why don't the low carb folks believe in CICO?

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  • JPW1990
    JPW1990 Posts: 2,424 Member
    ndj1979 wrote: »

    that is what made me create this thread…

    however, I will say that a good amount of the low carbers that have posted in here have stayed away from the "carbs are evil" argument and have come with some pretty good knowledge….

    the assumption of medical condition for "majority" of low carbers based on observation of message boards is definitely a stretch though ….

    No more of a stretch than saying everyone doing low carb has no clue what they're talking about and only does it because they read it in a fitness mag - that IS the statement that started that part of the conversation.
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    Yes, for medical reasons. Apologies for having a real life and not waiting for someone to post again just so I can respond. My whole point about sample size isn't about a few groups on MFP, or a few message boards. It's about 15 years of working with support groups through hospitals, as well as online groups, far beyond the scope of only fitness or only MFP. Honestly, MFP is a pretty small pond in the grand scheme of things.

    I'm comparing that to someone insisting everyone they know is low carb because "they read it in a fitness magazine." The population of people with assorted epidemic level metabolic and health issues, vs the population that reads fitness magazines. I'm still going to go with having the larger sample size.

    I noticed in all the complaining that I dared leave my computer, nobody answered those questions - in their "everyone I know" group, how many were people over 30 with health issues to begin with vs how many were not?

    I'm curious, could you point out where someone said "everyone I know"? The only person I recall using statements like that was you when you said the majority of LC people are under medical supervision, something you can't prove and are just assuming.

    Sure thing.
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.

    as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.

    I don't know...it seems like those folks actually have more guidelines than what you seem to be suggesting. I mean, I'm on like 45% carbs right now...guess I'm low carb...even though that's about 225 grams per day.

    From here on out, I will simply dismiss low carbers as simply not knowing what they're doing or what they're talking about.

    Thanks for clearing this up for me.

    Weren't you doing so already?

    Point being, if it's completely arbitrary and meaningless as your buddy yarwell agrees that it is...then how can I actually take someone who says they're "low carb" serious...I can't take them any more seriously than I can take a "clean eater" or a person who follows paleo, but only certain parts of it and only when they want to.

    Srsly...it's just hard to take most people srsly in general when they're just flinging around arbitrary and apparently meaningless labels and what not...

    Because in the majority of cases, whether they feel it's any of your business or not, it's someone with a medical degree and/or someone with a nutrition science degree who prescribed it to them. Whether or not the poster fully understands the science behind it is irrelevant to them wanting recipe info, or wanting to find other people using the same WOE, or wondering if anyone else has experienced XYZ.

    Unless you're suggesting you can psychically diagnose people through a message board more accurately than their own doctors?

    I know tons of people on the low carb band wagon...not a single one of them has been prescribed a low carb diet from a health provider...they have been prescribed a low carb diet from whatever fitness magazine they happen to read because it's all the rage...they generally have no understanding of pretty much anything as it relates to actual nutrtion...they're all just little lemmings echoing the "carbs are bad" mantra...of course they will only do this until the next thing becomes hip and whatnot.

    I think you are greatly exaggerating the number of people who are actually prescribed a low carb diet due to legitimate health conditions...and, most who do, actually do post that...and also, I'm not just talking MFP here...MFP is nothing...MFP is tiny compared to the real world.

    But beyond that, now I'm totally confused as to what constitutes low carb...I mean apparently to some of you, I would be "low carb" given the % of carbs I usually eat.

    That was the follow up to why he'd never have to take any person who mentions low carb seriously about anything, ever.

    Okay, he said that. Didn't see it. So that's 1 person, any one else?


    Also, you probably missed my last reply to you, below. And now you are saying that those people who do low carb here are medically supervised but don't mention it. It's more assumptions. You're on of the few people in this thread that has been making statements like that with no solid information to back that up.
    You are using a sample that you have from people you see through your groups and assuming that because the majority of those people are medically supervised that the majority of the people in the entire world that are following a low carb diet are also medically supervised. It's a strong assumption.

