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Foreword by the Mark
At some point during our lowcarb journey, most of us have looked for information, help or advice. Many would have got what they needed from books or maybe magazines. If you live in a big town, you might have been one of the lucky ones who could find a group of like minded lowcarbers who met on a regular basis. However it would be true to say that at some point most of us wanted more immediate answers to our questions.
For many, it’s at that point that the internet was the route we used to get the answers. It’s a fast way to get the information we want - now. No having to wait until the shops open or someone is free to chat on the phone and nearly always there is someone who has the answer to our exact question.
In amongst the many sites the search engines suggest will be a number of them that are know collectively as ‘groups’ or ‘lists’. That in fact describes them perfectly.
These are simply a group of people who have used the bulletin board technology made available by the likes of Yahoo, MSN et al to post and read message to each other that others can read too and join in the discussion. Many of them have such a wealth of knowledge and experience that they have also developed on-line resources for virtually every facet of the low carb life style.
You’ll find advice for ‘newbies’, comments on the latest lowcarb snack bar, how to get over a stall in your weight loss. In fact, such is the wealth of experience in many of the groups that you could find the answer to virtually any on-topic question from someone in the group.
But these things don’t just happen. There are people who have had to make the effort and give the time in order to get these things off the ground. Then continue to give time and effort to make sure they stay on course and continue to give quality service to the members.
For many of those people, working away in the background, the only reward they get is the one of deep satisfaction in helping another person on their way.
Leigh Cook is one of those pioneers.
Here is her story
 I grew up in Perth, Western Australia, in a sunny, subtropical climate where almost everyone was mad keen on sports and the beach. My mother was naturally thin, no matter what or how much she ate, and I think she was rather bemused that her three daughters were chubby as youngsters, and grew into just-plain-fat teenagers. I’m sure she thought it was puppy fat, and we’d grow out of it, but instead, the reverse happened.
Leigh Cook
We were mostly served the kind of plain, English cooking that Mum had eaten at home - grilled meat, boiled veg + mashed potatoes was the most common formula, followed by baked or steamed pudding with custard. It was pretty similar to the diet of my thin friends.
(On my low carb diet, I still eat grilled meats, but the veg are stir fries or salads, and there’s NO potatoes. I usually skip dessert.)
There turned out to be a good reason why my sisters and I were overweight - we all had inadequate production of thyroid hormone, and excess production of insulin - the best possible ‘recipe’ for weight gain on a normal diet.
Unfortunately, it took many years before we found a doctor who ordered the tests & discovered the medical reasons for our health and weight problems.
I first tried low carb dieting in my 20s before low fat became the ‘only’ approved way to diet. I tried most diets in those days. In fact, I managed to reach and maintain a normal weight using low carb (basically, Atkins). But when I switched to low fat, the pounds started to sneak on.
Years later, my body had become very resistant to weight loss, and my husband (who was not overweight) was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He was told that his choices were to control his blood sugar with drugs, or with a low carb diet (Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes solution) and he chose the low carb diet, rather than the drugs. Naturally, I went on the diet with him, more for moral support than for weight loss.
The thing I like about low carb is that its very natural - lots of veges, and natural proteins. I also find I have less fatigue since I’ve been on low carb.
For us, low carb is now simply a way of life, that successfully controls Gary’s blood sugar levels. We haven’t made any strenuous efforts to lose weight, and my weight loss did plateau earlier than I would have liked.
I do sometimes miss the high carb products (bread, pasta, rice, potatoes) that I used to eat on a low fat diet. But I won’t go back to eating them, because I feel better without them.
I don’t worry about the negative publicity around LC diets. I feel better on lowcarb, weigh less, my cholesterol and blood pressure are better, plus, of course, Gary’s blood sugar is under control. Our doctor continues to recommend that we both stick to a low carb diet.
I started the LowCarbOz mailing list because there just wasn’t any information back then, about low carb products in Australia. I belonged to a couple of American groups, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted to know where to find some of those hard-to-locate products, and I figured there would be other Australians with the same interests and concerns, who might be able to help.
As far as I can tell, LowCarbOz was the first Australian lowcarb group on the internet.
In the early days, I needed LowCarbOz as much as the other members. As time went on, I became a ‘lifestyle’ low carber, rather than a newbit, and personal circumstances made it more difficult for me to find the time to moderate the list. Shirley volunteered to moderate it, and has done a great job, ever since.
I expect LowCarbOz will continue indefinitely - its been around for nearly 6 years, and I think there’ll always be a need for a safe, friendly place for Australian lowcarbers to discuss their diets.
Interestingly, the most common questions are still about where to find low carb products, or recipes for how to make them.
I continue to maintain a low carb website - http://www.lowcarb.com.au for the LowCarbOz list, and for anyone on a low carb diet. It has links to Australian sources of lowcarb foods, and it also has lots of information about low carb dieting in general.
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