AIBU to think Atkins is a reasonable option?

[leanbh21]

I'm generally within a healthy BMI but have gained about 10lb in the past few months, probably through eating junk. I'm thinking maybe Atkins will be helpful to kick start and drop most of the weight in a few weeks but AIBU to try doing this with a young family and a demanding job? Will I just be a tired and smelly-breathed grump?

Well you just have to read the book I guess

Thread hiding time I think - been interesting though

Carbs are necessary for what, peanutbutter?

Fat is necessary. Protein is necessary. Carbs are...not. It's pretty tricky to completely eliminate them from the diet - and I'm not suggesting one should anyway - but the human body works well on very, very low levels of carbs. The standard Western diet is way, way overbalanced in favour of starch and sugar and it's those components that damage us and cause disease, not the Demon Fat...

edam - that study may well be well-conducted and published in a peer-reviewed journal (though its data is mainly observational, there's no control group and they don't appear to have controlled for lots of possible variables within the subject group). However, the reporting of it is pretty appalling. None of the media reports I've read seem to be able to understand the difference between causation and correlation, for a start...

To me, low-carb is the only sensible choice once I started to understand how my body actually deals with the food I put in it.

batman - could you explain the post-lunch slump, please?

I'm sorry - I'm posting in between work stuff and I'm away in Athens at the moment, so not here all the time not really showing off, but imnotbatman - are you having a pop at me? I think that your post comes pretty close to a personal attack

The low-carb thing works for me and has done for some years now.

With respect to others on here, we don't need carbohydrates and certainly not in the levels that make up the average Western diet. Having done a great deal of research about this issue when I started on a low-carb diet, our reliance on carbs (cereal - sandwich - pasta - crisps - sweets) causes massive spikes in our blood sugar, releasing insulin in considerable quantities to break down starch and quite frankly...our bodies don't like it.

My sister has to inject insulin as a type one diabetic and she calls it her "fattening agent". Anyway, look it up on the tinterweb if you so desire!

Our bodies like protein and fat, they don't metabolise carbs quite so well and our bodies DEFINITELY don't like sugar.

Agree with BIWI and other posters on low carb v SWD.

Article in the Guardian this week about why we're fat and the low fat mantra:

www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jun/11/why-our-food-is-making-us-fat?

Also agree that it's not a diet but a way of life/lifestyle change. Of course weight will pile on again when you go back to high carb eating.

Read Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat to understand the impact of carbs on our body.

Joining this late, but just to add to the argument that eating low carb or low GI is a fantastic way to lose weight & be healthy.

It doesn't have to make you miserable and it doesn't have to be hard work. I work full-time, have one autistic spectrum child & I do it without it being tough at all. Initially, it takes a little getting used to - but only because we are so used to constantly snacking on high carb foods. Get into the swing of this way of eating & you don't need to snack constantly. You feel full & not hungry because you haven't got constant blood sugar spikes & drops going on.

There are huge commercial interests out there insuring that we continue to buy junk food like Special K, WeightWatchers products, cakes, biscuits, sweets etc. The cereal / confectionery / bakery business is worth billions & billions of pounds globally & they lobby hard to ensure that the politicians & food industry watchdogs are on their side. Even the 5 a day idea was originally generated in America by their fruit marketing board.

If we consider the history of man as a 24 hour period, we have been eating the levels of sugars & carbohydrates that we eat nowadays for 5 minutes. Diabetes has risen 5 fold and obesity 10 fold in the last 50 years - I wonder why that could be????????

It doesn't have to be 'either or' though. It's perfectly possible to lose weight, whilst being healthy, without following an Atkins style diet or buying low fat products. Or even doing both at various times.
It is also possible to lose weight in a healthy manner without ever reading a book or article on 'diets' simply by using a bit of common sense.

I don't think anyone is denying that Fatlazymummy but I personally find low carb dieting so much less horrible that any other kind, even the 'eat a little less, move a little more' approach. Each to their own.

Did someone really just say we don't really need carbs? This is crazy!

There are good and bad carbs. Good carbs are essential (fibre, whole grain, slow release carbs). Our brains cannot function without carbohydrates!

There is a lot of misunderstanding around this and we are using the word 'carb' when we are really referring to processed carbs and sugars.

Fatlazymummy is spot on. I've tried all the fad diets, soup diet, weight watchers, slim fast, Atkins etc. Now I just limit my calories with the help of MyFitnessPal, an make healthier choices. No dieting, no 'oh but im on a diet' because that doesnt work. You need to change your mindset snd lifestyle. Its good because uou KNOW whether or not to eat something, and you end up finding yummy alternatives to things. I also love going to the gym now as well!

I think this argument discussion will go on and on until the government removes the food industry from its pockets and starts looking at the facts.

