Low-carb celebrity Dana Carpender gets us caught up on her life
Long before I ever even thought about going on the Atkins diet to lose weight in 2004, there was a woman who was championing the healthy low-carb lifestyle in a series of bestselling cookbooks. She tried the conventional high-carb, low-fat diet and it failed her, so that led her to livin' la vida low-carb--and the rest is history! Of course, I'm talking about the one, the only Dana Carpender.
In Episode 158 of "The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore," Dana lets us in on what is happening in her life right now. She's got a new companion cookbook coming out this Fall to go along with Rob Thompson's The Glycemic-Load Diet and is currently dealing with a bit of a health scare herself with a fibroid in her stomach that she says makes her "look like I'm 20 pounds heavier than I am." And you NEVER have to worry about Dana coming up with an opinion--she's got plenty of 'em to go around!
Click on the "LISTEN NOW" link below or download it to your iPod to hear Episode 158:
"The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore" Episode 158 [39:03m]: LISTEN NOW | Download
We got Dana to open up in this podcast interview since she's so shy--NOT!!! One thing you'll never have trouble getting Dana Carpender to do is talk and she does it well. Hear her talk about the trials of the publishing world for a "low-carb" author, the dangers of low-calorie starvation diets like the Kimkins scam, diet soda, low-carb chocolate, and that recent "big breakfast" study that had all the media going crazy recently. It's never a dull moment with Dana around, so be sure to listen from start to finish.
Connect with low-carb celebrities like Dana Carpender anytime by:
What did you think about Dana Carpender? She has arguably had more influence on the way people view a low-carb lifestyle on the publishing and consumer side than anyone else ever has! I was privileged to speak with her and can't wait to have her join us on the 2009 low-carb cruse. Discuss today's show in the show notes section of Episode 158. And be sure to bookmark Dana Carpender's "Hold The Toast" web site and pre-order the The Glycemic-Load Diet Cookbook TODAY! :)
Coming up on Thursday we'll have fitness and nutrition expert Eric Morrison and then a special two-part podcast interview next week with low-carb chiropractor Dr. Peter Jo.
Literary Agent: Forget About Highlighting 'Low-Carb' In Your Future Books
Ever since I wrote my self-published debut book Livin' La Vida Low-Carb: My Journey From Flabby Fat To Sensationally Skinny In One Year in October 2005, that "itch" to write another book has been growing and growing. I've bounced around ideas in my head these past few years for books with low-carb success stories, user-friendly low-carb research studies, a best-of-the-blog compilation (which I'm currently working on), and the most requested one from readers has been a low-carb cookbook (which I would LOVE to write!).
I have talked with quite a few publishers since 2005 to let me write books for them. Of course, my biggest obstacle is the fact that the theme of my books is "low-carb" and that's become taboo among editors lately. Dana Carpender, the most famous low-carb cookbook author out there, was forced to remove "low-carb" from the title of her column (which she no longer writes for as of January 2008 because of the editor's deemphasis on "low-carb") and prevented from putting "low-carb" in the title of her latest low-carb cookbook (Every Calorie Counts) for the first time in her writing career.
Dana told me in this blog interview as well as my upcoming podcast interview on Monday that she is moving away from using "low-carb" in favor of low-glycemic load (which she'll be releasing this Fall in conjunction with Rob Thompson) or controlled carbohydrate, but it's all basically low-carb. I can certainly understand her reasoning to get the low-carb message out there in a stealth manner because at least the message gets out there.
But I am not in that camp. I still think "low-carb" is viable considering my various sites and online projects garner nearly a million visitors a month. Not too shabby for an idea whose time has supposedly passed already. This is why I refuse to sidestep the term "low-carb" and proudly name it and claim it in the name of just about everything I touch--"Livin' La Vida LOW-CARB!" Wouldn't my blog be dead as a doorknob if nobody was interested in hearing about "low-carb" anymore? One would think.
So, with that knowledge in hand, I approached a literary agent recently about finding a publisher for a "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Cookbook" to gauge their interest. Most publishers just want to know if you have the marketing mojo behind the books on their label and I've told them all about how enthusiastic all of you guys are about the healthy low-carb lifestyle. But, as you will see from these candid remarks I received back from this literary agent, they just don't care because somebody out there has fooled these editors into thinking low-carb is dead.
Dear Jimmy,
Thank you for your kind words about our agency. Your cookbook query came my way and I'm afraid we would not be interested at this time in representing a low-carb cookbook. We have an extremely full list of projects currently, and we are taking on few new clients, regrettably. It's also a volatile time in the publishing industry, and I can't say with conviction that a low-carb book would be appealing to publishers at this time.
I will say that I do know the term "low carb" itself has lost favor with editors, so you might consider other ways to title your book that focus on healthful eating rather than highlighting the low-carb focus (but that's just a thought and you may disagree!).
Kind regards and we appreciate your interest in our agency.
So there you have it! They're not interested in "low-carb" and it's the same thing I've seen over and over again as I've approached publishers. That's too bad because I REALLY believe in my heart of hearts that a publisher brave enough to give me or another low-carb author a chance to show them what we can do with a "low-carb" book using that exact term in the title would not only sell well, but exceed their flimsy expectations. I wouldn't need any marketing help from the publisher either. Who's gonna take that chance on my future low-carb books?
In the meantime, I will go back to self-publishing my books and proudly put "low-carb" in the title of every one of them. The best way to show these publishers how wrong they are is to prove they can sell despite that term. I'm looking forward to releasing my "best-of-the-blog" trilogy later this year and that low-carb cookbook in early 2009. THANKS for all of your amazing support of "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb."
A couple of weeks ago, I dedicated an entire YouTube video to a low-carb legend who has revolutionized controlled-carbohydrate cooking for the millions of people who have bought her bestselling low-carb cookbooks over the years. She's low-carb cooking goddess Dana Carpender and I've got some pretty big news to share with you about a major career change that has been in the works for a while.
Longtime readers will recall I was quite concerned in March 2006 when Dana's popular nationally syndicated newspaper column called "Low-Carb For Life" was abruptly changed to the much more generic "Cook Well, Eat Well" in response to the perception that livin' la vida low-carb had fallen out of favor with the general public. The explanation was that she needed to "broaden the focus" of her column to reach a wider audience focused on healthy nutrition (insinuating that low-carb doesn't fit that mold!).
I was quite critical of Dana after the column name change because I felt she had allowed herself to be sucked into the anti-low-carb movement that for the most part still exists today in the media. That perception was only made worse when she released her Every Calorie Counts Cookbook in April 2006, the first Dana Carpender cookbook that did not include the term "low-carb" in the title. Some people were beginning to wonder if Dana still supported the low-carb lifestyle anymore or if she had "sold out."
"Truth to tell, in my day to day life I don't much care what others think of how I eat. I do care about what it takes to gain a public forum, which is why the change in the books and the column. It doesn't do anyone any good for me to be a linguistic purist but not have a public voice."
So her philosophy was as long as she had a voice to spread the positive message of healthy low-carb living, she was willing to go with the changes her publisher and syndicate wanted. But you could tell this was gnawing away at Dana in a few of her columns beginning with this one in February 2007 followed by this one in April 2007. All the positive news about livin' la vida low-carb over the past year lit a bright-burning fire within her to get back to her low-carb roots in earnest.
That's why today's announcement by Dana at her new blog is HUGE: she's quitting the newspaper column with United Media effective immediately after she turned in her final column today. To replace that column, she has decided to transform her popular Hold The Toast web site into a new blog that she promises will be updating often for her fans after she finishes up a new book she is working on featuring a variety of low-carb success tips and advice from people who have lived it (I was privileged to be interviewed by Dana for this book) in the next three weeks.
