The American Spectator

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p> DUEL CARBS br> Re: Patrick Hynes's The Atkins Cult : /p>

If this article was intended to be a serious piece, it failed miserably for its promotion of false and offensive stereotypes. As a humor piece, it fails even worse, because it tries to hide ignorance and rudeness as humor.

The article is full of factual errors, but I'll just point out the problems at the highest levels -- calling "cultists" the many who have successfully lost weight on the plan (which, by the way, is no fad, as it is over 30 years old) and spreading PETA nonsense about the death of the plan's founder.

p>Between taking PETA's side and promoting the FDA's one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition, I had to double check to make sure this appeared in a conservative publication. br> -- Kevin M. Krom br> Gaithersburg, Maryland /p>

There are few creatures more scary than the newly converted, so last year when I started the induction phase of the Atkins Diet, I did try to not annoy everyone around me. However, it amazed me how accommodating people were. While ordering dinner when my husband and I were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary, our waiter volunteered that if we were "doing Atkins," the chef would be glad to replace the potato dish with extra vegetables.

p>This way of eating allowed me to drop 19 pounds, which I have maintained easily. I occasionally venture into Carb Hell, but then I'll do penance in Low-Carb Purgatory. Atkins works for me because I'm a meat eater by nature, though the thought of Diet Coke and a steak for breakfast turns my stomach. By the way, strict Atkins adherents would frown on the Diet Coke. It's all that caffeine, you know. If the key to losing weight and maintaining that loss were to follow a vegetarian diet, which is typically high in carbohydrates, I could not make that change and stick to it.

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