This morning on Bill Handel's radio show on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles. Dr. Dean has been bad-mouthing the Atkins diet on his show and website for years, was nice to hear him "heel" a little bit and confess that maybe Dr. A has been right about "some things" all along. Interview with Dr. D was conducted in light of the new "findings."

Of course, Dr. D could not avoid the usual slams, called Atkins the "diet du jour" and said there were no long-term studies. Said calories were key, and that people had trouble staying on Atkins in the long-term.

Rotund Bill Handel, in the meantime, just swallowed everything up and didn't ask why they didn't start monitoring Atkins dieters beginning in the early '70's. If they hadn't been so busy dissing Atkins, maybe we would have the long-term studies by now.

Dr. D's final smear was that when he talks to some people on Atkins, they are "dying for something crunchy, like a piece of lettuce." I hate to sound like a schoolmarm, Dr. D, but even YOU obviously haven't done your homework. Dr. A says to eat salad, salad, salad, selecting the darkest green, high-vitamin & mineral, low-carb lettuce!

I followed Dr. Dean's diet for three months and ended up in the Hospital. My sugar was over 350! I was throwing up and weaker than anything! My anxiety peaked and all I wanted to do was die for the stomach and intestinal pains were intense!
I gained 60lbs during those months. So you see why I really want to go face to face with him!

Ironic since Atkins has been shown over and over again to be a plan that people stick to better than low-fat regimes. I can't believe he had the nerve to bring up that subject!

I think these doctors who "interview" ex-Atkins dieters probably look around for people who go to extremes no matter what food plan they follow. People who aren't willing to follow the instructions and insist that if low carb is good, no carb must be better and so on. These will inevitably fail when they can't keep up the unrealistic extreme version of the LC diet they put themselves on and then will play the blame game to avoid responsibility for not following the correct instructions in the first place. These doctors like these people because it seems to give them justification and it helps them shore up their faulty reasoning.

You notice they never talk to the thousands of us who use the plan correctly and with success!

People make me laugh with their willful blindness on subjects that don't conform to their ideas. Most of us LC'ers acknowledge that LC may not work for everyone and for these intentionally ignorant individuals to impose their rigid opinion as a blanket statement that applies to all people strikes me as being supremely arrogant.

I way why waste your breath on those determined to find fault and to nit pick the issue to death. We can be serene happy LC eaters who will enjoy our improved health and well being for the rest of our lives while these poor ones will fret themselves into early graves by trying to shout down the evidence before their eyes.

Don't worry about it, just be happy with YOUR life. You can't live someone else's.

Deb

True, Deb, we should live our lives and be happy.

I will point out, however, something many of us LC'ers might be missing. I worked at an HMO for four years so I know that the major reason for the "skyrocketing cost of health care" is not just the price of R&D or prescription drug companies' direct marketing to consumers...it's the high-carb eating, obese people who pile onto a group health plan, then expect to pay 15% of their premium (employer picks up the rest) and a nominal co-pay and have their health problems magically disappear.

All the doctors, hospitals, drugs and HMOs in the world will never be able to compete with years and years of danish breakfasts, hamburger-and-fries lunches, pasta dinners and cake desserts.

I've moved on to a company outside of the health care industry and what I see truly scares me. It's a VERY generous company, picking up a greater percentage of our health premiums than other companies, but we just got notice that our premiums and co-pays will be shooting up dramatically as of the upcoming renewal.

I look around and see why. Most of my co-workers are not merely overweight, but OBESE. I'd say about 75% of them. They eat garbage day in, day out, work too many hours, commute all day in monster traffic jams and never go to the gym. I'll go out to lunch with them and have chicken and salad while they have burgers, fries and Cokes. Then, as I'm finishing up my meal and they're long done, they will order an extra plate of fries to share. It's awesome to see Dr. A's claims in action--that high carb-meals cause your blood sugar to skyrocket, then plummet, making you hungry again--thus the second "meal."

My point is basically that we all pay for these people, be it in health premiums, life insurance premiums, car insurance, whatever the case may be.

I wish we could go to some island (minus the fruit trees) where we could be healthy together, but as long as the obese, low-calorie "dieters" outnumber us, they will be reaching into our wallets no matter what we do.

Eric91411: We may not be able to stop them from taking money from our wallets but we don't have to let them take up space in our heads! They don't care what we think anyway so why walk around with the frustration of trying to change what can't be changed because that gives them more importance than they deserve. And they don't even know what kinds of mental gymnastics they can put us through. I try not to argue anymore because i consider it a waste of time energy and brain power. I have better things to do and people to care for and places to go the have free space in my head for these undeserving ones to live rent free.

