So, I’ve now lost 64 pounds since the beginning of the year, and 13 pounds in July alone (making it my second-biggest weight-loss month, and the largest weight-loss month since starting Atkins). I did lose quickly on another diet, but I couldn’t maintain any energy on that diet; I was barely making it through the day and even 8-10 hours of sleep wasn’t enough to catch up. I think now that it would have leveled off, too. So I started Atkins “induction phase” in late January, and I’m still there, 49 pounds later. It rules. There are two major drawbacks, and they’re related: the diet is not convenient in a fast-food world unless you work beforehand to make it convenient, and eating all that meat can be expensive. But there are ways to get around these things; McDonald’s has a chicken caesar salad right now that gets in just under the wire if you leave out the tomatoes and croutons and go easy on the dressing, although for financial reasons I’m not eating out much. And getting to know where the deals are, and being less fussy about cuts of meat and things like that, are a big help. To be honest, if the difference between two cuts of meat is the fat content, go cheap and get the one with the fat; fat is good for you.
Yes, it is. And again, you have to read Taubes’ book before engaging me about this.
Anyway, I find myself talking to a surprising number of people I know about weight loss now, because the effects are so evident; I’ve lost over ten inches from my waistline, and I’m starting to get a defined jaw again. And I often tell people what I’m doing, and they tell me that they tried low-carb, or they’re inspired by me and they want to do low-carb, and that sounds great. But then you find out what they’ve changed about their diet.
They tell me that they’re still eating fruit, still eating candy, still having a piece or four of bread per day, still eating that baked potato, but they’ve added more beef, more butter, more cheese.
That is probably not going to work. If you’re going to do low-carb, you should pick an actual low-carb diet and stick to it. I recommend Atkins because it worked (and continues to work) for me. When I get to the point where I don’t feel like I need to lose more weight, I’ll transition into the lifetime phase of the diet, where I will get to have some limited carbs back in my diet (not sure how much, it depends on what causes weight gain and what I can get away with) and that will be that. South Beach worked for a friend at work. I’ve heard people telling me that the Zone Diet helped them. I like Atkins so I preach Atkins. Whatever, my religion is exclusivist but my diet beliefs aren’t.
But it’s sad to watch people “try low-carb” without actually cutting out enough carbs to matter, have it not work or only work slowly (or worse, in a couple of cases it was coupled with calorie restriction, which doesn’t help much if at all), and then give up. Folks, get a diet plan and use it. Dave Ramsey likes to say about money, that if you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be broke, so stop messing around with a system that works because you think you’re smarter than it is. I suspect that the same is true with diet. Especially if you really need to lose weight, find a system that works, stick to it, and then you know what works and what doesn’t and you can monkey with it to keep the weight down.
This brings me to the reason I’m posting this: Jimmy Moore is now selling an “Atkins starter kit” for $25. You don’t need it, if you’ll buy Atkins’ book and follow it, but if you need help figuring out how to make it work or how to get it started, this seems like a pretty good value. Click that link and buy something from Jimmy Moore. He didn’t pay me to say this; if he remembers me at all he probably remembers only that I don’t like Ricky Martin (I’m over that, as far as Jimmy’s blog goes). But don’t say you’re trying it, and then not actually be following a plan. That will end in failure for almost anybody. If you want to get started losing weight in a way that is safe and won’t make you faint at the end of the day because you’re starving (and will help things like diabetes, hypoglycemia, and if Gary Taubes is right and I think he is, heart disease and maybe even cancer), then try this.
One Comment
THANKS buddy!