Atkins Was FAT

I read an article that stated that upon inspection of his body after his slip and death He was said to be tipping the scales at 260.

I find that kind of ironic.

Isnt Bauer 270? Jeez, Bauer, you should really be careful. You may die.

The pro-Atkins people will point out that he was in a coma like state before he died and he swelled up tremendously with fluid. I believe there was a picture of him before his death where he looked pretty normal.

More damaging to me is the fact that he had a heart attack.

Not to defend him, but it was reported that he gained a lot of weight due to the fluids they pumped into his body before his death. Not sure how true that is, but either way I despise what that diet craze did to most people’s perception of carbs.

I know the man had a lot of critics and so forth, but trying to use the circumstances of his death to discredit him is just plain sad.

There is clinical data as well as widely available tests to determine the health status of an individual whether on a low carb diet or otherwise.

I wonder if maybe PETA and associated groups are working to discredit him so much because high protein and fat generally equates to people eating lots of tasty animals?

He’s dead. Everybody dies eventually, no matter what type of diet, nutritional strategies or cardio fitness level they maintain. It happens. It doesn’t really mean much of anything on its own.

Why? The average person SHOULD be on a low carb diet, and if they actually read the book they would know which carbs were acceptable and which weren’t. I think a lot of idiots just hopped on the diet without reading it, and cut out all carbs including the tiny amount in vegetables, and filled up on bacon…Atkins didn’t say to do this.

[quote]T234 wrote:
Why? The average person SHOULD be on a low carb diet, and if they actually read the book they would know which carbs were acceptable and which weren’t. I think a lot of idiots just hopped on the diet without reading it, and cut out all carbs including the tiny amount in vegetables, and filled up on bacon…Atkins didn’t say to do this. [/quote]

That’s true. I don’t know about that the average person should be low carb. But lower-carb would benefit many. I think the induction phase is laregly bunk. But the diet when followed properly does have people adding progressively more carbs-clean variets-fruits and some amounts of whole grains-after the intiial vegetable period till they found the level that works for them. It’s what people did to the diet that is the travesty. The same for the low-fat craze. Most here recongnize that fat has many benefits and even a certain amount of saturated fat is important for optimal hormone function. But a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and whole-grains with appropriate amounts of protein is not the worst thing in the world, if not ideal. The problem was that people got the idea that low-fat gave them license to chow down on box after box of fat-free Snackwell cookies.

Yes, PETA was involved with the release of Atkins records, violating a few laws in the process. (HIPPA anyone?) And when they released the information, forgot to mention the edema resulting from his medical condition because of the accident.

I believe a picture of him was released showing him shortly before his accident, and he was not fat.

Now I do not know what his original diet consisted of, nor have I actually read any of his books, but I have heard him interviewed, and he talked about eating lean protein, vegetables, and omega 3’s, along with fish oil caps. Sound familiar anyone?

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
T234 wrote:
Why? The average person SHOULD be on a low carb diet, and if they actually read the book they would know which carbs were acceptable and which weren’t. I think a lot of idiots just hopped on the diet without reading it, and cut out all carbs including the tiny amount in vegetables, and filled up on bacon…Atkins didn’t say to do this.

That’s true. I don’t know about that the average person should be low carb. But lower-carb would benefit many. I think the induction phase is laregly bunk. But the diet when followed properly does have people adding progressively more carbs-clean variets-fruits and some amounts of whole grains-after the intiial vegetable period till they found the level that works for them. It’s what people did to the diet that is the travesty. The same for the low-fat craze. Most here recongnize that fat has many benefits and even a certain amount of saturated fat is important for optimal hormone function. But a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and whole-grains with appropriate amounts of protein is not the worst thing in the world, if not ideal. The problem was that people got the idea that low-fat gave them license to chow down on box after box of fat-free Snackwell cookies. [/quote]

It is becoming very clear that the majority of people who read anything at all seem to be working at less than full mental capacity.

I don’t know if the solution is to write everything for the least acute…or to simply accept that dullness is going to be present regardless of what you do. I think things would go so much better if our relatively pampered existance was at least hard enough to allow the dummies to die off quickly.

Things to blame:
Child proof pill bottles
Seatbelt laws
lawyers
those go-carts at Wal-Mart
electricity outlets too small for fingers to get into
and the internet

[quote]T234 wrote:
Why? The average person SHOULD be on a low carb diet, and if they actually read the book they would know which carbs were acceptable and which weren’t. I think a lot of idiots just hopped on the diet without reading it, and cut out all carbs including the tiny amount in vegetables, and filled up on bacon…Atkins didn’t say to do this. [/quote]

A few years ago, at least a dozen heavy co-workers went on the Atkin’s diet. That’s all I heard about for about a year. Today, every single one is heavier than they were when they started this diet.

The good side, I don’t have to listen to any bullshit about how great the Atkin’s diet is. I can’t recall hearing the name for over a year. Everyone want’s the easy quick fix. In my opinion, the best diet is no diet. Eat clean, live clean, and keep your body in motion. It’s that f~ckin’ simple.

[quote]Coldiron wrote:
A few years ago, at least a dozen heavy co-workers went on the Atkin’s diet.[/quote]

Did they actually go on the Atkin’s diet … or CLAIM to be on the Atkin’s diet?

These are often two very different things.

The induction phase of the diet is so you stick with it past 2 weeks. People can drop up to 10 or 15 pounds in water weight and fat in the first 2 weeks, and this make them go “ZOMG! This diet rocks soooo hard” and hopefully they stick with it.

I bet 95% of people fall off the wagon in the next phase, where you painstaikingly add 5 carbs per WEEK until you are only losing 1 pounds per week or so.

Eating bacon and eggs every day gets tiring.

[quote]nptitim wrote:
The pro-Atkins people will point out that he was in a coma like state before he died and he swelled up tremendously with fluid. I believe there was a picture of him before his death where he looked pretty normal.

More damaging to me is the fact that he had a heart attack.[/quote]

Bullshit, he slipped on some ice and cracked his head on the pavement.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
It is becoming very clear that the majority of people who read anything at all seem to be working at less than full mental capacity.

I don’t know if the solution is to write everything for the least acute…or to simply accept that dullness is going to be present regardless of what you do. I think things would go so much better if our relatively pampered existance was at least hard enough to allow the dummies to die off quickly.

Things to blame:
Child proof pill bottles
Seatbelt laws
lawyers
those go-carts at Wal-Mart
electricity outlets too small for fingers to get into
and the internet
[/quote]
CTM (chuckled to myself).

On the carbs thing - if you close your eyes and just pick a bunch of random packs of food of the super-market shelfs, I guarantee you’ll wind up with alot of carbs (& alot of simple carbs), fats (& alot of saturated & trans-fats) and very little protein and very poor micronutrient profiles.

It’s not that carbs are bad, or saturated fat is bad - or that people respond ‘badly’ to carbs. It’s just that the likely diet, of someone who doesn’t pay specific attention to it, is going to be loaded with carbs and saturated fat, and only some people can tolerate (not get fat on) that kind of diet.

Because the average westerner who is overweight/obese is likely on such a high-carb diet, of course it makes sense that removing them is going to allow that person to become skinner (assuming caloric defecit as well of course), but the leap to removing them completely is silly and counter-productive.

I myself spent most of last year eating a very high protein, low carb diet (starchy carbs for post-workout only & breakfast), although I knew enough to eat my veggies & fruit & get my fats in. The wonderful result was that I wasn’t particularly energetic and my libido disappeared (yay!). I’ve since learned my lesson - as long as I keep my portions below where I’ll get a carb-crash, it’s all good. I feel better, my recovery times are a fraction of what they used to be, I sleep better, and am basically able to work out more than before and seem to be gaining faster(I need to judge over a longer time period to make sure of this).

I don’t care if Cavemen didn’t eat starchy carbs - they would’ve if they could’ve & their life expectancy was only about 30 years anyway…

[quote]deanosumo wrote:
nptitim wrote:
The pro-Atkins people will point out that he was in a coma like state before he died and he swelled up tremendously with fluid. I believe there was a picture of him before his death where he looked pretty normal.

More damaging to me is the fact that he had a heart attack.

Bullshit, he slipped on some ice and cracked his head on the pavement.[/quote]

I thought he slipped on bacon grease.

He was not fat when he died. The whole story is just more PETA lies.

From a past T-Nation article:

"This year Dr. Robert Atkins died at age 72 after suffering a head injury from a fall on an icy sidewalk. While in a coma, his major organs failed and his body bloated up with 60 pounds of fluid, which is common in that situation. Sad story. But leave it to the now functionally insane PETA organization (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to make it even sadder.

