Vegan Says 'Convince Me' Atkins Is Healthy
Do remember when I wrote that book review of the anti-Atkins book called "Skinny Bitch" (the one where the co-authors said "you'd have to be a moron to do the Atkins diet") and the ensuing uproar that was birthed out of that review from vegans and vegetarians? I even had one of them threaten to sue me for slander. :-~
Well, you might have noticed I quickly dropped the talk about veganism because I am not necessarily opposed to someone eating that way. If that's how they choose to eat for the rest of their life, then who am I to stop them? Although I think it's quite ironic that the winner of the "Livin' La Vida Shirataki Recipe Contest" was a VEGETARIAN RECIPE (see, low-carb can be for vegetarians, too)! How about that?!
Despite pleas from some vegetarians for me to get back on the topic of low-carb (which I have for a long time since I wrote that "Skinny Bitch" review), I just had to share with you the comments of an opinionated vegan from Westlake Village, California named Laura who posted these comments of hers in the Forum section at LowCarbNewsline.com after finding my "Skinny Bitch" book review.
Here's what she wrote:
Hello Jimmy,
I actually just wanted to comment on your review of this Skinny Bitch book. Yes, I have read the book and I actually found it very informative. If you get offended easily, which YOU do, I would not recommend it, but loosen up a little! Seriously!
There is absolutely no starving of oneself in this book, I don't know where that came from. The sweets and snacks you are desperately seeking are easy to find, they are just not based on the artifical, chlorinated chemical sweeteners that you all live on. You can have cake, ice cream, cookies, "cheese", muffins, crackers, chips, popcorn. . . anything you want actually, just as long as its not ladden in butter and whipped saturated fat, or lard, etc. Natural sugars are OK. They won't make you fat!
You sound SO uneducated and ignorant, that I feel really bad for you and your poor heart. Congratulations on your weight loss! I just feel bad that you had to willingly put your body into a state of ketosis to do it. Your body may be smaller, but your internal organs probably hate you.
Can you actually conceive of the amount of stress you have put on your kidneys, liver, heart, brain, skin, spleen, and I really get nauseated thinking about how disgusting your colon is. RANK!!! Anyways, I hope you don't get too offended, but I just think that you should know how others perceive you.
A vegan diet is actually the most flavorful diet I have had. Decomposing dead flesh is not the most appetizing thing I could think of to eat. Your tastebuds are probably way to desensitized to appreciate whole grains, veggies, legumes, and fruit (I just had a banana for a snack, :) It was so good!).
Yes, I am vegan and I apologize for my rudeness, I was just offended by your review. If the members of this board read the book, I guarantee that you would lose at least 80% of them, the rest of the 20% are just looking for an excuse to eat crap. How sad!
I personally have known about 10 people (close to me) that have used the Atkins program and they did start to lose weight, but they felt tired, smelly, constipated, acne breakouts, grumpy and just plain bad (according to them, because I would never try a diet.) Convince me that the Atkins diet is healthy, please I would love to hear your side.
Anyways, that is all! Good luck with everything and keep smiling!!!!!!!
P.S. You shouldn't hate healthy, skinny people! It just makes you look silly. I have chosen to educate myself, just like them, and never let myself get obese. I have never starved myself, nor would I ever consider it. Stop being such a Hater!
This is proof yet again that there are all kinds that live in this world. Hee hee! But you've got to admire her passionate desire to spread her vegan enthusiasm to the whole world. Good for her!
But I don't appreciate when she and other vegans use their criticism of the Atkins diet to artificially prop up their vegan lifestyle. If you support your way of eating, then SUPPORT IT! Don't bring another nutritional approach down to make yours look better. That's very telling when you do that, Laura!
Here are the comments I posted to Laura's curt comments:
Laura,
THANKS so much for sharing your comments. If you want to know what I think about the healthy and extremely effective weight loss tool known as the Atkins diet, then you should check out my "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog.
I've written well over 800 columns to date that share my reasoning for supporting this amazingly healthy nutritional approach.
Additionally, I wrote a book about my weight loss experience which tells you why none of those other "diets" ever worked for me and how the Atkins diet changed my life forever.
I'm proud of you for choosing to eat a vegan diet. You have chosen it to control your weight and health while making it your PERMANENT lifestyle choice. If you've read my blog at all, then you would know I harp on that point often.
It really doesn't matter which plan you choose to help you lose weight and get healthy, but you need to do something.
However, you will not hear me criticize another way of eating unless some anti-Atkins diet, vegan chicks like these "Skinny Bitch" authors come along and ignorantly lambaste this weight loss method that was my miracle.
