So Atkins Nutritional is going belly up, and diet observers say the bloom is off the low-carb trend. I’m sure the sanity won’t last long.
Low-carb is fine for very short periods of time–when one is preparing for a bodybuilding or figure competition, for instance–but even then, a body needs at least a few decent carbs. Under normal circumstances, if you want vigorous workouts, you need to fuel with carbohydrates: whole grains, fruit, vegetables, and the sugars in milk products, as well as any discretionary calories you care to spend on dessert, French bread, etc.
Here’s what mystifies me. I read women’s fitness magazines (Oxygen, Shape, Fitness) and find articles therein about women who claim to work out six days a week and yet subsist on 1,400 calories a day. How is this possible? Yes, rate of metabolism varies from person to person. But if a woman is highly physically active and burning many calories at the gym, there’s no way she can sustain muscle mass (or sanity) on starvation rations. Do the editors think we’re stupid? Or are these women lying? Or do they have unnaturally slow metabolisms?
I’m pushing 49, work out with weights three days a week, use the elliptical trainer two to three days a week, and walk my dogs for 30 minutes about every day. So I’m active but not obsessive. I weigh 130 pounds and maintain that weight on somewhere around 2,300 to 2,400 calories a day. I lose weight at 1,800 to 1,900. I don’t get it.
