People that make a habit of driving more than 10 miles over the speed limit (give or take, it depends somewhat on the area) almost certainly have several speeding convictions no matter what sort of gadgets they own.
I don't, and practically the only time I'm going the speed limit is when either (a) weather conditions or traffic do not permit going faster, or (b) I'm stuck behind some law-abiding citizen doing 55 in the passing lane...
Subtracting out the years I rode the bus, that's with about 11 years of driving experience. Half-hour commute each way, usually running late in the morning and trying to make up time. 65 to 70 in a 55 zone. Never had an accident, never had a ticket. And I hope I didn't just jinx myself...
I don't think the problem here is lack of energy, but rather procrastination.
You can view procrastination as a problem, or as a difference in work style. In college, I used to write almost all my papers in the wee hours before the deadline--before that point, I couldn't get much done. But it wasn't about not enjoying the work (I did, sorta, usually) and it wasn't about fear of failure. I just couldn't get it into gear until I needed to, and then I just thrived. There was a certain euphoria in completing an A paper at 4 in the morning...
In college it's possible to just adapt to this work style. Plan on late-night work. Go out or play games if you feel like it, if you're not up against a deadline. Stop beating yourself up about it, if you can consistently do good work at the last minute.
In the "real world" it's a little tricky. You wind up doing these intense bursts of fulfilling work when there's a deadline, interspersed with long stints of trudging along on longterm stuff. I work great under pressure. I get bored when there's no deadline in sight--I can do the work, but it's harder to do it then.
For me, the biggest problem posed by procrastination--by far--is that it makes you look like a slacker until you hit T-minus-1 and go into a working frenzy. Some people don't understand that your average output is at least as good as the guy in the next cube who's plugging away slowly every minute of the day. And for me that's where the stress lies. My ideal work pattern is to work like a maniac for a while, read Slashdot for a while, go talk to my buddies, repeat, repeat. My main stress at work is worrying about getting busted for steps 2 and 3 of that process.
Wow, hard for me to imagine trying to gain weight. I've been struggling to lose weight on-and-off since I was a kid.
May be a gender thing. Most women are solely concerned with weighing less, not gaining muscle; behind the androgynous nick I'm female. (*sigh* - wonder if I'll start getting fat-chick jokes if any spectators are still lurking around this thread... But I'm very big-boned, and everyone I've told my weight to has done a serious double-take; they can't believe I weigh as much as I say.)
I'm 5'7"... my goal weight is still above what "the charts" say I should weigh, but last time I weighed 165, I looked slim. Not delicate by any means; I come from sturdy peasant stock. Dunno if I'll get that far. Back then, it took strenuous near-daily exercise to maintain that weight, and these days I'm a couch potato. I'm getting fleeting impulses to get up and move around now that I've dropped some weight, so maybe I'll get more active as I continue to get lighter. I already notice it's easier to do everything when I'm not lugging an extra fourteen pounds everywhere I go...
Thanks for the kind wishes. Best wishes to you too.
Are you saying you don't want to watch movies on your computer screen? Don't you realize just about any computer's display is far better than analog TV?
My TV has a comfy couch in front of it. It seats two people and one big cat.
My computer screen has one of those quasi-ergonomic kneeling chairs; it seats precisely one person, and not in a way that you'd want to sit for two hours straight.
And I'm not going to get a TV-out card; no way am I unhooking this tangled mess of cables and moving the box to the living room to watch a movie...
Starting weight was 224, goal weight is between 160 and 170. At 210 right now, after 5 weeks back on the diet.
I had gotten down to about 188 a couple of years ago on the diet, but I backslid big time and regained the weight. Talk about embarrassing--if someone brought donuts to work, I'd be the first one lining up to grab one, and then I'd be skulking back to the donut box a couple more times during the day.
I remember a day when I was driving home from the supermarket, brooding over how lousy sugar was making me feel--after the initial sugar high I'd wind up in a stupor, irritable and tired, which is exactly where I was at that moment. But then this happy, warm sense of relief suddenly hit me as I realized, I have donuts in the trunk! Addictive behavior, pure and simple.
