Popularity of the low-carb diet is edging downwards, say polls. The reason? More than half of all Americans who have tried the Atkins Diet and other low-carb diets have given up. The real issue here, however, isn't whether low-carb diets actually work (avoiding refined carbohydrates is extremely important for losing weight and preventing chronic disease), but why so many Americans leap from one fad diet to another in a desperate search to try anything other than what really works: healthy nutrition and regular physical exercise.
The problem with most Americans is two-fold. First, they're uninformed about how to make healthy food choices in the first place. Some people think white rice is healthy! Others think granola bars aren't really candy bars. And most believe that cow's milk will somehow help you lose weight! These are just some of the many examples of nutritional myths held by most Americans.
Secondly, most Americans want instant results that require no effort on their part. So any advice that asks them to avoid certain foods, alter their tastes for foods, or engage in physical exercise is likely to be ignored.
Americans want magic results: diet pills, prescription drugs and surgical procedures that help them "automatically" lose weight while, presumably, they keep on eating all the garbage that got them fat in the first place. And what happens with the Atkins diet is that most people will pig out on bacon, cheese, steaks, milk and other low-carb foods for two or three days. Then they'll get a carb craving and have a "cheat" day where they pig out on white bread, breakfast cereals, soft drinks, candy and desserts. Then they're back on the Atkins diet for two or three more days. This pattern very closely resembles the sort of diets followed by Sumo wrestlers who are trying to pack on 200+ pounds of body fat: it's a cycle of carb starvation and carb indulgence that's guaranteed to make you fat. No wonder so many people fail on Atkins!
However, if people would actually follow the Atkins Diet as described in the Atkins Food Guide Pyramid, they'd lose weight rapidly, and they'd keep it off for life. The fact remains that people who fail on the Atkins Diet simply aren't following it. They're cheating in subtle ways that really add up, like eating pizza but not counting the white flour crust as carbs.
Regardless of the long-term popularity of the Atkins Diet, it has done tremendous good in raising awareness about the dangers of eating refined carbohydrates, added sugars and disease-promoting ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup. And that will be long remembered by the American people who are already causing major upheavals in the food industry by avoiding processed foods containing refined carbohydrates.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he is well known as the creator of popular downloadable preparedness programs on financial collapse, emergency food storage, wilderness survival and home defense skills. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2010, Adams created TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural living video sharing site featuring thousands of user videos on foods, fitness, green living and more. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder and CEO of a well known email mail merge software developer whose software, 'Email Marketing Director,' currently runs the NaturalNews email subscriptions. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known by his callsign, the 'Health Ranger,' Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org
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Sunday, July 18, 2004
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