GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

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The February issue of Reader’s Digest features a smiley face made out of two eggs and a strip of bacon. The headline reads: “Eat This, Lose Weight; The New Science of Dieting.” The bacon and egg face is a parody of the frowney face on the cover of the March 26, 1984 Time Magazine. The headline then was: “Cholesterol, and Now the Bad News.” Inside, an article titled, “Hold the Eggs and Butter,” started with the following statement: “Cholesterol is proved deadly, and our diet…

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THE FOSTER STUDY: “A LOW-CARB DIET IS ASSOCIATED WITH FAVORABLE CHANGES IN CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE RISK FACTORS AT 2 YEARS.”

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You have probably read about the Foster study by now. It has gotten a lot of press coverage and most of the headlines mention that it shows that a low-carb diet is good for the heart. We should all rejoice that that message is (finally!) getting out. The improvements in blood lipid profiles were just too dramatic to be explained away (probably not for lack of trying). But when it comes to weight loss, we hear the same old refrain, “no difference in low fat…

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ICE CREAM, MILK FAT, AND HOGS

A fellow low-carber who is still mourning the loss of Watch’n Carbs, the low-carb ice cream recently discontinued by Lucerne, sent me a message about his latest discovery. He was excited that he had found a sucalose-sweetened ice cream at a Ben and Jerry’s stand at the airport. With guarded optimism, I checked their website: The first flavor listed on their nutrition info chart was Butter Pecan. It had 17 grams of carbohydrate and zero fiber, so a net of 17 grams. The very last…

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LAST DAY FOR COMMENTS ON USDA GUIDELINES

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July 15th is the last day to submit your comments to the USDA about their new food guidelines. I urge you to please speak out before this travesty is finalized. You are limited to 2,000 characters or less, and they seem to count spaces. If you want to send a longer message, you can send it as an attachment. I thought people would be more likely to read it if they didn’t have to open anything, so I worked really hard to get my comment…

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SHAKE, SHAKE, SHAKE YOUR MIDDLE

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I was probably one of the first people to pre-order the new book, The 6 Week Cure for the Middle Aged Middle, by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades. When the publication date passed and others were already blogging and posting about it, and I still hadn’t received my copy, I gave up and ordered it again. Then I had to read it, collect the necessities, and wait for a time when my husband, whom I shall hereafter refer to as “D,” would be home…

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BEST LIFE? NOT EVEN CLOSE!

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I watched part of an Oprah show a while back (it might have been a rerun) in which Oprah and her fitness guru, Bob Green, went to Mississippi to save the residents of “the fattest state in America.” Oprah, who has famously had her own troubles in that regard, was well aware of the irony of her attempt to give out advice on weight loss. She magnanimously absolved Mr. Green of any blame for her most recent relapse and took sole responsibility while vowing to…

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The Nutrition and Metabolism Society

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Here’s a great new site (well, new to me anyway). I intend to add it to the links list on my Website the next time my live-in, computer-techie husband updates it for me. The Nutrition and Metabolism Society at http://www.nmsociety.org/ provides one-stop-shopping for news, information, and science about everything low carb. Their 2008 seminar in Phoenix starts tomorrow, so I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that. Here’s a preview: “This symposium will summarize and critically evaluate the evidence supporting the relationship between dietary saturated…

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Too Good to be True? Chocolate is Good for You!

Can a gift of silky, sensuous, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate possibly get any better? How about if it were good for you, AND IT HELPED YOU LOSE WEIGHT? It’s not science fiction; it’s not fantasy—it is a dream-come-true called Chocoperfection. These unbelievably tasty chocolate candy bars were the brainchild of Mary Jo Kringas. Mary Jo started working in her father’s candy store when she was five years old, so it’s easy to understand why she struggled with her weight. Since chocolate was the one food that she…

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The Biggest Loser

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Last Tuesday night I watched the Biggest Loser. It was the first time I have ever made it through a whole episode from start to finish. Although I know that most television shows, even the reality shows, are carefully scripted, I found it appalling. It looked like a reenactment of the Bataan death march from World War II. Suffering, pain, emotion, triumph, and despair may make compelling entertainment, but at what price? And I’m not just referring to the unlucky contestants who were bullied, ridiculed,…

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Gary Taubes at UC Berekey

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Gary Taubes gave a presentation at UC Berkeley called “The Quality of Calories; What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care.” If you have read Gary’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, it gives a bit more detail about the subject. If you have not, you’ll see why you should. It is 1 hour and 45 minutes long, but well worth the time: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216 One quote from the lecture shows very clearly how things went so terribly wrong and why it is so hard…

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