This is actually my third go-'round on the diet, and this time I'm determined not to fall off the wagon and go on another donut bender. 224 was the most I had ever weighed, and I got truly fed up. The erratic blood sugar was as much a motivator this time as the weight--I'm on meds for depression, and keeping my moods on an even keel was impossible when I'd be cycling through high and low levels of blood sugar.
On the diet, the cravings pretty much recede. Blood sugar remains stable. I have more energy.
Time to go make some eggs'n'veggies for breakfast.:)
Nutrasweet doesn't bother me or anyone I know. But if you don't want the nutrasweet, switch to Diet Rite; it's sweetened with Splenda (sucralose) and acesulfame potassium.
Ketosis in non-diabetics and ketoacidosis in Type I diabetics are entirely different things. Ketoacidosis is dangerous but does not occur in the presence of insulin--which, unless you're a juvenile-onset diabetic, you have.
I have to take four little light blue pills every day because of it. I don't think they do anything either.
Sounds like what I take. (Two 100mg Wellbutrin SR twice a day.)
If your meds don't work, go back to your doctor. There are a lot of other medications they can try instead. Plenty of people with depression don't respond to the first drug they're on (my first was Paxil, and it did nothing but make me MORE lethargic). If your current meds are the second one you've tried, then see a genuine psychiatrist--not a family doctor--if you haven't already. They have better luck treating refractory depression.
The insidious thing about depression is that it's a disorder that actually discourages its sufferers from getting help. Too many of us settle for partial remission or worse. Don't give up.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pick a fight either--my apologies for sounding a little snotty. I may disagree with you, but clearly you've thought through your point of view, and I respect that.
Many people on these diets also experience an elevation in their LDL (bad) cholesterol when they remain on the diet for long periods. High levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood clog arteries and is the chief culprit in heart disease, particularly heart attack and stroke. Everything I've read, and seen personally, indicates that LDL tends to drop on this diet--and in the individuals whose LDL does rise somewhat, their HDL goes up with it, and HDL is extremely protective against heart disease. The overall ratio of total-cholesterol-to-HDL improves, and that is significant.
Another reason weight loss is achieved on these high-protein diets, at least temporarily, is actually due to water loss. I know my friend hasn't lost 40 pounds of water on the diet.
How about healthy cereals? Like Fiber One, 100% Bran, All-Bran, Raisin Bran etc? How about Rices, Wheat bread? I'm not super familiar with the vegetables and legumes allowed but i'm not sure if lentils and peas and lima, kidney, and baked beans would be allowed, or even refried beans. Broccoli ( which has thousands of health benefits along with spinach ) carrots, corn, lettuce... all that stuff... I believe some people in the maintenance phase eat fiber cereals--everybody gets to choose how they want to "spend" their carb allotment. I saw some "Hi-Lo" (protein/carb) cereal in the store that I'll probably try when I'm closer to my goal weight-- along with lentils and dried legumes (not commercial baked beans, they're full of sugar).
Broccoli I eat all the time, along with spinach and various kinds of lettuce. Salads almost every day. Tonight, zucchini and bell pepper. Carrots occasionally. Corn, however, is mostly starch--if you read the nutrition label of a package of corn, there's not much there. I eat an ear of fresh corn once in a while as a treat, but I know I'm not getting a whole lot of nutritional benefit from it. (Yummy tho.)
My fiber intake has increased since I gave up refined flours and started eating more veggies. When you can't eat a lot of potatoes and bread, what do you eat with your chicken/fish/meat? More salad and vegetables.
quickest way to get a dietition to cringe is mutter the name "Atkins"... Yeah, no surprise there. Many (not all) dietitians still cling to the low-fat thing.
