All this is fascinating, you are probably saying, but is it really relevant to my own particular, very individual situation? If you have a weight problem, it is extremely likely that the information contained in this book can help you solve it. My confidence is based on the fact that a long time ago, in 1964 to he exact, I first tried a controlled clinical trial by placing sixty-five subjects on a controlled carbohydrate regimen and sixty-four of them were able to reach their goal weight. The one who did not was still able to lose 90 pounds. In the years since, I have continued to use this program to treat obesity, and I continue to have outstandingly successful results.
So in order to help you understand your individual situation and where you do or don't fit in, I'll profile three typical obese patients. Several characteristic overweight patterns result from carbohydrate metabolism disorders that are instantly recognizable. Do any of the following sound achingly familiar?
Group A: "l Really Don't Eat That Much!"
·Are you overweight despite the fact that you don't eat that much?
·Do you follow standard weight loss diets to the letter, yet make no headway losing weight, or get stuck far short of your goal?
·Have you noticed that many slim people definitely consume more food and more calories than you do?
·Are you just plain unpleasantly hungry on low-calorie/ low-fat diets?
·DO you find the amount of food you eat is really the least you can take in without feeling physically unsatisfied?
·Do you feel unfulfilled when you finish a so-called "balanced" meal?
·Do you find that when you eat the amount of food that feels just right, you don't lose—or you even gain?
·Do you find yourself losing and regaining the same 10 to 15 pounds?
·Do you gain weight even though you eat natural, Lowfat foods?
·Have you often said, "I'm really very disciplined; it must be my metabolism"?
·Do you ever wonder if your weight problem could be hereditary?
·Do you eat to make yourself feel better?
Group B: "1 Crave Food Always!"
·Do you have an inexplicable obsession with food?
·DO you have a habit of eating late at night after dinner?
·DO you have a tendency to binge?
·Do you constantly crave sweets, pasta, bread and other
·high-carbohydrate foods?
·Do you nibble all day long when food is available?
·Do you have a strong desire to eat again within two hours of eating a filling meal?
·Do you consider yourself a compulsive eater?
·Have you ever said, "I only wish I could control my eating behavior"?
·Do you wish you had more control over how much food you eat?
·Do you have specific symptoms of iii health, such as the ones I'm about to list, that diminish or vanish as soon as you eat? Do you suffer from:
·irritability?
·inexplicable drops in your energy level throughout the day?
· often overwhelming bouts of fatigue, especially in the afternoon?
· mood swings?
· difficulty concentrating?
· sleep difficulties-whether the need for lots of sleep or a habit of waking from a sound sleep?
·anxiety, sadness and depression for which there's no obvious explanation?
·dizziness, trembling or palpitations?
·brain fog and loss of mental acuity?
Group C: "I Can't Live Without This One FoodI!"
·Do you have a single food or beverage you feel you
·could not do without?
·Would you pass up an elegant meal to have your most favorite food instead?
·Is there a specific food or beverage that makes you feel better as soon as you consume it?
·Do you ever think, “I wonder if I could be addicted to that food/beverage"?
·Do you feel this way about a category of foods (sweets, soft drinks, dairy products, grains, for example)?
What Your Answers Reveal
First of all, I would find it hard to believe there could be a significantly overweight person who had no "yes" responses.
If your affirmative responses form a pattern, I almost undonbtedly have a solution for your problem.
So let's delve a little deeper. Do most of your "yes" responses place you in Group A? Then you have a metabolic problem, manifested either by an inability to lose weight or keep it off, or by hunger or the inability to achieve and mainrain satiety (a feeling of being full or satisfied).
If most of your "yes" responses were to Group B questions, you probably have some form of glucose intolerance. You may suffer from hypoglycemia—more accurately called unstable blood sugar, or, in some cases, pre-diabetes.
If most of your affirmative answers were to questions in Group C, you probably have an addiction to the food or beverage you singled out. Another term for the phenomenon is "food allergy" or the more accurate term of "individual food intolerance:'
If the food or beverage you've identified as addictive contains carbohydrates, you have a carbohydrate addiction, and this book will provide you with more answers to your problems than you ever thought possible.
Three Facets of the Same Problem
Individuals whose "yes" answers fell primarily in Groups A and B (and most of you C responders, as well) have a condition that is the common denominator among nearly all overweight people. It is called hyperinsulinism. Before I explain the significance of hyperinsulinism and the very good news of how easily you can tame it on Atkins, I want you to reflect on the significance of eating. Stop and ask yourself, "What else do I do in the course of a day that constitutes such a dramatic and intense alteration of my body as swallowing the food I do?"
Between the time you rise and the time you go to bed, you put pounds of organic matter into your mouth. Your body runs on it. So don't be surprised that If you make bad choices, you'll pay a price.
Life Out of Control
Food-obsessive behavior is common. But some of the tougher cases fall beyond the scope of Groups A, B or C and can be a challenge to cure even by doing Atkins. Individuals who binge and fantasize and almost live for food are as much between a rock and a hard place as an alcoholic or a heroin addict. For these people, the best hope is still a metabolic approach to their problem.
Gordon Lingard, a real estate executive, was an extreme example. He was 53 years old when he came to see me, and his five-foot ten-inch frame carried 306 pounds. Gordon had progressed from a normal weight in college (when he was a lifeguard) to extreme obesity by his late twenties. His weight had gone as high as 450 pounds. He had no hormonal imbalances, and he had tried everything-stomach stapling, emetics, laxatives and every diet from B to Z.