This past year has been a rough one for Dana as she details in her column, so be sure to go check it out and bookmark her blog RIGHT NOW so you'll never miss a single post! And don't you know there will be some delicious recipes featured there too--WOO HOO! She's even promised to show her daily menus beginning with this first one she posted today.
WELCOME BACK, Dana! We can't wait to see what's coming next!
Dana Carpender still reigns supreme in the low-carb community
When you stop and think about who the most influential voices in the low-carb community are in the mainstream of public health, only a handful of people come to mind. I mean people who have been out there in the trenches working to help change people's lives for the better with the positive and healthy message of low-carb living in the midst of a world that still believe the low-fat diet hung the moon.
Who pops in your mind on a short list of low-carb champions like this?
Immediately, I think of people like Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades from Protein Power who are some of the strongest and most consistent voices for livin' la vida low-carb on the planet. And Dr. Jonny Bowden, author of Living The Low-Carb Life and The 150 Healthiest Foods On Earth, who is dedicated to getting people to eating less sugar and refined carbohydrates for the sake of their weight and health.
Then, earlier this year there was a fabulous study released by researchers from Stanford University and published in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that found the Atkins diet was best for weight loss and health improvements among a list of popular diets, including the Zone diet, a high-carb, low-fat diet called LEARN, and the ultra-low-fat Ornish diet. The results of this study precipitated a unique discussion presented by Revolution Health which I shared on my podcast show in two parts here and here. Wanna hear classic Dana Carpender? Just take a listen to that audio and you'll see exactly what I mean!
For the sake of those who have never heard of her, Christine and I share about all of Dana's bestselling book in Episode 19 of "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb On YouTube." Seriously, anyone who is living the low-carb lifestyle should be aware of who Dana Carpender is and they'll be a lot more familiar with her contributions to the low-carb community after watching our latest video. And pay a visit to her web site LowCarbohydrate.net sometime for more from Dana!
Allow me to introduce you to the one, the only Dana Carpender:
There were a bunch of books listed on that video, so here's a link to each:
Coming up in January, I'm going to give you a chance to win your very own Dana Carpender library with all of the books I featured in Episode 19. Additionally, I'll be featuring my review of each of these books, although I've already written a review for Every Calorie Counts. That's all coming up really soon, so keep reading for more information about this!
The winner of the THREE DOZEN EGGLAND'S BEST EGGS from the contest on Episode 17 was announced, so be sure to tune in to see if that winner was YOU! :) And leave your comments for Episode 19 of "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb On YouTube" to share what you think about Dana Carpender and her dazzling set of books to help you on your low-carb lifestyle change.
We're building up quite a listing of YouTube videos now, so be sure to go back and watch any of them you might have missed. We work hard to make these as entertaining and informative as possible on a wide variety of subjects pertaining to diet, health, nutrition, and practical low-carb living. Subscribe to our videos e-mail us your feedback at livinlowcarbman@charter.net. It's our pleasure to serve you and we look forward to continuing our videos for you in 2008. By the way, you'll be pleased to know "The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore" podcast will be returning in January. WOO HOO!
CarbSmart is the only sugar-free, low-carb chocolate chips on the market
Chocolate chips!!! Who doesn't like these itty bitty morsels of delicious chocolate goodness especially heading into the holiday baking season? Well, if you're livin' la vida low-carb, it can be quite a challenge trying to keep the carbs down since you can't find any good semi-sweet chocolate chips that don't have sugar in them.
But what if I told you I found some sugar-free, low-carb chocolate chips that do not contain any nasty sugar alcohols and are PERFECT for diabetics? Would you be interested? Sure you would, which is why I'm proud to tell you about CarbSmart Sugar Free Chocolate Chips.
Each 8-ounce bag of these delicious chocolate chips gives you the EXCLUSIVE source for a product of this kind on the market today. Even better is the fact that there are absolutely ZERO sugar alcohols in these CarbSmart Sugar Free Chocolate Chips, including NO maltitol, NO lactitol, NO sugar alcohols at all. WOO HOO!
So what is it sweetened with? Just like my favorite diet sodas (Diet Rite, Cheerwine, and Diet Coke with Splenda), these chocolate chips contain a yummy blend of Splenda and ACE-K. Plus, each two tablespoon serving has 7g fiber and just 1g net carb. Made with essential chocolate-making ingredients like chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, and cocoa powder, these CarbSmart Sugar Free Chocolate Chips are the real deal!
This product should make you a happy camper on your healthy low-carb lifestyle. And bestselling author and low-carb cooking goddess Dana Carpender provides yummy recipes for making low-carb chocolate chip cookies (I'll share two of them for you below). Mmmmmm! I can smell those Toll House cookies now! :D
Find out how to order your own stash of the CarbSmart Sugar Free Chocolate Chips by clicking here.
Measure the almond meal, vanilla whey protein, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and stir together. Set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter till creamy and fluffy. Add the Splenda and maltitol, and beat till very well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat well.
Now add the dry ingredients, in three additions, beating each addition till well incorporated before adding the next.
Beat in the chocolate chips and pecans, and mix just until well-distributed.
Turn off mixer, and scrape the dough off the beaters back into the bowl.
Preheat oven to 375.
Scoop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheets you've sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, or covered with pan liners or baking parchment.
Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
Makes 44 cookies
125 Calories 9g Fat 6g Protein 6g Total Carbohydrates 3g Dietary Fiber 3g Net Carbs per cookie
DARK & FUDGY LOW-CARB CHOCOLATE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES 2 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate 1/2 cup butter 1 cup almond meal 1 cup vanilla whey protein powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cups Splenda granular 2 eggs 2/3 cup sour cream 2 cups CarbSmart Sugar Free Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 375.
Melt chocolate and butter together over very low heat or in microwave. Stir together.
While the chocolate and butter are melting, measure the almond meal, vanilla whey protein, baking soda, and salt, and stir together.
In a medium mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and chocolate mixture with the Splenda, eggs, and vanilla extract, till very well blended.
Add the dry ingredients and sour cream, about 1/3 at a time, alternating between the two.
Now add the chocolate chips, and mix to blend.
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool on sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks. Store in a container with a tight lid.
Makes 36 cookies 127 Calories 9g Fat 6g Protein 6g Total Carbohydrates 4g Dietary Fiber 2g Net Carbs per cookie
Alternative recipe suggestion: Add a half cup of chopped walnuts to make brownie-like cookies.
What a week for conglomerated low-carb blogging with this and this post wrapping up some of the latest news and headlines in the world of low-carb living. Well, I'm still in busy mode and have so much to share with you, I barely know where to begin. So let's just have ourselves a good old-fashioned low-carb roundup! YEE HAW!
INSPIRED BY DIABETES WANTS YOUR CREATIVE SUBMISSIONS
There's a really neat contest sponsored by the diabetes awareness web site located at InspiredbyDiabetes.com. What they are looking for are submissions by people who have been touched by diabetes that shares their story through some form of artistic talent, including essays, poems, photographs, drawings, and musical composition. It's called the Creative Expression Competition and they are awarding a Grand Prize of a $5,000 contribution to the diabetes-related charity "Life of a Child" and a trip to the Inspired by Diabetes art exhibition. The deadline for entering is January 31, 2008, but don't delay in sharing YOUR diabetes story in this most unique way! You could even share how livin' la vida low-carb is keeping your disease in check--that'll wake 'em up, don't ya think? :D Winners will be announced in the Spring 2008.
DANA CARPENDER DISCUSSES EXERCISE WHILE ON A LOW-CARB DIET
If you exercise, then you need to eat your carbs right? Well, not so fast says low-carb expert Dana Carpender in her latest nationally syndicated column entitled "Keeping up your stamina while lowering your carbs". The bottom line is unless you are training for athletic competition (like this Olympic athlete who recently e-mailed me), then you DON'T need to "carb up" prior to exercise. Read what Dana has to say about people who are wanting to get in a little physical activity while on their low-carb lifestyle.