    I never said the majority of any group is leading the pact. You did. You're clearly the one making assumptions.

    And I did address that in the other post - again, based on what started it "they're all doing it from fitness mags," that in comparison, the thousands of people I've talked with over all those years seem to be a demographic entirely missing from the fitness mag group. It still comes back to nobody saying that x% of the people they know are on it for med reasons and y% of them because they read it in the checkout line. If someone wants to argue it's really 40/60 or 60/40 or 80/20, that's fine. My issue was with that blanket statement you didn't see on the first time through - that "everyone" was doing it as a fad diet.
  • RockstarWilson
    RockstarWilson Posts: 836 Member
    edited March 2015
    Sounds like this thread fizzled down to a lack of communication and reading comprehension. I have said my peace, hopefully it helps someone. Unbookmark.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited March 2015
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.

    as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.

    I don't know...it seems like those folks actually have more guidelines than what you seem to be suggesting. I mean, I'm on like 45% carbs right now...guess I'm low carb...even though that's about 225 grams per day.

    From here on out, I will simply dismiss low carbers as simply not knowing what they're doing or what they're talking about.

    Thanks for clearing this up for me.

    Weren't you doing so already?

    Point being, if it's completely arbitrary and meaningless as your buddy yarwell agrees that it is...then how can I actually take someone who says they're "low carb" serious...I can't take them any more seriously than I can take a "clean eater" or a person who follows paleo, but only certain parts of it and only when they want to.

    Srsly...it's just hard to take most people srsly in general when they're just flinging around arbitrary and apparently meaningless labels and what not...

    Because in the majority of cases, whether they feel it's any of your business or not, it's someone with a medical degree and/or someone with a nutrition science degree who prescribed it to them. Whether or not the poster fully understands the science behind it is irrelevant to them wanting recipe info, or wanting to find other people using the same WOE, or wondering if anyone else has experienced XYZ.

    Unless you're suggesting you can psychically diagnose people through a message board more accurately than their own doctors?

    False

    If your sample is taken from gym rats, your numbers are going to be skewed. If you take into account the larger lc community, the majority are people you will probably never interact with, unless you're in the habit of hanging out on PCOS forums or diabetic support groups. Exactly what percentage of your sample is peri or post-menopause, for starters?

    Gym rats?

    You specifically said the majority of lc people have prescribed it by a medical professional. You're making an assumption because you don't actually have figures to back that up.

    As you are making an assumption that it's not. However, I'm also going with the idea that I have a much larger sample size than you, since I've been actively participating in online and real life support groups and forums for over 10 years, while you're basing your assumption on people you've met who talk about their diet and people who post in the general info area of MFP. As I asked, what percentage of your sample size is post menopausal women? How about men over 50 with a T2 diagnosis? Women of all ages with PCOS and IR? People over 40 with GERD or IBS? In the places I'm associating with people on low carb, I'll find a lot of those, and a handful of people using it only for non-medical reasons. If those people aren't even included in your view of what constitutes the "lc community" you can't really make an estimate of how many have a prescribed WOE.

    How many diet and fitness forums do you belong to? How active are you in the fitness community at large? Have you been to a magazine rack in the past decade? Have you not noticed the general low carb marketing all over the place, to include random signs posted at the super market.

    Undoubtedly there are many people with medical conditions for which a low carb diet is going to be beneficial...hell, my dad was a type II and had full blown metabolic syndrome and among my numerous blood work issues a few years ago was high blood sugar levels...but are you really that oblivious to how main stream this is...and not in a positive, well educated way...but in a totally ridiculous fear mongering stupid way.

    Also, I didn't fix my issues by going low carb, I fixed them by fixing my nutrition in general and researching what was good for this and what helped improve that, etc...low and behold the resulting diet consisted of eating a lot more veg, some fruit, whole grains, legumes, etc...carbs. While they may be at a lower intake than they were previously, I still wouldn't consider myself "low carb."

    I'd be curious to see her reply to your post and mine after she made such a strong assumption.

