I confess to being really skeptical about this from the start. Here are some excerpts from the CNN article about the lawsuit:

Gorran, 53, said Thursday he started the diet in May 2001 because his weight had risen from 140 to 148 pounds.

Ok, already I’m skeptical. 8 pounds? He was so concerned about 8 pounds that he decided to change his way of eating to something radically different, to a plan known for leading to major weight loss? Sounds a bit suspicious to me. I think if I were that in tune with my body, I might consider just getting a little more exercise. I was way overweight when I decided to start Atkins (almost 250 pounds, now down to about 190/195 since January).

In two months, he said, his cholesterol rose from a normal 146 to an unhealthy 230, and by October 2003, he needed heart angioplasty to clear his arteries.

I assume he has some documentation to back this up. My first question is “When was it 146? Was it right before he started Atkins, or was it some time in the past?” 230 doesn’t sound high enough to require surgery, did it continue to go higher? If he thought it was caused by Atkins, why did he continue eating that way? Didn’t his doctor recommend he go on medication first, to see if it could go down? 230 is high, but not astronomically high. Did he make any modifications to his way of eating? Did he try any of the options in the book for folks who have cholesterol issues? Or was he following a plan designed to get his cholesterol up to a high level to generate a story and a lawsuit?

Here is where it really gets strange:

“For 2 1/2 years, I extolled the virtues of this diet to anyone who listened because I was losing weight and I felt great. But when I started, I had no idea I was making a deal with the devil for trying to keep a 32-inch waistline,” he said.

Whoa. Wait a sec. He started in May 2001 and says he needed angioplasty by October 2003. That’s roughly 2.5 years. He says he was extolling the virtues of Atkins for 2.5 years, but 2.5 years after he started it he was supposedly having angioplasty, and that 2 months after he started he had what he called severe cholesterol problems.

What kind of an idiot is this? Apparently not only did he keep following a way of eating that he claims was harming him for 2.5 years until he needed angioplasty (doesn’t sound too smart to me), but not only that but was extolling the virtues of Atkins all the way to the hospital? Um, duh? Come on, people, that doesn’t even make sense!!!! Sounds like he’s either lying (he wasn’t really telling people how great Atkins was for as long as he says he was) or stupid (he believed it was hurting his health but kept telling people it was great).

As if that wasn’t enough, Gorran says that he ate cheesecake 3 times a week. Um, what? (Read that article and see that there are some questions about how Gorran is interpreting the book and what parts he might have overlooked.) Yup, check Google if you don’t believe me. That doesn’t sound low-carb to me. Which, of course, leads to the next question, how do we know what he was eating that whole time? Seems pretty impossible to prove in a court of law.

All of this doesn’t even start to address the issue of what his cholesterol ratios are (which many are starting to believe is more important than any one number), or what the VLDL rate is, or the controversy over whether cholesterol is really a contributing factor of heart disease or not.

Some have rightly asked whether this is just another example of the disturbing lack of personal responsibility in this country. We are lawsuit-laded. Any diet/exercise program has potential risks. If I start running and develop shin splints, can I sue whoever told me to get more exercise? I’ve tried to walk on the treadmill regularly and get blisters, who can I sue?

When people have talked with me about my decision to eat low-carb, I have told them that I read the book, thought that it made sense given the family history of diabetes, and it worked for me. I’ve also said that it might not be for everyone (because I don’t believe there is one right medical solution for 100% of the population). That doesn’t change the fact that I think the vast majority of the folks who are overweight could control their weight better by following low-carb than low-fat, because low-fat seems to be based on a regimine of being hungry all the time, and I just don’t think that is a viable long-term way of living or eating.

Oh, and it bears repeating that the the so-called “Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine” is NOT made up of physicians, as its misleading name implies, but instead is a political action group of the organization PETA which wants to ban all meat, fish, dairy and egg products from our plates. These folks are not about you making choices and taking responsibility for your actions, these folks are about pushing a pro-animal agenda that might lead a reasonable person to question whether their feelings about Atkins come more from a medical concern or for their own belief that it is wrong to consume any animal products at all.

“We should not let the real issue, providing people with a scientifically validated nutritional choice in the face of a worldwide obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic, be manipulated by this extremist animal rights vegan group,” Atkins Nutritionals said in a statement.

I did my own version of it today: I got rid of all the clothes that I fit into 6 months ago. Of course I didn’t so much burn them as brought them to the consignment shop, and of course Cortez’s men did not have the option of going down to the local Wal-Mart and buying a new ship, which I could do if I need bigger pants. But it’s a metaphor, so we’ll let the incongruities slide. At least they are out of the house, and buying bigger clothes will be a lot more of a conscious effort than just starting to wear different pants from a different hanger.

At least 50% (probably closer to 75%) of what was in my closet no longer fits. That is actually not uncommon for me; in fact it has been true for several years. The difference is that now most is too big, rather than too small. I’m not sure exactly how it happened, but I managed to go from having an abundance of one to the abundance of another without ever really hitting a point where I had a lot of clothes that fit. I guess that’s the “downside” of losing 60 pounds (or “about 3 Ethans” as we call it at home). The upside, of course, is not having enough spare tire around my waist to restock a NASCAR racer.

