I don't eat fruit (it's unnecessary)...

Lots of good things in life are unnecessary. I count good food among them.

I've taken myself off wheat after getting started reading about it here, and most carbs (have to have some corn tortillas periodically, and I love beans, and I drink whole fat milk) but while I don't eat fruit often, I have to have some.

I'm glad he doesn't think the odd piece of fruit is the devil!

A great help for me, when I feel like I need something sweet, is to eat some shredded coconut. I couldn't find any at our store that was unsweetened, unfortunately, but I found the one with the lowest amount of sugar in it (I will continue to search for unsweetened) and I've been having a few tablespoons of shredded cocount when I get a craving. I suppose you would have to like coconut, but it's just sweet enough, with enough fat and fiber to satisfy the craving without overdoing it.

In the past when I tried no carb, I would get the most intense sweet cravings. It was awful. Even when I would give up and decide to just eat lower carb, but without cutting them out completely it was much easier to avoid sweets, but of course, no weight would come off. I never was able to lose more than about 4 lbs. I did manage to drop about 6 lbs from my heaviest weight (which came out to about 4 lbs from my average weight).

What I finally had to do to make it work was to severly limit my calories to get jump started. I know it's not ideal, and supposedly doesn't work, but it was the only thing that worked for me to finally get my appetite back in control. I would have a granola bar for breakfast (135 cal) and then a lean cuisine for lunch (200-300) and then eat a regular dinner, and try to not have carbs for dinner. I'm not a fan of packaged food, but I needed that exact calorie number to help me. I only did that for about a week before I was able to eat less and not feel really hungry because I just got used to smaller portions. I lost maybe a pound or two, and then switched over to no carb.

I've had a half pound to a pound come off a day since then, and I've lost 10.5 lbs. It works, but it's just a matter of finding a way to make it work and stick that can take some time. I've been waking up before my alarm even goes off for the last week.. and that never happens, so I know I'm doing good things for myself. I think when you start to see results it makes the effort worth it, and feeling like it's finally working has kept me on track this time. Looking forward to getting back down to my skinny vanity weight helps too.

Angie: Try the Atkins coconut candy bar. It's like an Almond Joy but only 2 or 3 net carbs.

I have no idea if the Atkins stuff is poison to your body in some other way we haven't learned about yet (fake sugars) but when you just need a few bites of something after dinner his bars are great. My fave is the peanut butter cups. I only let myself have it once a week b/c I my weight is not coming off...

WTF - I've cut my daily carb consumption from about 150 net carbs to 30 or fewer and cut out the fruit and low carb bread. I wonder if something else is going on, but I don't trust my primary care doctor to be well read enough to have ideas. She'll no doubt tell me to do more cardio and cut calories. Has anyone else had NO WEIGHT LOSS when cutting carbs so drastically? I don't think I am doing anything bad inadvertently - I follow the rules in the back of Why we Get Fat around cream/cheese/butter consumption etc. You'd think SOMETHING would happen, albeit slowly, simply because I've cut the carbs so much.

I put the URL for the snacks in my name.

Drink just one 12-ounce can of sugared-soda per day and this is how much sugar you will be consuming:
http://bit.ly/awEpYV

It ain't a pretty picture.

Thanks Gretchen, I will have to look into those!!

And, I have tried this in the past with NO results, which is the exact reason that after a period of time with nothing happening, I've given up.

In May and June of last year, I was on no carbs. I was also rollerblading a couple of miles a day. It was extremely frustrating to see zero results because I felt like I was putting in quite a bit of effort.

4th of July weekend, I went rollerblading with the dog and broke my wrist, bad. I was on vicodin, which made me nauseous, so I had no appetite, and was puking up what little I did eat for about three days before I was scheduled for surgery, which again meant no eating beforehand. I lost 10-12 lbs from a week of eating really small portions, but I didn't give a shit about carbs; I ate whatever I could stomach. I only gained back about 3 lbs since then, and I've generally kept my carbs pretty low.

Which is why I wanted to go super low cal again, to sort of jump start weight loss, then switch over to no carb. Because even though Amy sometimes says you can't overeat protein/fat... I can. Unless I've gotten my body used to smaller portions.

Gretchen, you may unknowingly be consuming hidden carbs or sugars, or not getting enough fat.

I recommend the latest Atkins book New Atkins for a New You: The Ultimate Diet for Shedding Weight and Feeling Great.. Currently $9.60 on Amazon, and you can go to the Atkins site for a $3 rebate.

Follow the instructions for Induction exactly and hopefully you'll see results.

Pecans are a great choice for something sweet. They're very low carb once you subtract the fiber. Very nutritious too.

Yeah, but unless you get Hungarian cheesecake and coffee at Canter's, your life is a little shithole.

Problem - Not losing weight on low-carb. I lost little weight but I kept reading everything I could. Evidently, for me, age and prior damage done for years were the problem. I could, and did, eat anything I wanted and not gain weight until my early forties. People always hated to eat with me - before dinner drink, large meal with wine, desert and after dinner drinks. By my early sixties, I was a big belly 284 pounds. I couldn't get above 185 until my early forties.

