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I tried Atkins, but couldn't stick with it. Later, I tried Weight Watchers, am still with it, and have had a lot more success.

Diet??? What color?

I've always been on the see-food diet, when I see food, I eat it. I've never tried Atkins or any other formal diet plan. 30 years later I weigh about 5 pounds more than I did when I graduated from college, which is still about 15 pounds heavier than my "ideal weight." I think that life is too short to spend my time calculating what I eat. I try not to eat burgers and fries every meal, and have the occasional salad, and that seems to work. I think that good genes has something to do with it.

I lost about 30 pounds, and gained 10 back when I went off it. I tried a couple times after that, but didn't lose any weight and felt like crud. I finally just started eating a diet rich in fruits and veggies, lean dairy, and (limited) whole grains, with 8-12 ounces per day of lean meat -- mostly poultry. I lost another 30 pounds in about 5 months and am easily maintaining that at the moment (I increased my number of "cheats" so that I'm neither gaining nor losing weight). Starting today, I'm back to really trying to lose weight, and have no doubt it'll come right off once I cut my "cheats" down from four or five per week to one ("cheat" being either a single meal that falls outside the prescribed diet OR a dessert other than very low-fat, low-sugar, low-cal stuff).

Atkins served a purpose for me, and I'm grateful for the 20 permanent pounds I lost with it; but having found a better way, I'd never recommend Atkins to anyone.
_________________________
Joe Baker, who suggests that if anyone is going to buy a diet book, they get either "The GI Diet" or "The South Beach Diet".

Chuck(G) wrote:

Reuters wrote:it would focus on nutrition bars

Tssk, tsk! Everything in the tuba world is about bars!

Does it strike anyone as odd that both Atkins and Krispy Kreme are in trouble at the same time?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/nation ... 50610.html

Chuck(G) wrote:Does it strike anyone as odd that both Atkins and Krispy Kreme are in trouble at the same time?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/nation ... 50610.html

Food for thought ...

schlepporello wrote:Chet Atkins is going bankrupt?

And drowning his sorrows in Krispy Kremes...

windshieldbug wrote:

schlepporello wrote:Chet Atkins is going bankrupt?

And drowning his sorrows in Krispy Kremes...

Better that than hanging out in nutrition bars, I guess ...

bloke wrote:Atkins relies a lot on grease...

So how much does a Grecian urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (nope, even I'm not that low. well, maybe I am, but not gunna do it!)

schlepporello wrote:So Chet Atkins is bankrupt and living on Krispy Kreme donuts in Greece?

By jove, Wayne, I think you've got it! Somewhere in the country, of course.

If we look at the diet our ancestors ate (no, their ancestors), I think we'll find a diet with about equal parts raw meat and raw fruits and vegetables. Of course, mortality was in the 30's for them, but that doesn't mean old people didn't get to be just as old as now if they managed to survive the dangers they faced, including the dangers of rancid food and the horns on the animals from which they obtained the meat.

Thus, I have this feeling that anytime we eat something that has to be cooked to make it edible, we are probably compromising how our bodies are wired. That would include grains to a certain extent. Just as some people see better than others, some are able to digest and use compromise foods better than others.

When I keep my intake down to 2000 calories a day and exercise 10 hours a week, I weigh 200 pounds. Now, I'm eating more and exercising less, and I weigh 230. A dozen years ago, I ate still more and exercised much less, and I weighed 270. I don't think the specific mix of macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate and protein) had much effect on that.

But when I eat meals high in carbohydrates, I suffer a sugar crash two or three hours and have to eat more to wake up. Some fat in the meal actually reduces the effect. When I eat meals that are all protein, I don't feel well and my digestion doesn't work well. When I eat a meal with about equal parts protein, fat, and carbs, I'm not hungry again for four or five hours, even if the meal was only 400 calories. That leads me to a conclusion: A diet with a reasonable balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates is easier to sustain than unbalanced diets too rich in carbohydrates or protein, or too low in fat. But losing weight still comes down to burning more than you consume. You'll lose weight even if all you eat are Krispy Kreme donuts, if they add up to less than what you burn. It just doesn't take very many Krispy Kreme donuts to reach that limit, and hunger will become a compelling issue after a while.

The typical diet of no fat, very few proteins, and lots and lots of fat-free carbohydrates will work if you eat little enough of it, but it's not a diet that most people can tolerate for long. And the Atkins diet, which is based on protein ketosis, is also hard to tolerate after a while. Neither are balanced diets, in my opinion. And the non-diet of high-fat meat, cheese, potatos, and bread (i.e., a fast-food diet) takes the worst of each of these extremes. But you'll lose weight with any of them if you eat less than you burn, assuming you can continue to do so.

