Atkins/Low Carbers Support

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YAY, Luna!!!!

I've only lost 1 pound, but I haven't reduced my carbs enough yet. I'm just glad I didn't gain.
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I went grocery shopping last night so I'll have lots of yummy low carb foods to eat this week.
 
I don't do atkins or low carb but I thought I join your thread for support. I've been on south beach for about 2 years and lost over 70lbs. I haven't been following it strictly for about a month and am going back to phase 1 today.
 
Not really. While it is lower carb than the Standard American Diet (SAD diet), it isn't really low carb.

While there are people who do well with the South Beach Diet, it has a MAJOR flaw. It is based on the premise that fat makes you fat and saturated fat is really bad. This isn't true and despite a small mountain of research, most people still believe fat is causing health problems like obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. While hydrogenated fats ARE bad for you, natural animal fats are perfectly healthy. Even the diet's creator has had to admit his premise is flawed.

The real culprit is carbohydrates. The more refined, the worse they are.
 
South beach is low carb the first two weeks. The goal is to decrease your sugar cravings and slowly add low glycemic foods to your diet a little at a time. We do eat carbs but only good carbs(whole wheat, low glycemic fruits, veggies) South beach was created by dr agatson a well known cardiologist that still practices today. If you stick with it, it does work and not that I'm against atkins but for me a cardiac nurse I know it is a better and healthier diet.The South Beach Diet does not limit carbohydate intake like the Atkins diet does.

Instead, it distinguishes between "Good Carbs" and "Bad Carbs", and there's no real limits placed on the good carbs you may eat.

Furthermore, whereas the Atkins diet does not limit fat intake (in fact, it encourages a high level of fat intake, including unhealthy saturated fats), the South Beach diet distingushes between "Good Fats" and "Bad Fats"

The South Beach Diet includes six meals per day (including snacks and breakfast), and even on the first - and strictest - phase, dinner includes an approved dessert! (which aside from "rounding off" a delicious meal, has the effect of reducing temptation and elimination cravings for something sweet afterwards


I am a sugar holic, If i eat it I feel like crap and will want more. South beach is more of a lifestyle versus a diet. I used to be over 230lbs and felt like crap. I'm now an energetic 155lbs, could use a few more off but I'm getting there.
 
Quote:
Natural animal fats clog your arteries a proven fact. Natural vegetable and olive oils are better for your heart. They will eventually raise your good cholesterol and decrease your risk of coronary artery disease.
 
If anyone absolutely has to have some munchies, I found a recipe that I modified to make low-carb:

Forget Me Cookies


2 egg whites
3/4 c. Splenda
flavoring such as vanilla, almond...I use a good teaspoon or two.

Whip the egg whites. Slowly add splenda and flavorings and continue to beat until they form stiff peaks. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.

Preheat oven to 375. Turn off, and put cookies in. Give them an hour or so and they are done. DO NOT COOK THEM, just set them in the turned-off oven.

I checked how much chocolate chips are, they are about 10 grams per 32 chips. So I put one chip on each cookie before its set in the oven. Just sweet enough to give you something sweet, without killing the diet.
 
Natural animal fats clog your arteries a proven fact. Natural vegetable and olive oils are better for your heart

Sorry, this is completely false. It is what is taught in medical school, but it is completely wrong.

"Most people would be surprised to learn that there is, in fact, very little evidence to support the contention that a diet low in cholesterol and saturated fat actually reduces death from heart disease or in any way increases one's life span. Consider the following:

Before 1920 coronary heart disease was rare in America; so rare that when a young internist named Paul Dudley White introduced the German electrocardiograph to his colleagues at Harvard University, they advised him to concentrate on a more profitable branch of medicine. The new machine revealed the presence of arterial blockages, thus permitting early diagnosis of coronary heart disease. But in those days clogged arteries were a medical rarity, and White had to search for patients who could benefit from his new technology. During the next forty years, however, the incidence of coronary heart disease rose dramatically, so much so that by the mid fifties heart disease was the leading cause of death among Americans. Today heart disease causes at least 40% of all US deaths. If, as we have been told, heart disease results from the consumption of saturated fats, one would expect to find a corresponding increase in animal fat in the American diet. Actually, the reverse is true. During the sixty-year period from 1910 to 1970, the proportion of traditional animal fat in the American diet declined from 83% to 62%, and butter consumption plummeted from eighteen pounds per person per year to four. During the past eighty years, dietary cholesterol intake has increased only 1%. During the same period the percentage of dietary vegetable oils in the form of margarine, shortening and refined oils increased about 400% while the consumption of sugar and processed foods increased about 60%.2"
http://www.westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/skinny.html

Humans evolved eating animals fats. They are at worst neutral and there is evidence that saturated fat may also be protective. The hypothesis that fat (and cholesterol) cause heart disease came from 2 studies. One was Ancel Keyes 7 nation study. He took heart disease information from 7 countries and made this graph showing that the more saturated fat eaten, the more heart disease. The problem was there was data available from 22 different countries at that time (the 50's) and he just IGNORED the data that didn't fit his chart...like the countries where they ate tons of saturated fat and had low heart disease rates.

