Almost ten years ago when we were in practice in Boulder, Colorado we started looking for a good weightloss supplement to help our patients on low-carb diets lose a little more quickly.  We evaluated a lot of supplements on the market that were supposedly weight loss accelerators – chromium, hydroxycitric acid (HCA), ephedra, phenylpropanolamine, pyruvate and a few others – with out a lot of success.  The ephedra and, to a lesser extent, phenylpropanolamine unquestionably helped people lose weight, but were fraught with side effects.  Pyruvate showed promise, but was pretty expensive.  Our partner found a couple of medical papers using a combination of supplements, some of which individually didn’t work all that well but in combination seemed to show promise.  We cobbled together from healthfood-store supplements a sort of beta-prototype of this combination and used it on a number of our willing patients.  The vast majority, all of whom were on low-carb diets, tolerated the supplement and felt it made them lose weight better.

Happy with these results MD, our partner and I decided to take the next step and get an actual product made.  We did, and let patients try it.  Again, the patients liked the supplement and though they lost weight better on it.  Although we, too, thought the patients did better, we couldn’t really say because we hadn’t compared the supplement with a placebo in a controlled fashion.  We decided to take that next step.

We contacted a clinical lab that does testing for a fee (a substantial fee, I might add) and talked to the director of the facility, who was pretty discouraging.  He told us that he would be happy to take our money and test our supplement, but that we shouldn’t get our hopes up.  He related that his company had tested scores of nutritional supplements and had never found one that really did much.  And that he figured ours wouldn’t do well against placebo either.

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I’m going to toss off a question about the paradoxical nature of low-carb diets.  Here is the set up.  Most people reading this post will have – at some point, at least – enjoyed the benefits of a low-carb diet.  They will have had more energy, slept better, rid themselves of heartburn and GERD, stabilized blood sugar, reduced blood pressure, normalized lipids and lost weight.  Many will have been able to rid themselves of one or even a handful of drugs.  All will have felt much, much better than before starting the diet.  And, if most are like me, will marvel on what a wonderfully filling and satisfying diet it is and will tell them selves that the low-carb diet is really the only diet worth following.

Okay, that’s the set up.  Here is the question:

Why are low-carb diets so difficult to stick to for so many who have had the above experience?

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The media is alive today with advanced reports that the January issue of O magazine contains an interview with its namesake Oprah Winfrey in which she divulges that she has once again become obese. (here, here and here)

Apparently the queen of daytime TV (and my neighbor down the street) has ballooned up to 200 pounds.  And, if her statement on the cover of her magazine can be believed, she wonders how it happened. I’ve read a few of the articles, most of which quoted her from the advance copy of her January magazine.  As I read her quotes I realize that despite all her fame and wealth, she is basically just like any other middle-aged woman prone to obesity.  Let’s let her talk. Read more »

I’ve just discovered that the soft-cover version of Good Calories, Bad Calories is out.  I guess it has been out for a few weeks, but I just discovered it was available.  If any of you have been waiting for the paperback before reading this terrific book, now is the time to get it.

Since GCBC came out a year or two ago, I’ve gotten countless comments asking me what Gary thinks about this topic or that one.  And I’ve gotten comments from folks asking me to ask Gary a question for them.  I was going to interview Gary and post his responses to my questions when it occurred to me that you all might like to ask questions of him directly without having them come through me.  I contacted Gary this weekend to see if he would be willing to answer specific questions from people on this blog.  He very generously agreed to do so.

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