Extra! Extra! Read all About It!! Diets in the News...

You can't help but notice a number of recent diet related news articles recently popping up in your newspaper, or on Google News, or in your local TV or Radio News spots.

"Stanford Study Declares Atkins the Winner!" declares one...

In a recent coupla-million dollar study comparing the Atkins diet and several others (the Ornish Diet, the Zone Diet, and the LEARN Diet) the Atkins was found to be the one with the longest lasting and best results. As I understand it, participants of the study were selected to try one of the diets, and were trained in how to do (eat/live) the diet program. Then they were not rigorously managed through the diet process, but left to their own devices for a period of time. In the end, only the Atkins diet had the longest lasting results, and only the Atkins and LEARN diet participants continued weight loss after the six month period from starting the program. Some excellent articles have been written in low carb blogs about the results, about the comments made by various leading nutritional experts, etc. It is well worth looking into if you had not seen this previously.

An additional spate of recent articles proclaim that "Diets don't work". A new study conducted by Dr. Tracy Mann (a professor at UCLA) and her students was recently published in an edition of the journal "American Psychologist" finds that for most people, dieting just doesn't work. They examined the results of approximately 31 diet related studies that had at least one year of follow up data. They found that 41% of people who go on diets end up gaining the weight back and put on **additional weight** from the place they started.

This is something I often noticed and told my wife about every time she told this fatbody about someone elses recent diet. "Just sit back and wait", I would tell her. They will gain it all back, AND THEN SOME shortly. I was never never ever wrong about this, to my recollection. This is one of the reasons I waited so long to pick a plan of weight loss. I wanted something that could last a lifetime, or at least for a very long time - before I started. I met a doctor who kept the weight off for ten years on this way of eating before I started this, and have since met other low carb heros who have lost a hundred or more pounds and have kept it off long term with a low carb way of eating.

The last couple of days there have been a spate of articles stating that the predilection for some to gain weight may be genetic and not the fault of the fat person. That may be. I wonder if this is somehow in response to the articles and studies proclaiming diets don't work...

Anyhow, I am not on a diet. I am on a way of eating and a way of life. So I have nothing to worry about! What say you?

Yummy Desert

Being on a low carb diet can have it's disavantages. I mean I have passed up alot of really great sweets, treats, and deserts. But I have recently stumbled into a few things that are really excellent low carb treats, taste great to me, and are a neat reward when you feel like something with explosively excellent flavor, that leaves you satisfied. I wanted to share a couple...

Alot of folks recommended the Jell-O Gelatin Sugar Free Low calorie cups. I have been eating those for a few months now and am sure I have exceeded the recommended allowance of Jell-O products in our fridge the past few months. They are wonderful for a quick flavor hit, and a two or three cups are filling enough for me.









But one new product (new to me anyhow) is the new Dannon yogurt. Dannon has introduced a new "Light and Fit" low carb yogurt (only 3 grams of carbs) in a variety of flavors. The local Walmart only stocks the strawberries and cream flavor, but it is truely wonderful. If you are low carbing it, go get some!

Dannon offers other great low carb flavors in the Light and Fit product selection, and I can't wait to try them at my local Walmart. As it is I eat two of the Carb Control Strawberries and Cream and feel like I did when I've just eaten some excellent high quality ice cream or tasty dessert in the past.

I am not a compensated advertiser for either of these products, just a satisfied customer. But I want to share with others the good things I have found that I enjoy and help me on my own low carb diet. YMMV.

Catching up...

Well, this weekend I am catching up on some **much needed** rest, sleep, and some relaxing and downtime. It feels SOOOOoooo GOOOOoooD!

I have been under major stress the past couple of months and I have gotten almost completely catatonic with lack of sleep, stress, long hours, and low carb. Maybe it's just me, but I've always been someone who has eaten something when stressed. Everybody makes that sound like an emotional response to stress, but after the past couple months I am wondering if it isn't even a physical response (as in the bod needs the energy or whatever in the nutritional intake during high stress periods). I also tend to get very sleepy after and sometimes during high periods of intense stress. Dunno why that happens, but it does to some degree.

Anyhow, I have stayed on plan thoughout, but it has been hard. One of the the things I have noticed during this prolonged period of long hours, hard work, lack of sleep, and major stress is that I was really having a more difficult time thinking, made verbal miscues more often (said one word meaning another), and got a little catatonic (low levels of emotion and positive emotional response - like joy, happiness, exhuberance, even being expressive in general, etc).

I have suspected that this low carb way of eating does something to increase your testosterone levels, as it seems to have personally effected me in this way, and I have read about this as well reported from others. But I also believe it probably affects your seratonin levels or whatever your happy spots are in the brain. I think I dealt with stress better when eating carbs personally, and I probably thought clearer overall. However I also think that my blood pressure and stomach acid and other problems where much more severe then as well, and I was heading for major physical problems and breakdown on the road I have been on (eating high carb diet in the past and gaining progressively more weight).

Anyhow, I suspect that low carb, coupled together with high stress and with severe lack of sleep are an evil combination that will rob you of joy and pleasure in life, and make life much more difficult. Probably doesn't take a real brainiac to think of that, but if the idea has occurred to you I can confirm by my own personal experience that has been the case for me anyhow.

Also, in the midst of all this I got an infection on one of my fingers and needed to get a doctor to lance it from the fingernail bed area up to about the first knuckle across the entire top of the finger and also the one side also infected. Looked like an ingrown toenail only deeper down inside and down the length of the finger from the nailbed. Doc gave me a couple prescriptions for really strong broad spectrum antibiotics (one said the occasional side effect was that it killed those taking it). I feel that my immune system being down is another indication of the results of extremely high levels of stress, low sleep, and low carb.

I have stayed on-plan throughout and this morning got as low on the scale as 334.2 lbs! Feeling terrific about that, and know that overall I am doing the right thing for me with this way of eating. That makes it over 75 lbs down now as of today (measuring by my lowest weights in a cycle that bounces around a bit). It will probably be a week or more till I am solidly into this weight at my midpoint/average. But it is fun and nice and rewarding to see even little new points of progress along my journey to better health!

I am not trying to dog low carb eating. It has been wonderful for me and has helped me achieve better health overall. I have hung in there cause it is all I know how to do. There is no way I am going to quit and go back up to the weight I was at (or heavier). I want to be here for my wife and to help raise and enjoy my kids, and to serve the Lord.

Thanks to all my friends and online supporters who are a terrific encouragement to me! I am finally getting to the point where more folks are noticing the weight loss, and that is very rewarding in itself. I have started slowly increasing my physical activity (parking further away and taking stairs more often). I want to gradually ease into it, but get to a point where more physical activity is also a part of my life.