Family Camp Report

We're back from a week at Family Camp. We had a fantastic time, no TV, no blogging, no facebook, no work emails. And also, a chance to experiment with our diet a bit. We decided to just eat what the chow hall served. Which ultimately meant a week long extravaganza of carbs, sugar, more carbs and some white bread to top it all off. A typical day for me (there was always a veg option, thank goodness):

B: oats and fruit
L: 'salad': lettuce, shredded carrots, cucumber and pickled wax beans with 'Italian' dressing, and usually some sort of grain and lentil based soup or stew (heavy on grain, light on lentils)
S: apples
D: another grain based dish - lots of pasta, rice, etc. Tofu made a showing in small amounts, and sometimes peas or lentils or beans, but grain was always the star. Salad, and dessert (hey, might as well go for it, right?): pudding, cookies, pie, etc.

A typical day for my kids:
B: cinnamon roll AND pancakes with 'syrup' (not even real maple syrup, maple FLAVORED syrup!), hot chocolate
L: skippy peanut butter and grape jelly on white bread, cookie, lemonade to drink
D: macaroni and cheese and dessert, lemonade

I doubt we ate anything organic the whole week.

The result of this carb-tastic escapade? We all lost weight. Because we were MOVING MORE. Walking everywhere, swimming every day, hiking to and from meals, no screen time. I will say it again: NO. SCREEN. TIME.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating this diet in any way, and I'm SO glad to be home and back to real food. But I'm sure as hell shaking my head in disbelief EVEN MORE at how many people continue to buy into the 'carbs cause obesity' mythology that is so popular right now. Sorry, low carb isn't a magic bullet. It is NOT the answer to our obesity epidemic. LC is a band aid. (And no, I'm not going to post links to studies, because it's been done, ad nauseum, ad infinitum, by thousands of bloggers from both ends of the diet philosophy spectrum, and I know you've read em all. I'm not a science writer (*waves at Gary Taubes*) I'm a middle aged soccer mom who's putting her money where her mouth is. You wanna debate me? Put YOUR body fat test results and a picture of your middle-aged, post baby, non-photoshopped body in a bikini on the front page of your blog.)

Getting off our collective fat asses is the answer. (I'm talking to YOU, blogosphere and desk jockies!)