Well, your diet sounds a lot like them so far, with the "healthy balanced, yet low-fat" slogan. Looks like it, smells like it and talks like it, You may not "follow it", but you do beleive in it, based on your statements so far.



You could have saved us some time, by indicating your opinion is based on religion, not science

By the way, The Creator Of All Things hath always included a healthy dose of fat in thine protein, and only low-fat industry hath taken it away through evil chemicals . Not to mention, the carbs given to the Israelites, was not brownies, bread or sugar.....

Wa'il

I agree. There is much mention of the use of olive oil in the Bible as well as eating the fat of the animals along with the meat. Grains were eaten whole or coarsely ground. As a matter of fact, when the priests made sacrifices, it was the choice part of the animal with the fat that was sacrificed. They did not have sugar, corn syrup or low fat products.
They worked hard for the food that they ate and they walked pretty much everywhere they went unless they were rich enough to own a horse or donkey. Obesity, while not common, was not unknown even then. Studies of the Egyptian mummies has often shown advanced heart disease, obesity and tooth decay.

Several authors, including the Edes have made reference to this fact, that the earliest evidence of heart disease, diabetes and obesity is found in Egyptian mummeis, and they couple this with the historical introduction of gains into the Egyptian diet with the invention of farming.

Wa'il

I have a few more thoughts on this particular subject. First...if you are wandering around in the desert watching your livestock and herding them as well as making and breaking camp all the time, I'd say you probably need a few more carbs and wouldn't be much in need of losing weight. That's a fairly strenous existence; one which most Western peoples certainly don't even get close to today.
Second...while God did provide manna for the Israelites during the 40 years that they wandered in the desert, it's open to speculation as to exactly what manna was. Literally translated, manna in Hebrew means "what is it?", meaning that this was a substance with which they were unfamiliar and had no reference to. It's unlikely that it was bread, since they knew perfectly well what bread was. Did it contain carbs? Hard to say since we only have a description of it and no scientific analysis. There was also no excess as they were instructed to gather only as much as was needed to feed their families for that day with the exception of the day before shabbat where they were allowed to gather enough for two days. If they gathered more than needed, it rotted. The other time that God provided food for the Israelites, it was in the form of quail. The rest of the time, they lived off of their livestock (sheep, goats, cattle) and whatever they could hunt or gather. They were never in one place long enough to grow and harvest crops, so the grains and vegetables that they had were likely very few and far between, if at all. Sounds to me that they lived a pretty low carb, strenuous lifestyle wandering in that desert.

In my own religious tradition there is an interesting passage about a wandering group eating a very low carb diet and the interesting effect it had on the women in the group. How they grew very strong and were able to easily nurse and nurish newborns while traveling.
For those interested I would be willing to share.
Nedra

UHm... I just want to say the I have been on Weight Watchers for year, and the thing is, it isn't low fat.(Or doesn't have to be). One can have anything they want on the plan, as long as it is in their points range. I have been LC for three days, and keeping within my points range. I am pretty sure I can do both.

EVERYONE in the weight loss business is making money. Why shouldn't they? We don't expect our gas or food or dry cleaning for free!

From Losing It: America's Obsession with Weight and the Industry that Feed on It , by Laura Fraser.

"It was during the 1920's that advertisers hit on a problem that was visible enough for women to be embarrassed about, difficult enough to require buying lots of products, and best of all, would never go away: fat. Advertisers made women feel humiliated that they weren't as slim as the beautiful women in their illustrations. They sold bath salts, laxatives, reducing brushes, stimulating belts, scales, mail-away diets, and scores of other obesity cures. Every advertisement chided women for being overweight. 'Overweight these days is a woman's own fault,' proclaimed one ad for a musical reducing record.

...women began to do anything to be slim. They starved themselves and chewed gum laced with laxatives to lose weight. Told to 'Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet,' they took up smoking to lose weight; it was, as the ad said, 'the modern way to diet.' They followed a number of wild fad diets recommended by physicians and pseudophysicians, many of which involved fasting, purgatives and odd combinations of foods.

