Atkins again
Apr. 10th, 2007 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikistitchCurrently reading Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink. It's a cute little book, and we'll have more to say later. Lots of neat stuff, but there also seem to be a couple of problems, so just for now, we'd recommend checking out of a library or maybe buying used if you're curious.
Meanwhile, before we launch into a bitch session, we've gotta admit, Wansink has written the most wonderful-est thing anyone has ever said about The Atkins Diet:
It's really well known to people who do animal research, give your rats two different flavors of the same damn Purina Rat Chow (chow-chow-chow!) and the little varmints will eat more. Yeah, it's stupid. And, yeah, people do exactly the same thing. All you need to do is make more colors of M&Ms.
Meanwhile, before we launch into a bitch session, we've gotta admit, Wansink has written the most wonderful-est thing anyone has ever said about The Atkins Diet:
Atkins-mania and the low-carb diet. For a while, it was the rage. Nearly everyone was on the low-carb bandwagon or had friends who had experienced miraculous results. A woman in one low-carb ad even claimed the diet had changed her from a "circus act to a supermodel." The basic deal was "Eat anything you want and as much as you want as long as it doesn't have refined carbohydrates." No bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, or sugar, but all the beef, butter and cheesy broccoli you can stand.
The Atkins Diet worked initially because it made dieting a mindless activity. There were bad guys (carbohydrates) and good guys (meat and vegetables), and very little variety.
The good news: The Atkins Diet worked. The bad news: It was boring to eat just meat and vegetables.
Capitalism came to the rescue. Nearly every red-blooded American food company tried to remedy the boredom by giving us more options. They gave us low-carb cereals, desserts, and beers, Russell Stover even gave us low-carb chocolate and caramel turtles. At the diet's highest (or perhaps lowest) point, Christopher Atkins, who was Brooke Shields' co-star in the 1980 movie The Blue Lagoon, came out with the Atkins Cookies, apparently riding the coincidence of his last name.
Atkins lost its magic. In the old days, there were only meat and vegetables. Now there were hundreds and hundreds of "low carb" nonmeat and nonvegetable foods. And instead of happy, svelte, protein lovers who had dropped 40 pounds, the low-carb diet began to produce continuous snackers who were mystified that they only lost 4 pounds. Although everything they ate was according to the letter of the Atkins law, they were eating too much of it.
It's really well known to people who do animal research, give your rats two different flavors of the same damn Purina Rat Chow (chow-chow-chow!) and the little varmints will eat more. Yeah, it's stupid. And, yeah, people do exactly the same thing. All you need to do is make more colors of M&Ms.
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who you calling a rat?!
Date: 2007-04-10 10:17 pm (UTC)I think she's got a tapeworm.. (just kidding!!) but I'm glad we got her back on a little bit of gooshy food.. a week or so off and she gained a pound! (I can't feel her ribs!)
no subject
Date: 2007-04-11 01:53 am (UTC)No matter how 'fat' I ever got - I could NEVER eliminate carbs from my diet. Even though now I'm trying to eat healthier & am *finally* exercising - yeah, it takes a doctor to tell you that you have hypertension & you might get a stroke to start -- can't do an entire day without carbs. My stomach doesn't like it at all. I was sooo sick the other night after eating nothing but vegetarian Greek food. I'm one of those people who MUST have carbs (like bread) to balance everything else. Like all/everything else - carbs in moderation. I.e. - no eating the entire breadbasket at dinner.