after yo-yoing all my life on every diet, i became obese and prediabetic with shocking results for my bloodwork. Doc threatened me with all sorts of nasty pills which i ran from promising to lose weight instead. "25 lbs at least" he screamed back at me.
After pondering the disastrous effects of my rebound weight gain on other plans, i found barry groves. Well, i lost 50 lbs in 18 months instead of 25 lbs and still managed to enjoy my beer at the same time, and rices cakes too. The loss was slow, slow, slow and sometimes plateaued for a month at a time. 2 years later, Im still enjoying whatever i like to eat, provided i dont go over 50-60g carb per day.
It is a feel good plan for life.
Has anyone else here had long term good results using semi LC and maintained it?

love barry groves.....even if i go off and try other plans for a day or two, i always end up back. i also love that he's been doing this for many, many years and is so fit and healthy...monica, too.
you have a bigger following across the pond but there're are a bunch of fans here even if they are not following his plan per se.

Thank goodness, i thought after skanning these posts that i was the only one who had acheived balance. Everyone here is so obsessive about how many carb grams to protein grams etc. His message is CLEAR. Relax, enjoy, eat ANYTHING you want and live. My veiw: If the weight isnt coming off, ur too impatient and at least it isnt piling back on. Im going 4 another beer! LONGTERM -FOREVER diets are truley enjoyable if u can just relax sit back and be patient. Have faith! I did and I won!

Diabetes Diet Barry Groves
It seems reasonably similar to the plan I use.
Dr Dahlqvist's plan

No, I truly ate what I wanted, a few beers, some sugar in milky coffee and if you can believe it...RICE CAKES..the do-all and end-all of high glycemic hell. Removing gluten based grains and dairy helped, provided i stayed under 60g carb. Barry Groves released me from a lifetime of hell. RELAX, ENJOY & STOP ANALYSING YOUR FOOD!

This is ironic. You scream this message at us?????

"the beatings will continue until morale improves"

I do enjoy Dr. Groves. I follow Kwasniewski myself and it's very similar. I get french fries every day if I want em.

Well i never thought of that! Maybe my beer was a little more important. We only have "hot chips" here in oz and they suck now that they are all cooked in racid "healthy" vegetable oil. They smell and taste exactly like the cheap oil theyre cooked in. Low-fat phobia is taking over here in oz. I just quit working at the local pub, the smell of the deep fat frier was as sickening as was watching the overweight staff "nosebagging" the contents of that deep fat frier. Those very staff thought i was sick for eating fresh meat and butter! Now thats IRONY.
I hope you didnt think I was screaming a message. Maybe just got a bit carried away on my soapbox. Just a bit shocked at the obsessiveness of food analysis on the site. Food phobia is not inducive to good mental or physical health. I think the "industry all round" has frightened people into a shocking state of food-phobia. Maybe if we all close the books after reading the "diet plan" and skip the scientific info, more folk could just get on with it. The more we know the more we seem to obsess! Anyhooooow, time for another beer...n' yes....Im still skinny!

That pub situation, oh my gosh. Didn't they have a real chef guy who knows the diff? Too bad. I had a BF who was a pub chef and he made the most amazing stuff out of what they would normally THROW OUT - the beef trimmings and so on. Sigh.

Awww, sorry for teasing you, I'm right with ya.

When did we as consumers all turn into frightened rabbits at this insane public health message? Dr. Kwasniewski says it is eating the Conventional Wisdom foods that makes people like sheep - not very bright, fearful, quick to panic, and wanting to be in a herd. This is one of the "weird" ideas that Peter at Hyperlipid talks about.

Enjoy your beer. I will raise a potato fried in tallow, in your honor.

But it just about sums the situation up.
I sometimes wonder if online support groups for those with medical conditions, such as Celiac, MS, Diabetes don't end up doing more harm than good. They seem to propagate this HERD mentality and come to celebrate and glory in the number of medications, treatments, consultants, etc they enjoy.

They seem to spend all their time being martyrs to their particular condition and if anyone comes in to say well perhaps as you have an inflammatory condition it may be a smart move to measure your anti inflammatory status and correct any deficiency's, then you always see the same hysterical reaction.

They so enjoy the invalid role lifestyle that anyone pointing out the bl**ding obvious gets banned asp. Try pointing out the celiacs that they require 2000iu/d extra D3 to raise status the same 10ng as non celiacs. Waste of time, you can't help people who enjoy being part of a cult and disability is now cult status for many on these forums.

Hi cincin2009,

I may have to die of jealousy!!! Living here in Germany, we have pretty much the world's best beer (although my DH swears by his fave Czech brew), but, for me, it does not really mix too well with low-carbing...

Well, let's put it this way: it sure slows things down!!! However, despite my predilection for the amber nectar, I have been able to lose weight Groves' style.

What I have discovered in the meantime, though - thanks to this forum and the fantastic input you read here - is that what really causes instant weight gain for me is not necessarily the beer by itself, but beer combined with wheat. I am now doing my very best to stay away from wheat products and beer, in order to keep my weight stable over the winter.

