Living Low Carb Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Never, under any circumstances—even when you have reduced to the desired weight and have, to some degree, discontinued the diet— eat potatoes, rice, white bread, macaroni, or sweets. ”
    Calories were never once mentioned in Thompson’s book, which went through 113 printings by 1931 and was still in circulation when a little problem arose at the DuPont company.
    The Problem at the DuPont Company: The Work of Alfred Pennington, MD
    DuPont executives were getting fat.
    Really fat. No kidding.
    Shortly after World War II, the medical department of E.I. DuPont, a large American chemical firm, became concerned about the growing obesity problem among the staff. The company hired Dr. Alfred Pennington and entrusted him with the job of finding out why the traditional low-calorie diets of the time were bombing when it came to losing weight. Pennington applied his considerable brain power to an analysis of the scientific literature and came to the conclusion that our old friend—the formerly fat undertaker William Banting—had been right all along: obesity was due not to overeating, but instead to the body’s inability to use carbohydrates for anything other than making fat.
    Pennington put the DuPont executives on a high-fat, high-protein, lowcarbohydrate, unrestricted-calorie diet. He limited their carb intake to 60 grams a day, allowed them at least 24 ounces of meat and fat (more if they wanted it), and restricted them to one portion a day of any one of the following: potatoes, rice, grapefruit, grapes, melon, bananas, pears, raspberries, or blueberries.
    Pennington published a number of articles in prestigious journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, 4 but he summed up his results with the fat executives best in an interview he gave to Holiday Magazine. I’ve added the italics for emphasis.
Of the twenty men and women taking part in the test, all lost weight on a diet in which the total calorie intake was unrestricted. The basic diet totaled about 3,000 calories per day, but meat and fat in any desired amount were allowed those who wanted to eat still more. The dieters reported that they felt well, enjoyed their meals and were never hungry between meals. Many said they felt more energetic than usual; none complained of fatigue. Those who had high blood pressure to begin with [no longer did]. The[se] twenty obese individuals lost an average of twenty-two pounds each, in an average time of three and a half months. The range of weight loss was from nine pounds to fifty-four pounds, and the range of time was from about one and a half months to six months. 5
    Chalk up another one for the low-carb approach to weight loss.
    Then, in 1928, something really interesting happened at the dietetic ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. But to understand why it happened, you have to understand the experiences of a rugged young explorer named Vilhjalmur Stefansson.
    Stefansson and the Eskimos: All Meat, All Fat, All the Time
    Kicked out of school at age 23 for inciting a protest within the student body, Vilhjalmur Stefansson picked up the pieces of his life and entered the world of his true love, anthropology. By 1906, at the age of 27, he had managed to get a master’s degree at Harvard, where he became an assistant professor of anthropology and got really interested in the diets of other people. Not much for city life, Stefansson dumped Harvard and decided that it would be more fun to join the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, which was kicking off that year, and travel to the Arctic.
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    I’ve always found it easier to
stay on a low-carb diet than on
any other kind of diet. I just
never feel as hungry so I don’t
really feel like I’m dieting.
    —Doug M.
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    A couple of years after his first foray, he persuaded the American Museum of Natural History in New York to give him the money to do it again, and he departed on his second expedition in 1908; this time, he stayed 4 years. He discovered a