Gordon was as inexplicable to himself as to the many doctors he had consulted. All he knew was that he had to eat. The cravings were indescribable. He told me he was constantly planning his next binge. Gallons of ice cream disappeared as swiftly as an ordinary carbohydrate addict downs a candy bar. Sugar was Gordon's master obsession. "There was never a moment I didn't desire it,' he recalls. "Often I would shake until I could put some sugar in my mouth. The symptoms were totally physical, and they were really frightening. For me there was nothing else but food. I had an hour's drive from my office to my home, and I knew every restaurant, every diner, every candy machine and every soft drink dispenser along the whole mute;' I'd wager you'd be willing to bet Gordon Lingard's obsession was almost entirely psychological—but you'd be wrong. His situation was a special one and, for a while, treating him was no cinch. In his case, some of -the vitanutrient aids I describe in Chapter 23 were a crucial part of the solution. But what I'd like you to realize is that Gordon's problem was only a more extreme version of the problems so many overweight people have. His difficulties were basically metabolic difficulties, and they could be solved metabolically. By doing Atkins under my personal care, Gordon reached his goal weight for the first time in thirty years, and he no longer feels driven to consume sugar.
Gordon had failed repeatedly on low-fat/low-calorie diets. And that's not surprising. His problem lay in his metabolic response to carbohydrates. To solve an out-of-controi situation like this by restricting calories without restricting carbohydrates is like marching into the surf planning to turn back the ocean.
You may have picked up this book with the secret inner conviction that you're a "compulsive eater." In all probability, you're a carbohydrate addict. How many compulsive eaters of steaks have you come across? Not too many, huh? Let me tell you, it's a rare breed. Many people ate a so-called "balanced" diet as children, but by the time they reached adulthood their diets had become progressively less balanced. Eating didn't seem all that important to them once, but now it does. So they look at their waistlines, they look at their eating and they realize they have a problem. Usually they notice that their taste in food has gone off in a specific direction. Carbohydrates now form the bulk of what they eat: breads and baked goods, cakes and candies, pasta and popcorn. Surprising and illogical food cravings are typical. Do you ever have dinner with a big dessert and almost immediately afterward find that you want some candy? That's a sign, as is fatigue, that your carbohydrate metabolism is out of whack.
It's not that you eat when you're not hungry, but you seem to be always hungry. And yet when you eat the highcarbohydrate food you crave, you feel better only briefly. Your situation is the exact opposite of the one you'll experience when you do Atkins. When doing Atkins, you'll find that your appetite has diminished, but your satisfaction from the food you eat has increased.
Are You a Compulsive Eater?
Many carbohydrate addicts could no more walk past a refrigerator without opening it than Venus or Serena Williams could let a short lob drift overhead without smashing it. I've heard many patients say, "It's irresistible, Dr. Atkins. I'm a slave. How can you possibly help me?" I say, "That's all fight. Your compulsions hold no terrors for me, and soon they won't for you. When you pass that refrigerator, open it, have some chicken salad or a slice of pot roast. If you eat the way I'm asking you to eat, you'll find that food is still delicious, but the compulsions will fade" You see, your food compulsion isn't a character disorder, it's a chemical disorder called hypefinsttlinism, and you have it simply because you've eaten the same unhealthy way that most people in our culture do. Rebecca Chasen liked baking breads and desserts for her friends. She liked eating that way, too. She had been large since childhood. Now, at age 32, she was carrying 264 pounds on her five-foot eleven-and-a-half-inch frame.
One day, she decided to try on an old pair of pants and found she couldn't bring the button within four inches of the hole. That same week someone at work told her he had lost 50 pounds doing Atkins. Rebecca had tried herbal diets, low-fat diets, the eabbage soup diet ("I was starving") and Fen-Phen ("I thought my heart was going to explode and so I stopped") over the previous decade. It was time for something completely different.
"I was a carbohydrate junkie, so adjusting to Atkins was hard. I desperately wanted bread for the first four days. I straggled to ignore the cravings, and after two weeks I had lost 17 pounds. My size 22 jeans, which were fight before, were now loose."
As Rebecea's cravings stopped, her pounds continued to disappear. One or two friends, in the grip of low-fat illusions, warned her of what terrible risks she was taking on an eating plan that allowed her to cat bacon and eggs for breakfast. Four months into Atkins, she decided to see her physician. "He reviewed my highly favorable cholesterol readings and all my other lab work, put me on the scale and finally said, 'Keep doing whatever you're doing, Rebecca. You're as healthy as a horse.'"
After a year doing Atkins, Rebecca regularly takes walks and ricles her bike. She finds she has much more energy, and, so far, she has lost 86 pounds. She has a whole new set of recipes to cook for her friends nowadays. And she never goes anywhere without some controlled carb snacks in her pocketbook.
"My dress size is now a 12 or 14. The old me wouldn't have been caught dead in clothing that showed my shape, but I just went shopping at The Gap and bought mediumsized fitted shirts. I don't recall buying such small shirts since I've been old enough to buy my own clothes. I have vowed to myself that I will never be fat again. I don't know why I didn't try Atkins ten years ago."
If all this still seems amazing to you, I can only say "read on" In the next chapter, we'll learn about the specific metabolic role that insulin plays in obesity.
KEY PfOINTS!
·A significant number of all overweight people suffer from a metabolic problem known as hyperinsulinism.
·Eating large amounts of foods high in sugar, white flour and other refined carbohydrates can promote or aggravate hyperinsulinism.
·Alkins is a corrective metabolic approach to metabolic problems.
·The proteinand fat-rich foods you eat when doing Atkins stabilize your blood sugar, making food cravings disappear.
TIPS:
·Excess weight around your waist is often the first sign that your body is not metabolizing sugar properly.
·Try not eating your favorite food for a week and see if you notice any changes in how you feel.
·Don't ever go more than six hours without having a meal or protein-rich snack.