I think the anti-diet thread has gotten to extremes. Losing weight and
keeping it off requires a sea change in dietary habits. Period. Any
resumption of unhealthy eating results in regaining the weight. Once
your body creates a fat cell, the cell never dies. It just sits there
and waits for an extra calorie to store.
I have personal experience here. I am 6'1" and weighed 309 in 1990. I
went through insanity with the Pritikin diet to get to very near my
ideal weight by 1992. I have remained within a few pounds of that
weight since. I don't recommend Pritikin to anyone. It's misery. For
anyone who doesn't know, Pritikin is the opposite of Atkins: all
unrefined carbs.
However, I have used the maintenance version of Atkins for quite some
time and remain at or about 208, which is near-ideal for my age and
body type. I can't guess about your knowledge, but people who rail
against Atkins almost never know anything about the maintenance phase
of the diet and should spend some time learning about it. It's
extremely healthy, and quite near what many balanced nutritionists
recommend for anyone.
Beyond that, examine the most recent findings on the Atkins diet and
you have to at least question your assumptions that it is unhealthy.
One example:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/916555.asp?cp1=1
Here is a short clip from that article: A month after Dr. Robert C.
Atkins’ death, his much-ridiculed diet has received its most powerful
scientific support yet: Two studies in one of medicine’s most
distinguished journals show it really does help people lose weight
faster without raising their cholesterol.
Blasting any diet because people get off it, resume their old eating
habits and regain their weight is the extreme position. In a way, it's
like saying drinking beer doesn't work because you drink three and it
gives you a good buzz, but the buzz goes away when you stop drinking.
No matter whether you call a weight-loss technique a diet or something
else, If you resume eating the way you ate to become overweight, you
will gain the weight back. And that is not an extreme statement.
It's also not extreme to say that people eat radically fattening diets
(maybe not Twinkies and Nestle's Qwik, but radically fattening) to
bloat to the point of injuring their health in the first place. The
percentage of obese people who have metabolic problems severe enough
that it causes them to become obese on a rational diet is incredibly
small.
This European example is old, and tired and untrue at least in great
part. There are certain dietary habits in certain Europeans nations
that do contribute to rational weight. One of them in many Europeans
countries is a diet that is quite near the Atkiis maintenance diet. In
other parts of Europe, obesity is extremely common because of a high
intake of carbs.
I agree with your take on exercise. Obese people often give that up at
the same time they give up reason when it comes to the grocery store.
Your neighbor's behaviour, by the way, has nothing to do with Atkins
working or not working. And if that neighbor is eating the equivalent
of Twinkies and Nestle's Qwik, driving to the mailbox rather than
walking is the least of his/her problems. It is true to say that
people (including myself 12 years ago) become obese for reasons other
than hunger. It also is true that getting control of food intake in a
rational way leaves room to deal with those other reasons.
On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 00:30:45 GMT, Bob Cardone
cardone1!@!mindspring.com said:1024Bytes said:
Think about what you are saying. Somebody goes on a "diet," loses
weight. Goes back to the Twinkies and Nestle's Qwik eating habits that
packed the pounds on in the first place, and you blame the diet on
which they lost weight. What a definition.
Please, don't go to extremes. A Person goes on a diet that is
basically unhealthy long term like Atkins, ( if I am wrong please
site study that disproves what I just stated), finds that it is
impossible to stick with, and goes back to eating the way they did
pre-diet. The real problem is the person is probably taking in more
calories than they are burning doing exercise.
Visit Europe, people over there are not eating the Atkins diet that I
could see, but you see very few fat people, compared to the US where
it seems like every other person is Obese.
I have a neighbor that gets in his car to drive to the community
mailbox which is about a city block from his front door , to pick up
his mail. Is he fat, you bet he is.
Bob
