Heres the story. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20041102/ts_nm/food_lowcarb_dc)

'bout time. cant wait to see whats next.

Heres the story. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20041102/ts_nm/food_lowcarb_dc)

'bout time. cant wait to see whats next.

I just hope they don't stop making the few good products that has come from Atkins enthusiasts, I love my fat free carb-countdown milk and i'd be mad if they stopped making it :mad:

I just hope they don't stop making the few good products that has come from Atkins enthusiasts, I love my fat free carb-countdown milk and i'd be mad if they stopped making it :mad:

remnants of the low fat diet craze are still everywhere so i would bet that some if the products will stick around.

the low-carb diet is just taking off here in australia, carb options has just released their pasta, pasta sauce and soup range! also we are seeing "carb smart" ice cream

Low-Carb Food Sales Slow as American Craze Cools

They wish, low carb diets have been around for years. All the type II diabetics produced in the low fat fad will be on forced diets of carb rescriction.

Heres the story. (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&ncid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20041102/ts_nm/food_lowcarb_dc)

'bout time. cant wait to see whats next.

Too bad. Low-carb diets helped a lot of people learn about nutrition, and what different types of food did to their bodies.

Now, stupid people who jump on a craze without understanding it or researching it - I'd like to see them disappear. They give a perfectly valid theory a bad name.

i cannot wait for the healthy fat diet, flax and oilve oil will be a big trend.

I went on the Atkins diet, and I lost about 50 pounds. I would say about 35 of that was fat, and about 15 was muscle. I really leaned out and looked good. However, looking back on things, if I could redo it, I probably would not do the Atkins again.

Sure, it was great at helping me lose weight. I tried for a long time by upping my exercise and eating a high carb, low fat diet. I actually gained weight by doing this because more exercise made me more hungry, so I ate more. The Atkins switch helped me get my appetite in check. But it also had its drawbacks. Because my body was so low in glycogen, which is how ketosis starts, my body was always tired and stiff. I had to really get psyched up to just struggle through every workout. I was worn out afterwards, and the next morning when I awoke, I was just flat out sore and tired. Repeat cycle.

I did the Atkins for about a year, and I jumped on the bandwagon right before it really took off. I'm thankful for the weight I lost, but I should have just researched diet and fitness a little more and done what I'm doing now.

I'm not surprised that the Atkins fad is fading. It really limited your eating choices. At first, I was like "Holy crap, I love bacon. I get to eat bacon every freaking day!" This was cool for awhile. But for dinner, I got meat with a side of meat. It got old. My diet now has a lot more choices, and I'm better off for it now.

It was great to get off the low fat diets I had been struggling with for 25 years (during which 15 of those years I gained 70 pounds.) The Atkins approach immediately brought an end to my weight gain or (later)no loss days. I am so much more happier, thinner, leaner, work-out much more than I ever did on low fat, etc. etc. etc. (Though I still have a way to go.)

But I am now putting more carbs back in my meals. Not every day, but when I want them. I watch overall claories mostly. I realized that I was getting tired of the very meal plans that I loved for a couple of years.

But I think the Atkins craze served a very important role--it taught us how diet ideas can get fixed in our head and be completly wrong--even the US govenrment got stuck like this for 30 years on their low fat recommendations --even though according to the famous NYTimes article ("What if it was all a big fat lie!?!), NIH (National Insitute of Health) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars researching the low fat claims and not a single study ever substantitated it.

Permanent weight loss seemed to almost never occur on low fat diets, there were no visible improvements in cholesteral or other aspects of health, - not a single study according to the Times article ever bore out a single theory of low fat diets -- yet NIH refused to question its position and just kept funding more studies on low fat approaches for 30 years. Not only that, but if NIH ever recieved a grant proposal to study anything even vaguely resembling Atkins (reasonable amount of Protein and carbs), the proposal was immediately rejected. It wasn't until the Atkins organization started to fund research itself at universities and then some other funding organizations started looking at it, finding the very results that low fat diets were supposed to provide, that NIH finally relented and funded a research project, which I believe is still on-going but has already published significant results in places such as the New England Journal of Medicine (the top journal in the country in its field).

