These are my sometimes snarky commentaries. Not evidence, but anecdote. All of this is my opinion and my experience and does not in any way pretend to be documented, meausured, folded, spindled or mutilated.

Not long before the serious obesity epidemic in this country got started, sugar was "exonerated" from making people fat and I remember deciding I could have regular Coke instead of diet and wasn't that great? Fat was made the culprit instead, so everyone dutifully cut out a lot of fat.

What if cutting out fat wasn't virtuous? Would we in America have jumped on the low fat bandwagon with such enthusiasm if we were not at rock bottom a culture based on judeo-christian principles of avoiding sin and decadence? We are not as ascetic as some, but very few people will give you a hard time for making a sacrifice in the name of a better world, better health or your conscience.

By contrast, giving up sugar is not seen as virtuous, though I have encountered people who view us sugar-avoiders as if we were making a virtue out of nothing and acting all "holier than thou."

Down deep I think people have a viscral understanding that fat is necessary for health and that giving it up is a real sacrifice, whereas giving up sugar is not. It makes for some weird attitudes bubbling up.

How many times have I been told my diet would kill me?

In 1998 it happened a lot. Even when I dropped 30 lbs in three months and improved my lipid profile significantly. "Oh, it won't last, it'll catch up with you.." and so on was all I heard. Or, "You'll just gain it back when you go off your diet." That last was marginally less offensive except that it underscored two basic fallacies:

• The first fallacy being that I'd "go off" the diet. A low carb way of life is not a diet, it's a recognition that certain things we eat will make us fat and the only way to avoid it is not to eat them.
• The second fallacy would be that a good diet will make you thin even after you stop adhering to it. I'm not one to dismiss notions blithely and without thought, but this one's a no-brainer. But I did think about it and it didn't take long. Eating the way that got you fat in the first place will make you get fat again if you do it again. There is no diet that will let you lose 50 lbs and keep them off forever unless you change whatever it was that allowed that to happen in the first place. OK, these are really one fallacy but there are two points to it.

But check out Jack LaLanne! One of the original guys pushing exercise and avoiding starches, sweets and junk food. And he's damn near as old as Keys was, but looks about 50 years younger, though it's only about ten years younger. He sure looks better at 93 (in that photo) and will in another few years if he doesn't die. Great shape or not he is 94 years old now and all bets are still off at that point.