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Posted on Tue, Dec. 16, 2003
www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/living/7499061.htm
BY NANCI HELLMICH
USA Today
An explosion of low-carb foods is contributing to diet failure. Experts staffing the Atkins customer information service are getting calls and questions online from disappointed dieters who can't understand why they aren't losing weight.
The problem, the experts say: Dieters are eating too many of these new low-carb protein bars, muffins and brownies, which are low in carbohydrates but often high in calories.
It's a trend similar to problems dieters faced in the 1980s and 1990s with eating too much low-fat processed food.
The low-carb market is booming: Nearly 500 new low-carb products have been introduced since 2001, according to Global New Products Database in Chicago.
The popularity is largely due to diets like Atkins, which slashes carbs (found in sweets, potatoes, pasta, some starchy vegetables and many fruits) and "The South Beach Diet," which trims them way back for the first two weeks.
Atkins' customer support team has received questions from dieters who were not losing weight on the diet, because they were eating too many low-carb products and not following the program, says Colette Heimowitz, a nutritionist for the Atkins companies.
"They cannot sacrifice their vegetables for low-carb products. The products were formulated to make the lifestyle easier, not as a substitute for healthy eating habits."
Even patients of cardiologist Arthur Agatston, author of "The South Beach Diet," have gotten tripped up, says Marie Almon, a registered dietitian who works in his practice.
The products can be "diet sabotages," Almon says.
One woman on the diet was treating herself, twice a day, to a piece of low-carb cheesecake, instead of the low-fat cheese and celery stick that the diet recommends. And she was wondering why she was gaining weight, Almon says.
People in this country "have such a track record of doing this," says Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of nutrition at Penn State.
Dieters thought they could eat low-fat foods and not worry about calories, but they ate too many and got into trouble, she says. Now, people are cutting carbs, which is another strategy for losing weight. But eating too many of these processed foods means consuming too many calories.
Robyn Flipse, a registered dietitian in Ocean, N.J., who doesn't put her clients on low-carb diets, says some people see it as more convenient to eat a low-carb protein bar than a hamburger without a bun or a pizza without the crust.
She says some of the new products provide too many nibbling options.
You can't "nosh on protein all day if you are relying on meat, tuna or hard-boiled eggs. Those aren't the foods that you can open your desk drawer and pick at."
But it's easy to keep a stash of some of these low-carb foods, she says.
