Protein Power too hard to understand?
 

I loaned a friend my copy of the original Protein Power
Her brother has diabetes and she doesn't want to get it
so I thought she might learn something from PP

Imagine my surprise when I saw her this week and she told me she had a lot of trouble understanding the book.
Since I had always thought of PP as pretty straight-forward especially when they were explaining digestion, I was shocked.

She doesn't seem to be a simple women - although she is obviously uneducated in the physiology of food - but I never saw her as "dense"

An eye opener

Protein Power was my first introduction to low carb and I found it easy to understand and the explanations of the scientific behind the program is what keeps me on track. I prefer principles for choosing what to eat, and abhor meal plans.

I have a friend who is intensely smart--but every time I've talked to him about low carb, he gets confused between protein and carbohydrate. Told me once his wife was on a high carb diet--all she ate was meat. Sometimes people have oddly specific difficulties. I know I do...

I’ve had that reaction to an even easier, shorter book…Why We Get Fat. If the reader hasn’t figured out the concept from Taubes' chapters, the appendix has Dr Westman’s food list and diet guidelines. Reactions are similar; too much science, too long, don’t understand the foods, blah, blah. Everyone wants the Easy Button when it comes to losing weight.

I once spoon fed someone low carb eating, after she had requested my help wanting to lose weight. "Why We Get Fat was the book I recommended. It seemed that nothing got through to her. I think that she just didn't want to give up her usual foods. Not surprisingly she is now not only diagnosed diabetic but also on insulin. It is as if she has forgotten entirely everything we ever spoke about. She bakes up a storm all the time. I don't think she is dense, just unwilling to open her mind to anything different. She just couldn't seem to get it.

Thanks everyone for your sharing these stories.
It boggles my mind that someone says they want to learn
but when it comes time to learn they shut down their brains
To quote Anna and the King of Siam
"It is a puzzlement"

There are books for every level of comprehension. Good Calories Bad Calories for example, is a sprawling epic. At the other end of the scale, books like What the Fat and End Your Carb Confusion are clearly aimed at the lay consumer. I know I personally appreciated WTF back in the day myself.

Personally I found Protein Power pretty good, although the thing I think I appreciate the most about it was the time in which it was written. There's no shortage of low carb literature out there these days of course, and then you have the likes of Pure, White and Deadly which appeared a generation earlier, when the classical academic debate over sugar vs fat was still raging. But PP appeared during a time when carbs were most definitely in and fat was still most definitely out. It would not have been easy to put out a book like that in an environment like that.

So in a sense, I like to look back on PP not just as a decent read on its own merits, but also a key marker/stepping stone/enabler for what would follow in the way of low carb writing in the years to come.

Thanks Grav

So true! Me, too. By now I've forgotten how long it takes to establish a new paradigm, let alone new habits. There is no "easy button."

As to Protein Power...

When I decided to shift my LCHF to High(er) Protein (guidelines at Diet Doctor) I pulled down my copy of Protein Power. I found the calculations rather intimidating. LBM? Not that easy to figure out. So...for the arithmetic impaired, there are easier books. :lol:

My go-to recommendation? Why We Get Fat. After Atkins, it was Good Calories, Bad Calories that lit my fire, but WWGF is much more accessible. However, from my experience with people who ask me about how to manage weight loss, the resistance to understanding what carbohydrates are, let alone why limiting them "works," is puzzling.

eg. "You mean, I can't eat [carb x]? But [carb x] is good for you!"

Sigh.

This might be a case of something even MORE baffling: people who can think, but refuse to. I now think of it as a "Nutri-System brain."

I got into these diet system reviews sites several years back, and what astonished me what how the Nutri-System fans were not about the tastiness of the food nor swayed by the expense. They just ate the assigned boxes and they lost weight. They were thrilled.

I was still thinking about it when I was in the frozen aisle at the grocery store, and saw how easy it would be to build my own Nutri-System; at far less cost and far more choice. Like Weight Watchers hopes their followers do. Their math couldn't be easier, with big red numbers on the boxes.

For that matter, it's not any different from calorie counting. Back when, I could look at a state dinner and get the calorie count close to exact. Now, we know there is no such thing!

One of the things that keeps me on low carb is how the food is really good, and when I learn more how to cook, it pays off. That right there would incredibly increase every Westernized citizen's health prospects.

Yet, probably the most frightening for many, no matter how smart they are.

One of the things I learned about studying hoarding was how people seemed to get stuck on certain phases of decision making. If they didn't or couldn't get past it, mayhem would follow.

Yes.

Dr Mike said many people had that problem (I did not) which is why they did the calculations for them in Protein Power Life Plan

Now I'm glad my boys had to take biology in HS.

I've been pushing nutrition on them for years, but nutrition does start with basic bio.

Seems to me as diet and medicine is vital to good health it's worth investing in the knowledge needed to understand what is BS and what is good information. As we know, we need to know more than the poorly educated MDs.

A woman from church has been given the DASH diet. And limiting food to three small meals . She is dropping weight steadily but HUNGRY all the time. We have good conversations. She is engaged. I don't push low carb, but give her informative material from the youtubing MDs and COs, letting her view these at will. She watches every one. Then sticks to what her doctor recommends.

Slowly she is breaking the rules and then testing her BP with a home cuff. Increasing salt intake did not cause BP to increase. A concept I've talked many many times. Even pointed out low salt intake is linked to higher death rates. And the Cl is important for HCl production to digest food and stop acid reflux. Which ACV also addresses.

Bottom line, it takes an interested party to learn. And it takes time to understand new material.

Absolutely an open mind and the patience to learn new things. Without these one stays stuck in one's habits.

I'm a math nerd 🤓 and found the calculations challenging. While math process presented step by step, most would quit half way. It was daunting.

It did drive home the need to get adequate protein from an animal source.

But left a worry, "did I eat enough?"

Fasting adds a twist. 36 hr fast s recycle protein.....so how much protein do we really need?