Renton_lvr,
Thanks for the info. I’ll email you for more info.
RE: glycemic, why did they tie that in with a discussion about glycemic index? Seems to be 2 different things? Glycemic index has its value and deducting fibre is another.
Also, is fiber a carb? Didn’t know that…
I guess I am new to it, I’ve only been on it for about 6 yrs so you can’t count me. I am 6ft and was 230 lbs when I started now 175-180 and maintianing it. Nothing I did before helped and my weight keep going up long term till Atkins.
The main diffrence between this and low calorie diets / low fat diets (which IMHO just can’t work)is that it is a lifestile I can live with.
That’s the short whole story
btw fiber is a undigestable carb and doesn’t count in your total carb count
THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!
This really answered something in my mind…I was getting down reading some of the messages…and I really pigged out today HAHA, I hope to join you in 6 years HAHA!!!
good luck. Here’s some suggestions:
1 find a low-carb listserve - I used to be on 2 of them (check for texas +“low carb” and varients on that). Not only will they give you support but give you ideas to expand your eating choices (fast food, camping/hiking, regular meals). Finding low carb food not in your own kitchen is tough for newbies but you can find them ecconomically.
2 try to get support from others you live with. Try to have them not leave snack foods around.
3 Look at the difrences between low carb options and decide which ones you can better fit into you lifestile. Atkins allows cheese, another allows fruit (neoanderthin?), still another (carb addicts diet) allows ‘reward’ meals which contain carbs in normal amounts.
4 If you go with Atkins get some ketosticks - this will allow you to find your CCL (Critical carb level) which will determine how many carbs you can have in a day.
5 Get the book and read it. Some people (from the listserves) were wondering why they weren’t in ketosis and not loosing weight while they were having sugar in their coffee or regular soda
btw I left the low carb listserves because they were way too active for me.
>1 find a low-carb listserve - I used to be on 2 of them (check for texas +“low carb” and varients on that). Not only will they give you support but give you ideas to expand your eating choices (fast food, camping/hiking, regular meals). Finding low carb food not in your own kitchen is tough for newbies but you can find them ecconomically.<<
I keep water in my fridge and eat out every meal. But I can deal with steak, sushi, chicken, turkey and lots of those icky low carb bars and the half decent whey protein shakes that ALMOST taste a bit like chocolate milk 
But I hate listservs. Too much email already. I like forums so I can come over when I want to…maybe there’s some on this topic?
>>2 try to get support from others you live with. Try to have them not leave snack foods around.<<
Heh heh, no problem there!! Single as can be. And I only have one friend He will try it out with me too so that is cool. And the chicks shouldn’t mind maybe it’ll give them ideas too
>>3 Look at the difrences between low carb options and decide which ones you can better fit into you lifestile. Atkins allows cheese, another allows fruit (neoanderthin?), still another (carb addicts diet) allows ‘reward’ meals which contain carbs in normal amounts.<<
That’s easy. I’m so picky I know EXACTLY what I can handle and what I can’t. Bacon bacon bacon, steak, chicken, soooshi, and some turkey!!! And CHEESE of course!!! I LOVE it!!
>>4 If you go with Atkins get some ketosticks<<
Cool!!! finally something crunchy to snack on!!!
>> - this will allow you to find your CCL (Critical carb level) which will determine how many carbs you can have in a day.<<
OH 
Never mind!
>>5 Get the book and read it. Some people (from the listserves) were wondering why they weren’t in ketosis and not loosing weight while they were having sugar in their coffee or regular soda<<
heh heh, diet coke for me!! No coffee, no sugar no cake well I have to sacrifice. But the bacon bacon bacon makes up for it!!!
I’m eating like a pig. Although I’m on day 4 and miss the carbs a bit, each time I do I just pig out!!! Heh heh. I don’t plan to pig out forever, but I need to get used to this don’t I
You guys are talking about calories as if it were a physical object. Body excretions, such as urine and feces, do not have any calories. A calory is the measurement of heat. Sugar has 4 1/2 calories per gram; protein 3 1/2; and fat 9. But that’s just potential calories. A lump of sugar is producing any heat just lying there. It has, however, the capacity to produce 4 1/2 calories per gram when used for energy (=work=heat). So too ketones do not have any calories.
