good vs bad -- DietLowCarb.com

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Date Posted: 09:06:30 09/14/02 Sat
Author: Sherry
Subject: good vs bad
In reply to: Bobbi Broeniman 's message, "Need Support!" on 05:05:13 09/14/02 Sat

Well we've all heard negatives about low carb dieting. Most of us here have EXPERIENCED only positives from low carb dieting. You can go by what you hear or you can go by what you know. For me, I prefer to go by what I know.

Of course, in your case, you really don't know, YET! So you have two choices. You can listen to what some people would tell you, (people who have a stake in promoting old fables because they make money off those carbs they are urging you to eat) or you can try it for yourself and make up your own mind.

Now your meal last night made you feel unhealthy. That, by the way, was your own body trying to tell you something. Mine does that to me too whenever I abuse it like that.

So what have you heard about low carbing that worries you? Perhaps we need to dispell the myths first. You have probably heard that all that "fat" you might be eating on low carb is "bad" for you. Right? Alright, let's dispell this one first.

On this diet you don't HAVE to eat high fat. How much fat you eat is up to you. However high fat in the absence of high carb is not really as unhealthy as we have all been led to believe. Most people who worry about high fat diets are doing so because they are concerned about cholesterol and heart disease. Most of us here have experienced improved cholesterol levels on low carb. But even beyond that, I find that without things like fried chicken with the breaded skins, french fries, sour cream and butter on baked potatoes, and the other carbs that fat tastes good with, I'm actually eating LESS fat than I was before, because I am avoiding the carbs that fat goes well with.

I do occasionally have some butter on my veggys, but bread and butter, potatoes and butter or grease, things like that are no longer a part of my diet so I'm probably eating LESS fat than I was before.

What IS unhealthy is all the sugar this nation consumes. Atkins mentioned that 100 years ago the average person consumed maybe 10 pounds of sugar per year. I can't remember the number he said we are eating now, but I think it was 30 or 40 or higher and growing all the time. As a result diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, hypoglycemia, clogged arteries and many other diseases have become rampant. Things that our ancestors never worried about and they ate things like LARD with their food.

What else have you heard? Maybe that high protein is hard on your kidneys. Well high protein is GREAT on your muscles. Most diets cause you to lose muscle along with your fat, and then when you go back off the diet you gain extra fat because you no longer have the muscle there to help burn off the calories that you are eating. Protein spares muscle. Helps to build muscle even as you are losing fat. No more yo yo dieting necessary. How about the "it's bad on your kidneys" argument? If you have kidney problems already, extra protein might be hard on you. If you don't, there is no evidence that it will CAUSE problems.

You may have also heard "all you lose is water and if you go off the diet you gain it all back". The "all you lose is water" is partly true and partly totally UNTRUE. You do lose a lot of water particularly at the beginning. But you also lose a lot of fat. If you go off the diet, you will immediately gain back the water you have lost, but the fat will be a little slower coming back on. MOST diets have you lose water at the beginning. Carbs are like sponges and they hang on to water in your body, so when you cut the carbs, you will lose a lot of water. That is why you are urged to drink a lot of water on this diet (which is good for you to do anyway).

Will you "gain it all back"? Yes. If you go and try any diet, any diet at all, and you then go back to your former bad eating habits you will eventually gain it all back. Sounds logical doesn't it? On the other hand this diet we call a "Way of Life" because we recognize that it has to become a permanent pattern for us for the rest of our lives if we want to take the weight off and keep it off. The really GOOD thing about this diet as opposed to most others is that you CAN eat this way for the rest of your life with no ill effects.

What we eat are Meats, eggs, fish, cheese, poultry, and vegetables. At higher levels of the diet we add back in some low glycemic fruits and sometimes whole grain breads. Eating "clean" as the weightlifters call it. What could be more healthy than those things? Certainly not all the junk that most people call food these days.

The foods we eat are whole, natural and they don't have a long shelf life so we wind up shopping a little more often, but once you start eating this way you don't really LIKE a lot of "junk food" anymore. It just doesn't taste like food should taste anymore. I (for instance) have gotten to where I hate going to a fast food restaurant, the food just doesn't taste like quality food anymore.

Now if you want to try it, you should buy one or two of the low carb books that are out there and read them. I suggest reading "Dr Atkin's New Diet Revolution" for the diet, and reading "Protein Power" for the information.

Atkins is the easiest to follow in my opinion, but Protein Power is so full of science, explanations of how our bodies work, studies on primitive man and how they ate and their health as a result, etc, that I think you should read it just to be well informed about what you are doing.

Only by reading and convincing yourself that this is worth a try can you really commit to doing it. Atkins has you commit for 2 weeks at the beginning. I think that is a good time frame. It gets you through the worst of your "sugar withdrawals" and gets you started dropping weight quickly.

Now that two week period can be rough on some people. Do yourself a favor and drink lots of water, take a good multivitamin and mineral supplement, particularly taking care to take some calcium, magnesium and potassium. People lose a lot of water really fast on this diet and along with the water washing away you lose potassium particularly, so for a few days at least you should supplement your potassium. If you don't, you may have funny symptoms in your muscles.

Usually people feel kinda lousy for the first few days as their bodies are changing over from burning lots of carbs to burning their own fat, we call this "withdrawal" symptoms. You may feel like you have the flu for a few days or some other unpleasant feelings. IT DOES PASS. When your body has gotten used to burning ketones rather than carbs, you will feel a rush of energy and well being. And your fat will just start melting off.

That was the one thing that I LOVED when I first was doing this diet, I started at a really HIGH weight (282) and I had these ugly ROLLS of fat on my back. I remember reaching around and feeling these rolls just disappearing and going away. You can't imagine how wonderful that felt.

You may need to take a fiber supplement for awhile, without the carbs you lose some fiber, and that can make your stool harder and denser. You can become constipated so make sure you use some psyllium husks or some other fiber laxative for awhile to keep yourself regular (if necessary, it isn't a problem for everyone).

So you are right, there are negatives and there are positives about this way of eating. You can decide whether it is worth continuing being fat, or whether you would rather give this a good solid try and experience the negatives and positives yourself.

We'll be here to support you, but only YOU can make the decision to do it.

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Replies:

Thanks, Sherry -- Bobbi, 13:00:38 09/14/02 Sat