Rick "whose most healthy meals have a small handful of lean meat and lots of vegetables and fruit, but minimal starch" Denney

Rick, it used to be thought that the great apes in Africa were exclusively vegetarian. Turns out that that's true only where there's an abundance of vegetation and little competition for it. In other areas, the apes have been found to eat both insects and meat.

This leads me to believe that humans are basically engineered to eat whatever's available. So, if you're a good Hindu, you eat vegetarian; if you're an Mongol herdsman, your diet is almost fully carnivorous.

I don't think there's a hard-and-fast "our ancestors ate" rule anymore.

What seems to be a big weight determining factor (outside of genetics) is activity, pure and simple.

Chuck(G) wrote:I don't think there's a hard-and-fast "our ancestors ate" rule anymore.

That was partly my point. The mix of what we eat has little effect on our weight vis a vis the quantity that we eat.

But I think certain diets are easier to maintain than others, because they invoke a more stable response in body chemistry such as blood sugar, insulin, and other hormones. Those things seem to affect our mood, hunger, and wakefulness.

The one common thread among the opportunistic diet of the great apes you mentioned is that they eat their food raw, whether vegetable or protein. That suggests to me that food that can only be eaten after being cooked is probably not optimal, and we are probably therefore better off sticking with those foods when we can.

I also think that people of a culture who have eaten a particular diet for thousands of years might find some unexpected changes in their response to food when that diet changes over a few decades. There is the genetic predisposition that is reinforced within closed cultures--those who tolerate the culture's diet best have the best chance of passing their genes along. But in our world where cultures have mixed in only a couple of centuries, we've had no time to catch up genetically. Thus, some people are downright allergic to dairy products while others eat them in great quantities. Those Mongol herdsmen might be fine with their diet of meat and fat (ditto Inuit cultures), but might have real problems with a high-starch diet that would be tolerated well by those from more agrarian cultures. In the end it comes down to calories eaten vs. burned, when weight loss is the criterion. But I'm much healthier (no matter what my weight) when I stay away from dairy and too much bread.

Rick "who likes the taste of it all, however, and who doesn't always stick to the plan" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:The one common thread among the opportunistic diet of the great apes you mentioned is that they eat their food raw, whether vegetable or protein. That suggests to me that food that can only be eaten after being cooked is probably not optimal, and we are probably therefore better off sticking with those foods when we can.

Rick, the only thing that this suggests to me is that the great apes (like a lot of people I know) didn't know how to cook. Most carnivores will eat cooked meat if it's presented to them.. Great apes didn't play baseball either, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's dangerous to humans.

Actually, what the world needs is "people kibble'. Perfectly balanced nutrition in varioius flavors manufactured from yard waste, roadkill and old CDs. Forget the diets.

Chuck(G) wrote:Rick, the only thing that this suggests to me is that the great apes (like a lot of people I know) didn't know how to cook. Most carnivores will eat cooked meat if it's presented to them.. Great apes didn't play baseball either, but there's no evidence to suggest that it's dangerous to humans.

I'm not being clear. It's not the cooking, but rather the requirement to be cooked. We eat lots of things that would be impossible to eat if it wasn't cooked. I'm not at all proposing that cooking the stuff we can eat raw is a bad thing, and I certainly cook my food before eating it (except for a good steak, which is ruined by too much cooking). But I think we are closer to optimal if we more often choose foods that are edible raw. For that reason, if I have a choice between a handful of pecans or a handful of peanuts, I'll choose the pecans, which are easily eaten raw, over the peanuts, which must be roasted first.

Wheat is mighty hard to eat without being ground up, mixed with other stuff, and baked. Nothing really wrong with bread in moderation, but I think we are better off getting our carbohydrate calories from fruits and vegetables when the choice is available.

No hard and fast rules in anything I've said. It's just a matter of the decisions we make when the choices are available to us. Lots of people go right past all those lovely fruits and vegetables in the cafeteria line only get a big pile of rice, two rolls, and ear of corn, and a slab of meat.

Rick "who does acknowledge that too much cooking can cook the nutrients right out of the vegetables, however" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:No hard and fast rules in anything I've said. It's just a matter of the decisions we make when the choices are available to us. Lots of people go right past all those lovely fruits and vegetables in the cafeteria line only get a big pile of rice, two rolls, and ear of corn, and a slab of meat.

True. I think that learning how to eat starts early. When I see what's offered for "lunch" at the local middle schools, I'm appalled. Nachos, ramen noodles and chocolate chip cookies. Maybe the cafeteria food that was served when I was that age was downright unappetizing, but it did include vegetables and wasn't too heavy on processed carbs, salt and sugar.

But then, I wonder if the parents of those children know how to eat or prepare food.

Rick Denney wrote:It's not the cooking, but rather the requirement to be cooked

OR frozen...