Atkins Diet is dangerous pseudo-science

[ciphergoth]

The Atkins Diet is a pile of dangerous pseudo-science. Not that this comes as a surprise, but here's the word from Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research Centre.

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Update: Post made friends-only. Thanks to babysimon for pointing out that vampwillow had invited people in atkins_uk to join the thread, resulting in some incredibly lunatic contributions. Update: Public again.

Comments

I wonder...

[babysimon]

...whether those who report huge success with Atkins previously had diets which were high in simple carbohydrates - refined sugars et al?

Re: I wonder...

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly. I know cakes and things are my healthy eating downfall. Also if you do eat huge amounts of fruit and veg it does fill you up quite well, which would lead to eating less calorific stuff.

I ought to look for a paper I once saw which showed that people who keep track of what they eat, whether they're following any particular plan or not, eat significantly less.

Re: I wonder...

[vampwillow]

so those who eat whilst sleep-walking get fat? ;-)

hmmmn. didn't know I'd been eating without looking first! Could explain what I get up to in the dark ;->

Re: I wonder...

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

i was eating a practically vegan diet prior to atkins
I was making curries from soya mince, with a varierty of fresh vegatables, pulses - I would eat this with short grain brown rice.
I bicycled pretty much everywhere -

However there were also times when i wasnt well
I would be bulimic - where i would when stressed out eat large amounst of whatever i sugar load food i could find and then vomit it around 30 minutes later

By the tiem i started on Atkins I weighed over 25 stone - I was very very good candidate for syndrome X and later diabetes. I was advised by doctors to lose weight or my life could be threatened. I had been trying to lse weight for over 5 years. I was easting small portiosn of food (as in side plate with soem rice and some curry on it) and my weight would yo-yo

Except for teh bulima episodes my diet followed a fairly classic low calorie low fat high fibre diet - in teh long term my weight just went up and up

Now I haev been on Atklns for around 6 monts I'm losing just over a kilo a week even though I havent been exercising as much as i could and would like to. I've lost nearly 5 stone (which is my half way point) my BMI has come down from around 44 I'm now around 34 to 35.