The Atkins diet and me
While we’re talking about diets (and we were, yesterday), let me just say that I don’t think much of the Atkins diet. It’s an eating plan a number of commenters touted on yesterday’s thread.
I’m sure it’s fine for some people, maybe even for many people. But it sure isn’t for everybody. Years ago when it first came into vogue, I decided to try it. I wanted to lose the usual fifteen or so pounds, and I was pretty young, so you’d think it would have been relatively easy. I went on the diet and followed it without cheating.
But I felt lousy. Protein foods are not my favorites, so the prospect of chowing down almost unlimited meat, chicken, cheese, and the like did not appeal. I certainly didn’t overdo those foods, and I drank all those glasses of water with ease. What I craved was fruit; I used to dream about it, actually. And I won’t even speak about what the diet did to my digestion; let’s just say it didn’t improve it.
But worst of all, I didn’t lose weight. You’re supposed to keep to the most restrictive part of the diet for two weeks, and “[t]he Induction phase is usually when many see the most significant weight loss ”” reports of losses of 5 to 10 pounds per week are not uncommon when Induction is combined with daily exercise.” I was exercising up a storm, because this was back in my ballet dancing days. I even stayed on the diet for an two extra weeks, because I couldn’t believe the weight wasn’t dropping off.
But it wasn’t. I think I lost a total of a pound in those four weeks.
One of the conclusions I’ve come to about diet and weight loss is that everybody is different, often very different. Some quite overweight people I know just don’t eat all that much. Even a normal amount is enough to put weight on for them. Some thin people who aren’t all that active simply cannot gain weight no matter what they eat or how hard they try. Some diets work for some people and not at all for others—although there does seem to be a general tendency for bigger people to lose weight faster, and for men to lose weight more easily on diets than women.
I don’t know why I’m talking about diets today, though. It’s a holiday, or at least the beginning part of a holiday—although it’s a holiday that would fit in quite nicely for those on the Atkins diet. Just grill up some steak or burgers or chicken or fish or whatever you happen to like, and you’re good to go.
And don’t forget those deviled eggs:
Good point Neo. We are all different. My experience with trying to lose weight- not always successful- involves several principles, which if I follow them, work. Moderate on fats and carbohydrates, but at least 2-3 TB of fat or oil. Olive oil, please. As many vegetables as I can eat. (Potatoes, which I do not abjure, I consider a carbohydrate.)
Light eating after 6 p.m.
Fruit is especially good in the evening, as a sweet tooth satisfier. Mangoes, peaches, cantaloupes, grapefruit. I don’t restrict fruit.
Walking at least 2 miles a day will help very much.
About 1/3 of the way down in this article,
http://www.miller-mccune.com/magazines/magazine-feature-story-magazines/bacteria-r-us-23628/
there is a section on gut bacteria and their role in metabolism. Not only do we have different genes; we also have different bugs that affect our weight. There is definitely no one size fits all despite what FLOTUS says. I recall a TV show here in which the journalist travelled through Mongolia. While eating yak cheese with the nomads in their yurt, he asked about the secret of their longevity. They said they didn’t eat fruits and vegies.
The deviled eggs look yummy. I’ve taken under my wings a couple of 13-year-old boys who are here for a while with their fathers. They can’t get some of their favorite foods here so I’ve been helping them find substitutes and introduce them to local goodies. One thing they wanted to learn how to make was deviled eggs. They were amazed at how easy it is to make them.
BTW, the stuff about arsenobacteria has been pretty much discredited now.
My down fall will always be pies and cakes. Relatively easy to avoid except when going to the grocery. You MUST walk through the bakery. I usually want to hurl myself into the display cases. Evil people design these places!
Only thing I’ve found that lets me lose weight is…the first trimester of pregnancy. I drop twenty pounds like it’s cool. >.<
(to be clear: I don’t get morning sickness. The weight just melts off.)
I agree that the individual’s genetic makeup plays a huge role in which diets work for which people. A food that is well-tolerated by one may be nearly poisonous to another.
I was always skinny as a kid. Now, at 53, not so much, but that probably has more to do with beer than anything else. I’m in reasonably good health, though. I don’t follow any particular diet and regard moderation in all foods as an ideal. That will probably work for most people, unless you have a particularly bad reaction to a given food.
Many different factors have been blamed for the obesity epidemic, including television, computers, sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise, processed food, fast food, convenience food, and the ubiquitous use of high-fructose corn syrup instead of traditional sugar (sucrose).
But I can’t help noting that there was never an obesity epidemic before the federal government started giving us all nutritional advice. Government naturally tends towards “one-size-fits-all” solutions. Make of that what you will.
I recently tried Atkins. I have been reading about it for a number of years. I had the same experience as Neo. I went to the doctor and he ran the usual tests. Low blood sugar. It had kicked me into a mild state of hypoglycemia.
Two diets have worked for me. One is the Atkins diet…I’m 3 lbs from my target on one now…I lost about 20 lbs. I have been cheating a bit lately by eating more than a little bit of fruit…I can’t do without my Fredericksburg peaches this time of the year. That’s slowed my weight loss down some but it’s still dropping.
Another diet that has worked for me is my own idea. I simply eat frozen dinners and nothing in between meals. There are some now that don’t taste too bad and there’s pretty good variety, not to mention they are easy to prepare. If you choose carefully, most meals will only have about 300 calories and I can lose weight on that. And you can easily maintain a balanced diet. A key to the success of this approach is that portions are controlled.
Its all DNA. I am 63 and in 5 months will be 64. Currently I weigh 8 pounds more than I weighed when I graduated from high school. My lovely wife (61 come September) struggles to keep a constant weight that is 10 pounds more than her slim youth. We are all different and what works for one will not work for another.
As long as you are healthy (blood pressure, etc.) it matters not what you weigh. Nothing objectionable about a little plumpness as far as I am concerned.
My husband reminds me– don’t forget that some of the “epidemic” of obesity is imaginary. When you apply BMI to my family, we’re unhealthy at “ideal” weights. (Two of the three uncles, if I remember correctly, sink when they hit water. They actually failed the “deadmans float” in bootcamp because they lack the buoyancy to do it correctly.)
Doesn’t change the fact that there are a LOT of folks out there that make my third trimester self feel slim, but GIGO on the actual stats.
Some good discussion here.
Atkins worked well for me. I didn’t follow the official program, but switched my diet to lean protein, slow carbs and cut way back on starch and simple sugars. I lost 90 pounds in 1 year, most of that in the first 8-9 months, and have kept it off for almost another year with no effort. If I tick upwards after a holiday dinner, I can easily bring it back down. And now I find I don’t crave all the crap I used to eat.
As a mid-40s bachelor I had a lot of bad eating habits to lose, which also helped. I eat a good breakfast, eat regular meals 4-5 hours apart and have a small snack in between and in the evening (the prohibition against eating after 10pm is bunk).
I’m also convinced the secret ingredient is the most counter-intuitive: Don’t do aerobic exercise when you’re trying to lose weight. Expending calories in that way just seems to turn your metabolism (which is about burning AND storage) in the wrong direction, and it fools too many people into thinking they can splurge on a smoothie because they did 30 mins. of spinning.
“But it sure isn’t for everybody.” That can be said about EVERY diet. And nobody knows beforehand which one will be good for him. That is why most of dietology is a junk science, and always will be. Diversity and complexity of humans is such that it can not be resonably grasped by statistics or scientific method in general.
My wife and I tried the all-protein diet back in 1970. We lost weight, but found it stressful. My wife went into ketosis at one point and even fainted at work. After awhile, you get to dislike eating nothing but meat, so you eat less, and that compounds the low-glycemic diet effect.
Later we discovered Montignac and never looked back. You add low-glycemic vegetables, i.e. olives, and also nuts. You can eat all the deviled eggs you want. There’s no problem sticking with it for a year or more. It’s basically a Mediterranean diet without the bread and sugar, and very limited sweet fruits.
I can only recommend recommend Taubes’ book for the science behind fat deposition to counter all the misinformation from the “authorities”. One of the surprising findings is that while exercise may be good for you, it has no effect on fat deposition.
The link that Kurt provided in the previous thread is also good.
My diet:
No sweet tea
No pizza
No bread
No candy
No ice cream
No sweet tea
Joined the YMCA & worked out every morning at 6 A.M. showered and went to work.
It worked great I lost weight and got in shape.
But I really wanted some pizza and sweet tea.
And let’s not forget the Paleo Diet. I (mostly) read “The Paleo Solution” by Robb wolf (or is it Rob Wolff. I’m too lazy to check). I tried that for a few days and couldn’t take it. He does make some interesting points though. I just don’t see why I should drop virtually all carbs.
I had already lost 15 pounds by following, to an extent, what I learned by reading Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories”. I’m 5’9″ and was 147 lbs. but I’m now 133. I’ve always been active and cycle 600 miles per month but every time I hit 139 I popped back up into the 140’s. Not so this time and I’m not really following any sort of a diet but low carbs definitely got me there. I’ve had several people look at me and declare that I must be an incredible rider (no, just pretty decent).
How long ago was it, Neo, that you did that post on Garbonzo beans (chickpeas) with a recipe? For some reason, I had an intuition that this would be a good food for me. I did a little research on the chickpea and wow it portended well. Since there’s a little diabetes in my genetic line, the chickpeas looked good offering fiber, protein, minerals and, of course, the good carbs:
Chickpeas are a helpful source of zinc, folate and protein.[12][13] They are also very high in dietary fiber and hence a healthy source of carbohydrates for persons with insulin sensitivity or diabetes. [from wikipedia]
So I bought some canned garbanzo beans and some uncooked ones; but sit they still, unloved and uneaten, in my cupboard. Meaning, at least you’re trying.
Curtis: here’s the recipe.
You can usually find things on this blog by using the search function in the upper right column. I just typed in “chickpeas” and I located it.
There are different body types. Protein types and carb types. Most people to some extent are “allergic” to wheat & grains. For those types, you need to avoid grains and sugars. By sugars, I am talking about the stuff added to foods and drinks. NOT fruit per se. Me? I am definitely a protein type. Pasta, Rice and good Bread are my downfall.
For body typing, read:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/26/metabolic-typing-part-three.aspx
Curtis,
Try tossing a small can of beans into what I call a chunky salad–tomatoes, peppers, cukes, green onions, whatever you have. Toss in a homemade vinaigrette and let it sit a while so the beans absorb the flavors. You can even keep the leftovers in the fridgefor next day.
Garbanzos go well in chili made from steak tips.
I’m thinking chili and a salad.
Speaking of chili, my daughter made this last week and it was good. Very good.
White Chili
She got the recipe here.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/simple-hearty-white-chili/
I had never had anything like this previously and was pleasantly surprised.
Since last Labor Day I have dropped 55 pounds (215 to 160) by following two simple rules: Eat less fat. Walk. I don’t count calories, I just eliminated saturated fat (animal, I still use olive oil) from my diet and walk every day. I eat more fruit and veggies than anything else, use only fat free dairy and the only meat I eat is skinless chicken breast. I eat fish 5 or 6 times a week, grilled or broiled, salmon, tuna, halibut, shrimp, scallops, crab, snapper, etc.(thank goodness I like fish). I walk every day, at a brisk pace (14 minute miles). I started with one mile a day and have worked up to an average of 8 miles a day, 5-6 days a week. I’ve gone from 5 BP pills a day to one, my cholesterol has fallen enough that I no longer need to take medication for that. My resting pulse, much to my doctor’s surprise, is 44. And I’m 60 years old with a triple fusion in my lower back. If I can do it, anyone can.
If a diet makes you feel like crap, it ain’t a healthy diet no matter who with what letters after their names tells you what. There is no less biochemical diversity among humans than there is morphological.
I like the paleo concept, but I’ve known too many people who were just flattened by low-carb diets to drink all of the Kool-aid.
My sister had good results with a modifed low-carb diet.
She had better results with the “skip dinner and have another glass of wine” diet she picked up in college… especially since “breakfast” is usually a glass of iced tea, and lunch is something ludicrous like a salad wrap. *shudder*
Part of it, I am pained to say, may be your age. Where is he weight piling up? Hormonal changes are doing what they do. We are a few months apart in age, I calculate, and my wife, too. Walking more seems to help, some. Then again my sister, only fifty five, walks miles every day, and she’s still ready for the next Ice Age. Atkins worked for me, for a while, and I loved most of it, the meat, the deviled eggs, the Hollandaise instead of gravy. The only real drawback was the negative impact on my whining. Who can really sympathize with someone complaining about Hollandaise sauce and steak?
Swimming has been wonderful, and I like to do it, anyway. Did I miss you saying that you are now too stove up to dance? No exercise that you love is going to be a burden.
“One of the conclusions I’ve come to about diet and weight loss is that everybody is different, often very different. Some quite overweight people I know just don’t eat all that much. Even a normal amount is enough to put weight on for them”
And there you have it, the very point 99.99% of doctors and dieticians alike miss entirely.