IS WONDER BREAD GOING OUT OF BUSINESS BECAUSE OF LOW-CARB DIETS?
THE MIGRAINEUR RAILS AGAINST THE ADA'S POOR ADVICE FOR DIABETICS
I think I've found a new favorite blog for you to check out: The Migraineur. I only recently discovered this AMAZING blog because of an awesome post chastising the American Diabetes Association (ADA) for being "no friend of the diabetic." WHOA! Why have I never heard of this blogger before?! WOW!!! I think the following quote from the blog post says it all:
"If you wanted to deliberately devise a diet that would cause a diabetic to die a slow, painful death, you couldn’t do better than the diet currently recommended by the ADA. The organization’s insistence on a high-carbohydrate diet, in the face of mounting evidence that diabetes is better managed by limiting carbohydrate consumption, would be laughable if it was not endangering the health and the very lives of the people it claims to advocate for."
IS THE FDA FORCING CHOCOLATE MAKERS TO USE VEGETABLE OIL, NOT COCOA BUTTER?
In one of the most bizarre food stories I've seen in a while, it appears the geniuses at the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) have put out a call to the major chocolate companies letting them know they need to replace the cocoa butter in their chocolate with vegetable oil. Have you heard about this? It's in response to some industry groups who are afraid of the saturated fat content in cocoa butter causing health problems as well as making it cheaper for the consumer. But THANK GOD at least ONE company has told the FDA where they can shove it: Mars, makers of Snickers and M&M's. This isn't about making better products, it's about reducing quality just to make things cheaper. That doesn't make it better and they had better not mess with my favorite sugar-free, low-carb chocolate bar made with cocoa butter!
900-POUND MAN NEEDS FORKLIFT, FIREFIGHTERS TO BE RESCUED FROM HOME
Have you seen the opening scene of the Adam Sandler movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry? There's a burning building and a frantic woman cries for someone to help save her baby who's still trapped in the apartment. When they reach the kid, it turns out this "baby" is a morbidly obese 700-pound man who is bedridden. The scene is pretty hilarious with the firefighters, played by Sandler and Kevin James, getting crushed under the weight of the man while trying to save him.
That scene flashed across my mind as I read this story about a group of firefighters in Lansing, Michigan who had to chop a hole in the side of a 900-pound man's house to rescue him after a nurse said he needed medical help as soon as possible. They even had to implore the use of a forklift to get the 33-year old man out. It turns out he has a rare condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome like the infamous obese 8-year old named Connor McCreadie does.
This story reminded me of the 500-pound truck driver who also had difficulty getting rescued by emergency workers because of his weight in July. It's so sad to hear the helplessness of people like this and it makes you wonder if these traumatic experiences make ANYTHING click inside their mind to finally get their weight and health under control. You have to wonder.
BARILLA PASTA COMPANY NO FRIEND OF THE LOW-CARB LIFESTYLE
Some people in the low-carb community have hailed the Barilla brand of whole wheat pasta as an excellent alternative to regular pasta for people on a low-carb diet. But have you seen this diatribe on the dangers of low-carb dieting posted right there on their web site? It's obvious to anyone with half a brain that their "concerns" are nothing more than the same old tired excuses that have been proven to be myths time and time again. For that reason alone, I would say AVOID Barilla and just stick with the good stuff--DREAMFIELDS!
Well, that's about it for now, but I still have lots more to share with you as I continue catching up to so much stuff to blog about this week. THANK YOU for your devoted readership of my "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog and I look forward to your feedback on these stories. Come talk about them at my forum, too!
WOW, I wish I had more time in the day lately to be blogging about the low-carb lifestyle, but it's just not happening. The explosive growth of my new "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Discussion" forum (quickly approaching 1,000 members and a half million pageviews!) and my increasingly-popular video series with my wife Christine called "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb On YouTube" has taken up time I would normally dedicate to blogging.
I'm not complaining by any stretch of the imagination because I'm lovin' every minute of what I am doing, including my continued work on my podcast show, my "30-In-30" blog, my "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog, writing my second book, and having the opportunity to start writing columns for a MAJOR health media outlet coming soon (more about that when I'm allowed to talk about it in detail).
Life is quite busy, but I wanted to get you caught up on a five items of interest that caught my attention lately that you should know about and chew on a while:
DANA CARPENDER COLUMN ON THE TRAVESTY OF SCHOOL LUNCHES
If you missed this month's nationally-syndicated "Cook Well, Eat Well" column from low-carb cooking goddess Dana Carpender, then you need to read it, print it out, and take it to your next PTA meeting at your child's school to share with the other parents what they can pack their little munchkin to eat for lunch instead. Dana details what parents can pack for their children to eat in her piece entitled "School lunches leave a lot to be desired for the taste buds." Giving alternatives to the nutritionally bankrupt foods like cereal, yogurt, and a roll for a meal (yep, that's the totality of this so-called "meal" that was served to students), this column is classic Dana Carpender and you won't want to miss it!
This week's newsletter featured an article by Jonny entitled "How to Fight Cravings -- and Win!" that will knock your socks off! He goes into the psychology of overeating beyond mere hunger and how you can stop that vicious cycle in its tracks. Or, as he says, you need to "short-circuit the chain" as he outlines in his audiobook "Change Your Body Change Your Life." He encourages you to WRITE DOWN your five biggest hunger triggers and to put a plan of action into place when those triggers begin to start happening. Check these out:
1. Brush your teeth. 2. Eat a pickle. Eating something completely different from what you’re craving tricks the brain and kills the craving. Try eating a hot pepper when you’re craving chocolate and you’ll instantly see what I mean. 3. Reward yourself with a relaxing activity you normally wouldn’t do. Try a warm bath or uninterrupted reading of your favorite magazines. 4. Go for a walk. The endorphins released will often balance the chemistry of a craving brain. 5. Write down what you’re feeling. Try “being” with that feeling for five minutes.
I'm sure there's more where that came from, but those tips for beating your cravings and resisting the urge to eat when you shouldn't will get you started off right.
NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST TRUMPETS ATKINS DIET FOR HEALTH
Imagine my surprise when I was doing some research recently and came across this newspaper column from my own home state of South Carolina called The State and discovered a very positive review of livin' la vida low-carb for those seeking to improve their health, especially diabetics. WOW!!! The writer Cindi Ross Scoppe said there are other ways like drugs and supplements to improve blood pressure, lower cholesterol, and stabilize blood sugars, but the best way is...
"There’s an easy-to-stick-to diet that also does a good job of lowering blood pressure and stabilizing if not reducing cholesterol: the low-carb Atkins diet."
You read that right! She named the much-vilified Atkins diet in this story about healthy living. Incredible! I was so pumped about seeing this by a writer just down the road from me that I e-mailed her to thank her for that positive coverage. She never wrote back, but I'm sure she is aware of the media bias that exists against this way of eating and is roundly ignoring it herself.
Scoppe makes some excellent observations about the low-carb lifestyle ("Many foods that drive up cholesterol — eggs, steak, cheese, bacon, butter, cream — are on the all-you-can-eat buffet. No one has figured out exactly why, but apparently the bad foods don’t hurt you if you’ve sworn off carbs.") and even questions some of the illogical thinking of so-called diabetes advocacy groups ("When I did the American Diabetes Association’s 'Rate your Plate' exercise, dragging an Atkins-perfect meal of chicken, broccoli, lettuce and tomatoes onto my plate, I got a scoldy message that said: 'You have too many vegetables and not enough carbohydrates. Try again.' Too many vegetables?"). This one is too juicy to pass up, so take some time to check it out and encourage Scoppe in her low-carb journey to better health!
