Lowcarbezine!

Hey Gang -

Okay, it's late. I'm up to my eyebrows in cooking, writing, and publicity appearances, so I'm not promising it won't happen again. Still worth what you're paying, right? ;-D

Actually, I'm kind of happy I held off on publishing, because today is a special day for me. What day? This is the Official 8th Anniversary of Dana Going Low Carb. Eight years ago, after putting on between 10 and 15 pounds in the three months from my wedding till Labor Day, I decided that something new had to happen -- clearly my low fat, high carb diet was not working! I had recently read an old nutrition book by Gayelord Hauser, and one sentence had jumped out at me: "Obesity has nothing to do with how much you eat. It is, instead, a carbohydrate intolerance disease."

I remembered that when I was a kid, the common wisdom had been that to lose weight you gave up potatoes, spaghetti, bread, and sweets, and that when I joined the original Weight Watchers Program as a pudgy 11 year old the program had called for plenty of protein and unlimited low carb vegetables, but had strictly limited starches, and banned sweets altogether. I also remembered the Atkins diet from its first popularity in the 1970s, before low fat/high carb mania hit.

And I was also just plain fed up, and more than a little desperate. I decided, "What the heck do I have to lose?!" I went ahead with the Labor Day cookout I'd planned, and had my last tastes of low fat chocolate chip cookies and pasta salad made with low fat mayonnaise. The next day I cut the carbs out of my diet. No particular plan -- not Atkins, not Protein Power, not The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet; I just stopped eating anything high in carbs.

Two days later the shorts that had been tight at my Labor Day cookout were loose, my energy level was soaring, and I felt better than I had in years. I never looked back.

It's now been eight years. So much for all of those naysayers who insist that it's impossible to stick with a low carb diet long term. So much for everyone who said I'd develop high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or end up with no energy. Instead, in the years from 36 to 44 I seem not to have aged at all, and I feel better in my middle age than I did as a teenager! (Of course, as a teenager I was living on sugar and cigarettes...)

So if you've wondered whether it's possible to go low carb for life, never doubt that the answer is yes -- and that it's a decision with rewards that continue, day after day, year after year. I am, I have no doubt, low carb for life.

Read on!

Dana

Posted by HoldTheToast at September 2, 2003 04:46 PM