I have just passed the 6-month mark of going low-carb. Now before everyone tells me to prepare to die of kidney failure (a myth so strong that folks in the low-carb world refer to it as “the vampire myth” since it refuses to die), I should say that it was my doctor who recommended that I get the book and read it. He also referred to it as a “lifestyle change” as in “If you are ready to change the way that you eat….”

Now I will admit what others have observed, that there is a lot of misunderstanding about Atkins/low-carb eating (next time someone tells you they are “doing Atkins” ask them what the 4 stages are. If they don’t know, they aren’t doing Atkins). I think most of it stems from people not reading “the book” and just sort of thinking that they can skip the bun on the hamburger and that will be that. That is not a critique of low-carb as a way of living/eating, of course, it is a critique of culture, of our fascination with fads, with our obsession over losing weight fast & easy without work. That is not what Atkins is about. It may be what you see a lot of people think Atkins is about, but they’re wrong. Atkins is not eat all the meat and eggs you want. Atkins is about changing the way that you eat for life and finding what foods trigger weight gain. For many (myself included) the wrong kind of carbs and simple sugars turn into something not unlike an addiction. Some even say that it is an addition. (I know someone who claimed that the 3 most addictive substances in the world were nicotine, caffeine, and sugar but the government gets their cut of the profits from each, so they don’t care much about those.)

Anyway, to mark my 6-month “anniversary” we went through my closet and took out all the stuff that no longer fits. Or, I should say, no longer fits well. After all, technically this shirt still fits but I think the fact that Ethan and I can both fit into it together indicates that it does not fit well. I used to wear that shirt a lot. You can see it here and here and here. Dear Lord, in that last picture I’m probably wearing a bigger t-shirt than Albert the Alligator! (Note: when you are wearing clothes large enough to fit over a mascot, that’s a WARNING SIGN.)

How is it going? Well in January I posted low-carb before and after pictures. My weight hasn’t changed much since then, although it has definitely shifted around some, as I recently went to 36" pants. The pants I was wearing in the July 12th “before” picture were 44" and my 17.5" neck is now a 16" which seems much more reasonable.

I can fit into shorts that I bought on our honeymoon, so that puts me at about the same size I was in 1995 right after college and before seminary. I’m not sure what my next goal is. Ideally I would love to get back to about a 32" waist, which is what I was when I arrived in college. A couple of charts have said my ideal weight is about 166. Well I don’t know if I can get back to that weight (I don’t ever remember being below 170, and I’m not sure I remember that!!!) so right now I’m setting intermediate goals: 190, 185, 180. After that we’ll see how it goes.

They say no man is an island, but I was getting close.

“Low-Carb: Because being hungry all the time is not an option.” (my motto for why low-fat never worked.)

• “This misnamed ‘physicians committee’ represents a tiny fraction of America’s doctors who place animal-rights ideology above their patients’ health
• PCRM has asserted itself as a home for anti-meat, pro-vegan nutritionists who are committed to removing beef, dairy, poultry, and other animal products from the American diet for good.
• The established medical community has soundly rejected PCRM’s dietary advice in the past.
• The American Medical Association has written that it finds the recommendations of PCRM irresponsible and potentially dangerous to the health and welfare of Americans.
• In a separate public censure, the AMA marveled at how effectively a fringe organization of questionable repute continues to hoodwink the media with a series of questionable research that fails to enhance public health.
• PCRM has long-standing ties with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), which has funneled over $850,000 to its medical front group.
• Most Americans are too smart to knowingly take dietary advice from PETA. But when animal rights activists put on the sheep’s clothing of the medical profession, it becomes harder to know who’s credible. Force-feeding animal rights propaganda to Americans doesn’t sound very ‘responsible’ to me.

Personally I’m amazed at the FUD that surrounds the entire low-carb way of eating, but to have it cloaked behind a political agenda (and PETA is nothing but a political action committee) at the utter disregard of people’s health is disgusting.

Fortunately my doctor was well-informed about it. After having been on Atkins since the end of August I went from this picture in May to this picture in mid-October.

Note: Yes I know that the Consumer Freedom group also has an agenda, but I wasn’t suggesting anyone take their advice either. My reference to them had was simply because they were the source material for the AMA’s censure. The American Council on Science and Health has also had concerns about the mis-representation of the PCRM and also had questions about low carb as well.

Of course the ACSH also refuses to believe that a calorie is not a calorie as was shown in a recent study. Dr. Atkins and others said this for a long time and were consistenly scoffed at. They all complained that Atkins hadn’t done enough scientific research. Now there is a study that showed exactly what he said. It will be fun to see how folks respond.

Update (2004-02-11): PCRM illegally obtained Dr. Atkins medical records and falsely accused him of being obese at the time of his death. Read The Truth about Dr. Atkins’ Weight…. Not that his weight has anything to do with the validity of his claims about low carb eating, which have been demonstrated for 30+ years ….