No "limits" to what you have to offer. You badger your kids that much
too?

I consider a low carb diet a great "eating plan."

Induction is useful because it breaks (or helps to break) the sugar
addiction.  Induction isn't meant to be followed forever.

As opposed to low carb? Cites, please.

Mark  burbled across the ether:

Water/fat/muscle loss happens with ALL diets regardless of whether they
have an induction phase or not, and protien sparing diets (like Atkins
and SB) ususally don't have the muscle loss of other diets because you
are getting enough protien.

1.  What do you mean by "balanced"?  Discuss why Atkins or SB is not
'balanced'.
2.  If your diet consisted of junk before you decided to lose weight,
then any change in your eating habits to something healthier, regardless
of 'balance' is going to take time to adjust to.

Sounds like many lowcarb plans to me.

Ditto.

Your two scentences contradict each other.  You may have meant to say
something else, but you didn't.

But the plan

Lowcarb plans do not do this.  That is a personal decision.  You see it
more often in folks who are still 'dieting' rather than making a
lifetime change.

I get the impression that 1 you are not fully aware of what a lowcarb
plan entails-- any lowcarb plan.  I suggest you research them all.  And
the studies.  www.lowcarbresearch.org/results.asp  Don't rely on the
media to tell you what a lowcarb plan is.  And 2, you are drumming up
business for yourself Mr Personal Trainer, but perhaps I'm wrong.  If
you are not, you should try a different approach to helping people.

Do you know MU?

Mark, you seem to miss entirely the point of both a low-carb diet
generally and of induction specifically.

Induction allows the biochemistry to flip-over from primarily
insulin-driven to glucagon-driven and that is the point of induction,
not weight loss.  Sure, there's a bunch of weight loss, and you're
right, it's mostly water as losing glycogen stores causes a lot of
water loss.  Though I don't see how there would be muscle loss if one
is getting adequate protein which all low-carb plans include.  But
that is because the *point* of induction is not fat loss; the point of
induction is to *prepare* for fat loss by flipping the biochemistry.

Saying you don't lose much fat on induction is like saying you don't
get much driving experience by taking a bus.  No kidding!

Induction is not itself the weight-loss portion of the Aktins program.
Atkins identifies the phase after induction which he calls OWL -
"Ongoing Weight Loss" - and the instructions involve increasing the
carbs in small increments weekly until out of ketosis, then backing up
to the previous week's level of carbs for weight loss.  Doing so
allows you to tailor your own weight-loss plan and also lets you know
what you need for maintenance.  Thus each person's "low carb" diet is
tailored specifically to them both for the weight loss and maintenance
phases.

I'm not an At-kid, I don't even care for Aktins much.  But the whole
notion that he propounds some fad one-size-fits-all diet is just
wrong.  The one-size-fits-all bit is just for two weeks and is
*preparatory* to the weight loss portion of the diet.

The other low-carb diets I am familiar with are Protein Power and
Bernstein's Diabetes Solution.  PP has a really low low-carb phase
(similar to Aktins induciton), a medium-level low-carb phase (similar
to Atkins OWL) and a maintenance phase - with maintenance based on a
person's individual response to carbs as determined by body fat
percentages.

Bernstein's diet is based on blood sugar readings - again starting
with really low-carb and moving up based on what the individual can
handle and maintain their health.

Both of these, as well as Atkins, address individual biochemistry in a
way that saying 40/40/30 does not.  You are *claiming* that
individuals vary, but you gave specific numbers... 40/40/30 with no
advice about how to *really* determine what works best for the
individual if 40/40/30 doesn't happen to work, whereas it is *basic*
to all the low-carb diets I'm familair with that each individual has
to find their own best diet by making adjustments.

Further, if you did provide an adjustment mechanism and suggest I
begin at 40/40/30 as an average number and work from there, it'd be
extremely difficult for me to do so.  Why? Because at the level of
carbs, for me, I'd have constant cravings due to blood sugar issues.
It'd require a lot of willpower day-in and day-out for me to start at
that level and work downwards to my ideal carb level.  It'd be really
difficult to deal with those cravings for months on end until I found
what worked best for me.

Whereas starting with an induction-like phase, during the first week,
your average person has severe cravings.  One has to "butch up" and
just get through that with willpower.  But once the biochemistry
flips, willpower isn't very necessary because the intense cravings go
away when you get off the blood sugar rollercoaster.  It becomes
pretty easy to manage one's eating when not dealing with intense
craving.  Thus induction facilitates a change in diet regardless of
whether dietary changes are for the purpose of weight loss,
blood-sugar control, or to deal with other health issues.

With low-carb, there's only a week of two of willpower needed to get
to a healthy diet, whereas starting at your diet (around 700 grams of
carb per day) and adjusting from there would take me a long time to
find I do best at around 30-50 g carb/day - a long time during which
I'd be suffering cravings and insane blood sugar readings.

And just *forget* low-fat... I did a year of that and *never* got over
craving.   I was ravenous all the time.  On low-carb, I have to remind
myself to eat... and some days when I get busy with life, I literally
forget all day long.  Today, I was up for 6 hours before remembering
that I should have some breakfast and dished up a bowl of garden salad
and egg salad.

The willpower issue is not trivial.  I can plan a week of my life to
be very focused on diet, but I can't plan for months of using a big
chunk of my psychic energy that way.  I have work, I have family, I
have a life... and to make healthy changes in my life for the long
haul, I need it to be easy for me to do.  Resisting temptation can't
be a big, hairy deal if I'm to be successful over the long run.

Same applies to exercise too.  I can't just do what *you* do for
exercise, not in the long run.  In the long run, it has to be
something that I enjoy, that I don't have to *force* myself to do
regularly.  Because some days, I just need to focus my energy on
something other than exercise... completing a work project, dealing
with a crisis my daughter is having, and on those days, exercise is
not going to happen unless it's *easy* to make myself go do it.

It's *not* a permanent lifestyle change if you have to grit your teeth
and summon all your resources to stick with it.  I can't "butch up"
every day of my life just to improve my health, rather I want the
improved health so I can live my life.  For me, low-carb and going to
the Y *are* lifestyle changes because they're easy to do.  I like my
breakfast today and will enjoy my swimming at the Y later... so even
my daughter calls hysterically before I complete this post, I'll have
the energy and focus to continue doing what I need to do for my
health, making her hysteria easier to deal with.

The "basic" low-carb diet is... eat enough protein to maintain your
lean body mass, eat enough carbs to best manage your personal health
goals, and get the rest of your calories from fat.  All of those
numbers must be determined for each individual because that's how
low-carb diets work.  Properly doing that, some individuals might very
well end up at 40/40/30, not because they're aiming at any particular
percentages, but because that might work best for them.  And all those
who do *not* do best at those percentages will *also* find out what
works best for them.

Taking wagers?