[Offenderati]
You jackass! What about the people who have medical conditions which keep them fat forever? Diet and exercise alone don’t work for these people! How can you be so fucking insensitive? Stupid goat-feltching fuck.
[/Offenderati]
Did I leave anything out?
I read the title of this thread like one of those chicken selects commericals.
Hey, Steve. I see you eyeballing my carbs from across the room. Stacey, did you get try to grab my carbs while I was talking to Steve? I’m a ninja and there are lasers around my carbs.
FWIW, I have no beef (no pun intended) with people who do Atkins and other low-carb diet plans because it works for them. That’s great, wonderful.
I am, however, extremely sick of hearing “Low-carb this!” and “Net-carbs that!” every time I turn on the fucking TV. It’s everywhere, and I’m tired of hearing about it.
And I’m with you, kung fu lola. I was raised on pasta and potatos. If I had to give up my mom’s homemade pierogies, there’d be hell to pay.
There is a reality show on now called “The Biggest Loser”, which is as vile and production-values-free as most reality shows, but at least it should serve as ‘evidence’ that more exercise + fewer calories = weight loss.
I don’t know all the details, I’ve only watched a couple of the shows, but apparently the participants were divided into two teams. Each had their own trainer to cajole/harass them into exercising AND each team followed a ‘different’ diet.
One was called “Eat More” – which emphasized eating more often than three meals, but the foods to be eaten in bulk were the usual less-dense-in-calories vegetables and such. The other was called “Eat Less”, and stressed portion control, along with heathier choices, such as vegetables… IOW, both were the same, basic restricted calorie diets, with the only difference being how you went about restricting the calories. And, apparently, all the competitors kept food diaries, and looked up and kept track of calories all the time. Plus they got little lectures and advice on good nutrition, etc.
Apparently all the participants (who had starting weights that ranged up to well over 400 pounds) had failed over and over and over at getting thin and staying taht way. They all said diets didn’t ‘work’ for them.
Well, agreed that they are doing much more exercise than any ‘normal’ dieter ever would (as in, multiple sessions a day, sessions sometimes ranging up to several hours at a time) but the weight just MELTED off all but one of them. Losses like 6 or 8 or more pounds in a week, and this is many weeks into the plan, i.e., not initial water loss. Losses like 64 pounds in 8 weeks.
The exception is the guy who was way the heaviest – he only loses something like 2-4 pounds a week. I’d be interested to know if that is because he’s the one who does the least exercise (not being fit enough to get fit, as it were) OR he eats ‘too much’ OR he genuinely has some metabolic abnormality, but so far I haven’t heard.
All the others, though, are converts: if you want to lose weight, the key is lots of exercise and not so much food.
My problems with Adkins were multiple:
Ecologically unsound if adopted on a large scale.
Expensive.
Really, really missed pasta, pancakes, etc.
Hated being part of a fad.
I never tried “low-carb” pasta, but it does sound like an oxymoron.
This is disturbing. How many people shot themselves? Was it every employee of Anheuser-Busch, or just the executives? Did they all do it at the same time in a ritualistic fashion? Did anybody lose a foot because of it? So many questions.
I lost about 80 pounds doing Atkins (and have kept it off for over a year), but I have to agree with the OP to an extent. I hate how the recent deluge of low-carb items just make it seem all the more like a fad diet (which it’s not), and also make it even more misunderstood by the unwashed masses.
When I was doing it faithfully, I ate fresh, whole foods, not the pre-packaged chemicalized crap that screamed “LO-CARB!!” on the label. I ate lots of chicken and fish, tons of veggies, and drank lots of water. Yeah, I had eggs and bacon, too, but that was only a small part of my weekly food intake. I also started an exercise program.
There are way too many morons out there who seem to think “Atkins” means either zero carbs or that you just eat fried eggs and bacon and hamburgers.
There are also lots of people who think they’re on Atkins who are eating all those pre-packaged Franken-Foods like the shakes and bars and frozen Atkins meals, and most importantly, aren’t exercising. That just ain’t it at all.
Been there, done that. 
Wow, second post, and already I think I may have come off as snarky. Which honestly was not the intention.
Admittedly, Atkins doesn not work for everyone - My mom tried it and it was a failure for her. HOwever, I think the statement that Atkins is not difficult is a bit naive. It was actually rather difficult until I learned to re-train my habits. But I stuck to it, and it did pay off for me.
As for your link, I was not aware of it, and I will participate in that. Thank you for that.
I’m not a bad girl. I’m just drawn that way. And I like it that way.
Ink
I’m not sure if you’re referring to a statement I made above which appears to say this, but doesn’t - it is only people’s completely misconcieved notion of Atkins that sounds easy; people are looking for something they can nominally subscribe to, rather than being prepared to invest some effort; for this reason, the ‘eat-as-much-bacon-as-you-like’ misconception is appealing.
Over the last 8 months I’ve lost 60 pounds by, uh, I hate to say it, but: eating less and exercising more. No trademarked “lifestyle” required.
As I’ve said on here before I’m a lifter/bodybuilder (I sort of am a hybrid between the bulky “power” lifter and the chiseled body builder, so I have really good definition and have good power but since I don’t do either to the extreme I could never do it professionally, eventhough I’m friends with tons of pros in both sports and many of them say I could perform on that level) so I have a certain experience with nutrition and a take on this. Personally I’ve lived “clean” for over a decade now and manage my food to a level most of you would probably be uncomfortable with.