My friend's regular doctor and her nephrologist both know she's on Atkins. Both of them have observed that every measurable indicator of health has improved over the several months she's been on the diet: creatinine, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, blood sugar... She's lost nearly 40 pounds and barely needs her insulin anymore (she's a type II diabetic). (For what it's worth, when I told my doctor that I'm on the diet, he commented that a number of his friends have had excellent results with it. Also, Atkins himself was a cardiologist.)
The book does not say to take a month off. Seriously, read the book. Going on what your grandparents say is better than just going on hearsay from random strangers, but it still doesn't mean they've got it right. You're supposed to stay on a maintenance version of the diet indefinitely--and for most people, that probably means between 30 and 100 grams of carbohydrate per day after the initial weight-loss phases.
Atkins' heart problem was an infection, not diet-related. Come on, the guy's a cardiologist--you think he's going to spend his life following his diet plan if it's bad for his heart??
It is true that HDL levels increase and LDL levels decrease, but the foods themselves are very high in cholesterol and saturated fats, which are now established as the major reasons for heart attacks and strokes. Whoa, cowboy. Last I heard, the "conventional wisdom" has been that eating cholesterol and saturated fats raise your LDL, and that causes heart attacks and strokes. Now that studies are debunking that idea--and showing that dietary cholesterol does not equate to serum cholesterol--you're trying to skip straight from sat fats to strokes?
The Atkins diet increases HDL, which protects against heart disease. My HDL's 65, what's yours?
The biggest problem I see with high protein diets, however, is the resulting loss of calcium to your bones which may lead to osteoperosis. Myth.
Many high protien diets, including Atkins prohibit foods which are known to lower the risks associated with heart disease and cancers. Read Atkins' book. Atkins dieters eat plenty of fiber, vegetables, and some fruits (I'm a raspberry fan myself). The donuts, white-flour bagels, and sugar bombs that are "prohibited" are not exactly health food, y'know.
It is true that for a sedentary person high protein diets will cause you to lose weight. Unfortunately when you go off the diet the weight comes back very rapidly. You're not supposed to go off the diet and start eating a bunch of sugar and flour again. You're supposed to add in moderate quantities of high-quality carbohydrate to find a maintenance level that you can sustain indefinitely. If you just drop Atkins and start in on the Cap'n Crunch, of course the weight comes back.
The numbers don't lie for a proper implementation of the Atkins Diet: higher HDL, lower LDL, reduction of risk/elimination of Diabetes (type II), reduced volatility in blood sugar levels, etc...
Absolutely right. I've seen this in the experience of a friend of mine; I've seen the results in my own lipids profile. (After a couple years practically swimming in butter and cream: total cholesterol 177, HDL 65, triglycerides 99. Beat that, Atkins-bashers.) My friend is diabetic, and she barely needs insulin anymore. Her kidney function has improved, her cholesterol is improved; her doctors tell her to keep up the good work.
And actually, eggs and nuts and prime rib are perfectly fine. Dietary cholesterol != serum cholesterol.
the Atkins diet has only been in widespread practice a short while and doesn't lend itself to clinical trials well...
(1) Variations on a low-carb diet, including Atkins, have been in use for decades. It has increased in popularity recently, in part because a couple decades of the low-fat scam have resulted in skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. People are finally realizing that living on grains, like cows being fattened for slaughter, is not the answer.
(2) Recent clinical trials have vindicated Atkins. Do the research.
your susposed to take at least a month off from the diet before continuing agian
What are you talking about? Have you read the book?
You're supposed to do what most people call "Atkins" for two weeks--the meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese thing. Then increase your daily carb consumption by 5 grams per day, then add another 5 grams the following week, and so on, to find a level where you slowly lose weight. Most people who do this can eat plenty of salad and vegetables, maybe a little fruit. I eat "light" bread, berries, almonds, peanuts, and pistachios as part of my carb allotment.
It's worth noting that some people stay on the first ("induction") level for months at a stretch and do fine. I have a friend who's been doing this--her cholesterol and triglycerides have dropped and her kidney function has improved. Her kidney specialist told her to keep doing what she's doing: her health has done nothing but radically improve since she began a low-carb diet.
