Some fat people are their own worst enemies

The BBQ Pit
441

I am no longer in the Induction phase, yet I’m still losing at a faster rate. I doubt I’ve lost over 30 lbs in water. Do you mind providing a link that has the whole article?

I do find this is the part that misleads one to think that Atkins is similar to the “meat & sherry diet from the 1800’s”

""High-protein/low-carbohydrate diets got their start back in the 1800s when a man named William Banting published a pamphlet documenting the new diet that had helped him lose a lot of weight. Following his physician’s advice, Banting cut all breads and most vegetables from his diet, while continuing to eat meat and drink sherry. Like the modern-day Atkins diet, which first appeared in the 70s and was recycled in the 90s, Banting’s new diet seemed to show that if you eliminate carbohydrates from your daily fare, you’ll drop a lot of weight quickly>> Liz Applegate, Ph.d

She then goes on to cite a study where people who eat MORE carbs in their diet consume LESS calories. Huh? Didn’t she just say that people who consume less carbs have less calories… weird.

Here is that quote from the same article :

“And when it comes to maintaining weight loss, fat is definitely out, and carbs are in. A recent study verified that people who take in about 55 percent of their calories from carbohydrates have a lower calorie intake and weigh less than folks who eat just 40 percent of their calories from carbohydrates.”

I wasn’t aware that article was an excerpt, and what I read certainly did not include a balanced, accurate view of the Atkins diet. Great if she’s a Phd… all I have is experience. As simple as the calories in/out seems, my experience with over 10 years of yo-yo diets tells me that its not that simple. I am losing at a faster rate (unless you count that stupid shake diet when I had the metobolism of a kid) on more calories, easily, than I have on any of my low fat diets.

As far as my success rate goes- Atkins is just like any diet. Only 5% (last I read) of diet participants succeeed in maintaining their weight. Atkins doesn’t work if you don’t do it. Neither does any other plan. I’m done being fat- period. I don’t need a statistic to tell me that.

442

It does amaze me that this thread is still chugging merrily along.

Smokinjbc: If it is a diet, it will have a poor rate of retention and a high rate of recdivism. One has to change habits for life. To get rid of the things that led to weight gain, and to be concious of the choices you make for your health.

One doesn’t need Atkins or any of these extreme plans(That they are extreme I am putting forth as my opinion).

Looking at a diet, what a portion really is, what its values are for fat, calories, etcetera… How it is cooked… That is where real change will happen.

443

LOL, looks as if we were doing the same thing then! I was trying to make sure you didn’t think my remark meant something it didn’t.

How funny, I know a ton of musicians, and they all seem to have the same or a similar opinion. I’m not a professional musician, but I sing and used to play an instrument (most recently in HS band:D), not only did I grow up in a family where everyone could sing and play at least one instrument, we mostly sang and played classic, folk, and country except for pep rallies, church and school concerts.

Anyway, I’m well aware that a lot of the music is just “bubblegum” but I love the “gets you dancing” beat of it. I can understand how someone who plays in a band would be SICK to death of a lot of popular music though. I remember a rant in here not too long ago about “Mustang Sally”. Band members were STRENUOUSLY against, we audience members were for!

Oh I agree, I definitely meant their attitudes not the mags.

444

Just to recap then, you’ve: cut down on the amount you drink; have stopped binging at breakfast and switched to three smaller meals; have cut down on soda…and you think you’ve lost weight because of atkins?

May I suggest that the reason you’ve lost weight is that you’ve done all the things you list.

445

Mockingbird:

If you read one of my earlier posts, you will see that I had said I also didn’t like the word “diet”- the good thing about Atkins is that it develops into a healthy way of life. Portion control is not only covered- its now very easy (as I said in an earlier post) Not only encouraging better habits - Atkins also addresses portion size, exercise, getting the proper nutrients, etc. You may think its extreme- thats fine- you also are probably centered on the first two weeks of Induction period. There’s alot more to it than that.

Gary Kumquat-

When I am comparing diets, I’m comparing times I did low fat diets to this present low carb diet. If you had read my initial post, you will see that the drinking and other problems did not start until the last three years- before that I had long periods of eating low fat diets without drinking regularly. Those are what I compare Atkins to now. I guess I should mention my sister, who still drinks regularly and has also lost a significant amount of weight.

