What we need...

I've come to the conclusion that we low carbers need a really simple way to spread the word about our way of eating.  I'm sure we've all run into this problem.  Someone asks you about the way you eat, and you intend to answer in the most understandable, concise way possible, but instead you find yourself rambling on for half an hour about insulin and government recommendations and bad science and generally sounding like a conspiracy theorist.

I did that to one of my friends last week.  She mentioned that she and her husband were going to start a diet, to both lose weight and to help her husband with his high blood pressure (he's in his early 30s).  I really feel like the ideas of the low carb lifestyle and the science behind it are worth sharing, even though I don't feel like it's my place to tell others what they should and shouldn't be eating.  But when I tried to explain to her about insulin resistance and carbs and everything, I really just sounded like a crazy person who had spent too much time on the internet.

I wish some of the great thinkers and writers in the low carb/paleo/primal communities would come together and create a neat little handout that you could print out and give to people, that would explain very clearly the benefits of a cleaner more natural way of eating.  Maybe I'll email some people about it.  Or perhaps I should just ask google and find out if there might already be such a handout out there.

The best way to convince people to change their habits, though, is through example.  If you change your lifestyle and improve your health, people are going to notice and ask you how you did it.  And if they're open minded enough, they might even try the change themselves.

I actually just got my mom to start a low carb diet last week, which is awesome.  She's almost 65, with high blood pressure, bad arthritis, very out of shape, and probably 60-80 pounds overweight.  She called me up on the night of her first day, and said, "I'm actually full!  I'm not hungry at all!  I can't believe you can lose weight on this diet."

So even though I probably didn't do much to convince my friend, at least I convinced my mom to give it a try.  I hope as more science de-vilifies the low carb way of eating, my friend will remember what I said and look more into the subject.

What I should have done was just handed her a dvd of Fat Head and walked away without saying a word.