No...I probably have a great deal more medical training than you do and I LIVE with the condition every second of every day 24/7. Rules of survival 101 for diabetics: Educate yourself about your disease and learn how to control it or it will kill you. It's harsh, but it's a reality I live with.
As for "regurgitating" what I have read; you bet. But it wasn't the diet gurus that eduated me. It was biophysiology books and biochemistry books and a great deal of internet research (not to mention several years in college).
Seems to me that it is YOU who is simply regurgitating what they have read without looking for the research behind it. You have yet to present ONE study that supports your position. You have quoted the official positions of organizations, not studies, with the belief that they (for whatever reason you may hold) MUST be right.
Lack of knowledge on YOUR part does not equate to ignorance on OUR part just because our positions differ. For whatever reason, you are so vested in being right that you are not even able to accept the possibility that you (and everyone that you have chosen to put your trust in for information) just might be wrong. I've lived both sides of this equation. Low fat didn't work as in 8 years on the low fat ADA diet. This does. And no, as a diabetic I wasn't sitting on the couch stuffing myself with all manner of junk foods or I would be dead by now. You see, diabetes is a wonderful condition that has a tendency to kill you if you get too out of line with your diet.
When presented with studies and anecdotal evidence, you resorted to insults, which really says a lot about the strength your position.
It's been my experience that an insult is the last bastion of one who cannot refute what you have to say.

I think it comes down to the fact that they are unwilling, for whatever reason, to believe that the establisment or the experts that they have believed for so long could be wrong. After all, if the experts are wrong about this, it might make you start to question what else they might be wrong about. Since they chose to believe what they were told, that would also make them wrong. If they are unwilling to accecpt the possibility that what they have believed for so long might be wrong, then that must mean that we are wrong and must be "saved" from our folly. Low fat has almost become a type of religion and your "piety" is determined by your cholesterol numbers and how low your daily fat intake is.
Then there's always those that have no interest in what's best for us or our health, they just want to have a good time bashing fat people and telling us that we're fat because we're gluttonous hogs.

As far as I'm concerned, if somebody needs proof of the effectiveness of the LC WOE, all they need to do is to take a look
at your stats, or the stats of the other LC veterans here.

Wow! 75 lbs gone! Good on ya!!!

If somebody can't accept that as truth, then they must have some other agenda, whether it's a vested interest in the corporate power structure of the status quo or simply an ego that gets off on putting other people down.

Keep on fighting the good fight!
amie

As has been stated previously in this thread .. insults, flames and personal attacks are a violation of the Registration agreement. Please refrain from such behaviour; repeated incidents will result in account suspension.

Not to mention that they only fan more flames from others

Doreen

Thanks, Amie!

I think the numbers speak for themselves. I actually started low carbing because my blood sugars were out of control and my blood pressure was dangerously high. The weight loss has been a nice side-benefit, but wasn't my primary concern when I started; now that my blood sugar and blood pressure have normalized, I'm focusing more on the continued weight loss. I've gone from an average blood sugar of 250 on medication to one of 100 without it. My blood pressure has gone from 180/106 to 106/82 (no more medication there either), my total cholesterol dropped 52 points and my triglycerides dropped over 200 points as well as my LDL coming down over 40 points. I know my doc sure is impressed with those numbers and supports what I'm doing completely. Oh, yeah...I also recently had a thallium stress test to check for coronary artery disease. Results? None to be seen. Not bad for a 41 year old diabetic on a high fat diet.
I would certainly say that I don't believe that everyone in the world should eat low carb; as a matter of fact, there are some people who shouldn't, but it wouldn't hurt anyone to cut out refined starches and sugars, transfats, hydrogenated fats and switch to whole unprocessed foods.
As far as what Toner said about only a Biologist or Chemist understanding insulin resistance, they likely wouldn't know much about it either, but an endocrinologist would. Maybe he should go ask one to see if I'm right since he doesn't want to take my word or explanation for it.

As I posted over in Media Watch, if you need ammo for your troll guns, go to www.lowcarbsucess.net and look under research, the answers to them are there. DLB

Yes, actually I was. As a diabetic, you have to monitor what you put in your mouth and how much of it or your glucometer tells you pretty quickly that you were out of line, unless you're not very serious about controlling your disease and want to die young, go blind, have a heart attack or stroke, have your kidneys fail or need to have a limb amputated. This is what I was allowed (and pretty much followed) daily:

