Debating Atkins

[FwL]

Re: Debating Atkins

I think the reason most see Atkins as unhealthy, regardless of what the truly know about the diet, is because of the amount of butter, bacon, and fatty meat in general. Whether or not they are right in assuming that Dr. Atkins allowed his patients to eat a pound of bacon a day is a matter of not fully researching the diet.

I'm just wondering, though. Is this why lots of people see Atkins as a heart attack waiting to happen? Because they think all you eat is bacon on top of a fatty rib-eye fried in butter?

I believe this is exactly the reason.


We've had this idea that eating fat is killing everybody shoved down our throats for decades by the establishment, the experts, the media, the government.. and now even the man on the street.

Everybody knows that eating fat is bad for you. It's been repeated so many times it must be true.

There's even a quote used on that site illustrating this "common" knowledge:

When Atkins was brought before the Senate investigation on fad diets, the Chair of the Senate Subcommittee read a statement submitted by Dr. Pawan himself who supported the AMA's condemnation of the Atkins diet and explained that he used very high fat diets only for "specific experimental purposes" (emphasis in original.) in hospital settings and would never "recommend a very high fat diet indiscriminately to obese subjects for obvious reasons."

Just once I'd like to see some real evidence that shows all these supposed ill health effects from a high fat low carb diet.... not just scare tactics.

Case in point:

The American Heart Association states: "Individuals who follow these diets are therefore at risk for compromised vitamin and mineral intake, as well as potential cardiac, renal [kidney], bone, and liver abnormalities overall."[254] Low carb diets like the Atkins diet may also hasten the onset of type II diabetes.[519] In short, concluded the September 2004 review in The Lancet,[524] "low-carbohydrate diets cannot be recommended."[525]

[stacy3477]

Re: Debating Atkins

The misconceptions of the diet are definitely frustrating. When people ask me what I've been doing to lose weight I always say: cutting out sugar and starches, eating more fresh food and veggies, and exercising. I always get a "good for you!" But if I mention Atkins, well, my experience has been the same as everyone else.

The one thing I know for sure and the reason I stick to this WOE is that myself and my family are eating more healthy than we ever have. My veggie drawer in the frig stayed pretty close to empty for years. Now I have veggies in every nook and cranny. No one will ever convince me that piece of steak or a couple slices of bacon are worse for me than the Toaster Strudel and Cherry Pepsi I used to use to start off my day.

Dieting is a very personal decision. If you give Atkins the 2 week try, I think you'll be convinced too.

[BigSouthernBoy]

Re: Debating Atkins

The misconceptions of the diet are definitely frustrating. When people ask me what I've been doing to lose weight I always say: cutting out sugar and starches, eating more fresh food and veggies, and exercising. I always get a "good for you!" But if I mention Atkins, well, my experience has been the same as everyone else.

The one thing I know for sure and the reason I stick to this WOE is that myself and my family are eating more healthy than we ever have. My veggie drawer in the frig stayed pretty close to empty for years. Now I have veggies in every nook and cranny. No one will ever convince me that piece of steak or a couple slices of bacon are worse for me than the Toaster Strudel and Cherry Pepsi I used to use to start off my day.

Dieting is a very personal decision. If you give Atkins the 2 week try, I think you'll be convinced too.

I don't doubt for a minute that Atkins works. I've seen all your stories and I've seen it work in my life. I just get kind of freaked out, for lack of a better word, when I read horror stories of heart disease onset by an Atkins style diet, not necessarily low carb.

[FwL]

Re: Debating Atkins

I don't doubt for a minute that Atkins works. I've seen all your stories and I've seen it work in my life. I just get kind of freaked out, for lack of a better word, when I read horror stories of heart disease onset by an Atkins style diet, not necessarily low carb.

If people were getting heart disease from Atkins, you'd see a list of names used as an example of how bad this diet is.

Same with kidney failure.

Same with diabetes.

Same with [name your disease here].


Do you think a site like "Atkins Exposed" would miss an opportunity to list all the people who have killed themselves on this diet?

[bizzlekitty]

Re: Debating Atkins

Many people here can attest that the numbers they use for predicting future heart disease problems improved since starting Atkins.

My cholesterol went from 190 to 129, and that with still a hundred pounds to lose, so not all of that is just due to weight loss alone. My other numbers (trig, HDL, LDL) all were much better too. Other diets never budged my numbers much.

The problem with the Internet is anyone can post their opinions as well as find "studies" that back up their point of view.

