[podcast flashvars=”titles: ‘a rebutal Ep. 49′”]http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/wp-content/uploads/llvlcep49_article.mp3[/podcast]
Hello and welcome back to The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore! We’re so pleased to have you with us for another dose of Jimmy’s patented no-nonsense approach to advocating the healthy low-carb lifestyle.
Today, our host Jimmy looks at an L.A. Times article showing that even when the mainstream press (and the medical professionals they interview) set out with the intention to honor or praise the Atkins diet, they are unable to hold back their low-fat prejudice and propaganda.
You remember the Sidney Poitier movie “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” Well, it’s kind of like that, only it would be more aptly called “Guess What’s Being Served For Dinner!”
It would be a comedy of errors, if it weren’t so sad. You’ll have to hear it to believe it! Why do all these columns that are meant to be positive towards Dr. Atkins have to be tainted with such vile hatred and antagonism towards this remarkable man? Can’t we just give credit where credit is due for once?
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE 49
– Washington Post reprint of LA Times column
– The myth of “water weight” loss on low-carb
– Study on protein being effective for weight loss
– Low-carb is more popular than American Idol
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If you can’t hear, then never fear! It’s all real near when you’re clicking here…(if you didn’t catch my silliness, what you need to do for the transcript is hit the link below!).
Transcript of Episode 49:
Hey there and welcome to Episode 49 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” Low-carb is indeed alive and kickin’ in 2007 as quite literally millions of people are discovering for themselves the weight loss and health miracle that this way of eating really is. It changed my life forever and I KNOW it can change yours, too!I recently came across an LA Times story that attempted to give credit where credit is due to the late great Dr. Robert C. Atkins for helping to change the way people look at carbohydrates and their effect on health and weight loss with his namesake diet. However, not surprisingly, the column quoted a few unsavory characters who desperately hope all this talk about livin’ la vida low-carb would just go away. Not a chance, baby, as long as Jimmy Moore has breath to breathe! The article erroneously describes the Atkins diet as “virtually unlimited consumption of ’steak, cream and pork rinds’” as well as not being a “diet rich in fruit, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and a moderate or low percentage of fat.” Despite this unfair assessment of what the Atkins diet is really about, the story admitted there was “value” in the Atkins diet becoming the most popular weight loss method in the United States. Ya think? Before I share with you these quotes from the low-fat propagandists in this story, let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. Livin’ la vida low-carb is here to stay and none of the negative barbs by those anti-meat, high-carb loving, low-fatties is going to change that for me. The fact is that diet they so loathe allowed me to lose close to 200 pounds while enjoying the foods I was eating. How many people on a low-fat vegetarian diet can actually say that? Not many, I would venture to guess. But for the 13 percent of Americans, or 39 million very intelligent people, who are still livin’ la vida low-carb and loving it in the year 2007, you just have to laugh at these stories declaring “the end of low-carb as we know it.” Low-carb as a nutritional choice hasn’t changed one bit in the history of mankind. If you want to talk about a real decline, then let’s just look at the latest subscriber numbers that came out last week for some of these self-righteous newspapers who constantly rail against the Atkins diet and all their faltering readership numbers. But, alas, that’s a story for another day.
Let’s take a look at just a few of the people quoted in this story:
1. “Mr. Low-Fat Diet” Himself, Dr. Dean Ornish had this to say…
“The good that Atkins did is that he made people more mindful about the importance of limiting refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour,” Ornish explained. “The bad is that he taught people that in the short run, you can sell a lot of books and make a lot of money telling them what they want to hear.”
Sounds like somebody is just a wee bit jealous of Dr. Atkins for coming up with an innovative and effective way to lose weight and keep it off for good. Dr. Ornish, on the other hand, offers the same old failed low-fat/low-calorie/portion-controlled meals that we have been subjected to for at least the past three decades. Thank God for Dr. Atkins coming up with an alternative nutritional approach that’s solidly proven both by the latest research and in the scores of people who have been radically changed. It helped me as a former 410-pound man on the brink of disasterous health become the healthy and vibrant man that I am today and I never will be the same again. Sure, Dr. Atkins did sell a lot of books (and still is!) because his program actually works to bring about weight loss and disease prevention! But what Dr. Ornish conveniently left out of his hypocritical rant is that he too has sold a lot of books and made a lot of money on all of the low-fat scaremongering he has perpetrated on the American people. He’s a big reason why people are so scared half to death to eat any fat at all nowadays, so don’t give me this whining and moaning about telling people what they want to hear, Dr. Ornish. You’ve been doing that yourself for so long with no results that people are just tuning you out. Perhaps people are turning to the Atkins low-carb nutritional approach because they have gotten tired of being lied to by people like you, hmmm?
2. Gary Foster
The clinical director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania said the Atkins diet “taught the scientific community a good lesson … [to not] be so quick to judge new approaches. We can’t test every fad diet. So why did we test this one? Because 10 million people had bought the book.”
