After leaving the military at aged 32, healthy and relatively thin, I started gaining weight by eating too many carbs, especially bread. I tried many low-fat diet, most of which cut out meat (other than tuna and plain chicken), to no avail. I picked up an old copy of an Atkins book which contained this sentence:
Eat liberally of combinations of fat and protein in the form of poultry, fish, shellfish, eggs and red meat, as well as of pure, natural fat in the form of butter, mayonnaise, olive oil, safflower, sunflower and other vegetable oils (preferably expeller-pressed or cold-pressed).
3 quotes from Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution: ‘Eat either three regular-size meals a day or four or five smaller meals. Do not skip meals or go more tha...
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I laughed and laughed. That was the opposite of everything I had read in all the diet books I wasted my money on. But, I figured why not. What he said about carbs burning sending more energy to the bloodstream than can be used and having it turn to fat made sense. Sure enough, I was able to lose weight pretty rapidly, and I felt much, much better. Still, I never stuck to it long and always gained the weight back.
When I became a teacher, I participated in the annual "Biggest Loser," competition. It was very easy for me to lose body weight by percentage. After coming in first and the placing second the next year, I told the mostly female teachers that I had an unfair advantage so I would only play for fun, not the cash pool.
Anyway, long story short (too late!), my son gave me a copy of The Four Hour Body, which advocates a similar low-carb diet. The difference is that it allows more carbs in the form of legumes, but more importantly, calls for one day per week of unlimited eating. That was a great psychological benefit. I would get a craving during the week, and write it down on my list of things to eat on Saturday. There is often a lot of good free food at a school (you could literally live as a "freegan"), so I would take some and save it for Saturday.
Sure enough, I lost a steady rate of approximately two pounds per week for forty weeks. From 240 to 160, and I've never gone back.
Meat = good.