The other study of cholesterol was performed on rabbits. They pumped them full of cholesterol and they got heart attacks. Sounds pretty convincing unless you understand that rabbits normally do not have cholesterol in their diet.

Other studies showing how dangerous fat is used hydrogenated fats. Well these particular fats DO NOT work in the body like natural fats. Of course the data from these is going to be completely worthless unless you compare natural to hydrogenated.

"It was determined many years ago that the majority of cholesterol in your bloodstream comes from what your liver is manufacturing and distributing. The amount of cholesterol that one eats plays little role in determining your cholesterol levels. It is also known that HDL shuttles cholesterol away from tissues, and away from your arteries, back to your liver. That is why HDL is called the "good cholesterol;" because it is supposedly taking cholesterol away from your arteries. But let's think about that.

Why does your liver make sure that you have plenty of cholesterol?
Why is HDL taking cholesterol back to your liver?
Why not take it right to your kidneys, or your intestines to get rid of it?
It is taking it back to your liver so that your liver can recycle it; put it back into other particles to be taken to tissues and cells that need it. Your body is trying to make and conserve the cholesterol for the precise reason that it is so important, indeed vital, for health.

One function of cholesterol is to keep your cell membranes from falling apart. As such, you might consider cholesterol your cells "superglue." It is a necessary ingredient in any sort of cellular repair. The coronary disease associated with heart attacks is now known to be caused from damage to the lining of those arteries. That damage causes inflammation. The coronary disease that causes heart attacks is now considered to be caused mostly from chronic inflammation.

What Is Inflammation?

Think of what happens if you were to cut your hand. Within a fraction of a second, chemicals are released by the damaged tissue to initiate the process known as inflammation. Inflammation will allow that little cut to heal, and indeed to keep you from dying. The cut blood vessels constrict to keep you from bleeding too much. Blood becomes "thicker" so that it can clot. Cells and chemicals from the immune system are alerted to come to the area to keep intruders such as viruses and bacteria from invading the cut. Other cells are told to multiply to repair the damage so that you can heal. When the repair is completed, you have lived to be careless another day, though you may have a small scar to show for your troubles.

We now know that similar events take place within the lining of our arteries. When damage occurs to the lining of our arteries (or even elsewhere) chemicals are released to initiate the process of inflammation. Arteries constrict, blood becomes more prone to clot, white blood cells are called to the area to gobble up damaged debris, and cells adjacent to those damaged are told to multiply. Ultimately, scars form, however inside our arteries we call it plaque. And the constriction of our arteries and the "thickening" of our blood further predisposes us to high blood pressure and heart attacks.

So Where Might Cholesterol Fit Into All Of This?

When damage is occurring and inflammation is being initiated, chemicals are being released so that that damage can be repaired. One could speculate that to replace damaged, old and worn-out cells the liver needs to be notified to either recycle or manufacture cholesterol since no cell, human or otherwise, can be made without it. In this case, cholesterol is being manufactured and distributed in your bloodstream to help you repair damaged tissue and in fact to keep you alive.

If excessive damage is occurring such that it is necessary to distribute extra cholesterol through the bloodstream, it would not seem very wise to merely lower the cholesterol and forget about why it is there in the first place. It would seem much smarter to reduce the extra need for the cholesterol -- the excessive damage that is occurring, the reason for the chronic inflammation."
http://www.loveforlife.com.au/node/2103
 
Here is a transcript from Larry King Live where the founder of the South Beach Diet starts to admit that saturated fat isn't the problem...

"KING: There's an "in" word every generation it seems. The current word is transfat. What is that?

AGATSTON: Transfats, they're the partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated oils that are found in so many of the baked goods, the commercial baked goods.

KING: They're trying to ban them in some places.

AGATSTON: Yes. In New York City they did ban them. They were substituted for tropical oils -- coconut and palm oil.

KING: Which are bad?

AGATSTON: Which were -- they were saturated. We thought they were bad. We're not sure they were so bad.

KING: I thought they were bad.

AGATSTON: Transfats -- everything changes. They may not be so bad.

The transfats were polyunsaturated. We thought they were good. It turns out they increase our bad cholesterol. They decrease our good cholesterol. They're lethal. They're the worst fats.

KING: So transfats are the worst.

AGATSTON: They have to be eliminated. "
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/27/lkl.01.html

Unfortunately, Larry King didn't know about the topic enough to really dig in to this.
 

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