thank you Samuel.

I have to say, the negativity on this board is growing and growing. Why does anyone else really care what another finds works for them?

How dare anyone say someone's doctor is an "idiot"!

Support each other, please. It's not like we all haven't been there. I'm so far from starving, it's ridiculous (says she eating cabbage, bits of shreaded cheese and a thick breast of roasted chicken)

Can I point out that 'support' isn't just about telling people what they want to hear and agreeing with current majority POV or latest fad? Sometimes 'support' comes in the form of pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

Everyone is entitled to have an opinion, even if it's "Your doctor is an idiot".

No -- telling someone their doctor is an idiot is not the same. It's rude and doesn't make a point.

Confrontation is not saying "the emperor has no clothes". What is wrong that people can't word their responses with diplomacy and care?

Has the world of reality television sniping attitudes make people think that due to a somewhat anonymity of the Internet that they can let their manners go to the wayside?

I see many defensive and negative people--more than when I was here in the fall.

I believe my doctor, who has my blood work, and actually has a degree in medicine is better qualified to judge my health. I might have let this go, as I have in other situations, but this is too much.

If "I" want to say she's an idiot, that's my perogative, and I'd better remove myself from her patient list.

Temper your words at all costs in this world.

for those of you who were questioning kimmer's right to make money using other people's research etc....she posted about her right to do so on page 2 of this thread below...i guess she found a legal loophole to do what she's doing

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthre...85&page=2&pp=15

Since the poster in question has a link to her (absolutely wonderful) blog, which contains her full name and picture, I hardly think the "anonymity of the Internet" is at play here.

Sorry, you misunderstood. I wasn't JUST referring to this exchange. I've noticed it every where.

If my words caused you discomfort, I apologize. It's one of those days that things "get" to you, if you know what I mean.

I didn't call *you* an idiot - just your doctor, and as snarky as it may seem, I stand by my words....at your weight 1000-calories a day is dangerously low as is does not meet basal metabolic requirements and will also be deficient for essential nutrients, even with very careful planning.

If your doctor is advocating you follow a 1000-calorie a day diet, she's wrong and IMO doing you a disservice - you pay for good medical advice and 1000-calories a day at your weight (and I've been there done that) is insufficient to meet your metabolic requirements. If she's of the belief it's all about calories - she's wrong - there is a helluva lot more than calories involved.....ask her, exactly how does she expect you'll meet your requirements for, oh, choline? biotin? chrominum? etc. on 1000-calories a day. Ask her for a menu that meets all your individual requirements.....!

If she can't - ask why!

1) I've worked in the medical field for many years, a goodly number of doctors are arrogant idiots.
2) If I had to make a choice between Regina and most of the doctors I know on nutritional advice, I would pick Regina.
3) Kimkins is nutritionally unsafe long term, denying it is putting your head in the sand.

Are you a doctor? I know that most doctors don't believe in each others. It happened that there are many doctors among my relatives and none of them believes in Atkins diet or can even see how any other doctor can? When I meet any of them, I talk about anything but my diet! Even my personal doctor, despite that my health is doing great, he always lectures me against Atkins diet.

Unfortunately, what most doctors call an evidence does not teach me much. There is always a study which proves something and another study which proves exactly the opposite. I depend on my own experience and common sense. Now let me add some comments to each of the 3 paragraphs of my last post:

(1) Theoritically, when we eat less, we should expect our bodies to get all the missing calories from our energy stores and feel us normal. What do we get by storing energy, if we cannot use it back when we need it?

(2) Practically, under normal conditions when we reduce calories we feel hungry and dizzy. I have had about 6 low calorie diets in the past, so I know that very well. My explanation which is normally not the kind of explanation people in the medical field like, is the only one which makes sense to me.

(3) Concerning how our bodies react to carb intakes in the range of zero to 40 carbs. I have experimented this on myself about 6 months ago and actually displayed the results in one of my posts here. Unfortunately it is hard to find that post now. It was made of a table which shows different carb intake amounts and the resulting calories from food eaten each day.

The table showed that 10 net carbs have made me eat near 1000 calories while 40 carbs made me eat 2000. I have been eating untill I'm full and did not feel like not getting enough energy at any carb or calorie intake amount.