Breakfast: 2 starches, 1 fruit (usually oatmeal with raisins)
Lunch: 2 starches, 1 fruit, 1 vegetable, 1 protein, 1 fat (usually 1 sandwich with 1 ounce lunchmeat, fat free mayonnaise, 1 small can v-8 juice, 1 snack cup unsweetened applesauce)
Afternoon snack: 1 fruit
Dinner: 3 starches, 1 fruit, 2 vegetable, 3 protein, 2 fats (usually a potato and whole grain roll, lean meat, 1 veggie, a salad with fat-free dressing, and 2 tsp of butter on my roll with a piece of fruit).
Bedtime snack: 1 starch or fruit

I starch, vegetable or fruit exchange generally equals 15 grams of carb, 1 fat exchange equals 1 teaspoon, and 1 protein exchange equals 1 ounce, so I was being allowed:

8 starches (120 grams carb)
4 fruits (60 grams carb)
3 veggies (45 grams carb)
4 ounces protein (40-50 grams)
3 teaspoons fat (100 calories)

For a total of 225 grams of carb (900 calories), 40-50 grams of protein (not nearly enough for my lean body mass and another 200 calories) and an additional 100 calories (note this is 8% of my daily caloric intake) and a total of 1,200 calories. Now given that the protein you eat usually contains some fat no matter how careful you are, my daily caloric intake was usually closer to 1,300-1,500 and my percentage of fat as daily calories was closer to 10-15%, I did lose weight at first and my blood sugars even returned to normal for a while, but after a while on this, I started gaining, not losing. I was also walking a minimum of 1 mile per day at 3 mph (took me 20 minutes). 225 grams of carb daily was also far more than my body could handle and I was obviously developing more insulin resistance at this level which is why my blood sugars eventually got out of control as well as my blood pressure. This is what the "experts" recommended and it made me sicker, not better.
Now, you (or anyone else for that matter) can maintain that I'm lying and instead of eating the above diet I was sitting on the couch stuffing myself with Twinkies, Doritos and candy by the pound but since I'm still here to tell about it, that's rather unlikely and people will just have to take my word for it.

I believe you....I have seen it in action with my own sister.
On the other hand low fat would have me starving..even with adequate calories..
And then a final binge would always happen.
Funny thing about those binges.. when I started getting adequate fat, and stopped with the extra carbs.. bingo!!!!
They just don't happen!
Thing is.. I have even found excellent Fat products with coconut oil
and flax seed oil. Not exactly sources of killing animals.. since that bothered Toner..
but here is my question. He was eating low fat.. did that include eggs, Chicken and fish?? Where do the scruples end with being part of a realistic food chain??
That has been bothering me the last couple of days.
I suppose the other thing that does is the assumption that I haven't been eating my veggies.
I admit to not getting in fruit.. but I make up with veggies that I prefer.
I like berries..but they are pricey at this time of year.. and I like the occassion grapefruit.
A few of the other less sweet fruits are ones I like.
I have always been this way. LIKE my veggies was NEVER my problem.. ever!
Why do folks assume we don't eat them.. don't like them??
That is why we are fat???
Also to clarify .. I was able to eat low fat, low calorie for about a year while getting very thin..but just a year.. by that point I was overtrained, tired out and starving..
After that..the low fat dieting was interspersed with binges..
I think I will continue with a WOE that precludes the binging.
Poofie

Poofie...

I have to admit to not always being a "good girl" on my diet, but those occasions were pretty rare as I was basically terrified of letting my blood sugars get too high even once in a while. While in nursing school, I sometimes had patients assigned to me who had needed amputations or were on dialysis because of their diabetes, so I knew what I was in for if I didn't get a handle on it and keep those blood sugars under control consistantly. Even while I was pregnant, I was so careful with my diet that I actually lost weight with each pregnancy and suffered a couple of lectures from my OB/GYN about not eating enough, but I was terrified of having to go on insulin because of the pregnancies (oral drugs don't work when you're pregnant so it's either diet or insulin). Fortunately, I was able to stay off insulin all 3 times and had 2 healthy babies after losing the first one mid-term. I'm also a bit angry with myself as well for buying into the ADA diet as the way to go even though I knew that diabetes meant that you had a problem with carbohydrate metabolism. I remember being a bit surprised that they would allow me so much, but after all they were the "experts".
Yes, I was also frequently hungry and had cravings while eating that level of carbs and fat and I'm surprised I didn't lose more lean body mass than I did. Perhaps genetics helped me out there as I've always been fairly muscular for a woman, especially in my legs. Then again, perhaps I did and didn't realize it because I never had my lean body mass checked until I had been on low carb for over a year and very likely had gained lean body mass during that time.
There are always those who will have a problem with eating animals or anyone else eating them for that matter, but that's their moral issue to struggle with and I can respect their stance on it as long as they respect mine. Thank goodness this is still a free country and we are free to eat as we please even if others don't approve. I do have to comment on the "ravenous appetite" comment because on low carb, I really don't have one (an appetite, that is). I'm rarely hungry and generally stick between 1,500 and 1,800 calories a day; hardly considered excessive by any standard, nor do I consume excessive amounts of protein. My protein intake is usually between 80 and 100 grams per day.

