Carpender Column Demands Low-Carb Respect

It was right about a year ago when I blogged about Dana Carpender being forced to change the name of her nationally-syndicated newspaper column from "Low Carb For Life" to "Cook Well, Eat Well." As you know, I was pretty critical of her at the time questioning whether she was abandoning "low-carb" in favor of a more watered down, all-inclusive general health message instead.

Even when I interviewed her last September, she seemed to confirm my suspicions that she was moving away from "low-carb" support and transition to the more convoluted "low glycemic load" language instead. Carpender believed at the time that the media had so twisted what "low-carb" really is that it needed to be called something else.

Well, something must have happened since the calendar flipped to 2007 because the Dana Carpender of old is back! This is the one who boldly champions livin' la vida low-carb using her bully pulpit national column to do so. It's good to see she has returned to the roots of where she began because Dana Carpender without "low-carb" is like SpongeBob without SquarePants (now there's a visual for ya!).

Want more evidence that she's back? Check out her latest column in response to the infamous Stanford study showing the Atkins low-carb diet outperformed the rest of the major diet programs out there for both weight loss and improvements in health. Carpender absolutely hits it out of the park with her focus on the mounting evidence in favor of low-carb.

I LOVED this line in her column because people seem to forget...

"Dr. Robert Atkins was a Cornell-educated cardiologist. You’d think he’d have noticed if his diet were causing heart disease. He insisted it wasn’t, and the ongoing research backs him up."

You tell 'em, Dana! She went on to add that study after study keeps coming out in favor of a low-carb diet for controlling various health factors, including obesity, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, blood glucose levels, nonalcoholic fatty-liver disease, and so much more. Carpender also reminded her readers of this study that concluded the low-fat diet has been a complete and utter failure when it comes to heart disease prevention, cancer prevention, and weight loss. Of course, this Harvard study concluded just the opposite regarding livin' la vida low-carb. :)

Carpender's conclusion in her column is the same as mine:

"It’s time for our government and the medical establishment to give low-carbohydrate diets the respect they deserve, and--at the very least--consider them for treating obesity and its attendant health problems."

I couldn't have said it better myself, Dana! In fact, I did say as much during the recent teleconference call debate about the Stanford study that featured a panel of low-carb advocates, including Carpender. You can listen to the audio of that call by clicking here for the first half and then here for the second half. It was quite informative and entertaining and Dana Carpender was fantastic!

So, never fear low-carb lovers! One of our leaders is back in the saddle ready to take livin' la vida low-carb to the next level. Right now she is trying to get her publisher to accept a manuscript for a book featuring people who have lost weight and kept it off on a low-carb diet. Her agent was very excited about this book and thinks it should have a good chance of happening. Carpender has asked me to share my story with her for the book, so stay tuned!

Dovetailing this post about the positive impact of the low-carb lifestyle, I'd like to conclude with an amazing comment that was posted at my blog recently from a new reader who shared her remarkable change of mentality regarding low-carb despite tremendous pressure and manipulation by her doctors. Read and ENJOY!

I've been stopping by for a while now, so I thought I'd say hello. I am someone who has tried almost every diet, as have many others. I even went to a nutritionist in the fall for a custom designed diet, making sure she understood about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which I have. I gained weight.

She said carb restrictions weren't the answer, because it was a simple matter of calories in-calories out. I was to eat 11 servings of carbs a day. ELEVEN. I gained weight and gave up. My endocrinologist said that losing the weight I need to lose can't be done without surgery, and I am not interested in surgery.

So, after a lot of research and reading, I started the one thing I hadn't yet done...Atkins. I've only been on it for 2 weeks, but in that time, I've lost 21 pounds. I have never, in my entire life, (I'm 41) lost that much weight so quickly. Actually, losing that much weight at all is almost unbelievable to me.

I have much more to lose - like 225 more - but I finally feel like I found the right answer, and I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Your story has been such an inspiration to me and I just want to thank you for that. I'd always heard negative things about Atkins, but frankly, the benefits of Atkins far outweigh the risks of surgery, so I can't imagine why my doctor would suggest something so radical while dismissing Atkins.

The strange thing about it for me is the fact that I don't even feel like I'm missing anything... I don't have cravings for carbs anymore, and saying no to something isn't a struggle. I honestly don't want it!

He said it can't be done. I say it can. I will prove him wrong!

And this is why we need people like Dana Carpender to keep sharing the truth and never being ashamed of the lifestyle change that she knows can and will radically change the world for the better. I'm confident she will be that champion for our cause and I'll be standing right there alongside her waving the banner of low-carb living for the rest of my long and healthy low-carb life!