well, i will be the first to say that i am an artist, not a doctor...  i
looked into nursing, but found out quickly it wasnt a job for me.  while i
do despute that as fact for a few reasons, my opinions arent based on any
sort of education.

i will say that because of stasis, medications and hormones (which all
relate back to stasis anyway), the body will continue to try to hold onto
whatever it was as long as possible.  so for a time, the body will maintain
even though it is not getting enough calories.  the human body is content to
never do anything, and it will definately go that route for as long as
possible until it is forced to go another route.

i do know that while i was on paxil, losing weight was very hard.  when i
quit paxil, and at the time i was not on a diet, eating all that trash - i
still lost 30lbs right away.  whatever my body was hording at the time,
regardless of caloric intake, got flushed.

now, if you are saying a normal, yet overweight individual is on atkins and
isnt losing weight on it, nor inches or whatever....yes now its time to look
at portion control.  even in his book he says this isnt an "eat all you
want" type of thing.. far from it.  even if its all meat, the body will try
to store it if its more than the body needs at one sitting.  most overweight
folks also eat too many times a day.  they dont seem to realize that when
the stomach is grumbling, the body isnt hungry; it just means the stomach is
empty.  eventually that feeling will go away (stasis again, it wont keep
doing it because it expends energy to do so), and you wont drop dead if you
dont eat.  its when you start to feel tired, maybe a bit of a headache, its
a weird thing, but the body will tell you somehow when its time...  if you
use the stomach growl as an indicator, its no wonder people are overeating
constantly.

you are right, jc, but what im trying to illustrate is that its not
completely black and white in this case.  hormones suck and luckily men dont
have to deal with too many.  i just wonder if a caloric restriction would
work when hormones are telling the body to keep it all. insulin is a
hormone, and its the reason the body took everything we ate and stored
it...ie: we got fat.  why didnt the body just burn it as fuel?  was it
because we ate too much?  or was it a chemical trigger that told our body to
store it?  who knows?

i guess im rambling, but it is food for thought.  so to answer your
question, i guess i dont despute it, but i think it wasnt the entire
picture:)  <3 JC

Well, yes in one way. Nobody in a concentration camp fails to lose weight.

The trick is being able to eat far enough below your maintenance level
without lowering your mebabolism down to the new lower caloric level, or
feeling so lousy that you can't function properly in everyday life. Those
are real considerations. One of the reasons low carb is so popular is that
it seems to really help people eat significantly less without suffering a
lot of unpleasant symptoms that disrupt functioning. But... this varies for
everyone, works better for some than others.

Wysong *does* have some challenges that many here don't. She's older and
post-menopausal, has a thyroid problem she takes meds for. From the symptoms
she describes when she eats well below maintenance, I'd say she probably has
some degree of disorder in the endocrine systems that maintain blood glucose
levels, although she's said she is not diabetic. These are all things can
make  weight loss more difficult. But... it can be done. Many people have
done it.

If you read her posts for a while, you'll see a lot of complaining about the
restrictions she perceives in the LC process, as well as an ineffectiveness
FOR HER - based on how she applied the principles - that she projects onto
the whole program and virtually everyone on it. I don't think this is just
ignorance, but rather some kind of weird emotional defense system. "See,
everybody... it wasn't *my* fault..."

You'll also start to notice that she usually doesn't respond to credible
suggestions with anything but "yeah, but..."  She's been told many times she
should build muscle, which means serious resistance exercise. I see no
evidence she tried that. She would probably benefit from better management
of her thyroid functions, and I suggested she look into Diana Schwarzbein...
no response.  And back when she was here before and plateaued, many people
put forth their pet theories about "stallers"... types of foods that can
cause a person to stall, such as dairy, artificial sweeteners, etc. You're
supposed to try those *one at a time* for a month or more, and see if
eliminating a certain type of food enhances or restarts weight loss. If so,
you permanently eliminate it from your diet. If not, you resume eating it
and go on to an experiment with another "staller", eliminating it for a
month to see the effect. Etc. Instead, apparently she just eliminated
everything anyone mentioned, all in one fell swoop, and ended up eating
practically nothing except meat and a few veggies. She didn't follow
directions. I personally think she just  likes to complain.

HG

You spout such nonsense.  I don't see Atkins as my saviour.  I am not
strictly doing Atkins, when I started I read DANDR and Protein Power and
decided to base my eating on the principles of controlling carbs that they
enunciated.  It has resulted in my losing a little over 60 pounds without
starving myself or doing any exercise, that seems pretty positive to me.
Even if I never lose another pound, I will continue to eat this way as it
makes me feel better and is not at all difficult.

I just believe it is very wrong to distort what anyone says the way you
distort it.  Here's a relevant section from DANDR, page 90:

"A Message to My Friends the Die-Hard Carnivores

"Of course, there are lots of people who start Atkins more than a little
pleased with the fact that I certainly won't discourage them from eating
meat, fish and fowl.  I'm a carnivore, too.  But I'm also an
omnivore--meaning I eat anything that's healthy.

"I know there are some people who simply don't like vegetables.  Or, at
least they don't like the ones they've eaten so far.  The funny thing is
that a lot of folks who do Atkins eventually find vegetables they can love.
Perhaps it's because many people who follow the program end up trying many
recipes and dishes they have never eaten before.  They are making all sorts
of healthy changes in their eating habits, and, in that context, sampling
new foods doesn't seem particularly revolutionaryl.  If you've always been a
grudging consumer of vegetables, I hope you'll become a vegetable-eating
convert."

Sounds to me like he is pushing a "balanced" diet with plenty of veggies.

In news:d8mdne6uxsy6bZLfRVn-ug@heartoftn.net,
Wysong *~ <P@P> stated

truth is relative, any philosophy class will tell you that.  what i'm after
is *fact*.  atkins is a savior  ;p

besides, induction is only two weeks.  i cant think of anything except maybe
water that you would die without for two weeks.  i havent eaten in almost
two weeks and it still hasnt phased me.  if i was on that sugar
rollercoaster of WW, id be dying after the first day.  im not even hungry
b/c im in ketosis.

there is no failure on the atkins plan....IF YOU UNDERSTAND STASIS.  its a
basic biology term.  however, theres no point.  fanatics that are convinced
stay that way.  im just the stupid one for trying to change your mind....and
had i figured that out sooner, it woulda saved me the hassle of typing all
this.  oh well.

one question remains however....if youre not on some low carb diet, why are
you here?  is it for friends or something? im just wondering.  please dont
take my harsh tone tonight personally... my day was extremely hellish
(hospital thing) and tomorrow might be worse, im not sure.  god bless
anyway.

Um, take the religious crap somewhere else, please.  It isn't relevant.

Not to me.  The difference to me is that I'm 100% successful at
maintaining a diet with intake < output using a low-carb approach, where I
was 100% unsuccessful at doing so using a low-fat approach.  That's it.
It means that, for ME, low-carb is a better tool.  For those who are
successful at maintaining a diet with intake < output using low-fat, they
should use that approach.

Statistics aren't meaningful when applied to individual data points.

Not for me.  I never sustained any other WOE for long enough to show on a
year-to-year basis.  Everything looks flat from a high enough perspective.

No.  Stupidity, obtuseness, and lying irritate me.  Please stop them.

KeS