Low Carb or Keto Diet

[jonp]

When I sprained my ankle a couple years ago I was on crutches for a few weeks and then into rehab for several more. Not the first time as I've sprained both a couple of times jumping out of perfectly good aircraft, stepping into woodchuck holes picking up haybales etc. While off my feet I put on 20lbs or so and it just never came off.

A couple of months ago I decided to try a low carb diet. Originally the idea was a Keto but that just wouldn't work for me with my job so I cut out carbs pretty much during the week with 1tsp of sugar in my coffee every morning and that's about it. Moderate carbs during the weekend. No potato's, rice, bread etc.. I also cut my beer consumption down although it was not high to start with. Beer as everyone knows has a ton of carbs.

In the month or two that followed I dropped 16lbs and it's stayed off. I'm debating another 10lbs but not sure if I'll go that far yet.

Anyone else try a low carb, Keto, Caveman or other type of similar diet with equal results?

[1911sw45]

You will lose the weight with those. But if you every stop them you will gain the weight back and possibly more.

[dragon813gt]

Cutting out sugar is the best thing you can do for your health. The problem is it’s in everything. I’ve never had to diet to lose weight but I’ve tried a bunch of them to see how I would feel. Moderation is the key to everything.....except sugar. Cut it out completely and you will be healthier for it.

[Love Life]

I’m not cutting anything, lol. I think 60-65 is a good lifespan living however you please.

[waksupi]

I ditched sugar years ago, and use Stevia now.

[NyFirefighter357]

I listen to this guy, Vinnie Tortorich. https://vinnietortorich.com/. All that stuff works if you have the will power. The biggest problem I have is the wife is a carb freak. No sugar, no grains. (NSNG) I heard of him from the Adam Carolla show and now they do a segment where one of the hosts who following his no sugar no grains diet brings in a meal she made for rating by the others. This is the link to are the recipes it's called EAT YOUR FEELINGS. https://adamcarolla.com/blogs/eat-yo...cchini-ribbons Good luck!

[labradigger1]

Cutting out Carbs and sugar are the beat things I ever did. I try to limit myself to 60 carbs a day. That’s not easy! No flour, no potatoes, no pasta, no rice and Splenda as a sugar substitute. I cheat one meal a month and it’s usually big fat fence post fries. It’s not that you give up food it’s just you eat different and better foods. As having type 2 diabetes I feel my eyes and legs are important enough to eat correctly.
I ate what I wanted when I wanted for 44 years until it caught up with me. I always felt you could eat anything You wanted and You could work or excersize it off. I was wrong!

[jmort]

I tried it, did not enjoy it, in fact disliked it, but it works well. Long before the current Keto craze with yuppies and Bulletproof coffee, Atkins figured it out. And before that, a renown photographer created The Drinking Man's Diet. He was the real pioneer. Lived to ripe old age of 98.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robe...(photographer)

https://www.amazon.com/Drinking-Mans...king+mans+diet


41,472 viewsApr 21, 2004, 12:01am
The Drinking Man's Diet
By Alan Farnham



"Did you ever hear of a diet which was fun to follow? A diet which would let you have two martinis before lunch, and a thick steak generously spread with Sauce Béarnaise, so that you could make your sale in a relaxed atmosphere and go back to the office without worrying about having gained so much as an ounce? A diet which allows you to take out your favorite girl for a dinner of squab and broccoli with hollandaise sauce and Chateau Lafitte, to be followed by an evening of rapture and champagne?"

So starts a jaunty little pamphlet titled The Drinking Man's Diet that first appeared in 1964. It was published by an equally jaunty San Francisco bon vivant, Robert Cameron Robert Cameron , who priced it at $1. (Cameron used noms de plume--first Gardner Jameson and Elliott Williams, later Jeffrey W. Roberts.) In two years, he sold 2.4 million copies in 13 languages. Now Cameron, 93, still jaunty, still a bon vivant and still admirably trim from following his own diet, is reissuing this classic. It can be bought for $4.95 through Amazon.com or through Cameron's own Web site (www.abovebooks.com).

Then and now, the diet is a work of staggering brilliance.

Like Atkins, whose own low-carb diet followed Drinking Man nine years later, Cameron proposes healthful weight loss by reducing one's intake of carbohydrates. As far as it goes, that's fine, since what Cameron's book terms "man-type" food (also "aesthetic" and "gourmet" food) is mercifully low in carbs: well-marbled steaks, thick slabs of fish, salads strewn with Roquefort.

Then, however, he adds the animating spark of genius--a corollary that will forever lift the Drinking Man's Diet above all lesser low-carb regimens: Gin, vodka, rum, brandy, whiskies and other distilled spirits contain at most trace amounts of carbohydrate. So the low-carb adherent can drink, if he wishes, and keep on losing weight. Figuratively speaking, Drinking Man takes the South Beach diet, adds a redeeming splash of rum and pops in an umbrella.