Every box I've had, it's been painfully easy to accidentally knock the keyboard plug out of the PS/2 port... and when that happens, it's hard-reboot time, because the computer goes into a stupor.
I am using drugs to allow my brain to compensate for physiological problems that interfere with my life. . . . I have a medical condition and I can take drugs that have exactly the effect that I want them to have. That's treatment, not "hiding."
Well said. It drives me nuts sometimes that there's this double standard for illnesses that are neurological or psychiatric. Nobody tells the diabetic to throw out the insulin, nobody scorns the asthmatic for needing albuterol, but if you have ADHD or depression you're somehow supposed to just cure yourself by pure willpower.
Many people just don't understand. You clearly do. (Consider me a fan now.)
Re:Personal experiences with ADHD, mood swings, et
on
Working with ADHD?
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· Score: 1
Interesting post -- thanks for all those details. You're on to something with dopamine. They say l-tyrosine is a precursor; that might be worth trying. Or Wellbutrin, which increases your dopamine and norepinephrine. For people who've had bad responses/reactions to SSRIs like Paxil and Zoloft, Wellbutrin sometimes works very well.
Just like you can manage depression and pain without pills.
Oh yeah? If you can, then good for you. But don't presume that the rest of us are like you.
I've had multiple episodes of severe clinical depression. I saw counselors for nine years to "work on my problems." That barely made a dent in it. Then I went on antidepressants (specifically Wellbutrin -- those of you who had bad results with serotonin drugs should look into WB) and began doing much, much better.
I'll probably be on meds the rest of my life, and you know what? That's fine. I'm happy, I'm functioning well--and I know, from missing a dose here and there, that I would not be doing well without the meds.
Why do people want to take the easy way out? Are you taking the "easy way out" by using an inhaler? Well, stop it then: breathe! Take a deep, deep breath! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! What, you can't? Well, that's what you're telling people with depression or pain to do. You can't just wish an illness away.
This is standard-issue "kill your TV" stuff, with a special exception made for Babylon 5. (Evidently this is the "TV sucks except for MY favorite show" variant.) Not informative. Not insightful. Just smug and self-righteous.
A hand written letter carries the effort and thoughtfulness of the writer.
Effort, yeah, I guess. Thoughtfulness?
I hate writing by hand. Anything longer than a shopping list or "back in 5 minutes" note, I type (and I've been known to type shopping lists if they're long). So if I have to hand-write something, it tends to be (a) terse, because I don't want to sit there scrawling for twenty minutes, and (b) a raw first draft, since I'm not going to edit the thing and re-hand-write it...
My emails, on the other hand, tend to be substantial and well-thought-out. Since typing is painless for me (no hand cramps or general frustration), I take the time to explain my thoughts. I proofread and edit.
If the recipient wants a physical object, they can print the email.
Diet Rite cola is made with acesulfame potassium (a diet sweetener also used in Pepsi One) and sucralose (brand name Splenda). No caffeine, no aspartame. And personally, I like the taste. YMMV.
I don't like being rude; I don't like hanging up on people. Sometimes the alternative is to put up with a lengthy don't-take-no-for-an-answer telemarketing script. I resent it when they make me choose between feeling bad and feeling annoyed.
There is no pleasant outcome to a telemarketing call. My dinner's been interrupted and I've either wasted my time or incurred the stress of getting mad enough to hang up on some poor slob. So when the phone rings, I hesitate to answer. I let it roll into voicemail. My friends can't reach me promptly. (With voicemail, I can't screen my calls, and besides, most people I know get really irritated when you screen calls with an answering machine.)
For me, telemarketing is much worse than spam because it takes advantage of your natural human instinct to be decent to people.
Slashdot Mirror
The only time I see people driving the speed limit is when there is a patrol car going the same direction.
That reminds me of the "Are you an unsafe driver" quiz I saw, where one of the questions was, "Are you always keeping an eye out for police cars?"
