Can I tell you just how busy my schedule has been in 2011? More than any other year since I started doing this blogging thing in 2005, I’ve never witnessed this level of awareness, news stories, and overall interest in the subject of high-fat, low-carb living. If you’ve been discouraged by all the nutritional absurdity that seems to dominate our culture as of late (like this idiotic “Best Diets” list from US News & World Report as well as the highly-publicized new Food Plate from the USDA replacing the Food Pyramid), then lemme tell you there’s great reason to be hopeful about what’s to come just over the horizon. The paradigm is most certainly in the midst of shifting in favor of promoting healthy saturated fats as being good for the heart and warning of the dangers of consuming excessive carbohydrates–refined or otherwise (just take a look at this Johns Hopkins study just last week that found low-carb, high-fat diets pose no risk for heart disease as has been commonly believed). It’s good news for those of us who believe strongly in the value of carbohydrate-restriction to stand up and cheer.
But what do real low-carbers who are living this lifestyle in the day-to-day really think about the prospects of acceptance of the high-fat, low-carb message? How are they labeling their diet and what does that diet actually consist of? Who are the major influences and sources of information that they turn to for information about low-carb living and health in general? The answers to these questions and more is what I sought to learn in the survey I did of my readers during my 6-Year Blogiversary Contest Survey in April. I’ve conducted an annual survey of my readers for the past couple of years (see my 2009 and 2010 LLVLC Reader Survey results) and it’s always fascinating to see trends emerge that may not be immediately evident.
For example, the 2009 LLVLC Reader Survey showed just how popular my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” podcast had become with one-third of respondents stating it was their favorite part of the work I do. In the two years since I discovered that fact, the show has gone on to become one of the hottest Health podcasts on iTunes remaining in the Top 25 most-listened-to shows on nutrition! AWESOME! Then in the 2010 LLVLC Reader Survey, the increased attention to the Paleo/primal lifestyle popped up in a big way with one in five of my readers identifying themselves as eating that way–a five-fold increase over the previous year! Now Paleo has become virtually mainstream with feature national television stories about it. So what kind of soothsaying will we garner from the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey? Let’s take a look at the results.
I say it every year, but it bears repeating. The results I get from this informal survey of my readers is NOT meant to be scientific in any way. It simply allows us to see the current state of affairs within the low-carb community to see what is happening with the people who are making this their dietary lifestyle of choice. One thing is for certain about my readers–they live, breathe, and are fully committed to the low-carb way of eating in ways that much of the mainstream would view as quackery. What do you mean you don’t eat sugar? What’s with all that fat in your diet? How can you ever live your life without eating carbohydrates? We’ve all had these questions hurled at us in some form or fashion…and yet we keep on eating this way because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt in our minds that it was the way our bodies were intended to be nourished and we’re seeing the incredible results that come from doing that.
As always, I’m eager to share these interesting findings that you probably won’t see published anywhere else in the mainstream news. It’s sad, but they just don’t care about what living low-carb looks like in the real world–but I know YOU do! The results from all the data gathered (that took countless hours to pour through, categorize, and analyze) is here for you to see and enjoy. Hopefully you’ll find this information both fun and enlightening as you continue to live your low-carb life. Like any other post I share on my blog, your comments and feedback are ALWAYS welcomed and encouraged.
Let’s begin with the gender of the people who visit the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog. In years past, women have dominated the readership at my blog. And the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey showed women still comprise a healthy majority (63%) of my readers. But the trend is showing more and more men are reading the blog now than ever before since in 2009 men made up just 25% of the readers and then in 2010 it was up to 33%. Perhaps the added interest in Paleo diets which tends to attract more men than women and a continued shift in content focus on the subject of health over weight loss at my blog has contributed to the men who have started reading my blog now. That said, I still love my female readers and appreciate all the support they have given me since this blog was created in April 2005.
Next up, the geographical demographics of the readers is always fascinating to me. We had a ton of entries from the United States as expected, but also lots of ones from several foreign countries including Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Chile, Australia, and the UK. Within America, the Top 10 breakdown of states represented in the 2011 LLVLC Survey was as follows:
1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Michigan
5. Pennsylvania
6. Florida
7. Colorado
8. Virginia
9. North Carolina
(tie) 10. New Jersey
(tie) 10. Oregon
California and Texas were once again at the top of the heap of the survey entries in 2011. But Washington and Illinois fell out of the Top 10 while New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia were represented more this year. Newcomers North Carolina, New Jersey and Oregon all squeaked into the Top 10. I’m still surprised my own home state of South Carolina never shows up in the Top 10. Nobody around here knows who Jimmy Moore is nor do they care about low-carb living! UGH!
Now that we know a little more about the readership at the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog, let’s see what their self-described eating plan is. When I asked this question last year, 40% of the people who responded to my survey said they were on the Atkins diet. This was a drop from the 56% who said they were following the popular low-carb diet plan created by the late, great Dr. Robert C. Atkins in 2009. How about in 2011? How did the Atkins diet fare against other plans this year? Take a look for yourself:
1. Atkins–38.5%
2. Paleo/primal–38%
3. My own low-carb plan–17%
4. 4-Hour Body–3%
5. Protein Power–1%
6. Somersize–.5%
7. Dr. Bernstein–.5%
8. Belly Fat Cure–.5%
9. Weston A. Price Foundation–.5%
10. HCG–.5%
Although the Atkins diet remained the most popular diet plan falling just slightly in popularity amongst my readers from the 2010 LLVLC Reader Survey, take a look at what vaulted to the #2 position–it’s those who identify themselves with the Paleo/primal way of eating. In 2009 that number was around 4% and last year it was 20%. It nearly DOUBLED again! There’s certainly no denying that the Paleo/primal movement is very real and here to stay for the foreseeable future in the low-carb community. Thanks to new books like the New York Times bestselling The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf as well as very popular books and blogs by Mark Sisson, Art DeVany and Dr. Loren Cordain (just to name a few), this whole concept of Paleolithic, hunter-gatherer living is at the forefront of dieting trends right now that I think can and should be embraced by people who support low-carb living. No, Paleo/primal does not automatically mean low-carb to everyone who espouses it (in fact, some Paleo advocates support the consumption of white rice and white potatoes as “safe” carbs). But most of the advocates for Paleo diets are also pro-low-carb as well. That’s why I’m pleased to have one of the biggies Robb Wolf joining us on The 5th Annual Low-Carb Cruise in May 2012. You can bet there will be a lot of talk about the rise in Paleo among the hundreds of people who will be attending this event next year!
