I have been dieting since the age of 15, 46 years now. I put more weight on following the recommended 'low-fat, high carb' diet than with anything else, though 18 months on hormone treatment for suspected endometriosis was what put me over 18 stone.
I managed to reach 20 stone while eating 'healthily' and walking 25 miles a week with the dog!
In fairness I was probably eating too much at meals, and of course shoving down all that wholemeal pasta, brown rice and baked potato turned out to be totally the wrong thing to do, particularly in combination with the nasty low-fat spreads. I turned to low-carbing via Atkins in desperation, thinking it might kill me but what the heck, I was going to die soon anyway if I went on as I was. It was successful.
Fell back into bad carb habits for a variety of reasons, and compounded the problem with too much red wine
Back on Atkins now though, and losing, though slowly.
Ironically enough, the diet we were all advised to follow when I was 15 involved cutting out bread and potatoes, cakes, biscuits etc, eating lean protein and plenty of veg, and taking exercise :roll:
Atkins did not die of a heart attack; he died after hitting his head in a fall in New York, and his body was bloated because of all the drugs/fluids they'd pumped into him. He revised his own original diet 1970s diet in the
'New Diet Revolution', published in 2002, and it states quite clearly in there that fat should be cut back as carbohydrate consumption is gradually increased. I quote from page 22:
"Am I advocating a high-fat diet? Not in the long run. As you increase the percentage of carbohydrates, while advancing through the different phases of Atkins, the percentage and actual amount of fat you consume will diminish. However, as long as you are at the lower end of carbohydrate consumption, higher-fat consumption poses no threat to your health."
He then gives a reference to: Phinney, S D, et al "The Human Metabolic Response to Chronic Ketosis without Caloric Restriction: Physical and Biochemical Adaptations."
Metabolism, 32(8), 1983, pp. 757-768.
Unfortunately, many people do not read the book from cover to cover. I did, and checked a lot of the references as far as I could, because as I say - I thought it might kill me. It hasn't yet!
In my case, my surname (which I am not going to give you!) means 'a fat person' :roll: What hope is there for me? :lol:
Viv 8)