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Inspiration Miscellaneous Ramblings Nutrition/Weight Loss

Low Carb and Paleo Stigma Still Alive and Well

Saw this article pop up on Lifehacker.com, which is one of the handful of sites I check most days. Always a good tip or something of interest on there:

https://lifehacker.com/5930378/how-i-lost-100-pounds

While this guy does everything he can to avoid saying it, what his formerly-Vegan ass realized is that it’s all about the carbs, and that eating meat is pretty much necessary for optimal health. Why won’t he just admit it? Cus there’s a stigma about eating low carb. We can thank big agriculture, government, and the animal activists/vegans/vegetarians for that. Oh, and the countless personal trainers, dietitians, and doctors who continue to misguide so many people with the whole ‘Healthy Whole Grains!’ bullshit.

Even in spite of the research proving that cutting carbohydrates is the best ways to lose weight, there is still a stigma about admitting one’s success on it. This started, I believe, back in the initial Atkins era. While I myself have bashed the Atkins plan on numerous occasions, I also am quick to recognize that he seems to have been the first to ‘re-discover’ what our grandparents and descendants already knew – that bread, pasta, sugar, and starches were fattening, and that exercising just made you work up an appetite.

The problem I have with the Atkins approach is that it is strictly about the carbs. Eat all the Splenda and other processed stuff you want. Eat those slimy processed pepperoni slices they sell in the plastic container at the grocery store – as much as you want – even though that shit will last a century without spoiling. And guess what? He was right. Most people WILL lose weight without hunger that way. I know I did. I ate all that shit for a while and dropped 65 pounds painlessly and felt great doing it. But what I found was, when I really started to succeed, I *really* focused on what I was eating. And that’s when I limited all of the chemicals and processed food out of my diet. I don’t know if it made a difference, but logic says it would. I’ve continued to hone my diet, almost without thought, to the point no where I’m pretty darned strict Paleo with the exception of dairy in the form of grass-fed butter, heavy cream, and occasionally cheese. That said, I still do a ‘cheat’ once a week that is quite extravagant – either an ice cream with the family, or a dessert of some sort out, or, if none of that happens, I will go and grab a pint of the most delectable ice cream on the planet: the Ben & Jerry’s “Everything But The…”. I get away with that because of the CrossFit, or at least I tell myself I do.

Regardless, I figured I’d post the above article. An interesting, yet somewhat annoying reminder of the depths to which folks will not just come out and say it: cut the carbs, lose the weight.