I think we've been pretty d*mned restrained and courteous, despite considerable provocation.
I can't see how you could possible say that. A few posts up Snapless actually mocked the act of eating a potato. God forbid should anyone consume a starchy vegetable, or a dairy product with reduced amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. How silly of them.
Personally, I don't think that attitude is justified.
You know, it's not low carb eating per se that I actually have a problem with (provided that it's not an extremely low carb diet). It's the anti-carb hysteria that gets my goat. And I feel the same way about anti-dairy, anti-fat, anti-meat, anti-fill-in-the-blank movements too.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Drina
God forbid should anyone consume a starchy vegetable, or a dairy product with reduced amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. How silly of them.
THIS is exactly what I meant when I said people are misinformed about Atkins!
Atkins permits eating starchy vegetables!! For that matter, Atkins permits eating potatoes & pasta. As far as "artery-clogging" saturated fat...whats silly is, that people actually buy that nonsense propaganda!
I can't see how you could possible say that. A few posts up Snapless actually mocked the act of eating a potato. God forbid should anyone consume a starchy vegetable, or a dairy product with reduced amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. How silly of them.
:inhales:
I can't believe I'm responding - again...but I have to correct an obvious misunderstanding here.
You obviously misread my post.
What I *mocked* was people referring to my woe as not healthy because it was low carb. Heaven forbid I be on a low carb diet, I might die from high cholesterol, even though my cholesterol is lower now than it has been in 10 years!
What I *mocked* was being told using a diet which left me uncomfortable, as in still hungry and feeling waspish (please do go back and read) was somehow better for me because it wasn't low carb.
I do not believe anyone here is trying to force you to give up your way of eating. It is what works for you.
All anyone is saying is stop slamming others woe, when it is obviously what works for them AND sanctioned by their doctors AND backed up by medical studies.
I should know better but find it necessary to jump in on this debate. Does Atkins work? Yes, when followed it does work. I know because I am a study of one. I lost my weight doing Atkins. I did tweak it a bit and eat extra fruit and it still worked. Even now in maintenance if my weight goes up, I cut back on the carbs.
As for the 96% regain rate with Atkins that others have quoted, well I guess I'm a rarity. Yes, I have fluctuated a few lbs., but I certainly haven't regained near what I lost. 2 yrs. now since reaching goal and I'm within 5 lbs. of my goal. As for the comment from someone earlier about save the fat clothes, I did just that. I saved one pair of size 20 jeans cause occasionally I get a kick out of standing in one leg of them.
Before Atkins I was gaining weight at a rate of 10-15 lbs. per year. This in itself surely would have killed me. So, if I die 30 or so yrs. from now from having done Atkins, that is fine with me. At least I won't have broken the backs of my pallbearers.
Do I 100% endorse Atkins or shout it from the rooftops. NO. I don't get paid to endorse it. I feel everyone needs to choose what works best for them. Something they can stick to. Something where they don't feel starved. Something that their Dr. supports.
snapless, I completely get that you weren't mocking the potato, but refering to the effects of such a meal on yourself. I know it, because I recognize it in myself.
The giant potato from Wendy's with the low fat spread and sour cream, or home-made version were lunch staples for me for years. In graduate school, I practically lived off of potatoes. I would simmer green beans in tomato sauce with onions and usually "bacos" instead of the bacon my grandmother's version of the recipe called for. Instead of serving it over mashed potatoes as a side dish as my grandma did, I'd put the green bean tomato sauce mixture over a plain baked potato as my meal (lunch, dinner, and sometimes breakfast). They were tasty and inexpensive, and a calorie bargain most of the time, but as I've finally learned calories are not the whole story for many people, and I just happen to be one of them.
The thing is, to my recollection, eating a fairly typical, mostly wholesome diet, I have always been ravenously hungry. It was bad in kindergarten, but when I got my period at age 9 or 10 in 4th grade, it became exponentially worse (I had a clockwork-regular 25 day cycle, 8 to 9 day period, and severe menstrual cramps and cravings from the very first cycle). Even after eating, I would often still feel ravenously hungry. My stomach would hurt and I would still want to eat - Still feel like I needed to eat. Any attempt to lose weight required every ounce of concentration. Pure and utter torture every step of the way.
Caroline Rhea once said in a stand-up routhine, making fun of a skinny aquaintence, "it takes a special kind of stupid to forget to eat." I found that really funny at the time, because I had never once forgotten to eat.
On low carb, I sometimes DO forget to eat. Do you have any idea what kind of miracle it has been in my life to be free from the 24/7 pull to eat? It's almost like I would imagine it to be for a schizophrenic to suddenly stop hearing the voices.
