"Diet" rant

[kellinator]

Last night I was getting a trash dose from Dateline NBC (I don't care how many journalistic awards it gets, it's still trash) and this reporter who had lost fifty pounds on the Atkins diet was doing a report on diets.

There was a segment where Dr. Dean Ornish chastised the reporter and told him he was killing himself and he must switch to his diet pronto. When said reporter looked at the guide and said "I can't live on this!" Ornish replied "Of course you can!", which shows how out of touch he is with the average American. Sure you can live on greens and tofu, and a few of us even like it, but I fail to see the point if you make your life miserable in the process.

I can't decide who's worse, Dr. Atkins with his scary ketosis-inducing diet, or Dr. Ornish with his condescending, holier-and-healthier-than-thou attitude. Actually, worst of all is that bastard doctor I went to last month who combined the worst aspects of both, telling me I could never eat anything I liked without actually telling me what I could eat.

So...

[Poll #47208]

Comments

[dslartoo.livejournal.com]

Never heard of Ornish, but he has to be worse because Atkins has actually helped people. My mother lost a fair amount of weight on the Atkins diet, for example.

And a holier-than-thou attitude always gets you black marks in my book.

cheers,
Phil

[meemeedarling.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about either to comment on who is worse, but they both sound pretty crap from what I have read in your post.
My brother has lost 12 pounds in the past month by drinking 8 glasses of water a day or more, only a coffee here or there for a treat. I figure that seems fairly easy, so I am trying it now. Of course, I am being half-assed about it and having one cup o' coffee each morning, and I did have one cocktail last night, but aside from that, just water.
What sucks is, water doesn't taste like sugar. hrmph!

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I bought a lot of fruit-flavored no-calorie water at the grocery, which helps. It fulfills both my craving for sweets and my oral fixation.

[meemeedarling.livejournal.com]

If I didn't have a mad crazy oral fixation, I would be a fine girl..
I have to have something in my mouth or for my hands to play with all the time, hence smoking and lollypops galore!
However, I went to the grocery shop last night and bought apples, cause apples are sweet and make festive noises when you crunch into them; so that is what I will eat on right now, since I can't light up at my desk, and talking about it makes me wanna..

My hands need slapped with a ruler.

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

Something that I've found that fills this need is the baby carrots.
They have a nice crunch and aren't overly fattening. Much better for me than chips or cracklin' oat bran.
I go through a five pound bag in a little less than a week...

[meemeedarling.livejournal.com]

You must be the healthiest boy in the world for eating that many carrots!
You're right, baby carrots are indeed yum.. I should get some to bring into work with me.. Thanks for the tip, I sometime forget the things that are right under my nose..

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

you know, there's a really great book by Jean Wardell called Thin Within and it's not a diet, but it does have a sort of program you can follow for about a month to re-train yourself to simply modify how you eat. the premise is that if you wait until your stomach is physically hungry, you stop and figure out what your body is craving, you pay attention to your food and ENJOY it, and you stop when you *aren't* hungry (i.e. you stop eating before you're "full" or bloated feeling), you'll find you eat much less and your body likes you more and you lose the weight you need to lose.

i haven't actually followed the day-by-day program, but this is basically the change that i went through, along with just practicing common sense and getting physical activity. it works. i do NOT agree with deprivation of any kind. that's bullshit. basically if you take care of your body and mind, they take care of you.

*ending rant*
(can't vote because i think they're both full of SHIT.)

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Do you have a copy? I'd like to borrow it sometime.

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

that sounds like what i did without even thinking about it to get myself down to fightin' weight a few years ago -- and i'm already doing it again. good!! means it'll work. =)

[ilexx.livejournal.com]

(way to go with my mad phat html skillz - all italics = pretty!)

i wanted to add, based on the above premise, you'd be AMAZED at how little food your body actually needs to function and feel satisfied and healthy, in comparison to the huge quantities we are used to.

