I was watching the Today Show today. Did anyone else see it? They had a guy on there discussing the low carb WOE.

Anyway he was discussing all the diet wars lately and that everyone should just agree to disagree sort of. He said that its important to cut out all the refined sugar bad carbs but to also eat the good carbs such as fruit, veggies, and whole grains.

He said that its also important to cut out the red meat and limit your calories. He said you will lose more weight this way. The longer I do Atkins the more I am leaning towards a low carb lifestyle instead of an Atkins lifestyle per say.

What are everyones feelings on this subject? Do you feel the Atkins WOE is better or just plain "low carb". I am really thinking about doing another clean induction and then slowly introducing fruits and grains but staying completely away from the refined sugar. Anyone care to join this challenge?

Sugarfreak

That would be Ornish; If you want to look and act like him, feel free. His spiel is not only wrong, but is not supported by any unrigged, or nonpolitical, double blind studies.

whats funny is that he actually pretty much agrees with the Atkins plan minus the red meat. And the Atkins people are backing off the idea of eating so much red meat anyway. So are you saying Atkins was a quack also?

Why would eating low carb but with some healthy fruit and grains be bad for you? Makes sense to me. It obviously made sense to Atkins too because he wrote about adding those things in your diet in DANDR.

I respectfully disagree with the idea that the guy (Ornish) and Atkins agree on anything -- except eating more veggies. Ornish is a fanatic who would have us eat no fat at all, versus Atkins who created a realtively high fat diet.

There's an article from Time Magazine posted here which was similar to this interview.

Dr Ornish appears to have lost a large chunk of his following and is probably commenting on LC just as a publicity schpeel. He continues to parrot the old myth that if you eat protein and carbs instead of fat, you'll lose weight because they have fewer calories. Yeah, right. Been there, done that, ate the T shirt when I was hungry an hour later (it was high in fiber and low in fat.)

Wrong. Atkins Nutritionals made the comment about cutting back on red meat, then backed off. Probably to pacify tehh LF followers.
Dr Atkins himself NEVER said that. He knew red meat was healthy and grains weren't.

Where did Atkins say grains were BAD? If they were, he would never have said to add them back slowly in later OWL or pre-maintenance...

I think you may be referring to a report a while back that claimed that Colleen Heimowitz from Atkins Nutritionals is endorsing limting saturated fat. In fact, that was a misquote (retractions were later published by the original source) and The Atkins website sets the record straight here: http://atkins.com/Archive/2004/1/20-407355.html



Maybe I missed something, but that sounds almost exactly what is recommended in DANDR. The rate at which those foods are re-introduced during OWL, pre-maintainence and maintainence is up to the individual and depends on their individual tolerance for such foods, but nowhere in Dr. Atkins' books does it advise restricting fruit and whole grains forever unless you find that you have an intolerance for them.

I saw him, and heard him. Quack, quack!

Let me rephrase that. I meant refined processed grains, or the amount of grains that Ornish pushes are bad.

The great thing about Atkins is that it is a diet which encourages customazation.

I've modified my plan a little bit to give more of a spotlight for calorie control (which means using reduced fat products). Cutting calories from fats a little bit allows me to eat a bit more fruit and things like that. It works for me.

Ornish is just as fanatic as Atkins (on opposite ends)
His plan does work for some people, and I think improves some heart patients. Low cal/low fat does work for quite a few people. Low carb just works better for the rest of us.

Having said that how on Earth could one follow such a low fat plan and stay sane!

They can't;look at Ornish.

Refined processed grains are bad because they have gone through so much processing that they break down in the body much too quickly causing insulin reactions which end up causing low blood sugar, which leads to a never-ending cycle of eating carbs to try to keep blood sugars in control, when cutting out the refined carbs does the trick perfectly. Example: Have a bowl of cereal with milk, a piece of toast and fruit for breakfast (like the 'healthy' breakfast pictured on nearly every cereal box in America) IF you can gag that many carbs down in one meal. Within two hours you're so hungry you can't see straight, have the shakes and feel nearly like passing out. Or have a couple of eggs, maybe made into an omelette with veggies and cheese, and perhaps a piece of whole-grain toast on the side and see how long your body runs on that--likely as not, it'll make it until almost noon before you start feeling hungry, and you honestly feel hungry with no shakes or passing out.

Another real problem I see with processed flours is that almost everything made with them also contains processed sugar and trans-fats.

This is consistent with the glycemic index concept... something that has become mainstream.


Depends on the individual; some are more sensitive to it than others. I often have Cheerios with fruit for breakfast, but not toast at the same time. I can make it to lunch no problem, though I've trained my body to eat a midmorning snack. I also enjoy the veggie omelette w/cheese & whole grain toast option, but time constraints force me to limit it to weekends.