Well done Karen! Too bad they stuck the article in the middle of another about a Chilean restaurant!!!! Took me a while to find it.
Here's a scan of it, and thanks for the plug!
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Nixing pasta and pushing protein helped this chef battle the bulge
I started packing on the pounds in my mid20s after discovering the joys of Italian food. All that pasta, risotto, polenta, and Amarone got me started on the road to ruin. Being a chef and cookbook author sent me even further down that road.
At the end of 1998, I was through with low energy, late-afternoon mood swings, and being fat. Like many others,I jumped on the low-fat bandwagon and ate lots of Scottish oatmeal with skim milk, and bowls of brown rice with tuna, vegetables, and lemon juice. And, horror of gakky horrors, nonfat lattes! After the bowls of complex carbohydrates, I would be literally banging my head against the wall with insane cravings for dessert, so I ate loads of chocolate sorbet before falling into bed in a sugar coma. What was going on? After 10 months I had lost 10 pounds and figuratively wanted to kill myself out of frustration. My mood had not improved either. Little did I realize that I was eating more carbohydrates than I ever had before, and that was a big clue to solving the problem.
Miraculously, the book Protein Power by Michael and Mary Eades fell into my hands. I had the answer. I was a sugar junkie. Briefly, this is the way it works. Insulin carries glucose to your cells to be used as fuel. Some of it gets converted to glycogen and is stored in the muscles and liver. What is left over gets turned into fat. The fatter you get, the less responsive to insulin your cells become. The more carbohydrates you eat, the more insulin is produced, creating insulin resistance. Lots of glucose remains in your blood, turning into more fat. This is where sugar addiction sets in: your cells aren't getting the fuel they need and the excess insulin drives your blood sugar below normal range, so you eat more carbohydrates.
The Protein Power plan was one I could live with for the rest of my life. I could eat all of my favourite things and eat them until satisfied. Bread, potatoes, and pasta were the easiest to let go of. But sweets? For a sugar junkie like me, one cookie is too many and a thousand are never enough. Now I feel so good without sugar that the short-term pleasure it provides is never worth it.
Oh my God, give up bread and pasta! What on earth do you eat? Well, I eat the same way I ate before, except I keep my carbohydrates way low. I can eat asparagus with truffledgoat-cheese sabayOfl and roasted lamb, or a grilled portobello mushroom on a heap 0' romaine lettuce with chunky Gorgonzola dressing and a nice, juicy rib-eye steak. Last week I had salmon cooked in goose fat. Oh bliss! Of course, I don't eat this way every day. It's usually salad, meat, water, water, fish, vegetables, eggs, spinach, meat, water.
My blood pressure is down and my cholesterol levels are coming into balance. I've also lost 60 pounds of fat. Cool, eh? My new regimen has had great side benefits. Two weeks after I started, the pain in my knees went away, my skin cleared up, my nasal passages opened, and my energy level soared. I was not hungry and my sugar cravings subsided.
If you want to switch to this way of eating, you must absolutely buy a book to know how to do it properly. Protein Power and Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution are excellent places to start. If you're not willing to put in the time to arm yourself with information, you will fail and be miserable. Believe me. This is not a diet, it's a way of life. The first couple of days will be the worst as you decarb yourself. You will have intense cravings and you may develop flulike symptoms: headache, nausea, and low energy. These clear up quickly and will be replaced by a burst of energy.
Join a news group. I recommend lowcarb.ca/. The Web site has loads of information besides " the discussion forum. I even have my own little recipe corner there. Some of us Vancouver members like to get together for coffee or dinner occasionally where we can talk of low-carb matters with other lowcarbers.
Be creative in cooking and food choices. Lowcarbing does not equal boring, If you like East Indian, Japanese, or Chinese, you will still have great things to cook, eat, and enjoy. There are naysayers to this way of eating, but I'm so happy to have kicked the sugar demon that I don't care if my kidneys fall out (an urban legend anyway). And besides, I can eat all the foie gras I want.
KAREN BARNABY
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