I’ve been thinking about giving a low-carbohydrate, high protein diet a try. Has anyone tried this? Any success stories/ utter and complete failure stories? Hints or caveats? It just seems so. . . counter-intuitive (I already eat low-fat and exercise regularly, so I’m not just looking for standard weight-loss advice, but testimonial specifically on this theory).
I’ve run into a few people as isolated anecdotal evidence-- if it is so clearly effective, why hasn’t it gained more currency? Is this diet a sort of underground thing that no one discusses out loud because it sounds so nuts?
Thanks!
In short, yes, it does work for me.
I posted about this before, as have many others. You might want to search some here on it too.
To be brief, by doing a very low-carb high-protein diet, I lost 14 pounds in 2 months, and did not at any time feel like I was “dieting”. I ate until I was full, and ate good food. I then backslid a little, just 2 pounds, but have started more stringently again.
Since I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, in a way it is easier for me to verify that in fact my caloric needs have dropped, and that I am losing weight with these meals.
Here is the hard part - eliminating bread, rice, potatoes, and all pasta. I never realized just how much of the American fast food diet these items made up.
I started my diet with a “steak and salad” regimen, that worked very well. Each night, I grilled a 6 to 8 ounce ribeye or filet, accompanied with a salad with vinagrette dressing. Also, I would add vegetables, such green beans, peas, asparagus, spinach, mushrooms, etc. I lost weight very quickly, and ate till I was full every night.
The hard thing is - if you are on the run, the high-carb foods lend themselves for easier prep. That was how I backslid - by being late for work and grabbing a bagel and donuts.
I know a few people who have tried it, and all saw large weight losses fast. And all except 1 went back and backslid to rice, spaghetti, etc, and gained all of the weight back. Thus far, I think I will make it, since I only backslid 2 pounds.
My dad has been on a low-carb (well, practically NO-carb) diet for months now, and his weight loss is pretty remarkable. He’s not hurtin’ for food, and doesn’t feel hungry, but he’s just about completely lost the ol’ potbelly.
He had to make some pretty big changes, though, the biggest of which was cutting out beer. Instead, when he’s sitting around relaxing, he drinks scotch and water. Another big change was cutting out potato chips, tortilla chips, and tortillas in general (my parents live in New Mexico). I believe that, when he wants to munch something chip-like now, he eats pork rinds.
There are a few things about the diet that concern me. For now, Dad’s cholesterol seems okay, but that’s something that an older person would want to watch closely. Also, cutting out all breads, grains, and most fruits and vegetables means he’s probably not getting enough fiber in his diet.
Anyway. A few things to think about. It does seem to work, but keep your wits about you.
It works for me, but is not for everyone. I started the Atkins program in January of 1999, dropped over 50lbs over the next year, and have maintained it for almost a year. Here are my before and during pics - I’d still like to lose a few more inches.
You may want to check out alt.support.diet.low-carb on usenet. There’s a good FAQ links post that is posted regularly.
::sits snacking on macadamia nuts, a perfectly “legal” snack::
This diet may work for you. I can only tell you this. It was very popular in the 1970’s. Lots of people went on this diet. They lost weight, then they gained it back, and the diet went out of style.
My mother was put on this diet by her Dr. back in the 70’s. She laughs when she hears that people are trying it again.
It works for my sister, but I’m afraid it would make my cholesterol go up. It’s already over 300.
Also, does anybody else have trouble getting to sleep if they don’t have some carbs at dinner?
Wow - you look great, porcupine! Good for you! 
I’ll look up that FAQ myself…don’t know why I didn’t check USENET. I guess I thought it had finally been taken over by “Make Money Fast” and “Hot Asian Sluts in Your Inbox”. 
I lost about 20 pounds on the Adkins Diet. Two friends of ours have lost over 150 between the two of them. I fell off the wagon when my Mom died & I had to go out of town- explaining to my family my new food requirements didn’t seem that important at the time.
