What is the deal w/carbohydrates and weight loss? Is there really any truth to this nonsense? I happen to like my carbs and believe that eating a healthy well balanced diet is the way to go…
Am I wrong?
Thanks, Cece for your incredible amount of knowledge.
Jane, Dallas, TX
IANAN, but I would say that you are not wrong. The Atkins diet and the hundreds that came before, and the hundreds that will come after are not about health IMO. Usually, these diets are all about selling short term results and not about long term health.
I was skeptical about Atkins for a long time, too. But the body of scientific research on the efficacy of low-carb diets became too hard to ignore.
Atkins is just one of many ways to lose weight, and thus solves about 1/3 of the riddle.
What Atkins doesn’t solve is this: Can I enjoy and maintain this for life?
Does this make me stave off cancers and other disease/illnesses?
Well, the jury is out on those two points.
Unfortunately for Atkins folks, what the National Weight Loss and Maintenance Registry say is that only what you propose (healthy and balanced nutrition) works for the long term. A dedication to a variety of foods, with balance and an emphasis on lifestyle change. Includes lots of good carbs, little bad carbs. Lots of fruits, veggies, nuts. grains, etc. So much evidence about fighting cancer is tied to these foods, too.
Actually, the only real sciencetific study of any merit, thanks to Harvard, shows/ supports the diets that are more balanced than Atkins. Not the USDA food pyramid mind you, but one that takes out bad simple sugars, but emphasizes carbs like those in the foods I mentioned.
This month’s Discover Magazine is a must read, because it highlites info found from years of study and hundreds of thousands of people.
Oh, btw, the classic Atkins model is being revised to cut out alot of the sat fat. I don’t know where this leaves Atkins lovers, because alot of the joy was eating bacon and egg breakfasts. Looks like an apple, an egg and some whole wheat toast is kicking Atkins to the curb at this point.
Philster, read the book before you start spouting off about stuff you don’t understand.
Yes, Smoky, Atkins does work. Lemme put it this way: when I do WW, I am constantly hungry. I’ve done Atkins induction since Tuesday (I’ve been on it most of this month, though). I’ve lost 8 and a half pounds (some of this is water, sure, but I also walk 3 miles a day which is why I’ve lost 10 and a half total for the month); I have NO sugar cravings and I have more energy than I know what to do with. And guess what? I have eaten beef exactly ONCE this week. Atkins isn’t about eating hamburgers all the time. It’s about getting all the sugar out of your system and then SLOWLY increasing the “good” carbs in your diet until you find the level of carbs that allows you to lose weight, and then maintain your loss. For some, the number (for maintenance) is low. Other people can get away with up to 100 grams a day. It just depends on your metabolism and whether or not you exercise. Plus adding things slowly shows you what your body can tolerate and what sets it off: for example, some Atkids can’t have any kind of sweetners, but I can: one bite of ketchup, though, and I am ravenous.
The reason the medical community maligns Atkins so is because it DOES work. Fat people and smokers bring in a lot of cash to doctors in the form of diseases that need treated. Do you really think they want Americans to get healthy? How would doctors make money if all of a sudden every fat person in the US got thin?
BBC article: Atkin’s Works by Supressing appetite.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3416637.stm
The took twins and had them eat equal calories, one low carb, one low fat. There was no real difference between them.
buuut…
*Professor Arne Astrup, from the Royal Veterinary & Agricultural University in Copenhagen, built a supermarket for a special study to find the secret of appetite control.
Professor Astrup’s study focused on being able to eat as much as you want.
He put one group of shoppers on a high protein diet and one on a high carbohydrate diet.
He was surprised to find that the people eating more protein lost significantly more weight.
“The reason they lost more weight was because they consumed fewer calories, despite the fact they had free access to all the food they wanted.” *
That’s exactly how it works, Hello Again.
Why the heck SHOULD people eat something that makes them even hungrier?
There are four levels of the Atkins Nutritional Approach. The fourth is Maintenance. Basically, select from a wide variety of foods while controlling carbohydrate intake to ensure weight maintenance and a sense of well-being.
This is such an inflamatory and radical conjecture that’d I’d really like to see cites for as much of it as possible. Can you demonstrate instances in recent years in which the medical community has been pro-smoking or pro-obesity? Can you show that the profit from obesity related illnesses is a significant source of income for most doctors? Can you show that the net profit made from someone who dies young from obesity-related causes is greater then if the person lived to old age? Can you give ANY proof that your theory is factual?