I agree with the posters who said that WW and SW get alot of their money from people rejoining. Surly the fact that so many people have to rejoin says something about those diets, and yes if you lose weight on low carb then go back to eating carbs you will gain weight because that is how your body deals with carbs, it stores them as fat thanks to insulin telling it to. It is a way of eating not a short term fix.

I have done SW, gained weight coz they told me I could eat huge portions of carbs/protein together as long as there was 1/3rd of the plate as veg, and potentially eat as many muller lights as I wanted (all that aspartame, bleurgh).

Did WW successfully but was binging on crap (cakes, chocolate) while still staying in my points because I just craved sweet stuff all the time.

Currently low carbing and wish I had found it sooner. Feel so much healthier, more energy, going to the gym 3 times a week for hard workouts and managing fine with energy levels.

In evolutionary terms we evolved to eat meat, veg, fruit (seasonally, so not huge amounts), nuts and naturally occuring fats. we did not evolve to eat grains (whole or refined) or sugar. Our body's desired fuel for energy is fat, and although some organs do need a very small amount of carbs to function, the amount needed can be assimilated by the liver from protein in the diet via gluconeogenesis. Our bodies therefore have an natural inbuilt mechanism for living on a low carb diet. Bear in mind that gluconeogenesis will only occur if no carbs in the way of veg are being consumed.

I eat Paleo which is how we evolved to eat and in my opinion is the healthiest way to eat. It is not dissimilar to other low carb plans.

My DH has been eating low carb for a while and his IBS symptoms have dissappeared yet if he eats any processed carbs they come back with avengeance.

My body composition is alot different on low carb than low fat too. There are alot of "skinny fat" people around who may be a size 8 but probably have a high % of body fat and less muscle because low cal/low fat diets have been shown to promote muscle loss aswell as fat loss but low carb promotes fat loss only.

Is a low carb diet ok to do when trying to conceive?

Winkle some would say its beneficial. The thing is with things like bread, sugar, pasta, cereal - we don't need them. They don't give you anything nutritious (unless it's added in like fortified cereal). Get your carbs from veg/fruit and you're getting nutrients too.

There is a blogger who writes a lot about low carb & motherhood/pregnancy etc. I will find her...

Here she is: theprimalparent.com/

And what vnmum said.

We loved Primal Blueprint here too. It's changed how I've weaned DD2. Reading it just made sense & I love how healthy I feel eating this way. Plus my skin is wonderful, my bags are gone, I no longer get wind & my weight isn't an issue.

Love the real life stories on Marks Daily Apple too

Damn you to hell iPhone! theprimalparent.com/

Gah!! I can't link.

Last try

www.theprimalparent.com

kelly what do you feed your DC now? Is it all primal or do you give them some grains i.e bread, pasta?

If we visit family then they have bread, pasta etc but I'm thinking of ways to stop that because of the wheat. Often we bring our own stuff but I try to be relaxed about it. They are quite accepting of whatever I make and often can't tell the difference - like courgette "pasta" & cauliflower "rice".

We eat a lot of cauliflower . Today I made chilli which we had with cauli & kale mash which both DDs loved.

If we want something sandwichy I do lettuce roll ups - DD1 finds it fun to make her own. Even DH enjoys these.

Breakfast cereal was hard to cut out & even I miss it at times but I just don't buy it now which makes it easier.

What about you? Are you strict primal?

Gary Taubes is off his head. Seriously.

In his book, he argues that calories don't matter, nor does exercise. Fat people are fat due to insulin imbalance.

He also says that marathon runners are not fit and lean because of their diet or exercise, but that they are people who happen to have enough energy to run marathons.

He illustrates his book with degrading 'medical freak' type photos from the 1920s.

He says that fat people are just genetically unlucky. Blimey, looks like the USA got an awful lot of that bad luck.

Thanks will have a read :)

Morris, have you actually read the book? Or any other about eating carbohydrate and the biochemistry?

You should really read The Diet Delusion for much more of the science and evidence to support this. He is seriously not off his head.

I suffer from IBS and find that cutting out refined carbs helps a lot.

The issue that I have with diets like the "paleo" diet is that they're based on a very specific interpretation of the available palaeoanthropological evidence.

All this "but we've evolved to...." is highly questionable. There is no single 'homo sapiens' diet.

Looking at the differences in obesity trends and related diseases within the last 50-100 years is a different kettle of fish.

Hale I agree that we can't possibly know what our ancestors ate for sure but certainly things like refined sugar and grains were not part of our diet. I work more on what to avoid than looking to replica a guess-work diet.

Oh and lastly Weston A Price did some interesting research on the impact of carbs on populations. I believe he did visit remote, hunter-gatherer communities (untouched by Western civilisation) and studied their diet and health. Interesting reading.

Will attempt another link...

www.westonaprice.org/