Over the summer, I got sloppy whilst in the UK, staying with family, friends and then camping for 10 days, and had way too much beer and way too many foods with wheat in them. The result was that I put 2kg back on again in just a few weeks - GRRRR. I am now hovering between 64kg and 65.5kg, trying to get down a bit again... But, somehow - maybe it's something to do with the winter weather here in Europe - I am just not motivated right now to get into major weight loss mode... I am just treading water, trying not to gain!!!

I am now at the point where I am finding it pretty easy to stay away from wheat products and am slowly but surely adding new things to my menu, getting out old recipes from my almost-vegetarian days (hummus, for example, or various bean dishes), and experimenting with wheat-free baking.

But I have had more trouble staying away from the beer lately... Oh well, maybe it is just a case of not changing too many things at once...

However, your experience does give me hope!!! It would seem that your "trick" was to be almost gluten-free (there is gluten in beer, of course, but no wheat gluten), which meant you could still lose weight and drink beer!!!

When I first read your post, I thought, "Humph, I bet she's about 20 and therefore her metabolism is still revved up" - so I was well surprised to read in your profile that you are actually 2 years older than me!!!

On the beer: do you drink "regular" beer - i.e. with some kind of gluten grains in it - or have you actually found a gluten-free beer in Oz?

Thanks for posting your experiences: most enlightening!!!

amanda

For a country so down on low carb diets, the aussies cant produce enough low carb beer. 3g per "stubbie" or small bottle. The best thing is....its full strength and selling like hotcakes. Theres new brands coming out every other week and thy now have it on tap at the locals.....Im sure with its popularity, you wont be waiting long for it to hit your shores.




I may have to die of jealousy!!! Living here in Germany, we have pretty much the world's best beer (although my DH swears by his fave Czech brew), but, for me, it does not really mix too well with low-carbing...

Well, let's put it this way: it sure slows things down!!! However, despite my predilection for the amber nectar, I have been able to lose weight Groves' style.

What I have discovered in the meantime, though - thanks to this forum and the fantastic input you read here - is that what really causes instant weight gain for me is not necessarily the beer by itself, but beer combined with wheat. I am now doing my very best to stay away from wheat products and beer, in order to keep my weight stable over the winter.

Over the summer, I got sloppy whilst in the UK, staying with family, friends and then camping for 10 days, and had way too much beer and way too many foods with wheat in them. The result was that I put 2kg back on again in just a few weeks - GRRRR. I am now hovering between 64kg and 65.5kg, trying to get down a bit again... But, somehow - maybe it's something to do with the winter weather here in Europe - I am just not motivated right now to get into major weight loss mode... I am just treading water, trying not to gain!!!

I am now at the point where I am finding it pretty easy to stay away from wheat products and am slowly but surely adding new things to my menu, getting out old recipes from my almost-vegetarian days (hummus, for example, or various bean dishes), and experimenting with wheat-free baking.

But I have had more trouble staying away from the beer lately... Oh well, maybe it is just a case of not changing too many things at once...

However, your experience does give me hope!!! It would seem that your "trick" was to be almost gluten-free (there is gluten in beer, of course, but no wheat gluten), which meant you could still lose weight and drink beer!!!

When I first read your post, I thought, "Humph, I bet she's about 20 and therefore her metabolism is still revved up" - so I was well surprised to read in your profile that you are actually 2 years older than me!!!

On the beer: do you drink "regular" beer - i.e. with some kind of gluten grains in it - or have you actually found a gluten-free beer in Oz?

Thanks for posting your experiences: most enlightening!!!

amanda[/QUOTE]

But, the question is: is the LC beer drinkable? How much is in a "stubbie", just out of curiosity? A small bottle in Europe would be 330mls, thereabouts.

And the other problem the Germans would have is that they are very proud of their "purity law of 1516" (as in the date, i.e. several hundred years ago!!!), which states that only hops, malt barley and water can go into beer. I remember drinking some American beer out of a bottle in a bar once, "Rolling Rock" or "Red Rock" or something and was horrified to read on the label that one of the ingredients was rice!!!

Mind you, even here in Germany, you can buy all these beer mixes these days, which the youngsters go for, like the horrific mixes that people used to drink with syrups when I was a lass. When I was a lass, those that couldn't drink "real" beer would have "lager and black" (lager with a shot of blackcurrant syrup - yeurch!!!) or "lager and lime" (ditto, but with lime-flavoured syrup). Now you see these six-packs with all these funny flavours already added... No sirree, not for me!!!

I'll keep you posted, though, if I do see any low-carb beer lurking in the supermarkets...

amanda

This just came in on one of my Google Alerts:

http://www.foodbev.com/report/how-a...healthy-in-2010

amanda

Right now I'm back to doing Groves but without the dairy. I feel it is important not to let my carbs stay too low - seems to backfire, so his recommendations of 50-60g seem to be spot on - for me anyway. Most people can lose on that amount if they are new to low-carbing and remember to eat plenty of fat.

Good luck, Loops!!!

You know it worked for me at 70g of carbs a day, too!

amanda