I never binged at breakfast- if you had read my post you would see that I SKIPPED breakfast almost every day during the week. I never binged, period- I’ve never been a binge eater- my problem comes from trying to eat what most people would consider a “normal” diet. I don’t have the metabolism to eat that way- I have tried. Also, the soda consumption I cut down on was exclusively diet soda- I am glad to have cut down on it because of what soda itself does to your body- not because it had any effect on my weight loss.

446

Which goes against the notion of “Overweight? Put down the damn donut. Simple!”

Not so simple.

Atkins? While I’ll be the first to say that it sounds like a wonky fad diet, it has a certain seductive quality. And there is clearly something there that gives it a greater perceived success rate than other wonky fad diets.

BTW, have you heard that Atkins died not from a fall on the ice, but from a fall resulting from electrocution while defibrillating himself? It seems to be a new UL circulating among cardiac surgeons.

447

Personally, I’m more centered on the fact that Atkins has no long term studies of his “clients”, and that the largest database of long term weight loss has a very poor representation of low-carb dieters.

If he’s talking about establishing a lifestyle, you’d think he’d have some data to indicate that it works.

448

Personally, I’m more centered on the fact that Atkins has no long term studies of his “clients”, and that the largest database of long term weight loss has a very poor representation of low-carb dieters.

<<Mr. Miskatonic

Actually, I’m currently part of a three year long-term study- done independently I believe. There aren’t enough studies out there- has alot to do with the fat paranoia phenomenon IMHO>

449

Jim Fixx died while jogging, so ironic deaths aren’t that uncommon.

:smiley:

450

I’ve never been obese, so I can’t really speak to the whole psychological issue that people are talking about, since I’ve never experienced it. I have, on the other hand, been overweight since middle school. Not severely, but enough to make me feel bad about myself (with teenage hormones, this isn’t hard). I was brought up in a household that ate correctly, so I knew what to eat right. When my parents split up (age 6), I lived half with each parent - my mother was the good eater, my dad the bad food. So I’ve had both experiences.

All in all, I’ve eaten relatively well most of my life, apart from the candy bars I would buy after school and eat (then hide the wrappers because I knew I’d get THAT LOOK from my mother). Not a serious problem, but enough that I didn’t have confidence in myself. Plus, I didn’t exercise - I started a little my senior year, but didn’t lose a lot of weight.

Then I went to college and took exercise classes at school and thus I built up a fair amount of muscle, but didn’t really lose much weight (can’t really tell if I lost fat, though I imagine I lost some).

My senior year in college I signed up at Bally’s and started a high-impact hip hop step class (the type where you have to go for months before you know all the moves - there’s no teaching in the class, you just have to pick it up, thus it’s more fast-paced and high-intensity). I did that plus a kickboxing class. Didn’t really lose that much fat, but I was more in shape.

Went to Europe for a year. Came back, signed up at Bally’s again, then I started secret shopping for McDonald’s, so I gained about ten pounds in about a year (though still working out regularly). I stopped doing that several months ago (spring). In about June maybe I had my body fat tested and it came back 31%, which isn’t great, and I got a huge lecture from the guy at Bally’s, saying that I obviously had to work out more or that I wasn’t doing it right. Whatever.

Then I started reducing the carbs in my diet. I still have cereal with milk every morning, and if I go out to dinner I’m likely to have pasta or rice. But most of the time I’m having veggies and protein with a dash of carbs thrown in. I still have gatorade (which has carbs) and sodas and all.

At first, like Morrigoon (sp?) said, I had problems with diarrhea. I have never been a big veggie fan, and upping my consumption of them and lowering my carbs had an effect on my digestion (another reason to ease into it). Also, sometimes I’d have a salad for lunch, and then crash out in my step class because I hadn’t had enough energy. So now I’m trying to snack more (go humus!!) so I don’t have that problem.

When it comes down to it, with upping my step class from three to four days a week, and really going at it instead of just doing the moves plus diet plus the weight machine I just got at home, I’ve lost 7 lbs so far (in about three or four weeks) and I’m down to 27% body fat.

