The Lowdown on Low Carb Diets

Shannon Samson: Healthwatch

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In the 30 years the so-called Atkins diet has been around, we've all heard good things about it and bad.

Both diet success stories and warnings about a possible link to kidney stones and other health problems.

It may be hard to sort it all out, but one thing is for sure, the diet is still very popular. Right here in Evansville, a company called Carbolite specializes in low carb food, everything from candy bars to pancake mix. Each year for the last two, the company's profits have grown a whopping 400%. Carbolite president Gary Morrison says, "When we started, Atkins was almost like dirty word in the diet."

It's gone back and forth and now the latest word on Atkins is right down the middle. The Journal of the American Medical Association reviewed more than a hundred scientific articles and concludes there's not enough evidence to "make recommendations for or against the use of low-carb diets."

Registered dietitian Janelle Weatherholt says, "I would say people are confused. Very confused." Weatherholt tells her patients they can try the low carb foods, and will probably have some diet success, but it will only be short-lived. "What it comes down to is basically you're not going to be able to exclude those foods for the rest of your life. You're going to go back to eating them someday so instead of 'yo-yoing,' going from gaining weight, to losing weight to gaining weight, it's just the overall emphasis of watching what you eat, watching your portion sizes, so you can add those foods back in."

That's Carbolite's hook. Dieters can have long term success because they don't have to give up their favorite foods. And the idea is catching on. Toward the end of his life, more researchers were backing Dr. Atkins.

Morrison says, "It really had a significant turnaround and it really did significant things to Carbolite as well because the proof is now showing that cutting carbs is better for people and it's a good way to go."

We can't say that for sure just yet. The bottom line here is the Journal of the American Medical Association says more long term studies need to be done before we know if the diet is safe. On a related note, Carbolite was recently fined $1,000 by officials in Florida for understating the amount of carbs in their chocolate chip cookies. A spokesperson for the company says they plan to contest the fine.

I take it that the esteemed dietician hasn't yet heard of "lifetime maintainance" on low carb?
Nowhere does Dr. Atkins say that you must give up your favorite foods forever. Even the occasional high carb treat would be allowed on maintainance as well as every food group in the amounts that your body can handle them. What those amounts are depends on each individual and whether or not certain foods cause cravings and weight gain.
What they seem to keep missing is that nobody should return to a steady diet of sugar and highly refined carbs once they reach their goal weight.

The one thing that makes me most nervous about these low carb foods is that they encourage our low fat thoughts of alot of carbs and less protein that has been engrained into our minds since childhood. I've shared my story about my mother before but I will continue to do so to show my point. My mother did low carb three years ago and lost 100 by eating fake syrup, low carb candy, low carb pancakes, muffins, bread ect. Her body was thinking protein but her mind was thinking carbs. When she got to the maintance part of Atkins she still was thinking eating more "bread" than fat and protein. So when she added rice and such her cravings were terrible! She quickly gained, what is now, 75lbs back. And now she finds low carbing to be too hard to do.

To lose weight and to keep it off, you have to stop thinking about bread. Not every meal has to have two carbs servings. I hope soon to stop eating low carb bars, not that they cause me to stall but they keep my breakfast is a carb meal in my head, I have to add real protein to my breakfast, to get that "only carb" thought out of my head. Because If I don't, when I get to maintanence then I will be looking at cereal or toast again and not a protein source. (I'm allergic to eggs and cheese so I can't use that as a source). Lets face it, the bars make it easy, but are they just really a crutch?

Absolutely Lessara,

Once of the things which I find most disturbing about Atkins (in it's current form), is the emphasis on all the carbs substitutes. More and more low-carb products are coming out. Lots of these products are loaded with chemicals. The whole situation reminds me of when all the low-fat products first started coming out. In retrospect, I am sure everyone agrees that we would have been much better off health-wise staying with the original full-fat products than switching over to the chemical cocktails that now passes itself off as food.

The real problem with the Americans way of eating is not even carbs, it's their culturally-induced food preferences. Americans, as a whole, aren't particularily picky on quality, so long as it's abundant, cheap, filling and fast. As for taste, sugar will cover a multitude of flavor sins. If it's got sugar in in, it will do. Everyone who arrives for the first time in the USA will tell you that everything tastes sweet.

I think that's what caused the obesity epidemic. The food industry started out with this cultural prefence, and through aggressive marketing actually expanded it and eventually shaped American's food preferences. They have shaped people's expectation of what food should be. They have created a environnement where, outside the home, there is little room for anything else but fast food.

Last summer I had an American friend come and visit me in Montreal for a few days. One of the first thing he noticed was the amazing availability of affordable restaurants Montreal offers. For a few dollar more than the cost of a burger and fry, you can pick among a wealth of good restaurants; greek, japanese, indian, french, italian ect... those are just the ones near my work place. He commented that he would never feel the need to eat in a fast food restaurant if he was to live here. In fact I have not set foot in a McDonald, Burger King, KFC for years.

As Tassara pointed out, low-carb food can become a crutch. Replacing sugar with splenda does not wean you from liking sugary food. Replacing high-carb bread products with low-carb version of it does not teach you to cut down on the amount of refined man-made product in your diet. In fact, it only encourages you to eat more of it. If you know something is high-carb, you might rightly consider it a special treat and therefore keep the portion small.

Recently I've read a book called The Fat Fallacy : The french diet secrets to permanent weight loss by Dr Will Clower. You ought to give the book a look. It might open your eyes on what is wrong with the way Americans eat.... and it's not just too many carbs.

When I started low-carbing, I read Atkins and went out and bought a box of Splenda because he said to. In the last 8 months I have used less then half of a cup. I don't need granulated sugar anymore and neither do you.

Some good low-carb bread to make sandwiches might be nice though. Maybe someday when the low-carb industry comes to Ottawa.