The Atkins Stigma

There is a real stigma attached to the Atkins diet. I wrote a bit about Atkins a few days ago (here), when I picked up the newest book and decided to follow it.  Dr. Atkins invited and welcomed controversy.  But the science has moved on, and the diet has evolved. I see it as a very healthy alternative way of eating, and I think it is going to really work for me.

But the stigma and the controversy remain. So much so, I'm not telling many people that's what I'm doing.

If you haven't been living in the low-carb world, perhaps it continues to appear radical and risky. My own low-carb history starts back in the 1970's, when my mother lost a large amount of weight on a more-radical diet that was Stillman. Since my mother cooked for the family, I managed to lose a fair amount of weight while she was following it faithfully, while my father was traveling for a couple of months. At least as I remember it, that was an all-meat and fish and dairy diet, without any vegetables at all.  It was known on college campuses as the "hamburger and water diet". The summary from my mother was, "it works, but it's not particularly healthy, so don't ever do it for more than four weeks at a time".  I skimmed the book she had, and my takeaway was "it simulates diabetes", so that reinforced for me the unhealthy aspect of it.  This was a serious misunderstanding of ketosis, which I will eventually explain, but maybe not in this post.

My next venture into low-carb world was The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet.  I read a tattered paperback my mother had received from a friend, and perhaps it was a pivotal moment for me, in terms of how my life as a dieter has evolved since then. It had to have been the mid-nineties, because the book is copyright 1993. I had been on Weight Watchers once or twice with limited success, but I was very fat and getting fatter. I had totally subscribed to Jane Brody's Good Food Book, which I sum up as "ditch the fat and ditch the meat", and translated for me into massive amounts of starch to replace the lost items. I don't remember a focus on fresh green vegetables.  I had a vegetarian house-mate in the eighties, and that moved me along the starch path as well.  Again, not such a big focus on fresh or green.  Bread and pasta were my go-to foods. The biggest bagel factory for the Chicago area was in between my home and office, and I took them to the office all the time - and at least once was known to eat FOUR of them.  This was the era of "low fat is everything". There were commercials about the clamor and scarcity for the new line of sugar-loaded but low fat "snackwells". And I got fatter and more ashamed of myself all the time.

What clicked for me in reading Carbohydrate Addict were the pages that focused on the science behind it - insulin.  This first book is very unsophisticated in its discussion, but for the first time, it began to make sense to me why this approach works - not just to lose weight, but to reduce cravings around carbs and make it easier to stick to. They also were careful to distance themselves from Atkins. The basics of the diet as I first tried it in 1995, then used for the Big Loss in 1998, is "you can eat anything you like in moderation for an hour a day, the rest of the time is no or low carb". So there was no deprivation - if there was candy or a sweet to be had, I could set it aside to eat at dinner. The emphasis was on protein, not on fresh green vegies.  But their main hook is: if you keep your insulin levels managed by few carbs most of the time, cravings will go away. They asserted like Atkins that calories don't matter, weight will be lost from the insulin management. I decided it didn't matter to me whether calories mattered or not, because following this mode of eating meant my calories stayed relatively low with no serious need to suppress cravings or desires.

I followed this approach closely for two years, and loosely for a decade.  I lost fifty pounds, and it has never come all the way back.  As I loosened my discipline, weight did come back. When it came back, it stayed, unless I went back on the discipline.  In the meantime, I read massively about the science behind it. I also found and read many other low carb books. There is a whole sub-culture out there. It is the worst kept secret in the diet world.  I finally read Atkins, and was put off by the pugnaciousness of Atkins - but also appalled by the backlash and attacks that regularly came his way.  The attacks were personal and vehement, and not based on results or science.  I was particularly incensed by an American Heart Associate attack that I took the time to write a rebuttal to-without any justification it defined a "healthy diet" as one low in fat and then scored low carb diets against that standard -and guess what -they scored low, and thus were unhealthy.

As I read more and more of the science, I completely accepted the insulin argument about carbs, cravings, and fat storage. This has moved more and more mainstream, but there is still a visceral rejection of meat and fat. There is a disconnect between the science as I understand it, and translation into eating advice. At my gym, "eating healthy" is assumed. The ideal would be no-fat vegetarian food, manufactured low fat vegetarian food like substances, and bananas. Not for me. Hasn't been for years. I've had incredibly intense cardio health screening, and my low carbohydrate but relatively high fat diet has not lead to any apparent issues.

So I'm mostly not telling people I'm doing Atkins. I am completely comfortable in my own mind about the health, safety, and effectiveness of the eating approach I am on. But I don't want to have to go through all the explanations and justifications to others, and so I'm keeping it quiet. Even with my family. I'm planning meals with the same old meat or fish centerpiece, making starches for sides, and adding salads and green vegetables. No lasagna or pizza for a while, because I can't separate out the starches, but mostly I'm doing this under the radar.  We'll see how things go.