Hi,

Just snooping around, seeking info on this particular diet plan. Please share why you like it and why you feel its the best choice if one is seeking a low-carb diet plan.

Crista-I spent two years doing Atkins and never accomplished anything but developing a bad habit of alternating Induction with all-out binges. I never used to binge before Atkins. I just couldn't maintain the low level of induction carbs. It caused me to feel terrible moody, unbalanced, and eventually I would give in, gain the 5 or so lbs I had lost, and start all over again. Why it took me 2 years to realize that I wasn't getting anywhere is beyond me, but it finally clicked. Atkins wasn't doing it for me, and I wasn't stuck eating that way, as I thought I was. So I turned to Protein Power. There's only minor differences between the plans, but the biggest one for me was to focus on protein. On Atkins, so many people would say that excess protein would cause you to gain weight, so I would keep the protein under 100g per day and up the fat. Fat does NOT make me feel full, although it does seem to satisfy some people. I could eat cream cheese and macadamia nuts until the cows came home and never stop. I also realized that I feel ENORMOUSLY better eating a minimum of 100g of protein per day. I have often eating up to 150g and average around 115g. I feel much more stable this way. I also felt significantly better when I upped my carbs to 60g per day, but eating things like pistachios, cottage cheese, yogurt, lots of fruit. I tried to keep to leaner choices of meat to keep the calories down and the protein up. That was the key. The weight started peeling off, and 20 lbs are now gone. Not only that, but no binges in more than a year now. It's an incredible feeling. I've been maintaining under 150 lbs now for more than 6 months. I frequently eat whole grains now, in moderation of course, and even have had some not so low-carb indulgences, which I have been able to jump back from right away. Now, some people on Protein Power eat a much higher percentage of fat than I did, but the key is to eat adequate protein. It is a very flexible plan, and can be modified to fit just about any lifestyle. If you eat 3 times per day, fine. If you eat 6 times, no problem. If you want a little alcohol, go ahead, just factor it into your daily carbs.

Just out of curiosity, how is South Beach working for you? You seem to be very close to goal, so are you looking for a maintenance plan?

Thanks for your response. You gave me some very helpful info. South Beach has worked great for me, however I wanted to research other healthy lifestyle choices. This struck me as a good place to start. There seems to be quite a few people who follow this plan.

WendyOH is so right, i feel here pain on the atkins diet, i have never been able to shake the damn ketosis effect of the low carb diet. And feel a lot better doing the protein diet and a bit of the alkaline diet too, meaning that i try to eat foods that dont produce acid in the body.

I feel a lot better. I dont beleive in eating bacon and red meat and all the big saturated fat foods.

My fat source come from very small amount of cheese, flax oil 2 table spoon a day, olive oil and almonds.

Protein comes from whey, chicken and almonds.

Realdeal-I have never heard of the alkaline diet before. Is there a place that I could find out more information about it? I am always up for some new reading regarding nutritional philosophy. Thanks!

Wendy, there is a book called "Foods that Heal", sorry I don't know the author. It goes into this alot and what foods to eat and avoid. My DD's body was very acidic when she was a baby, I used these pinciples to balance her out. If she drank orange juice her urine would turn so acidic it burned her skin. I am thinking about getting a copy of the book for myself.

I like PP simply because it seems to make the most sense and have the fewest (in my opinion, anyway) gimmicks.

All low-carb plans are simply variations on a theme. You just need to find the one that you can live with.

Also, I think there are very few people who do any plan right by the book without tweaking it to their own preferences, which is why I find it amusing when people firmly declare they do Atkins, for example, except that they eat this or that.

Mind if I ask what "the ketosis effect" is? Do you not stay in ketosis on PP? Just curious.

I used to do CKD, and on weekends i carbed up, one time i decided to get into ketosis and stayed there for a two weeks, each day i felt dizzy, foggy, not able to concentrate.

This is why the plan i do right now is great cause i keep it low carb and dont go into ketosis. Plus it was proven that ketosis isnt needed to lose bodyfat

I've been following PP for five years. What attracted me initially was the quality of the Eades' scientific explanations. It's much easier for me to follow a regimen if I know exactly what it's going to do for me and how it works. The Eades fulfilled that need. The focus an adequate protein and limiting carbs to what allows me to maintain my weight has proved very helpful.

The Eades focus on insulin resistance, not on being overweight. Control the insulin resistance and everything else falls into place. The other plans are not so clear on this. The Eades have helped me to understand exactly what is going wrong in the current national obesity discussion.

I feel that I should put in my five cents. The greatest conviction for PP comes while reading the whole book of Protein Power. I agree, the Eades have a way of explaning convincingly. The second book "Protein Power Lifeplan" which I just read recently, serve to re-enforce what the Eades have said in the first book, plus more. They tell us what to avoid and why. They point the way to a healthy acheivable nutritious lifestyle that anyone can do. Again, one should start by reading those two books

Amen to both ceberezin and Bigshot!

I'll pretty much echo what everyone else says. Here's what I love about Protein Power:

- I like the Eadeses' writing style, especially for PPLP. There's no gimmicky-ness, as Bawdywench mentioned. If it's getting too technical for you, you can jump ahead to the "bottom line" at the end of the chapter. There's enough humour and cool factoids that it kept me interested in the entire book.

- I like how the plan is inherently flexible - you have lots of choices. You can have aspartame, grains, legumes, higher carb foods... but you're left to make the decision based on what info they present you. They emphasize that although some choices are better than others, the important thing is that you're getting proper nutrition *and* enjoying the plan enough that you're happy with it and stick to it.

- The three levels of "strictness" in the plan: (1) Hedonist, which is pretty loose. You get maximum benefit with lowest effort. (2) Dilettante, which is middle-of-the-road. (3) Purist, which includes going grain-free, dairy-free, and organic.

- Their kitchen chapter at the end of PPLP is great. They give you a pantry list and a nice fats reference: which ones are good for cooking, supplementing, etc. In lieu of recipes, they discuss cooking techniques that really got me off on the right foot as far as learning to cook goes. (And I needed to learn: I didn't even know how to boil eggs when I started out! )

Carb flu goes away eventually, it usually lasts 7-14 days. If you're going on/off induction all the time, no wonder you felt lousy! You're giving yourself carb-flu over and over!

But Atkins does have a means for people that can't survive the uncomfortableness of the first couple of weeks, basically you just gradually cut down on carbs. And you don't have to stay on induction for more than 2 weeks. So many people do, but for me it didn't really help at all. Adding back more carbs (i.e. moving to OWL) in the form of veggies and a little fruit has been good.

Basically I think all these diets have more in common than differences. I've been very happy with my result on Atkins of 35 pounds lost, normal BP and good cholesterol readings.

I tried CAD during the early 90's and didn't have any success with it. Basically because the Reward Meal became... all the crap you can eat in one hour! To me their diet seemed a little too gimicky. If I'm carb intolerant, I'm going to be carb intolerant for that one hour too, I doubt I can sneak them past my insulin producing system...