As a follow up to some feedback I received on the last entry (I figured it would flush some Atkinites out of the woodwork)….

I agree that high-protein diets like Atkins’ can induce weight loss, and I personally know people who swear by the diet, but many are reporting that the manner in which the diet works is unhealthy in the long run. The American Medical Association, the American Dietetic Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the Mayo Clinic, and other similar groups have all condemned the Atkins diet as unsound and unhealthy. Yet the Atkins marketing machine continues…. Perhaps that will have to be the subject for a future blog entry. In the meantime take a look at www.atkinsexposed.org.

Cutting off a limb is one way to lose weight too, and at the rate these fad diet books are being printed, I predict we’ll see The Amputation Diet on shelves within a few years… featuring testimonials like, “I cut off my leg and lost 30 pounds in only one day!”

I think the reason these fad diets proliferate so much is that (especially in America), product marketers have corrupted people’s concept of health so much that people are confused to the point where they’ll believe just about anything that gives them hope of losing weight.

And regarding modeling… modeling isn’t a substitute for intelligence and good judgment — it’s simply a shortcut, a way of narrowing the search space of possible solutions. For example, while I could eventually figure out how to self-publish my own book from scratch on my own, why not learn from someone else who’s already done it, such as Dan Poynter, author of several books on the subject? By modeling his approach to writing nonfiction books, I’m a lot further along with my book than I’d be if I just tried to invent my own process from scratch. Sure I can still refine and adapt his system, but modeling gave me a head start.