I think it's funny that Toner showed such skepticism regarding the Atkins study, but just blindly accepted anything the AHA recommended. In my opinion, if you don't exercise a skeptical perspective with regard to any institutional guidelines you open yourself up to bad information. I'm sure there are a lot of women looking at the recent Estrogen therapy study and saying, "but everyone told me I should take it."

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8028/8028notw2.html

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13604

Tom

Its our health and we should ask the tough questions..
and be willing to have reasons WHY we do something.
or not.
My sister with PCOS is having to ask those questions because of course her reason for HRT is endometrial hypoplasia..but she needs to know IF there is another way of dealing with that issue..
And she is asking.. believe m!
Poofie!

Hi Poofie,

I just wish I had started taking my health more seriously before I got sick. It's water under the bridge though. Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your sister. I'm sure she'll make the best decision for her.

Tom

Actually she posts on this board..
She is doing quite well.
We just now have these tough questions about HRT :-)
Hope your doing okay!
Poofie!

I don't know if the person who started this thread will still read it, but I just wanted to add my own experience.

I won't give out my research, I did a lot of research before I started this WOL because that is the type of person I am, because it just seems to get picked on no matter how scientific it is.

I was always thin in childhood. My bodyfat was very low, thanks to my activities and my mother keeping our sugar intake way low because of a history of diabetes in the family. I ate a lot of meat and salads because I liked them, I ate little amounts of potatoes, rice, bread, because I wasn't so crazy about them, and I was a nut for berries, and you could keep your bananas and apples! I never thought about what I ate and was pretty good at earning my place in buffet bars!

Then I turned 17 and had my first child (that's another story!). I gained 45 pounds and was depressed and started eating junk food. I could eat a bag of Ruffles in 10 minutes, put my hand into the bottom, and not remember eating them! I was also hungry again in a half hour. Anyway, I got to 175 and decided to get my act together. I did carbohydrate addicts origional diet and went down to 135. I did about 1 hour of aerobics, 5 times a week.

Then, I got married and had a couple more children. This time, I decided that I was really going to do it right, because at 135, I didn't think I looked very good. I started with Covert Baileys Fit or Fat and ended with Susan Powters Stop the Insanity! In about 6 years, I had gone up to 224 lbs. with low fat. I had food scales and nothing went into my mouth that wasn't measured. I ate about 2000 cals. and 30 grams of fat at my most relaxed diet, and 1200 cals. and 10 grams of fat at my lowest. This included one hour of cardio per day, six days a week. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, because I was following strict dietary guidelines, I was tired, starving, and still doing being a good girl, and then I would weigh in and se a 2-4 pound gain. It's very disheartening to see that, go do cardio for another day, comment about how tired you are, and then have your 155 pound high carb munching husband say, "Maybe you should try exercising once in a while."

Anyway, this continued until February of this year, when my mother told me she was on Atkins. I about had a heart attack! (I did have a racing heart!) I immediately started looking in the medical studies for the research on these diets, and after three weeks of studying them (trust me, it's a lot of work, those suckers are complicated!) I found that there seemed to be nothing to keep me from doing it. I started Feb 18th this year and will continue the rest of my life.

I know you didn't want some sap's story, but I just thought you might want to see the progression of my gain and loss. You could say that I went off of my first LC diet to Low fat and I gained. I also believe that at this point, my husband seems to be perfectly fine eating what he wants. This was a point of contention in our home, until I lost weight and he sees that it works for me. So, I guess my opinion in this is the simple fact that everyone has different ways of losing. I can't tell you that low fat is bad for you, only you will be able to figure out whether that is true for you or not. You cannot come into a low carb forum in this same way and tell thousands of people that their way of eating is wrong for them. You just don't know that. No one does, really. I will say this, also, I believe that when you come to a support group for a certain style of life and give suggestions that are contrary to their personal health and well being, because no matter what, these people do believe that cashing in half of their healthy carb count for a candy bar is not the right choice for them, you run the risk of having these people tell you that they feel this would be the wrong thing to do and give reasons and alternatives. Then, to call names and tell them that they are wrong doesn't give credit to the fact that they have tried the conventional ways of weight loss and failed, and then started LC and succeeded. We are all defensive about what we choose, who wants to be wrong?

Anyway, you have probably gone, so I going to stop before I write all afternoon.

Thank you....Amber

Great post Amber!

I loved reading your story. Your stats alone speak volumes about the effectiveness of the LC WOE.

Take care,
amie