Last night a friend came over and somehow, dh and i got to talking about low carbing..he siad 'well my wife is doing 'atkins' we said 'we are too.' He said the mainstream medical community has a lot to learn about this. he said he read carb addicts a year ago and tried to get his wife to go on it, but to no avail. she picked up atkins and started it. he said his dad is in late 80's without knowing it has really been following a low carb diet all of his life and is still kicking. this really encouraged me to have a doctor, as well as a friend, endorse the LC woe. we discussed lowfat ,etc. and he said 'and i bet you were always hungry and tired, weren't you' i said 'yes, i was'. but on this plan, since i have added potassium i feel 'normal' (if any of us are really normal

he said the weight he needs to lose was put on over the last 12 years, so if it takes a year to come off, that is okay. i guess i need to adopt that attitude too..the slower it comes off i know, more than likely, the more permanent the loss will be.

just a bit of encouragement

My dad, who's now 75, was put on a low-carb diet by his doctor.

Forty years ago!!!

And he lost quite a bit of weight. Then, between my mother not being impressed with the menu and the cost of the food (at a time when money was very tight for them) he fell off it. And never went back onto it.

I have been talking to him quite a bit lately about it - educating him on what I am learning. He is very interested in starting in, but is currently being treated for a slightly enlarged heart valve and is rightfully worried about making such a drastic change in his diet.

He is going to talk to the cardiologist the next time he see him (in about a month). I told him that if the guy seems to just be blanket against low carb and throws the classic objections at him that he should get a second opinion from a cardiologist that is low-carb educated. May or may not be easy.

I've got both him and my stepmom interested in and suportive of my efforts and am holding out hope that I can get them to make the switch. I think it would do both of them a world of good far beyond the weight issues.

My grandfather who is 88 was telling me that about 40 years ago his doctor told him he need to lose 10 lbs(god I wish thats all I had to lose!!!) So he told him not to eat anything made with flour! He did it and lost 15 lbs. So he was LC'ing and didn't know it way back when.

Sonja

Back in the 60's when I was in high school, we would go on diets by not eating potatoes and bread and desserts. Of course, at that time there was lots of meat and butter in the diet of most Americans. And, it was before pizza and fast food made an appearnace at every corner. And cokes were a fairly rare treat. It worked. Somehow we seemed to have forgotten that later when the "powers that be" started pushing the pasta and grains and no meat, low fat stuff.
A couple of years ago, my husband and I went on a low fat diet - very little meat, lots of cereal and pasta salads. We were both hungry all the time. He lost 20 lbs but I think a lot of it was muscle. He is loving having "real" breakfast every morning. (I'm easing him into this without his knowing it. Don't tell)

When I went to see the doctor, he told me if I wanted to live a longer life, lose weight, and feel better, that I needed to go on the Atkins program. Can't believe that came out of a doctors mouth! WOW!!! So here I am, this time I am making this my WOE and my WOL. Debra

My doctor also recommended Atkins. He said he was not sure that for life it was the way to go, but he said that the effects on your heart of carrying the extra weight are so negative, and many of his extremely heavy patients were having quite a bit of sucess on Atkins. So his attitude is take off the weight and save your heart!!! I appreciate that he is open minded to sucess.

Good luck to all of us!

My doctor (well Nurse Practioner) told me to go on a controlled carb diet last year! And my daughter works for a local family practice doctor that no only tells his patients to try Atkins, but is on it himself.

What wonderful news that there are at least a few doctors who are not so set in their ways that they can see the benefits from this WOE and WOL. Now if only the doctors in Michigan would catch on! I think my doctor is slowly becoming a convert as he sees the positive effects that this is having on me. Going to see him again a couple of weeks, so we'll see.

My Dad was diagnosed with diabetes when he was in the military WAAAY back in the '40's - and he was put on an "experimental" diet (at that time) for the diabetes. You guessed it - LC!! He stayed on it for a few years, but with the advent of better insulin in the '60's he went back to his "regular" way of eating. Sadly, he died of a diabetes-related stroke in 1973, when I was 8. I wonder if he would have lived a longer life had he continued to LC. Naturally, after he went back to a carb-filled lifestyle, he put on a tremendous amount of weight. SEE? THIS ISN'T A FAD - IT'S BEEN ENDORSED BY DR'S IN THE PAST!!!

ANNA