i am so sick of protein worship

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every four months or so clusters of people around me will kvell about the atkins diet and how it's so awesome and how they've lost so much weight in a week. of course, every time the clusters start up it's a different bunch of people since no one can really KEEP IT OFF with this particular regime unless they go semi-mental and make branded products about their newfound love of protein. i want to stuff their mouths full of white bread made with bleached flour because i just cannot cope anymore. whatever happened to exercise and drinking water? maybe i should get friends who have better body image.

― maura, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

so, fad diets, c or d? also what do you make of all this 'atkins is right' research that's been going round lately?

― maura, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

this is ridiculous. protein diet is not healthy. i was just reading something about this. basically, just because too much carbs is wrong doesn't mean that only protein is right. also mentioned: "you can lose weight on phen fen (or whatever its called) but that doesn't mean it's healthy"

― Ron, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

whats exercise?

― di, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Have I talked about how much I love bagels?

― geeta, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

whats protein?

― di, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How about eating whatever you like but watching your calorie and saturated fat intake and doing a bit of cardio every now and again (brisk walk, maybe)? This still seems to be the only proven method of sustained weight-loss. It's slow, mind.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thank god i don't hang around anyone who gives a shit about what they weigh.

― di, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't think I get nearly as much protein as the RDA. What happens when you don't get enough protein?

― N., Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

blimey yes maura, i agree 100%. i mean i'm hardly Kate Moss and i'm a bit overweight in the beer gut department, but i'm basically fit and healthy. which is more than can be said for my friend S, who has lost a DRAMATIC amount of weight through eating no carbs, whose bones you can see but whose muscles you cannot (for they do not exist - her body has cannibalised them in its quest for energy), who craves sweets and cakes constantly and whose breath smells... chemical. i dread to think what her kidneys are going through. and the irony is that as SOON as you start eating properly again all that muscle you lost will be replaced by fat!

― katie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nick, it's quite difficult NOT to get enough protein in the Western diet as you actually DON'T NEED ALL THAT MUCH. a reasonbly balanced diet should provide you with all the amino acids etc that your body needs to make protein - animal products (and tofu and quinoa!!) have the most "complete" ready made proteins, but most vegetable foods contain incomplete proteins that all get put together in your body, like. if you don't get enough protein you develop some disease that i can't pronounce.

― katie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you don't get enough protein you end up looking thin and emaciated with callow skin and visible bone structure.

NICK YOU NEED PROTEIN.

― Pete, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I actually attempted that bloody diet (my rational: EAT CHEESE WITHOUT GUILT). I lasted three days before I felt sick and feeble and generally manky and I thought 'Sod this' and went and ate nice organic brown bread toast and a strawberry yoghurt and a big cup of tea with sugar and felt lots lots better within an hour. I also ran into Emma on the tube on the day I gave up, but these things are not connected.

― Anna, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So I was a fat teen and have completely changed, and the only way to do it is to follow Michael's advice above. It's not even hard and I barely have to pay attention anymore. And don't think of it as a diet, you're going to be doing it forever. So, just look at the saturated fat percentage on food labels (cheese, mayo, almost any processed food and anything at restaurants will be loaded with it - so go easy). Also, just walk to and from somewhere everyday. If you do any more strenuous cardio, you'll get nicely toned too.

― Spencer Chow, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ha ha I am a poster girl for carbohydrates. Pete skin is SALLOW not CALLOW you fool. What is it with you people and the word Callow?

Diets are mentalism, I was horrifically strict & exercised like a bastard the other week and gained 2 lbs. Then the following week I was, er, moderately indulgent (icecream, biscuits, beer etc though not all at once) and went to the gym once and lost 5 lbs. The human body is a mysterious thing.

― Emma, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know someone who has been on a hi-protein / no-carb / no-sugar diet for two years. [The guy grinds up linseed for breakfast, which looks healthy, then he smothers it in 1/2L of cream...yick] He has<\em> lost a lot of weight, but does that make him any less likely to die of a heart attack? I suspect the obverse (calques (sp?) etc).
Personally, because of a strange allergy, I can't eat any complex proteins (meat, dairy) and it's one f'n huge drag, especially cos cheese was my favourite food. Oh double cream blue cheese how I miss thee. So...this whole thread is bad, bad taste.
― debaser, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

debaser, no your friend is probably less likely to die of a heart attack, but only cos kidney failure will get him first.
― katie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

curse the italics! also, have you tried looking at vegan recipe sites (yeah philistines etc etc etc) - there are a LOT of fantastic things you can eat instead although it's a drag about the cheese :(
― katie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is is true that if your piss is yellow that means there's urea in it which normally means unneeded protein has been broken down (ie. you don't need as much)?
So is Pete saying that lo-protein and hi-protein diets both promote weight loss?
I am callow but not sallow.
― N., Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How about yellow.
And I know nothing about food. I eat what I want, exercise moderately and hence am vaguely dumpy.
― Pete, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If your piss is yellow you are dehydrated and should drink more water.
I have been reading things lately that say that scoffing lots of fat doesn't NECESSARILY affect stuff like cholesterol / likelihood of getting a heart attack. My dad has always had about an inch of butter on his toast + cream AND icecream on his puddings + loves red meat but has a much lower cholesterol level than my uncle who eats none of this stuff at all. I dunno. I am not a doctor. Eat what you fancy in moderation, innit.
― Emma, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

<\em>Look at debaser with his/her logical tags!
― N., Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That don't close!

