http://www.usatoday.com/life/column...rend-mill_x.htm

Like those last 5 pounds, low-carb diets won't go away

The Trend Mill
Alison Maxwell

I get a ton of junk mail. Just recently I received a firelog-sized piece of wood promoting the movie Walking Tall and set of breast pasties to trumpet Showgirls on DVD.

But something last week caught my eye. It was an invitation for a marketer's forum — "Spotlight on the low-carb consumer," sponsored by Low Carb Living and LowCarbiz magazines. (Did anyone know such titles exist? What's next Antidepressant Living? Rubix Cube Review?)

When I opened the envelope I thought, Does the low-carb movement need anymore PR? Highly doubtful.

Flipping through the April Cosmo, I found a full-page ad for low-carb chocolates by Russell Stover. I'll bet those mint patties and peanut butter cups with just 0.1 and 0.5 grams are super tasty — just what a low-carb dieter might enjoy after a long day of depriving themselves of bread, pasta and normal scrumptious treats.

Are you kidding me? Isn't it enough that every single fast food chain is offering some God-awful low-carb option? How about Bacardi advertising the fact that rum and diet soda amounts to minimal carbs?

Those of you who are faithful readers know that in my 2003 trend wrap-up I said I hoped the Atkins Diet would go the way of other fad diets and disappear. Unfortunately that hasn't happened. My other wishes — the end of monogram madness and people's fascination with — seem to have.

But, maybe there's still hope for this carb-obsessed world. When I asked my 87-year-old grandmother which pop phenomenon she recognized — low-carb dieting or American Idol, she choose the latter. "That's the one where the man is always disgruntled and the young lady next to him is secretly sweet on him." Right on Grandma.

What do you think of low-carb dieting? Love it? Hate it? Have another option? Email me at amaxwell~usatoday.com

Posted 4/1/2004 6:23 PM Updated 4/1/2004 10:56 PM

Email her, please. Tell her what you think and why.

Here's what I said, under the subject of "Why I low carb and like it"

I noticed your column where you invited people to tell you about low carb. So I will.
I've struggled with my weight since puberty, which I don't mind telling you has been thirty years. For ten of those years I ate low fat/high carb, was hungry quite a bit but just ate more because I was working out an hour and a half a day. Every day. I was a size twelve and figured, well, if this is what I have to do, I will do it.
Then I got into a situation where I no longer had the time, money, or space to devote to such a regime. And the weight came back. In the meantime, my mother had piled on over sixty pounds, despite the fact that she was eating low calorie, low fat, and exercising like mad. We had to do something.
We did Atkins. Her cholesterol dropped 67 points, she lost the sixty pounds, I lost the forty pounds and my blood pressure became optimum instead of flirting with borderline high.
Strangely enough, I don't miss bread or pasta. It doesn't smell or taste good to me anymore. My skin looks great, I have more energy, and NO mid-afternoon slump. Plus I'm now a size ten, with only a good walk a couple of times a week.
That's why I don't think it's a fad. And with diabetes at an all time high in this and other developed countries, perhaps it shouldn't be.

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