In reply to a question by LOOPS in the War Zone...

This is the Anchell "Steak Lovers'" diet in a nutshell.

1. Two or three meals a day, as desired.

2. All the meat you like at each meal, as long as it doesn't contain hidden carbs (i.e., meat extenders, dextrose from "curing", etc.).

3. One "ordinary portion" of exactly one of the following foods: potato, sweet potato, rice, grapes, pear, banana, blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, grapefruit. An "ordinary portion" would be, for example, a half grapefruit, a medium-sized banana or spud or sweet potato or pear; about 3/4 cup of berriess, cooked rice, or grapes; a slice of watermelon about the size of his book (an ordinary trade book, not particularly thick). That's it. No other "foods" are allowed.

4. Spices are okay, including mustard, hot sauce, etc.

5. Limited amounts of alcohol in the form of spirits (no beer or wine or sweetened liqueur) is allowed.

6. No artificially sweetened drinks.

7. Black coffee or plain tea are allowed. No milk, cream or sweeteners.

[Edit] 8. You can use any oil you like, including butter. And he allows mayo, if it has no sugar (some do).
That's it. If it's not on the list you can't have it.

I never "recommend" this diet to anyone, for the simple reason that I don't understand it. Anchell doesn't either, really. He presents a theory in the book, that the cause of obesity is circulating pyruvic acid, which interferes with lipolysis. This theory, and the diet itself, are based on clinical studies in the 1950s by Pennington, with a population of overweight DuPont executives. Atkins mentions these studies, I believe. The idea is that these non-meat foods are "low pyruvic acid formers." Well, that's what it says, but I have no idea why this should be so, since as far as I know *all* carbs are pyruvic acid formers. When I corresponded with Anchell briefly, I asked him if he had any idea why these foods, and not others, should work. He cheerfully admitted that he didn't, but simply repeated that in decades of using the diet with patients in his medical practice he found that deviations from it worked less well. Anchell was a general practitioner and psychiatrist at various times, not a bariatrician, but often patients had weight problems, and he prescribed this diet. He also has followed it himself since not long after it was published in NEJM.

I tried it just as an experiment. I was astonished. I lost 12 pounds the first week, and please note that this was after I had been doing various low-carb plans for over a year. Granted, much of that had to have been water, but who could've imagined I'd hold that much water ever after low-carbing? I lost 8 pounds the second week, and then settled into a steady rate of losing 2 pounds per week. When I tried all-meat, my weight loss was decent, but not as dramatic or steady. I have no idea why.

I know that not everyone gets the kind of effect from this diet that I got. But for anyone interested in something a bit different, it's worth a try. The daily carb content for me was probably 50-60g.