Well I wasn't talking to/about you, then, was I? I was talking about the unnecessarily catty comments directed toward posters who were trying to be helpful.

If people want to eat "enriched" cereal, go right ahead. But don't expect most of the posters here to condone it as a healthy choice.

Yeah. I've been reading a lot about thryoid the last week, since finding out my thyroid indicates I must be severely hypo. Keep reading lots of stories about so many people who for years were treated for depression or psychiatric or behavioral disorders that were really hypothryroid .Sometimes went DECADES before finding out the real problem.

But one of the other interesting findings was that of noted thyroid specialist Dr. Broda Barnes, who found - by experimenting on himself - that a low fat diet caused his own thyroid to go into shutdown mode, but when he went on a high fat diet (primarily saturated animal fats) his thyroid and metabolism cranked up again. To maintain the same weight he could only eat 2000 calories a day on the low fat diet, but on the high fat diet he was able to eat 3000 calories a day to maintain.

Debbie, haven't you been on a high fat diet for quite some time now? And it looks as if you were just recently diagnosed with hypothyroidism?

If that is the case, isn't that going against the situation you just mentioned regarding high fat diet and thyroid problems?

In regards to American's having low fat pushed on them. Yes, that is true to some degree, but from what I see in people that I know is that they do not follow a low fat diet even if that's what they think they should be following for health and weight loss. They will be eating their fast food several times per week and having a 100 calorie pack for snack but I know VERY FEW people who follow a true low-fat diet on a daily basis for any long period of time.

I've always been a good worker all my life, so it surprises me that lately I have morphed into this kind of worker. I suppose getting told that "despite all your hard work over the years we are phasing out your job over the next few months to replace you with people from India who will work cheaper" has kind of tossed my work ethic into the crapper. Luckily it has not affected my eating habits however!

yes we are biased here. we are biased toward low carb. And we don't apologize for it.

So... some say that it's ok to eat some amount of grains if a person can maintain normal weight while doing so. And is it also ok to smoke if the person is not afflicted with bronchitis? The problem is that by the time major symptoms are evident much of the damage is irreversible. Who ever would have thought that milk could be considered "too high in carbs" when babies live off the stuff with no damage to their insulin sensitivity whatsoever? But once the body has been abused it may not be able to tolerate anymore what once was considered perfectly safe. Hence you find people resorting to VLC or ZC out of necessity.

And so it is with breakfast cereals. Oh sure you may not gain weight on a bowl or two per week. I also know teenagers who practically live off of sugar and wheat flour, yet look healthy as can be and thin and trim and perfect looking. Well now all that sugar "works for them" so who are we to tell them not to eat it? It works for them you know!

Look, honestly I don't really care what anyone around here chooses to eat. I mean, look, when one of you goes and eats some pop tarts do you think I lose any sleep over it? I assure you I don't. However I do care when you start recommending sugary crap with the lame excuse "If you maintain a normal weight on it then it is not harming you". I also don't like being told on a low carb board that I need to be more tolerant of carbs and start giving my approval to those who want to indulge in them.

Yes south beach allows some grains. I don't recommend south beach.

Well Barnes didn't claim a high-fat diet *cured* hypothyroidism - merely that he could cut his dosage of thyroid replacement medication when his diet was higher fat. I've been borderline hypo for years I think - have been tested several times but always just landed on the borderline "right" side of numbers the doctors were looking at - though research lately indicates that those numbers don't necessarily mean all that much anyway, and some of the acceptable numbers have been dropping over the years too. I don't expect a low carb high fat diet to necessarily "cure" me of everything - but I do feel much better on it and am able to lose weight on it. That doesn't mean it's the be-all and end-all.

But losing weight and feeling better are certainly good goals in and of themselves. It certainly doesn't mean I'll feel like a "failure" if I need medications too. I have 40+ years of terrible eating to overcome also.

Most people significantly overweight at all have damage issues to deal with on top of the ordinary biology.

Yes, but still a valid choice on these boards, if I'm not mistaken. Wow, perhaps I am.

Sure it is a valid choice in this forum.

So, SB people will post in response to threads that they like grains in small amounts, and others will post they do not. Which seems to be about what happened on this thread.

There is some defensiveness involved. People want to eat what they want to eat. It is easy to defend the eating plan. If the person was eating south beach and said, "I'm eating south beach, what do you think of cereal?" then probably answers would have been in that context -- and could have in fact happened on the south beach board.

It is not so easy to defend a highly processed wheat-based convenience food product however. Especially on the 'general' board which statistically will have more people against both grains and processed food than for them.

There is no issue with south beach eating plans here. There's a whole section for it in this forum. You just can't expect a general area with diverse views but mostly non-SB, to have any thread result except diverse views but mostly non-SB.

(Implying that if people are honest in their responses, then it may be hurting the tender feelings of people with different responses, and hence might make them feel excluded, is really incredibly exclusive--against the majority, no less--on its own.)

We should add to this thread a suggestion for the original poster: if you cannot do lowcarb without eating grains for most of your carbs, probably you should switch to a more moderate carb southbeach plan, and ask advice on their board specifically.

Best,
PJ

What a great post, PJ. You really laid it out very clearly, and without the nastiness that grumps like me always seem to slip into. But I had to smile at this comparison at the end. I totally believe that good food is the cornerstone of a good life, but at work I'm the opposite - a total slacker. I work to pay for my life and my family, and I don't care if it's not something I'm passionate about. It gives me the freedom to do the things I love without worrying about whether I can turn a profit from them.

I agree, that was a good post. Speaking of Post, they make some really good cereals.

Bwahahahahahaha!

This board is called "general low-carb", not any specific plan but general discussion regarding low-carb. So is someone that includes a little grain into low-carb plan not allowed to ask in this board because you do not include grain? (I also want to point out that the poster did not say they get most of their carbs from gain, only that they would like to have some cereal a couple times a week) Is this board a no-grain board? Are South Beachers the only ones who are allowed to have a little grain in their plan? I don't think so.

Look, if someone asks for advice, I'll give it. Does South Beach really allow for Total cereal to someone just starting out? I read the book a long time ago and remember something about oatmeal being allowed, but not Total.

Total cereal really is not low carb at 19 grams of net carbs per serving, especially since we all know that one serving is never enough for anyone (even the picture on the cereal boxes are of several servings, not one).

Many people are not aware how bad these processed cereals are -- they do believe they are healthy. We've been taught they're healthy. The thing is, it IS true that a snickers bar will provide you just as much nutrition and cause less of a blood sugar spike than a bowl of grapenuts. Many people are completely unaware of that when they come to the world of low carb; giving the smile nod and NOT giving them that information is not very supportive.

Actually SB allows for several cereal options in their plan which can be added in phase 2. I don't remember all of them but I believe All Bran and Uncle Sam are a couple of choices.