    So far we have on this page alone we have 2 people doing LC as a choice, not due to medical supervision.

    And really, I don't have any qualm with anyone doing low carb even if it's by choice....what irks me is the rampant lack of nutritional knowledge and the fear mongering.

    I was going over some nutrition stuff with my coach a couple weeks ago at the gym and had printed out a day of my diary and we were talking about my dinner...I had peas as a veg side and another trainer there overheard this discussion and actually butted in and said I shouldn't really be eating those because they have too much sugar...all I could do is stair and the guy like, "really...now *kitten* peas are going to kill me...really."

    It's this kind of absurdity that is rampant and just gets under my skin.

    that is what made me create this thread…

    however, I will say that a good amount of the low carbers that have posted in here have stayed away from the "carbs are evil" argument and have come with some pretty good knowledge….

    the assumption of medical condition for "majority" of low carbers based on observation of message boards is definitely a stretch though ….

    The stretch too far, as I was reading it, was medically "prescribed".

    I know a lot of people who self-prescribe all sorts of dietary approaches for things and can understand encountering heaps of those. I just guess I don't live in an area where the doctors are recommending low carb diets for things like GERD and women over 50, otherwise both my husband and I would have heard this news.

  • tomatoey
    tomatoey Posts: 5,446 Member
    mokaiba wrote: »
    tomatoey wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    The one concept I read a long time ago by Tim Ferris in the Four Hour Body that stuck with me is that a dieter that isn't trying to lower their carb intake consciously but is lowering their calorie intake is often lowering their carb intake comparatively to the diet they had previously. That simple carb reduction may be helping them succeed. Interesting... how many people here that went from non dieting to dieting on CICO only that claim success are eating the exact same number of grams per day of carbohydrates that they did previously? Likely, you reduced or cut out some pretty carb rich junk food. I suspect very few... by that fact, it is difficult to assume that simply calorie restriction has helped and not the lowering of carbs in combination.

    Things that make you go hmmmm.....

    I definitely lowered my carbs, but also definitely lowered my fat, quite possibly more. (I've always been more tempted by fat.)

    Perhaps Susan Powter had a point!

    (I'm willing to bet not, however.)

    What happened to that woman??
    "She eventually sold her studio in Dallas and moved to Seattle, Washington. As of 2012, she was living in a self-described "earth ship" in New Mexico"

    she still tweets a lot, eg (to intertwine a comment I made about no added sugar in another thread...im not the only one who has qualms with sugar),

    edit: what she was referring to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/13/sugar-industry-tobacco-industry_n_6855786.html

    Lol - still kicking. Guess she's scaled it back but is still coaching and working. She looks awesome. Sorry for derail.
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  • JPW1990
    JPW1990 Posts: 2,424 Member
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    ndj1979 wrote: »

    that is what made me create this thread…

    however, I will say that a good amount of the low carbers that have posted in here have stayed away from the "carbs are evil" argument and have come with some pretty good knowledge….

    the assumption of medical condition for "majority" of low carbers based on observation of message boards is definitely a stretch though ….

    No more of a stretch than saying everyone doing low carb has no clue what they're talking about and only does it because they read it in a fitness mag - that IS the statement that started that part of the conversation.
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    MrM27 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    Yes, for medical reasons. Apologies for having a real life and not waiting for someone to post again just so I can respond. My whole point about sample size isn't about a few groups on MFP, or a few message boards. It's about 15 years of working with support groups through hospitals, as well as online groups, far beyond the scope of only fitness or only MFP. Honestly, MFP is a pretty small pond in the grand scheme of things.

    I'm comparing that to someone insisting everyone they know is low carb because "they read it in a fitness magazine." The population of people with assorted epidemic level metabolic and health issues, vs the population that reads fitness magazines. I'm still going to go with having the larger sample size.

    I noticed in all the complaining that I dared leave my computer, nobody answered those questions - in their "everyone I know" group, how many were people over 30 with health issues to begin with vs how many were not?

