Yes, anti-Atkins rants are boring by now. So if you’re bored, close the thread and go read a book.
So, I go to the supermarket to get my favourite pasta for Pookah pseudo Italian soup. I forgot the name of them now, but they were lovely and thin, bit like vermicelli which I can never find here in the first place. No longer available. In their place. Low carb pasta. Three kinds thereof.
It’s like low fat lard. It’s pointless. You’re fooling yourself, people. And I don’t care if you want to do that, your business. Except that now normal food disappears to make room for this ridiculous “food”.
Oh. Special bonus. The mystic secret of losing weight if that’s what you want to do:
Eat less and exercise more.
That’s it.
Hey, I’m always game for Atkins-bashing, especially because the damn diet produced those fucking monstrosities known as Michelob Ultra, Rock Green Light and Aspen Edge!
(Though I have to laugh because Anheiser-Busch literally shot themselves in the foot with Michelob Ultra, since “if I can get rid of most carbs by drinking low-carb beer, why can’t I get rid of a few more by cutting beer out all together?” and plus the brewing process really gums up their system…if you notice, there have barely been any Michelob Ultra commercials recently).
Pasta is made from hard wheat, which is quite high in protein (it’s also quite high in carbohydrates too, obviously). I’d like to say that presumably this product is mostly wheat gluten, cellulose, etc, but I rather suspect it’s actually slightly-higher-protein pasta with that special added ingredient - clever marketing. I can’t imagine anyone could manufacture a ‘proper’ Atkins-style-diet-compatible pasta, at least not one that actually resembled pasta more than it resembled, say, dried wallpaper paste.
Oh, and, while where here, there is no such fucking thing as ‘A Carb’ or ‘Only 10 Carbs’ - unless you’re talking about vehicle maintenance.
I lost 15 lbs on Atkins a year and a half ago and I’ve kept it off, something I never managed with exercise alone. I was never an overeater, so that wasn’t the issue. I still exercise regularly and the reduced carb intake hasn’t impaired my ability to do that. Atkins probably isn’t a great choice for very obese people, but it’s just right for someone like me who just wanted to shed a few pounds.
Having tried low-carb pasta, I can attest that it’s vile, but lots of other low-carb products are quite good – virtually indistinguishable from the “real” thing.
My friend recently told me he preferred the “Atkins Lifestyle” as opposed to just eating what he wants. If that’s the case, why wasn’t he “doing Atkins”? Beats me.
Could be because it’s not a “lifestyle”. It’s a calorie-restricted diet (albeit not intentionally), one which most people will not be able to sustain forever, and will probably make Atkinsians fatter than they originally were in the long run.*
Or maybe it’s because his girlfriend is a breadmaker. Oh, what a cruel, cruel world! Og love him, he doesn’t need to lose weight, anyway. Not that there’s anything wrong with being fat.*
Oh, man, the Tylenol with Codeine is kicking as I write this post. Mmm…gum surgery.
*Waits for requests for cites, of which I have none. Just MHO.
Hey, nothing wrong with an Atkins-type reduced carb lifestyle. I lost 30+ on it and I look fabulous (if I may be permitted to toot my own horn for a moment - toot).
For those of us who were carb-a-holics, and I am Irish and loved my potatos and anything else of over-carb type for comfort food and hell, for snacks, it was a lesson in learning what and how to eat better.
Of course exercise helps, and to think people don’t know it is insulting.
But there is nothing - read that part again - nothing wrong with learning to eat better, including a carb-reduced lifestyle.
I’ve managed to keep 30+ off for over a year now with the lessons I learned on eating. And with exercise. And I don’t feel much like an idiot, as is suggested.
Wait- lemme check - nope, still don’t feel like an idot.
I personally fear there might turn out to be a higher risk of some sort of nasty long-term side effects with Atkins, such as kidney problems or something, but that aside, my beef (bun intended) with it is not so much a problem with the scheme itself, as a problem with general human idiocy; 90% of the people in the office where I work think ‘Atkins is where you eat loads of meat and cheese’ - perhaps more alarmingly, some of them think they are on an Atkins-style diet, when in fact they are just consuming large quantities of protein foods in addition to whatever they would normally eat.
This is related to the rather idiotic I-have-a-plan-throw-money-at-it style of weight loss scheme; buy a book; join a gym; buy special diet foods; talk about losing weight - it doesn’t matter if you never actually read the book, only ever attend the gym twice, treat the diet foods as a side dish, as long as your intentions are good.
This isn’t weight loss, it’s massaging of the conscience - Atkins (or the terribly distorted common perception of it) is so appealing to this mindset, because it isn’t difficult and it doesn’t require any kind of commitment.
I don’t know why it annoys me so much, but it really does.
For the record, I lost 30 pounds from an SDMB weight loss pact thread starting back in April; I’ve kept it off and there was no low-carbohydrate fuss at all; I just applied a bit of will power - stopped boredom-snacking and took a bit of extra exercise; the pounds fell off me. If you eat less calories than your body burns, you lose weight; it really couldn’t be any simpler.
A friend of mine lost 15 pounds by just switching from regular soda to diet.
The low carb craze and glycemic index drives me batshit. I don’t deny that both methods work for some people; however, I think the vast majority of people, if they actually read the damn diet books, would realize that much of both diets (eating vegetables in lieu of stuff like refined bread and highly processed foods) gels pretty well with what physicians have been telling us is a healthy diet for quite some time.
Also, it drives me crazy that Atkins cuts out fruit, even if it is only for a week or two. I mean, hell, the amount of vitamins, minerals and fiber in many fruits (like apples, bananas, and kiwis) should overshadow the amount of sugar found in them, right?