I wouldn't recommend anti-psychotic medications for someone not experiencing hallucinations or delusions, and I wouldn't recommend a low-carb diet for someone who doesn't have a carb-related problem with overeating.
In a sense I do have what some might consider an anti-carb outlook, because low fiber carbs are my kryptonite. I tried South Beach and found that I could overeat low GI carbs nearly as easily as refined starches. The starvation hunger isn't as intense, but I still can unconsciously eat cups and cups of wheat berries, for example. I need a backup method and have chosen an exchange plan. Still, any relatively low fiber carb is still a "yellow light" if not a "red light" food.
The thing is, I can really understand the "carbs are evil" mentality, even though I disagree with it. I am losing weight extremely slowly, in part because I am having trouble finding that balance between excluding starchy carbs and the ease at which I overeat when including them. I can overeat fruit and grains, and counting calories or exchanges helps, but it doesn't remove the unusual hunger that can be triggered when I eat even good starchy carbs. Hunger, for some of us, is often not nearly as easy to overcome as many people think. If I were to cut carbs more drastically than I have been, I would lose weight much more rapidly and would be able to reach the state of "normal" sooner. Don't think that doesn't cross my mind. Being a freak is a pain in the a**, even when you do have good self-esteem.
The closer I come to eliminating carbs, the faster I lose weight. Given how much our society despises and scorns fat, it is so incredibly tempting to reach for the quickest way to become less of a freak, even if it is dangerous. It makes a perverted kind of sense to see carbs as the enemy when you've experienced the carb-ravenous hunger cycle. It's understandably difficult to think logically under the circumstances, and so I cut such people ALOT of slack even though I disagree with them.
Let's assume (for only a few moments) that Atkins and other low carb WOEs do have a 96% failure rate. The odds of a 400 lb person reaching and maintaining ideal weight through diet is much lower. Why am I even trying? Even weight loss surgery, seems to at best have a 40% success rate. If failure rate is to be used as a deterrent, then the Fat Acceptance crowd has it right - there's no good reason for me, or almost anyone else, to even attempt weight loss at all.
Until the research really can tell us what does work and for whom, we're all left to be lab rat and scientist. After finally finding something that works for me and allows me to lose weight and have a centered, balanced life (after 36 years of searching), I'm too tired to pass it up and keep looking just because someone doesn't approve of my choices.
My point was, would I follow a diet that has the reputation of killing its adherants? Would I eckas like.
And why has this diet, and this one alone, got that reputation? When's an Atkins fan going to give that one a straight answer? (Lots of unfamiliar names on this thread btw, who don't appear to be usually on the UK section - almost as if someone's told 'em all to come along and have a look.....)
I've linked to newspapers because (sit down for this one, low carbers I aren't sure you can think straight otherwise)... they report news stories. And isn't it news when someone dies from following a diet?
Also I was trying (and failing) to convey the shocking concept that low carbing is pretty well dying out in Europe, anyway. I wonder why we are debating this at all? What about one of those Victorian or Edwardian diets on
Sir Roy Strong's programme about 'old' diets...
Ah bum. That links to the Daily Mail. Those who write articles for a living can't possibly know what we're on about, eh? I suppose to the average Atkins Stepford wife, people who have worked in unis like Drina know nothing, either.
You know what? I've never written an article on the fundamentalism involved in Low Carbing. (And note I say 'low carbing' there no one specific diet plan mentioned). But I don't half feel that one coming on....
Glad I aren't the only one here who can smell the avidness of the convert.
Last edited by PhatPhoenix; 06-28-2008 at 05:52 PM.
Location: NW New Jersey But, My Heart's In Pittsburgh!! GO STEELERS & PENGUINS!!!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PhatPhoenix
(Lots of unfamiliar names on this thread btw, who don't appear to be usually on the UK section - almost as if someone's told 'em all to come along and have a look.....)
What better people to advise about Atkins than the one's that are actually doing it
I'm not in the UK and I don't follow a low-carb diet, but I just wanted to thank the participants in this debate. I've gotten lots of good info from the posts and the links.
FWIW, I follow my own diet which isn't low carb at all. But lately, I've noticed that I've had the tendency to plan starchier menus. I've decided to ratchet up the greens and lean protein and reduce the starches. It still won't be a low carb diet, but I think it will be healthier than what I am currently eating (which is already pretty healthy by most standards).
(Lots of unfamiliar names on this thread btw, who don't appear to be usually on the UK section - almost as if someone's told 'em all to come along and have a look.....)
I post anywhere that interests me and where I have experience related to the topic. That includes the 300+, the 20-somethings, the religious-related threads and so on (categories not necessarily "mine"). There is no "private" or "exclusive" area, with the exception of the "moderator" areas.
