Been on Atkins Diet since 1998. Beware, this might bore you.

mncardiojunkie

Gained weight now once during whilst expecting my son 2004. Cholesterol levels went through the roof. Lost it all in four months, cholesterol levels became excellent.

Gained weight due to holiday seasonal depression and the "I deserve sweets" mode. Lost it all in four months. (cholesterol levels not testes.)

Had physical during the maintaining stage and perfect cholesterol (save I had a bit more sodium than expected and had to drop tuna and chicken in a tin..) Now dropping diet Pepsi.

Now presently, I've been back on a fairly strict Atkins and I'm dropping weight like mad and I'm not at all hungry. I'll have a physical in April.

I'm do not fancy food and need to force myself to eat. That film that was posted proved that protein seems to suppress hunger.

However, the studies about fat were limited. After being on this diet (with the exception of some sporadic months throughout these twelve years, with EXCELLENT results and the ability to maintain with no problem (until I get self entitled), my levels of cholesterol are excellent.

Indeed, last year I was having "heart problems". My heart hurt. My GP determined that it was from a car accident I had had years ago (it was a horrid accident) and it was muscular where the seat belt torn soft tissue and muscles. He said, "with your cholesterol levels, there's absolutely no way that you are having heart problems. I've never seen some one with such good stats at your age. Now drop the sodium."

I'm not really trying to make a case here. I'm just giving my experiences.

My questions are these:

Has anyone else been on a low carb diet for over 5 years?

If so, have you gone to your GP for labs on cholesterol? If so, what were the results?

I admit I have a very high fat diet. In fact it's the only thing in my diet I've surplus of.

Can anyone concur?

I'm very interested in the food science of this. There's practically no studies on high fat and long term effects (which bring carbs down to 50<.

My brother, self proclaimed fitness guru, thinks that there's a limit to low carb and it's only good for people that are obese.

Kind regards,

Marie

mncardiojunkie

I also want to say this.

My brother and I were both on the brink of Type II diabetes when we went on the Atkins diet. My brother was on it five years earlier than I. He was a religious believer in Atkins, until he wanted to start being absolutely perfect and now he's added more good carbs to his diet.

We were both extensively tested for this, partly because our dad has it and has been insulin dependent for years.

Good new now. My dad is now on the Atkins since July 2011, lost 80 and off insulin.

echarlto

Hi, Cardio, and thanks for the post. I'm a 57-year old physician from Ohio. I've been on Atkins for six years. I eat a high-fat diet. My good cholesterol (HDL) went from 55 to 75 on Atkins and has stayed there. My bad cholesterol/LDL went from 110 to 100 and has stayed there. My triglycerides went from 300 to 95 and have stayed there. I got sloppy about portion size and gained 15 lbs, which brought me to mfp, which I love! I don't post because the nay-sayers and haters here annoy me. Low carb is good for you. That's why you see posts here about endocrinologists starting to put patients on low-carb. Thirty years ago, when I was in training, Atkins was a heretic and was about to be burned at the stake. Now the medical community is starting to come around. Keep eating your meat, cheese, and eggs!

Ed

Bevkus

Hi, Cardio, and thanks for the post. I'm a 57-year old physician from Ohio. I've been on Atkins for six years. I eat a high-fat diet. My good cholesterol (HDL) went from 55 to 75 on Atkins and has stayed there. My bad cholesterol/LDL went from 110 to 100 and has stayed there. My triglycerides went from 300 to 95 and have stayed there. I got sloppy about portion size and gained 15 lbs, which brought me to mfp, which I love! I don't post because the nay-sayers and haters here annoy me. Low carb is good for you. That's why you see posts here about endocrinologists starting to put patients on low-carb. Thirty years ago, when I was in training, Atkins was a heretic and was about to be burned at the stake. Now the medical community is starting to come around. Keep eating your meat, cheese, and eggs!

Ed

Thanks for that Ed. We all needed to hear that from a doctor.

Why do you think the medical community is so slow to embrace this? Even Doctor Oz is against low carb, despite overwhelming results. He recommends gastic by-pass for rapid weight loss and severe diabetic issues, but not low-carb diet. Thats insane!

echarlto

I really don't know why the medical community won't embrace low-carb.

If I think out loud about it, my guess is that it relates to two issues. The first is that we're trained to resist fads and hold to what's conventional. We're slow to embrace a new blood pressure medicine or diabetes medicine and tend to stick to what we've used successfully thousands of times. The conventional wisdom is: restrict calories (which I still believe) and restrict fats. The other issue is collective ego. "We can't have been this wrong for this long." Low-carb flies in the face of more than 50 years of science and belief about the benefits of low-fat diets. If flies in the face of a hundred years of belief in cereal grains being good for you. For a physician to embrace low-carb is about like an environmentalist ditching global warming. Can't be!

mncardiojunkie

Thanks so much, Ed.

And so my rabble begins....

I wanted to call my dad prior to making another post. I asked him if he had any fat restrictions with his Atkins Diet. After all, he had all of these heart surgeries at the Mayo Clinic. I mean, quad b-pass, etc, etc. Maybe he had four or five. He was a walking time bomb along with his Type II. I thought surely his cardiologist would have him limit his fat.

Get this, the answer was "no". He also said that his doctor has never seen someone with such good labs (cholesterol, etc) of his age. He doesn't go to the cardiologist any longer. What? After all of those bi-pass surgeries. He's also had about three heart attacks. He no longer is tired when he's out on his ranch feeding his animals. He's not short of breath. His GP said that it's all due to the Atkins. The only limit his GP said was, "try to limit red meat to only once or twice a week."

I'm amazed.

It was dumbfounding when I was younger. I was a low fat vegan and I weighted 219 pounds. I'd been on nearly every diet out there by the time my brother introduced me to the Atkins and my health turned around in a couple of months.

I, too, Ed, say very little. I got ran off of a low-carb board because I told people that fat does not make you fat.

People's addiction to processed "Betty" and The Pillsbury Dough Boy is greater than common sense.

When I got engaged in 2001, three of my brides maids wanted to lose weight for the wedding. I gave them all a copy of the Atkins Diet Revolution. Everyone dropped serious weight.

One of them gained back weight. She was nearly 250 when she went on Atkins. She got down to 170 by the time of my wedding. She lost track of the lifestyle because she is a special ed teacher and eats with the kids in the school. She's gained back the weight (you know what kind of crap they feed kids in schools these days.) Recently she told me that she was considering a gastric bi pass surgery. I asked her why not just go back on Atkins. She told me that there was not enough research to know how a high fat and protein diet will hurt you in the future.

Hummmmmm....Well I know what a processed food, high sugar diet will do to you. Diabetes, heart disease, etc.
This was a carb addicted person speaking. To think that she would undergo major surgery than cut out a cookies and chicken nuggets baffles me. It's an addict that isn't thinking clearly.

People also think that we are cutting out food groups. This is maddening. I ask, what food group am I cutting out? The answer is Bread, Cereal, Rice, & Pasta Group. That's a food group? I thought it was grains? I'm okay with occasional oats. The rest of the grains make me too effervescent and I'm insulting peoples' sensibilities when I'm on the tread mill. I eat some grains, but never processed. The government is telling people to eat refined sugars and wheat and calling it a food group?

There are a couple of urban legends about the food groups, too. Processed and refined sugars and wheat were preferable to starvation during the depression. The government developed it to keep the farmers going.