Reading Dr. Atkin's 1972 Diet Revolution Book!

#1

I never read an original Atikin’s book before – just the one written by Phinney/Volek/Westman in 2010. I got it just to see what he wrote way back in 1972 – was curious. Wow, there are a lot of similarities with what he wrote then and these newer ketogenic books. High carbohydrate diet being responsible for diabetes, obesity, hypertension, stroke etc… all the diseases of civilization. He discussed ketosis, ketones, diabetic ketoacidosis, ketogenic diet. Testing for ketones in urine. Metabolic syndrome, carbohydrate intolerance, blood glucose stabilization, bioindividuality… and on and on. He also compared fasting to the ketogenic diet, how they both resulted in no hunger. I am only a couple chapters in, but I’m enjoying it. I couldn’t get it on kindle so I got the paperback for like $7 new from Amazon.

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#2

Great book. He was the Big Daddy of them all, ahead of his time. (And many people had great success in using his methods, well before all those low-carb/keto products and supplements hit the market.)

(Susan) #3

That is awesome, I am sure that it is an interesting read =).

#4

I believe the main content difference between the original, and the New Atkins is the now emphasized & encouraged daily veg, along with the cultural sensitivity that addresses different cuisines and ethnic restaurant menu choices - updates that have made Atkins much more accessible to the real world.

Strangely, lots of ketoers (including plenty of folks on this forum) seem to have missed the message in both those books about the difference between induction, OWL, pre-maintenance, maintenance. Both books emphasisize the worthy aspiration of slowly increasing carbs and testing out how it goes - in order to make it a sustainable way of life, with the understanding that most but not all fat-adapted folks will thrive with some carb flex, etc.

I love having classic keto books available to read offline - I enjoy the continuing education. :nerd_face:

(bulkbiker) #5

Surely though once you have experienced the benefits of an almost carb free life there is no need to “re-introduce” such things as this keto/carni way of eating is perfectly sustainable without them?

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #6

I love to shop at thrift stores and I go to a huge one in Cincinnati. Sometimes there are 5 of them on the shelf and I have to chuckle. That’s where I got my second copy. I got the first copy back in the 90’s but donated it after a while. Maybe I bought my same book back :rofl:

(Rebecca ) #7

:rofl: I shop at Thrift Stores, too. One day I saw this pretty top and thought, “Wow…I have to get this!!” Then I realized it had donated it!!

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #8

Me too!

(Jane) #9

I was 13 in 1972 and my Dad and I both did “Atkins”. He was ahead of his time, though cutting carbs is not a new concept. He just popularized it and was vilified for it! Called a quack and worse.

Back then we were still afraid of fat and that made the diet harder to stick to long term. The food is just too boring. It wasn’t that Atkins advocates low fat (not sure if he did or not) but it was so ingrained in us I know I still was very moderate with it.

It was much harder to eat out also - now when you say “no bun” they nod and key it in as a programmed option.

#10

If I see a hardback of the 1972 Diet Revolution book, in good shape, at thrift store, I am gonna grab it… I love having hardbacks vs. paperback.

I wish I had knew about the Diet Revolution book when I was a young teen trying to lose my weight in the early 1980’s – I was 300 lbs then and tried every diet. I’d do well for a while losing like 30-40lbs then plateau forever. (I’ve been insulin resistant and asthmatic since I was a baby… born in a womb of a morbidly obese mother her entire life… asthma required constant inhalation of steroids which raises cortisol, blood sugar and insulin.)

(Ken) #11

If you think Keto started with Atkins’s, you should read William Bantings book from the 1800s.

This is one of the reasons I tend to be amused when some Noob quotes a specific Keto Guru over and over again. All this stuff has been rehashed over and over (Paleo too!) that to get fixated on what any one Guru says is fairly absurd.

(Jane) #12

I couldn’t remember his name but that is who I was thinking of when I said Atkins ideas weren’t new. His struggles to lose weight, exercise like crazy, hungry all the time and his frustrations were all too familiar!

(Marianne) #13

I feel so sad about Dr. Atkins; I really do. The health community virtually crucified him. I think they wanted to take his medical license away. I remember seeing a 60-Minutes presentation (I think it was that show), years ago, and they skewered him as a diet opportunist and charlatan. His wife defended him staunchly to the end. Very sad.

#14

Who cares? We’re not just some monolithic physical homo sapiens, we’re also a dimorphic species with very different hormonal frameworks that play out between females/males, and over ageing phases. We’re also cultural, spiritual, and emotional beings that find meaning and create antifragility culture very diversely. Add to that the reality that a huge portion of the world (and some on this forum) are lacto-ovo vegetarians - the cultural reality requires sensitivity rather than ideology. For those from eastern cultures and most of the global south, what makes food sustainable involves feasting on a variety of color and the 6 tastes (or 5 tastes in northern Asia), sharing it with others, and also weekly or monthly daylong fasts. In a modern industrial society there is actually no one version of “sustainable” if one is concerned with the whole person rather than the theoretical Grok (who is always a dude btw), as we live in an extremely diverse world of vast cultural histories and contexts.