STANFORD DIET STUDY AUTHOR SAYS LOW-CARB 'BETTER, SIMPLE'
In March this year, there was a rather eye-opening study released in the most prestigious medical journal in the United States--The Journal Of The American Medical Association--by Stanford University researcher Dr. Christopher Gardner comparing various diet plans against each other measuring weight loss and health. The conclusion? The Atkins diet was best among several other plans, including the low-fat Ornish diet and "balanced" Zone diet.
There was debate about this study in the weeks following its release as many low-carb advocates like me called for low-carb to be promoted alongside low-fat in dietary recommendations so that the public could have all the facts to make the best decision about their own health. No such luck on that one, but I was pleasantly surprised to see this Scientific American story that quotes Dr. Gardner saying something that blew me away. Keep in mind that he is a vegetarian and it makes this quote all the more profound.
“Maybe low carb is a better simple message to the public than low fat,” Gardner says. “We tell them low carb, and they get it. They cut out a couple of sodas or a couple of cookies, and that adds up.”
That's it, Dr. Gardner! You've hit the nail squarely on the head and with amazing precision, too! Cutting carbs is simple, yet so much easier to understand and enjoy than cutting fat. Can we get you to shout that message over and over again to get people to understand it at last? Of course, with well-meaning but DEAD WRONG people like National Weight Control Registry co-founder Dr. James Hill quoted in the story as saying "There’s no way you can do it [eat low-carb] forever,” it's gonna be an uphill battle!
LOOK OUT GUYS, THE DIET INDUSTRY IS GUNNING FOR YOU NEXT
We all know the target audience for most diet companies these days is women. With an overwhelming number of people joining groups like Weight Watchers and Curves, it's almost as if the weight loss industry forgot about the guys. Well, not anymore according to this Chicago Tribune column that found they're now gunning for the men. They cite Nutrisystem and their use of former NFL players like Dan Marino as evidence of a new trend. It's nice to see these efforts, but all the male folks need to do is go on low-carb and the weight comes pouring off! Maybe if Weight Watchers would come up with a low-carb version of their plan, they could pull more men into their system. Wouldn't be surprised at all if that's what happens REAL soon!
I've got a ton more to blog, but that's all the time I have for now. We'll hit some more later, but for now I need to get some rest and get reenergized for the upcoming week. THANK YOU for your devoted readership and keep on livin' la vida low-carb!
Don't Let Anyone Try To 'Talk You Out Of' Your Low-Carb Lifestyle
One of the most difficult diets you could ever go on has got to be a low-carb diet. It's not because of the diet itself, but rather the reaction you will receive from others when they find out you are livin' la vida low-carb.
And yet the boo birds who oppose the low-carb life will kick and scream like a bratty little 2-year-old trying to discourage you from doing that diet that's right for you. I've never understood the fascination by the anti-low-carb crowd to be so brash and arrogant in their admonishment of those of us who have chosen to eat this way to manage our weight and health.
Maybe they are jealous of our success and are desperate to keep others from finding the answer to their obesity and health ailments. Sounds crazy, but who knows what these people are thinking. Or ARE they even thinking?! Got me?
All I know is livin' la vida low-carb works for me and has been for nearly four years. When I weighed in at 410 pounds in January 2004, I had high hopes that this would be the last diet I would ever go on. I'm not sure I was completely convinced at the time when I started, but losing 100 pounds in the first few months made a believer out of me! And I've never lost my zeal and passion for low-carb living ever since!
I got the best little e-mail the other day from a man who is 65 years old and on the Atkins diet. He lost 64 pounds in eighteen weeks back in 1999 and has been livin' la vida low-carb ever since. This man has a lot of simple, yet practical advice for anyone who is on the low-carb lifestyle for the long haul about how to transition from the "diet" to the "lifestyle."
Here's what he wrote in the e-mail:
Dear Jimmy,
I have learned many things about dieting. I read almost every diet book and tried most of them. I learned exactly what I wasn’t willing to tolerate the rest of my life!
The biggest secret for long term success is becoming an expert on the subject. The more you know about your diet, the more likely you are to succeed.
Learn to be a great cook, not just a good one. Learn so much about this lifestyle that no one will ever be able to talk you out of it. This is the best advice I can pass on to anyone serious about maintaining their health and appearance.
When I go to a restaurant I tell them exactly how my meals should be prepared! I do nearly all my own food preparation and have become a great cook!
When my wife can tell our friends that I like a “little fish with my butter” there can be no doubt that this is the “greatest diet” in the world! NEVER GIVE UP! YOU’RE WORTH IT!
WOW, that's totally awesome! I'd love to see this guy start his own blog and share his little nuggets of wisdom and truth about livin' la vida low-carb on a regular basis. Straightforward advice written in a no-nonsense, been-there-done-that style that makes you wanna listen to everything he has to say. Reminds me of somebody else I know. :D
Dana suggested we seek you out. Wow! I just couldn't believe my luck! You have the greatest site ever! I have listened to every one of your podcasts. They are wonderful! FAR TOO SHORT! They could never be long enough!
Do you think he's a little excited? LOL! Hey, I'm just happy to be able to share from my own low-carb experiences and I can tell from the reaction I received from this very kind man that he has been hoping to find others who believe just as he does. This incredible lifestyle change is the greatest thing that ever happened to him in his life just as it was for me. Neither of us will EVER be the same again.
Nobody will ever replace the late great Dr. Robert C. Atkins, but this man thinks I will someday.
I have no doubt that you are going to do for low-carb what even "the great one" (Dr. Robert C. Atkins) was unable to fully accomplish. You will be having unbelievable success in the very near future with the "low carb movement." Of this I have no doubt! Keep up the great work and will be following your "GREAT WORDS OF WISDOM' from now on.
THANK YOU very much for those extremely generous remarks and I only hope to live up to the expectations that I have for myself in all that I do. In some ways, I have experienced much of the same level of backlash from the low-fat vegetarian groups that Dr. Atkins did when he was trumpeting low-carb when low-carb wasn't cool. But it is my duty to share the truth and let others decide what's right for them.
They attack me and others in the low-carb community because they know we have found a nutritional approach that is scientifically sound and backed by the evidence--and it's tearing them apart on the inside knowing we have the truth on our side! Someday soon we will see a major paradigm shift happen when the high-carb, low-fat diet gig will finally be up. No more low-fat letdown--it will be time for livin' la vida low-carb to shine instead!
Dana Carpender Has A Message For The Kimkins Opposition: 'Just. Calm. Down.'
The post that appeared here has been removed for not promoting the low-carb community in the professional manner I have come to expect from myself. THANK YOU!
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. :)
"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!
"The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore" Episode 35 [31:00m]: Play in Popup | Download
You will notice that Episode 35 is about twice as long as normal for my podcast show. Because I was out of town all of last week (and just got home off a red-eye flight this afternoon), we decided to split the recent teleconference call sponsored by RevolutionHealth.com into two parts and it features some low-carb luminaries that you may recognize in Part 1--Dana Carpender, Dr. Mary C. Vernon, and myself all got to ask Dr. Michael Dansinger and Dr. James Hill questions about the low-carb study that shocked the world recently. Tune in for the fireworks!
Access "The Livin' La Vida Low-Carb Show" anytime by:
Let me apologize for the poor sound quality of the podcast. It was a recorded teleconference call with people calling in from all over, so the quality is only about as good as a bad phone connection. If you can endure through that, then it is well worth your time to listen and I'd love to know what you think. Provide your comments and state whether you are buying the argument by Dr. Hill that low-carb is only good for temporary, short-term weight loss.
Be sure to listen to the second half of the teleconference call on Thursday which will feature even more famous low-carb researchers and bloggers you will quickly recognize. I even get in another comment or two challenging this "temporary" argument head-on. Don't miss it!