I gained it all back pretty quickly and haven’t started up again because it’s too hard to stick with it when my husband eats “normal” food.
It works, it’s just not a “convienent” diet- you really can’t stay on it if you eat on the go alot.
Depends on your metabolism and body chemistry. For some, a high-protien, low carb diet can be a godsend, for others, it can be deadly.
I’ve been following a diet based on my blood type. Haven’t lost much weight, but I wasn’t really overweight to start with. I do have a lot more energy, and fewer blood sugar crashes (I’m hypoglycemic.)
One man’s meat, and all that.
Low-carb diets work great for some people, but they can be very dangerous for others – especially those who have undetected kidney problems.
Handle with care, as Thea says. I’m losing weight with the all-things-in-moderation approach myself; over 50 pounds so far, with 70 or so to go.
I dunno about anyone else, but I still like the old fashioned way of getting slim: Exercising.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t try out a diet technique, but I’m saying losing weight doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be more healthy. You’ll want to do some kind of physical workout to help lower your blood pressure and all that.
My recommendation that is simple and quite easy to do: Go for a 30 minute walk every day. It’s easy, doesn’t take too long, and it’s enough to keep you in decent shape. Every diet should include some kind of exercise, it’ll make you healthier and stronger than dieting alone will. Besides, it feels good knowing that you’re in shape!
All I can say is that Anthracite and I were seperated at birth.
I am an isulin-dependant diabetic. The low-carb thing has helped me drastically reduce the level of insulin I inject. When I started my weight loss regimen (about 6 months before I started the low carb diet) I weighed 260 and took 90 to 120 units of insulin a day. Now, I’m at 209 (and rather studly, if I do say so myself) and taking 40 to 50 units of insulin a day.
and I don’t think it’s very healthy. I am a major meat eater, and I found it nauseating very quickly…I thought I might kill someone for a piece of fruit.
There are much healthier and more pleasant alternatives.
Check out The Carbohydrate Addicts diet or Suzanne Somers.
Both of them are built on the same busic principles as Atkins, but they manage to incorporate other foods into life in a way that makes the whole thing much more balanced, healthy and livable.
I have come to the conclusion that the single healthiest way of eating is to have 80-90% of all meals consist of protein, vegetables and fats, and some fruit. Get rid of flour, sugar and other serious starch, and you’ll be fine.
stoid
I swear by blood type diets and have had the most success by reccomending them to friends.
I dont need to lose weight, only feel better during the day, sleep better at night and generally perform better during a high stress job, being vegetarian and hypoglycemic, my blood type diet has removed all the drawbacks of being veg and the symptoms of the sugar problem.
Remember that everybody is different and on oaverage, your metabolism should take a minimum of two weeks to adjust to the new diet, if you try a diet, try it for a full month, two if you are female to see the full effects on your body.
Good Luck
I’m currently doing the 5 days to a flatter stomach diet. It’s almost the opposite of the diets you describe, in that you eat mainly starch during the day. The idea is to eat every three hours, but to eat small portions. This supposedly keeps your metabolism ticking over nicely. You eat slowly, so you stop when you’re full. You eat a bedtime snack so that you don’t wake up in the morning with low blood sugar. You avoid the foods that make you swell up. You don’t twat around with ridiculous low fat spreads, you just use less butter. You drink plenty of water. You do three sets of abdominal exercises a day, and some aerobic exercise.
Of course, with all eating plans, YMMV.
What I’ve read on blood group diets says that there’s hardly any evidence to support the theory behind them. I’m particularly suspicious of the claim that certain proteins in our diet cause agglutination of blood cells. All protein is broken down into its constituent amino acids before it can be absorbed into the blood.
Still, if it works for you, it works for you.
I’ve done the Atkins diet. Lost 60 pounds. But you put the weight back on quickly if you don’t stay on the diet for the rest of your life. The bad thing about the diet is that it’s rough on the kidneys. The ketosis that results from the diet takes a toll on your kidneys it seems.
