Great letter Marcie. Mine was not quite as nicely worded, but I sent one too! NO response yet--but I hope I at least get an acknowledgement!

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Lori

232/190/130
My other journal http://www.lowcarbeating.com/bb/showthread.php?t=1130

Here is my response:

I have to wonder how well researched this article was or if it was researched at all. If it was an attempt to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous, it failed miserably. I found it to be offensive and downright false in most areas.



Let me tell you a bit about myself: I live in Fayetteville, NC, have a 9-year-old daughter and a husband in the Army. I am a teacher in the Department of Defense Dependent Schools here on Ft. Bragg. I teach PE and am in no way lazy or out of shape. I was severely overweight when I started school last year and until Christmas tried unsuccessfully to lose any weight at all. In fact for the last 8 or so years I have tried in vain to lose a significant amount of weight despite many attempts. I started the Atkins Way of Eating on the 5th of January this year with the help of my doctor. I had high blood sugar and high blood pressure as well as a condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I read the book, I read the accompanying books, I researched websites and bought a cookbook of low sugar recipes. I gave up white sugar and highly processed foods including bread for an entire two weeks. I ate vegetables along with meats and cheeses primarily for two weeks following the Atkins plan less than perfectly but very close. I lost over 15 lbs in those first two weeks. I have since lost another 42 pounds for a total of 57 in 7 months.

I was shocked and amazed, but at the same time ecstatic as I had finally found a way to lose weight that I was neither starving on nor buying special foods for, as is alluded to by your author. ?Atkins is creating a new obsession with dieting and creating a huge new wave of consumerism as dieters rush to the store to grab the latest shake flavor or new low carb food.? I do buy the shakes-but for the most part I stick with whole foods and whole grain foods. I can shop at any grocery store and never have to purchase one single ?low carb? item. My grocery basket always contains vegetables such as lettuce in different varieties, red cabbage, cucumbers, peppers, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, spaghetti squash, spinach, and celery and fruits such as peaches, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapefruit, apples, pears and kiwi fruits as well as a watermelon or cantaloupe on many occasions. I buy fresh meat in all varieties, an occasional package of bacon and lots of deli meats with very few additives. I buy hard cheeses such as Colby Jack and cheddar and fresh cheese like cottage cheese. I do keep on hand Carb countdown chocolate milk for an occasional cup of milk and to put over cereal (about once every other week) I use regular 2% milk from my daughter?s jug. I buy Whole wheat tortillas, which have not changed, in the last year and are low carb. They are now labeled ?low carb? but were not just a few short months ago.

?Manna phobia? has made bread public enemy number one.? For years our FDA has been pushing grains as necessary and while on a low carb diet I do eat whole grains in foods, I do not have to have bread with every meal. Stone ground Wheat bread and whole-wheat tortillas and other bread products are a part of my lifestyle, just not the ONLY part of it.



This statement is the one that angered me the most and is the farthest from true in the whole article: ?So the moral of the Atkins diet is stay away from carbs, let your body eat its own fat, and you get to be lazy. No wonder Americans love it. It feeds not our bodies, but the sedentary lifestyle.? Dr Atkins states over and over in his books ?Exercise is non-negotiable!? In the beginning, I was not ABLE to do much for exercise and didn?t ?work out? as it were, but I did know that I was going to have to. I started by stretching and walking til my knees and feet hurt and I could no longer walk. I started swimming when I realized I was not making much progress walking because of my foot and knee problems. I am up to 1200 yards of swimming twice a week and from not being able to walk more than 300-400 yards to running a mile in under 12 minutes. This statement offended me as well: ?If we are active and actually (gasp!) use this energy, that is a good thing.? If exercise is non-negotiable then why is it such a ?gasp?? It is because the author had no way of knowing that exercise was expected of those eating this way, in my opinion.



I would like to challenge the author to try eating low carb for two weeks after reading the Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution. I would even be willing to supply the book!



Lori Hill

__________________
Lori

232/190/130
My other journal http://www.lowcarbeating.com/bb/showthread.php?t=1130

I'm really proud of you all.

This is the only way we're going to get the message out there.

thanks for helping!

I just read it again, to make sure I didn't misunderstand the article.

I don't see this as an anti-Atkins article. It's an anti-dieting article. If I could summarize the article, it would go something like this:

"Bread is now the nutritional villain of the moment, like eggs and butter used to be. If we just exercised more we wouldn't have to worry about any of this."

The biggest problem with this argument is that it's just simplistic and dumb. But those kinds of arguments appeal to certain people.

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"And so, in my State of the—my State of the Union—or state—my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation—I asked Americans to give 4,000 years—4,000 hours over the next—the rest of your life—of service to America. That's what I asked—4,000 hours."