Here's a link to an anti-atkin's article.
www.thedietchannel.com/atkins.htm

ouch. That's rough. I just read that, and I wish Dr. Atkin's was still around to defend himself.
Today, this lady at work told me that her son has diabetes, and that I should get off of the Atkin's plan because it was ruining my liver.
I tried to explain... but it was no use. She said that her "friend" is a dietition, and said that Atkin's will ruin your liver.
It got to me, because I wasn't going to argue with a woman whos son had diabetes. Oh well.

I lost 50 lbs in 1972 following the Atkins diet. It was the summer before my junior year in High School. My mother bought the book and we went on it together. Unfortunately, I only thought of it as a diet back then. I kept that weight off for many years, but inevitably the weight piled back on until now I am a type II diabetic struggling to get healthy again. Now, I look on this as a way of life, not a quick fix. Naysayers like this person writing this article will never change my mind of the benefits of low carbing. I am very lucky in that I have a doctor who is extremely supportive. He was very impressed with what I had accomplished in only two weeks on the plan. I can't wait to see him in two weeks for my 2 month check up. I hope we'll be making more changes in my medication. After just two weeks, he took me off insulin. I was taking up to 100 units a day. Sorry to go on and on but I am a true believer as I am certain we all are on this forum. Long Live Low Carbing!!

Oh my...there's so much incorrect and unsubstantiated stuff in there I don't know where to begin!



Doff that hat, my dear. Muscle loss is much less with an adequate protein, high fat regimen such as Atkins than it is with a high carb, indadequate protein regimen such as low fat. I'd like to see her tell me with a straight face that my 75 lb. weight loss is all water and muscle.



Misquote. What Dr. Atkins says (over and over) is that if you go back to your old way of eating that got you fat in the first place, you will get fat again. This is true of any weight loss regimen. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.



Makes me wonder if she bothered to read the whole book or only the chapter on induction. During OWL, pre-maintainance and maintainance many, if not most, food groups are added back in again, including grains and starchier veggies as well as fruits as your carb level for maintaining allows. About the only thing that I can think of that remains restricted forever is sugar and the last time I checked, that's not considered a "food group".



Initially, yes, except dairy. Cream and cheese are dairy products and are allowed even during the induction phase. Fruits, grains and starchier veggies are added back later as noted above. Baked goods aren't essential for good health and there are lower carb breads on the market as well as low carb cereals. There are also plenty of low carb sweets available, both in stores and homemade using Splenda. Brown rice, whole unprocessed oats, unpearled barley and even whole grain breads in moderation are included in many people's maintainance plans. Check Atkins For Life.



During induction, that's partly true but after glycogen stores are depleted, where's that rapid water loss coming from? She's trying to give the impression here again that all your weight loss is water. Not true.



The truth is that insulin secretion happens in two and sometimes three phases (something she doesn't know or neglects to mention). Whenever you eat, the pancrease excretes a small amount of insulin initially and then a larger amount about an hour later to handle the amount of glucose building in the bloodstream. It's this second shot of insulin that is the largest and triggers fat storage and you don't get it if carb intake and therefore blood sugar surge is limited. Without the higher levels of insulin circulating in the bloodstream, glucagon production kicks in which makes fat storage next to impossible.



Blatantly wrong. Asia (including Japan) and India are leading the world in new cases of diabetes being diagnosed currently. Japan also has a higher incidence of stroke than other countries.



Guess she's missed or ignored the several studies that have been published recently showing that low carb even with all its high saturated fat intake beat the low fat plans hands down in the "most improved cardiac profile" category.




Here again, the author has failed to do her research. What would constitute five servings of vegetable a day? Let's see...how about a large romaine salad (3 cups to be generous), 2 cups of broccoli, and 1 cup of cooked spinach. That's 8 servings of veggies according to accepted serving sizes. How many grams of carbs is that? 11. Impossible?? Goodness...that's not even the 20 grams of carb allowed per day on induction, let alone ongoing weight loss or maintainance. I'd say that 8 servings even on induction levels of carb would constitute plentiful.

Because low carb diets eliminate so many foods and food groups, getting the Recommended Daily Allowance of the nutrients the body needs on these plans is a difficult task.

Because so many other weight loss regimens restrict calories so severely (many of them 1,200 calories a day or less), getting your RDA of many nutrients that the body needs is nearly impossible there as well, unless you choose your foods very carefully which most don't. So...guess you'd need some supplements on nearly every diet plan out there wouldn't you? Most days, even at 30 grams of carb per day or less, I meet or exceed my RDA for every nutrient listed on Fitday before I even take my vitamin. The only thing that I fall short on consistently is magnesium.



Where she gets that from, I have no idea. Dark green leafy veggies and berries (all of which are allowed on low carb) are some of the best sources of phytochemicals out there.

Basically more of the usual misinformed, uninformed, opinions that we've come to expect from those trying to defend the food pyramid.

WOW! Way to go! You really know your stuff. I'm impressed.

Lisa, your comments are wonderful, but I have one thing to add to your comments on this quote:

When I started low-carbing a la TSP, I didn't lose any muscle mass. I know this because I got STRONGER, not weaker -- so much so that I finally, after years of inactivity, had the strength, energy and stamina to exercise. Low-carbing does not reduce muscle mass. Low-carbing is the only method that gives our bodies what they need to develop adequate muscles for exercise. Whenever I tried low-fat dieting, I would get so weak that I could not exercise. Now I'm a dynamo!

I am so tired of people's trying to say that low-carbing depletes muscles mass.

;-Deb

Deb, for the most part I agree with you completely although the studies that I have read comparing low fat muscle loss with low carb muscle loss did show some muscle loss for the low carbers as well, but it was significantly less than that of the low fat group in all cases and I don't believe that the study participants were allowed to exercise during the studies to keep the data from being skewed by varying levels of excercise on the part of the participants.
I think that unless you are actively working to maintain or build muscle as you are, some muscle loss during weight loss is going to happen and that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you have less weight to carry around with you 24/7, your body doesn't need as much muscle as it once had. The question becomes, how much muscle loss? In the studies that I read, in the low fat group muscle loss was nearly equal to that of fat loss; for every pound of fat loss, there was also a pound of muscle loss, but in the low carb group, muscle loss was a lot less..maybe 1/8th to 1/10th of their loss was muscle, so for every 8-10 pounds lost, 1 pound of that was muscle mass.
Not that you have to lose muscle mass when you lose weight, but you do have to work on maintaining it or building it and with a typical low fat regimen, you simply don't have adequate protein coming in to do that. With low carb, there is adequate protein for the body to build muscle so if it's combined with weight resistance training, muscle mass may actually increase instead of decreasing or at the very least will stay the same and become more toned than it was.

I don't know about other people, Lisa. But in my case, I had lost so much muscle mass from high-carbing and getting sick, that I had nowhere to go but up. And also I had never felt the energy increase I got from low-carbing. With high-carbing, I only felt worse as I lost what little "weight" I lost on high-carb. That's why I'm sure I gained muscle mass when I started low-carbing without exercising. In a way I was exercising just moving around.

Think of it this way. I didn't have enough muscle mass to support the weight I was at, so as I fed my body with what I needed to build muscle, I built it without exercising. Of course, when I felt well enough, for the first time since I was in high school, I started to exercise and that has kept the benefits coming.

;-Deb

I think its funny that she applauds Ornish for publishing a study that validates his diet. Every time the Atkins Foundation gives money for a study whose results end up showing the positive aspects of low-carbing, the study is considered tarnished because its support came from Atkins.

Was she actually advocating that having high insulin levels is good for you?


I suppose she does doesn't know about using the toilet.