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nobimbo
Sun, Jun-13-04, 14:28
Posted on Sun, Jun. 13, 2004

Use hunger to gauge consumption

LOW-CARB FOR LIFE


In April, a couple on the Atkins diet eating at a buffet restaurant reportedly requested a 12th serving of roast beef and were told that, in consideration of other patrons, they couldn’t have it. The Atkins dieters demanded their money back. How they could claim to have been cheated, after consuming 11 servings of roast beef each, escapes me. In the end, the couple were asked to leave.

I tell you this story to illustrate a point: Nowhere in “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution” does it claim that you can eat unlimited quantities of food – of calories – and still expect to lose weight. Yet the myth has gotten around that as long as one eats low-carb, he or she can eat and eat and eat and still lose weight. Americans, used to eating for entertainment more than to satisfy hunger, have embraced the myth. The notion is simply not true.

What is true is that clinical studies show that you can eat more calories on a low-carbohydrate diet than you can on a low-fat/high-carb diet and still lose weight. A study done in 2000 at Schneider’s Children’s Hospital in New Hyde Park, N.Y., compared a low-fat, high-carb diet with a low-carb, high-fat diet for weight loss in obese adolescents.

The low-carb group ended up losing twice as much weight as the low-fat group, despite eating an average of 66 percent more calories each day.

That’s exciting, but just how many calories were they eating? The low-carb kids ate an average of 1,860 calories per day.

For those of you who have struggled to lose weight on 1,200 calories per day, that will sound generous – but it is not an unlimited quantity.

By contrast, if the restaurant those Atkins dieters visited was carving 6-ounce portions of roast beef, then 11 servings each would have come to 6,600 calories at one meal – and that’s assuming they ate nothing else.

Nobody eats that much food at one meal out of genuine hunger.

This should go without saying, but here it is: Eat when you are hungry. Eat enough to feel satisfied, but not stuffed, then stop eating until you are hungry again. Between the appetite-reducing effect of a low-carb diet, and the apparently increased caloric expenditure, most of you should be able to trust your hunger to tell you how much food you need.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journa...ing/8914529.htm

TBoneMitch
Sun, Jun-13-04, 14:52
Very good comment...but I think that the people who will heed this advice are not in the majority...

potatofree
Sun, Jun-13-04, 15:11
I hope the old "It's their right, they should sue" debate doesn't re-start, but I think this article is dead-on right.

LilaCotton
Sun, Jun-13-04, 15:15
was carving 6-ounce portions of roast beef,

Just how many buffet restaurants serve up 6-oz. portions of roast beef? It's been my experience that the max serving size is generally about 2 ounces. Even if it was only two ounce servings, that would've been around 22 ounces of roast beef with is about twice even my voracious appetite's daily intake of protein, so unless this couple weighed around 400 pounds apiece (and maybe they did for all I know), they should've shown a little common sense and courtesy.

There was a follow-up in our paper to this article a few weeks back. The restaurant manager apologized to the customers and told them they could return to the restaurant.

DebPenny
Sun, Jun-13-04, 15:25
Unfortunately, the author used a bad example and got it wrong. It was 12 slices, not servings and we still don't know how much was actually served. Also, the couple offered to pay more and were still expelled from the buffet. At least that's what the first article said.

Be that as it may, the author's point about not overeating is important. I started low-carb without portion control. I was still eating few enough calories to lose weight, but I stalled when the calories I was consuming met my daily calorie needs. Now that I'm learning portion control and lowering my calories, my weight is on the way down again.

Lisa N
Sun, Jun-13-04, 15:56
Unfortunately, the author used a bad example and got it wrong. It was 12 slices, not servings and we still don't know how much was actually served

I believe their lawyer stated that the amount was around 13 oz. and it was the husband that went back for 12 slices, not the wife (we don't actually know how many slices she had nor if she was eating some of the roast beef that the husband went up to get).
I recentaly ate at a buffet owned by the same chain that runs the buffet that the couple was kicked out of. The roast beef slices we received we're thin and small...maybe an ounce or two at best (1/8 inch thick, about 2 inches wide and maybe 4 inches long). There were other options available the night we were there (baked chicken which I like and baked fish which I don't like) but everything else with exception of the salad bar was not low carb. The cooked vegetables offered that night were peas, carrots and corn. I normally wouldn't choose to eat there because the choices are fairly limited and the temptations great, but both of my daughters received coupons for free meals through a reading rewards program at their school.
Without returning to the debate of who ate how much and whether they had a right to or not, the author's advice above is almost word for word from DANDR, "Eat when you are hungry, but eat until you are satisfied (as in no longer hungry) but not stuffed." and "The metabolic advantage of low carb is not to be used as a license to gorge yourself." If people use the advantage of low carb to gorge themselves on low carb foods, then they are not following the directive of the book or they have not read it (or perhaps they're following that "all you can eat meat, eggs and cheese" diet and not Atkins). ;)

mio1996
Sun, Jun-13-04, 16:27
I think what we are missing here is that IT WAS A BUFFET! It doesn't matter what diet they were own, if there was no stated limit on roast beef then refusing the 12th serving was probably downright false advertising, and therefore illegal. I know meat is expensive, but IT WAS A BUFFET!

Lisa N
Sun, Jun-13-04, 16:36
I think what we are missing here is that IT WAS A BUFFET! It doesn't matter what diet they were own, if there was no stated limit on roast beef then refusing the 12th serving was probably downright false advertising, and therefore illegal. I know meat is expensive, but IT WAS A BUFFET!

Mio, here's a link to the previous debate about this couple and the buffet in question in case you're interested: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=180284&highlight=couple

nobimbo
Sun, Jun-13-04, 17:00
I just want to point out that it was Dana Carpender who wrote that article (for her newsletter). If you didn't click on the link you might not have known that, and I failed to paste the blurb at the end that states the origin of the article.

Linda

nikkil
Thu, Jun-17-04, 05:34
I try really hard to listen to what DANDR says about how and when to eat and to follow that closely. I think calorie control is still key to any weight loss plan, LC or not. The great thing about LC is that I'm rarely hungry and I am satisfied with less food and don't feel restricted. That's good enough for me :agree:

ttfn,
Nicole :)