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Saturday, September 21, 2002 |
Battle of the Diets
Weight Watchers and The Atkins Diet. The debate over how to lose weight has intensified recently. The official position of the US government for the last 30 years has been that a low calorie diet, heavy in carbohydrates and low in fat, is the healthiest diet. However, during that time many people have lost weight with the opposite diet, low in carbohydrates and high in fat. A July cover story in the New York Times Magazine, titled "What If It's All Been a Big Lie?," followed by a September cover story in Time, titled "What Really Makes You Fat?", both discussed the fact that the low calorie diets don't have any more scientific evidence going for them than the low carbohydrate ones, and that low carbohydrate diets may be reasonable and safe for many people. We'll compare one low calorie diet, Weight Watchers, with one low carbohydrate diet, the Atkins Diet. [kuro5hin.org]
Good piece comparing Atkins and Weight Watchers. Having lost over 8 pounds on Weight Watchers in the last 3 weeks, all I can say is "it works for me," and that's one of the points of the piece. (Or, more accurately, it's worked for me for the last 3 weeks.)
The deal with Weight Watchers, at least for me, is the way they get you to drink the Kool-Aid. With the weekly meetings, they suck you in, and give you lots of feedback (and sell you lots more products). For me, that part's been easy because the meetings are right around the corner.
As to the differences between Weight Watchers and Atkins, Atkins' approach with low carbohydrates is interesting. It's more pertinent to the diabetic, as carbs really boost blood sugar. Still, on Weight Watchers, my sugars have been nice and low.
7:23:54 PM Permalink
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Where are the songs of Spring?
"To Autumn," John Keats:
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue:
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Wonderful stuff. At The Atlantic, a very nice presentation of this poem, with RealAudio files of four poets reading it; I like the C.K. Williams reading best, but listen to them all. Sven Birkerts discussion of the poem is excellent.
(Note: The Atlantic ran this piece a couple months ago in the middle of summer. I read it at that time then used UserLand's MailToTheFuture to send myself an email today, so I'd be sure to mention it. I love that service.)
3:57:45 PM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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