My point was, would I follow a diet that has the reputation of killing its adherants? Would I eckas like.
And why has this diet, and this one alone, got that reputation? When's an Atkins fan going to give that one a straight answer? (Lots of unfamiliar names on this thread btw, who don't appear to be usually on the UK section - almost as if someone's told 'em all to come along and have a look.....)
The Atkins diet in the USA has been linked in rumors to raised cholesterol, but not to death. I can't think of any reason Atkins would kill Brits, but not Americans. That seems pretty strange.
I have heard Americans living in the UK complain about having difficulty finding much variety in fresh produce, so perhaps this is a factor. It's interesting, and should be explored further.
As to posting on the UK section, it is true I neither live, nor was born in the UK, but
I also post wherever a thread catches my interest. I've even posted on the vegetarian forum, and I'm definitely not (a vegetarian). Sometimes I've even mentioned eating meat in the veg*n thread, which I know probably makes some veg*ns uncomfortable. It is not my intent to make anyone uncomfortable, and I try to be sensitive, but sometimes communicating honestly and openly is going to make some people who disagree uncomfortable. That can't be helped, and I believe most of us can be adult about such things when they occur.
SoulBliss, and the other veg*n members have never made me feel unwelcome, though if the majority would ask me to leave "their" thread, I would happily do so.
I posted under this thread because of the topic. One of which I am familiar with. In the future if you don't want people not from the UK responding, you could opt to put that in the title . I don't know of any other threads on this board that are exclusive to one group of people. I usually post under the NSV thread, maintainers chat, LC chat, exercise chat, general chat , weight loss support chat and occasionally the 100 lb club.
yoyoma - glad you're finding this exchange of ideas/clash of paradigms interesting! (I'm rather ashamed of the fact that I can't seem to drag myself away, actually - I mean, very clearly this is going to be a circular argument...and yet it's exerting a car crash fascination upon me...)
Quote:
(Lots of unfamiliar names on this thread btw, who don't appear to be usually on the UK section - almost as if someone's told 'em all to come along and have a look.....)
Perhaps I'm mistaken, but that seems to be directed at me? If so - I'm British, so I've occasionally glanced at the UK section, which was how we came to have our previous conversation. This time around, though, the thread title caught my eye when it cropped up on the main 3FC page. But, no, I didn't run off asking for backup from other Low Carbers - I'm more than happy to hold my own corner. (Surely unsurprising, though, to find that people who DO have personal experience of this woe would find their attention caught by a thread that asks about its efficiency?)
Quote:
I wonder why we are debating this at all?
Well, clearly someone was sufficiently interested in the question to start a thread!
Quote:
I've linked to newspapers because (sit down for this one, low carbers I aren't sure you can think straight otherwise)... they report news stories. And isn't it news when someone dies from following a diet?
::sighs::
Look, you've already made a point of your academic qualifications in a previous thread. It is astonishing to me that you could therefore present any of those articles as an attempt to support an 'Atkins diet kills people!' hypothesis. Not one of them substantiated this assertion. Sure, that kind of dramatic headline is more interesting than 'Person dies, cause unknown, here are some guesses that we can't actually prove', but it's still up there with 'Freddy Star Ate My Hamster' in terms of research.
(And, whilst we're at it - this business of repeatedly insulting the people with whom you're debating is very Primary School, and indicates a lack of confidence. You should be able to prove your point without all this childish 'Yo mama' cr*p.)
Quote:
Ah bum. That links to the Daily Mail.
...
...
...you know, when you were posting links to The Observer and The Guardian, that was one thing. But THE DAILY MAIL?
Quote:
Those who write articles for a living can't possibly know what we're on about, eh?
This technique you keep employing is called a Straw Man argument. It's a strategy where you misrepresent your opponent's views, and mock or disprove the view that you're PRETENDING they hold. Rather than actually addressing things they have said, which can be a little trickier.
To clarify: the problem with using the articles from the mainstream press (even the broadsheets) to which you have linked as a basis for your 'Atkins kills/doesn't work' argument is not "journalists don't know what they're on about", it's that (1) journalists for the mainstream press are neccesarily more inclined towards varying degrees of simplification and sensationalism than hard science because that is the job of mainstream journalists and (2) in none of these articles is a solid argument made to defend the sensational hypothesis of the headline. Good journalists are careful not to leave themselves liable to legal action, and if they don't have a rock solid case they're careful to acknowledge this in the text. Which the writers of your articles do. Which is why you might like to try looking at the primary sources those journalists use, rather than unquestioningly accepting a version that's been cut, shaped and re-presented for Joe Public to peruse before wrapping up someone's fish and chips.
