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?

Jnice - I haven't eaten grains in months and my brain's functioning just fine, thanks

Um, MorrisZapp Taubes doesn't say that fat people are genetically unlucky at all!!!! He says we will all have slightly different genetic dispositions - so some of us will be tall, some of us will have dark skin, some of us will have curly hair, some of us will be fine boned & lean etc etc etc. Nothing new there.

What Taubes actually says is Americans as a nation are getting fatter & fatter & less healthy because of the unprecedented levels of sugar and carbohydrates they are eating.

Try reading his books, you'll find it helps when commenting!

I haven't eaten a single grain of any description since 2nd Jan & I'm functioning just fine. In fact, I am functioning better. Brain fog lifted, post lunch tiredness disappeared, IBS virtually disappeared, PMT reduced, hormonal spots gone, nearly 2 stone lost. Feel fantastic - what an awful way to eat!!!!

This programme on BBC2 tonight about sugar and obesity looks like it might cover a similar theme:

The Men Who Made Us Fat

MorrisZapp re: Taubes and exercise

He absolutely doesn't say exercise doesn't matter, simply that it doesn't matter as much as we've been led to believe. He says that exercise is important for health and wellbeing, but doesn't do a great deal to affect weight loss. He reports the findings from the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine that suggest the evidence for the calories in/calories out hypothesis is 'not particularly compelling' (their words, not his). I've got the book here in front of me.

Should be very intersting Kelly. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have to say.

I wouldn't do full Atkins.

But I do low carbs, because it makes me feel better.

I try to eat nuts, greens, fish, meat. A bit of fruit. Small amount of complex carbs. Not too much.

I don't think that this diet can be improved on tbh.

"In his book, he argues that calories don't matter, nor does exercise."

He says that people find it extremely hard to stick to calorie controlled diets, which is why long term weight loss and maintenance on these diets is so rare, and he is spot on.

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

He uses about two photographs in support of an argument about fat distribution in the body.

The book is very well researched and very convincing. I can only assume you haven't actually read it.

kelly I try and be as strict primal as I can for myself. I eat meat/fish, veg, small amounts of fruit, nuts. I do have some dairy, mainly as a way of upping my fat. I cook with fat and add butter to eggs, oil to salad etc. The only non primal thing I have now is a protein shake occasionally after a gym visit as I work out fasted and find that if I do a hard session I feel hungry so have a protein shake to stop me reaching for other unsuitable foods. I also do IF usually 3 times a week to coincide with my gym days.

I am finding it difficult to go strict paleo with the DC as I find it hard to find packed lunch stuff that will keep fresh and also be eaten, mornings are difficult as one DC won't eat eggs and I haven't got time to be cooking loads of other stuff, school insists on fruit or fruit flake type things only as snacks as they deem them healthy (we actually showed DS how much sugar was in a small bag of fruit flakes, even I was surprised, DH is tempted to take his demonstration to the teachers to see if they still think they are healthy). Also my DC don't eat lots of different veg regardless of how much we try and get them to try different things they just say they don't like it. We have cut down on their carb portions at evening meal and some days it will be just protein/fat and veg. I am hoping that once they start eating more veg I will be able to reduce the carb/grain content of their diet even further. I do think that they should still have the odd treat though otherwise they will just gorge themselves at friends houses or parties.

I am finding eating primal easier than doing atkins. On atkins I was obsessed with eating as close to 20g carbs a day but I don't count my carbs on primal, I just eat from the allowed foods, use my eyes as a judge on portion size and it is working well.

All right, fess up, who is on the raw meat + veg diet?

I'm not saying that there isn't any evidence (because actually there is), merely that the interpretation of the evidence is questionable.

There is, for example, evidence for the remains of a "bread" type food dating back to the Upper Pleistocene, and the use of digging sticks >3mya is taken by some as evidence for exploitation of tubers (i.e. foods like potatoes). It's not as simple as 'our ancestors didn't eat grains'.

