Diet: Does this dude have it right?

I agree with Gunnars and have lost 70 lbs the low carb way with remarkable improvement in all my labwork. I eat plenty of butter, meat (grassfed), eggs, veggies. No grains, starchy foods or sugars.

I highly recommend http://www.dietdoctor.com. LCHF for beginners.

Robespierre wrote:I think JNK has it right.

Kind of a "you-can't-know, you-can't-control, if-you-succeed-it-is-random" approach?

CowFish wrote:

Robespierre wrote:I think JNK has it right.

Kind of a "you-can't-know, you-can't-control, if-you-succeed-it-is-random" approach?

You can't know until you start after you do your real research. Then you control it and modify it as needed - just like cpap therapy. Success depends on your particular body and how it functions and your determination to make it work - just like cpap therapy.

In general it is much easier to eat Low carb because meats/fats are more tasty and filling and cause much less sugar crashes. If you eat cereal type meal in the morning you will crave that donut at 11 am.

Pretty good synopsis. I'm down about 30 lbs. and dropping. Best, no more more hint of diabetes; All walking aids in the basement; pain med in half and dropping; neuropathy improving. I'm curious- if one changes a lot- even if for the better- does one need a reassessing sleep study?

Lynda

Yes, because not only is weight only one factor and not always a meaningful one, but airway anatomy doesn't necessarily change or stay changed, and you don't know what your oxygen's doing overnight - over time, not a couple of nights - without an oximeter and other tests.

CowFish wrote: Kind of a "you-can't-know, you-can't-control, if-you-succeed-it-is-random" approach?

Each chooses his own "approach."

The way to "know" is to prove it scientifically. Hasn't happened yet. And no amount of "approach" or entertaining, thought-provoking anecdotal testamonials will change the fact that, despite decades of trying to prove it, no one has been able to prove that choosing certain food groups over others will extend your life or keep weight off in a healthy way for a decade.

Science has shown that you can "control" short-term weight loss. But science has also shown that it doesn't work long term.

I do find it entertaining how many article-writers seem to think that their proving that some formerly-prescribed way of eating hasn't turned out to be a miracle cure somehow proves that their personally-recommended way of eating IS going to prove to be the miracle cure. Put forth a personal theory. Mention that it appears to work for some people. But don't set yourself up as the champion of a new scientific approach that has no more proof than the formerly-failed approach.

Success is never random when averaged over a population for many years. But in the world of science, "success" needs a definition. If success is defined as living a long life with good quality of life for as long as possible (rather than narrowly defining success merely according to short-term BMI, for example), then prove your approach does that. If you can't, have the decency to call it a personal working theory and not to call other approaches any more ridiculous than your own.

In my opinion.

living a long life with good quality of life for as long as possible"

What's it worth without women, booze, long late parties and maybe throw in sports cars, sailboats, motorcycles, global travel and a few other things I can't recall at the moment due to the booze and sleep apnea?

Oh, yeah, adult kids who reconcile with you and let you come around and have fun with the grandkids.

I agree. Sugar and carbs are the problem, not meat, not protein, and not fat. My dermatologist told me to start eating the whole eggs instead of just the egg white.

49er wrote:

Julie wrote:Do you disagree with it?

I think it's terrific!

Totally agree Julie. I have switched to that type of diet and while I can't comment on how effective it has been regarding my energy due to my pap therapy intolerance, my cravings for carbs have gone down big time. And I was a big time junk food eater.

And even when I do slightly cheat as I had a little extra dark chocolate yesterday, I don't go hog wild and binge like I might have in the past.

Oh help me, of course you can't believe everything you read on the internet. But do you believe everything a doctor tells you or writes just because that person has an MD by his/her name?

49er

I'm normal weight and have been my entire life. And throughout my adulthood, I've kept my weight between 102 and 112 pounds without watching a damn thing as far as my diet was concerned until about 9 months ago. My "secret" such as it was, was to simply quit eating when I got full. That was all I needed to keep my weight between 102 and 112 without any thinking or effort on my part. And I really enjoyed eating whatever the heck I wanted to, pretty much whenever the heck I wanted to eat it. As for "quality" of my old "non-diet"? So-so would be an accurate description. Added sugar was not too much of a problem---I don't like soft drinks or most sweets except for chocolate. Fat? My diet was certainly not "low fat" by any means, but I typically ate less fried food than normal and (much) smaller servings of non-lean meat than is typical in the American diet. But grain-based carbs were by far the most common part of my diet. I love breads in all forms; cereal has long been a favorite; crackers were a favorite snack food; and rice and potatoes standard parts of supper.

About 9 months ago the routine blood tests came back with somewhat elevated triglycerides and slightly high cholesterol. (They'd both always been normal in the past.) Doc wants me on a low carb and low fat diet. And, quite frankly, I've found it almost impossible to even come close to complying with this diet during the last 9 months.

So I've tried to be good and I have cut back significantly on the carbs, but it remains very hard for me to do.

And giving up grains altogether seems impossible: So as much as possible, I try to stick to whole grains. I bake with 100% whole wheat flour, but I'm still struggling to figure out how to make it work. We pay significantly extra now for 100% whole grain corn meal so that I can treat myself to homemade Southern cornbread without too much of a guilt trip. (The whole grain cornmeal doesn't seem to affect the texture of the final product as much as the whole grain wheat flour does.) Potatoes are supposed to be a rare treat (I'm usually pretty good about "no potatoes".) Rice is pretty much limited to Red Beans and Rice (one of hubby's favorites) or as an accompaniment to stir fry.

