… a conversation between a mom and a young woman walking her dog.
They knew each other from the local women’s-only gym. It transpired that the young woman had lost 68 pounds. My ears always prick up with tales of large amounts of weight lost, so I listened a bit more closely.
She mentioned that she’d done it on a very low-carb diet. She described the details: high fat, moderate protein, very low carbs.
“Low-carbs? Can you eat whole grains?” asked the mom.
The young woman said something to the effect that if she ate grains, they would be whole grains, but only in very small quantities. Yeah, right, I thought.
Then the mom asked if it was the Atkins diet. The young woman said, “No, not Atkins. It’s a special diet called the ketogenic diet.”
Atkins is a ketogenic diet, I thought.
But the young woman clearly knew quite a lot about what she was talking about. She mentioned how her bloodwork was always excellent and she was no longer pre-diabetic. She described how ketogenic diets are prescribed for epileptic children with no apparent ill effects on their arteries.
It was very perplexing – she had all her facts straight, but she admitted to eating whole grains – which I will be you ten bucks she doesn’t – and she would not identify the diet as Atkins.
I suppose that this could be interpreted in many ways, but here’s my take. Most people haven’t got a clue what the Atkins diet is. If you admit to being on the Atkins diet, you will hear things like, “Who wants to eat all that meat?” or “All that fat is going to kill you!” or the Double Myth That Won’t Die: Atkins causes kidney disease and osteoporosis.
On the other hand, most people who have done Atkins properly – me included – want to share the news, and so they describe the diet more or less accurately and just omit the A word. Because who wants to get into same boring argument with mere acquaintances over and over and over again?
I’m not sure if that was the case with the young woman at the playground, but it is certainly the case with me!
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Yes you’re exactly right about mentioning the ‘A’ word. It’s a trigger word that conjures up all kinds of myths that people repeat and perpetuate. I never mention Atkins if someone asks me why I’m not eating any sugar or carbs. I just kind of skim it over by saying I don’t eat bread and sweets and leave it at that because I know it’s healthy and I don’t need someone else’s stamp or approval. And I don’t feel that I should have to defend the nutritional lifestyle that I choose to follow.
Comment by FormerDonutJunkie — April 7, 2011 @ 6:15 am |
I know, Ron, but it makes me sad that the very name of a brilliant clinician who helped thousands of people lose weight, stave off diabetes and improve their cardiovascular health has became a six-letter, four-letter word. Most of the time I don’t feel like getting into the discussion, though I will argue with people who say that saturated fat causes heart disease, typicallly by posing the question, “OK, I’ll believe you if you can produce a study that supports your point. But there’s a catch: it has to be one you have actually read. If the evidence is so abundant, it must be easy enough to find.”
But not mentioning the name of Dr. Robert C. Atkins feels a bit like dishonoring the memory of his name. ::hangs head in guilt::
Comment by psipsina — April 8, 2011 @ 2:51 pm |