Duke hospital is doing research right now at the request of the Atkins Institute to see the overall affects of the diet. Although Atkins is sponsoring the research, they are not allowed any input at all. It will be interesting to see what comes of it.
It was by far the easiest diet to follow that I’ve ever been on. But after a while I started not feeling that great, sluggish and tired.
The diet that I follow now is very simple. You limit yourself to 5 grams of saturated fat a day. I lose on an average of 3-5 pounds a week. I’ve been doing this for a couple of months now. Only food that you can’t have is cheese, and no nutra-sweet products because they only make you crave more sugar. It works for me.
I started with my modified version of the Protein Power plan a few months ago and am pretty happy with the results so far. I get no more than 10 grams of carb with a meal or snacks for a total of around 40 a day. My way of dealing with eating on the go seems to have worked quite well. On Sunday I make a crustless quiche-like thing in a big pyrex pan and then have 6 servings for breakfast through the week, just 1 min in the micro to heat it up. If anybody would like the recipe you can email me and I’ll be happy to pass it along.
I haven’t lost a huge amount of weight yet, but I think that’s due to the fact that I had already cut out pasta, bread and potatoes, so it wasn’t a huge leap or shock to my body when I went all the way. I’ve also increased my salt intake due to snacking on things like salame and deli slices which probably negated any water loss I might have had. That said, I did get into the next size smaller jeans a couple of days ago, for the first time in 2 years. Yay! I also lift weights 3 times a week and walk/hike when I can.
The biggest bonus for me is similar to what Anthracite and Spooje talked about. I have something similar to diabetes (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrom) and have been on 30 mg of Actos a day to help control my blood sugar. Last week I got my latest round of blood work back and my doc wants me to cut my meds in half. WooHoo! This is great news for me, because I’ve been staring down the barrel at full scale insulin dependent diabetes for a while now, and thought it would happen in the next 5-10 years. I may have saved myself entirely from that fate now.
As far as cholesterol goes, my dad tried eating this way and his dropped from 300+ to 170 within a month (IIRC). This after medication and a vegan diet didn’t budge his numbers a bit. His triglycerides are really low now too. I can check with him for the before/after numbers if anybody really wants to know for sure.
The way I’ve been eating in general is I’ll make a small berry smoothie in the morning using some frozen blueberries, raspberrries and splenda (it comes out to about 8 grams of effective carb after you subtract for the fiber) before I work out, then my quiche afterwards. Lunch is usually a cobb, chef or chicken caesar salad. Ethnic food is pretty easy too. For Mexican I’ll get carnitas or fajitas and not eat the tortillas, chinese I’ll get broccoli beef or some kind of stirfry with meat, Thai still kills me though. I snack on string cheese, pecans, deli slices, and sugar free knox blox when I feel like something sweet (kind of like super firm jello).
I’m also in the process of making low carb chocolate truffles for the holidays. I’ll post the recipe when I get it down. I’ve got the filling perfect (firm, kinda fudgey, perfectly good on it’s own), I just can’t seem to get the chocolate coating hard enough. If anybody has any ideas/experience with getting milk chocolate out of unsweetened bakers chocolate, please let me know and I just might mail you a box of these when I’m done.
I started the Atkins diet 2 weeks ago (this is the last day of my induction diet) and I’ve dropped about 8 pounds. It’s not too bad once you get past the sugar withdrawal. They sell the low-carb bars which I love when I really need a chocolate fix. Don’t eat the Atkins bars–they are nasty. I found a great website with tons of low-carb recipes that has really helped me… http://www.lowcarbluxury.com.
The only thing I really miss is potatoes. Fried, boiled, mashed… Oh well, I’d rather lose weight. I have 100+ pounds to lose and I feel great that I’m finally doing something about it!
Drink water, drink water, drink water!!!