People track the timing of the fattening of America with the shift in position of the governement to low fat diets. I certainly blame it for my 70 pound weight gain over 15 years. I was perfectly slender all my life with never a weight issue until I was 28 and quit smoking. I gained about 5 - 8 pounds from that, and loving my "perfect" figure I was determined to get that weight gain off. Being the good little academic I am, I researched what was considered the healthy approach, went on a low fat diet and proceeded to gain 70 pounds in 15 years. ANd I was a pretty physically active person--I used to jog etc. (and danced the night away several times a week--great aerobic exercise--though it wasn;t called that then.) And all during those 15 years, I felt I was morally weak and had no self-discipline despite my best intentions. The sense of guilt was all pervasive and obviously I could not hide the wieght.

I started to inadvertently go through periods of eating low carbs. I knew nothing about Atkins except it was supposed to be "a crazy dangerous fad diet." In each of those periods I would lose about 5 pounds and never put it back on. I only thought it was due to nerves--I would make sure I would eatr adequate protein during those periods even though I had difficulty eating. After the Times article and a RISE in my cholesterol level, I went on Atkins in earnest a year and a half ago. Though I cannot claim I have stuck strictly to Atkins, I have lost about 15 pound in that time at an age when most people are gaining weight. And that is on top of the 20 or so pounds I lost over the previous couple of years when I "sporadically" went on a varient of Atkins without even knowing it.

So I am grateful to Atkins. I think the man himself was sincere, not after money particulalry (not that he turned it away) and it took tremendous courage for him to stand up against his entire profession for 30 years to stick to what he genuinely and intelligently believed was the correct approach to nutrition. And he funded research to refine his theories better. It is unfortunate that now he is dead, his foudation has turned into more of a money making machine--but I think the world of nutrition and people's blind faith in the government and the medical profession as a whole has forever been change and now contains a healthy measure of sceptisim.

So I think Atkins did a lot of good on many levels.

Justita

I am happy for your turn around and return to better health, but the low-fat diet did not make you gain weight. Eating more calories made you gain weight. Also, gaining 70 lbs between the ages of 28 and 43, is not uncommon. Though I don't know about your life, you admitted becoming less active over that period. It seems you have the correlation wrong, you blame becoming less active on you weight gain, when the opposite is true. Also as we get older we become more involved with kids, career etc, and that can put our health on the back burner. So again congradulations again on your improved health.

One of the problems with the low fat diet is not in theory but in execution. People become overly focused on fat grams and lose track of calories. No nutritionist said you can go crazy as long as its low fat. How many times did you sit down and eat an outsized portion pasta or rice, but rationalize it by saying there was hardly any fat. But there is still 1000 calories. I did it. I can remember when snack-wells cookies came out. Rosie O'donnel, on her show said something to the affect that she could eat the whole box and only have 12 grams of fat. I am not saying that she is the paragon of nutritional advice, but from casual observation I could sense that this was the way many people felt.

When these problems are combinded with the refined nature of all of these fat free calories the problem worsens. If you compare the total calories between low fat and regular versions of the same product, the difference is negligible, and sometimes the low fat product has more calories. All the sugur/refined carbs that people we eating caused to predictable insulin surges, lack of satisfaction, and thus eventaul wait gain.

My hope is that atkins will refocus people on what matters. In many ways the basic four food group concept that we learned in grade school is superior to both low fat and low carb diets. Combine that with limiting highly processed foods and returning to reasonble portion sizes and I think you've got a good and simple plan to get people healthy. Will you look like a model? No, but you won't look like beached whale either.

Justita

I am happy for your turn around and return to better health, but the low-fat diet did not make you gain weight. Eating more calories made you gain weight. ... So again congradulations again on your improved health.

One of the problems with the low fat diet is not in theory but in execution. People become overly focused on fat grams and lose track of calories. No nutritionist said you can go crazy as long as its low fat.

I understand your interpetation of what I said as the result of my own eating activities and not the low fat diet. I should have been clearer. I did pay attention to calories; I did attempt to keep up the exercise. The problem was that the low fat diet kept me in a constant state of craving "forbidden foods" and never feeling satisfied. As a result it took tremendouus effort to stay on the low fat, low calorie diet and I was constantly breaking down and binge eat--something I had never done in my life before I went on the low fat diet regime to lose the 5-8 pound I gained from quitting smoking. Then I would become even more determined to be "good" and stick striclty to the low fat regime which only set me up for another fall of sinking into binge eating that was more serious and lasted for longer periods of times.