If you want to see who is angry in all this, it's those authors, Laura. And if you were offended by my review of "Skinny Bitch," all I can say is GOOD! You should be offended to be so closed-minded to the fact that there are different strokes for different folks.
For you it's veganism, for me it's livin' la vida low-carb. You've made your choice and I've made mine. Can't you just live with that?
I know, I know. I was too nice, wasn't I? Well, my purpose is not to tear people down, but to lift them up while educating them about why I have made the low-carb lifestyle my lot in life. It is and it always will be because I am the healthiest I have ever been in my entire life. And I owe it all to livin' la vida low-carb.
Anyone else care to answer this vegan's request to convince her that the Atkins diet or any other low-carb plan is a healthy choice? Click on the comment link below and share your thoughts.
5-12-06 UPDATE: Another vegan named Ellen comes to the defense of Laura in this discussion.
Here's what she wrote to me in an e-mail:
I totally agree with Laura's response to Livin' La Vida Low-Carb. I have tried most diets, have read most diet books, including Atkins. For a brief time when I worked in financial services, everyone in the office seemed to be doing it. I thought perhaps there was some new science I was missing. The branch manager's assistant was handing out ephedra like candy. So I lost some weight, gained it back two-fold as most do.
Finally, I returned to vegan eating as I'd done most of my adult life. Bottom line: I'm the ONLY healthy one. My mom, aunt (both deceased) and my sister had breast cancer. My other sister, who had a hysterectomy at 25 and doesn't have huge amounts of estrogen like most female meat eaters do, just had her third heart procedure, is obese and has diabetes, my dad has diabetes, doesn't have much of his colon, and has heart disease and arthritis. Mom died of Alzheimers and a hip fracture from osteoporosis. All of this is preventable!
My return to eating this way saw a return to my historically low cholesterol readings, completely eliminated my osteoprorosis and avoided an impending hysterectomy from bleeding fibroids that went away. My husband was amazed the hot flashes went away too. The information has been out there for 30 years. There are some great books and organizations that have quietly been offering the message for free. We know the folks in rural China do not suffer from our diseases of affluence. There is no word for "hot flash" in Chinese. Hello.....?
When you understand the economic model that there is no money to be made selling broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and big bucks to be made selling meat and meds, then you understand why most folks are so sick or unhealthy. Doctors laugh when they see I take no meds. Or ran a 2 5K races in a week and finished wonderfully. Apparently, I am an unusual breed in this country. At least I know it is not my genes.
I could say many of the same things about the healthy benefits of the low-carb lifestyle as well. Again, it's all a matter of what works for YOU and then doing it forever. At the same time, I refuse to criticize someone else for choosing another nutritional approach besides low-carb. But as for me, I'll be sticking with my healthy low-carb lifestyle thank you very much!
5-13-06 UPDATE: Oh this just keeps getting better and better. Laura continued her rant about me personally in her comments at LowCarbNewsline.com on Friday.
I could write a book and have a blog about how eating animal fat, butter, cheese, and limiting fruits, and sugar, etc will make you healthy and I bet there would be someone out there that would believe it. Oh wait. . . there is! His name is Jimmy
Ooooookay, I don't know what that was all about, but it does seem this Laura vegan chick is a live one, wouldn't you say? Whoooo! But I'll credit her for at least attempting to apologize (with many misspelled words and poor grammar) for her crude response about me within five minutes.
Hey Jimmy,
I feel the need to apologize for my rude comment about your review. That is definitly your right to eat whatever makes you happen and satisfied. I really don't care what you eat and I don't know why I chose to even comment.
Just the heat of the moment, I guess. A persons diet is such a personal topic, isn't it? I'm sure your colon is just fine and I'm sure you feel healthier than you did, so good for you! Have a wonderful, long, healthy life!
Laura
P.S. I don't take anything back and do not regret saying them, but I am apologizing if I offended you. You are still a human being and deserve respect.
Did Laura feel I needed some reassuring about my choice to be livin' la vida low-carb? Hee hee! Did she REALLY think I was beginning to buy into her radical vegan mumbo jumbo crap? Sigh. But at least SHE feels better about her knee-jerk response and I am certainly NOT offended by a few negative comments about me, my blog or low-carb.
However, I WILL stand up for the things that I know are true -- including the fact that the Atkins/low-carb way of eating is based on sound nutritional science and will continue to help people lose weight, keep it off, get healthy and stay healthy for the rest of their lives. My personal trainer at the YMCA, who I hadn't seen in a few months (Rodney is his name, for those of you who read my book), told me last night when I went to workout that I was really looking healthy. I LOOK healthy because I AM healthy! Here's to livin' la vida low-carb for many more years and decades to come!
