I understand that a lot of people have a real affinity for the low-carb diets, but after a week on Atkins, I don’t.  I don’t really understand the point of the whole low-carb thing, even after reading up on it for this past week. When all was said and done I lost a pound doing Atkins for one week. Now, I could have lost more if I wasn’t consciously trying to eat so much, so you might say, “Andy, you could have lost more weight if you had counted your calories.” And yes, of course I could have, but I thought the whole point of Atkins was that I didn’t have to concern myself with calories. If I had gone down to 1200 calories of meat I would have lost more weight, but if I had eaten 1200 calories of pudding I would have lost weight too. So I don’t get the whole carb thing.  I suppose if you find that the Atkins diet reduces your cravings for food, that’s a good thing. But I don’t really mind cravings and I don’t mind being hungry. So I guess the Atkins diet just isn’t for me.

 The problem with Atkins isn’t just that it became the biggest diet in the country and we still just got fatter and fatter, the problem is that for it to work the way people would like to think it works (that calories don’t matter, only the type of food does)  the laws of physics would have to be suspended. 

Before I started this blog I worked on another weight loss blog with a friend of mine and wrote the following and I think it’s important so I’m reposting it here.

People want to believe there is a secret to weight loss. They want to believe it’s something more obscure than calories in vs. calories out. Even people who subscribe to the belief that calories are the most important factor in weight loss will often say things like, “Yes, calories are the most important, but it’s also important that you don’t get those calories from junk food,” or they’ll say, “Sure, calories matter but not as much as limiting your carbs.” I couldn’t disagree more with these types of statements. There is often little to no science behind these ideas. On the other hand, there is a ton of science behind the notion that calories consumed is the primary factor behind what you weigh. In fact, perhaps the most famous equation in science has weight-loss implications.

E = mc²

Everybody has seen that equation. A lot of people don’t know what it means. Put simply it is this:

E = energy
m = mass
c = the speed of light
and the little two means to multiply the speed of light by itself

so

Energy = (mass) multiplied by (the speed of light) squared

Now, the speed of light doesn’t change, it’s what’s known as a constant. So what this equation tells us is that energy has a direct relationship to mass. In fact, they are just different forms of the same thing.

A calorie is a measurement of energy and for our purposes mass is the same as weight. So once again we’re back to the calories you consume (and expend) will ultimately determine what you weigh. There’s no way around it. But it works in reverse too. Every time you expend energy (and everything you do expends energy) you lose a little weight. You lose weight every time you blink. Yes, it’s a minuscule amount, but the more energy you expend the more weight you’ll lose. I hear people say, “I exercise all the time, but I don’t lose any weight.” But that’s impossible. If you’re expending energy you’re losing weight because they’re one in the same thing.

So you may wonder why I’m bothering with a fad-diet-diet if I don’t think the type of food matters all that much. The answer is a few reasons. First, I like to try things out even when I’m skeptical of them. Who knows, maybe there is some magic combination of foods that science has yet to uncover that revs up the “fat burning furnace” the infomercials are always talking about. Maybe my Tang and microwave S’mores diet will be the secret to dropping pounds and I’ll be up for the Nobel prize. Second, I like the structure that’s inherent in fad diets, it makes food decisions a snap. And thirdly I think it’s fun to eat only certain types of foods or combinations of food for the hell of it. I don’t know, I’m just wired that way.

Next diet announcement coming soon.