I am new to this (one month and 21 pounds in), and I am feeling great. But I am a cynic at heart, and experience has taught me that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I am shocked that the medical establishment -- I have visited the CDC pages, the Diabetes Association, the Heart Association, etc -- seem to so completely misunderstand low carb, how to evaluate it, and even what is and isn't good for us to eat. Or they marginalize it, or damn it with faint praise.

So I'm wondering -- has anyone had any negative impacts from a low carb diet? I'm reading all the success stories, and can't wrap my mind around why, if this is so effective, it isn't mainstream? I know what the traditional literature says... (cholesterol bad, complex carbs good, fats will kill you ) -- but has anyone's health declined after being on low carb for a while?

The only "negative" that I've noticed is that, if I DO eat grains, always accidentally, I get terribly achy in the joints that have arthritis.

But since I'm pretty sure that that means that the grains are BAD for me, it's not really a negative, is it?

Nope, that's not a negative

I guess it depends on how you implement it, but it can be an expensive diet, if you're used to paying for trashy cheap carbs. I think it is probably possible to eat an unhealthy LC diet although asking me what defines unhealthy I'd probably tell you what is unhealthy for me, not necessarily for others.

The downsides are more cooking and food prep time. There have been times when I wish that I could just pour a bowl of cereal in the morning and call it breakfast.
The upside is that in my search for easy, fast and tasty food, I have tried so many more vegetables than ever before! Hash brown radishes, cauliflower a million ways , kimchi, saurkraut, so many delicious and healthy recipes out there.
I agree it is more expensive, particularly some of the different ingredients. Kelp noodles, almond flour, coconut oil , it all adds up.
I like to think that it will work out cheaper in the long run, since my health will be better.

I think vitamins, minerals and amino acids are something we all try to be aware of, regardless of eating low carb or not. I eat a lot more vegetables on low-carb than eating crap food.
I have noticed the cuticles on my fingernails have been peeling/breaking on my thumbs in particular. So I'm putting a LOT of cream on my hands, like 10 Xs per day. It's dry in my office and I don't pay for soft water in my town house, but I'm suspecting it's a deficiency in some nutrient ... D3 maybe. I eat a lot of eggs, fish, tuna, but I should eat more liver and take cod liver oil every day instead of once/week.
So to answer your question, I think there's really no down-side to low carb eating ... but we pay attention to our bodies and think about ways to ensure we get enuf vitamins/minerals amino acids ... which we'd have to do on any woe.

I actually don't like to cook all the time, so I think that's a negative -- but I don't see any way to do a proper "clean" LC diet without it. But since DH has started this WOE, he has volunteered to help (whew!).

And as to expense, the cost of grass-fed, anti-biotic- and hormone-free meats (along with some organic food) seems to be mitigated by the fact that we are eating less food. And the IF has lowered the food bill as well (you don't pay when you're not eating!)

Most of my friends are actually intrigued by what I am doing so I don't have any "social" cost.

Other downside is the same as any other change in a WOE -- you just have to commit to it for life or most of the positive changes will be reversed. It's a little daunting, but what's the alternative?

I don't see how LC means more cooking unless you were literally eating prepackaged microwave food every meal ...

I chop up a salad for lunch and throw in a handful of nuts, crumble some feta. Rarely cook anything during the day other than dinner.

Dinner seems easier on LC - we used to have meat, a veg and a starchy item like potatoes, rice, noodles, garlic toast. Now it's usually just meat and a veg which are, arguably, the easiest of the three so more than a third less work ...
We still make a more elaborate dish now and again, but it is no more work than when we also had carbs, just less ingredients (chili relleno cassarole vs. encilada casserole, for instance).

I don't even eat breakfast anymore, so the whole day is far simpler than my old diet.

I have 2 downsides:

Since I live with non-LCers, I try to prepare dinner that somewhat resembles higher carb food (ie. cauli rice, cauli mash, spaghetti squash, etc), so it does take me more time in the kitchen. I like those foods too, but if it was just me, I'd eat eggs and a salad for dinner a lot.

The second one may sound strange. Low carb messes up my seratonin levels making me weirdly irritable. I have to supplement with 5HTP (which helps with seratonin production) a couple of times a week. Several years ago, I stumbled upon a thread on another low carb board about irritability on low carb (apparently I am not the only one!). People recomended the Potatoes Not Prozac book. PNP recomends a small potato before bedtime to boost seratonin production, which helps your mood. I'm diabetic and can't eat the potato (I did try it at first and it worked), so I take the 5HTP instead. It makes a big difference for me (and for my loved ones!).

Other than that, I love low carb and feel great eating this way.

Because this WOE is not mainstream most people view how I eat as extreme. So - call me crazy, but who is healthier? Me or the vast majority of my peers? My results shut naysayers up pretty quickly.

When you eat LC you have to think ahead and sometimes bring food or do without in situations where the food options are limited. In that regard, LC is like any other restricted diet... vegetarians, people who eat this and not that for religious reasons, people with food allergies, etc. I don't cheat. I don't take days off. I stick to my WOE. If a hotel serves a complementary continental breakfast, my available options are typically coffee, cream, and maybe a strawberry or two if I'm lucky. If they have a pizza feed on my lunch hour at work I can eat the toppings or just eat my own lunch. The world is built around carbs. We just have to stay alert and stay prepared.

To eat low carb you must change what you eat. A lot of people are not willing to do that. They'd rather believe that they can eat their favorite things in moderation. Eat less, exercise more, and lose the weight. That has been the mainstream sales pitch for 35 years. "They" say LC is too restrictive and that people can't or won't stick to it. But how well are they doing 'cutting back' on eating regular junk to get the weight off? Not very well. I guess they can't stick to that either.

Quoted For Truth!

If the question is: Does eating LCHF damage your health in the long, long term, my answer is, "No!"

I've been eating this way since 1972. The results:

• Almost normal weight for my age and sex (26% BF).
• On only 1 prescription drug by choice (HRT).
• Almost 71 years old.
• Walk 2 miles every morning without fail.
• Do yoga stretching and some rebounding.
• Manage 20+ websites and run a household, including doing taxes.

I'm in excellent health and I attribute that to eating LC.

I think others have hit some of the main points, i.e. cost, convenience, boredom / variety. On the medical side, the establishment doesn't know what to do with it or how to think of it. If something is medically troubling you then the fact that you are low carb can either be unnecessarily ignored or receive too much focus. There's just not a lot of data on it.

My cynic is worse than yours. I would say you have the wrong opinion about the mainstream.

Yes. So right.

As mind-blowing as it is, it's true. Medical science has been completely wrong about their nutritional advice for decades now. An excellent book, The Big Fat Truth, lays it all out the best, I think. Another, Wheatbelly, is written by a doctor who realized just how wrong they have gotten it.

How can there be a downside to eating real food? That's the question.

I'm in the throes of a menopause from Hell. If I'd been eating the Standard American diet, to add blood sugar swings and high insulin to my woes, I'd be on six medications and slowly dying. Instead, I'm digging myself out of the pit.

A pit that modern medicine put me in and then offered no help in climbing out of.

It's not that modern medicine is all bad. Should I, heaven forbid, fall in a combine, there's no time and place like the present to be put back together again. We absolutely excel at those kinds of things.

But the first time up to the plate, they swung, and missed. We're the lever that will move things back, but we are up against a medical-food-industrial complex. That's why it's been going on since 1972.