But I still crave the carbs. I don't really crave added sugar so much (except for chocolate) as I crave plain old grain based carbs. Good French bread with a hearty thick crust is what I tend to crave. Plain old saltines invade my dreams (literally), along with homemade biscuits and cornbread. And unsweetened cold breakfast cereals such as 40% bran flakes, Cheerios (the plain kind), shredded wheat, and corn flakes, seem almost impossible for me to give up because nothing tastes as good to me in the morning or is as convenient in the morning.

All in all, the need to watch the carbs has taken an awful lot of my old pleasure in eating away, and eating is now largely a chore. When I successfully eat a low carb meal, I typically get up unsatisfied. I typically have more hunger pains after a low carb lunch than when I "cheat". And I don't really have any more energy; indeed I'd say I just as tired when I manage to eat low carbs for several days in a row. On the plus side, I do seem to get less sleepy after lunch when lunch is light on the carbs. But "less sleepy" does not seem to make me more effective at getting things done because I'm still pretty tired. (The insomnia is back.)

Low carb AND low fat is a recipe for disaster. It does not work well for most and it's nutritionally deficient. There are a lot of nutrients in natural fats (not talking processed oils here), and our bodies NEED fats to benefit from certain vitamins (A, D, E, and K). When you drop carbs, fat helps you not feel hungry.

As long as you continue to eat carbs you will crave them. It takes getting through the withdrawals to get carbs out of your system, many people give up because it IS hard. But if it works for you, then go for it. Giving up grains has huge benefits, but not everyone is willing to do it.

I have been following a low carb diet(Atkins) since this past summer. I was still diagnosed with sleep apnea after losing over 30 lbs., so weight is obviously not the issue for me. I have to say I feel much better on the low carb diet, I no longer have cravings for carbs, and I have now lost over 40 lbs and am close to what the charts call a normal BMI. I feel I can continue this diet indefinitely. My diet follows most of the points covered in the linked article. Instead of pasta, I eat spaghetti squash. I have recipes for low carb blueberry muffins. A flax wrap works great in place of bread. No deprivation, plenty of good tasting food, and I find I concentrate on healthy veggies much more than I did in the past. Too many people think low carb is all about eating a pound of bacon and no vegetables. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Does this dude have it right?

Pretty close, I'd say. I follow the Zone Diet (loosely), and I think it preceded most "low" carb diets.

For me, it's easy to stay away from candy, donuts, soda, and such. I occasionally have a bit of wheat (and I see it on the scale). Traveling is the hard part, and I typically gain a bit when I travel.

BTW, I would have to say that diet threads (including this one) are among the very most valuable topics on this fine forum. There is some excellent info in the above posts.

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Janknitz wrote:Low carb AND low fat is a recipe for disaster. It does not work well for most and it's nutritionally deficient. There are a lot of nutrients in natural fats (not talking processed oils here), and our bodies NEED fats to benefit from certain vitamins (A, D, E, and K). When you drop carbs, fat helps you not feel hungry.

As long as you continue to eat carbs you will crave them. It takes getting through the withdrawals to get carbs out of your system, many people give up because it IS hard. But if it works for you, then go for it. Giving up grains has huge benefits, but not everyone is willing to do it.

For the most part, I've focused much more on limiting/eliminating the grain-based carbs rather than worrying about limiting fat---mainly because high triglycerides are a known health problem in my family and high triglycerides seem to have much stronger relationship to type II diabetes than (slightly) high cholesterol has to heart disease. And the family has a stronger history of type II diabetes than heart disease.

I really did try to eliminate grain-based carbs and sugar at one point. During this time, I did not watch fat content at all, but even with fat in my diet, I managed to stick to the low carb diet for only about 2 or 3 weeks. I was really grouchy the entire time. Giving up foods high in added sugar was not the real problem. Sure, I missed my daily candy bar, but that wasn't really that hard to give up because I didn't really crave it. What I craved was bread, cereal, and rice. And I craved them all the time. Just how long do you have to be carb free before the carbs are "out of your system" and the cravings go away?

Without bread and the other carbs, eating during those two weeks literally became a chore for me rather than the small, daily pleasure that I believe eating should be. All in all, I was not a very pleasant person to live with, and hubby got pretty tired of my fussing and started encouraging me to "cheat" so that eating was something I'd enjoy again. Hubby (who is not much of a bread eater) was also surprised at just how many other things were off limits on a no carb diet; eliminating rice was particularly hard on him since it knocked out a whole bunch of our standard supper menus, including his favorite Red Beans and Rice.

Breakfast was (and is) the most difficult meal for me to stick to a low/no carb diet: Finding easy no-cook low/no carb alternatives to my beloved cold cereal has been particularly difficult. Yes, I know the claim is "eggs are easy to cook in just a few minutes", but I cannot even stand the smell of eggs before lunch time, much less eat them for breakfast. (And eggs without toast is not that appealing to me even at lunch.) And cooking something that required even more time than eggs just won't work since the way I'm handling getting enough sleep with the insomnia is to sleep from 1:30 or 2:00am to 8:30am.

So for a long time, full-fat cheese, apples (or other fruit) and real, full-fat unsweetened yogurt from a small local dairy became my default breakfast, which provided enough calories and protein (on paper). But I found myself choking this breakfast down rather than enjoying it, even though the yogurt remains a favorite snack. And I also found that after eating a very low carb breakfast, I was significantly more hungry earlier in the afternoon (and craving bread and crackers) than I had been after eating cereal for breakfast. So cheating at breakfast time has become the rule rather than the exception. *sigh*

I have managed to cut back on carbs, but I know I'm still eating more of them than I should. In principal, I'd like to get to where I'm eating a low or no carb diet since I know that in the long run I'd probably be healthier. But I also want to be able to enjoy my meals. And right now that means trying to sensibly limit, but not severely restrict or outright eliminate the carbs from my diet.

Robespierre wrote:I think JNK has it right.

+1 more.