There’s no way I could do an Atkins DIET. The problem with that is the word diet. I’m trying to change my lifestyle. I’m not going to go down to 20g of carbs per day for two weeks. There are certain foods I’m not going to not eat. Since I exercise and am fit (I’m still 163, but I seriously don’t look it - I got in an argument with my co-worker last month because she steadfastly refused to believe I could weigh 170), I’m not going to begrudge myself ice cream occasionally.

What I find more horrible than a fat person are the stick figures I see at the gym…the other day I saw a woman whose veins were popping off her legs like a body builder - only she wasn’t one, she was stick thin. I know that just like large people have trouble getting thin (I’ve been fighting to keep my weight down for years and genetics does work against me as my father and grandmother both have the same build), thin people can have trouble staying large enough to be healthy.

But when I see someone so thin I feel like I’m going to break them by touching them, with their veins popping out, I feel like they have more need of counseling - it is seriously hard to grow up female in this country without having issues about your body. It’s very hard. As much as I know that I’m healthy and fit and don’t really need to lose a lot of weight and all, I still feel compelled to do it just because that’s what I’ve been trained by society to do.

Imagine how much more pressure there must be for a fat person if I feel the pressure that much when I’m a fit 24 yo who looks 20 lbs under my weight and I still feel I need to lose weight.

451

Wow, that was really long. Sorry

I just wanted to add that since there’s so much pressure to lose weight, some people may just tune it out, rebel against it (we don’t all have to buy in to the anorexic look). This of course, excludes the people who have health issues associated with their weight gain and so on and so forth.

All I know is if someone keeps saying “don’t eat that donut, it’s bad for you, you can’t eat it, it’ll make you fat, it’s horrible for you” pretty soon I’m going to start wanting that donut even more. What you do to moderate, is not to dwell on what you can’t have, then you just want it more. Cut the bad stuff down, but let yourself have it occasionally (I had a treat of chocolate yesterday), then you don’t go out and binge. A fat person in line at Dunkin Donuts could be on that moderation donut, you never know.

452

Congrats on your weight loss and especially getting in shape- thats where I’m trying to improve. I found the same thing, the meals I ate were pretty filling- so I would just eat meals and not snack. I had a few days were I was just tired- didn’t help I was working long shifts, but really tired and for the first time in a long time, had trouble getting out of bed. Once I added a morning and evening snack- I felt great again. Oh… and even with the added calories, I lost a few extra pounds AFTER I added the snacks.

453

A cool offer from runner’s world here:

http://runnersworld.genesant.com/asp/rw/templates/tour_621/0,5837,621_,00.html

Looks like a tailored fitness and weight loss program, i.e personal trainer over the internet.

Interesting.

454

** A fat person in line at Dunkin Donuts could be on that moderation donut, you never know.**

Exactly.

I’ve lost 50 pounds in the past several months. I eat something sugary pretty much every single day, though. Someone looking at me in line at the store, however, doesn’t know that I used to be 50 pounds heavier, so they would probably assume that I’m fat because of my weakness for, say, Snickers, even though that’s not the case.

455

There is one point from the various plans (including Atkins) that recommend limiting carbs that I don’t think anyone has mentioned here. For some of us, carbohydrate consumption - whether in the form of candy bars, fruit, potatoes, cereal - messes with our blood sugar and leads to craving, binging and a huge drop in energy when the blood sugar suddenly drops. And the need to eat again.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that people are “addicted” to carbs, but I do know that for many people, going on a restricted carbohydrate diet (while including lots of vegetables and salad) can allow them for the first time to control their eating and calorie consumption. Those of you who have pointed out that “Atkins only works because it limits calories, just like other diets” seem to think that you are “outing” something fraudulent about low-carb diets. It is a point that is made by Atkins and others - a high protein, higher (than most diets) fat plan can help a person regulate their eating and lose the cravings that carbohydrate consumption causes for many people.

One donut leads to a huge binge. Shrimp and salad fills one up and doesn’t make you hungry an hour later.

I don’t need to lose weight, but I found that when I eat cereal for breakfast, even a big bowl of oatmeal, I am starving about two hours later and HAVE to eat something. When I have eggs for breakfast, this doesn’t happen. When I eat a lunch that includes rice, potatoes, bread or other high-carb foods, I NEED a nap about an hour or two later. I’ll be at some conference that has provided a heavy lunch, and I feel like I’m going into a coma during the after-lunch presentation. When I just have meat, cheese, vegetables and salad, I don’t even miss the dessert (which I always used to need) and I’m the only one with energy in the afternoon.