Carl Malmberg, author of Diet and Die , wrote in 1935 that the craze for slimness that swept the United States after World War I led many physicians to try to rationalize the fad - 'Scientists and health authorities have set out to prove that it is healthy as well as fashionable to be thin.' Some of these diets were the result of a mutually beneficial alliance between physicians and food producers. The United Fruit Company, for instance, was happy to advertise Johns Hopkins University physician George Harrop's banana and skimmed milk diet with the AMA seal of approval. The Hollywood Eighteen-Day Diet (585 calories a day) was promoted by citrus growers - grapefruit was a centerpiece of the regime - as being the product of careful research on the part of French and American physicians.

The commercial weight-loss industry - of which Weight Watchers is by far the leader - made $2.1 billion in 1991... There are 10,018 weight-loss centers in the country, or one for every 25,953 people. Sondra Solovay, a writer for the San Francisco-based Fat! So?, recently counted fifty-five weight loss centers listed in the Oakland, California Yellow Pages, compared with one battered women's service.

In 1990, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon held congressional hearings about weight-loss centers, exposing their unfair business practices, poorly trained employees, high failure rates, and the health problems experienced by some people who had enrolled, such as gallstones and bulimia.

In 1991, in New York City, the Department of Consumer Affairs send undercover investigators to commercial weight loss centers and found that they counseled underweight individuals to lose weight, refused to discuss the potential risks of weight loss, and made false and misleading health claims. The DCA issued a report showing that although commercial weight-loss sales representatives lead consumers to believe they'll have long-term success in losing weight, most gain the weight back. 'A plan for long-term maintenance is nearly always stressed by the weight loss centers,' the report described. 'What is not discussed, however, is that studies have shown that the majority of overweight people who lose weight regain it back within a few years.' During the 1990's, hundreds of people also sued Nutri/System, claiming that the diet caused them serious gallbladder problems."
---

If we bought gas that ruined our cars, food that poisoned us, or our dry cleaner destroyed our clothing, we would expect retribution of some kind. The reason that we should NOT be charged large amounts of money for commercial weight loss programs is that they don't work and they destroy people physically as well as emotionally .

well... Weight Watchers has worked for me, take a look at my stats. I have started LC'ing to speed up the last 6 pounds, because once I get to my goal, which I chose when I started, I don't have to pay anymore. I will be a Lifetime member . That means I will be able to go to meetings and weigh in every week for the rest of my life without paying. I only pay $10 a week now.

Weight Wathcers has charts, and there are minimums on those charts. For instance, I wanted to make my goal an impossible 120. They would not let me. 126 was the lowest I could go, and they counceled me against that. I know of one girl who went below her minimum and was refused entry.

I certainly don't feel as if I have been robbed, or destroyed in any way!

Its about finding out how the body actually works rather than the government fed, big business engineered food pyramid.
I am happy for you that it 'worked'.... but what working do you mean?
Working as in your lost weight quickly, or working as in finding out what your body really needs to keep working well into your 90's??
The thing is I don't think there is a person on this board that hasn't done the weight watcher thing, or the Susan powter thing, or even Dean ornish.. ANYTHING to "work" as you put it.
But the working stopped. And we had to find out why.
If your comment that you are doing this to "speed" things up , and the sort of self denial that we have all been the WW way and done that and didn't manage to keep it up, then I am not sure you have really done the work in knowing that low carbing is not about "speeding"things up, but finally recognize how we are and how our chemistry really works.

We are not identical. Our physiologies are not the same. What works great for one person may not work as well for another.

Each eating plan, whether it's WW, Ornish, Bernstein, Atkins--whatever, has its success stories and it also has people who followed the plan to the letter and weren't as successful.

That's the great thing about having freedom to choose and to experiment and to find out what works for us individually.

Be forewarned, however, that folks who are below their ideal weight, however that is determined, often GAIN weight if they start low-carbing. LCing only causes weight loss (one of the side benefits of the LC WOL) if you actually have fat stores to burn.

Oh, and one more thing for those who look to LC as a quick way to drop some weight. What do you intend to do after you've lost it? Unless you continue eating LC, you will very likely gain it all back (and maybe more) as soon as you start eating the way you used to (before LC).