I have a very exciting opportunity to share with you about a brand new book proposal that our friend and fellow low-carb champion Dana Carpender is working on. She's on a tight deadline here that requires her to have a proposal finished and ready to turn in to the publisher on Monday morning, so only those who are serious about this need to apply.
Because of the massive media attention to the new JAMA study out of Stanford this week, Dana believes the time is right to do a book about those of us who have been successful livin' la vida low-carb. As a result, she wants to interview anyone who has lost on a low-carb program and kept the weight off for at least two years. Is that you? If so, then answer these questions:
To what do you attribute your success? Was it support from friends? Family? Online support? Have you learned to cook a wide variety of low carbohydrate meals? Planning ahead? Feeling a lot better? What do you consider to be the two or three most crucial components in your low carb success?
In addition to those who have been highly successful, Dana is also wanting people who have struggled and gained back all of the weight they previously lost on the diet. If that's you, then answer these questions:
What were your biggest stumbling blocks? Lack of support, or downright sabotage? Naysaying from your doctor? Boredom with the food? Emotional carb cravings? Discouragement with a plateau? Budget and time constraints? Impulsive eating when junk appears in front of you?
Dana would like to hear from you ASAP and may be contacting you for further details about your story if she thinks it is what she needs. If you give her permission to get in touch with you and quite possibly include YOUR story in this new book, then simply e-mail her your answers to the questions about being a low-carb success or failure at voiceofthepeople@holdthetoast.com.
Here's what Dana had to say about this exciting project:
"If we're going to help people make this a permanent lifestyle change, we have to first really understand not just how you and I do it, but the secrets of as many successful low carbers as possible. And we need to know why the people who have gained their weight back fell by the wayside after initial success."
What an opportunity to have your story told by one of the best writers I know. And she's livin' la vida low-carb, too! :)
Once again, e-mail your story to Dana Carpender NO LATER THAN NOON ON SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2007 at voiceofthepeople@holdthetoast.com. I've already agreed to share my 180-pound Atkins weight loss success story and hope to have several of you join me in the book, too. Don't delay...let Dana hear from you TODAY!
For those of you who are new to the "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog, you may or may not be aware of who Dana Carpender is. She's probably the most well-known and prolific low-carb author out there sharing the positive message of the low-carb lifestyle to the masses through her incredible cookbooks.
In this changing media climate regarding low-carb diets, I can certainly understand why she made these changes, but it was still disappointing that this great spokesperson for livin' la vida low-carb had to bow to the publishing gods and remove "low-carb" from the description of what and who she is. In my interview with her last year, she explained why she thinks low-carb is not as important as glycemic load. Okay, I can understand people who feel that way.
But what's the old saying about you can take the dog out of the hunt, but you can't take the hunt out of the dog? Sorry Dana, I'm not calling you a dog except to say you are STILL fighting VERY hard to get the low-carb message out there and your latest column proves it yet again.
If you haven't read it yet, then go RIGHT NOW to read the fantastic article "Take this low-fat diet and shove it." You'll be rolling in tears laughing at the low-fatties with this masterpiece from the Dana Carpender we all know and love.
Okay, okay, I can't resist sharing a few gems with you:
"Is diet season over? I'm weary of ads touting how low-fat this or that food is. If Jared tells me one more time that I ought to eat those sandwiches because they have only 6 grams of fat, I'm going to reach through the screen and smack him."
ROTFLMAO! Now, every time I see those obnoxious Subway commercials with Jared getting in an arguing match with Michael Strahan about those sandwiches having "less fat," I get this picture in my mind of a rabid Dana Carpender yanking her shoe off and throwing it at the television screen! LOL! You get 'em, Dana!
"Let me put it simply: There is no health benefit from a low-fat diet. Is that clear enough?"
Crystal clear to me, Dana! And this study she cites in her column confirms it. She goes on to talk about all the "high-fat foods" that are "healthful," including nuts, olive oil, chocolate, and beef. Not exactly the staples of a low-fat diet, wouldn't you say?
I LOVED this part of Dana's column the best:
"Fat has more than twice as many calories per gram as protein or carbohydrate...the idea behind a low-fat diet for weight control was that by cutting out fatty foods, you would automatically cut calories and thus lose weight. This idea makes sense in theory but turns out not to work so well in real life. As we cut our fat intake, our calorie intake went up, not down."
She's so right and this argument by low-fat supporters like Dr. Dean Ornish that since fat has over twice as many calories as carbs or protein never sat well with me. It totally neglects the satiety factor not just of fat, but protein too.
Dana ends her column with a bang: "Low fat is dead. Americans just haven't buried it yet."
For those of you who were concerned about whether the Dana Carpender of old has changed her message since her column name changed, hopefully this latest article from her will remove all doubts from your mind. It certainly has mine!
Check out more of Dana Carpender at her fantastic web site LowCarbohydrate.net, including her new blog featuring that classic Carpender commentary and her delicious low-carb recipes you can't live without. ENJOY!
Following my wild and wacky week where over 25,000 pageviews were registered at my "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog, the forward momentum in the empassioned enthusiasm about the low-carb lifestyle hasn't slowed down a bit. WOO HOO!
While many of the visitors to my blog in the first week of January were long-time readers, I was pleased to see so many new people popping on here to find out what this low-carb diet thing is all about. If that's YOU, then WELCOME and stay a while. I don't bite...too hard! :)
I have a couple of thought-provoking e-mails about a couple of people who each weigh over 550 pounds to share with you from my inbox that will break your heart, but at the same time should be a solemn reminder of why we have chosen this way of eating to help us manage our weight and health.
Here's the first e-mail:
I just had to write you. I know you read that a lot, but still it is true. I found your site because of Dana Carpender. I don't get the chance to read it everyday or even every week, but I have to congratulate you on your success and let you know I will also be keeping your brother in my prayers.
I have to tell you I went on a low-carb diet about 3 years ago and lost 85 lbs in about 3 months. I know this seems like a lot but but I weighed in at 550 pounds so losing a lot very quickly isn't unusual. I joined Weight Watchers at one point and they were concerned about my quick weight loss on low-carb and wanted to modify the program for me. But, like all low-fat diets, I was hungry all the time no matter what I ate. I would wake up thinking about food and go to sleep still thinking about it. But once I got back on low-carb I would have found I often forgot to eat and had to make myself do it.
By the time I finally found out and read about low carb diets, including The South Beach Diet, Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution and of course Dana Carpenter's books, I was up to 550 and had become disabled with back problems due to my weight. I stayed with it and ate normal even when others in my family weren't until Thanksgiving came. I enjoyed my turkey dinner, but then I went back to it afterwards.
Somehow, though, I let myself be talked into giving up low-carb until after Christmas--that was two years ago. Well let's just say I have tried several times to get back on the low-carb lifestyle again but I have yet to succeed. So here it is January 2007 and two years have passed over which time I have gain nearly all of my weight back.
This year I am determined to get back on it and stay there. I can't stand not being able to walk, to go out, to even go to a store and buy stuff I need. I try not to think about it too much but I haven't been out of this house more than a dozen times in the last three years. So my goal this year is to lose enough weight to be able to get out of the house and maybe even go shopping.
You don't know how bad I want to feel better, healthier, and to help my mom live longer. My mom has been having some difficult health issues of her own this past year and I want her to live to be at least 99. Right now she's 71 years old and she is overweight weighing around 260 pounds with high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.
I'm sorry this e-mail is all over the place, but part of what I have found is that between my weight, the diet sodas I drink, and being trapped inside of this house like a prisoner, I feel like I just can't focus. I hope this makes sense to you.
I love your blog and would love to read past blog posts if there is a way to do that. Also, if you have any suggestions or helpful hints about what I can do to lose weight, then I would love to hear from you. I haven't followed any low-carb program in particular, but simply tried to keep my carbs at around 50-80 grams daily and never going lower than 30. This has worked wonderfully for myself and my mother but wasn't enough carbs for my sister, so I think this time I will move the carb count up.
