Weight Loss & the Glycemic Index
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It is important that you kill your sugar habit before going on a high protein diet.

I do not endorse limitations of fruits or vegetables with any diet except those that are exceptionally high on the glycemic index. These types of carbohydrates are essential if you want what you have eaten to pass all the way through your system. You must find a balance from the beginning. Grains on the other hand are different. We have only been eating grains for the past ten thousand years, and our bodies simply have not adjusted to them so a significant reduction in the amount of grains you eat will only benefit you.

There have been many low carb books over the past few years like Sugar Busters, The Zone, The Protein Power Life Plan, The South Beach Diet and of course The Atkins New Diet Revolution. The popularity of these books went way up when legitimate studies were done on the Atkins diet that proved what he had been preaching for the last 30 years was indeed true.

In research financed by the Robert C. Atkins foundation in New York City, which promotes the Atkins diet, Dr. Eric Westman of Duke University studied 120 overweight volunteers. They were randomly assigned to the Atkins diet or the American Heart Association's Step 1 diet, a widely used low-fat approach. On the Atkins diet, people limited their carb's to less than 20 grams a day, and 60 percent of their calories came from fat.

After six months, the people on the Atkins diet had lost 31 pounds, compared with 20 pounds on the AHA (American Heart Association) diet, and more people stuck with the Atkins regimen. Total cholesterol fell slightly in both groups. However, those on the Atkins diet had an 11 percent increase in HDL, the good cholesterol, and a 49 percent drop in triglycerides. On the AHA diet, HDL was unchanged, and triglycerides dropped 22 percent. High (LDL) triglycerides may raise the risk of heart disease. While the volunteers' total amounts of LDL, the bad cholesterol, did not change much on either diet, there was evidence that it had shifted to a form that may be less likely to clog the arteries.

As I said in an earlier chapter, all diets have the same fail rate including the low carb diets. The message here is to go in with the right mind set and maintain that mind set until you are confident you have reprogrammed yourself. If you have not taken control of your subconscious programming before you start, your chances of success at anything will be significantly diminished.

The best books on the current list of low carb diets are The Protein Power Life Plan by Michael and Mary Eades and The South Beach Diet by Arthur Agatston, MD. These are two very different books in there approach. My favorite is The Protein Power Life Plan because it is detailed and very comprehensive. It is 434 pages not including a 26 page introduction. You can shorten that up a bit by skipping the chapter on exercise. It is a relatively heavy read but well worth it. The South Beach Diet is a much lighter read at 320 pages with half the book dedicated to recipes. Neither book addresses eating as a behavior.

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