Medical doctor? No; and I think my lack of an alphabet-soup following my name is to my advantage - it's allowed me to approach the data from a perspective of curiosity and development of understanding rather than "think" I know what I was taught in med school. And, guess what, the entire biologicial reason why a low-carbohydrate diet works is right there in the anatomy & physiology textbooks medical doctors read in medical school. It's almost as if medical school later makes them disregard what they learned earlier!

When I've presented to physicians and other healthcare professionals (yes, I've been invited to present at various conferences and seminars over the years, despite my lack of formal medical training), the first thing I do is provide each attendee with a textbook, instruct them to open to the page I'd like them to, and take them through the basics once again. I make it a joke, a game, and it sets the stage for the next set of data I present.....the approach I use lays the groundwork to open up the possibility for "getting it" as I continue....

With the hard data from studies, masked to not identify which diet was which for the conclusions.....and I let them decide which one worked better for human metabolism, risk factor improvements and weight.....then I move to present side-by-side menus of each diet, and most agree that both look good, despite the fact one is absent grains. The clincher is the nutrient profile of each - when I show how miserable the low-fat diet is for essential nutrients, compared with the high nutrient density of the low-carb diet (they still don't see which is which explicitly, although they know what the topic is), it's the logical next step to want to know why it's better....which takes me back to the textbook to go step-by-step through substrate utilization in glucose and fat metabolism, and which essential nutrients are required along the way....and what a deficiency leads to in the metabolic works in the short term and long term.

I've used this approach with physicians, nurses, CDE's, school teachers, and others - and it always works....not because I'm an expert, not because I'm special - but because it makes them look at what they already know!

Are there still naysayers? Of course, but each time I present and capture one or two or three in the audience, it builds understanding outside the paradigm dogma and makes them start to question what they think they "know" about diet and health; and even the naysayers are left with a more positive understanding of the biological basis of carbohydrate restriction.

That said, my question to you was "Your evidence to support this?" to the contention that somehow 1000-calories on a low-carb diet is physiologically different than 1000-calories on a low-fat diet.

While you want to use anecdotal experience/evidence as your basis, that's fine for an "n of 1" - but what about across a population? What exactly is one risking if they take your anecdotal experience and put it into action?

We have data that finds chronic nutrient deficiency leads to chaos in the endocrine system and central nervous system (the two are intimately dependent on each other); 1000-calories each day, for an average person, is simply not enough calories to provide enough food-based essential nutrients (vitamins, mineral, trace elements, fatty acids and amino acids).

We have good data the body will adapt and work with what it does for a short-period and a semi-extended period of time (months). We have good data that even over true extended periods, the body will adapt and work with what it has - but over longer and longer periods, begins to fail, first in small subtle ways and then in a cascade....such data isn't in weight loss trials, but in studies of eating disorders, malnutrition, stunting in children, starvation studies conducted by the military, etc.

Which is why I wish researchers would cross-talk more and open up access more to various journals - the data to really begin to connect the dots isn't accessible easily, and I think it should be! I've spent countless dollars having to pay for access to hundreds of journals to write my dissertation, and the data is there - it just needs to be connected to make sense on the whole.

So, then, you said


Our stored energy is definitely there for use - and over short periods, a severe calorie restriction will not result in long-term damage to the system (metabolism); however, over a longer period of time, as the calorie restriction remains chronic and constant, the body begins to make compromises - compromises that can and will have a detrimental effect on long-term health if continued for a prolonged period of time; and more specifically when chronic essential nutrient deficiency is also present.



Don't take this the wrong way, but an additional 20g of carbohydrate results in an additional absolute 80-calories more, not 1000 calories more.....your CHOICES increased your calorie load, not the carbohydrate per se.

If you're consuming just 1000-calories a day, I truly hope you're careful with your planning and are ensuring adequate intake of essential nutrients.....it's next to impossible at the level of calories, and I worry that at some point when you do increase your calories, you'll see what I'm talking about when your metabolism reacts to reverse the condition of famine you've created in an effort to maintain weight.

"ReginaW said: We have data that finds chronic nutrient deficiency leads to chaos in the endocrine system and central nervous system (the two are intimately dependent on each other); 1000-calories each day, for an average person, is simply not enough calories to provide enough food-based essential nutrients (vitamins, mineral, trace elements, fatty acids and amino acids)."

