Same old stuff. What struck me, though, was the accompanying article written by a woman about her mother's battle with weight. She had tried numerous diets over the years, but nothing worked. Then she actually met Dr. Atkins a couple weeks before his death at his center. She loved him and the new way of eating.



She has lost 35 pounds, and is only 15 pounds from goal. Unfortunately, the author chose to focus on the negative when she wrote:

My mother stopped seeing progress at six months, and her weight loss has plateaued at 35 pounds. With 15 more to lose before arriving at her target weight, all she can see is an Everest-like peak looming before her. She is puzzled and discouraged, for despite one double fudge cookie this past August, she has stuck to her program like a devoted zealot. But she is typical of many people who have great initial success on Atkins and then peter out.

Duh! She hit a platueau. So what? Who among us has not? Instead of "sticking to her program like a devoted zealot," she should read the book and consider pre-maintenance and then maintenance. The article says that Dr. Atkins prescribed "a highly restrictive initial eating plan of meat, fish, salad, and cooked vegetables (not even butter or salad dressing)." This doesn't sound quite right to me.



Three months later (sadly, after he had passed away) she had a follow-up appointment with another doctor at the Atkins Center who told her to loosen up a little and "have a glass of wine on special occasions, a serving of berries once daily, and store-bought salad dressing rather than only olive oil and lemon juice."

She didn't take the advice, preferring to stick with what Dr. Atkins told her originally.

Well, geezum crow! She was probably treating this like any other diet she'd ever been on and restricted herself too much, causing her body to resist more loss.

There. Now I got riled up again. The best approach is simply to not read such articles and, if you do, to simply laugh at the ignorance.