We can tell a fair bit about diets in the past, but one thing that seems to be fairly universal is that it was largely varied and seasonal. There was no dietary pyramid and no optimal balance of nutrients, it was a case of eating what was available at the time.

There's a huge difference between trying to interpret the diets of homo sapiens thousands of years ago and emulate it today, and between recognising that the diet of Westerners (in particular) has changed quite dramatically in the last 50 years. I completely agree with the latter, but the interpretation of the evidence for the former (as the basis for a 'diet' and all of the associated books/websites) is problematic and seems to pick and choose which elements of evolutionary anthropology it wants to include (i.e. the bits that fit the 'theory' best).

Def don't do dukan. You need to be eating fat it's healthy and important. Everyone would be healthier if they ate low carb, high fat diets.

I wouldn't be krumbum. I get heartburn if I eat too much fat. I have cut down on my and my carbs and am much healthier for it.

What about gallstones and pancreatitis? These are linked to too much fat in the diet and only arise after many years of that kind of eating.

sorry, meant fat and carbs. It's not 'either or' to me.
And generally avoiding things like readymeals and takeaways.

Interesting article here about that, Jnice

Doesn't support the assertion that it's caused by too much fat - but by the switch from low fat to high fat meals, along with high carb eating.

Hale, I'm sure our pre-farming ancestors did eat grains, but I think it is fair to say that it is 100% likely that they did not eat it in anything like the quantity that we eat it nowadays. For a start wild grains are much smaller than modern grains, secondly they don't grow in anything like the density that modern farmed grains do and thirdly, to harvest and a wild grain by hand is a very time consuming process, fourthly - for what? All that work & effort for very little nutrition.

Excellent programme on BBC2 last night about how the food industry has allowed fat to take the blame for a rise in obesity, when actually it is becoming more and more apparent that it is sugar, fructose & vast quantities of cheap processed carbs that are to blame.

Of course it's completely anecdotal but my mum has eaten high fat low carb all her life and never diets - got gall stones and pancreatitis last year

Since then has gone low fat at dr's instruction and awaiting gall bladder removal op.

Jnice, sorry to hear about your mum. There are many reasons people get gall stones & pancreatitis. There is no proven scientific evidence that links low carb to either condition.

Also, low carb or low GI, isn't necessarily "high fat" it is just not low fat. It is very difficult to eat a really high fat diet, when sugar is removed. Slabs of butter, or globs of oil on their own are not appealling.

Atkins gets you to loose weight quickly but when you gain the weight back it goes to places you never had fat. I now have super big upper arms and double chin that I never had before I went on Atkins. If you can do it the healthy way and avoid processed foods and yes excersise cannot be ignored

Jin do you have any hints of kick starting low carb. i have done it a few times and for me it does work but the first few days i feel crap. think i am building this up to be something than it is but i gorge on cheese then go off it any other foods that are ok to snack on

Freudian - come and join us on the low carb threads. Loads of advice & support. If you stick with low carb for more than a few days, you'll find that you lose the desire to snack, because you are not hungry & your body isn't doing the sugar spike & crash thing that makes you need to constantly snack.

If you do need to snack in the first few days, while your body adjusts, then you could have some olives, a few nuts, some chorizo, cream cheese on a celery stick, chunks of pate, peanut butter on a celery stick.

begumbeg, sorry to hear about the change in your body composition. Thankfully, even though I've done Atkins a few times now in the last 10 years, this hasn't happened to me so far.

not thought of pate and yes of course forgot about peanut butter

ok thanks i will. i am starting monday, of course should do tomorrow but have a big family dinner and do not want to miss out on coconut roti and curry also have dinner out on sunday too but must not binge!!!

I read Gary Taubes from cover to cover last weekend. Anybody who wants it can have my copy!

He says that fat people aren't fat because they eat too much and are sedentary, he says they're sedentary and eat too much because they're fat.

He repeats this argument over and over.

But say for arguments sake Taubes is right. Why then don't doctors, the BMA etc advocate low carbing?

Well increasingly they do ...