Transcript: Jimmy Moore Radio Interview About The Atkins Diet (Part 3 of 4)

(The following is a transcript of a radio interview conducted with Jimmy Moore about the Atkins diet by Ralph Bristol on Newsradio 1330/950 AM in the Greenville/Spartanburg, SC area on Friday, August 5, 2005 from 5:00-6:00pm. This is part three of four which will conclude on Friday.)

RALPH BRISTOL, HOST OF THE RALPH BRISTOL SHOW: All right, the Atkins diet is expensive. The Atkins diet is boring. The Atkins diet, you don't get any choices, you have to eat the same thing every meal. You don't have to worry about portions, so if you get off of it you're gonna eat too much. All good reasons to forsake the Atkins diet. Welcome back to The Ralph Bristol Show on WORD. If those are true. If they're not true, then, of course, they're not good reasons to forsake the Atkins diet and we have the #1 defender of the Atkins diet in our studio, Jimmy Moore, author of a book that will be coming out soon called "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb." Um, also the host of a blog on Atkins and low-carb lifestyle that gets quite a bit of traffic. What's your blog address.

JIMMY MOORE, AUTHOR OF '"LIVIN' LA VIDA LOW-CARB": Uh, it's a little tricky, so let me just give 'em CommonVoice.com...

Ralph: Okay.

Jimmy: And if you click on there, you can see my name and any of my articles has a link to my blog.

Ralph: Okay, very good. And, um, okay, so let's tackle this and invite more phone calls at 232-9673 in Greenville, 574-WORD in Spartanburg, e-mail is ralph@entercom.com. The reason we've brought Jimmy in, I've known Jimmy for a long time now and he's been on the Atkins diet for quite a while and he's lost 180 pounds in one year on it and he believes that this can be and is going to be a permanent lifestyle for him, uh, a permanent diet and a permanent lifestyle that's good not just for his weight, but also for his health. And if you have any questions or challenges to any of that information, then, um, we want to hear from you. The reason we brought him in today is because, uh, the Atkins organization did in fact go bankrupt, announced it Sunday. So people are assuming that because of that it must mean that the diet is, uh, no good for any number of reasons. Expensive? Is this an expensive diet to maintain?

Jimmy: I will give the last caller a little bit on this one. It is an expensive diet in terms of some of the foods and the sugar-free products, they're not cheap. I mean, frankly, they're not. But, what price health? I mean, I'm going to live a lot longer.

Ralph: Yeah.

Jimmy: It may cost me a little more, but the way I see it, I was wasting a whole lot of money on junk food. I mean, you go to work and you've got the vending machines, I'm not doing that anymore.

Ralph: Mm hmm.

Jimmy: You go to fast food restaurants. I'm not doing that anymore.

Ralph: Yeah.

Jimmy: I mean...

Ralph: Now, you're going out to dinner tonight. Are you going to be able to find easily, um, uh, a low-carb plate in front of you?

Jimmy: Well, and, and, tonight will be the exception and I'll explain that in a second.

Ralph: Okay, okay.

Jimmy: Most of the time when I go out to a restaurant and I'm doing the low-carb, most restaurants are very accommodating with substitutions for say fries, I can have a salad instead.

Ralph: Yeah.

Jimmy: Um, and adding maybe extra cheese or something like that, anything to kinda make it low-carb and they allow me to cater it that way, most restaurants are very good about that. There is one thing and everybody is like, "You're so strict. You can't ever have anything like this ever again."

Ralph: Right.

Jimmy: I actually plan splurges where there's...

Ralph: You cheat once in a while.

Jimmy: One meal about every six or eight weeks where I allow myself to eat whatever and however much I want...

Ralph: And if you can't do that on your tenth anniversary, when can you do that?

Jimmy: (laughter) Absolutely. I'm going to chow down on some ribs, buddy.

Ralph: (laughter) Now when you do, are you going to feel that?

Jimmy: Oh, I feel it.

Ralph: Is, is when you cheat, do you like get up in the middle of the night with a, you know, you're, you're stomach is doing weird things and you're...

Jimmy: It doesn't even take until the middle of the night, Ralph, I mean...

Ralph: Your body starts rejecting this foreign stuff that you're putting in it.

Jimmy: It does. It does.

Ralph: (laughter)

Jimmy: But that's what I do to, uh, you know...

Ralph: It helps remind you... (laughter)

Jimmy: Well, it reminds me of what not to eat. And actually the other day at work, uh, somebody had hooked up Coca-Cola, regular Coca-Cola, by accident on the Diet Coke and I had two of them. That was 90 carbs in those two glasses of Coke and I don't usually eat 90 carbs in a day.

Ralph: Does Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi, is that okay?

Jimmy: Yeah, they have zero.

Ralph: They have zero carbs.

Jimmy: Although they have aspartame which is another story.

Ralph: Yeah, yeah. But you mostly drink water.

Jimmy: I mostly drink water. I do enjoy diet soda. I do drink quite a bit of that. I try to stay with the ones that have Splenda in them.

Ralph: Oh, all right. Let's take another call, we'll get back to boring, not enough choices, here's John in Campobello. John, welcome, you're on 950 WORD.

Caller John: Hey Ralph.

Ralph: Hi John.

Caller John: I just want to chime in on this, uh, discussion.

Ralph: Yeah, please do.

Caller John: I also, uh, have tried the diet.

Ralph: Mm hmm.

Caller John: I'll be honest with you, it is one of the most amazing things that I've ever done in my life.

Ralph: Amazing in what way?

Caller John: Well, I lost 30 pounds in about four weeks.

Ralph: Yeah, well, good.

Caller John: And not only that, uh, I have kinda as your previous caller said, I have tried to wean off the diet some, but I am watching my carbs and I'm paying more attention to them. And, uh, been able to keep the weight off. I, uh, totally lost interest in all sugar carbonated drinks. I wouldn't of ever been able to ever digest a Diet Coke and now it's the only thing I'll drink.

Ralph: Yeah, yeah.

Caller John: So, I agree totally with your guest.

Ralph: And you started when?

Caller John: Uh, well, I've been doing this for, uh, ever since, uh, about three years ago.

Ralph: About three years.

Caller John: Yeah. And, uh, my wife and I both we feel like we're getting a little bit of, a little tipsy on the scale we just cut back on the carbs and in a few weeks we're back to where we need to be and...

Ralph: And it's like riding a bike, once you get used to it, it's just no problem anymore, right?

Caller John: That's true and we're able to, we do eat some carbs, there's no doubt about it, I'm making some fried potatoes right now.

Ralph: Mm hmm. Okay.

Caller John: But, uh, I won't have fried potatoes for the rest of the week.

Ralph: Ooo, that sounds awful good, I may do that, I haven't done that for a while.

Caller John: They're great.

Ralph: There's no question about that.

Caller John: Especially with beer can chicken. You can't go wrong.

Ralph: (laughter) All right, John. Thanks for the call. (laughter)

Jimmy: You know, he mentioned soda. I drank 200 ounces of Coca-Cola every single day before I started livin' la vida low-carb.

Ralph: 200 hundred ounces, let's see, how many 12-ounce cans...

Jimmy: A case and a half...

Ralph: Nooooo. A day?! Every day?!

Jimmy: Every day.

Ralph: Well, no wonder you were 400 pounds.

Jimmy: I know, it was the sugar.

Ralph: WOW!

Jimmy: And I consumed probably close to a thousand carbs a day.

Ralph: And, um, I have no clue what a thousand carbs per day is or how...

Jimmy: Let's just say it's bad.

Ralph: (laughter)

Jimmy: That's all sugar.

Ralph: Now, the Atkins diet is boring. Your food choices are boring.

Jimmy: If it's boring, then you're making it boring because there are certainly lots of options available, uh, you know, the caller before mentioned that it's an all-meat diet. That's another misnomer that's constantly repeated. I mean, you can have vegetables and fruits, and, yes meat. Um, actually you can be very creative with...

Ralph: Cheese. Like eating cheese?

Jimmy: Oh, I love my cheese, uh, don't take away cheese. That was the thing that really attracted me to it was you could eat cheese.

Ralph: And when you put the good stuff, when you put stuff on the salad, you put the good stuff and not the low, the diet stuff because the diet stuff is actually bad for a low-carb program.

Jimmy: Actually, low-fat dressing has higher carbs because they have to put sugar and lot of salt in it to try to make it taste at least somewhat familiar. Um, so I love eating regular Ranch dressing. I mean, nothing beats that.

Ralph: Is there any kind of meat you can't eat? Are there meats that are off limits?

Jimmy: Um, can't? No. Shouldn't eat as much of? Yes. In other words, everybody thinks that all you eat are these fat-laden meats all the time. You know, I actually love chicken which is lower in fat. Um, I don't eat a whole lot of red meat, but when I do I stay away from the really fatty ones. And, I, I, you know there's nothing wrong with them, you can certainly eat those things, but it's probably best to cut down on those.

Ralph: As you become more familiar with the diet and it becomes more of a habit, more of a lifestyle, do you find yourself continuing to find new things that you can eat and new ways to prepare things so that it's not boring?

Jimmy: Well, and, Ralph, that's something else I talk about in my book is if it becomes boring, then you need to go to the store and you need to walk up and down the aisles and you need to find something new. I mean, make it new and add that new recipe once a week. Come up with different creations. I had no idea that cauliflower if you mash it up, put some garlic salt in it, and some cheese and put some butter, real butter, in it, it tastes just like cream potatoes.

Ralph: Cauliflower?

Jimmy: Cauliflower.

Ralph: You cook the cauliflower, mash it up...

Jimmy: Mm hmm. Yep!

Ralph: Butter, cheese, and what?

Jimmy: Like a little garlic salt, whatever you would put in mashed potatoes.

Ralph: It tastes like what?

Jimmy: It tastes just like mashed potatoes.

Ralph: Tastes like mashed potatoes?

Jimmy: It does. It really does.

Ralph: Really?

Jimmy: There's going to be hundreds of listeners go out and do this today.

Ralph: I mean, that's a great idea, that's a great idea.

Jimmy: (laughter) It's very delicious.

Ralph: I'm gonna try that, I really am. I'm gonna try that. All right, the Ralph Bristol Show Newsradio 1330/950 WORD. More of your phone calls for, uh, Jimmy Moore, Slim Jim Moore, #1 defender of the Atkins diet in the world. We've expanded from the Upstate, to the United States, to the world...

Jimmy: Is it going to be the universe next? (laughter)

Ralph: It'll be the universe when we finish.

NOTE: If you missed the previous segments, then you can click on Part 1 and then Part 2 of Jimmy Moore's interview with Ralph Bristol about the Atkins diet. The fourth and final segment of the transcript will be posted at "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" on Friday.