Actually well over 20 million people have bought the book, Mr. Foster. And it’s still selling like low-carb hotcakes, baby! Why? Again, because it actually WORKS like it’s supposed to. While it is honorable that you would be open to “new approaches,” apparently you and your team haven’t looked at the Atkins diet very closely if you think it is some kind of a fad diet. The reason the low-carb lifestyle is so attractive to those of us who have lost weight and kept it off using this plan is because it gives people much more flexibility and ultimately greater control over what is put in our mouths. When I was on a low-fat diet in 1999, I was subjected to the scarce halfway decent and yet still nasty-tasting low-fat foods that I could find. But now livin’ la vida low-carb allows me to enjoy delicious and nutritious low-carb foods which also improves my quality of life, too. When he was asked why blood fat levels in low-carb dieters were found to be better than those who follow a low-fat diet, Foster, who authored a study on the subject remarked, “Who would have predicted that? Certainly, it wouldn’t have been me.” Well by golly, isn’t that something, Mr. Foster?! Scientific research actually proved Dr. Atkins was right after all. Somebody stop the presses on this one folks! Sheeez! Do these people even WANT to give credit where credit is due? Aren’t they simply pulling out all the stops to write off low-carb as an unhealthy and dangerous fad diet just a little bit too soon. Medical science still has a long way to go to catch up to what Dr. Atkins was trying to explain for thirty years, but it’s getting there slowly but surely. Finally, Foster is in the midst of conducting a study on 300 people following a “very low-carbohydrate diet.” He wants to see what the long-term effects of “limiting fruit, vegetables, whole grains, fiber and such popular dairy products as milk, yogurt and cheese” will have on people. Well, if that’s what you’re studying, Mr. Foster, then I hate to break it to you, but that is not at all what a low-carb diet is. You can eat lots of all of those things except for milk when you are livin’ la vida low-carb. I don’t know what organized “diet” plan they are using for this so-called study, but it is not even close to being the Atkins diet. I eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fiber, and cheese ALL THE TIME! Even when I was losing weight I had these products and many of them were staples for me as I converted from my high-carb food choices. And for milk, I had low-carb versions like Calorie Countdown. This is the kind of ignorance about low-carb that must continually be challenged or people will start to believe it’s true. Clearly, it is not. Foster concluded about his study, “Whether anyone will care about the results, I don’t know, but we’re going to continue.” Oh, believe me, there will be GREAT interest in the results of your study, Mr. Foster. Good or bad, it will be BIG news and I look forward to it.
3. Walter Willett
This professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health exclaimed in the story, “It’s clear that the Atkins diet does better in the short term and doesn’t do any worse in the long run in terms of weight control,” he noted. “That was so contrary to the general nutritional dogma that it really did shake things up a bit.”
Finally, a voice of reason in this story! Willett is exactly right. Despite all the negative accounts about how Atkins is only for the short term, there are many people who have made this their lifestyle change and expect to eat this way for the rest of our lives. Sure it goes against everything that doctors, nutritionists, and other so-called “experts” have been sharing with their patients their entire lives, but it is time for them to begin learning more about the incredible benefits that low-carb living can offer people.
At the end of the article, a panel of “leading nutritional experts” claims the following are the lasting effects of the Atkins diet. See if you agree with these:
1. Quick weight loss that doesn’t last. The quick weight loss on Atkins is initially due to loss of water, not fat.
So I guess my 180-pound weight loss was all water and not fat, eh? Yeah right! This one always cracks me up because they want to attribute the weight loss to the obscure “water weight” excuse. Help me, I’m drowning in the 200 pounds of water I lost while livin’ la vida low-carb! Aaaaaa…glurble, glurble. While you may indeed lose a lot of water weight initially when you do ANY diet plan, eventually you will move on to stored fat, too. These kind of silly excuses are not good enough reasons for abandoning your low-carb lifestyle. I was happy with ANY weight loss at the beginning of my low-carb lifestyle because it motivated me to keep it going until half my body weight was gone.
2. Protein is important. Studies show that protein increases satiety.
Uh, yeah. That’s the beauty of livin’ la vida low-carb people. And more and more studies are coming out about how protein is one of the biggest secrets to low-carb weight loss success and even improves bone health as well. Surprise, surprise!
3. Taste counts.
Taste is arguably the #1 reason why people switch to a low-carb lifestyle. It’s so much better than the cardboard “foods” (if that’s what you want to call them) that you are forced to eat on a low-fat diet.
4. Diets don’t work. It takes consistent lifestyle changes to lose weight and maintain it.
That’s what I say all the time about livin’ la vida low-carb. While the media and the so-called health “experts” call low-carb diets like Atkins a “fad” that doesn’t last, many of us low-carbers have seen this as a lifestyle change that we should have been doing a long time ago to get our weight and health under control for good. Better late than never!
5. Too many processed, sugary carbohydrates are unhealthy.
The more we learn about the harmful effects of eating processed refined carbs and sugary foods, the less desire any of us will have to put those things in our mouths ever again. We have a serious obesity epidemic in the United States and around the world right now and there is little doubt as to why.
Overall, this was a pretty good article, although the message strayed into the usual politically correct low-fat diet line of thinking from time to time. The media might be trying to put the nails in the coffin of the Atkins diet as they have been for over three years, but people just aren’t buying into the hype that low-carb living is going away. Could that explain why livin’ la vida low-carb is actually even more popular than the #1 show on television–American Idol? Betcha won’t hear that in the media anywhere!
That’s it for Episode 49 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.” Feel free to share your feedback about this LA Times column I talked about today by leaving your comments in the show notes section at TheLivinLowCarbShow.com. I’m glad you could join me today for the podcast and I look forward to seeing you again on Thursday as we hop into another interesting topic about the low-carb lifestyle. So, until then, keep on livin’ la vida low-carb!