[buckthorn.livejournal.com]

(found you via an idle search on LJSingles per another friend's link)

My wife (hense, idle search) is on Adkins right now, she's having a rough go of it. She misses pasta, rice, Mexican food, Cheddar Bay Biscuits at Red Lobster, breadsticks at Olive Garden... etc etc etc. Anyways, I know ppl for whom Adkins has worked really well so I'm hoping it will help her out too. Something seems to be starting to work but it's slow and not easy. If ya don't mind, visit "leahpet" and say hi (and one day I'll figure out how to do those LJ username links).

Cheers!

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

That's the main reason I haven't really tried Atkins -- all those breads, pastas, potatoes, Cheddar Bay Biscuits are among my very favorites. I don't know if I could give them up.

Send her over here for support! :)

[alm35.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend has a friend who lost 100 pounds on the Atkins diet. He was with us in Myrtle Beach, which got me curious about Atkins. From what I've read, it scares me. I don't like its inflexibility, its unforgivingness -- the "if you mess up and eat too many carbs, you'll throw your weight loss off for AN ENTIRE WEEK!" threats.

And have you read anything about the "fat fast?" For people who start Atkins but don't see much of a weight loss, Atkins suggests jump-starting ketosis by eating 1000 calories a day of 90% fat, for 4-5 days. That is insane.

Then again, Atkins is presented as a "last-resort" diet, a diet for people who have repeatedly failed to lose weight on more moderate eating plans. As Dan's friend said "Sure it's unhealthy to cut out entire groups of foods... but it was more unhealthy for me to be carrying around 300 pounds on a frame that should be supporting 180."

[tikimama.livejournal.com]

The problem with both approaches is that they are too drastic. People can no longer do without, they must have some of the things we're used to and enjoy. So.

I was on the Atkins diet for a while, a couple of months. I lost 15 pounds, sure, but I was dying for a piece of fruit. It was easy enough to stay on, but in the long run, I really don't think it's healthy. Low Carb people love to trot out the Eskimo example (that people in far north climes eat nearly nothing but protein, have no heart attacks, etc), but it is so flawed, since American low carbers eat high fat protein (steaks, etc) and tons of cheese and dairy.

In any case, any diet with a chance of success has to embrace moderation.

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

atkins has come pretty close to killing my mother-in-law.
Putting yourself into acid ketosis is just not a healthy thing.

[wolfieboy.livejournal.com]

I meant to say that it is an unhealthy thing for the long term. Doing it once or twice isn't going to be such a problem. But when you do it for three months every year for 20 years, it's going to take a drastic toll on the body...

[aka-baphomet.livejournal.com]

Being that I'm vegan I hold Dr. Dean Ornish in the highest regards.

Don't even get me started about stuffing ones face with fatty animal products.

[aka-baphomet.livejournal.com]

However, If you are interested in how a diet such as the one he describes can actually taste good and be fun to make, please let me know.

Re:

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm always interested in something like that.

Re:

[kellinator.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize you were vegan.

I don't know who Dr. Ornish is so I can't vote

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

But I have actually read ALL of one of Dr. Atkins' books. I found it fascinating. I found it informative. I learned that I had NO NEED for his diet.

One thing he mentions repeatedly in his books is to NOT attempt his diet without seeing a doctor first.

His diet is based on sound medical research and it is specifically for a CERTAIN type of person, in a CERTAIN type of situation. His book also talks a lot about the need for American people to get off of their sugar-addiction. That is a point I whole-heartedly agree with.

I have fought intestinal Candidas for years and I have had to adopt a similar diet to the atkins one. It wasn't fun but since the alternative was gut-wrenching pain I stayed on it as much as possible. Even when falling off the diet meant being doubled over in pain I discovered that living without sugar and starch was very very difficult. That was how I decided that it is an addiction.

If you start reading the labels of yur favorite foods you will be amazed at how much sugar there is in EVERYTHING.