It seems you have the correlation wrong, you blame becoming less active on you weight gain, when the opposite is true.

To the contrary, with respect to physical activity, I became more and more sapped of energy as I sustained a low fat lifestyle and though I belonged to gyms, had trainers etc, I could not sustain it. It was the lack of fat and proper balanced meals that sapped my energy and contributed to my continued weight gain.

I went from being a person who had an actress's body with the energy that outlasted anybody of any age, to a slowly increasingly heavy, less physically active person. I still was more physically active than most people but much less than I was.

How many times did you sit down and eat an outsized portion pasta or rice, but rationalize it by saying there was hardly any fat. But there is still 1000 calories.

Never!!! Though pasta and rice were not my thing--my cravings went to chocolate, cake and ice cream--I always knew full well the calorie impliciations-- the problem was that I could not help myself!!! and that is what low fat diets caused.A problem I never had until then.

I did it [rationalize]. I can remember when snack-wells cookies came out.

I remember when snack-wells came out too--I bought my first box and found I could not eat just one or two (no fat, no satiety) --then I looked at the calorie content and I knew it was a joke and the rest of the box ended up in the trash, the product never to be bought again. I think the only people who got deluded by this stuff were ones who could not control their eating and were trying to find panaceas so they could eat as much as they wanted. It never dawned on anyone during those 30 years that the reason people were having difficulties controling their eating was because they were trying to stay on low fat diets, which left them constantly craving food, (See the Atkins explanation as to why low fat approach causes this, which has since been borne out by resaerch) which being normal human being would mean they would inevitabley give into the craving. So the only issue was: did the person rationalize and be in denial about what was really happening to their excess calorie consumption or were they like me, fully cognizant of what was going on and constantly feeling gulity avbout these bouts of binge eating but having no idea that the diet itself was creatng the problem--after all how could the govenrment be wrong.

When these problems are combined with the refined nature of all of these fat free calories the problem worsens. If you compare the total calories between low fat and regular versions of the same product, the difference is negligible, and sometimes the low fat product has more calories. All the sugur/refined carbs that people we eating caused to predictable insulin surges, lack of satisfaction, and thus eventaul wait gain.

That is exactly the problem!!! A dietary approach that is fast and unhealthy.


Do I blame the low fat regime for this cycle I fell into for 15 years--absolutely. The cycle completely stopped once I went to high protein and normal fat and lower carbs. I have not had a binge in two years. When I do have something I would now call a binge, it is a big piece of cake, not a whole giant cake. It is a big dish of ice cream -- not two pints of Ben & Jerry's with a giant package of chips ahoy.

That binge eating never was in my life before I adopted the low fat diet approach and completely stopped after I quit the low fat approach. My physical activity was extremely high before low fat approach and returned at the advanced age of 52 once I quit the low fat approach, within months. Once I put in whole eggs (instead of egg whites) and cream (instead of skim milk) and cooked with normal amounts of olive oil and pan fried chicken with the skin and healthily marbled beef and pork chops and occasional desserts and sausage and normal salad dressing, all things forbidden in low fat diets, my calorie consumption went down--not through struggle, discipline or effort but because I was finally satisfied by my food again and I had no wish to eat more. I started eating normal amounts without thinking about it.

That is what Atkins recognized--that low fat diets made people hungry and craving more food and certain kinds of food, all the time so they were always, despite their best intentions, ending up eating far more calories than orginally planned--binge parties--etc.

The desire to do all that disappeared once I went back to eating normally. And I got rid of the bread that the low fat diet insisted I eat (The grain pyramid) --something I rarely ate before and something I rarely eat since.

So you are right, that ultimately it is how many calories you eat--but penultimately it is how you feel about eating that determines in the long run how many calories you will elect to consume,and low fat as far as I can see makes a lot of people extremely hungry and craving all the time so they are constantly thinking about food and breaking down and eating far more calories than they would have had a desire to if they had just eaten a normal diet.

Also, gaining 70 lbs between the ages of 28 and 43, is not uncommon.

I don't agree that it is "normal" to gain 70 pounds over the course of 15-20 years. That has only become "normal" since the low-fat diet became the standard in this country (USA). The previous generation suffered none of that en masse. No one in my family's history ever suffered from that. No adults that I knew as a child (with the rare exception) ever went through that. It is just became "normal" to gain 70 pounds over the course of one's life, starting in the 1970's, when low fat diests were pusyhed by the government. I have lived in Europe and you do not see it there--and they eat everything. But they have no desire to eat excess calories. Poeple stay the same size clothing all their lives. .(of course there are exceptions to this.) And thin thin thin.

One can always recognize from the many bands of tourists who travel in Europe, which ones are the Americans--they are always the fat elephants and constantly snickerd at. And it is true. Americans stand out like a sore thumb or rather a fat backside, front side and every side.

Unfortunately, this weight gain en masse is now starting to occur in Europe as they start to get into american fast food: MacDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken as European lives start to become as stressed as ours and time and effort needs to be economized at every turn. And guess what--there is arising alarm about the gradual weight creep in Europe.

And do you know what the governments there now advocate? and the newspapers and health officials as strongly as possible--for the Europeans to adopt a lowfat-diet!

God help them. Those who ignore hsitory are condemned to repeat it. Hopefully they won't take 30 years to catch on to the low fat diet problems. The problem is to stay away form the american style fast food and change their lifestyles back to what they were and be more clever about accomodating the modern age than we were--so it does not destroy their health and well-being.
So it is not enough to blame the people who struggled to stay on uuntenale diet--one has to look at what effects the diet has and people's eating desires and there is not question that low fat diets for the most part caused people to eat more calories than they would have, while feeling terribly about themselves for "lacking discipline." And low fat diets do make you tired and sap you of your energy.

Rosie O'donnel, on her show said something to the affect that she could eat the whole box and only have 12 grams of fat. I am not saying that she is the paragon of nutritional advice, but from casual observation I could sense that this was the way many people felt.

As much as I admire Rosie O'Donnel for many things, I am far more intellectually, and scientfically equipped, having advance degrees in a range of disciplines, having published orignal research in two disciplines in major journals and am about to publish in a third ,and I would never at any point in my life say: I can eat as much as I want becaunse it only has x number of grams of fat. And when I researched the original advocation of low fat diets, I read the original scientific research--not some popularized, inacurate version of it.

So this debate will rage as long as there are lowfat advocates who believe it is just a matter of willpower to stay on low fat/ low calories diets. But I think that is a dying breed and rightfully so.

wow justitia, you sure can write a lot!
Yeah I was thinking that myself. Very interesting read though.

Yowza, I didn't mean to doubt the sincerity of you efforts and again I am happy for you.

The 70 lbs in 15-20 years thing, I guess I was thinking more like, it is a slow wieght gain, that may not really be noticable until you look back on it. 70 lbs *3500 cal/lb /(15years *365 days) is only like 45 extra calories/ day. 45 How small is that, like a bite of a cookie or two chips or something.

And you might be right that previous generations didn't have this wieght gain but I really don't think I am out of line to say that, and this is only in my experience, that going from 20's to 40's one is likely to gain significant wieght. How many stories have you read on this board, that went "I was and athlete in high school/college . . . . and it all kind of slipped away/next thing I new I was 300lbs etc.

Maybe its just and age difference or something but I just have this expectation, cultural or otherwise, that many many people gain weight in that part of their lives. nOt that its a good thing, not that its always been this way.

I accidently double posted and only saw it tonight. But it is true, I write a lot. :lol:

Obviously, this is something I feel quite passionate about. And thought a lot about for acouple of years. I suffered a lot during those 25 years and when I went on Atkins and saw my whole attitude and eating style returning to what it had been before, and recalling what I read in the NYTimes the summer before (and reading it again-reproduced on Atkins' site) I was mad, angry. My suffering was unnecessary and it was caused by stubborn science. Being a member of the academy, I can acknowledge that scientists make errors--but for them to hold on to theories for 30 years despite overwhelming evidence that they were wrong and the suffering it caused people--and being a victim of it myself--just made me angry and it still pisses me off. So I let off a lot of steam here.

Sorry! (Also I write for a living--so it is not too hard for me to write -- a lot :p )

Anyway--now that I got it out of my system--perhaps I won't feel the need to express it again.

Thanks all for being willing to read it anyway. :nod: