I was reading diet related web pages recently and came across, for the umpteenth time, a statement along the lines of 'they promote a healthy balance, not crash diets' - and the so-called crash diets cited were Atkins and South Beach. From my experience, this is a typical statement made by well intentioned commentators that just plain do not get it.

We have lived with a concept of 'balanced diet' for a long time now, and any diet that deviates from the constituents of a balanced diet is treated with scorn. Unfortunately, the 'balanced diet' is somewhat like buying an off-the-rack suit. They are designed to fit 'average' guys - but they only fit well if your body conforms to what the manufacturer's understanding of 'average' was at the time it was made.

The classic 'balanced diet', consisting of protein, carbohydrate and moderate amounts of fat, is designed for people whose bodies work correctly - people who can effectively digest all three components without generating any disporportionate amounts of hormones. The entire point of the material in this website is that PEOPLE WHO ARE OVERWEIGHT HAVE BODIES THAT DO NOT WORK CORRECTLY. A fundamental misunderstanding is that bodies that work correctly do not gain weight!

I should clarify: I am not referring to those few fortunate souls that need to lose five pounds in order to loosen their shirts, or not look like they were poured into their bathing suits. I am referring to those, like myself, who have had to struggle with a body that wants to be more than 25% heavier than it 'should' be. Obesity is a symptom of underlying metabolic disorder; it is not a cause.

To bring an obese body under control, we have to identify the foods that cause the metabolic disorder, and eliminate them. Low carb diets do exactly this, and work for a substantial number of people that try them, with the added advantage that excessive hunger is eliminated along with the excessive weight. Low fat diets serve a different purpose, and I have met people whose health has improved substantially by following them. They are generally people with cardiovascular difficulties who are NOT obese.

Those who comment negatively on diets that provide a restriction on food groups need to be aware that there are very few people who are suited to 'one size fits all' diets... same as with suits off the rack.

If you read the posts and pages here, and on other sites promoting a low carb approach to weight management, and find it interesting, but also confusing because it is the reverse of what you have heard all your life, how do you get started? And is it safe to do so? These are the very questions I had to field recently with a very close friend.

He listened to me preach the good news of radically cutting carbs to achieve rapid weight loss, and could see the result sitting in the chair across from him, and decided he wanted to try the same thing. He said the next day "you know, I am taking this on faith", which is absolutely true. In spite of seeing me nearly 100 lbs smaller than the last time I saw him, it still requires convincing. So I told him to just commit to three weeks. There are some good reasons for this.

1) Look around the internet - you will find that behavioural psychologists recommend that it takes 21 days to break a habit - and our eating patterns are perhaps the most ingrained habit we have.

2) The reality is you could survive on any diet that is not made of poison for three weeks, so you are not going to hurt yourself

3) Biologically, after three weeks of consuming absolutely no carbohydrates, the body actually stops producing the enzymes required for carbohydrate digestion. They body converts entirely to the use of Ketones as fuel, and the effects of carbohydrate overloading have finally been minimized in the body.

I know from my personal experience that it was at precisely three weeks that I called my Doctor (who knew what I was doing even though he did not like it) and told him that my blood pressure which had been somewhat poorly controlled by medication was now falling incredibly low, and he began weaning me off of the meds. Next to go was the cursed Metoprolol that I had been taking for nearly six years for my heart. At this point I still weighed 240 lbs, yet my BP had crashed down to normal without medication.

The reason for this is that without carbohydrates, my body had finally stopped overproducing insulin. In those three weeks, the insulin had been consumed even though I have severe insulin resistance, and I was riding my exercise bike to assist this for 40 minutes per day. Once my insulin level dropped, my glucagon level began rising, and my body began to release the stored fat.

It seems obvious to me that the elevated blood pressure was not being caused by body fat; it was a result of my very high level of insulin in my blood. When my insulin level fell, my BP dropped. My weight began to drop. The amount of water in my body dropped, which of course is why the blood pressure dropped as well.

So as I said to my friend - commit yourself to radical carbohydrate restriction for three weeks. Just three weeks. At the end of those three weeks you can assess yourself. How do you feel? What happened to your weight? Is your pulse lower? Your blood pressure? How are you sleeping? Are you hungry? Do you feel generally hot, or cold?

With these answers, you can decide on the next step. Do you continue with radical carbohydrate restriction, or do you begin to increase your carb intake?