I also believe that there's alot of people out there attempting to do "low carb" on their own without doing it right. I can't tell you how many people I've run into that thinks that Atkins is no carb and/or tried it and couldn't stick to it because they couldn't eat any carbs (no veggies, using replacement bars/shakes, etc.) This also exacberates the myths that low carb doesn't work, is hard to stick with, and is bad for you.

As others have said, look at the success stories on this board. That's proof enough.

[BigSouthernBoy]

Re: Debating Atkins

I know that basically nothing you read on the internet is completely valid and even published scientific studies manipulate solid information and twist it out of context. I don't necessarily believe everything I've read, that's why I wanted your opinions. I just want to be reassured that the opposite is true.

[neutronnorman]

Re: Debating Atkins

Nothing is 100% safe, especially when it come to diet and exercise. There will be instances of people developing heart disease, dropping dead while exercising or having heart attacks while following any diet. Low fat diets have been linked to the same negative issues as a high fat diet.

Triglycerides drop on this diet, no doubt, and your triglyceride levels are a better predictor than cholesterol for heat disease, so some believe. So is high blood pressure and myriad of other physiological measurments.
But one thing is for sure, if you remain obese, do not workout, smoke cigarettes, use recreational drugs or drink alcohol excessively, chances are you are going to cut your life span by quite a few years.

This diet can, as well as any other, lower your BP and resting heart rate.
If you are getting the majority of your fats from healthy sources, the omega 3's for instance, it provides some protection from heart disease.

I'm not going to sit here and preach to you why Atkins is the only way because it is not. I don't subscribe to anything cultish. There are many ways to lose fat. You can become a total vegetarian, fast, follow a high protein diet / low fat and carb, low fat or a high fat diet low carb, etc. They all tend to work. The problem is that the media has put a bad stigma and over-hype on Atkins. The media has bought into the low fat diet fad since the early 1980's.

I mean, how many times do I hear: "You can eat all the steak and eggs and bacon, all day and still lose weight? " Buddy, that's the biggest crock of I've ever heard. To lose weight, you must burn more calories daily than your body can store. Burn energy, to get a little more clear because a calorie is a unit of of energy. The kilogram calorie, large calorie, food calorie, Calorie (capital C) or just calorie (lowercase c) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. Figure that 1 lb of fat contains roughly the equivalent of 3000 large calories. Do the math and figure out the energy expenditure to burn the energy stored in 1 lb fat. 3000 kilograms of water weighs 6,600 lb.

Atkins makes the weight loss experience a bit more palitable without the sugar swings and short circuits, to a degree, the fat storing insulin resitance brings about.

I'd rather lose weight feeling secure that being friegthened of dropping dead. It reminds me of a bad acid trip. So, if you do not feel secure doing Atkins, do another diet that maybe goes by what the mass media approves or considers healthy. Maybe they are right and the people who follow Atkins for more than a few years are developing colo-rectal cancer, gall bladder disease, heart disease, kidney disease, etc. The research behind high fat / low carb diets is at best, a bit vague, hazy and not long termed enough. There are discrepencies. It's a dice roll. But the dice might well be loaded favorably towards the low carb way.

[BigSouthernBoy]

Re: Debating Atkins

Nothing is 100% safe, especially when it come to diet and exercise. There will be instances of people developing heart disease, dropping dead while exercising or having heart attacks while following any diet. Low fat diets have been linked to the same negative issues as a high fat diet.

Triglycerides drop on this diet, no doubt, and your triglyceride levels are a better predictor than cholesterol for heat disease, so some believe. So is high blood pressure and myriad of other physiological measurments.
But one thing is for sure, if you remain obese, do not workout, smoke cigarettes, use recreational drugs or drink alcohol excessively, chances are you are going to cut your life span by quite a few years.

This diet can, as well as any other, lower your BP and resting heart rate.
If you are getting the majority of your fats from healthy sources, the omega 3's for instance, it provides some protection from heart disease.

I'm not going to sit here and preach to you why Atkins is the only way because it is not. I don't subscribe to anything cultish. There are many ways to lose fat. You can become a total vegetarian, fast, follow a high protein diet / low fat and carb, low fat or a high fat diet low carb, etc. They all tend to work. The problem is that the media has put a bad stigma and over-hype on Atkins. The media has bought into the low fat diet fad since the early 1980's.

I mean, how many times do I hear: "You can eat all the steak and eggs and bacon, all day and still lose weight? " Buddy, that's the biggest crock of I've ever heard. To lose weight, you must burn more calories daily than your body can store. Burn energy, to get a little more clear because a calorie is a unit of of energy. The kilogram calorie, large calorie, food calorie, Calorie (capital C) or just calorie (lowercase c) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. Figure that 1 lb of fat contains roughly the equivalent of 3000 large calories. Do the math and figure out the energy expenditure to burn the energy stored in 1 lb fat. 3000 kilograms of water weighs 6,600 lb.

