I keep a small cache of Atkins Advantage Chocolate Delight “shakes” in the refrigerator under my desk.
I try not to drink too much.
It’s sweetened with Splenda, a compound that makes some people lose bowel control, which I suppose is just Splenda.
I also try to avoid Atkins Advantage bars labeled “Cookies and Crème,” “Chocolate Decadence” or “Endulge.” Anyone serious about maintaining an ideal weight does not “Endulge” in anything but lettuce, broccoli and the occasional Brussels sprout.
Is it any wonder that the company founded in 1989 by the late Dr. Robert Atkins filed for bankruptcy Monday?
First Atkins revolutionized dieting, showing a generation of lard-buckets how they could get thin by eating fat. Then he came up with products like “Vanilla Fudge Swirl” ice-cream bars.
“The true diehards don’t use that stuff,” said Colorado Securities Commissioner Fred Joseph. “I stick to bacon and eggs.”
Joseph is the only one I know who went on Atkins and didn’t go back to Fatkins.
Perhaps it’s because he avoids the Chocolate Delight shakes. Once you rationalize having one of these, it isn’t long before you are sucking down the real thing at Maggie Moos. But capitalistic economies depend on growth – even the growth of your waistband.
What’s the point of inventing a diet if all it’s going to do is encourage consumers to stop buying so much food?
That’s why there’s Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers and Slimfast food. That’s why you can spread low-carb Skippy peanut butter and sugar-free Smucker’s jelly on your 9g-carb Wonder Bread. That’s why there are freaks like Richard Simmons who are “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”
Atkins took his diet corporate, and Corporate America copied him. So did hundreds of small startup companies.
Last year, Dean Rotbart, a Denver publishing entrepreneur, started LowCarbBiz, a four-color business-to-business magazine. He kicked it off with a conference that attracted 500 people representing 250 low-carb treatmakers. I attended this conflab and reported that most of the products there tasted like sawdust sweetened with antifreeze.
But Rotbart was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. He predicted that the low-carb industry would double to $30 billion in 2005. Maybe it did, but that money is going to food giants such as General Mills, Unilever and Kraft. Not to the readers of LowCarbBiz, which can now safely change its name to OuttaBiz.
Another concept, Viva Low Carb – a specialty store that opened last year in Centennial with 1,400 products – changed its signage to Space for Rent.
NPD Group, a marketing-information firm, says U.S. adults on low-carb diets hit 9.1 percent in February 2004, then dropped to 3.6 percent by November.
“The fact that there are so many diets out there is a testimony to the lack of efficacy to most of them,” said Cherry Creek cardiologist James Ehrlich.
Ehrlich, however, says he is writing a book with Arthur Agatston of “South Beach Diet” fame. Ehrlich says South Beach is easier on the heart.
“Even Dr. Agatston would say (Atkins) was brilliant,” Ehrlich said. “The guy was way ahead of his time.”
Consequently, doctors and dietitians bashed Atkins in life and in death. Atkins died in April 2003 at 72 from injuries sustained in a fall. A group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine produced a report showing that Atkins had heart problems and weighed 268 pounds at the time of his death.
Atkins devotees discounted the report, saying that Atkins,who stood more than 6 feet, weighed between 180 and 195 throughout his life. The extra weight was due to water retention while comatose, not chronic obesity. Whatever.
“We are a country that is becoming vastly overweight, no matter how many diets we come up with,” said Cathy Nonas, a dietitian in Harlem, N.Y., and author of “Managing Obesity: A Clinical Guide” and “Outwit Your Weight.” She is not an Atkins fan, but she admires his success.
“He had the most popular diet that ever existed,” Nonas said. “He was not just a doctor, he was a businessman. He made his diet into an industry, and it made him a very wealthy man.”
Al Lewis’ column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Respond to Lewis at denverpostbloghouse.com/lewis; 303-820-1967; or alewis@denverpost.com.