Only when I went with the first two weeks of Eades' "Six Week Cure" for six weeks, did I lose meaningful weight down to 248 pounds. I've now learned that I maintain whatever weight I get down to unless I stay on the first two weeks of Eades or the beginning period of Atkins. Like Taubes said, I am one who needs to be near no carb to lose fat.

Do you ever see Muslims' at Canter's now days BOTU?

fructose is harmful

No it isn't. It may be bad in massive quantities, but it sure as hell isn't harmful in moderation. Are you seriously going to stop eating Apples and Oranges?

The irony of all this diet talk is that simply eating a balanced diet of 1/3 each of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in moderation is enough. No need to go extreme.

The reality is that we are all living much longer. All the diet arguments are about very marginal benefits. Look at each US state as a country and suddenly Hawaii, Utah and Minnesota rank right up there. If you want any one health culprit, it's smoking. Stop smoking and your health and life expectancy soar. (Stop getting drunk and drinking coffee and soda or juice like crazy also helps. After that and assuming a more-or-less balanced diet, it's all genetics.)

Sugar both drives fat storage and makes the brain think it is hungry

That makes it "harmful in large quantities", perhaps.

Not poison in any normal or meaningful sense of the word.

That level of hyperbole hurts the case rather than helping it.

Ooh, be careful with those Atkins bars. They contain malitol, which can cause some...um...gastrointestinal distress in some people.

I could never, ever give up my favorite dessert of a fresh peach fried in butter with coconut and a bit of cinnamon. Actually, it's not so much dessert as dinner during peach season. I love the taste of bacon but it gives me a headache if I eat it more than once a week.

Gretchen if you are not overweight, are very active, and have been trying to cut weight for a long time, you may actually not be eating enough. I was a collegiate runner, normal weight but not skinny, which meant I tried to lose weight all the time, and I really messed myself up. I had to eat a lot more, especially more fat, and had to unfortunately look pretty puffy for about a year or two before my health got back to normal. After those unpleasant two years however, I was able to drop a fair amount of weight with no effort. (I do eat grains and I center my diet around veggies rather than meat.)

Dave B-

I have not been looking. I only look for the cheesecake. They have great pastrami sandwiches too.

I actually think there is some sense to the Amy diet, although it may be that different body types react differently to different diets. Some dieticians think the Amy diet is full of beans, btw.

People in Asia eat carbs (rice) and do not get fat. The French eat pastry and drink apertifs etc do not get fat.

And sometimes, you gotta have a cheesecake. I am not fat either.

Gretchen it could just be your body is not meant to be low carb. I've been to Asia alot, and still nobody has explained to me why they are so skinny. Yes, their drinks are almost devoid of sugar (even the fruity ones) and they consume almost no fruit. They also rarely exercise in gyms. That would almost point to a low carb existence right? Except no....pasta shops, noodle shops and rice for breakfast, lunch, or dinner is quite common. Their portion sizes are quite small. I think it's all about portion control.

I loose weight on low carb rapidly. In 3 weeks I lost 14lbs. BUT meat/dairy for me isn't the greatest tasting treat, I sort of had to learn to like it. I do feel amazing on the low carb diet though.

BOTU, your statement "your life is a little shithole" made me think of Muslims for some reason.

I never had Canter's cheesecake, but their Matzo ball soup was our special cure for preventing a hangover from a night of drinking years ago. I did have Irving's deli (Crenshaw Blvd) cheesecake though, actually more than a mere mortal should eat. My Mom was a waitress there and she would bring home whole cheesecakes, borscht, and matzo crackers to make matzo pancakes. I was always skinny, but then ....

P.S. I don't know if Irving's cheesecake was Hungarian, but my Mom was.

"The irony of all this diet talk is that simply eating a balanced diet of 1/3 each of carbohydrates, proteins and fats in moderation is enough. No need to go extreme."

A poison is a poison regardless of the amount consumed. Just because you can eat a little arsenic each day and it won't kill you doesn't mean that you should. The fist 2 million years of human evolution occurred on the semi-arid African plains where carbohydrate was in extremely short supply. Your diet of "moderation" is magnitudes of order higher in carbs then what we evolved to eat ... and yet this is ok with you? That's just nuts. Keep in mind that apples and oranges not only were not available to ancient humans, but they have been genetically modified for hundreds of years specifically to amp up the fructose content.

"The reality is that we are all living much longer."

Not even slightly. The infant mortality rate continues to drop which keeps bumping up longevity numbers. Maximum life expectancy for adults has been remarkably constant for hundreds of years.

Thanks Sam and Purp. I have always been relatively active doing a few days of cardio and lifting/week. Even my lazy days include a 30 minute romp w/ the pooch at the dog park.

And it's weird you mentioned "puffy" - for whatever reason (possibly hormones) I feel like I gained 15 lbs over night. My stomach looks distended like I am a starving child in Africa w/ a protein deficiency. So do I eat more fat or count calories? NO IDEA. I just need to lose 25 lbs. or so and for me that should take me down one or two pant sizes and I should be fairly ripped.

Thats really nice. Will do futher reading on this