Sorry for the rambling, but I appreciate all your work and effort to keep everyone informed on how wonderful a low-carb diet can be for a lot of us out here. Thank you again!
Whew! That was SOME e-mail, wasn't it? It's a sad story that hopefully will have a happy ending for this person desperate to get her life back again. I'm so glad she found my blog last year when Dana Carpender advertised my blog in her Lowcarbezine! newsletter. If you have never even heard of Dana Carpender, she is the queen of livin' la vida low-carb with many bestselling low-carb cookbooks, including her latest release entitled the Every Calorie Counts Cookbook. I also invite you to read my engaging interview with her from last year where she opened up about the current state of low-carb in America.
While a lot of people like the support they get while on Weight Watchers, the fact is many people who fail to stay on the rigid low-fat, calorie-controlled diet they require have found a haven in livin' la vida low-carb. In fact, one of my faithful readers reported that they allowed him to speak at a recent Weight Watchers meeting and he captivated the attendees with his low-carb weight loss success which led to a thunderous round of applause when he was finished. I know they mean well with their program, but low-carb beats Weight Watchers in a head-to-head matchup every time!
At this point, it's been too long for you to ignore your weight problem as your health continues to be in decline. The best thing you can do is find a low-carb plan you feel like will work for you (not doing it on your own like this woman I talked about in one of my recent podcast shows), implement that plan exactly as the author wrote it, and then keep on doing it for the rest of your life.
But even before you do all of that, you need to RIGHT NOW make up your mind you want to SERIOUSLY do this. Weight loss experts have said that success must first begin in the mind before it can be manifested physically in your body. Stop living in fear of the unknown and the misery of settling for the life you've been dealt. Make today the first day of your brand new life. It CAN happen, but it's up to YOU!
Keep reading resources like Dana Carpender's web site and my blog as well as the many of low-carb resources that are available to you. By the way, accessing my older columns is really pretty easy. At the bottom right-hand side of this blog, I keep an archives section with all of my previous posts divided by the months since I started. With nearly 1,500 posts, that's a lot to go through but there are many encouraging and educating columns in there to give you hope and inspiration in this journey.
I'll go ahead and post the archives here for your convenience:
THANK YOU again for sending me an e-mail. I am always available to help you in any way that I can, so don't hesitate to e-mail me anytime! Next up is a woman who was shaken back into the reality of her own weight problem after seeing her cousin in North Carolina who has allowed his weight to climb to 560 pounds. She is a strong believer in God and is praying her faith along with her knowledge of livin' la vida low-carb will help him and her before it's too late.
Here's her e-mail:
Hi Jimmy,
I just wanted to say congratulations on your weight loss. I came across your blog and read your story today. You are truly an inspiration for alot of people including me. I just started the low-carb for the bazillionth time but this time I'm staying real focused and, of course, asking for help from God. I believe in the power of prayer and just recently got back from North Carolina visiting my cousin who was in the hospital. He was not getting enough oxygen so his lips were turning blue while in the ICU.
When I saw him he had a oxygen mask on and I was devistated. His weight had climbed to 560 pounds. This was really a wake-up call for me as I have struggled most all my life with weight problems. I guess it runs in the family, but I am trying to do something about it now. I have never been this determined.
We all had a prayer chain going for my cousin because the doctor told his mom that he only had a 50/50 chance of making it. So now I'm happy to say he's out of the hospital, and trying real hard to lose weight. His wanted to have gastric bypass surgery, but the doctors said they couldn't do it until he loses over a 100 pounds. But I have some reservations myself about that surgery.
I am going to keep on the low-carb lifestyle and see where it takes me this time. I just wanted some support from someone who's been there like yourself and I was so inspired by how much weight you lost. I hope I haven't bored you with my story. I'm just reaching out to chat rather than eat something I shouldn't. LOL! Well, it was nice talking to ya and hope to hear from you soon.
Another tear-jerker of an e-mail, eh? You know, my heart aches for people who are 400, 500, or even 1200 pounds like Manuel Uribe was not that long ago. I know the pain of weighing more than "normal" and the pain that comes from people staring at you like you're some space alien. It's no fun at all.
But livin' la vida low-carb can and will help. It certainly changed my life for the better and I'll never look back again. I hate to see your cousin contemplating gastric bypass since low-carb is the diet he'll be eating after surgery anyway. Why not just stick with the low-carb lifestyle to begin with rather than having your insides all cut up? This is something my mom, who had gastric bypass surgery in December 2003, has now started.
This reader was so excited about getting going on her low-carb lifestyle again that she responded back one more time:
Hey Jimmy,
Thanks for replying to me. It's so supportive to talk to other low-carbers on this long journey. But I know I will make it this time because I'm hyped up for this. I'm already feeling my clothes getting loose. Yeah! So, have you still maintained your weight loss? Thanks again for the reply.
I LOVE it when people get excited about livin' la vida low-carb. That excitement should NEVER die because it will propel you to great success. And YES, I have kept my weight off that I lost in 2004. I am trying to get below 200 pounds, one of five health-related goals I have set for myself in 2007. I am confident I will achieve all of them, but it won't be without a little effort on my part.
CONGRATULATIONS to everyone who has made the fateful decision to start livin' la vida low-carb in 2007. I encourage you to make this way of eating your New LIFE resolution and I guarantee you will never be the same again. YOU CAN DO THIS and I'm gonna be here to help you in any way that I can. Please don't hesitate to e-mail me anytime at livinlowcarbman@charter.net. I don't have all the answers, but I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have for me.
Dana Carpender opens up about her life in my exclusive interview
What's not to love about bestselling low-carb cookbook author Dana Carpender? She has taken her success on a low-carb diet and parlayed it into a very successful writing career (check out all the Dana Carpender books on Amazon.com) that has won her critical acclaim and created a name for herself along the way. When I started my blog in April 2005, Dana was one of the first low-carb celebrities I came across and I have found her to be a very forthright, firm believer in the principles of livin' la vida low-carb. That's why I named her to my list of low-carb "movers & shakers" in 2005.
Then I learned that Dana was a fan of my blog and we began corresponding via e-mail. Despite being the well-known low-carb cooking goddess that she is, I found her to be nothing but a gracious and wonderful woman who would like nothing better than to help people live healthier lives with better food choices. That's why she has been so prolific with her numerous books, including her latest one called "Every Calorie Counts Cookbook."
But, she hasn't been without controversy this year when she removed the "low-carb" label from her popular syndicated newspaper column and her latest book. Nevertheless, with tens of thousands of subscribers to her Lowcarbezine! and the creation of a new URL for her web site entitled LowCarbohydrate.net, it's obvious this incredible woman is not even close to giving up on low-carb anytime soon.
I think you'll see how apparent that is in my exclusive interview:
1. Hey Dana, thanks so much for being a fan of my blog and what we are doing here to spread the good word about livin' la vida low-carb. You have been extremely successful in your writing career so far. So, how does it feel to be a bestselling author with over 1.5 million books sold so far (and counting!)?
Beats working for a living. ;-D
Seriously, it's been really wonderful. For a while there, in '03 and '04, it was very hard -- I was out of town on publicity a LOT, and learned that traveling on business sounds a whole lot more glamorous and exciting than it really is. It's mostly just tiring. And I turned in 6 manuscripts in 18 months, which I'm not sure is even supposed to be possible. But overall, it's been fantastic to mostly stay at home with my dogs, do what I love to do -- putter around the kitchen while listening to soaps and Law & Order reruns -- and be amply rewarded for it.
Even better has been the incredible feedback from readers. Knowing that my books have been a huge help to people in improving their health, and their families' health, too -- there are few things that have brought me that kind of joy. When people write and say stuff like, "My kids love your recipes -- now when I'm cooking dinner, they always ask "Is this a 'Dana recipe?'" -- that warms my heart like a blowtorch.