What makes this more enjoyable than calorie counting, "is that most of the things you like best don't have to be counted at all: steak and whisky, chicken and gin, ham, caviar, pâté de foie gras, rum and roast pheasant, veal cutlets and vodka, frogs legs and lobster claws--they all count as zero." (See sample menu.) No wonder the little pamphlet sold millions! Here was a diet Dean Martin could love.

Columnists and commentators from Walter Winchel to Herb Caen talked up the diet. Time and Newsweek devoted stories to it. Walter Cronkite interviewed Cameron at length on TV. At the zenith of the Drinking Man craze, funnyman Allan Sherman immortalized the diet in song. A few stanzas will suffice to give the flavor:

With every Manhattan Your stomach will flatten If pounds you would burn off Then turn on your Smirnoff

The little book's format (faithfully retained for the reissue) only added to its appeal. Unlike today's ponderous diet tomes, this was tiny--just 4 inches by 7 inches, and svelte enough to slip into a shirt pocket or purse. The whole thing ran just 50 pages. Of those, only the first 13 were text--written in a breezy, slightly goatish style that strikes the modern ear as one part Rabelais, one part Austin Powers.

A section of testimonials, for instance, contains this one from "Daisy T., showgirl": "Believe me, it was no fun being taken out to a swell place and all you could eat was some celery and yogurt. Now I order double lamb chops."

Or this, from "Paula P., woman-about-town": "Frankly, I like my cocktail. But I don't like to go sashaying around with rolls of fat pushing their way around the shoulder straps of my evening dresses. Now with the Drinking Man's Diet (and why not the Drinking Woman's?) I can eat three solid meals a day. And I don't wear a girdle anymore."

The remaining pages were given over to tables that provide the carbohydrate count, in grams, of various essential foods, e.g. carrot (5), prune (5), daiquiri (6), martini (trace).

All was going swimmingly for Cameron, when suddenly the tablecloth was yanked from under him. He was traveling, promoting the book, when his mother phoned from Des Moines in tears to say that the local paper was carrying an ominous headline: "Drinking Man's Diet 'Mass Murder,' says Harvard Nutritionist."

Dr. Frederick Stare Frederick Stare , who founded Harvard's School of Public Health in 1942, had decried Cameron's diet as unhealthful. Stare eventually retracted the "mass murder" part, but by then, as Cameron balefully notes today, the damage had been done. The accusatory headline had run on page 1; the subsequent retraction ran on page 28. In culinary terms, the Drinking Man's goose was cooked.

In a way, it hardly mattered. By then, Cameron had sold $2.4 million worth of books (in 1966 dollars). To paraphrase the lyrics of another famous old song, "They can't take that away from me."

He returned to publishing, issuing Above San Francisco, the first in what would become a series of lush coffee-table books filled with Cameron's own aerial photography. His latest title, Above Mexico City, debuts this Christmas. The series has sold, collectively, 2.5 million books.

Cameron today can afford to do what he wants. And what he has wanted to do for some time is reissue The Drinking Man's Diet. This he now has done, making only minor tweaks. The tables, for example, have been updated, allowing for more precise measurements of carbohydrate values.

Since 1964, innumerable dieters and drinkers have proved to their own satisfaction that the Drinking Man's Diet works. But is it good for you?

Told that Harvard's Stare once decried the diet as "mass murder," nutritionist Lisa Young Lisa Young of New York University burst out laughing. Then, in a more sober vein, she went on to say that 60 grams of carbohydrate per day (the amount Cameron recommends) is too little. Likewise, she faults the diet for being too high in animal fats.

And as for downing as many martinis as you wish? "That's crazy. You can't eat or drink as much as you want of anything--except water--and come out clean."

To Cameron's credit, his original said as much in its conclusion: "Don't be a hog. If you gorge yourself with food, even if it is low in carbohydrates, you will get fat. If you drink too much, you will get drunk. Moderation in the pursuit of happiness is no vice."

The reissue closes with a coda as magical and alluring today as it must have sounded 40 years ago:

"So, drinkers of the world, throw away your defatted cottage cheese and your cabbage juice; and sit down with us to roast duck and Burgundy. You have nothing to lose but your waistlines."

Speaking strictly for myself, allow me please to say, "Mr. Cameron, bring it on!"

Drinking Man's Diet: Sample Menu

Drinking Man's Diet: Sample Menu
(With grams of carbohydrate)

Menu planning, the Dean Martin way!