Having said that - no, I don't consider The Daily Mail a reliable source for balanced reporting on ANYTHING, any more than I would The Jerry Springer Show . It's a remarkable choice of source for someone who characterised citations of specific academic studies as "fluff".
Quote:
I suppose to the average Atkins Stepford wife, people who have worked in unis like Drina know nothing, either.
(See my earlier point about this egregious name-calling business. It doesn't help you make your case, dear. Ditto the straw man argument - nobody has said Drina can't know anything.)
I can't speak for the other low carbers, but I certainly wouldn't bow to someone's argument simply because of their job or their qualifications. This technique that you're using (as with the way you brandished your English Lit degree and PCOS in our previous conversation) is called "Argument from authority", and it's another strategy that poor debaters use rather than SUBSTANTIATING THEIR POINT. It can be quite effective at intimidating people who aren't very smart, or who aren't very confident. Unfortunately in the present instance you're out of luck. Moreover, however much you try to mischaracterise us as extremists and lemmings, our posts make it perfectly clear that we're neither.
For the record, I have much more respect for the way that Drina has been conducting herself throughout this debate than I have for the way you have been behaving. I think she's had a couple of genuine misunderstandings (I can see how she might have misconstrued snapless's words as a general remark - it was clear to me that she was talking about her own intolerance for carbs, but I don't think Drina saw that) but generally she's been fairly courteous and adult. Clearly we disagree about low carb and I'd hazard a guess that's partly because carbs simply have a different impact on our respective metabolisms - if you DON'T find they screw you up, then I can understand why restricting them might seem excessive. It's a shame she isn't taking on board the fact that it's an appropriate choice for some people (just as cutting out gluten makes a massive difference to people with wheat allergies) but I have sympathy with the whole mistrust-of-extremes that she seems to feel.
Whether she works in a University or in Tescos, however, is not going to have an impact upon how much I respect her opinion. The way in which she conducts herself and the way in which she substantiates her point is going to shape that. (What's more, out of kindness I'd recommend that you eschew this 'argument from authority' approach in future online discussions, because in a situation where you don't know the qualifications, skills base or experience of the people with whom you're debating it's really asking for trouble. If they lower themselves to play the same game, and you find out that their qualification/career/whatever trumps yours - where does that leave you? Up sh*t creek without a paddle, because rather than a genuine debate where people substantiate their arguments, you've made it into a d*ck measuring contest - and suddenly you find that you're up against Dirk Diggler.)
Quote:
You know what? I've never written an article on the fundamentalism involved in Low Carbing. (And note I say 'low carbing' there no one specific diet plan mentioned). But I don't half feel that one coming on....
How thrilling. Will it be as rigorously well-researched and incisive as your defence of your position in this thread? Really, I tremble before your knife-sharp logic and scholarly prowess.
Or, you know. Not.
Last edited by broadabroad; 06-29-2008 at 12:08 AM.
Quote:
I suppose to the average Atkins Stepford wife, people who have worked in unis like Drina know nothing, either.
__________________________________________________ ___________
Well, if you consider such things important, then you should know that I hold my master's degree in developmental psychology, and like Drina have also worked as research assistants as a graduate student. For one graduate embryology class, I submitted a review of the literature on the negative effects to the fetus when pregnant women with PKU fail to return to the PKU diet during their pregnancies. (PKU is a metabolic disorder, which was once the leading cause of preventable mental ******ation). A very restrictive and unpalatable diet is required until brain development is complete as people with the disorder are unable to break down the essential amino acid, phenylalanine (the reason for warning on the label of foodstuffs containing aspartame).
Several years ago, I also worked for a private non-profit organization, as part of a very large, multi-million dollar federally as well as privately funded adolescent drug and alcohol treatment research project.
Personally, I did not consider my qualifications relevant (for the reasons Broadabroad pointed out) to the argument since my education and experience is not in the field of bariatric research. It would have been childish and inappropriate to argue that my qualifications "trumped" Drina's, as no good would have come from an academic pi**ing match.
But I do know how to evaluate research articles in professional journals, and compare the actual results and conclusions to those reported by popular media. As any researcher can tell you, journalists draw (and jump to) conclusions that are far removed from the researchers' interpretation.
As any researcher can tell you, journalists draw (and jump to) conclusions that are far removed from the researchers' interpretation.
And as a scientist, I would add that the conclusions stated in journal articles are often not fully supported by the data contained within. A few folks on this thread do not understand this, and mistakenly believe a study can "prove" the safety and effectiveness of a diet.
