Cindy Dominick is my wife and I am here to tell you the weight loss is true and so is the size six clothes. The point you all missed is not that she found a particular diet to follow, she found healthier foods she enjoyed eating and began exercising. The reduced caloric intake along with the increased exercise allowed her to lose the weight.

What no one wants to hear is that if you want to lose weight it takes exercise, Cindy started by walking, she now Runs five miles and does three hundred crunches five days a week and three days a week she weight trains with a strength trainer.

I find it amusing that people have put someone down that has done what they can not do, just to make themselves feel better.

Hi, Jason — No one is doubting her weight loss or belittling her. She looks great, and her story is inspiring. Our issue is with the media coverage, which focused on fat and calories, but barely mentioned how much she reduced her intake of carbohydrates, especially starch.

Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is the common advice, but in their own scientific journals, obesity researchers admit it rarely seems to work. But if you take the same advice and add “restrict carbohydrates to the level that allows insulin levels to drop,” it does work. Unfortunately, people didn’t get that message from the coverage of your wife’s story — which again, is our complaint.

Now for my plan, I basically have eaten healthy foods of all kinds, from carbs to fat. I still have my chocolate each day, which is what was said. I have toast and juice for breakfast, lean cuisinie or a small salad and something that is baked or grilled, and pretty much the same for dinner. I snack on nuts, I don’t drink calorie filled drinks. The biggest reason I have been so successful is my exercise regiment. I spend two hours a day 5 days a week in the gym. I get in 1 to 1 1/2 hours of cardio a day and I strength train 3 days a week. I have a 15% body fat, which for age 45 is great.

I am truly disappointed that something so positive could have been turned into something negative. Those of you who only had negative things to say should be ashamed. My story was meant to inspire, not hinder.

I really wish everyone the best. I know I feel better than I have in my entire life. I was fat as a child and as an adult. For the first time in my life I am slim and most importantly, healthy. That is all that matters.

Hi, Cindy — Thanks for weighing in on the issue. (No pun intended!)

I wish you the best as well. You look great, in spite of the silly comment about your tan.

Perhaps she stands too close to the grill when she’s making that grilled-and-green dinner.

How did you lose the weight?
a. Limiting fat
b. Limiting calories
c. Increasing exercise
d. Limiting calories and increasing exercise

I wanted to answer “none of the above” and write in low carb, but just put it down and never finished it. A few months later, I heard a news report that went something like this: “According to the National Weight Control Registry, low carb diets were not reported as a method used by successful dieters.” I thought–”Duh! But only because there was no where on their form for someone to report their low carb diet.”

Verrrrry interesting! I’ve heard the relative lack of low-carb dieters listed in the NWCR mentioned as evidence that low-carb diets aren’t more effective than any other diet. Now I understand the reason for the under-reporting.

Have you heard of The Bear, Owsley Stanley? He was greatly influenced by Stefansson and has written a good bit online in low-carb forums. A collection of his posts is here.

Speaking of reflux, I too only get heartburn when eating starch. For me it’s take-out pizza, lasagna, or sometimes bread that bring it on.

About the story, I went and read through all the stories, looking at food intake and exercise. Of the ones that gave info, they pretty much all massively decreased their carb intake and massively increased their protein intake. The main exercise was an increase in walking. A few of them even ended up running marathons, which is something I’ll never understand. Back to food, the foods mentioned were almost all what bodybuilders call “clean foods”, and what a lot of other people call “whole foods”. Lots of lean meats, nuts, and fruits replacing fast food, junk food, and sodas. Sounds like a basic lowered carb diet.

Hadn’t heard of The Bear, but I liked what I read on his blog.

I checked out some of Joy Bauer’s diet success stories, and while she focuses on how many calories they cut, they did indeed cut carbs as well. Of course if you’re living on a high-carb diet and decide to reduce calories significantly, that pretty much has to happen. She just doesn’t seem to make that connection, at least not in what I’ve read.

And I can tell you, as someone who became a fat adolescent, that she’s likely blaming herself. It’s a shame what the lousy advice is doing to her.

So I guess it is just more hype, they can’t say that Cindy looks great without exaggerating her size.

Great work on exposing this, Tom. I heard about your movie and ordered it for myself and also for several friends across the US, but just watched it this weekend. I have read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and “Nourishing Traditions” and was blown away. Your movie does something I thought was impossible, put all the technical information from those wonderful books into an easy to understand and fun to watch movie. Wow, really, really awesome! I will be ordering more copies for more folks.

Another excellent book to add to your list is “Trick and Treat: How ‘Healthy’ Eating Is Making Us Ill” by Barry Groves. Here’s his website:

http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/

I’ve read some articles by Barry Groves and thought they were excellent. I will order his book.

I appreciate your guerilla marketing campaign. I read Good Calories, Bad Calories between the third and fourth (final) drafts of the film at the urging of Dr. Mike Eades, and knew I had to try to include some of the concepts. Fortunately, Gary read those sections of the script and helped me get them right. He’s a good guy, in addition to being brilliant.

That poor girl. When people cut out fat, they nearly always replace the calories with carbohydrates, which means they’re making the problem worse. You’d think seeing the nutritionist’s advice fail repeatedly would give them a clue.

Any chance you can get the parents to watch Fat Head? Maybe they’ll get the concept.

Before low-carb, I’d eat all those snacks and be desperate for the pizza to arrive. It’s a huge weight off my mind and I think I work better too!

I’ve had pretty much the same experience, which is why it’s clear to me that for many people, the type of calories consumed has a profound effect on what your body decides to do with those calories — make them available for fuel, or store them.