    I'm curious, could you point out where someone said "everyone I know"? The only person I recall using statements like that was you when you said the majority of LC people are under medical supervision, something you can't prove and are just assuming.

    Sure thing.
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    yarwell wrote: »
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    So I guess in conclusion, a low carb diet is completely arbitrary and meaningless.

    as is a "high protein diet" or any other subjective choice of words. Always best to define ones terms.

    I don't know...it seems like those folks actually have more guidelines than what you seem to be suggesting. I mean, I'm on like 45% carbs right now...guess I'm low carb...even though that's about 225 grams per day.

    From here on out, I will simply dismiss low carbers as simply not knowing what they're doing or what they're talking about.

    Thanks for clearing this up for me.

    Weren't you doing so already?

    Point being, if it's completely arbitrary and meaningless as your buddy yarwell agrees that it is...then how can I actually take someone who says they're "low carb" serious...I can't take them any more seriously than I can take a "clean eater" or a person who follows paleo, but only certain parts of it and only when they want to.

    Srsly...it's just hard to take most people srsly in general when they're just flinging around arbitrary and apparently meaningless labels and what not...

    Because in the majority of cases, whether they feel it's any of your business or not, it's someone with a medical degree and/or someone with a nutrition science degree who prescribed it to them. Whether or not the poster fully understands the science behind it is irrelevant to them wanting recipe info, or wanting to find other people using the same WOE, or wondering if anyone else has experienced XYZ.

    Unless you're suggesting you can psychically diagnose people through a message board more accurately than their own doctors?

    I know tons of people on the low carb band wagon...not a single one of them has been prescribed a low carb diet from a health provider...they have been prescribed a low carb diet from whatever fitness magazine they happen to read because it's all the rage...they generally have no understanding of pretty much anything as it relates to actual nutrtion...they're all just little lemmings echoing the "carbs are bad" mantra...of course they will only do this until the next thing becomes hip and whatnot.

    I think you are greatly exaggerating the number of people who are actually prescribed a low carb diet due to legitimate health conditions...and, most who do, actually do post that...and also, I'm not just talking MFP here...MFP is nothing...MFP is tiny compared to the real world.

    But beyond that, now I'm totally confused as to what constitutes low carb...I mean apparently to some of you, I would be "low carb" given the % of carbs I usually eat.

    That was the follow up to why he'd never have to take any person who mentions low carb seriously about anything, ever.

    Okay, he said that. Didn't see it. So that's 1 person, any one else?


    Also, you probably missed my last reply to you, below. And now you are saying that those people who do low carb here are medically supervised but don't mention it. It's more assumptions. You're on of the few people in this thread that has been making statements like that with no solid information to back that up.
    You are using a sample that you have from people you see through your groups and assuming that because the majority of those people are medically supervised that the majority of the people in the entire world that are following a low carb diet are also medically supervised. It's a strong assumption.

    I never said the majority of any group is leading the pact. You did. You're clearly the one making assumptions.

    And I did address that in the other post - again, based on what started it "they're all doing it from fitness mags," that in comparison, the thousands of people I've talked with over all those years seem to be a demographic entirely missing from the fitness mag group. It still comes back to nobody saying that x% of the people they know are on it for med reasons and y% of them because they read it in the checkout line. If someone wants to argue it's really 40/60 or 60/40 or 80/20, that's fine. My issue was with that blanket statement you didn't see on the first time through - that "everyone" was doing it as a fad diet.

    You take issue with that statement with the person that made it. That has nothing to do with what you and I were discussing, that you said "the majority of people that are on LC are on it under medical supervision. That right there is you back tracking on what you said. Something you can't confirm is true at all because it's just an assumption on your part.

    In response to the assumption that they were all from fitness mags. It's not my fault you jumped into that conversation and took it upon yourself. That was the only conversation I was having.
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  • tiptoethruthetulips
    tiptoethruthetulips Posts: 3,371 Member
    I bought into it big time. Ate "primal." Was averaging around 20-30 carbs a day. Gained a f***ton of weight.