Breakfast

1/4 cantaloupe or 4 ounces of tomato juice (5) Ham or bacon, 2 slices (0) Egg, fried, boiled or poached (trace) Coffee or tea (0)

Lunch

Dry martini or whiskey and soda, if desired (trace) Broiled fish or steak or roast chicken (0) 2 glasses dry wine, if you wish (trace) Green beans or asparagus (1) Lettuce and tomato salad with French or Roquefort dressing (4) Coffee or tea (0)

Dinner

Martinis or highballs, if you desire (trace) Hors d'oeuvres of 2 stalks of celery stuffed with pâté (5) Shrimp cocktail (4) Beef, pork, lamb, veal chicken or turkey (0) Green beans, 1 cup, brussels sprouts, 1/2 cup, or cauliflower, 1 cup (6) 2 glasses dry wine (trace) 1/2 avocado with French dressing (8) Cheese: Roquefort, Camembert, Swiss or cheddar (trace) Coffee or tea (0) Brandy (trace)

Total grams of carbohydrate: 33


©2018 Forbes Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[bob208]

I went on stevia years ago. did away with all the artificial sweeteners. diet coke or in fact any of the diet drinks will do you no good.

the way I lost 80lbs. was went from a 10 inch dinner plate to a 8 in. on don't go back for seconds. I am down too two meals a day now not hungry at all. don't eat a late supper it just turns to fat.

[jimlj]

I have two friends who have been on the latest fad low carb diet several times over the past 15 years. Both loose weight quickly, both look sickly for several months after the weight loss, and both have given up and gained all the weight back plus more three or four times now. I don't see how that can be healthy, but what do I know?
I think the key is trying to eat a healthy diet, and monitor portion size. Exercise plays a key roll as well. I think slow gradual weight loss and healthy lifestyle is sustainable, where fast extreme weight loss is rarely successful for an extended period.

[jmort]

^^^ This makes sense

[Wayne Smith]

Diets by definition don't work - simply because a diet is based on denial. 'I won't do this or eat that etc.' and what do you do once you have reached your goal? Go right back to the habits that made you fat in the first place.

To be successful you need change your understanding of what good food is. That is why I like the 'drinking man's diet' - it begins that process. Once you have redefined food and adjusted your buying habits (success begins in the grocery store, not the kitchen - if I don't have it I can't eat it!)and your meal planning/eating habits you can then begin the lifestyle change that will last you the rest of your life. If there is no freedom in it you won't sustain it. If it is based on knowledge and appropriate limits you are pretty much home free.

[dragon813gt]

I’m going to start my own diet plan and sell it to the masses. I’ll call it “ Put the fork down fatty”. I’m sure that will go over well in the highly charged PC culture we live in. But putting the fork down will go a long way. Your stomach doesn’t tell your brain that you’re full until you’ve over eaten. So eating to you feel full is actually over eating.

[jonp]

I'm not an advocate of "fad" diets. Grapefruit or otherwise. Nutritional based diets with science behind them are what interests me. I keep an eye on caloric intake while cutting down the carbs. There is a great deal of science behind the Keto Diet in turning your body from burning Carbs for energy to using fat instead.

Joe Rogan on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience I highly recommend, has had several nutritionists and scientists on both sides of the diet on for discussion and it's quite interesting.

I think that any diet will work if it's based on sound principles, limits caloric intake and you stick to it as a life style change. It takes dedication and commitment but will work.

"Put down the fork, fatty" is great advice. Cut down the junk food, stop eating potato chips as snacks and pick up some carrots, cut your portions and get up for a walk.

[dragon813gt]

Joe Rogan on his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience I highly recommend, has had several nutritionists and scientists on both sides of the diet on for discussion and it's quite interesting.

I love his podcast but I couldn’t listen to the recent ones where he had two sides debating nutrition. I’m all for hearing both sides of any argument. There was something about the people he had on that had me deleting the podcasts before listening to all of it.

[jonp]

I don't listen to two people debating. I like to listen to one person's stuff then the opposing view and research it myself based on that. As a biologist with a great deal of organic chem and other stuff in my background including nutrition, cardio vascular/metabolic research etc..I can make up my own mind about quack stuff that sounds off and is and stuff that sounds reasonable.

The JRE is one of the best podcasts in the business

[lefty o]

diets work, but unless you can stick to it for the rest of your life, you will put the weight back on. make small changes a little at a time you can live with. cut some carbs or sugars a little at a time, until it becomes a new habit, then you can make more small changes. if you make big sudden changes, you will crave it, and cheat, and that is where diets fail. while making changes to the diet, add to the excercise. only way to truly lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in, end of story.

[Tom W.]

Lori has done that. No beans, bread, and I dunno what else. She's diabetic, and it seems to mostly have brought her blood sugar level down a bit.....

[ThomR]

My wife started a keto diet a while back and has enjoyed it.

I'm taking a much more gradual approach to changing my eating habits. I'm slowly cutting out all the garbage. Two weeks ago I told myself, and then my wife that I wasn't going to eat candy anymore. I threw away a perfectly good package of twizzler's pull and peels(loved those things).

I haven't cooked french fries at home in at least a year. I still have them if we go to a burger place.

We used to drink sweet tea by the gallons at my house. That has stopped completely.

I cut out all cereal from my diet. Way too much sugar in cereal.

[iomskp]

I had a bag load of health problems about 11 years ago, drank too much on the road all the time eating all the wrong food, one day I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired, stopped drinking stopped eating all the junk foods no particular diet, I lost 40 kilos about 90 pounds over about 2 years, the old story everything in moderation with a bit of exercise thrown in.