Well said. There are entirely too many variables for there to be One True Answer. If I'm female and insulin resistant with food allergies and you're male, young, and this is your first diet ever, it seems pretty reasonable to me that we may not be getting the same results because we're using different variables.

Good point.


I have heard of this on this forum but I do not remember the people that said so. I remember thinking, on seeing this, that maybe it was a completely separate variable such as the body needing a degree of homeostasis, and simply having its own time frame before it was 'willing' to lose more weight. (Rather like it is suspected that babies' bodies are the ones that 'do something' (unknown what) to finally bring on delivery, regardless of our various inducing attempts etc.) If we have to add "...and 17 other variables the body controls but we don't know about yet" to the equation -- and many more we do know of but are not covered in your list such as certain circulating levels of various vitamins, hormones and other biochemicals -- it gets even more complicated!

Not to mention that there are plenty of people who eat these things and *don't* stall and still continue on their merry way losing weight!

Yes; reading it again I found like many articles, it presents many sides, but ultimately you have to decide. I agree, many contradictions here-- the author seems very confused

Anyway I am going to have my lunch of fish and hard boiled eggs with a pinch of salt

I don't need to argue. Good Calories Bad Calories, page 111:

I don't grow bored of eating only meat. Every meal is anticipated and enjoyed as much as the last. Accordingly, I can eat as much meat as I want, and often in surplus. This experience is not only mine, it's those of others who cut out all carbs. The point is that the monotonous diet yields results only if that which is eaten does not cause fat accumulation to begin with.

In reality no matter what our differing perspectives, one thing is true: even the people who are lean and apparently healthy, cannot necessarily predict what may occur later in life, or what might have gone differently had they eaten differently. This goes for alleged overdose on protein, carbs, grains, or anything else. Some people will keel over in 5 years and more will outlive us all, probably on the same diet.

The problem is that the genetic, environmental, and what-you-ate-for-30-years-before-that issues are all so substantial a part of this that it's hard to say anything without it being a generality.

As for generalities: Sugar is not pointedly healthy, nor are antinutrients, but vitamins and minerals are, and there is 'taste and pleasure and variety' as a major factor on staying ON an eating plan (doesn't help to be ideal if a person can't stay on it). Produce, legumes, grains, hits all three of those categories. So it's a matter of deciding. The same could be said for meat. And the same has to be said for almost any food in the modern grocery chain (that you do not grow in your backyard, I mean).

In the end everybody's just got to decide what they FEEL like eating. This probably should have no bearing on what is recommended to new people; sufficient years of experience in low carb, regardless of personal outcome, demonstrates that some things are so often problematic for people (eg grains) and some so often trigger foods (eg regular milk, fruit aside from berries), and some so often "distractive" foods (eg lowcarb frankenfoods, homemade LC desserts) that the fairly traditional lowcarb of approach of DETOX (nearly all food vanishes that isn't meat/eggs/cheese) for a bit, followed by *gradually* adding in various food types, is good advice.

Today, if I were just going lowcarb, I'd be eating LC wraps and all kinds of things. I would never have the blessing I had when going on it and not having that stuff available in walmart, which is how I learned that gluten was a problem, and part of how I was able to stay with it even on a trial -- because the improvement in health across the board was astounding.

But what people CHOOSE to eat once they know what they're doing really ought to be a separate subject, and I think the arguments on forums are because they are not. Everything is in the middle in the open with day-old newbies and 10-year veterans and everyone-in-between all in the same debate.

What is healthy for someone who has spent two years getting to know their body and how it reacts to foods is based on their unique experience; that isn't necessarily what's best for new people.

What is practical for someone who has spent years learning to cook lowcarb and adapt to it is not practical for most newbies. When I started lowcarb I ate pepperoni and mozarella in the microwave most the time. It's one thing to not recommend it but the reality is I couldn't have done it at all otherwise and if someone had been telling me no, no, you need to cook a whole turkey and then boil it down and make stock and then -- LOL!!! It would have been a 2-hour diet experiment. ;-)

So what's healthy, reasonable, practical, is just going to vary. I still do think conversation is good. But it's useful if lots of people always enforce that new folks need to buy a book of choice, written by a doctor which most of us aren't, and follow it for at least 6 weeks. I personally like Atkins not because I think it is the best plan in the long run or the easiest plan to follow, but because it is the one plan that really takes DETOX seriously.

Was that a general comment, or directed to a person in particular? If it was merely a general comment, I fail to see the relevance since I haven't seen one post intended to be a complaint about another's choice of diet. If it was directed at a particular person, maybe it would be wise to mention that person instead of allowing doubt to poison the discussion, don't you think?

Never mind. Your post was gratuitous and inflammatory. It was gratuitous because nobody did what you complain about. It was inflammatory because it was a stab in the dark, i.e. it invites anybody who feels targeted by your complaint to reply and defend and justify their actions they believe falls into the category you created (regardless of whether they do fall into that category), or reply and apologize as the case may be. Nevertheless, you should retract your complaint, or forward it to a moderator who will act on the matter, if need be.

Oh, get over your wee self.

Hmmn. Ok, moving on . . .

I have several friends who have been in weight watchers a good chunk of their lives. Most of them lost weight, and then didn't, and then gained some, and then lost some, and then . . .

How does lowcarb get the assumptions in this article (and I thought it a good article as far as "honest from her perspective" by the way; I'm not sure it is entirely accurate in terms of science or everybody's bodies, but that's a different criteria) any more than any other eating plan on earth?

What if weight loss stalls are less to do with why-your-diet-is-killing-you and more to do with the body just not wanting to lose more than a certain (variable) amount of weight before sitting around and thinking about it for another year or two?

Oh. But I do have to say -- body builders seldom have this problem. You don't hear of six month stalls from THAT world. If what they're doing isn't working, they do something else. Driven much more by results than doctrine, that field. So maybe it really IS diet. But maybe one of the answers is that diet NEEDS to 'vary'.

How far do you want this to go?

Maybe, but I prefer a clear understanding of what's going on so I can do something about it. If carbohydrate is the problem, adding it back in doesn't solve it, it makes it worse. On the other hand, if I'm addicted to carbohydrate, adding it back in makes me feel good. And if feeling good helps me stick with it, then why not. But let's not argue the supposed healthful benefits of a substance that is clearly poisonous to us. If it wasn't poisonous to us, why would we have reduced our intake of it to return to good health? Scratch that, why would we have returned to good health once we reduced our intake of it?

I think people who start to include "3 cups of vegetables" and suddenly see weight loss are actually consuming less calories per day (cutting back on fat and protein) -- it's smoke and mirrors, but if it helps too keep hunger away I guess its OK

Like Dr. Atkins suggested I like to "use vegetables as condiments": peppers or onion in an omelet, slice of tomato on a burger or a few mushrooms on my steak etc.

Yeah, like take a new steroid or OD on thyroid hormone, growth hormone, testosterone or do a crash diet.

Well, I suppose there is THAT perspective...