As a runner, I was highly skeptical of any diet that recommended limiting carbs. A co-worker of mine lost a lot of weight *and kept it off * by limiting her carbs and I found this interesting. Again, her point was that limiting carbs reduced her cravings that lead to overeating.

I read the Atkins book because I’m interested in nutrition and what works for different people. I don’t need a weight loss diet, but I did find that there were other beneficial reasons for me to control my carb-consumption, especially for meals early in the day (though I can’t imagine running even a 10K race on a ltotally low-carb diet). To be honest, Atkins sounds like one of those info-mercial snake oil salesmen. But the FACT is that Atkins and others who tout low carb diets have influenced the Harvard School of Medicine and other mainstream biggies in the nutrition field to re-evaluate basic recommendations for daily diet, including the portions recommended in the food pyramid.

Wish I could cross post this in the “Atkins-bashing” thread in GD.

456

I’ve never bought that “carsb = hunger” arguement, because the usualy arguement is that you are hungry later on. Well I get the same feeling sometimes when I eat some beef jerky or a summer sausage. I think there’s all of 1 carb in both of those items.

There’s no magic in carbs that maks you hungry, you’re hungry because you’re hungry. If you are trying to lose some weight there may be times when you have to resists that.

Atkins really hasn’t infulenced anything, there were other forces at work on that food pyramid and medical opinions about low-carb/high fat are justifyably low.

457

You need to do a little research re. nutrition (how the body digests and uses protein and fat vs carbohydrates), blood sugar and some other things, Mr. Miskatonic. One can always make the argument that having a moderate, varied diet that doesn’t exclude any food group is the intelligent choice for anyone who wants to lose weight. But you really don’t know what you’re talking about in your post. There is some controversy here, but there is also some science that’s pretty well-accepted about how the body converts food into energy.

458

Why does everyone keep saying low carb/high fat diet? Is that what Atkins touts? Because I’ve been eating fewer carbs, but not more fats than I was before. Granted, I’m not eating no fats, but I’m not making up for the carbs with fat. I eat a lot of protein (and this doesn’t automatically mean fat - read chicken, fish, lean beef) and veggies and dairy.

459

Ok. More on Carbs versus fats.

Some carbs, like sugars, processed flours, etc. are quicly and easily absorbed by your system. Your body breaks down, say, a candy bar very quickly, after which your digestive track is all revved up with nothing to consume. Then you become hungry.

Eat a piece of ham, and it is going to sit there, in your gut for a long long long time. It doesn’t absorb fast. You don’t hungry as quick.

Carbs are converted quickly into energy. It takes some doing to store them as fat. Meat is aproximately the opposite. Fat stores easy,but doesn’t convert fast. Proteins don’t convert into usable fuel quickly either (these are generalizations not absolutes._

But all carbs and all proteins are not created equal. Some carbs give you a longer slower energy level. If they have lots of fiber in them, you will feel full for a long time after eating them. Some meats and proteins convert relatively easily.

How and what you burn, and what you need to lose weight is going to depend on your current body structure and activity level.

As a nod to Atkins we are coming off of a period where meats and fats were considered very bad. Somebody might eat a bag of doritos a bag of pretzels, a candy bar and congratulate themsels on their lowfat diet.

In our quest to avoid fat we have started eating a lot of very very bad carbs.

You are healthiest with a diet that is mixed carbs/fats/protein.
All things in moderation. It ain’t so tough.

460

I agree with most of what you say, Scylla. However I think your description of “digestability” of carbs vs proteins and fats is a bit oversimplified and I don’t agree with these statements of yours:
“Carbs are converted quickly into energy. It takes some doing to store them as fat.”
Too many carbs (especially simple carbs) - AND the binging they lead to - are indeed the culprits for many people who are overweight in my opinion.

As the late Dr. Sheehan would say, “We are all an experiment of one.” Each of us can do the research and then experiment to find the particular formula or plan that works for us re. diet and exercise. Moderation, of course, is the best place to start with all of it. Most importantly, perhaps, is finding the regimen one can stick with longterm.