I just want to ask how you feel if supplements are given, the person on such diet has metabolism of next to nothing due to medication, and must lose weight to save his/her life?

Just asking. I really do want to know.

After many years (six) of suggesting folks take supplements, I've realized they can not offer the same nutritional benefit as nutrients coming from real food each day; that's because no multivitamin or nutrient-specific supplement offers the broad spectrum of unknown co-factors our metabolism uses in the process of utilizing essential nutrients. That doesn't mean I now say don't take a good multi-vitamin, fish oil (omega-3), or other supplements to overcome deficiencies or prevent deficiency. My perspective now is to first ensure you're meeting requirements with food (very doable with carbohydrate restriction) and use the supplements as your safety net, not your primary source for meeting nutrient requirements.

Previous/ongoing use of prescriptions drugs can definitely impair metabolic function and inhibit the processes required for weight loss and maintenance. If I were workign with you personally (and yes, I do work with folks referred to me by their physician, *chuckle* quack that I am), I'd first ask your doctor to do a full panel on you - CBC and nutrient assays, to see if you're running at a deficiency for major nutrients like vitamin D, C, etc., and to see ferritin, calcium, potassium, etc. These days I take a much more targeted approach with supplements, rather than a shot-gun hope this works appraoch.

If you're deficit, we'd work together to plan out how to use food and supplements to heal the deficiencies and provide adequate nutrients for all your other requirements. That would be based upon your specific tastes, cooking habits, shopping habits and foods you don't like/do like. I'd help you learn how to plan a nutrient dense menu and for a few weeks work with you to do it.

Id' specifically increase your calorie load for one thing; and yes, you'll gain some weight for a week or two as your body recovers from the severe calorie restriction - that's expected! - and then we'd tweak your menus and eating so you lose weight again and are doing it in a nutritionally-dense manner. You'd get labs with your physician regularly to see if it's helping and improving any deficiencies identified and where needed, tweaked again.

I've been doing this for a long time now and I have to say, I've yet to find somene who only can eat 1000-calories a day, or who can for the long haul. That level, unless you're 4' 10" is simply insufficient for metabolic processes and essential nutrients.....at some point, something's gotta give and it's your health. At some point the body simply makes compromises that over time are detrimental, but keep you alive.....our primal brain works for two things - survival and reproduction - it doesn't know anything else.....and a constant, chronic state of malnutrition will compensate to do whatever it takes to keep you alive as long as possible. But at some point, without adequate levels of everything it needs, it will fail.

You see... I have heart failure. I'm on drugs that slow my heart rate and therefore it's imperative that I lose fairly fast.

I've had the advice of nephrologist, cardiologist and dietician along with my GP. I take Shaklee supplements, not synthetic frankenvitamins.

Compared to eating a high-sodium, chemical-enhanced diet that I did when I couldn't figure out what was making me cough persistently (duh... chf), this is perfect for me.

Unfortunately, though, most dieters do not have the benefit of a team of physicians as I have (or Canadian healthcare that makes it budget easy), to monitor health constantly. So many people look at self cures and CAN end up in a mess.

My doctor (nephrologist) lectures around the world, and he said that unfortunately, this was the only way to get to a safe weight.

I will not, of course, stay at 1000 calories for the rest of my life. The benefits, as my doctor says, are greater than the risks at this point.

I cannot, and wouldn't dream of, speaking for anyone else's situation. But I will ensure that I eat a balanced diet and include natural supplements forever.

Thank you for your response.

Thanks for the additional information, which if it had been part of your earlier reply may have tempered my response a bit. I reacted to what you said "My doctor has always suggested a 1000 calorie diet for me." which implied that the 1000-calorie limit was not something new, or specifically for your given medical condition, which has a different urgency than somone who is just way too heavy and needs to lose weight.

no worries... i actually don't like to lug that info around too much. They tried WW thing--low fat (ew)--and then DASH diet (I fainted constantly), but I have a feeling I have PCOS (fun wow)... you know... years ago they put me on Paxil; another metabolic squasher, so I've finally got the key to get my weight down I'm a bit touchy. (side note: I'm no longer on Paxil as they found the breathing problem was my heart... not anxiety or asthma... how nice--75 pounds later). sigh.