Firstly, the Atkins diet works, period. But that is nowhere near the whole picture. The thing is though it works at one very specific thing, burning fat. And that’s good for some people who just want a “self-esteem” boost, or for extremely obese people that desperately need to get rid of that fat, but it doesn’t really make you much healthier at all, and I almost find it worthless except from an aesthetic standpoint.
I do lots of free consultations at my friend’s gym and I’ve never recommended the Atkins or like diets to anyone but I have helped people use them. I explain that the Atkins diet can be a tool to quickly burn off fat, but I typically tell people the best approach and the approach that will get you acquainted with the techniques needed to become a generally healthy person involves slow loss of fat and slow buildup of muscle.
It’s much harder to both build muscle and remove/limit fat than it is to just gain muscle or just lose fat (as in it takes more dedication, work, and knowledge.) Some people genuinely think that when they do the Atkins 1st approach then start seeing rapid muscular development when they go off Atkins and onto a muscle building program they are really building muscle faster than with the balanced approach. That is not true, the balanced approach is building muscle from the very beginning while the person who burns fat first on Atkins or whatever typically won’t be experiencing serious muscle gain during their fat-loss period. The thing is, fat rests on top of muscle, so until the fat is burned off more you won’t see the muscle. When you’re at 10% body fat you don’t have a six pack, but as you get lower you start to get a six pack. People think this is the six pack “developing” it is not, if you’re down to 10% body fat you’ve had those muscles well developed for some time, they just haven’t been exposed from their fatty cover.
Also the worst thing you can ever tell yourself is “well, my metabolism keeps me out of shape” or “my genes are why I’m fat.” There are people with legitimate metobolic disorders but it is much much much rarer than what is commonly perceived. The fact is if you’re fat YES you do have a low metabolic rate, but that is because you are inactive inactivity lowers your metabolic rate. So it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy that since your metabolism is slow you can’t help but being fat, so why even bother trying?
Typically people will see vastly increased metabolic rates once they start regularly exercising and eating 5 times a day or 6 times a day, these staged meals keep your body working more and make your metabolism work harder and eventually your metabolic rate goes up.
I’ve never consulted anyone who actually had a metabolic problem, though many of them came into the gym thinking they did. Which is one reason anyone I give advice to has to get a full physical from a physician first, if they really do have certain problems then my regimen is not healthy for them.
I have had friends who have worked with people that actually do have real medical conditions that affect their metabolism, or who take certain medications due to some affliction et cetera. And most of the time with a modified strategy these people too can lose weight, and even if you have an unfortunate condition that forces your body to retain fat (or size, very common with certain meds) that doesn’t mean it has to be unhealthy fat that clogs your arteries and gives you a heart attack. Sure it will suck aesthetically but cleared arteries at 250 lbs. > than clogged arteries at 180.
Anyways, none of the macronutrients are bad. Fat’s not bad, protein isn’t bad, and carbohydrates aren’t bad. You need a certain percentage of each in your daily intake to be healthy (and the percentage varies depending on what you’re doing with your life) and any strategy that thinks even temporary deprivation of a macronutrient is good really isn’t a strategy built for anything but quick mostly aesthetic results.
Seeing commercials for Atkins products gives me a strong desire to start sucking on a large loaf of wheat bread 
:smack:
Yes, ummm…it was an initiation or something like that 
Now I want to hug you. This is exactly what I was trying to get at, but put much more eloquently.
If you eat huge plate of mashed spuds or drink tons of sugary drinks and you cut down on that, yes, weight loss is likely but no “scientific” theory is needed to figure that one out. It’s just another psychological way to eat less. Fine, just don’t kid yourselves with all this weird low carb food and leave me my nice pasta.
People want something for no effort and then there’s always someone ready to make a profit out of that by offering low-carb nonsense food.
P.s. I’m not slim. I do symphatise with peoples’ efforts in loosing weight. I’ve personaly come to prefer to be chubby and enjoy myself, but I’m not denigrating anyone efforts loosing weight. I just think strange diets, false easy solution “food” and killing the enjoyment factor in eating are not the way forward.
I
Well, I’m glad somebody did. I’ve gotten nothing but “I’ll do that soon” answers up until now.
Join the club. I hate it when all I see is low fat food, I want real food w/ all the flavor and health benefits that oils and fats brings to it.
Well, I have to thank the low-carb (awful phrase) for one thing: the two new Kellogg’s cereals with reduced sugar. They didn’t reduce it by half by replacing half of the sugar with artificial sweetener; they actually reduced the sugar in Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops by one third. This has made my daughter happy, by getting the sugsar in those cereals below the threshhold where I’ll buy them. They’re still not health food by any stretch (refined flour; artificial colors and flavors) but they are okay in moderation.
Oh hell no, you go on right ahead. Any diet that asks the participant to drastically reduce or increase one food group, or one type of food is assinine. And last time I looked, the failure rate of Atkins was about the same as that of any other diet, about 95 percent.
Sigh…This is THE most useless phrase in the entire fitness world. I know you mean well, but no, that is not “it”. There is a multi-faceted and highly disciplined method to permanent fat loss.
(note I say FAT, and not weight, too many people who think that eat less means subsist on lettuce and exercise more means cardio 95 hours a week, and lose muscle weight instead of fat weight).
Sorry, I won’t hijack your thread further, I already saw someone note how hated this phrase was.
Anyway, good for you. One of the things that made me think “this is insane” is the “carbsmart” supplement. From some vitamin company, Oneaday I think. It’s to help you digest all that meat.
??? Okay, if you have to take a special pill to help you even DIGEST your diet, then perhaps said diet isn’t all that great?