Well, of course I'm keeping an eye out for police cars. I'm speeding. Duh!
People that make a habit of driving more than 10 miles over the speed limit (give or take, it depends somewhat on the area) almost certainly have several speeding convictions no matter what sort of gadgets they own.
I don't, and practically the only time I'm going the speed limit is when either (a) weather conditions or traffic do not permit going faster, or (b) I'm stuck behind some law-abiding citizen doing 55 in the passing lane...
Subtracting out the years I rode the bus, that's with about 11 years of driving experience. Half-hour commute each way, usually running late in the morning and trying to make up time. 65 to 70 in a 55 zone. Never had an accident, never had a ticket. And I hope I didn't just jinx myself...
I don't think the problem here is lack of energy, but rather procrastination.
You can view procrastination as a problem, or as a difference in work style. In college, I used to write almost all my papers in the wee hours before the deadline--before that point, I couldn't get much done. But it wasn't about not enjoying the work (I did, sorta, usually) and it wasn't about fear of failure. I just couldn't get it into gear until I needed to, and then I just thrived. There was a certain euphoria in completing an A paper at 4 in the morning...
In college it's possible to just adapt to this work style. Plan on late-night work. Go out or play games if you feel like it, if you're not up against a deadline. Stop beating yourself up about it, if you can consistently do good work at the last minute.
In the "real world" it's a little tricky. You wind up doing these intense bursts of fulfilling work when there's a deadline, interspersed with long stints of trudging along on longterm stuff. I work great under pressure. I get bored when there's no deadline in sight--I can do the work, but it's harder to do it then.
For me, the biggest problem posed by procrastination--by far--is that it makes you look like a slacker until you hit T-minus-1 and go into a working frenzy. Some people don't understand that your average output is at least as good as the guy in the next cube who's plugging away slowly every minute of the day. And for me that's where the stress lies. My ideal work pattern is to work like a maniac for a while, read Slashdot for a while, go talk to my buddies, repeat, repeat. My main stress at work is worrying about getting busted for steps 2 and 3 of that process.
Wow, hard for me to imagine trying to gain weight. I've been struggling to lose weight on-and-off since I was a kid.
May be a gender thing. Most women are solely concerned with weighing less, not gaining muscle; behind the androgynous nick I'm female. (*sigh* - wonder if I'll start getting fat-chick jokes if any spectators are still lurking around this thread... But I'm very big-boned, and everyone I've told my weight to has done a serious double-take; they can't believe I weigh as much as I say.)
I'm 5'7"... my goal weight is still above what "the charts" say I should weigh, but last time I weighed 165, I looked slim. Not delicate by any means; I come from sturdy peasant stock. Dunno if I'll get that far. Back then, it took strenuous near-daily exercise to maintain that weight, and these days I'm a couch potato. I'm getting fleeting impulses to get up and move around now that I've dropped some weight, so maybe I'll get more active as I continue to get lighter. I already notice it's easier to do everything when I'm not lugging an extra fourteen pounds everywhere I go...
Thanks for the kind wishes. Best wishes to you too.
Yeah, that'll be real popular on the movie rip scene: cams of RealPlayer!
Are you saying you don't want to watch movies on your computer screen? Don't you realize just about any computer's display is far better than analog TV?
My TV has a comfy couch in front of it. It seats two people and one big cat.
My computer screen has one of those quasi-ergonomic kneeling chairs; it seats precisely one person, and not in a way that you'd want to sit for two hours straight.
And I'm not going to get a TV-out card; no way am I unhooking this tangled mess of cables and moving the box to the living room to watch a movie...
Starting weight was 224, goal weight is between 160 and 170. At 210 right now, after 5 weeks back on the diet.
:)
I had gotten down to about 188 a couple of years ago on the diet, but I backslid big time and regained the weight. Talk about embarrassing--if someone brought donuts to work, I'd be the first one lining up to grab one, and then I'd be skulking back to the donut box a couple more times during the day.