    Weight loss was addressed in the Primal Blueprint book as primal isn't necessarily about weight loss but an overall lifestyle which includes a primal template for eating. It says in the book that primal isn't a free for all eat all you want as long as its primal, and that for weight loss calorie counting still counts in-conjunction with guidelines in the book.

  • cdn_beaver
    cdn_beaver Posts: 130 Member
    I've been eating LCHF (keto) for over 2.5 years now and dropped over 100lbs in that time. When I first started this WOE I didn't count calories and I really didn't need to. A high fat diet keeps you satiated for long periods of time so you're eating less. I was especially eating less because I was a carb addict before and would binge on carbs and then be hungry again less than two hours later. I can't even imagine the calories I was eating in a day. Now that I have about 20lbs to lose to get to my goal weight I'm counting my calories because I need to. I generally eat about 1400 a day (about a 17% deficit), 70g of protein, 120g, fat, 20g of net carbs.
    I will continue to eat this way even once I get to my goal weight because I feel amazing. The change happened once I was keto adapted (about 4 weeks in). I always have a tonne of energy, I'm rarely ever hungry, I don't have mood swings, and I enjoy the food I eat. I will increase my carbs to around 50-75 net a day as I found that was maintenance when I spent a couple months last Summer doing that.
  • Leanbean65
    Leanbean65 Posts: 176 Member
    WOE
    wō/Submit
    nounhumorous
    great sorrow or distress.
    "they had a complicated tale of woe"
    synonyms: misery, sorrow, distress, wretchedness, sadness, unhappiness, heartache, heartbreak, despondency, despair, depression, regret, gloom, melancholy; More
    antonyms: joy, happiness
    things that cause sorrow or distress; troubles.
    "to add to his woes, customers have been spending less"
    synonyms: trouble, difficulty, problem, trial, tribulation, misfortune, setback, reverse
    "financial woes"
  • rxxxxxx
    rxxxxxx Posts: 1
    Canadian Beaver, that was a pretty good reply and summary of LoCarb. It helps suppress your appetite through controlling your sugar, making you eat less. I just wanted to ask a couple of ??:

    What do you mean by Keto-adapted? I know about ketosis but keto-adapted?

    I think your keeping track of calories now you're near your goal is a good idea but how do you manage 20G of carbs? That's my main problem with the Atkins style LoCarb, it places a lot of restrictions on what you can eat and that's going to be hard to maintain...
  • RockstarWilson
    RockstarWilson Posts: 836 Member
    edited March 2015
    Keto adapted means you are in ketosis without the negative side effects that a ketogenic diet commonly induces when the diet is started. These can vary between stomach cramps, headaches, weakness or soreness. It is the effect when the body feels it is being deprived of energy, which is partly the case. It is still expecting carbs, and it is not getting them. It then looks for another energy source. Fat is next in line, so there are adverse effects until it figures out how to switch and convert fat into usable energy.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    edited March 2015
    JPW1990 wrote: »
    Yes, for medical reasons. Apologies for having a real life and not waiting for someone to post again just so I can respond. My whole point about sample size isn't about a few groups on MFP, or a few message boards. It's about 15 years of working with support groups through hospitals, as well as online groups, far beyond the scope of only fitness or only MFP. Honestly, MFP is a pretty small pond in the grand scheme of things.

    I'm comparing that to someone insisting everyone they know is low carb because "they read it in a fitness magazine." The population of people with assorted epidemic level metabolic and health issues, vs the population that reads fitness magazines. I'm still going to go with having the larger sample size.

    I noticed in all the complaining that I dared leave my computer, nobody answered those questions - in their "everyone I know" group, how many were people over 30 with health issues to begin with vs how many were not?

    I'm 40...pretty much everyone I know and associate with are between the ages of 35 and 45...and yes...you do seem totally oblivious to how mainstream this all is...it's EVERYWHERE...people don't necessarily have to read fitness magazine...hell, they can just pick up Time...or look at some random advert at the supermarket promoting X because it's "low carb"....c'mon...are you really this oblivious or are you just *kitten* around? How many people just randomly pick up Adkins and go with it...no medical supervision, no condition, etc? C'mon..you really can't be this oblivious.