Low carbing is not a quick fix nor a "diet." It's a Way of Life--the way many of us have chosen to spend the rest of our (hopefully longer and healthier) lives.

There's my 2 cents. Lecture is over.

Pokey One

PoofieD, Absolutely right. Nyah Levi

While I'm sure it's possible, I personally think I'd have great difficulty combining the Weight Watchers plan with low carb and being satisfied with my food choices (ie not hungry all the time).
Weight Watchers is built around the premise that fat is bad and needs to be limited and their point system is based on how much fat a food contains (more fat = more points), so while you could choose higher fat items, that would tend to limit greatly the quantity of food that you could eat and I would think that you would use up your points for the day fairly quickly. Weight Watchers is also a reduced calorie plan with the calorie range for women being between 1,300 and 1,500 per day, the higher level for those who are either very active or very overweight. Personally, I aim for the highest calorie level that I can maintain and still lose to keep my metabolism for shifting downward (between 1,500 and 1,800). I don't know about anyone else, but the thought of having to maintain at 1,300 -1,500 calories a day because I lowered my metabolism through low calorie dieting doesn't really appeal to me.
I've said this often before and I'll say it again: This is not a race! The speed with which you can lose weight doesn't matter nearly as much as how successful you are at maintaining your new weight once you reach your goal. I would rather lose weight slowly once than lose it quickly a dozen times only to gain it back again and then some. Generally, those that lose the slowest are the most successful at keeping the weight off, mostly because in losing slowly they had the time to gain a lot of knowledge about what works for their body and what doesn't and there are other advantages to losing slowly as well such as giving your skin time to stretch back as you lose (don't want to wind up with my thighs hanging down around my knees like baggy panty hose ). This isn't just about losing weight; it's about learning how to keep it off for a lifetime and eat as healthy as possible.

Ugh. Now there's an image that will not be leaving my brain anytime soon. Almost makes me antsy to get to my lower body workout tomorrow. LOL

Nutri-nut - If you were hungry low-carbing then you really weren't low-carbing. You should eat until you are full and eat whenever you are hungry. I keep my carbs under 30, and it is real easy to do.

I have no problem with weight watcher's. It works for a lot of people. I lost weight on WW pretty easily. Of course, I was ALWAYS hungry and never felt right. I would lose weight on any diet that restricts calories and makes you exercise more. I might have been exhausted by the meetings, filling out the menus, reading the stuff, weighing and measuring everything, etc. And the bottom line for me is that low-fat products are gross tasting and very overpriced. On Atkins, I don't buy any special products except splenda in lieu of sugar. One taste of that low-fat mayo is enough to make me hurl.

Virtually anyone can lose weight by restricting calories, we can see it on Survivor every week. That is just not rocket science. MAINTAINING it is the key. You have to make a lifestyle change and not DIET. For me, I can live happily low-carbing forever. I don't want to be 85, in a nursing home, counting my points. I will just pass on the bread, potatoes, flour, rice, and pasta. I believe that simplicity is the key, we have to do it forever.

People can also be successful on WW for the longterm if they want to live permenantly on a low-calorie diet. I will pass on that and hand me the deviled eggs!

Always remember that the fundamental error in low fat plans is their assertion that "a calorie is a calorie".

What makes Dr. Atkin's low carb plan "revoltionary" is the fundamental insight that there are very different calories, which are chemically processed by entirley different processes.

For a large group of us, the constant demand for insulin to assist in metabolizing all kinds of sugars and starches has led to a breakdown in our internal processing of carbohydrates.

For all of us with significant insulin resistance, the alternative of eating other kinds of calories, and allowing our damaged internal chemical systems to process those calories differently makes all the difference, and gives us a chance to live for years without obesity, and without diabetes and its related maladies.

Hip, hip hooray for Dr. Atkins and his revolutionary insight.

People who do not have significant insulin resistance can make a workable choice to lose weight either through low fat, or through low carb eating plans, depending upon their personal tastes and preferences.

For those of us with significant insulin resistance, the only workable, healthy solution, is the low carb route.

IMHO, of course!

Keep on, keepn' on!