I remember a day when I was driving home from the supermarket, brooding over how lousy sugar was making me feel--after the initial sugar high I'd wind up in a stupor, irritable and tired, which is exactly where I was at that moment. But then this happy, warm sense of relief suddenly hit me as I realized, I have donuts in the trunk! Addictive behavior, pure and simple.
This is actually my third go-'round on the diet, and this time I'm determined not to fall off the wagon and go on another donut bender. 224 was the most I had ever weighed, and I got truly fed up. The erratic blood sugar was as much a motivator this time as the weight--I'm on meds for depression, and keeping my moods on an even keel was impossible when I'd be cycling through high and low levels of blood sugar.
On the diet, the cravings pretty much recede. Blood sugar remains stable. I have more energy.
Time to go make some eggs'n'veggies for breakfast.
Nutrasweet doesn't bother me or anyone I know. But if you don't want the nutrasweet, switch to Diet Rite; it's sweetened with Splenda (sucralose) and acesulfame potassium.
Ketosis in non-diabetics and ketoacidosis in Type I diabetics are entirely different things. Ketoacidosis is dangerous but does not occur in the presence of insulin--which, unless you're a juvenile-onset diabetic, you have.
I have to take four little light blue pills every day because of it. I don't think they do anything either.
Sounds like what I take. (Two 100mg Wellbutrin SR twice a day.)
If your meds don't work, go back to your doctor. There are a lot of other medications they can try instead. Plenty of people with depression don't respond to the first drug they're on (my first was Paxil, and it did nothing but make me MORE lethargic). If your current meds are the second one you've tried, then see a genuine psychiatrist--not a family doctor--if you haven't already. They have better luck treating refractory depression.
The insidious thing about depression is that it's a disorder that actually discourages its sufferers from getting help. Too many of us settle for partial remission or worse. Don't give up.
Good luck,
fendel
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pick a fight either--my apologies for sounding a little snotty. I may disagree with you, but clearly you've thought through your point of view, and I respect that.
Many people on these diets also experience an elevation in their LDL (bad) cholesterol when they remain on the diet for long periods. High levels of LDL cholesterol in the blood clog arteries and is the chief culprit in heart disease, particularly heart attack and stroke.
Everything I've read, and seen personally, indicates that LDL tends to drop on this diet--and in the individuals whose LDL does rise somewhat, their HDL goes up with it, and HDL is extremely protective against heart disease. The overall ratio of total-cholesterol-to-HDL improves, and that is significant.
Another reason weight loss is achieved on these high-protein diets, at least temporarily, is actually due to water loss.
I know my friend hasn't lost 40 pounds of water on the diet.
How about healthy cereals? Like Fiber One, 100% Bran, All-Bran, Raisin Bran etc? How about Rices, Wheat bread? I'm not super familiar with the vegetables and legumes allowed but i'm not sure if lentils and peas and lima, kidney, and baked beans would be allowed, or even refried beans. Broccoli ( which has thousands of health benefits along with spinach ) carrots, corn, lettuce... all that stuff...
I believe some people in the maintenance phase eat fiber cereals--everybody gets to choose how they want to "spend" their carb allotment. I saw some "Hi-Lo" (protein/carb) cereal in the store that I'll probably try when I'm closer to my goal weight-- along with lentils and dried legumes (not commercial baked beans, they're full of sugar).
Broccoli I eat all the time, along with spinach and various kinds of lettuce. Salads almost every day. Tonight, zucchini and bell pepper. Carrots occasionally. Corn, however, is mostly starch--if you read the nutrition label of a package of corn, there's not much there. I eat an ear of fresh corn once in a while as a treat, but I know I'm not getting a whole lot of nutritional benefit from it. (Yummy tho.)
My fiber intake has increased since I gave up refined flours and started eating more veggies. When you can't eat a lot of potatoes and bread, what do you eat with your chicken/fish/meat? More salad and vegetables.
quickest way to get a dietition to cringe is mutter the name "Atkins"...
Yeah, no surprise there. Many (not all) dietitians still cling to the low-fat thing.
My friend's regular doctor and her nephrologist both know she's on Atkins. Both of them have observed that every measurable indicator of health has improved over the several months she's been on the diet: creatinine, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, blood sugar... She's lost nearly 40 pounds and barely needs her insulin anymore (she's a type II diabetic). (For what it's worth, when I told my doctor that I'm on the diet, he commented that a number of his friends have had excellent results with it. Also, Atkins himself was a cardiologist.)
The book does not say to take a month off. Seriously, read the book. Going on what your grandparents say is better than just going on hearsay from random strangers, but it still doesn't mean they've got it right. You're supposed to stay on a maintenance version of the diet indefinitely--and for most people, that probably means between 30 and 100 grams of carbohydrate per day after the initial weight-loss phases.
Atkins' heart problem was an infection, not diet-related. Come on, the guy's a cardiologist--you think he's going to spend his life following his diet plan if it's bad for his heart??
It is true that HDL levels increase and LDL levels decrease, but the foods themselves are very high in cholesterol and saturated fats, which are now established as the major reasons for heart attacks and strokes.
Whoa, cowboy. Last I heard, the "conventional wisdom" has been that eating cholesterol and saturated fats raise your LDL, and that causes heart attacks and strokes. Now that studies are debunking that idea--and showing that dietary cholesterol does not equate to serum cholesterol--you're trying to skip straight from sat fats to strokes?
The Atkins diet increases HDL, which protects against heart disease. My HDL's 65, what's yours?
The biggest problem I see with high protein diets, however, is the resulting loss of calcium to your bones which may lead to osteoperosis.
Myth.
Many high protien diets, including Atkins prohibit foods which are known to lower the risks associated with heart disease and cancers.
Read Atkins' book. Atkins dieters eat plenty of fiber, vegetables, and some fruits (I'm a raspberry fan myself). The donuts, white-flour bagels, and sugar bombs that are "prohibited" are not exactly health food, y'know.
It is true that for a sedentary person high protein diets will cause you to lose weight. Unfortunately when you go off the diet the weight comes back very rapidly.
You're not supposed to go off the diet and start eating a bunch of sugar and flour again. You're supposed to add in moderate quantities of high-quality carbohydrate to find a maintenance level that you can sustain indefinitely. If you just drop Atkins and start in on the Cap'n Crunch, of course the weight comes back.
The numbers don't lie for a proper implementation of the Atkins Diet: higher HDL, lower LDL, reduction of risk/elimination of Diabetes (type II), reduced volatility in blood sugar levels, etc...
Absolutely right. I've seen this in the experience of a friend of mine; I've seen the results in my own lipids profile. (After a couple years practically swimming in butter and cream: total cholesterol 177, HDL 65, triglycerides 99. Beat that, Atkins-bashers.) My friend is diabetic, and she barely needs insulin anymore. Her kidney function has improved, her cholesterol is improved; her doctors tell her to keep up the good work.
And actually, eggs and nuts and prime rib are perfectly fine. Dietary cholesterol != serum cholesterol.
the Atkins diet has only been in widespread practice a short while and doesn't lend itself to clinical trials well...
(1) Variations on a low-carb diet, including Atkins, have been in use for decades. It has increased in popularity recently, in part because a couple decades of the low-fat scam have resulted in skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. People are finally realizing that living on grains, like cows being fattened for slaughter, is not the answer.
(2) Recent clinical trials have vindicated Atkins. Do the research.
your susposed to take at least a month off from the diet before continuing agian
What are you talking about? Have you read the book?
You're supposed to do what most people call "Atkins" for two weeks--the meat, chicken, fish, eggs, cheese thing. Then increase your daily carb consumption by 5 grams per day, then add another 5 grams the following week, and so on, to find a level where you slowly lose weight. Most people who do this can eat plenty of salad and vegetables, maybe a little fruit. I eat "light" bread, berries, almonds, peanuts, and pistachios as part of my carb allotment.
It's worth noting that some people stay on the first ("induction") level for months at a stretch and do fine. I have a friend who's been doing this--her cholesterol and triglycerides have dropped and her kidney function has improved. Her kidney specialist told her to keep doing what she's doing: her health has done nothing but radically improve since she began a low-carb diet.
Every box I've had, it's been painfully easy to accidentally knock the keyboard plug out of the PS/2 port... and when that happens, it's hard-reboot time, because the computer goes into a stupor.
At least USB is hot-pluggable.
I am using drugs to allow my brain to compensate for physiological problems that interfere with my life. . . . I have a medical condition and I can take drugs that have exactly the effect that I want them to have. That's treatment, not "hiding."
Well said. It drives me nuts sometimes that there's this double standard for illnesses that are neurological or psychiatric. Nobody tells the diabetic to throw out the insulin, nobody scorns the asthmatic for needing albuterol, but if you have ADHD or depression you're somehow supposed to just cure yourself by pure willpower.
Many people just don't understand. You clearly do. (Consider me a fan now.)
Interesting post -- thanks for all those details. You're on to something with dopamine. They say l-tyrosine is a precursor; that might be worth trying. Or Wellbutrin, which increases your dopamine and norepinephrine. For people who've had bad responses/reactions to SSRIs like Paxil and Zoloft, Wellbutrin sometimes works very well.
Just like you can manage depression and pain without pills.
Oh yeah? If you can, then good for you. But don't presume that the rest of us are like you.
I've had multiple episodes of severe clinical depression. I saw counselors for nine years to "work on my problems." That barely made a dent in it. Then I went on antidepressants (specifically Wellbutrin -- those of you who had bad results with serotonin drugs should look into WB) and began doing much, much better.
I'll probably be on meds the rest of my life, and you know what? That's fine. I'm happy, I'm functioning well--and I know, from missing a dose here and there, that I would not be doing well without the meds.
Why do people want to take the easy way out?
Are you taking the "easy way out" by using an inhaler? Well, stop it then: breathe! Take a deep, deep breath! Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! What, you can't? Well, that's what you're telling people with depression or pain to do. You can't just wish an illness away.
How is this "Informative"??
This is standard-issue "kill your TV" stuff, with a special exception made for Babylon 5. (Evidently this is the "TV sucks except for MY favorite show" variant.) Not informative. Not insightful. Just smug and self-righteous.
A hand written letter carries the effort and thoughtfulness of the writer.
Effort, yeah, I guess. Thoughtfulness?
I hate writing by hand. Anything longer than a shopping list or "back in 5 minutes" note, I type (and I've been known to type shopping lists if they're long). So if I have to hand-write something, it tends to be (a) terse, because I don't want to sit there scrawling for twenty minutes, and (b) a raw first draft, since I'm not going to edit the thing and re-hand-write it...
My emails, on the other hand, tend to be substantial and well-thought-out. Since typing is painless for me (no hand cramps or general frustration), I take the time to explain my thoughts. I proofread and edit.
If the recipient wants a physical object, they can print the email.
Diet Rite cola is made with acesulfame potassium (a diet sweetener also used in Pepsi One) and sucralose (brand name Splenda). No caffeine, no aspartame. And personally, I like the taste. YMMV.
I don't like being rude; I don't like hanging up on people. Sometimes the alternative is to put up with a lengthy don't-take-no-for-an-answer telemarketing script. I resent it when they make me choose between feeling bad and feeling annoyed.
There is no pleasant outcome to a telemarketing call. My dinner's been interrupted and I've either wasted my time or incurred the stress of getting mad enough to hang up on some poor slob. So when the phone rings, I hesitate to answer. I let it roll into voicemail. My friends can't reach me promptly. (With voicemail, I can't screen my calls, and besides, most people I know get really irritated when you screen calls with an answering machine.)
For me, telemarketing is much worse than spam because it takes advantage of your natural human instinct to be decent to people.