People send me their personal health stories, too. One woman even wrote and said that she and her husband had been trying to have a baby for a long time, unaware that she had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS,) a really serious carbohydrate intolerance disorder that causes massive hormal derangement, including infertility. But she'd read "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds," gone low carb, gotten pregnant, and had a healthy baby. I LIVE for stories like that.
And of course, it was nice making some real money. I have a bigger house now (nothing ridiculous, but we've gone from 1500 square feet to 3000 square feet) and some investments. I may even get to retire some day!
2. You can definitely sense your genuine passion and enthusiasm for the low-carb lifestyle in your books and that is something that has obviously helped you connect with your fans. How did you get interested in writing and when did you think you could actually do this for a living?
I always knew I could write -- English was my best subject in school, and I made straight A's in creative writing -- but I really didn't know what to write about. As you say, I have a passion for nutrition, and particularly for low carb nutrition. It was the life-changing experience of going low carb that gave me something I wanted to share so much I just HAD to write about it. I was answering questions all the time anyway.
I didn't expect writing to turn into a full-time living, though. I wrote and self-published "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds" after I figured out that I would have to sell 400 copies to make back our investment of $3000 -- that didn't seem impossible. But I didn't expect to make anything more than a little extra money doing it.
I confess, it wasn't even my idea to write a cookbook. It was my editor, Holly, who suggested it. I had agreed to sell a revised, expanded edition of "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds" to Fair Winds Press, and was on track to give it to them by January of 2002. Long about November 1, 2001, Holly, who knew I published recipes in every edition of Lowcarbezine!, called me up and said, "No, wait! We want a cookbook first! You've got 500 recipes, right?" I did a quick count, and said, "Uh, no, only 300." "But you can have 200 more by March, right?"
I joke that I spent that winter proving you can gain weight on a low carb diet -- all you have to do is cook and eat FIVE NEW RECIPES A DAY! (Do you know what the hardest part about cooking that much was? It wasn't all the cooking, or all the grocery shopping, or even all the dishwashing. It was eating all those leftovers with only two people in the house! I had a couple of single male friends who would come haul leftovers away once a week, and I still ended up throwing away way too much food.)
But I discovered I really liked the job, and was pretty good at it. And the rest, as they say, is history.
3. Your low-carb weight loss success story has been an inspiration to people who have tried and failed at diet after diet, mostly low-fat ones, because you proved there wasn't anything wrong with them regarding their weight problem. How did you discover the low-carb lifestyle and do you still adhere to this way of eating today?
Today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life. I can't imagine going back to a carb-heavy diet, the very idea makes me shudder. I'm not as strict as I once was; I'm more likely to eat fruit, and not worry about stuff like root vegetables, but go back to eating cereal and rice and potatoes and bread? And (brrrrr!) SUGAR? Never.
I've been fascinated with nutrition since I was 19 and read my first nutrition book. (Psychodietics, by Cheraskin and Ringsdorf, still in print.) Once I "got it" that how I ate had EVERYTHING to do with how I felt, physically and emotionally, it never occurred to me NOT to eat as healthily as possible, though I sadly made the mistake for a while of believing that a low fat/high carb diet was healthy.
Your younger readers may be interested to know that when I got interested in nutrition in 1978, all the nutrition books advocated eating lots of protein, NO sugar or white flour, plenty of fruits and vegetables, and plenty of healthy fats -- and to go easy on even unrefined grains if you had a weight problem. It's embarrassing that I fell for low fat/high carb mania. I can only say in my defense that I wanted to believe. It was like telling an alcoholic that their best dinner was a six pack and a shot.
By the summer of 1995, I was eating low fat/high carb and GAINING weight, despite plenty of exercise. When I discovered that my blood pressure was borderline high for the first time in my life, I was panicky. I was doing EVERYTHING the AUTHORITIES told me should make me slim, energetic, and healthy, and I was getting WORSE.
I was flipping through a nutrition book from the 1950s, Gayelord Hauser's New Treasury of Secrets, and one sentence jumped out at me. It said, "Obesity has nothing to do with how much you eat; it is, instead, a carbohydrate intolerance disease." I thought, "What the heck do I have to lose?" I dropped the carbs out of my diet. By three days later my clothes were loose, and my energy level was soaring. I never looked back.
I LIKE eating low carb. I enjoy it. The food is great. Last night I had Thai chicken panang -- red curried soup with homemade chicken broth and coconut milk, lots of chicken, plus mushrooms and green peppers. I'm supposed to prefer macaroni and cheese? I don't THINK so.
And I haven't forgotten the nasty, nasty energy dropouts I had when I was eating low fat/high carb. I could barely keep my eyes open every evening between 5-8 pm. Who wants to go back there? Or, for that matter, back to a size 20? Or high blood pressure? Who wants to develop diabetes? Go blind? Lose her toes?
4. Recipes are obviously your field of expertise and you stuff your books with literally hundreds of them. How do you come up with all these recipes for your books? Also, please share a little bit of the behind-the-scenes process of what you do to create these delicious dishes.
There are a few ways I come up with recipes. Sometimes I just have an idea, and I run with it. My recipe for Mediterranean Turkey Stir-fry (15 Minute Low Carb Recipes) is an example -- I just thought, "Hmmm. Bet that would taste good..." So I tried it, and sure enough it did.
My biggest source of recipes is other people's recipes. I do a LOT of adapting existing recipes to my nutritional standards -- substituting Splenda for sugar, shredded cauliflower for rice, turnips for potatoes, cutting back on "borderline" ingredients like onions, that sort of thing. I own a LOT of cookbooks -- four full bookcases and counting -- and I flip through them constantly, looking for recipes to adapt.
I also take ideas for flavor combinations from existing recipes and use them in a different way. For instance, just last week I took a recipe for gorgonzola-walnut stuffed tortellini with roasted red pepper sauce, and turned it into an omelet recipe. Made a filling similar to the tortellini filling, and a sauce similar to the roasted red pepper sauce (but without the flour thickener; I used guar instead,) then used the filling in omelets and topped them with the sauce. Divine. (Did I mention I like eating this way?)
I'll even get inspirations from menus, and from the grocery store deli case and the like. When I was writing Low Carb Smoothies, I sat in an Applebee's writing down all the descriptions of those fruity umbrella drinks, to get ideas for flavor combinations. And when I saw two layers of salmon fillet with feta and spinach sandwiched between them in the fish case at my local grocery store I thought, "I can do that."
5. What is your favorite kind of recipe to make?
Anything one-dish. Soups, stir-fries, skillet suppers, main dish salads. I find this sort of thing more interesting both to cook and to eat than a slab of whatever sort of meat, poultry or fish, with a veg on the side.
And I'd eat dog food if you curried it. Yum.
6. Low-carb was the "in" thing as little as a couple of years ago, but it has quickly fallen out of favor with the media who continues to misrepresent and taint what it is to the general public. What do you recommend people who are livin' la vida low-carb do to share with others about this amazing nutritional approach to help them lose weight and get healthy?
I'm not big on forcing advice on people who don't want it. My friends often will apologize to me for eating things I wouldn't eat. (True story -- a friend called one day, and before she even said "Hi, how are you? she said, "You'll be mad at me. I ate a Butterfinger at work today.") My response is always, "I'm information, not enforcement."
But I do think we should be upfront when people ask us how we lost weight, or why we're not having the potatoes and the dessert. You can look for the "teachable moment."
It's also a good idea to keep an eye on the research, so you can intelligently counter any flak you get. Your blog and Regina Wilshire's are a great place to do that, and a Google News Alert on "low carbohydrate" and "glycemic load" are also helpful, though often I get news stories about how a low carb diet is baaaaad because after all, it's full of fat. But I can ignore those, since they rarely include any actual research.
