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WTF is up with Atkins-bashing? I'm not even on that diet and I've heard more snideness, put-downs, and just general meanness about it to last me the rest of my life. Some haven't even read what the diet is supposed to be, but the myths about it arouse their ire anyhow. Some raise the subject just so they can spew their bile about it. The internal pressure must be immense. One gal I met at a quilting group got so hot under the collar that I'm semi-seriously glad she wasn't armed. What the hell is the threat here, lady? Go ahead, eat your bread. Nobody's taking it away from you.
Obviously there's something I'm missing, because the way I look at it seems simplistic by comparison: if I don't like a diet I don't go on it.
Is it really more about fat-hatred? That might explain some of it, but not all of it. Is it that anything strongly contradicting previous wisdom must be suppressed? That probably doesn't explain all of it either.
If I leave comments enabled, I'm a fool, right? Yeah, I'm a fool. So I'll just delete any comments bashing any diet at all (see above remark about my lifetime quota being full).
Obviously there's something I'm missing, because the way I look at it seems simplistic by comparison: if I don't like a diet I don't go on it.
Is it really more about fat-hatred? That might explain some of it, but not all of it. Is it that anything strongly contradicting previous wisdom must be suppressed? That probably doesn't explain all of it either.
If I leave comments enabled, I'm a fool, right? Yeah, I'm a fool. So I'll just delete any comments bashing any diet at all (see above remark about my lifetime quota being full).
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Personally, I am averse to the Atkins diet because it's inherently unhealthy, and omits glucose, the only fuel the brain can use. Your body can wear itself senseless converting fats and proteins to glucose.
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The MDs, nutritionists and biologists I've spoken to claim that it's only harmfull if you stick with the strictest version of the diet for a lot more than is reccomended. There's a lot of conflicting literature on the subject.
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It is the rampant proseletyzation (sp?) that drives me mad with any diet/weight-loss scheme. I have heard more about Atkins than any other diet in the past few years and I am so sick of it.
Additionally, the demonization of certain foods/food groups also drives me batty. What makes me even more insane is the way corporate america gloms onto the current craze and makes more and more products pandering to such demonization. And furthermore, the demonization/elimination of entire food groups drives me bonkers because of its similarity to many disordered eating patterns. Anorexics and bulimics often restrict food in a similar way (no bread/no cheese/nothing brown, etc.) and it leads to enormous mental unhealth--and I say this a someone in recovery from both disorders AND as someone who has spent years reading the scientific literature about eating disorders, dieting, etc.
Not to mention that at its root, the Atkins diet "works" because it pushes the body into a very unhealthy state.
And to be fair, I will rant angrily about most any diet, but those that rely on severe food/food group restriction/elimination really raise my ire. I'm so sick and tired of the "thin at any cost" mentality I could puke.
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Not to mention that at its root, the Atkins diet "works" because it pushes the body into a very unhealthy state.
If you mean ketosis, I disagree that that state is inherently unhealthy. It's simply the flip side of fat storage -- using stored energy. Not that I want to get into the scientific validity of Atkins as a whole. It's the way people react that really puzzles me.
I can certainly understand why you'd rail against most any diet. There are people out there who seem to have a fair amount of that "thin at any cost" mentality but who will get downright mean and nasty if someone says "low carb"... them I'm not sure I understand.
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what I really mean is:
"use the right tool for the job"
Where'd I put that sledgehammer, I'm a few ounces overweight...
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The people on it are a bit annoying. Then again they are generally very happy about how well it works. There is good evidence that people didn't evolve eating a lot of carbs.
It would be nice if it were easier to eat more lean protien and veggies and less carbs and fats when buying food. I'm strongly against no-fat, or no-carb diets, but there is a reasonable balance to be found.
I ran across a newspaper article years ago tying low-fat diets with increased aggression and it had the interesting line that "this may explain the puzzling fact that while people on low fat diets had fewer heart attacks, they did not on average, live any longer".
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I dearly love the man but SHEESH! Enough already! I'm happy it is working for him but it ain't the answer for me!
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Oo, that is an interesting line. Makes me think. Raises more questions than it answers, but that's half the fun...