After Atkins died, the group sent private medical records to the media and claimed that Atkins was obese because of his low carb diet. They did this through their front group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (which is actually lead by a vegan psychiatrist.)

This isn’t the first time PETA has used its pretend doctors group to misinform the public about nutrition. This is the same group largely responsible for keeping the “high protein diets are dangerous” myth alive. This year they ran full page ads in major publications which perpetuated every protein myth ever invented.

Now PETA has started another website, HealthySchoolLunches.org, which sounds good on the surface but is actually a backdoor attempt to get meat, milk and other dairy products out of school cafeterias. Remember, these are the same people who want parents who feed their kids meat to be charged with child abuse.

It seems PETA, once a fairly noble organization, has taken a “by any means necessary” approach. No wonder they’re often referred to these days as the “vegan Taliban.” Dirty tactics, false news reports, front groups with hidden agendas, misleading health and nutrition info… PETA has them all. And that’s why we’re giving them the Dirtbags of the Year award. We toast you with a nice glass of moo juice. Clink."

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
The induction phase of the diet is so you stick with it past 2 weeks. People can drop up to 10 or 15 pounds in water weight and fat in the first 2 weeks, and this make them go “ZOMG! This diet rocks soooo hard” and hopefully they stick with it.

I bet 95% of people fall off the wagon in the next phase, where you painstaikingly add 5 carbs per WEEK until you are only losing 1 pounds per week or so.

Eating bacon and eggs every day gets tiring.[/quote]

I think this is where most people fail though. I lost over 100lbs on Atkins. Followed by the book. Frankly, it’s the easiest weight I ever lost. Your last statement, the bacon and eggs thing, is what 99% of the people that talk to me about it ask. “How do you live on just meat and eggs”? Answer, uh, I don’t. I eat pretty much everything with the exception of sugar, white flour and junk. They usually looked at me and responded with something like "oh, so your doing more “South Beach” then. Uh, NO, if you actually READ the Atkins book and follow it, you’ll find it’s not really a diet after all, but a way of life, way of eating, that ACTUALLY DOES ALLOW YOU TO EAT CARBS!!! :sunglasses:

Again, most people are just sheep and follow along with the media…never learning a damn thing for themselves. I still eat “low carb” and probably will for the rest of my life. The difference is, I eat a little more than eggs and bacon. :wink:

I can’t stand PETA. They are a militant group of extremeists.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20404164-5006786,00.html

They are grandstanding in the wake of Steve Irwin’s death.

What a croc.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
T234 wrote:
Why? The average person SHOULD be on a low carb diet, and if they actually read the book they would know which carbs were acceptable and which weren’t. I think a lot of idiots just hopped on the diet without reading it, and cut out all carbs including the tiny amount in vegetables, and filled up on bacon…Atkins didn’t say to do this.

That’s true. I don’t know about that the average person should be low carb. But lower-carb would benefit many. I think the induction phase is laregly bunk. But the diet when followed properly does have people adding progressively more carbs-clean variets-fruits and some amounts of whole grains-after the intiial vegetable period till they found the level that works for them. It’s what people did to the diet that is the travesty. The same for the low-fat craze. Most here recongnize that fat has many benefits and even a certain amount of saturated fat is important for optimal hormone function. But a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and whole-grains with appropriate amounts of protein is not the worst thing in the world, if not ideal. The problem was that people got the idea that low-fat gave them license to chow down on box after box of fat-free Snackwell cookies.

It is becoming very clear that the majority of people who read anything at all seem to be working at less than full mental capacity.

I don’t know if the solution is to write everything for the least acute…or to simply accept that dullness is going to be present regardless of what you do. I think things would go so much better if our relatively pampered existance was at least hard enough to allow the dummies to die off quickly.

Things to blame:
Child proof pill bottles
Seatbelt laws
lawyers
those go-carts at Wal-Mart
electricity outlets too small for fingers to get into
and the internet
[/quote]

Yup. But the # 1 thing to blame is People. All of those other things and their negative aspect are just an expresion of stupid People and their whims and desires. Don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of great things about the modern world, and I love living in it. But effectively removing ourselves from the process of natural selection has surely grossly increased the stupidy quotient of the human species.

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
But effectively removing ourselves from the process of natural selection has surely grossly increased the stupidy quotient of the human species. [/quote]

It certainly has increased the annoyance factor anyway…