Sorry; this has nothing to do with games; the vast majority of you will probably be hitting the BACK key round about now, but if you are overweight, suffer from hypoglycaemia, high blood pressure, diabetes, water retention, inflammatory conditions, or high cholesterol and/or blood lipid levels, you may wish to read on.
Still with me? Great; here goes! Most of what you have been told about healthy eating is dead wrong. In particular, the enemy isn't fat as we are led to believe; the enemy is excess insulin. Insulin is produced by your body in response to a rise in blood sugar. In a perfectly healthy person, just enough insulin should be produced to deal with the blood sugar and get it into the cells to provide fuel. Unfortunately, most of us don't have perfect bodies. Besides, our caveman bodies aren't really designed to cope with the rises in blood sugar that the modern, carbohydrate-rich diet causes...
Until very recently (in evolutionary terms) we were hunter-gatherers, living mostly on a diet of fresh meat - protein and fat - supplemented with seasonal fruit and the like. With the invention of agriculture, we suddenly became exposed to a high-carbohydrate diet, which has been with us ever since. Funnily enough, our health started to deteriorate at roughly the same time. If you know any archaeologists, ask them how they decide if human remains are from hunter-gatherer or agricultural societies. (Hint: the hunter gatherers are taller, healthier, longer lived, have stronger bones and better teeth ...).
So, what can you do about it? Well, as the title of this page suggests, the easiest way to control your insulin production is to control your blood sugar levels, and the easiest way to do that is to control your carbohydrate intake. By drastically reducing your carbohydrate intake, you can lose weight, lower your cholesterol levels, or control your diabetes - whatever your particular symptom may be.
Anyway, enough of me wittering on. For suggested diets, and more information on the scientific basis for this way of eating (I hesitate to call it a diet, since weight loss isn't the primary goal for many people on this... regimen), I recommend the following books:
Most of the information I give here is taken from a single book: "Protein Power" by Dr. Michael R. Eades & Dr. Mary Dan Eades; it describes the scientific basis for the diet in layman's terms much better than I can here, and gives a lot of historical evidence for the diet as well.
"The Protein Power Lifeplan" by Dr. Michael R. Eades & Dr. Mary Dan Eades; this covers much of the same ground as "Protein Power", but without repeating the earlier book. Buy both!
"Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution" by Dr. Atkins is a simple ketogenic diet that is much easier to follow than the one recommended in Protein Power, but seems to be based on observation rather than science. Nevertheless, it is Rosie's preferred plan - it's straightforward, satisfying and gives superb results.
If you are diabetic, you should read "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution" by Dr. Richard K. Bernstein (Dr. Bernstein is himself a Type I diabetic.)
The newsgroup alt.support.diet.low-carbohydrate is very good for information, encouragement and advice.
The low-carbohydrate FAQ is very informative, and gives a lot more links and references than we provide here.
Adiposity 101 is a summary of all the research done on obesity and dieting over the past few years; a lot of it isn't relevant to low-carbohydrate dieting, but it makes fascinating and frightening reading nonetheless!