There was one more comment from a man named Paul responding to Laura's comments about the Atkins diet with some extremely pointed questions that deserve some answers.
Here's what he wrote:
Laura, are you telling me here that butter, fat, and lard aren't natural? Do you honestly believe that "natural" sugars will somehow behave differently in your body than artificial ones? Have you ever bothered to open a book that explains a little about human metabolism or even heard of a hormone called insulin or glucagon?
I suggest you do some reading before you try to give anyone else health advice.
Go get her, Paul! Would you like to share your comments with Laura. Hop on over to LowCarbNewsline.com, register, click on Forum, and then make your comments. Let's help further the education of these vegans like Laura by explaining what livin' la vida low-carb is all about. Be nice, but don't be afraid to share what you think. :)
Well, you might have noticed I quickly dropped the talk about veganism because I am not necessarily opposed to someone eating that way. If that's how they choose to eat for the rest of their life, then who am I to stop them? Although I think it's quite ironic that the winner of the "Livin' La Vida Shirataki Recipe Contest" was a VEGETARIAN RECIPE (see, low-carb can be for vegetarians, too)! How about that?!
Despite pleas from some vegetarians for me to get back on the topic of low-carb (which I have for a long time since I wrote that "Skinny Bitch" review), I just had to share with you the comments of an opinionated vegan from Westlake Village, California named Laura who posted these comments of hers in the Forum section at LowCarbNewsline.com after finding my "Skinny Bitch" book review.
Here's what she wrote:
Hello Jimmy,
I actually just wanted to comment on your review of this Skinny Bitch book. Yes, I have read the book and I actually found it very informative. If you get offended easily, which YOU do, I would not recommend it, but loosen up a little! Seriously!
There is absolutely no starving of oneself in this book, I don't know where that came from. The sweets and snacks you are desperately seeking are easy to find, they are just not based on the artifical, chlorinated chemical sweeteners that you all live on. You can have cake, ice cream, cookies, "cheese", muffins, crackers, chips, popcorn. . . anything you want actually, just as long as its not ladden in butter and whipped saturated fat, or lard, etc. Natural sugars are OK. They won't make you fat!
You sound SO uneducated and ignorant, that I feel really bad for you and your poor heart. Congratulations on your weight loss! I just feel bad that you had to willingly put your body into a state of ketosis to do it. Your body may be smaller, but your internal organs probably hate you.
Can you actually conceive of the amount of stress you have put on your kidneys, liver, heart, brain, skin, spleen, and I really get nauseated thinking about how disgusting your colon is. RANK!!! Anyways, I hope you don't get too offended, but I just think that you should know how others perceive you.
A vegan diet is actually the most flavorful diet I have had. Decomposing dead flesh is not the most appetizing thing I could think of to eat. Your tastebuds are probably way to desensitized to appreciate whole grains, veggies, legumes, and fruit (I just had a banana for a snack, :) It was so good!).
Yes, I am vegan and I apologize for my rudeness, I was just offended by your review. If the members of this board read the book, I guarantee that you would lose at least 80% of them, the rest of the 20% are just looking for an excuse to eat crap. How sad!
I personally have known about 10 people (close to me) that have used the Atkins program and they did start to lose weight, but they felt tired, smelly, constipated, acne breakouts, grumpy and just plain bad (according to them, because I would never try a diet.) Convince me that the Atkins diet is healthy, please I would love to hear your side.
Anyways, that is all! Good luck with everything and keep smiling!!!!!!!
P.S. You shouldn't hate healthy, skinny people! It just makes you look silly. I have chosen to educate myself, just like them, and never let myself get obese. I have never starved myself, nor would I ever consider it. Stop being such a Hater!
This is proof yet again that there are all kinds that live in this world. Hee hee! But you've got to admire her passionate desire to spread her vegan enthusiasm to the whole world. Good for her!
But I don't appreciate when she and other vegans use their criticism of the Atkins diet to artificially prop up their vegan lifestyle. If you support your way of eating, then SUPPORT IT! Don't bring another nutritional approach down to make yours look better. That's very telling when you do that, Laura!
Here are the comments I posted to Laura's curt comments:
Laura,
THANKS so much for sharing your comments. If you want to know what I think about the healthy and extremely effective weight loss tool known as the Atkins diet, then you should check out my "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog.
I've written well over 800 columns to date that share my reasoning for supporting this amazingly healthy nutritional approach.