So how long have people been on their current nutritional plan? Just over one-third (34%) have been eating low-carb for less than a year which tells me that despite the negativity in the media about low-carb living, it’s still being tried and embraced by brand new people every single day. Another 34% have only been low-carbing since 2008 despite the oft-repeated “burst” of the low-carb fad that allegedly took place in 2004. How about those long-term low-carbers who have been eating this way more than three years? They make up one out of every five readers in the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey and are still going strong in their healthy low-carb lifestyle. Anyone who says this way of eating isn’t sustainable needs to explain that to these people.
When I started doing this annual survey as part of my blogiversary, it didn’t dawn on me how much these statistics would be valued by people within the low-carb community. But the results I’ve found from asking specific questions made me stop and think about some very important questions to ask that I’ve never asked before. One of those brand new questions I decided to ask this year that I thought would provide some critical insight into what a low-carb diet is really about about was about the specifics of what people actually consumed. This free form question drew all sorts of varied responses and probably took the most time to compile. But I think it gives a pretty good idea of what foods are most important for people who are livin’ la vida low-carb. Here are the Top 10 most common foods mentioned by the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey respondents that make up their menus:
1. Red meat–88%
2. Non-starchy vegetables–83%
3. Eggs–65%
4. Dairy/cheese–40%
5. Berries/low-sugar fruits–34%
6. Poultry–34%
7. Lard/butter/ghee–33%
8. Nuts/seeds–29%
9. Seafood–28%
10. Coconut/coconut oil–24%
One of the things that would probably surprise the mainstream health media if they actually did a survey like this is the number of people who responded with how much vegetables comprise their low-carb lifestyle. We all expect red meat to be the #1 most-consumed food on a low-carb diet (and I will note that most people who responded to the survey described the KIND of meat they purchase is “grass-fed” or “pastured”), but the high amount of non-starchy veggies probably will raise some eyebrows for those who are uneducated about what this way of eating is all about. But it was Dr. Richard Feinman from The Nutrition & Metabolism Society back in 2006 who shared a survey showing vegetable consumption doubled when people began eating a low-carb diet. All the rest of the foods on the list are certainly ones that most low-carbers would identify with being a part of their own nutritional approach. Other foods of note mentioned and receiving quite a few votes include bacon, cream, dark chocolate, and even sweet potatoes.
What exactly are the benefits that come from eating all of these nourishing foods? I asked the survey respondents that question and 58% of them said it helped them shed some pounds off of their bodies. That’s pretty much expected, although the media usually focuses solely on weight loss as the ONLY benefit of low-carb living. But what else happens when real people eat this way? According to the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey, there’s improved overall health (29%), increased energy (20%), stabilized blood sugar levels (16%), improved cholesterol numbers (10%), better sleep (9%), improved mood (7%), and clearer thinking (5%). Other key health improvements since starting low-carb that were noted by the survey participants included less pain, less acid reflux, better skin/nails, cured infertility, lower blood pressure, coming completely off of prescription medications, and reduced hunger. The benefits of livin’ la vida low-carb are probably even more than we realize!
One of the most influential people promoting low-carb diets in our culture today is New York Times science journalist Gary Taubes. His 2007 book Good Calories Bad Calories is widely considered the most influential book on low-carb nutrition that’s been written since Atkins. It was written for the medical professional to methodically explain how we’ve been led down this current path of believing that saturated fat is harmful while ignoring the carbohydrate connection to obesity and chronic disease. In December 2010, Taubes released a more consumer-friendly version of his book with the publication of Why We Get Fat And What To Do About It which landed on the New York Times bestseller’s list. So, are people reading it? The results I received actually surprised me. I fully expected more laypeople who make up most of my blog readership to read WWGF than GCBC. But that wasn’t the case at all. Just 51% of my survey respondents said they’ve read Taubes’ new book while seven out of 10 readers slogged their way through Good Calories Bad Calories. Many noted that they didn’t need to read the “dumbed down” version of GCBC despite the difficulty in getting through the complex medical jargon in the original book. Even still, I think Why We Get Fat will indeed reach a broader audience of people who would never try to make their way through GCBC.
Who exactly are your most trusted resources for quality information about health? I’ve never really asked that question before in my survey, but I thought it was worth polling my readers to see whose stuff they’re reading. Since this is my blog, I was not surprised to see my name (Jimmy Moore) was written down by nearly three-fourths (74%) of the survey respondents. THANKS for that you guys! But who else made the list of your most trusted health resources?
1. Gary Taubes (60%)
2. Mark Sisson (43%)
3. Dr. Mike Eades (39%)
4. Robb Wolf (38%)
5. Dr. Kurt Harris (31%)
6. Sally Fallon/Weston A. Price Foundation (23%)
7. Tom Naughton (20%)
8. Chris Kresser (18%)
9. Dr. Robert Atkins/Atkins.com (17%)
10. