Atkins Diet Back in the News.

[BreezyCooking]

One more thing I'd like to add is that my husband, after being on the Atkins diet for quite some time, had his doctor's blessing to stop taking meds for extremely high cholesterol, since his dropped to well below the med level after the Atkins regimen. This is with a family history of high cholesterol. Go figure.

 

[BreezyCooking]

As far as the "no carbs" for the 1st two weeks - it's not total no-carbs. Greens, squash, broccoli, & other veggies are allowed. There is nothing unhealthy at all in the 1st two weeks of the diet. In fact, it's a helluva lot healthier than a lot of other diets.

 

[GB]

It is also probably healthier than what a lot of people are eating without the diet.

 

[college_cook]

I think there will always be controversy surrounding this type of diet. I do know one thing though, and I got this from another low-carb diet book called the Stone Age diet, or something similar. Obesity first appeared in this world as soon as civilizations began to store grains, and process them to make breads and doughs. This particular diet advocates eating like our ancestors from the stone age, hunter-gatherer types of people. This means meats, berries, nuts, and any vegetable or fruit.

If you look at the rest of the low-carb diets, it is these types of food that you are supposed to eat more of, and cut out the processed carbs. There's hardly a person I know that doesn't love pasta or breads, but they're so accessible, flavorful, and have so much utility that as a society, we just can't seem to pass them up. Combine excersize with the type of diet that the human digestive system is naturally meant to handle, and you've got yourself a winning weight-loss plan, and most probably the best prevention for heart disease and cancer.

Also read somewhere that there where a group of food scientists investigatin the health effects of processed carbs. Preliminary studies showed that they created a higher level of free radicals in the body. The more free radicals you have bouncing around in you, the higher your chance for cancer. I don't know that the amount you get from eating breads and pastas is significant, but it's certainly something to think about.

 

[Candocook]

The Atkins Diet has been said to be good again. It's a low-carb diet geared at greatly reducing carbs in the body, thereby allowing the user of the diet to shed some weight.

It was on the news this morning. For a while, the diet has been under fire because top health officials have been saying that it wouldn't work and was dangerous.

The inventor of the diet, Dr. Atkins, has died several years ago from a heart attack. Since then, the diet itself has been the subject of controversy, leading many top experts to place a big question mark on the diet.

Now, those same experts who have critisized the diet are saying that it's good again!

They said this years ago, just after Atkins died. The Atkins diet is not so far off the South Beach Diet--and many many others. it is basically used for diabetics for their carb control.
I used the diet YEARS ago to lose a LOT of weight. There is a way to make it quite palatable. DON"T buy the "eat all the fat you want". Make it comparatively low fat and low carb and watch the pounds and inches drop off.

 

[Andy M.]

...Obesity first appeared in this world as soon as civilizations began to store grains, and process them to make breads and doughs...

Civilized people have been eating breads and pastas for millennia. That's not it.

In the pre-industrialized world, people lived from hand to mouth. This included long hours, six or seven days a week, of physical labor that burned off a lot of calories.

With industrialization came better transportation, mechanization and improved farming methods. All this lead to an increased availability of a larger variety of foods along with a reduction in the levels of physical labor resulting in the burning of fewer calories.

The actual culprit is the potato. The couch potato, that is. We eat better but burn fewer calories than ever before. That's it.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Civilized people have been eating breads and pastas for millennia. That's not it.

In the pre-industrialized world, people lived from hand to mouth. This included long hours, six or seven days a week, of physical labor that burned off a lot of calories.

With industrialization came better transportation, mechanization and improved farming methods. All this lead to an increased availability of a larger variety of foods along with a reduction in the levels of physical labor resulting in the burning of fewer calories.

The actual culprit is the potato. The couch potato, that is. We eat better but burn fewer calories than ever before. That's it.

Andy.....

Well Said. I approve

 

[Poutine]

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[lulu]

Do most people know, Poutine? I think a surprising amount don't know. I have seen evidence on this very site people struggling to manage their diets with health conditions that could be significantly aided or perhaps even eliminated with correct dietary choices! And these are people who are on a site devoted to talking about how we cook and how we eat! I mean, most people will know an apple is more healthy than a chocolate bar, but we are also bombarded by sugary products for kids advertised as healthy because they have added vitamins etc... I think that for those that have a genuine understanding of dietary health it seems obvious. I consider myslef to be of average intelligence and I struggling to keep up with it all, despite my amateur interest in food and keeping healthy. I only wish I could have a dietician live with us for a few months! On occasions when I have visited dietician useful advice has been given, but I remember mainly the catch phrases "eat a rainbow" to make sure my vegetable intake is varied, and, useful for some one losing weight and a dedicated fruit lover: "the further away from the equator it grew the lower the sugar content....if you'd try growing it in northern europe it is a better choice of fruit for weight loss" only yesterday I was thrown in confusion (and given excellent links by DCers!) about milk and my diet....and I now try and rely on common sense because quite frankly its confusing to me. I DO think it is hard to eat a healthy diet today, not least because our tastebuds are skewed by the amount of added sweetness to so many things, and NUMBER ONE cause as out lined by Andy...our own lack of physical activity.

 

[Harborwitch]

" NEW YORK (CNN) -- Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet, died Thursday after an accidental fall on April 8 left him comatose.
Atkins, 72, was rushed to New York Weill Cornell Medical Center by his colleague, Dr. Keith Berkowitz, where surgeons removed a blood clot to relieve pressure in his brain on April 9.


Atkins slipped on an icy sidewalk outside his New York office.
"We are hoping for a miracle," Richard Rothstein, a spokesman for Atkins told CNN April 11, "but the chances for a meaningful recovery are slim.
Thursday, April 17, 2003 Posted: 1:48 PM EDT (1748 GMT)"

I did Atkins and lost quite a bit of weight, close to 30 pounds. When I was on Atkins my cholesterol was low, my hdl was over 90, and things were going in the right direction. We backed off it during a very stressful time our lives. Then with the cancer they wanted me to eat nutrient dense foods and lots of protein. I wanted a lot of "comfort" foods at that time, too.


We will be going back to Atkins; with one modification. Limiting the amount of soy products; for women with hormone receptive breast cancer soy products need to be limited.


Recent studies have now shown that cancer cells need lots of glucose to grow. Glucose in the body is derived primarily from carbohydrates. We'll go back to limiting our processed carbs. We'll increase our intake of veggies, and eat fruits that are high in fiber and low on the glycemic index.


We've found a wonderful pasta - from Dreamfields, so we won't have to give that up. We'll continue to eat grains - but whole grains. We'll limit the amount of processed foods where all kinds of hidden junk resides, switch to strictly Splenda and actual real cane sugar that has been minimally processed. Chocolate is no problem - the higher the % of cocoa the lower the sugar content. Unsweetened coconut is wonderful.


As to the caveman & our ancestors only back to the 20's; they didn't eat the stuff that comes in the boxes on the store shelves. They ate what they grew or could get fresh, they ate meat and dairy products that weren't adulterated with hormones and antibiotics. High fructose corn syrup didn't exist. They didn't have hydrogenated fats - they ate what existed naturally in nature. And, the majority were not obese. Of course they didn't have little robots to sweep their floor, or Dysan vacuum cleaners, front loading washers, elevators, escalators, "automatic" spray cleaners for their showers.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant -

 

[college_cook]

" NEW YORK (CNN) -- Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the high-protein, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet, died Thursday after an accidental fall on April 8 left him comatose.
Atkins, 72, was rushed to New York Weill Cornell Medical Center by his colleague, Dr. Keith Berkowitz, where surgeons removed a blood clot to relieve pressure in his brain on April 9.


Atkins slipped on an icy sidewalk outside his New York office.
"We are hoping for a miracle," Richard Rothstein, a spokesman for Atkins told CNN April 11, "but the chances for a meaningful recovery are slim.
Thursday, April 17, 2003 Posted: 1:48 PM EDT (1748 GMT)"

Thanks for posting that; I knew Atkins didn't die of a heart attack but a lot of people seem to believe he did, for some reason. I think maybe it was a rumor started to discredit his diet.

 

[Harborwitch]

Exactly why I posted it!

 

[Snoop Puss]

He had a heart attack in 2002.

 

[bethzaring]

Do most people know, Poutine? I think a surprising amount don't know. I have seen evidence on this very site people struggling to manage their diets with health conditions that could be significantly aided or perhaps even eliminated with correct dietary choices!

I could not agree more

 

[Harborwitch]

Heart attacks are not strictly a result of bad diet and the heart attack did not kill him.

It's really a matter of people educating themselves about their own bodies and health. I can tell, by how I feel, when I'm not eating right.

People need to take more control over what they eat. I cannot tell you how many friends I have, or had, with diabetes who ignored what they were supposed to eat. Two dear friends have passed on because they refused to give up the stuff they weren't supposed to eat or to adapt their diet. We have one friend who's diabetes got amazingly better when he was eating at our house frequently while we were doing the Atkins lifestyle.

We need to read labels and make our own food - from raw ingredients. It's about shopping the perimeter of the store, and avoiding the boxes of prepared stuff. It's just not that hard. And it's not a matter of Atkins, Ornish, Zone, or any other diet program, it's a matter of eating properly.

 

[Corey123]

Thanks for posting that; I knew Atkins didn't die of a heart attack but a lot of people seem to believe he did, for some reason. I think maybe it was a rumor started to discredit his diet.

Snoop is right. He certainly DID hav a heart attack from which he died. At the time, it was widely spread all over the news.

 

[GB]

Snoop is right. He certainly DID hav a heart attack from which he died. At the time, it was widely spread all over the news.

No Corey. This is not correct. He did NOT die from his heart attack. Yes he did have a heart attack, but the is not what killed him.

He slipped on ice and suffered major head injuries that put him in a coma. He never recovered from the coma. That is what he died from, not the heart attack.

 

[Harborwitch]

Thank you GB! If the heart attack in 2002 killed him, no wonder he slipped on the ice and fell in 2003! The first thing to go when you pass on is your sense of balance! Only kidding to lighten the mood here! Talk about a polarizing subject!

 

[GB]

If the heart attack in 2002 killed him, no wonder he slipped on the ice and fell in 2003! The first thing to go when you pass on is your sense of balance!

 

[redkitty]

OMG, I'm in love with the big rolly laughing guy!!!!