Additionally, I wrote a book about my weight loss experience which tells you why none of those other "diets" ever worked for me and how the Atkins diet changed my life forever.
I'm proud of you for choosing to eat a vegan diet. You have chosen it to control your weight and health while making it your PERMANENT lifestyle choice. If you've read my blog at all, then you would know I harp on that point often.
It really doesn't matter which plan you choose to help you lose weight and get healthy, but you need to do something.
However, you will not hear me criticize another way of eating unless some anti-Atkins diet, vegan chicks like these "Skinny Bitch" authors come along and ignorantly lambaste this weight loss method that was my miracle.
If you want to see who is angry in all this, it's those authors, Laura. And if you were offended by my review of "Skinny Bitch," all I can say is GOOD! You should be offended to be so closed-minded to the fact that there are different strokes for different folks.
For you it's veganism, for me it's livin' la vida low-carb. You've made your choice and I've made mine. Can't you just live with that?
I know, I know. I was too nice, wasn't I? Well, my purpose is not to tear people down, but to lift them up while educating them about why I have made the low-carb lifestyle my lot in life. It is and it always will be because I am the healthiest I have ever been in my entire life. And I owe it all to livin' la vida low-carb.
Anyone else care to answer this vegan's request to convince her that the Atkins diet or any other low-carb plan is a healthy choice? Click on the comment link below and share your thoughts.
5-12-06 UPDATE: Another vegan named Ellen comes to the defense of Laura in this discussion.
Here's what she wrote to me in an e-mail:
I totally agree with Laura's response to Livin' La Vida Low-Carb. I have tried most diets, have read most diet books, including Atkins. For a brief time when I worked in financial services, everyone in the office seemed to be doing it. I thought perhaps there was some new science I was missing. The branch manager's assistant was handing out ephedra like candy. So I lost some weight, gained it back two-fold as most do.
Finally, I returned to vegan eating as I'd done most of my adult life. Bottom line: I'm the ONLY healthy one. My mom, aunt (both deceased) and my sister had breast cancer. My other sister, who had a hysterectomy at 25 and doesn't have huge amounts of estrogen like most female meat eaters do, just had her third heart procedure, is obese and has diabetes, my dad has diabetes, doesn't have much of his colon, and has heart disease and arthritis. Mom died of Alzheimers and a hip fracture from osteoporosis. All of this is preventable!
My return to eating this way saw a return to my historically low cholesterol readings, completely eliminated my osteoprorosis and avoided an impending hysterectomy from bleeding fibroids that went away. My husband was amazed the hot flashes went away too. The information has been out there for 30 years. There are some great books and organizations that have quietly been offering the message for free. We know the folks in rural China do not suffer from our diseases of affluence. There is no word for "hot flash" in Chinese. Hello.....?
When you understand the economic model that there is no money to be made selling broccoli and Brussels sprouts, and big bucks to be made selling meat and meds, then you understand why most folks are so sick or unhealthy. Doctors laugh when they see I take no meds. Or ran a 2 5K races in a week and finished wonderfully. Apparently, I am an unusual breed in this country. At least I know it is not my genes.
I could say many of the same things about the healthy benefits of the low-carb lifestyle as well. Again, it's all a matter of what works for YOU and then doing it forever. At the same time, I refuse to criticize someone else for choosing another nutritional approach besides low-carb. But as for me, I'll be sticking with my healthy low-carb lifestyle thank you very much!
5-13-06 UPDATE: Oh this just keeps getting better and better. Laura continued her rant about me personally in her comments at LowCarbNewsline.com on Friday.
I could write a book and have a blog about how eating animal fat, butter, cheese, and limiting fruits, and sugar, etc will make you healthy and I bet there would be someone out there that would believe it. Oh wait. . . there is! His name is Jimmy
Ooooookay, I don't know what that was all about, but it does seem this Laura vegan chick is a live one, wouldn't you say? Whoooo! But I'll credit her for at least attempting to apologize (with many misspelled words and poor grammar) for her crude response about me within five minutes.
Hey Jimmy,
I feel the need to apologize for my rude comment about your review. That is definitly your right to eat whatever makes you happen and satisfied. I really don't care what you eat and I don't know why I chose to even comment.
Just the heat of the moment, I guess. A persons diet is such a personal topic, isn't it? I'm sure your colon is just fine and I'm sure you feel healthier than you did, so good for you! Have a wonderful, long, healthy life!
Laura
P.S. I don't take anything back and do not regret saying them, but I am apologizing if I offended you. You are still a human being and deserve respect.