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I suppose it is the very popularity of Atkins that makes it the most common target of the vitriol I overhear: more participants means more people who are getting preachy (whatever the percentage may be), so more people who aren't on that diet get ticked off.
I've heard of the South Beach diet but don't know a thing about it. I guess I shouldn't sit in the same room with your dad for a while, eh? :-)
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Where'd I put that Dremel tool, I'm a few ounces overweight...
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Also, you have to remember that some of us are just complaining jokingly, and we're not going to bomb the Atkins center or dig up Dr. Atkins' corpse or anything like that. But if it really pisses you off, you probably shouldn't read anything I write (no hard feelings,) because I'm going to continue ridiculing it.
Until that fateful day when people realize that carrots and oranges are not the enemy; refusing to walk two blocks IS.
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From what I gather, South Beach is similar to Atkins in a lot of ways. Stay away from white flower, carbs, etc...
Beware! Those freaky people are like members of a religious cult! ;o)
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I had one person who didn't like it because I was a famous personage, and he didn't like the fact that I might be inducing other people to do the same thing, perhaps to their detriment. (Which seems to be a relatively busybody notion, but then again so are the people who try to push Atkins on others.) This person also appeared to be a vegetarian, and so diets that encouraged eating of large amounts of meat probably also caused him to be upset. If you're interested, his comments on one of my LJ entries can be found here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/tytso/15630.html).
Personally, I try very hard not to proselytize. If someone asks me whether or not I've lost weight, or if someone asks me if I have any dietary restrictions, I'll tell them that I'm following an Atkins diet, but I never try to tell them that they should do so as well. I'll just merely state that it's worked for me, to the extent that I've lost 40 pounds, and have been able to bring my blood sugar levels under control. (More recently, when I went to Japan last week, and decided to take an Atkins "holiday", because Japan is such a rice-based culture it's pretty much impossible to avoid carbs, I found that I gained six or seven pounds in one week. Since I've gotten back home and started restricting my carbohydrates again, the weight has started coming off quite quickly. Does it prove anything? Not necessarily, since I was working long hours, and I wasn't exercising as much, etc., etc., etc. But in any case, it works for me, and given that it works, I don't feel any urge to mess with success.)
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Nah, I didn't think you were about to dig up any corpses, and I'm not pissed off -- just kind of wondering where all the anger comes from. Maybe I've just been very lucky; I am quite isolated from most Media Frenzies, whether it's boobies or diets.
Until that fateful day when people realize that carrots and oranges are not the enemy; refusing to walk two blocks IS.
I seriously doubt the Atkins diet plan argues against exercise. If you can point to a counterexample, I'll ridicule that part right along with you!
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I saw a book once wherein some of the characters followed the latest diet craze: eat only flowers. I think it was a subtle joke about the omnivore -to- vegetarian -to- vegan -to- ? kind of path, but maybe it was more general, poking fun at diet crazes of all stripes.
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Another guy I know couldn't go on Atkins because his doctor told him it wasn't safe.
I think you have to live in LA to see the level of low-carb bombardment. You can't go anywhere without being subjected to a nonstop low-carb hailstorm, and people avoid bread even more than they avoid, say, walking instead of driving.
So they think I'm an idiot for running 22 miles or riding my bike for 50, and I think they're idiots for avoiding a carrot like it's poison.
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And speaking of flowers... It's funny that you mention the flower-eating thing... sounds very familiar to me but I can't quite put my finger on it. Can you remember the name of the book?
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Understandable. Dissent can indeed be threatening; just the IDEA that what one is doing could have been wrong all these years is darned frustrating. (Personally, I think we're still learning a lot about nutrition and about medical science as a whole. Saying an expert is against something or for something isn't, for me, iron-clad gospel.)
If you're interested, his comments on one of my LJ entries can be found here.
I liked your responses: no engaging him about philosophy, just presenting your own experience backed up with numbers. You didn't even take the bait when he insulted your intelligence. I'm impressed. :)
Personally, I try very hard not to proselytize. If someone asks me whether or not I've lost weight, or if someone asks me if I have any dietary restrictions, I'll tell them that I'm following an Atkins diet, but I never try to tell them that they should do so as well.
I deeply respect that. If asked, you explain, but you don't dictate to anyone else what their actions should be. I think that approach makes for smoother interactions between people -- not too many folks like to get preached at. It's not always easy to take this approach, so when I see you doing it, I'm impressed.