    And yeah...pretty much everyone I know is relatively healthy. My dad was the only one with issues...metabolic syndrome and type II...he still ate carbs and was never instructed to do keto or go super low carb or anything...his dietician just taught him how to eat better and manage things.

    I also said I couldn't take it seriously because there seems to be as many definitions of low carb as there are "clean eating"...it's all very silly.
  • cdn_beaver
    cdn_beaver Posts: 130 Member
    Being keto adapted means your body is now efficiently running of your fat stores for energy versus carbs. Pretty much what RockstarWilson said. You drop your water weight the first week (I lost 6 pounds I think) and then your body switches over to fat burning soon after.
    I eat around 20 net carbs (carbs minus fiber) a day. I make a lot of casseroles which help with keto macros.
    One of my favourite breakfasts is:
    2 eggs cooked in bacon grease, 1T of hollandaise, and 50 grams of avocado. This works out to be about 330 calories, 28g fat, 14g protein, and 3 net carbs (6 carbs minus 3 fiber). This keeps me full for around 4-5 hours at which time I'll have a light snack until I eat my second meal at dinner.
    You should be drinking a lot of water while eating LCHF. I aim for 96oz a day. I also supplement to make sure I get a total of 3500mg potassium, 3000mg sodium, and 400mg of magnesium a day as my electrolytes get flushed out.
  • ogmomma2012
    ogmomma2012 Posts: 1,520 Member
    The only way carbs are evil is that it's VERY hard for me to not gorge on them. Because they are too delicious.
  • watermilla
    watermilla Posts: 4 Member
    edited May 2016
    I started a low-carb diet due to a medical condition and it gave excellent results on weight loss. But the thing is, most of the days I could not reach the targeted 2000 kcal without carbs. Maybe that is the reason why we lose weight that easily once we exclude them. I haven't been working out so I don't know how it effects strength and endurance but I haven't had any side effects like feeling tired or what so ever. I am still on this diet because I feel my brain is more clear and I have more discipline. I occasionally take carbs, and I intend to go for moderate (good) carbs, proteins and fats soon as I think that is the best way to fulfil all the needs of the body. Plus, back to the gym, as of Monday :).
    As for CICO, I don't think it applies since it is not the same whether you take 100 kcal from chocolate, cabbage or meat as they trigger different hormones and processes in the body. Smart people wrote a lot about it so I can only recommend an article found here: https://authoritynutrition.com/debunking-the-calorie-myth/
  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
    watermilla wrote: »
    I started a low-carb diet due to a medical condition and it gave excellent results on weight loss. But the thing is, most of the days I could not reach the targeted 2000 kcal without carbs. Maybe that is the reason why we lose weight that easily once we exclude them. I haven't been working out so I don't know how it effects strength and endurance but I haven't had any side effects like feeling tired or what so ever. I am still on this diet because I feel my brain is more clear and I have more discipline. I occasionally take carbs, and I intend to go for moderate (good) carbs, proteins and fats soon as I think that is the best way to fulfil all the needs of the body. Plus, back to the gym, as of Monday :).
    As for CICO, I don't think it applies since it is not the same whether you take 100 kcal from chocolate, cabbage or meat as they trigger different hormones and processes in the body. Smart people wrote a lot about it so I can only recommend an article found here: https://authoritynutrition.com/debunking-the-calorie-myth/

    Your first three sentences are spot on. That is precisely why it works.

    The last two sentences kind of go off the rails. 200 calories of one food may make me feel different than 200 calories of another but so long as I limit myself to those calories, the affect on my weight is the same.
    Once I allow 200 calories to become 400, the reason I don't have the same results is not because of hormones. It's because I ate more.

    P.S. That website isn't the greatest source of reliable information.
This discussion has been closed.