Did Laura feel I needed some reassuring about my choice to be livin' la vida low-carb? Hee hee! Did she REALLY think I was beginning to buy into her radical vegan mumbo jumbo crap? Sigh. But at least SHE feels better about her knee-jerk response and I am certainly NOT offended by a few negative comments about me, my blog or low-carb.
However, I WILL stand up for the things that I know are true -- including the fact that the Atkins/low-carb way of eating is based on sound nutritional science and will continue to help people lose weight, keep it off, get healthy and stay healthy for the rest of their lives. My personal trainer at the YMCA, who I hadn't seen in a few months (Rodney is his name, for those of you who read my book), told me last night when I went to workout that I was really looking healthy. I LOOK healthy because I AM healthy! Here's to livin' la vida low-carb for many more years and decades to come!
There was one more comment from a man named Paul responding to Laura's comments about the Atkins diet with some extremely pointed questions that deserve some answers.
Here's what he wrote:
Laura, are you telling me here that butter, fat, and lard aren't natural? Do you honestly believe that "natural" sugars will somehow behave differently in your body than artificial ones? Have you ever bothered to open a book that explains a little about human metabolism or even heard of a hormone called insulin or glucagon?
I suggest you do some reading before you try to give anyone else health advice.
Go get her, Paul! Would you like to share your comments with Laura. Hop on over to LowCarbNewsline.com, register, click on Forum, and then make your comments. Let's help further the education of these vegans like Laura by explaining what livin' la vida low-carb is all about. Be nice, but don't be afraid to share what you think. :)
posted by Jimmy Moore at
5/12/2006 07:14:00 AM
9 Comments:
Jimmy,
Kindly direct this woman to www.beyondveg.com where she can read about many of the casualties of the vegan lifestyle.
P.S. I have nothing against vegetarians either...they taste delicious. ;)
Where is their scientific proof? It doesn't exist... but I guess they explain that away as "part of the meat-eaters conspiracy" against veganism. Sigh.
Anyway, it's like Jimmy said so eloquently: if it seems to work for them, fine! I do hope they take sufficient supplements, especially B12. It certainly won't hurt their long-term health if they'd do some serious reading in the scientific literature, too. That's the peer-reviewed literature - not PETA or PCRM propaganda.
Meet a Vegan Low Carber!
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/vegetarian/a/veganlowcarb.htm
I understand Different strokes for different strokes, but I've seen a really, extremely bad strike rate with Low fat diets. At Weight Watchers they tell you that only 5% who start reach their goal, of those that reach their goal, only 5% of them keep it off for a periof of 5 years. After that who knows.
I have seen people lose massive amounts of weight on low carb, all the while not ever being hungry. Jimmy is one of them. And I know plenty of people (online) who have maintained that loss including Jimmy!
It seems to me many vegans tend to be very vocal, very rude, and insistant on pushing there way of eating on others. Since much of there diet consists of soy protein only time will tell how healthy it is but I don't see enough scientific literature to support it. There is a great deal of controversy coming out on the safety of a high amount of soy protein. Only time will tell. I will stick with low carb thank you very much. I just read a new study in favor of low carb in the May 13 omnivore news letter. Can't say as I have read much in favor of vegans.
I'm with DiamondWife. I don't think my internal organ hate me at all. My teech love me because I no longer eat sugar that causes decay and bad breath. My colon loves me because I am now more reguklar than ever. My skin loves me because I no longer have adult acne - a problem that's plagued me my whole adult life. My heart loves me because last year I equalled my best time even in the annual 12k race - a record I set in my 20s (I am now in my 30s). I aim to break that record this year. My whole body loves me because I no longer have blood sugar spikes and crashes. My blood sugar and energy are stable.
One problem with the "dogs are carnivores" claim of the site:
"Dogs can survive perfectly well on a reasonably carefully designed vegetarian diet, particularly if eggs and milk products are included."
http://dogsobediencetraining.com/info/learn_dog_wiki.htm
Cats, OTOH, are obligate carnivores and cannot survive on a vegetarian diet no matter how carefully prepared.
http://pets1st.ca/articles/00040CanaCatBeaVegetarian.asp
Its not even a question of can one survive on x, but is x best?
Its possible to combine vegetable proteins to create complete ones (without using soy,) but would any primitive have known he had to eat beans with rice to do it?
Anywho, enjoy your tofu, vegetable people. More power to you. I think I'll have some bacon.
Tofu is actually quite good. :) Cube it and fry it in marinade. Yum! :)
The problem, Cindy, is that they are accusing our diet of being "unhealthy." They didn't accuse us of being cruel to animals - they said animal products are unhealthy. BIG difference there.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home