I think it’s absurdly short-sighted and/or culturally egophrenic (supremacist) for anyone to assume that there is one ideal sustainable way for the present gut-deranged, metabolically-deranged, and often somewhat mentally-deranged human community in industrial society to eat and to heal - as if hunter/gatherers themselves were monolithic (they were not, there were/are regional variations and seasons & trading affected their menus as well). Furthermore, the using of knowledge about aboriginal meat/fish centered cultures to justify consumption of unnaturally produced, metabolically sick industrial meats/fish makes no sense imho and perpetuates false notions of noble savages, cave dwellers, and monolithic meat/fish.

I’m a huge fan of anti-oxidants/polyphenols & alkalinizing foods for midlife female health found in herbs, spices, plentiful veg, and some fruits as well as a wide range of spices - they offer much healing and culinary joie de vivre pertaining to many women’s hormonal healing needs. Women’s health is far understudied in general and in the keto world.

Sure, I can survive on fasting and meat - but my cells & palate & psyche rejoice with diverse beautiful Nature-made foods, herbs/spices as medicine, and the occasional pomegranate or apple - more a keto-vedic and keto-cusp (which the Drs. Eades coined) approach which for most non-IR folks enhances metabolic agility. And Phinney & Volek’s culturally sensitive approach to traditional cuisines is super smart and relevant for LCHF/keto to be globally accessible. My personal culture is one that embraces diverse tastiness - and after my first year of keto, I found that alkalinizing whole foods carbs have been very beneficial for my metabolic agility.

However, there are some who feel great, have turned around autoimmune issues, and/or just prefer to mono-cuisine via non-veg LCHF/keto - good for them! :clap: There are some who have an ideal of hyper-lean/teen self that they are chasing intentionally - I don’t relate to that as a goal at all, but live and let live etc. However, when carni is out of the carnival context and pushed as a mass prescription/dogma in crosscultural discourse and in an n=1 forum such as this it’s a FAIL.

Though I’d happily eat meat-only in survival situations, and I love a good all-meat grill party ( and raw meat only for certain kinds of healing), I consider myself extremely blessed to be free to choose my culinary preferences and celebrate this brief life sharing food with good people and enjoying with Nature’s many beautiful alkalinizing foods as well as meat/dairy from small farms on my LCHF/keto journey. I choose to live it up and kick a** while I can with lovely real foods as recommended in cornerstone keto guidance from Phinney/Volek/Eades/Gittleman/Cabeca, with moderate protein (as opposed to limitless/high protein as if it rains down from the sky like manna) and natural IF.

(Jack Bennett) #15

The crazy thing is that in the 50s and 60s low carb was in all the medical textbooks as the accepted method for “slimming”. It was common knowledge and common sense. Atkins built on the work of Blake Donaldson and other earlier doctors.

All kinds of books would contain a sentence like: “To lose weight, eat no bread, potatoes, or desserts…”, etc. Gary Taubes shares some good examples in his books.

Then the low-fat hypothesis took over and all that wisdom dating back to Banting went out the window.

I just wrote up a short blog post about an editorial in JAMA from back in 1957. Very sensible and effective compared to the high-carb transition of the 1970s and 1980s.

#16

No-one’s saying keto started with Atkins. But Banting’s book (more a pamphlet, really) didn’t exactly involve a lot of science. The research to back up the protocols suggested by Banting’s doctor came much more slowly, in later decades.

#17

Yeah I’ve read lots of low carb, ketogenic, diabetes and fasting books. I have a library of about 35 of them including Taubes, Phinney/Volek, Jimmy Moore, Jason Fung, Tim Noakes, William Davis, Nally, Westman etc…

I’m know Atkin’s didn’t invent it but he wrote very well it appears, explaining the diet, how to do it, and some science behind it. Also he had 10 years and 10,000 patients he helped eat a ketogenic diet before he even wrote the book. He was actually a very good writer it seems after reading almost half of this 1972 book… he can relate with people as well or even better than Jimmy Moore.

The only thing I find amazing in this book, is that his patients can eat 160g of protein if they keep carbs below the critical point / threshhold. I guess the carnivories here might agree with him and understand it more… But excess glucose for me seems to turn right to sugar via gluconeogenesis. I’m type 2 diabetic (previously A1C 10 and now under A1C 6)… HOMA-IR 3.65; 362.2 lbs. I moderate my protein to about 70-80g per day.

(Erin Macfarland ) #18

@SlowBurnMary…wow, I always love your responses but this is my favorite one yet!! Eloquently said!!

#19

Just watched this video of Larry King interviewing Dr. Atkin’s. Awesome! He’s such a sweetheart, and explains things very calmly and clearly.

I liked it when Larry King was reading Gary Taubes 2002 article to him and getting his response to it.

#20

In this 1972 book Dr. Atkin’s actually brought up the name William Banting. He mentioned several researchers like Pennington and Bloom. He just read all the research, started on the diet himself, started his AT&T coworkers on it, then changed his practice from cardiologist to diet oriented care, treated about 10k patients then shared all the good things he accomplished in a book in 1972, that way he could help the masses. I think he’s quite modest from what I’ve read in the book as well as interviews I’ve seen of him.

Taubes was influenced by Atkin’s to do his research into low carbohydrate diet. Atkin’s influenced Jimmy Moore as well as Dr. Westman. I am assuming he did as well with Phinney & Volek. Anyways without Atkins, things would be a lot different; perhaps this 50 year low fat FAD DIET won’t last as long as it would of without Atkin’s contribution.