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I guess all I can say is I hope it works for him. Personally, I find it difficult to imagine that lack of exercise can ever be as healthy as exercise, no matter what a person's dietary intake is. I'm not omniscient, so it's not like I think I have the last word in everything... but me, I'll exercise.
I think you have to live in LA to see the level of low-carb bombardment. You can't go anywhere without being subjected to a nonstop low-carb hailstorm, and people avoid bread even more than they avoid, say, walking instead of driving.
If low-carb helps some people, then it should help everyone, and it should cure all ills, and NO carb should be even BETTER, right? Sigh. I guess every "religion" has its overzealous "culties".
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One is that when there are insufficient carbohydrates in your system, the body switches over into burning fat instead; but this is less efficient, and so left-over products from the fat burning process (ketones) are excreted into the urine. This cheats the calories in vs. calories burned must be negative equation, since in effect, you're pissing away some of your calories in the form of incomplete fat combustion products. Now, there are some real downsides to this approach. First of all, it does stress the kidneys, which is why the wise Atkins dieter will drink large amounts of water and do periodic tests using urine test strips looking for protein in the urine (which indicates that the kidneys might be getting unhappy). Secondly, the state where there are not enough carbohydrates in the system is also known to athletes (particularly runners and bicyclists) as "bonk", and it means that you may not be able to do activities that require huge amounts of energy quickly without getting exhausted. (Although I suspect that marathon runners do develop a capability to run using lipolysis.)
The South Beach Diet, because it doesn't insist on restricting carbohydrates to this level, means that the body generally isn't entering direct lipolysis often or at all. Instead, it works by emphasizing "good" carbohydrates, which is defined as carbohydrates which have a low glycemic index, and so therefore tend not to cause insulin spikes. The theory here is that "bad" carbohydrates enter the blood stream quickly, which means that the body produces insulin in response to control the carbohydrate levels. Unfortunately, for people who are pre-diabetic, the body initially doesn't react as well to the insulin, and then when it does, it ends up over-correcting and the blood sugar level crashes. This causes the person to get hungry, and to eat --- and if they eat more sugar-laden snacks, that just causes more fluctuations of the blood sugar levels, leading to more spikes and more blood sugar level crashes. Both Atkins and South Beach do talk about restricting carbohydrates, and when you do eat carbohydrates tend to prefer the "good" carbohydrates. The difference is that South Beach concentrates a lot more on the latter, and less on the former.
The bottom line is that for some people, both diets definitely works; probably better for some than for others. I won't claim that it works for everyone, although it is instructive that some recent statistics estimate that 50% of all American males have impaired insulin response, and among people who are overweight, that percentage is probably even higher. Because the South Beach diet does have more carbs in the diet and tends not to emphasize the lipolysis aspects of Atkins, it's probably "safer", especially for people who are worried about their kidneys. It also tends to immunize the dieters from one of the arguments used by rabid Atkins-bashers. :-)
I do try not to preach, but at least for me, I find the scientific basis for the diet, and some of the recent research results about the metabolic syndrome --- which mainstream medicine does acknowledge --- to be absolutely fascinating. So I tend to geek out about the subject, which probably in some cases can be more annoying that people who are preachy about it. If this is more information that you wanted, feel free to delete this comment. <grin>
Bwa ha haaa
colored flavored waterer,Bud Lightumm...? (duck and run)Re:
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http://www.livejournal.com/users/hermit_crab/274367.html?nc=17
Um, a few other instances I'm too lazy to look for...
and I was like, "well geez, should I censor everything I say in order to not upset anyone, or should I just advise them to stop looking at it?" So anyway, be forewarned that I'm going to continue ridiculing the Atkins diet until the next fad comes along and replaces it, then I'll make fun of that too. If that's a source of irritation to people, then they probably shouldn't look instead of getting upset.
And I decided the answer was "no, I shouldn't." They can just choose to stop looking, which is fine.