For those who have been around this barbeque a while, you know what I am recommending is something very similar to the Atkins diet's two week Induction stage. I have said elsewhere that in my estimation, the Atkins diet is PERFECT. It did not however prove perfect for me, only because it was not stringent enough. I had to cut out ALL carbs to achieve the health improvement and weight loss that I required at the rate that I required. Three weeks, not two, allows the body to get to the state where the effects of carbohydrate consumption have been truly minimized.

Oh yeah - I didn't dream this up. Please see "The Ketogenic Diet" by Lyle McDonald, 1998.

ISBN: 0-9671456-0-0

When does low carb eating NOT produce weight loss?  Funny question, but I find myself asking it.

I dropped 85 lbs in 8 months, then stopped.  I have held my own pretty well for a year and a half since then.  The only thing that changed was that over time, I reduced the amount of meat that I was eating, and substituted cheese and GG Bran Crispbread, a wonderful product that has almost no carbs in it.  In fact I go days on end eating nothing else.  I have wondered for a while why my weight loss coasted into where it did.  I might have some idea now.....  

My journey down this path began with heart trouble.  In 2002 I went to see the Doctor because of shortness of breath; in fact what I had was Congestive Heart Failure which caused my lungs to be half full of water, and my heart was enlarged to about twice its normal size.  Fortunately for me, my Doctor pointed me in the direction of the Atkins approach to nutrition.

I have spent a long time reading, and a long time devising a program of supplementation to help me combat the various difficulties I have.  Recently I found out some things that are interesting.

Carbohydrates cause obesity, heart disease, cholesterol problems and host of other issues.  The relationships in the body are complex.  Excessive carb consumption over time causes hormonal imbalances, mostly excessive insulin production, which stimulates the formation of body fat.  One element of low carb eating is that this hormone imbalance is corrected, and weight loss follows.  It turns out that while this is a necessary condition for weight loss to occur, it is not the only thing at play.  In order for your body to process stored fat into energy, there are vital nutrients that are required for the process to complete that must be readily available in the body.  Two very important ones are Coenqyme Q10 and L-Carnitine.

Coenzyme Q10 is a substance that is manufactured in the body's cells, and is vital for the conversion of fats to energy in the cells, and is absolutely critical to the function of the heart muscle.  We make this in every cell of the body, so why would anyone have to take it as a supplement?  There are two very good reasons:

1. Obesity is an indicator that your fat burning machinery is compromised and not working correctly, and that may be a result of insufficient Coenqyme Q10 production.
   
2. People who are obese nearly always have a combination of other problem - which I have - including Diabetes, heart trouble, and cholesterol problems.  Physicians nearly always prescribe statin drugs to combat the cholesterol problem, and statin drugs INTERFERE with the body's ability to create Coenzyme Q10.  Supplementation can correct this and help the fat burning engine to start to work properly, with ensuing weight loss.

The other necessary nutrient is L-Carnitine.  As its name implies, this is a substance that we absorb when we eat meat.  L-Carnitine is critical to the general conversion of fats to energy in the body, and again, obesity itself likely indicates that you have not had sufficient to be able to burn off the fat that is stored in your body even when you are low on glucose.

In Canada we cannot purchase L-Carnitine as a supplement.  I find this funny, because my work is next door to  pet food store, and I know from looking around there that L-Carnitine is routinely added to dog food!  L-Carnitine can be purchased from health food stores in the United States.  However, the supplemental variety of L-Carnitine is not overly well absorbed (15% of what you take in pill form, the rest is excreted).  The best means of getting it?  EAT MEAT.

I find myself speculating that in my case, as my food changed from strictly eggs/meat/cheese to bran products/meat/cheese to bran products/cheese, my weight loss stopped, because I was ingesting less and less and less L-Carnitine.  I am about to revert my eating back to meat products to test this hypothesis.

A quick review on the Internet shows that the best sources of L-Carnitine in meats are as follows, in order:

• Mutton
• Lamb
• Beef Steak
• Ground Beef
• Pork
• Canadian Bacon

Other sources are minor compared to these.

So it appears to me that as I reduced the amount of meat that I ate, my very rapid weight loss slowed, then stopped.  So now I will reverse that process, and see if it starts up again.  

Back to a life of eating Steaks, Chops and Bacon.  Tough, eh?

NOTE:  Supplementation suggestions are for purposes of discussion, and not a prescription.  I am not a Physician, and I do not recommend anything to anyone; I am simply talking about what I am doing myself.

References:  
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/othernuts/carnitine/

http://water-weight.com/Articles/is-red-meat-or-tempeh-a-better-source-of-l-carnitine/

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/carnitine-l-000291.htm

http://www.livestrong.com/article/390680-natural-sources-of-l-carnitine/