Atkins makes the weight loss experience a bit more palitable without the sugar swings and short circuits, to a degree, the fat storing insulin resitance brings about.

I'd rather lose weight feeling secure that being friegthened of dropping dead. It reminds me of a bad acid trip. So, if you do not feel secure doing Atkins, do another diet that maybe goes by what the mass media approves or considers healthy. Maybe they are right and the people who follow Atkins for more than a few years are developing colo-rectal cancer, gall bladder disease, heart disease, kidney disease, etc. The research behind high fat / low carb diets is at best, a bit vague, hazy and not long termed enough. There are discrepencies. It's a dice roll. But the dice might well be loaded favorably towards the low carb way.

Very well put Norman.

[ChantillyLace88]

Re: Debating Atkins

I lurked around that site after I read the article posted. Other than the obvious reasons like the poster being a vegetarian, his findings are completely bias. Of course he will say anything to discourage Atkins, including "eating nothing but meat". If I were a vegan, I would not support a diet based solely on meat simply because it would go against my morals. But he twists and turns this WOE to his advantage by saying " we never eat vegetables, dairy and fruit".

Anyways, I found an interesting article about a girl named Rachel Elizabeth Huskey. She was a 16 year old girl who decided to try the Atkins diet to impress a boy she went to church with. Well, his article says that she followed the Atkins WOE for 7 weeks, then one day while in school, went into cardiac arrest and died, all due to Atkins.
This obviously shocked me. BUT, there was absolutely no way of knowing if she followed the diet correctly. Chances are, she didn't. (There were also no toxicology reports or autopsy findings mentioned)

If eating 3 cups of veggies a day is going to give us heart attacks at VERY young ages, we're all screwed. And so are the vegans.
The article says she was "healthy" before trying the Atkins diet but I haven't seen anything to back it up. I have, however, heard of teens going into cardiac arrest because of being overweight, restricting their calorie intake drastically and working out way too much. Anything is possible and it just so happens that this girl was on (probably her version of) Atkins when it happened.

Just look at this site. Everyone on here is living proof that this WOE helps people. Whether it's losing extra weight, getting off of diabetes and high blood pressure medications, or just feeling better in general. We aren't consuming mass amounts of sugar and refined carbs, which is what recent research is trying to get people to steer clear of anyways. Eating a steak every now and then cannot possibly be as unhealthy as eating a tray of pizza. People just don't want to admit that they need to give up that pizza in order to get healthy!

[mizski]

Re: Debating Atkins

Atkins goes against everything I have learned, specifically the high-fat part. So it's basically a leap of faith type of thing with my trying Atkins now.

I tried low fat, low carb, high protein while on Medifast. Lost weight but then became very ill when I developed a severe sensitivity to soy and artificial sweeteners and ingredients.

I tried low fat, good carbs with South Beach but didn't seem to lose much weight after Phase 1.

And of course there are the years of traditional WW type diets and calorie counting but those made me neurotic rather than thinner.

None of these diets did anything to reduce my cholesterol.

In the last 15 years or so that I've been trying to lose weight I have learned one thing: my body doesn't lose weight with too many carbs.

I played around with trying to just eat low carb on my own but I still had the same low fat mentality and my protein was also minimal. The more I read about Atkins (the good stuff) the more I became concerned that without any real plan, I may be doing more harm to my body than good.

So here I am on my fourth week of Atkins. I've lost 22#s and just feel a whole lot better. My body is slimming down probably more than the scale reflects.

All I can say is that I hope that eating the Atkins way with whole foods will be good for me. Time will tell. The other methods didn't work, so I'm trying this out.

[neutronnorman]

Re: Debating Atkins

I can't even begin to tell you how much fat I've lost and muscle I've gained just shy of 3 months. My numbers are really remarkable. I've always been able to lose fat and gain muscle easily. I would say that I've dropped about 45 lb fat and gained about 8 lb muscle within the last 3-4 months.

I have the numbers, graphs, measurements etc. on Excell. I use skin fold calipers and track my Metabolic index, instead of BMI.

The metabolic index, MINx, = {[weight (lb)/height ^2] X 7,250} / body fat %.

The higher the number, the more fat lost and muscled gained. I started at a MINx about 12.0 and currently at 14.6.

Once you reach a MINx of < 20.0 or so, you begin to enter the realm of an elite athlete.

For a quick reference point for body fat % I measure my suprallic area, 5 inches to the right of my navel and about an inch above the hip bone. I'm about 10-12 mm now, or so.

