like, overnight. Lost steadily and very slowly (the best way to lose) after that. But I never stinted on snacks--lots of nuts and cheese.
How is your stool, yum yum?
Only if you believe the mantra "A calorie is a calorie is a calorie."
I'm at 125, consuming about 1800 calories a day (though I haven't bothered to check in a year), and doing some exercise, but no Olympian, and still losing very slowly. Only 10-15% of those calories are carbs.
Men find it much easier on Atkins to lose, and Atkins says as much.
I'm afraid the sun does not revolve around the world, and certain kinds of calories act differently than other calories in the body. The American Heart Association has turned us into a nation of rolypoly diabetics.
The "cave man idea" is a fact; this has been studied in hunter-gatherer populations from around the world. See Loren Cordain's book; again, we have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years as hunter-gatherers. During this time, it was ABSOULTELY IMPOSSIBLE for these pre-Homo sapiens to get anywhere NEAR the amount of concentrated carbos that we eat today. This only became possible when agriculture came in JUST 15 THOUSAND YEARS AGO. This is a samll amount of time from an evolutionary perspective.
One proof of all this is that diabetes is the fastest growing disease on the Indian subcontinent; adding high fat to their high carb diet is the killer. A much more natural diet for our species is higher protein, higher fat (although less saturated) and lower carbs than we eat now.
You should also understand that we as Americans have LOWERED our ingested total fat content significantly in the last 20 years, but are fatter than ever.
You seem like a smart guy; the only thing you are missing is understanding the metabolic issues involved with high carb ingestion and an evolutionary perspective. Read the posts on this thread--many are excellent.
Cheers,
PB
My ass. No diet has ever been so pilloried as Atkins. I lost 22 pounds in one year just doing Atkins (and not very strictly, either) and exercising more. When I tell people I do Atkins they sometimes say "Oh, that crazy diet." Then I show them my breakfast and lunch, which I take to work every day.
Breakfast: Black coffee, strawberries, mango, 2 hardboiled eggs
Lunch: big Mixed green salad with carrots, tomato, and sliced barbecued steak.
I figured out why Atkins works for me: I eat about the same amount of meat as before, no starches, no sodas, no desserts, and more fresh veggies. No fried foods, no margarine. Blood pressure and cholesterol much better.
I'm not going to cut out grains, but I eat whole grains as much as possible. My current breakfast is something coffee (I do add a touch of half & half), a cup of shredded wheat, a cup of strawberries, mix it with some non-fat fruit low sugar yougurt, and add for protein egg beaters and a slice of whole wheat bread or whole wheat english muffin with non-fat margerine. That's alot of food, and less than 500 calories, and quite low fat. Lunch, tuna salad, or lean roast beef sandwich with lettace and mustard, maybe a cup of chicken noodle soup. Dinner, something with protein, broiled chicken, fish, maybe a small baked potato or whole grain rice or pasta. Desert, maybe more fruit with a yogurt again. At the end of the day, it adds up to usually between 1500-1700 calories. Plus, I try to do some exercise to burn at least 400 extra calories a day and keep my metabolism up. Most of the charts I see for someone my age and height say normal calorie intake should be about 2900 calories a day.
What I avoid? Sweets (candy, cake, coke), fried foods, rich creamy sauces, mayo, and I try not to eat processed food or white bread/pasta. Whole grain if at all possible.
Pretty soon I am going to start increasing my caloric intake, I would like to build a bit more muscle. I will probably start doubling the amount of protien I have with my meals. At most I figure I would add about 1000 calories a day. At that level, with more muscle mass and continuing on a workout program I should be fine.
Don't get discouraged. Where I live, the winter has been simply dreadful. Normally winters aren't too bad, but this one has had snow, slush, and freezing weather *far* more days than usual. It's really cut into my outdoor walking time and consequently I've largely "plateaued" this winter too.
When you hit a plateau like that, it helps to gradually up your exercise a little bit, a week at a time. Try an extra 15 minutes a day for a week, then work up to an extra 20, and then gradually up to an extra 30-45 minutes. As you exercise more, your body's fundamental metabolism will shift.
What also works for me is to restrict complex carbs (whole wheat bread, non-instant oatmeal) to only *one* meal a day. For me that meal is breakfast. If I'm "being good," the rest of the day the only carbs I eat are leafy greens and low-glycemic vegetables (green beans, asparagus, cucumbers, spinach, peppers, etc.) and low/mod-glycemic fruits. Tropical fruits (bananas, pineapple, mango etc.) are out. I also have to avoid entirely starchy vegetables like corn, carrots, potatoes.
I know that when my weight loss slows, it's because I'm eating rice with dinner, or too much fruit, or breaking down & eating Girl Scout cookies or something like that. It takes a *total* lifestyle change to eat that many vegetables in my low-glycemic meals.
That becomes clear when you look at the "caveman diets" that are recommended for people with really radical food allergies. (They're allergic to just about *everything* in the modern diet - wheat, corn, soy, milk, you name it.) The "caveman" diet consists of lean meat (as close to game as you can get - lamb is about the most basic), nuts, some leafy greens, and low-glycemic, low-sugar fruits like blueberries, strawberries, concord grapes. Cavemen also got a lot of fat & vitamins from grubs and insects, but that's not on the menu, so other fats have to be added too.
People didn't start eating tubers and roots until there was the technological capability to boil water (i.e. baskets or clay pots that could stand the boiling process.) Raw tubers are generally undigestible, and others like carrots are the product of agriculture and selective plant breeding.
In other words, for hundreds of thousands of years we didn't eat high-carb foods at all; it's really only been in the past 30,000 or so that we've most likely boiled water, and only in the past 6,000 or so that we've eaten cultivated grain. The body just hasn't caught up.
Losing that extra 10 lbs or so of water is good, too. Being bloated with extra water weight from carbs is no fun, and probably bad for you as well.
That's right. I remember when restaurants used to have "dieter's plates" that were very low carb (salad, cottage cheese, pears), and the proverbial "model's lunch" (steak and a salad.) When I was in high school the only fruit some girls would eat was grapefruit, and tuna fish was big among girls trying to lose weight.
I'd like to see restaurants offer some low-carb meals again: it would make eating out a whole lot easier.
That's true, and there are probably excellent genetic reasons - if you lived in Asia in the past & needed a lot of protein, you probably simply died. That's why the whole individual metabolism, genetic heritage, etc. has to be taken into account before someone radically modifies their diet. But in general if someone is really obese, there's something out of balance and in need of change.
The great unspoken Demon, that Atkins critics routinely dance around. F* Up your insulin sensitivity, and you are in for a lifetime of fat fighting.
A sandwich is just so easy to make and put in a brown bag. Most other high-carb foods are convenient too. I'd love to eat a steak or crab legs and all those other meals but there is no way I can do that at work.
My problem is now exacerbated by the fact that I’m taking night classes, after work, twice a week and have to bring two meals. I haven't been able to keep the diet up.
So do any of you have a suggestion for quick meals that one can put in any lunch container and eat cold? With no prep at work?
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