I totally agree!
I laughingly think of all those dr that are getting brave enough to say "do low carb".. and then in the same breathe say..but not atkins.
Which would be fine.. but do they REALLY know what it is?? Most media get it wrong.. when they talk about what I eat in a day.. pounds of bacon and 5 or 6 hamburgers in a sitting is NOT it :-)
Of course I am not doing the Atkins diet..but the journals that I read of the folks that do.. seem pretty sane to me..
Then there was my date last weekend. A date I didn't want by the way. He had aged dreadfully in the last couple of years.. and had that pot belly that you see on so many older men that do aerobics, and nothing else, and eat veggies.. and nothing else. or so he said while he tried to make me feel like an idiot for doing a controlled carb diet.
I didn't drink the pop he bought, and I didn't eat the popcorn.. he said. don't be afraid. I didn't add extra butter. He was shocked when I said.the butter is not what scares me! LOL
I then refused the Krispy Kreme that he tried to push in my face..
Not sure when ornish added those to his plan.. but that being all equal.. why does it bother people that I prefer water to pop, and not to eat the junk food??
If someone can explain that to me I would love to get a clear answer.. LOL
Not supposed I will get it on a board full of healthy eaters!!
Poofie!

For the record, isn't Dr. Dean's diet: eat balanced, eat less, and shift toward fruits and vegetables? What exactly made you sick?

It's certainly not what we'd call low-carb, but among mainstreamers, it's the most reasonable I've heard. He's not a total lipidophobe.

He's generally a reasonable man. I'm glad to see some cracks in his anti-Atkins position.

Sheldon

To answer your question, Sheldon, I strongly suspect there's some confusion in this thread between Dr. Dean Edell and Dr. Dean Ornish.

I have been on the atkins diet now for four months. If anything I find it hard to go off. I am used to ordering things carb free or low carb. I have a hard time losing weight these days. Nothing seems to want to come off, but I can't seem to change back to the way I used to eat. I actually crave protein.

Dr D is just one more who says that "if there are just some more studies...." It's getting rather comical...

I wonder where all those studies were on a low fat diet that was WORKING before they suggested we all do it??

I have been looking..and I still haven't met someone happy, healthy and thriving on the high carb diet.. :-)

I could be wrong.. I just wonder who they are.
Poofie!

A friend told me that Dr. Atkins is on dialysis for his kidney problems due to his diet. She said that her mother is a nurse and whenever he is doing a siminar in town, he has to visit the local hospital. Her mother has met him. I think that there are several people who have kidney problems and have never tried a low carb diet. It could be from something else. Then I have another friend, well my mom's friends daughter who was on the atkins diet and is now very sick. Her body can't digest protein I think and her white blood cell count is extremely low. This is rare and the doctor has never seen anything like it before. They think it is from the atkins diet.

So, what I would like to know is if there is anyone out there who has been on this diet for years, even after having lost the weight? HOw do you feel, what is your health like? Any complications? I love this diet and I think I could stay on it for the rest of my life, but I want to know that I am doing the healthy thing.

The thing all these critics keep pointing out is that it really needs to be all about calorie restriction...and I see it here again Dr Dean's comments...it was also mentioned in some of the side interviews in the Heart Association article last week...

Why do these medical professionals (who supposed to be "people of science") continue to promote this oversimplification as if its helpful to overweight people? I think I can speak for many people around here when I say that the medical community does a tremendous disservice to overweight people by ignoring the metabolic process and the effect that blood sugar/insulin have when we gain weight.

Anyone who really needs to lose and is serious about doing so has to work against this process to be successful...merely focusing on caloric intake clearly is not enough and unless these critics are willing to address this in their criticism and counter-advice, they are clearly not interested in helping people lose weight, attain good health and acheive a better life!

Fight On!

Brian

I would like to add an analogy that might make things clearer to the "calorie control" people:

My grandmother has a vintage Cadillac, a boat complete with fins. I have a 2002 Toyota Corolla, which may well be made out of recycled aluminum cans.

Give my grandmother ten gallons of gas and give me eight, then set us on a highway toward the desert. I have a feeling she'll run out before she reaches the first cactus, while I keep on truckin'.

Ditto with calories. Why worry so much about limiting your intake as long as you get rid of them faster? Get my grandmother's engine in your stomach and you'll be able to "gas up" more often, then burn it off well before the next roadside diner.