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I recently got myself in hot water at an event. It was a group of all women, very full of PC Berkeley-types (don't get me wrong--I respect these women for much of what they do, but I lived in Berkeley long enough to have developed a bit of an allergy to things PC). At least half of these women were "off sugar," most of them were actively "watching their weight," and a goodly number of them were vegetarians. There were a few vegans in the mix, too, along with one or two low-carbers. I don't recall what the comment was that sparked mine, but I said something about disliking the sorts of vegans whom I find to be inconsistent--e.g., folks who'll put down people who eat meat because it's wrong to kill animals for food, but are still OK with buying leather shoes, for instance. Wow, I got slammed. As I found myself backpedalling, I struggled to figure out how to express to these women what it was I was really objecting to. I found it nearly impossible to communicate with them about it, because everything that I said was taken as a slur against someone in the room. I felt extremely judged for the fact that I haven't embraced a "healthy" way of eating (which to me looks like an obsession with avoiding the evil-food-of-the-month), and in fact prefer to walk a more moderate path about food.
I've tried my share of diets over the years. A couple of years ago, reading a book on depression, I came to the VERY RELUCTANT conclusion that I should try low-carb. As I delved into the diet suggestions, I found that it was full of contradictory recommendations, and that I had to completely re-vamp everything I thought I knew about cooking. I tried, I really tried, to cook that way. But it didn't work. And more to the point, I didn't lose any weight either. And the longer I tried to keep strictly to the diet, and failed to achieve any real success, the more depressed I became. Clearly, it was not a success FOR ME.
After yet more research, I've concluded (well, as much as any of this can be a "conclusion"!) that the low-glycemic stuff is the way to go. It makes the most sense scientifically, and the largest number of people seem to have the best results with it. But in some ways it's even harder to do than Atkins, because it's more complex. Bodies are complex, and it's silly for us to think that a simple solution ("eat no fat!" "eat no carbs!" "eat only grapefruit!") could possibly be the answer for everyone.
And ultimately I'll do what I do, and you do what you do, and as long as you don't give me some sort of guilt trip about it and vice versa, I think we'll get along.
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In many ways, I'm treating this the same way I treat my faith - this is what works for me, and I'll talk about why *I* like it, but each person needs to find what works for them. It's really not that hard of a philosophy (letting everyone find what works for them) to live with. I really wish more people would do it, you know?
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*sigh* yeah. :-/
In other words, expanding on what Lisa said below, I'm "basher-bashing"! :-)
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Re: one of the threads below, if you're not exercising regularly, you're not doing Atkins.
I don't care what people put in their mouths, but I get twitchy when they do something that isn't Atkins, and yet CALL it Atkins. (Just like I get twitchy about other abuses of the language, but don't get me started.)
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That being said, some controlled quantites of the low-carb foods can be really useful. I regularly carry around in my laptop low-carb "granola" bars, and low-carb Snickers bars look-alike. These are my emergency food supplies for when I'm really craving a snack, and the choice is between one of my snack bars and buying some potato chips from a nearby vending machine. And the fact that I can now get low-carb chocolate milk for when I need a chocolate fix is really nice. But I make sure I only drink 8 ounces at a cost of 3g of carbs, and not drink multiple glasses of the stuff at one sitting.
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Agreed.
some controlled quantites of the low-carb foods can be really useful.
That's definitely a personal tradeoff, and edges out of the realm of "lowering caloric intake" and into the fuzzier realms of "what psychological uses do we make of food?" Without being prescriptive (I hope :-) I'll toss back the question of which would, ultimately, be healthiest -- the ability to snag 8oz of chocolate milk now and again, or putting the chocolate milk addiction to rest permanently? :-)
It is not easy. It may not be necessary to achieve one own health goals. But for some people (me!) it becomes obviously necessary. Lord knows I'm not done. (I will say that giving up cheese took more concentrated, stubborn effort than going on the diet in the first place. But it broke a hella stall.)
The observed wisdom from the txlowcarb mailing list is approximately this: as long as you're losing weight or inches, you're doing the right thing. If you get stalled on both for a substantial period of time (6-8 weeks), there's a list of things to look at that are "Atkins-safe" and yet still cause some people problems. Dairy and "fake food" are at the top of the list. Hence my concern that the marketing blitz leads people to think that "Atkins" means buying "Keto Cereal" and "low carb pasta" and ordering from the "low carb menu" at Burger King, and not really changing their eating habits.