In a nut shell, I'm 5' 11" tall and weigh 203 lb. My waist measurment (I'm thick waisted) is about 35", chest ~50" and biceps are about 17" cold.

Goal: waist to about 32" and biceps to 18 1/2 - 19". I had reached a bicep measurement many moons ago of 19 1/4 inches so I'm hoping again for the best.

BSB, losing weight, in the long run, is relatively easy. It's transforming your physique the bch part.

[RitaCeleste]

Re: Debating Atkins

I don't worry about my health on Atkins. I had two sets of grandparents. One set was low fat, the other set fried everything. Both sets are alive and in good health. The low fat side takes heart meds, the high fat side has one mild stroke and the other is being taken off heart meds cause the doc says the meds not his heart are the problem. Basicly meat and veggies was what I was always told was good for you by both sides. No one ever said eat cake for the sake of your health! The only thing I have less of than I would if I were a total health nut is bran and fruit. I found out I can have strawberries once a week and still loose weight. When I'm not on a diet, I like trying to live off TV dinners. Where are the studies of people trying to live off these things? Please, no one in their right mind would say that's better for me! lol

[FLSunShine]

Re: Debating Atkins

My family physician recommended the Atkins diet too after she lost 80 lbs on it herself. I was following it faithfully almost two years ago and would have been at my goal had I not starting getting off focus listening to the nay sayers. Now here it is 2009 and I'm still obese and right back to Atkins.

I don't understand why people would slam a program that is making a positive change in people's lives and even serving as a tool to SAVE LIVES.

Stop listening to the negative reports and stay focused on your goal. Best to you.

[FLSunShine]

Re: Debating Atkins

Nothing is 100% safe, especially when it come to diet and exercise. There will be instances of people developing heart disease, dropping dead while exercising or having heart attacks while following any diet. Low fat diets have been linked to the same negative issues as a high fat diet.

Triglycerides drop on this diet, no doubt, and your triglyceride levels are a better predictor than cholesterol for heat disease, so some believe. So is high blood pressure and myriad of other physiological measurments.
But one thing is for sure, if you remain obese, do not workout, smoke cigarettes, use recreational drugs or drink alcohol excessively, chances are you are going to cut your life span by quite a few years.

This diet can, as well as any other, lower your BP and resting heart rate.
If you are getting the majority of your fats from healthy sources, the omega 3's for instance, it provides some protection from heart disease.

I'm not going to sit here and preach to you why Atkins is the only way because it is not. I don't subscribe to anything cultish. There are many ways to lose fat. You can become a total vegetarian, fast, follow a high protein diet / low fat and carb, low fat or a high fat diet low carb, etc. They all tend to work. The problem is that the media has put a bad stigma and over-hype on Atkins. The media has bought into the low fat diet fad since the early 1980's.

I mean, how many times do I hear: "You can eat all the steak and eggs and bacon, all day and still lose weight? " Buddy, that's the biggest crock of I've ever heard. To lose weight, you must burn more calories daily than your body can store. Burn energy, to get a little more clear because a calorie is a unit of of energy. The kilogram calorie, large calorie, food calorie, Calorie (capital C) or just calorie (lowercase c) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius. Figure that 1 lb of fat contains roughly the equivalent of 3000 large calories. Do the math and figure out the energy expenditure to burn the energy stored in 1 lb fat. 3000 kilograms of water weighs 6,600 lb.

Atkins makes the weight loss experience a bit more palitable without the sugar swings and short circuits, to a degree, the fat storing insulin resitance brings about.

I'd rather lose weight feeling secure that being friegthened of dropping dead. It reminds me of a bad acid trip. So, if you do not feel secure doing Atkins, do another diet that maybe goes by what the mass media approves or considers healthy. Maybe they are right and the people who follow Atkins for more than a few years are developing colo-rectal cancer, gall bladder disease, heart disease, kidney disease, etc. The research behind high fat / low carb diets is at best, a bit vague, hazy and not long termed enough. There are discrepencies. It's a dice roll. But the dice might well be loaded favorably towards the low carb way.

Man this is just real talk Norman.

[neutronnorman]

Re: Debating Atkins

I don't understand why people would slam a program that is making a positive change in people's lives and even serving as a tool to SAVE LIVES.

Stop listening to the negative reports and stay focused on your goal. Best to you.

Hi FLSunShine, you are correct. I really believe eliminating obesity is a panacea. Besides the physical and metabolic effects of losing body fat we tend to over look the psychological benefits.
We begin to feel confident and attractive. We overcome depression and anxiety which I'm sure adversely impacts our bodies.