Ketogenic diets, such as the high carb (Atkins, etc.) diets do result in weight loss, apparently through the energy used to produce ketones. That’s still calories in-calories out = net calories.
When sugar is ingested it has two possible metabolic pathways: it can be used for heat or stored as fat. When stored as fat, it retains the potential to perform energy. Due to the lack of glucose in the ketogenic diets, the metabolic pathways are switched over to the conversion of fat into energy. This results in the loss of fat.
Another Heretic, this is in connection to your related post. Muscle is more metabolically active: it has to produce more ATP to manufacture protein, and that means the use of sugar to produce the ATP in the Krebs’ cycle.
One of the biggest problems with ketogenic diets is the long term effect. It may produce kidney damage eventually. No one knows. Is that worth the risk? Atkins said that his diet in the strict sense should not be used for an extended period.
No minor point is that the mere reduction of fat does not mean that you’re healthier. It is true that it does mean that you are less likely to get diabetes and perhaps other diseases. But the mere absence of disease does not mean you’re healthy. It just means you’re not sick. You need exercise to be healthy: to obtain stronger cardiac muscles, better aerobic capacity, and a body that is better able to cope with stress and fight off infections.
Another Heretic, you say that you are not going to exercise. That’s not an option with you. It’s your life, but don’t expect to lead a long,healthy life without exercising. Studies have established that exercise, especially running, prolongs life.
there are probally some LC forums as well as listserves.
barbitu8 calories are a measure of potential energy can relaese as heat if the substance is combines w/ O2 so it is a thing since energy is mass (E=mc^2) and obeys the conservation of energy law (a subset of the conservation of energy and mass law but last time I checked we don’t have nuclear stomachs).
To measure calories you basically combust the food (or other item) and measure the heat that is released. Ketones do have calories - they are used in place of glucose for energy during ketosis. On big diffrence is that ketones can’t be re-converted into fat they have to be used or excreated while glucose can be stored as fat.
As for the kidney dammage and even atkins doesn’t recommend being on his diet long term. It has not been proven that normal kidneys can be dammaged and this is the latest thing that mainstream has come up with, and a low fat high carb diet is shown (maybe not conclusively but pretty close) to cause diadeties which will cause all sorts of problems including kidney failure. And I have never heard Dr. Atkins recommeend that you shouldn’t be on his diet long term, in fact he says you MUST be on it long term (2 weeks induction - then Atkins dietuntil you make your goal weight - then meat and millet (maintance) for the rest of your life. Where did you hear this???
Have to catch a train…later
Some “things” can be burned (oxidized) and converted into energy, such as glucose, fat, and protein. Obviously, products already burnt can no longer be used. Some “things” cannot be oxidized within the body, such as waste products. I’ve never heard that ketones can be oxidized by the body. As I said, if you don’t ingest enough carbos, your body will convert fat into glucose and burn that, one of the waste products being ketones. If ketones can be burned, how many calories per gram does it have?
True, diabetes can be the result of too much glucose, but only insofar as it is not used for energy, stored as fat, and leads to obesity. If you exercise, you will not store excessive fat, but burn it up. Also true that it has not been shown that ketogenic diets will result in kidney damage, but that remains a possibility. And not a remote possibility.
Hope you ran for your train. 
Drop that “LC = kidney failure” line over at alt.support.diet.low-carb and you’ll get the same kind of response as you would here if you treated as true the stories of people having their kidneys stolen and sold on the black market.
Do a search or ask questions over there–one of the regular posters was in kidney failure before she began LC, and is convinced that the diet saved her kidneys.
I will have to digest (with no calories ) everything said when I have more time. But after a quick glance, here’s my comments:
On the ketone question, there seems to be some merit to what both sides said:
“ketogenic diets tend to accelerate fat loss because when fat is coverted to ketones, it cannot be converted back to fat, and so is excreted”
For the full paragraph, I got this from “http://www.solid.net/~homerc/#Q1” a faq on lcd’s.