For me, Atkins works like a charm. I’m loosing weight (albeit slowly, but that’s no problem). But far more important, my chronic fatigue is gone, I generally feel a lot better, have a lot more energy.
For people who’ve a general dislike for meat and other high protein foodstuffs, it’s not the best choice (as Dr. Atkins freely admits in his books, he was a realist as well as an idealist).
That said, for the first week or so of trying it I too craved fruits (especially fruit juices, water tasted bland by comparison) and candy. But that’s temporary, both in the craving part and the fact that you’re not allowed those (though forever after you’ll eat less and maybe different fruits than you did before).
Mostly, for all of us who can’t eat much of anything contained in a “regular healthy diet” as advertised by health departments and most every diet guru out there without bloating up and feeling miserable, only to be told by the world that “fatso should eat less”, it’s vindication.
Vindication for our not “simply eating too much”, when we already ate less than the people thus scolding us.
“And let’s not forget the Paleo Diet. I (mostly) read “The Paleo Solution” by Robb wolf (or is it Rob Wolff. I’m too lazy to check). I tried that for a few days and couldn’t take it. He does make some interesting points though. I just don’t see why I should drop virtually all carbs.”
Paleo has some good points but like most diets is too extreme and based on incorrect assumptions.
He assumes the human metabolism is still identical to what it was 10.000 years ago, it isn’t.
But he’s correct in assuming that our current diet, high in processed carbohydrates, is not suitable for that same metabolism.
Atkins is far more pragmatic. While he has you drop most carbs, that’s only for a limited time to get your metabolism working as it should.
After that it’s far less restrictive (though always more restrictive than your average “food pyramid” based diet scheme which is based solely on the need of the agricultural industry to sell all that grain it produces).
She had better results with the “skip dinner and have another glass of wine” diet
If she REALLY wanted to lose weight she could have a whole bottle. I lost the weight I mention in an earlier reply while having more than I’d like to admit. I’m convinced that there are no calories in red wine.
bandmeeting –
I can’t remember where I read the studies, but alcohol doesn’t translate into the “gaining weight” thing like one would expect from a raw calorie count. I’d bet there’s a big different metabolisms thing in there, too, but between the appetite suppression from water, filling a craving for sweetness and the relaxing effects… I can see how it would work very well!
In response to several commenters:
(1) when I was on Atkins and didn’t work, I was young—in my twenties. So increasing age had nothing to do with it.
(2) I’ve never been significantly overweight, just the usual ten-twenty pounds that women often want to lose to get into fighting trim. And it has always been extremely difficult for me to lose it, although it’s gotten more difficult with age. Very heavy people lose weight faster on diets than those who have less weight to lose.
(3) I have always been quite active, and have always done aerobic exercise on a daily basis. So lack of exercise has never been a factor.
(4) I don’t eat a lot of sweets, soda, bread, potatoes, potato chips, etc. to begin with on a daily basis (more of a special treat thing with me), so there’s not that much to cut back on compared to people who eat more.
(5) note that a lot of the people on this thread who wrote that they just did this or that or the other thing and lost weight are men. There is no question that it’s easier for most men to lose weight than for most women.
Bandmeeting,
I bet the red wine makes the bacteria that help metabolize foods into fat too drunk to do their job. But they are probably happy.
John Says:
July 3rd, 2011 at 11:07 am
I can’t help you out with the pizza, but have you tried iced tea with grape juice?
You only need a little grape juice, and it adds quite a lot of flavor and sweetness.
Thanks rickl that sounds good I will give it a try.
I am a frequent atkins dieter in my forties.
Atkins works period. The fat burning mode will not start if one is not follwing the rules. Typically I lose 7 lbs in the first 2 weeks and then about 1-2 pounds each week thereafter. The cravings for sugar subside if you are not allowing the sugar into your body. The appetite becomes suppressed very quickly if followed correctly.
The diet is amazing as it gives me such great energy and makes my stomach feel better than diets with tons on chemically processed frozen foods or ones that make me feel like I am starving myself. Sometimes on the diet a few weeks I see as I am close to my goal a no weigh loss ending. This is when I am close to my desired weight. This I find is the stategic moment for a slice of pizza. Amazingly the next week- another pound shed even with the carbs.
Induction is not Atkins it is merely a phase. Your body may respond better to slightly more carbs here and there in the form of fruit and vegetables. You just have to find the right fit for you. Good Luck.
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