Some imp't general, introductory material

[Diogenes999]

Here is some info I hope will be useful to all who are on a low-carb diet, or considering embarking on one. I'm a (very healthy) male, now 65 y.o. I first went on the Atkins diet 7 years ago, and lost about 15 lbs. Since then I've followed a "generally low-carb diet", tho I do have carbohydrate from time to time, even doughnuts. Since 2002 I've gone up a few pounds, so I'm back on the strict form of it. Since 10/04 I've lost about 4 or 5 pounds, *net*. (More than that if you count water loss.) The bottom line to the Atkins diet is that research has found it to be safe, effective, and about the easiest of all diets to follow. In my case it has improved, not worsened, my cholesterol and triglycerides, and I think there's plenty of evidence that it will do so for anyone who follows a low-carb diet--**provided, of course, you don't cheat**!! Despite the abundance of high-quality research that's been done on the diet, you may still run into some nutritionists, and maybe other medical professionals, who will caution you about a low-carb, "high fat" diet. Unless you have some serious medical condition, ignore them--these are people (nutritionists are especially bad, in my experience) who are wedded to some alleged "wisdom" they learned long ago, and they have not kept up with the research. Some newspaper columnists and "science writers" did columns after that about how wrong Taubes was, about how dangerous low-carb diets were, etc. The New York Times carried several very silly, near-hysterical pieces disputing the Taubes article. (One writer in particular who disputed it, and has never revisited the subject, was a Times "star", Jane Brody, who's published a few books. She seemed to become especially hysterical, and as a result of that column, I now ignore anything she says.) Anyone who is contemplating going on the diet, and wants more info, should start with 2 really good items: 1. In July of 2002, a science writer named Gary Taubes did a very interesting, very comprehensive, well-researched piece in the New York Times magazine about this diet--in particular, about the science supporting it. That article was responsible for the surge of interest (at that time) in low-carb diets. 2. Taubes later expanded on that article and did a book called Good Calories, Bad Calories. This book offers some fabulous material--in great detail-- about all aspects of low-carb diets, and I recommend this book to everyone.

[Diogenes999]

apologies for the sloppy formatting

Big blocks of text are not easy to read, I know. I am trying to learn how to post messages with the original paragraphing I used.

[RosieC]

Re: Some imp't general, introductory material

Thanks for your post Diogenes! Interesting stuff.

You can edit it if you want. You should see an edit button under the post. Then you can just hit the enter key where you want paragraph breaks.

[Elizellen]

Re: Some imp't general, introductory material

I think you will find that not many people here would argue with anything you have written (once they work their way through the long paragraph

A third book I would recommend anyone contemplating following Atkins should read is the one we use here "Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution" aka DANDR