Something else I’d like to understand:
What happens when you go on a lcd? Do the proteins not used for muscle growth get converted to fat? Or do they get excreted out? What creates the ketones first, dietary fat or stored fat or some of both? If dietary fat does not get used and converted to ketones, does it just stay in your blood, or does it get excreted ever? If it stays in your blood and cannot get excreted, that means that a high fat high protein diet will be much less effective than a high protein moderate/low fat diet…
barbitu8, do you really feel that no food (/potential calories or however you want to word it) is ever excreted? I’ve seen wholly undigested food in my (I know it’s gross, but it’s for Science! ) feces…Nothing big of course but some contents from pizza toppings for example…
RE: exercise, I’d love to exercise my whole life. I do get on exercise kicks where I rollerblade / run 5-6 times a week. I look great when I do. But eventually, I get in front of the computer and go into geek programming mode and that can last a LONG time…and I enjoy reading, researching, learning a lot more than exercising. And I like food. I can fool myself into thinking that I can work out 5 days a week for the rest of my life, but I know that I won’t even though I care deeply about my health…
Finally:
I haven’t seen any mainstreamer argue with the assertions the lcd advocates make about insulin promoting fat storage and glucagon promoting fat burning. So I feel pretty comfortable to say that in my view the mainstreamers really dropped the ball.
Where? In the fact that people get regular blood tests and no one I’ve spoken to, including my parents, one of whom is a diabetic and the other has a pacemaker btw, ever got a blood test with a count of their insulin or glucagon in the blood. Glucose yes. But not insulin.
Since insulin causes fat storage, this is a major oversight. The Eades in their clinic, apparently make this a matter of course. So your regular doctor will not even know that you may have insulinemia.
And therefore, mainstreamers have difficulty answering questions about low carb diets. They don’t even know anything about insulin counts.
That’s also why I don’t trust their criticisms on lcd’s. I just don’t get the feeling they have the data to PROVE or DISPROVE the diet. That is a real shame. Atkins has been around for 40 years, hasn’t it. Mainstreamers say no studies have backed up Atkins. But none seem to disprove it either. 40 Years is plenty of time to have done plenty of studies. Why haven’t they? I wish they would have because I don’t trust Atkins or Eades either. They publish books/products to make money. So even if they know of negatives about the diet, I believe they may not mention it in their book if there is a negative.
I’m still studying this Atkins business and am not 100% convinced. But I’d rather take the risk on the kidneys than be sure of the problems with heart disease with the mainstream diets that don’t work in the long run…
You misconstrued what I said. I said that there are no calories excreted by way of body excretions, such as urine or feces. Feces contains undigested food (and other stuff, such as bile, etc.) That is the secret of some of the new sugar substitutes. They consist of molecules that the body is unable to digest. Hence, you get the sweet taste on the taste buds, but they go right out of the body.
Unused amino acids (protein is digested into amino acids)are catabolized, converted into nitrogen and urea and other constituent elements, and excreted in the urine. Remember, feces contains undigested food. If the amino acids are in the blood, they’ve been digested. If the body has insufficient glucose for its energy needs, it will convert fat into glucose, and if that is insufficient, as a last resort, it will use protein. The latter is an involved metabolic process and is used only when necessary. Since protein is not convertible to fat, if the body has to use protein, it will start using muscle. That is known as starvation. The breakdown of amino acids is done by the liver. That’s one reason why too much protein is not good: extra work for the liver.
You don’t have to exercise 5 days a week. Even 3 days will help.
Insulin is produced by glands on the pancrease when hormones signal that the body has too much blood sugar and needs to get the sugar into the cells. Hence the amount in the blood varies quite a bit. When you get your glucose measured, you have fasted for at least 12 hours. If you were to measure your insulin then, you would find a low count unless you are diabetic. No purpose would be served to measure the insulin for if your glucose is high, then you’re diabetic. More importantly, the usual type of diabetes that adults get (diabetes mellitus, type 2)is not caused by a lack of insulin but by inability of the cell receptors to receive the insulin. So, the insulin in the blood is not that important, except that when your cells cannot receive the glucose, insulin production will be increased. It is theorized that this continual production of insulin by the beta cells in the pancrease causes an overload, leading eventually to the inability to produce insulin.
