Not at all! Even the late Dr. Atkins said that we could come up with a "Dr. Atkins and I" diet, which means simply tailoring the diet to suit your own lifestyle, needs and your own body. I wouldn't suggest doing this right off the bat, but down the road after trying a low-carb diet plan as written, one can tweak one's diet to suit one best. Everybody, I maintain, is a little bit different. There is no "one size fits all" diet out there. That is another reason not to get involved too much in the diet of anyone else. "Do my own thing and only give advice when asked" is my motto. I do not try to evangelize people to low-carbing, even although I speak about it on my blog a lot - this is really a place where I preach to the converted - and, if any would-be newbies are interested, they are welcome to listen and accept or reject the message they'll find here.
There are so many different low-carb diet plans: Protein Power, Go Diet, CALP, Atkins and you name it. At the same time there are different levels of carbohydrate that suit different people. For me, personally, counting anything would be a pain. I've tried it, believe me, and I totally respect those who can and do count carbs. I just don't want to be bothered with getting too scientific about it. I want to eat when hungry and not measure or count anything. Perhaps if I had lots of weight to lose that would be very different and I'd have to learn to be more disciplined. Here is a thread on lowcarbfriends to give one some idea of how people develop their own low-carb strategies that work for them personally - the "Dr. Atkins and I" diet for many of them: Low-Carbing My Way I found their comments very interesting and thought I'd share this thread with my readers, in case you've missed it.
My best email buddy used to low-carb alongside me. We have been "diet" buddies for so long now that I forget when we connected. I met her on lowcarbfriends many years ago. What makes it fun is that we are more of less of the same stature and height and our weights are usually more or less close. Lately, Jan has discovered that she does better on a low fat, calorie-restricted diet. Her blood work profile looks better too. Incidentally, she has almost always beaten me in any diet race we've undertaken. She is very competitive and I'm afraid I am less so, plus, of course I have had the handy excuse that I have a thyroid autoimmune problem and am constantly developing recipes. True, however, Jan is also slightly hypothyroid, but doesn't have the autoimmune kind of hypothyroidism. Still, what I'm saying is some people will actually not be suited to low-carbing. I think everyone is suited to cutting out white flour and sugar wherever possible, however, high fat is not for everyone. Also, Jan would mix low-carbing and high-carbing (on weekends) and I don't think that is good for anyone on a regular basis.
There are so many different low-carb diet plans: Protein Power, Go Diet, CALP, Atkins and you name it. At the same time there are different levels of carbohydrate that suit different people. For me, personally, counting anything would be a pain. I've tried it, believe me, and I totally respect those who can and do count carbs. I just don't want to be bothered with getting too scientific about it. I want to eat when hungry and not measure or count anything. Perhaps if I had lots of weight to lose that would be very different and I'd have to learn to be more disciplined. Here is a thread on lowcarbfriends to give one some idea of how people develop their own low-carb strategies that work for them personally - the "Dr. Atkins and I" diet for many of them: Low-Carbing My Way I found their comments very interesting and thought I'd share this thread with my readers, in case you've missed it.
My best email buddy used to low-carb alongside me. We have been "diet" buddies for so long now that I forget when we connected. I met her on lowcarbfriends many years ago. What makes it fun is that we are more of less of the same stature and height and our weights are usually more or less close. Lately, Jan has discovered that she does better on a low fat, calorie-restricted diet. Her blood work profile looks better too. Incidentally, she has almost always beaten me in any diet race we've undertaken. She is very competitive and I'm afraid I am less so, plus, of course I have had the handy excuse that I have a thyroid autoimmune problem and am constantly developing recipes. True, however, Jan is also slightly hypothyroid, but doesn't have the autoimmune kind of hypothyroidism. Still, what I'm saying is some people will actually not be suited to low-carbing. I think everyone is suited to cutting out white flour and sugar wherever possible, however, high fat is not for everyone. Also, Jan would mix low-carbing and high-carbing (on weekends) and I don't think that is good for anyone on a regular basis.