― RickyT, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm no chemistry graduate or anything, but the prinicple behind the protein diet is that if you only eat protein - your body will not have the necesary amino acid precursors to store any extra energy away as fat? So basically, you start shedding all that fat and don't store any. The problem is that eating only proteins is very very hard on your kidney and can cause long term damage to it. If you go very extreem on it you force your body into ketosis, where you start losing your muscle - processing it instead to get the energy you need. That's what happens to people who are starving!

The biggest problem with fad diets is that it is a temporary change and people just gain back the weight once the go off it. People forget the reason they have gained the weight in the first place is because of a bad diet or lack of exercise, and the only way to keep the weight off for good is not "To Diet" but is to change your exisiting Diet for the good.

I did this staring in January - smaller portions of food, a bit less sweets, and exercise 1 or 2 or 3 times a week. I've got some nice muscle tone and have lost 8 kg.

― marianna, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i don't think urea has a colour. i think the colour is all the other waste stuff. so in summary, what was said above about dehydration

― Alan T, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The color of pee comes from the pigment urochrome but I don't know where that comes from. The smell of pee comes from the acid in the urine!

― marianna, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Acutally, this is a much better desciption of ketosis:

"Being in ketosis means your body has burned a large amount of fat in response to the fact that it didn't have sufficient glucose available for energy needs. Under everyday conditions, the carbohydrates you eat are converted to glucose, which is the body's primary source of energy. Whenever your intake of carbohydrates is limited to a certain range, for a long enough period of time, you'll reach a point where your body draws on its alternate energy system, fat stores, for fuel.

This condition called dietary ketosis, means your body burns fat and turns it into a source of fuel called ketones. Ketones are produced whenever body fat is burned. When you burn a larger amount of fat than is immediately needed for energy, the excess ketones are discarded in the urine.

Some of the benefits many people experience while in a state of dietary ketosis for intentional weight loss may include rapid weight loss, decreased hunger and cravings, improved mood, increased energy and, as long as protein intake is adequate, protection of lean muscle mass. "

― marianna, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And this is the description of ketosis from an Anti-Atkins site:

"Research has shown that high-protein diets lead to calcium loss, which in turn can lead to osteoporosis. After a few days on a low- carb diet (less than 100 grams per day), a person develops ketosis. Ketosis occurs when the body, starved for the glucose in carbohydrate, begins to metabolize muscle tissue instead of fat. Ketosis causes dehydration (shown as water weight loss), headaches, irritability, bad breath, lightheadedness and can be fatal to diabetics.

The lack of fiber from complex carbohydrates leads to constipation, and the consumption of high-fat, high cholesterol and saturated fat foods in the diet are related to an increased risk for heart disease and stroke."

― marianna, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sallow/callow confusion maybe from main use of latter in phrase 'callow youths', which conjures lanky, sickly coloured young men, the kind that have been wilted in a darkened bedroom like a badly treated houseplant.(?)

― Ellie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The sad thing is that the AIM of this diet is to get to ketosis as quickly as possible - there are so many pro-eating disorder communities on the interweb and every single one of them does my head in. It's so painful to see the sheer bloody one-mindedness and obsession towards self-destruction and the god complex from people in a serious state, seeing them being so self-absorbed and hurtful... I worry, because I'm sure if I'd seen this kind of thing when I will ill myself, I could have done myself far worse damage than what has actually happened. How the hell is it helping someone to slowly kill themselves?

NB not saying that a brief spell on this diet is necessarily bad. But entering into any kind of diet can lead to obsessive behaviour. I read this thing from someone saying 'i have a theory... isn;t just exercise... and water and stuff... good' - NO SHIT SHERLOCK. But the fecking diet industry and these communities and PRESSURE has warped eating habits and diets and body image out of all proportion so sensible ways of losing weight/keeping fit have been pushed aside in favour of sheer bloody mentalism. GRR.

― Sarah, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

How the hell is it helping someone to slowly kill themselves?

You've summed up the last hundred years of self-loathing body fascism in a nutshell.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I figured the protein diet worked because protein-rich foods are generally less digestible than starchy foods, so most of it just passes through.

― Kris, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

every four months or so clusters of people around me will kvell about the atkins diet...

I was going to say that you should avoid associating with people who talk about diets, as I thought I did, except there are lots of people on this thread with whom I happily associate who are doing exactly that. But at least they are anti, which is as it should be.

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I thought it worked because you just eat less. Or at least I would because like 75% of what I eat is carbohydrates (er that's a bit unbalanced, oh well). Then one of my friends went on about how she lost 35 pounds on it a couple years ago and explained the whole ketosis thing and started again the week before prom with another girl. (She's kept all the weight off. I have no idea what the point of this post is, either. It didn't make her unhealthy or psychologically weird as far as I can tell, as she knew when she wanted to stop dieting and did.)

― Maria, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

twenty-four years pass...

"proteinmaxxing"

https://archive.ph/WGkr7

― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 September 2026 17:07 (one month ago)

no food is more baffling and off-putting to me than shit that boasts about PROTEIN all over the label

― he composed genius songs and all the rest was a crap (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 5 September 2026 17:27 (one month ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw0O2JP4Ih0

― Ed, Sunday, 6 September 2026 08:26 (one month ago)

it's when they started putting it in Mars Bars that i noticed the horror

― he composed genius songs and all the rest was a crap (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 6 September 2026 10:23 (one month ago)

can't remember where I saw this but it feels germane

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRubuodDlYc/

― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 6 September 2026 11:21 (one month ago)

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