It appears that people are finally coming to their senses regarding the ridiculous prolieration of low carb diets and foods. There has been nothing more annoying than watching this 2 year orgy with Atkins and The South Beach Diet. We have low carb everything at this point, including low carb beer (that one really pissed me off) and soda. I've seen obese women at work, interrogating poor cafeteria workers about the carb content of their multi-grain bread, and then taking the elevator back up one floor to their desks.
What people fail to realize is that carbs perform important functions for us as humans, and we need them to survive. For instance:
I run and bike regularly. I like to do it, and oftentimes I push myself pretty hard. I've run 10 mile races and half marathons. In the runner's dictionary, there is a thing called "carb loading". Another way of saying it is "eat pasta, run fasta." In other words, carbs are essential for active people. Carbs are energy for athletes. In fact, sports companys sell compact gels filled with nothing but carbs for endurance athletes to injest during marathons, triathlons, and any other endurance sports.
So, if this is the case, why is everyone so anti-carb?
Because we are constantly looking for scapegoats to blame our weaknesses on. Instead of getting out of the goddamn house and exercising, we sit on the couch and troll the internet looking for low carb diets, and anti-carb articles to blame our weight problems on. Why not accept the realization that an active person burns off carbs when they convert them to energy, and take that as an IMPETUS TO WORK OUT? Instead of avoiding carbs AND the treadmill, how about eating the carbs in moderation, and exercising.
Here is an article that indicates these diets are actually unhealthy for athletes. Here is another one. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be on the athlete side than the low-carb diet side.
Article comments
1 - Victoria Ho
i think people also need to realise how *dangerous* low-carb (or worse; NO-carb) diets are, in terms of the toxicity that it generates because it taxes your liver so much. and you can't stay off carbs forever; once you hop back on after a long carb starvation, you're going to pile it all on again -- and more.
besides, your brain runs purely on carbs. starve it? now that's worrying.
2 - Ken
Sometimes I read an article and I say, "well, duh!" The low-carb diet phenomenon is actually meant not for those who are already fit and healthy, but rather for us who have quite a bit of weight to lose. I have plenty of carbs that are stored in my body, visible to you as fat cells. I need to get them used up. The best way to do so is to cut out the energy that I am taking in each day, so that my body goes to the stores that I've built up.
I agree with you that many of the wrong people are into the craze. But having the breadth of low-carb options that the craze has made possible is wonderful for us who need it!
3 - Matt
Ken, the problem with the low carb craze is that it has been adopted by everyone, not just people or need to lose a lot of wait, but also people who are looking to lose a very small amount, or none at all and want top adopt it as their new nutritional lifestyle. That's the problem I have with it.
4 - Jolly Wally
I'm fat! I've been on the Atkin's diet for about a year and I've gained 55lbs. I now weigh 465lbs. No one told me until recently that I couldn't eat all of the Atkins products that I wanted.
My breakfast: I was eating two boxes worth of Atkins muffin(s) mix, 1lb of sausage and drinking a quart of half and half. Lunch: Four chicken breast and 16oz's of white beans seasoned with 2TLB spoons of garlic butter. Dinner: 20oz steak and one lb of shrimp or 3 fish filets. I also ate 3 Atkins bars and 3 shakes. Help me! What's up??