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Students explore Atkins, South Beach diets
By Debbie Peterson
With the popularity of fad diets, it is not surprising that SCSU students are making their own attempts at quick weight loss techniques.
"You always hear about the freshman 15," said Assistant Director of Health Promotions and Marketing Troy Shafer. "People come to college and aren't as active anymore, they eat more than they used to, with Garvey and Burger King so readily available, and they don't realize how important that exercise really is."
Students TK Krueger and Noelle VanBlarcom have turned to fad diets to help realize their targeted weight goal. Amid controversy as to whether the diets are healthy or even effective, these two students have found weight loss success.
Krueger began the Atkins diet last June, and during the seven-month period has lost 60 pounds.
However, he will not claim that it was easy.
"The first two months were very difficult," Krueger said. "I had to limit myself, and during that time I could only have 20 carbohydrates a day."
Before the diet, Krueger calculated that he consumed between 700 to 1,000 carbohydrates a day.
Despite warnings that nutritionists have about high cholesterol and other possible negative effects of the Atkins diet, Krueger stands behind his decision.
"That's always been a controversy. I look at it this way, yeah, it's unhealthy to have such a high saturated fat intake, yet it was also really unhealthy for me to weigh 300 pounds," Krueger said.
Krueger added that it is very important to take additional vitamins and nutrients to help maintain a healthy balance. He also said that a first-time Atkins dieter should gain a full understanding of what the diet really involves before trying it.
"Researchers have said that you should only be on the diet for six months, and that's what I've done," Krueger said. "I'm slowly starting to incorporate carbohydrates into my diet, but in small amounts."
Sophomore nursing major Noelle VanBlarcom, has lost 15 pounds in a six weeks on the South Beach diet. Like Krueger, VanBlarcom felt that the first couple of weeks were the hardest.
"The point of the first two weeks is to rid your body of the bad stuff," VanBlarcom said.
"I got really sick the first four days. It's not like I was really sick, I just wasn't feeling well at all. I was getting all that sugary carbohydrate stuff out of my body."
While VanBlarcom realizes that weight loss is all about moderation, she would recommend the South Beach diet to someone looking to lose weight.
"I've always wanted to lose weight, and this diet has let me do it. I thought it would be hard, but after learning more about it I felt that I could do it."
In order to help students make the best nutritional decisions, Shafer expressed that it would be very beneficial to have an on-campus dietitian available to students.
"That's one thing that we need to address here, it's been brought up recently, and a petition was signed by students. A dietitian would be able to help students with any of their eating-related needs, such as learning more about nutrition and even helping with those who have eating disorders," Shafer said.
Krueger said that it would be a good idea to have a dietitian on campus to help students understand the good and bad parts of any diet. However, he had one requirement for the dietitian.
"Whoever it is must have a minor in comedy or something," Krueger said. "They can't be dry. The nutritionist would need to be entertaining so that people would listen."
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