Carbohydrate addiction. I can relate to that. Carbohydrates play the role of an addictive substance in my life. Which is why I bought the book pictured at right: The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. I thought it would help me deal with my addiction.
What would you think of a program for people addicted to heroin, alcohol, gambling, marijuana, casual sex or cigarettes that told the addict: You can still have your heroin, alcohol, casual sex or cigarettes once a day. And you can have as much of your addictive substance or practice as you can consume during one hour.
Would that actually be helping with the addiction, or just enabling the addict to live in denial about the addiction? Well, that is the plan of the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. You eat two low-carb meals a day, and for the third, you get a Reward Meal, in which you can have all the carbs you can eat. Later iterations of the diet insist that you eat your regular low-carb foods--- your protein and salad--- and if you want more carbs than you planned on for your Reward Meal, you have to eat extra protein and salad as well.
In Dana Carpender's book How I Gave up my Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds, Dana gives her own review of the diet. She likes the idea that if you eat excess carbs, it's physiologically better to finish the carb binge in an hour. But when she tried the actual diet herself, she plateaued at a weight higher than she liked, and she didn't feel very good with the daily excess carb dose, since she had been on low-carb previously.
My own experience is somewhat similar. Except that I am a real sucker for carbs, and once I felt permitted to eat any carbs I craved once a day, I didn't feel very inspired to concoct two low-carb meals, with salads, every day. (Call me a barbarian, but I don't regard salad as a meal, or even much of a meal component. I'd rather have bacon.)
Going on the Carbohydrate Addict's diet just led me off low-carb and back into eating large amounts of carbs, like barbeque flavor potato chips, Butterfinger candy bars, pizza and cheeseburgers. It worked about as well on me as a 'rehab' plan allowing alcoholics a 1 hour alcohol binge every day would help alcoholics.
One proof that the Carbohydrate Addict's diet didn't work for people in the long term is that there doesn't seem to be any community of Carbohydrate Addict's Diet devotees online anywhere. Another is that the original diet was modified in subsequent books to try to limit the carb consumption at the Reward Meal.
I believe that the Carbohydrate Addict's diet is not a help for real-world carbohydrate addicts, but a cruel lie. People who are tempted by this diet would be better off trying a standard ketogenic diet and actually dealing with their carb addiction instead of feeding it on a daily basis. Find new ketogenic-friendly foods you love, and those old carb foods will have less power to tempt you.
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Have you tried The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet? Did it fail you, too? Or perhaps you are still on the diet and want to defend it. Your input is welcome in a comment!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are the books I mentioned in this blog post. I recommend the Dana Carpender book, but The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, since I don't recommend it as a diet, isn't on my must-read list.
What would you think of a program for people addicted to heroin, alcohol, gambling, marijuana, casual sex or cigarettes that told the addict: You can still have your heroin, alcohol, casual sex or cigarettes once a day. And you can have as much of your addictive substance or practice as you can consume during one hour.
Would that actually be helping with the addiction, or just enabling the addict to live in denial about the addiction? Well, that is the plan of the Carbohydrate Addict's Diet. You eat two low-carb meals a day, and for the third, you get a Reward Meal, in which you can have all the carbs you can eat. Later iterations of the diet insist that you eat your regular low-carb foods--- your protein and salad--- and if you want more carbs than you planned on for your Reward Meal, you have to eat extra protein and salad as well.
In Dana Carpender's book How I Gave up my Low-Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds, Dana gives her own review of the diet. She likes the idea that if you eat excess carbs, it's physiologically better to finish the carb binge in an hour. But when she tried the actual diet herself, she plateaued at a weight higher than she liked, and she didn't feel very good with the daily excess carb dose, since she had been on low-carb previously.
My own experience is somewhat similar. Except that I am a real sucker for carbs, and once I felt permitted to eat any carbs I craved once a day, I didn't feel very inspired to concoct two low-carb meals, with salads, every day. (Call me a barbarian, but I don't regard salad as a meal, or even much of a meal component. I'd rather have bacon.)
Going on the Carbohydrate Addict's diet just led me off low-carb and back into eating large amounts of carbs, like barbeque flavor potato chips, Butterfinger candy bars, pizza and cheeseburgers. It worked about as well on me as a 'rehab' plan allowing alcoholics a 1 hour alcohol binge every day would help alcoholics.
One proof that the Carbohydrate Addict's diet didn't work for people in the long term is that there doesn't seem to be any community of Carbohydrate Addict's Diet devotees online anywhere. Another is that the original diet was modified in subsequent books to try to limit the carb consumption at the Reward Meal.
I believe that the Carbohydrate Addict's diet is not a help for real-world carbohydrate addicts, but a cruel lie. People who are tempted by this diet would be better off trying a standard ketogenic diet and actually dealing with their carb addiction instead of feeding it on a daily basis. Find new ketogenic-friendly foods you love, and those old carb foods will have less power to tempt you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have you tried The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet? Did it fail you, too? Or perhaps you are still on the diet and want to defend it. Your input is welcome in a comment!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are the books I mentioned in this blog post. I recommend the Dana Carpender book, but The Carbohydrate Addict's Diet, since I don't recommend it as a diet, isn't on my must-read list.