Short term studies have been done on kidney failure on the Atkins diet, without any positive findings.
1 you switch your primary fuel from glucose to ketones for some this is a difficult process. You will lose water weight here as you deplete your glycogen stores and glycogen is stored in water (IIRC something like 5:1 W:G)
2 possible they may be converted to glucose then if not used converted to fat but it’s unlikely since you are taking some carbs even during induction. Also excess protein can cause an insulen spike just like carbs.
3 I am less knowleagable about the fat cycle. I would guess your body would use dietary fat if there is enough available and release stores when there is not enough.
4 Dietary fat will be converted to ketones or stored. As far as I know ketones are the only sorce of energy that the body can excrete.
5 Protien can act like carbs and produce an insulin spike if eaten in too high a %. Dr. Atkins has a fat fast if you are having trouble loosing - basically 90% of your diet for 2-4 days is fat only.
I’m being lazy here so I will say that this is not my understanding of what happens when the body runs out of glucose therefore I don’t have to back anything up, you can if you want:
If the body has insufficient glucose for its energy needs, it will convert glycogen into glucose, and if that is insufficient it will convert fat to ketones for use by non-brain functions (the brain needs glucose - ketones don’t work here) If glucose levels fall further your it will convert dietary protein to glucose (a process called gluconuclgensis <sp>), as a last resort, it will use protein. The latter is an involved metabolic process and is used only when necessary. Since protein is not convertible to fat, if the body has to use protein, it will start using muscle. That is known as starvation and keto-acidosis <sp> which is the dangerous ketosis.
didn’t want the 
just ment it to be ) in the above post. If the mods have nothing to do and would like something they can correct this but if they don’t no biggie.
(note I’m not asking for a correction adn i really mean only if you are board and are looking for something to do. )
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if that test shows up as a it explains the above
If that was directed to me, I didn’t really misconstrue it because I wasn’t sure what you meant. But maybe you were talking mountain man dave (right dave, K2 being the mountain??)
Barb, you’re no slouch. May I ask what you do for a living btw?
From the way the Eades family were talking in Protein Power, it didn’t sound like they got low counts as a matter of course. It seems to be all over the place for their clinic. They also contend that the standard measurements for insulin which are considered “normal” are way too high because americans take in too many carbs in general and have a lot of heart disease. What are your thoughts on this?
K2, glycogen is just glucose stored in the liver. There is also glucose stored in the muscles and, of course, glucose in the blood. When you deplete the glucose in the muscles and the glucose in the blood, the liver will produce more glucose from the glycogen (glucogenesis). The process of converting fat into energy involves converting it into glucose. Ketones is a waste product, and as such it has no calories. It cannot be used for energy. Examples of ketones are acetone, priopone, etc. when it takes its name from the alcohol from which it is derived. When oxidized, they decompose to acids.
AnotherHeretic, I’ll tell you what I do if you promise not to tell anyone. I’m an attorney for the Social Security Admn.
from http://www.atkinsfriends.com/newbies.shtml#ketosis
Since fat is not fully metabolized (due to lack of glucose) there is energy still available. (yea I know it’s not exactly an objective source but as I said before I’m being lazy.
Actually I assumed you knew (which you do) this my post does not express this however - I just added glycogen for completness.
‘When oxidized’ involves a chemical reaction that usually releases energy. Perhaps my interpertation of ketones was incorrect, I will have to look into that when I’m being less lazy.
It actually refers to the mountain, skiing in general and one more thing I can’t post on the boards (no nothing nasty)
Channel 4 is going to talk about high protein diets soon and something dangerous naturally, and it’s about a new study. Anyone know about this? I gotta go and will miss it…
what station? you will probally get this too late
Here’s an interesting story on yahoo:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010405/sc/aging_dc_1.html
talking about insulin igf etc… and they said pearson/shaw were dangerous in the 80’s 20 years later mainstream catches up.
Wait twenty years, will all the talk in mainstream be high protein/low carb?