Ice cream, cake and rapid weight loss!

[Nancy LC]

You gotta read this (http://blog.proteinpower.com/drmike/archives/2006/01/if_wishes_were.html). Poor Dr. Eades....

He then cuts to the chase:

If possible, I require two things from you.

1. An uncomplicated, tasty, low carbohydrate diet which would result in significantly lowered blood sugars, reduction of insulin intake and weight loss.

2. I would need the name of a physician in [name of city withheld], familiar with your diet, with whom I could consult and monitor my progress.

So, to boil it down to its essence, here is what this reader wants. A diet that lets him eat what he wants, lose weight like crazy, rid him of his diabetes, and cure his heart disease. People who think like this inspire the allusion to the Disney When You Wish Upon a Star song. If only wishing would make it so.

Its kind of sad yet funny. People are still looking for magical cures to their problems that require no effort or change on their part.

[Nakkira]

Psst, I hear if you eat a grapefruit before every meal you will lose weight no matter what you eat. Pass it on.













That is seriously how *someone* I know thinks. God forbid we actually change our poor eating habits and make an effort to move once in a while. That's just sooooo hard... :rolleyes:

[ItsTheWooo]

Losing weight is a difficult proposition at best. But so is getting a college education, getting up and going to work everyday, maintaining a household, nurturing relationships, rearing children, keeping your yard looking nice, and doing most of the things we all do to keep the bills paid and our lives moving along. No one thinks these things are easy. You don't find books on the Professor's Quick Guide to a College Degree in Three Days. Or The Gardener's Guide to a Perfect Lawn in 10 Minutes per Week. Or Rearing Perfect Children Effortlessly. Or Get and Keep the Job of your Dreams in One Easy Lesson. These things are all absurd and we know they are all absurd, but somehow we all keep thinking that weight-loss should be easy if we could but find the perfect diet that allows us to eat the all foods we love and never be hungry again.


All due credit to Dr Eades. I love his blog and especially this entry - it needed to be said that weight loss is HARD and takes a LOT of sacrifice/planning no matter what you do. I often become frustrated when people who are unwilling to sacrifice complain that others get results and they don't. For example, a woman of average lifestyle & metabolic need refusing to eat less than 2000 cals per day (all low carb though :rolleyes: ) and then complaining about maintenance.
Or to use myself as an example - eating stuff you know you shouldn't, and being a slacker on meal planning, then bitching about your weight results in your journal ( :lol: ).

So like I said, congrats on a great entry... but with all due respect there is a reason people expect this to be easy. That reason is because it is easy for almost eveyrone in the world.

Very very very few people have to spend the extreme amount of time planning and thinking about food just to avoid obesity, chronic hunger, hypos, and the myriad of other physical and psychological symptoms (of wrecked blood sugar) like I/we do. I mean I look at all the other normal people with their bags of chips and chubby/normal size clothes... I would kill for that freedom! My parents, sisters and brother who down a bowl of oatmeal or a bowl of cereal (with NO fat or protein mind you) and they are *fine* later. My baby sister (who BTW does have some carbohydrate issues and has PCOS) will eat a bagel for breakfast and be *fine* all day.
I ask people if they ever sometimes feel really shaky and sweaty and crappy after eating something and the answer is unanimous: hell freaking no. Now don't get me wrong, I know carb problems are common, it's just that most people don't have them so bad that it is a huge quality of life issue to the point where I have to use my brain to avoid tremendous negative results like it is for me. I know people who have carb tolerance problems who have minor hypos - so minor they barely even know anything is different. For example, my manager is a very obese woman who has sugar problems (though she does not know it I can tell from her symptoms; she eats "healthy" yet is very heavy, is addicted to carbs, and gained a tremendous amount of weight on depo which is a drug that as a side effect increases insensitivity to insulin). She complained of feeling "sick" after eating, I asked her what the symptoms were. She reported feeling dizzy, a little shaky, typical hypo symptoms. I told her she was hypoglycemic and to eat one of her ritz crackers; she then felt better a short while later.
My baby sister (the one who can eat a bagel and be fine later) only gets hypos very very rarely and they are not the kind I get. Her (and my bosses) hypos are the sort I deal with every day when I am even a little lazy in diet and am denied access to snacking (I can avoid hypos by snacking tiny and often, but this results in sickening fast fat weight gain which I can attest to this holiday season (despite staying mostly low carb I gained as if a normal person were gorging)).

Deep inside I often feel like it has to be easier than this, even though logically, I know it's not and I have a problem that requires constant control.
For everyone else food IS EASY and their health may not be ideal but it's enough to avoid tremendous social, physical, and emotional side effects.
For me it's not, not by a long shot.
Everyone has to work at a degree or their lawn. NOt everyone has to work at just being a reasonably normal size and not feeling like absolute crap because of diet.

[bkloots]

Thanks for posting this excellent essay. Like WOO, I jumped right on that quote about "easy." Funny examples!

I never talk about my way of eating anymore. It isn't a diet, after all, but a way of life. For me, it's what hobbies are to some people. A constant occupation, one way or another. That's the way it has to be. Easy? Maybe not. A great and enjoyable benefit? Definitely!!

[GeoUSA]

Thanks to Dr. Atkins, DANDR, and this forum for educating me about this way of eating. To me, it does seem magical. I feel like my low carb diet met the writer's criteria. Perception is individual, but I found this diet to be fairly easy and even enjoyable. Thanks to that, I still follow it. By the way, today is my 2nd low carb anniversary.

There are many threads on this board with tips for success, but there are several key things that helped to make this way of eating enjoyable and successful for me:

* another member of my household participated
* the ability to eat treats including Edy's low carb ice cream and microwave 3-minute cakes (in the recipe section of this forum)
* allowing time for my tastes to adapt to the new way of eating (discovered I do not miss potatoes, rice, etc.)
* low carb tortillas make a convenient substitute for bread
* learning that foods I avoided when eating low fat were healthy after all (milk, peanut butter, nuts, olive oil, etc.)

Much of the medical establishment sends mixed messages that, if followed, make it nearly impossible to lose and maintain weight loss. Because of this I think it is helpful to embrace curiosity, question traditional diet beliefs, and have confidence in yourself.

[Galliard]

I know carb problems are common, it's just that most people don't have them so bad that it is a huge quality of life issue to the point where I have to use my brain to avoid tremendous negative results like it is for me..

I think people just don't recognize that they have problems. When I started Atkins, I just wanted to lose weight -- I had no idea my energy levels were too low or what a blood sugar problem was or that my brain could work better. If they don't have a serious weight problem or just don't care, then what other frame of reference (other than Atkins dieters, who are nuts, anyway ;) ) do they have to indicate that things could be different? And, Wooo, you're still very young, so you haven't yet realized the payoff of low-carbing when you start to age. That will probably make your sacrifices and self-discipline worthwhile when your hair doesn't gray as fast and your skin stays more supple and you have three times the energy on half the sleep of all the other forty- and fifty-year-olds that you know!