I confess to taking some wicked fun in having people say negative stuff about low carb around me -- especially when they say things like "It may work short term, but you just can't stay on that diet for the long haul." Uh, it's been more than eleven years now. Am I supposed to explode or something?
7. Your nationally syndicated column and latest book both removed the term "low-carb" recently because of the negative association that has been attributed to that term. Where do you see the future of the term "low-carb" as a description for eliminating and/or reducing refined carbohydrates from our diet going? Is there a better term we can be using instead?
The current shift is to low glycemic load diets. The medical research is stacking up that a high glycemic load is a risk factor for a lot of the stuff doctors have blamed on fat for the past 20-30 years -- heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.
Too, as I've discussed with you, Jimmy, for some odd reason, the more syllables you use to describe something the less threatening people find it. So "low carb" is scary, "low glycemic load" less so. I find "controlled carbohydrate" also scares people less. We can use this odd quirk of psychology to our benefit -- and society's benefit, too.
The media tends to use the term "low glycemic load" incorrectly, but then they never got the difference between "simple" and "complex" carbs right, either. (FTR: "Complex carbs" are starches, whether refined or unrefined. "Simple carbs" are sugars, again, whether refined or unrefined. White bread is a complex carb, fruit is simple one. The common misuse of these terms drives me mildly batty, an eccentricity for which I hope I may be forgiven.)
They keep listing the whole grains they're currently pushing as having a "low glycemic load," which is simply untrue unless you eat them in teeny portions. Glycemic load equals glycemic index times the *number of grams of carbohydrate eaten*, so limiting the total number of grams of carbohydrate eaten is a VITAL part of keeping glycemic load low. And most grain foods don't have that low a glycemic index to begin with (and it goes through the roof if you process them. Cheerios have a glycemic index of 74!) By definition, a low glycemic load will strictly limit non-fiber carbs.
Still, the media cluelessness doesn't have to affect us! We can simply -- and accurately -- describe our way of eating as a low glycemic load diet.
(I might insert here that the best low carb book I've read in the past year is "The Glycemic Load Diet" by Rob Thompson, MD. Dr. Thompson points out that if you go by glycemic index alone, some veggies look forbidding, while some grains look pretty good, but if you sort by glycemic load, it becomes clear that carbs pretty much sort themselves into grains and potatoes, bad, versus fruits and vegetables, good -- simply because the starchy foods have so MUCH carbohydrate in them. Obviously, this parallels how most of us long-time low carbers eat -- lots of veggies with our protein, and some fruit, but virtually no grains or potatoes.)
I confess, though, I still pretty much refer to myself as "low carb." As in "Could I get an extra serving of the steamed vegetables instead of the potato? I'm one of those low carb types.") Truth to tell, in my day to day life I don't much care what others think of how I eat. I do care about what it takes to gain a public forum, which is why the change in the books and the column. It doesn't do anyone any good for me to be a linguistic purist but not have a public voice.
8. Obesity rates keep getting worse and worse as the years go by. What is it going to take, either from the grassroots level or from the government, to turn the tide of this literally "growing" problem?
Gosh, I really hope it's mostly grassroots. I don't think the government should be in the business of dictating what we may and may not eat. Especially since even confining themselves to recommendations they've been disastrously wrong.
I will admit, however, to toying with the idea of national health insurance funded by a great big tax on anything made with sugar, corn syrup, or hydrogenated vegetable oil. I figure that way those who need the most health care will be paying the most.
Political action will come locally, from the grassroots. There's a growing movement among parents to pressure the schools to get soda and candy machines out of the schools, which can only be for the good. I've also read of school systems that have started sending home notices asking parents not to send sugary treats for their kids to share with classmates for birthdays, suggesting non-food treats like stickers instead. I'm all for stuff like this.
But overwhelmingly, it's going to have to come from the individuals. It's going to require a shift away from the overwhelming American reliance on convenience foods, and a willingness to do basic home cooking. It's also going to take a willingness for parents to say "no" to their children, to refuse to buy junk, or to allow it in their homes.
It's going to take roasting a chicken instead of stopping at KFC. It's going to take banning soda from your home. It's going to take endless confrontations with people who think your children are poor deprived creatures deserving of pity because you don't feed them garbage.
It's also going to take a major shift in the adult mindset regarding what constitutes pleasure. I had a conversation just last weekend with a woman I'd just met (we were camping.) I said, in response to an offer of candy, that I didn't eat sugar. She said, "Oh, boy, I do. You only live once!" To which I replied, "Yeah, I want to live feeling good." She was obviously impressed by the answer; it had never occurred to her that *not* eating junk could be its own reward.
Our society needs to increase exercise too, of course. As gas becomes more and more expensive, we're learning that it was sheerest folly to build whole communities where it's impossible to safely walk or bike anywhere, but it's not just the price in gas that should concern us, it's the price to our health, as well. Local government will come in, here, because adding the sidewalks and bike paths we've left out of all those sprawling subdivisions of winding streets and cul-de-sacs will take a series of public projects. Decentralizing commercial districts, so that every neighborhood has a little grocery store residents can walk to will require changes in zoning. But again, changes in local government come from the grassroots.
As gas becomes prohibitive, I hope that people will decide to use muscle power instead, for a million things. Rakes instead of leaf blowers, walk-behind lawn mowers instead of yard tractors, canoes or peddleboats for fun instead of jet skis, cross-country skiing instead of snowmobiles, these are the sorts of changes that will add up to a healthier America.
But I hope it starts to snowball soon. The latest research regarding Alzheimer's disease indicates that it's a form of diabetes of the brain. If that is, indeed, the case, we're in for a terrifying time as the "never drinks anything that isn't sugary" generation ages. We low carbers may be the last sane people left standing.
9. What's next for Dana Carpender? Is cookbook writing still the fire that burns within you or do you have a desire to write any other kind of book? What other projects are you working on?
I would LOVE to write another cookbook. It's been just a year since I turned in the manuscript for "Every Calorie Counts Cookbook," and I have found I really miss writing cookbooks. However, low carb cookbooks are hard to sell to the publishing industry these days, and I refuse to write a cookbook full of grains and sugar. I'd rather go back to massage therapy, my previous occupation; I always liked it anyway.
I'm toying with the idea of returning to self-publishing. I was a self-published author to begin with, and did okay with it. It's hard to beat the editorial freedom. But I haven't given up on selling another book to a publisher, and I'd LOVE suggestions from your readers as to what sort of cookbook they could use. They can send suggestions to dana@holdthetoast.com.
My agent has suggested I write a follow-up to "How I Gave Up My Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds," covering the research that's come out since, and where the whole issue of carbohydrate control is going. I'm working on getting a handle on it, but it's an appealing project; there's SO much bad information out there. It kills me that people are STILL afraid of egg yolks, but think of soy as health food.
In the meanwhile, I'm working on a proposal for a book on fashion with a good friend of mine who's a top-flight professional stylist. It's a BIG change, and a little daunting, but fun.
10. You have a considerable following with your books, syndicated column and your wildly popular Lowcarbezine. Is there a parting message you would like to say to all of your supporters out here in the land of livin' la vida low-carb?
Thanks for your love, support, humor, intelligence, ideas, and all the great recipes you've contributed. You've taught me my job. And I'm proud to be part of this community.
Also, thanks for your patience. I started last January going back to a weekly publishing schedule for Lowcarbezine!, but got derailed by the Year From Hell. The response from my readers has been overwhelmingly kind, and I thank them.
And thank you to every single one of you who's bought one -- or more! -- of my books. I hope you like them and find them useful.
THANK YOU, Dana, for your many years of service to the low-carb community. I hope people who read this interview will sense the same thing that I did about you--that you haven't changed a bit! And we like it that way! :)
