Did anybody catch Dr. Phil on Larry King last night? He was talking mostly about his new diet book, which is apparently mostly recipes. He talks about cutting out refined, processed foods, and eating what he calls "high response" foods...foods that the body has to work hard to digest. Which seems to me just another way of saying "whole, natural foods". (sound familiar?) He also mentioned eating "the good carbs, the good fats, and the good protiens." Most of what he said made a lot of sense to me. So I'm thinking to myself, "ok, this sounds alot like Atkins, South Beach, etc. Well, toward the end of the show, Larry asks him about the popular low carb diets without naming any specifically, and Dr. Phil had nothing good to say about them!!! He said that you lose mostly water and that "as soon as you eat one biscuit, it all comes back." It makes me wonder if he has read any of the books, or if he just knows the "media version" of these diets. I was just wondering if any of you saw this. I'd love to hear other opinions.

Let me preface by saying I am actually one of those people that likes Dr. Phil.
MUCH of his internal work is a great thing. HOWEVER let me point out that I don't think people like the Egyptians were eating "bad" carbs, but they have much the same problems we do, healthwise.
SO that does tend to make me still question what exactly is "good" and "how much"?

I think Dr. Phil is pushing a moderate version of LC. He has to bash LC to make his plan look better, and to sell his books.

The difference between people eating "bad" carbs then and now is that back then, they actually used up their glucose through physical activity. Nowadays most of us are physically inactive most of the day, so that glucose has to be cleared and turned into fat or it sits around doing damage. And we're eating more stuff than ever before, well... were, that means the pancreas have to work harder and the receptors are bathing in sugar all day long and stop responding like they should.

Actually, I saw the show, and don't feel he was "bashing" anything. He emphasizes choosing whole foods over highly refined "junk foods" and especially things like drive-up fast foods and super-sized everything...

His "beef", pardon the pun, with overly restrictive low carb plans is mostly the overemphasis A LOT OF people put on tracking each and every gram and eliminating many healthy foods on the basis of carbs. He goes off on extreme low fat sometimes too! His point is balance, and while the later stages of Atkins and South Beach DO incorporate these healthy carbs, how many of us never get past the restrictive early stages?

I've found some pretty good recipes on his site that can be incorporated into my lower-carb plan. I'll have to take a look at the cookbook when I get a chance.

Like I said in my original statement, I actually agreed with most of what he said and it made a lot of sense. Probably 95% of what he said would be in agreement with Atkins. (from what I heard on the show, he seems to push low fat.) That's why it surprised me near the end of the show when he was not in favor of low carb diets. He may not have been "bashing" low carb, but when he said you lose mostly water, well, we have all heard that before, and we know it is NOT true.

[QUOTE=PoofieD let me point out that I don't think people like the Egyptians were eating "bad" carbs, but they have much the same problems we do, healthwise.
SO that does tend to make me still question what exactly is "good" and "how much"?[/QUOTE]


Actually, upper class Egyptians were eating refined carbs. The pharoah had his wheat sieved 14 times in increasingly finer sieves. Of course poor Egyptians weren't mummified so evidence is based on the rich only.

In medieval England too, the rich ate white refined ("manchet") bread, and the poor ate rough wholegrain stuff.

After my experience of packing on more than 10 lbs in a two-day period when I fell off the wagon, you'd be hard-pressed to convince me low-carb doesn't help you eliminate the water weight more than higher-carb, and when you fall off, it does seem like "eat one biscuit, gain it back" to me.

I'm not claiming it's ALL water. He has said on his show many times that "People can and do lose weight on these plans..." then proceeds to lump them in with other plans when used as "diets" or quick fixes.

BTW, I realize you hadn't said "bashing". My comment was more directed at Banditos claim.

Dr Phil is definitely anti low-carb diets. I watched one of his diet shows last week and turned off when he started the usual “low-carb is dangerous rant”. This is what he said (I taped the show).

“My next guest Cathy nearly lost her life messing around with these low-carb, high-fat high protein diets that don’t work but they can hurt you”.

Cathy’s story was about her use of diet pills and yo-yo dieting and how she’d had her appendix and gall bladder removed because of it (no mention of low carb dieting at all during her story).

Then Dr Phil followed with: -

“I always tell people when they go on these low-carb diets, the brain needs 500 calories a day from carbohydrates. If you don’t have that your not gonna think right that’s why I say you gotta eat some carbohydrates in the morning to get your brain going”

Dr Phil’s expert guest for the day, a Bariatric Physician then said “dehydration can occur (some truth there) and then “it’s a false sense of weight loss because you’re losing water, you’re not losing fat and you want to lose fat” and on and on……..

I really couldn’t watch anymore after that. I’m a huge Dr Phil fan but when it comes to giving diet (food) advice I think he’s just sprouting the usual junk science that’s being fed to him by so-called experts. I’m sure his emotional support structure is very good though……..

I didn't agree with his statements on that particular show myself. I just haven't heard him use those tems since. He certainly didn't say it last night... unless I was in the bathroom or something.

That particular show could be six months old for all I know. Maybe he’s becoming more informed as time goes on.

That all depends on how you define "the rich". According to this link: http://www.touregypt.net/featuresto...mmification.htm

The upper and middle classes were also mummifed and more of those mummies remain today than that of royalty which stands to reason since there were more of them than there were of royalty and their families.



Even the poor who were buried in the desert sand were naturally mummified.

Here's another link that states that mummies have been found from the middle and lower classes as well: http://www.mummytombs.com/mummyloca...valley.news.htm

I'd say that it's a fairly accurate statement to say that the diets of ancient Egypt, which by modern thought should have given then long and healthy lives, wasn't working out that way for them and not just for the Egyptions. The archaeological record shows that with increasing dependence on agriculture and grains, health and stature declined.

But we all know that a low carb diet eliminates the need for 5 to 8 pounds of water (used for storing carbs for energy). If you fall off the wagon (and it takes more then a biscuit), you can put on a bunch of water weight. However, that hardly means we put it all back on. I have lost 60 pounds and can gain 5 or so when I eat a bunch of carbs (like a huge pile of chinese food). The weight goes away in like 2 days of maintenance. I don't change pants size,etc.

Low carb works for many, but not all. Claiming it is a quick fix fad diet is just dumb and makes Dr. Phil seem like the book pusher he is.

brobin

dr phil is a jury consultant...

I don't pay any more attention to what Dr. Phil says about diets other than his own than I pay to any other salesman. He saw a chance for an additional way to cash in on his fame by issuing diet books. Ho hum. So what else is new, except that most celebrities who put their names on hack written diet books at least have the good taste to lose their own excess weight before claiming to be weight loss experts. What next, the John Goodman All You Can Eat Diet?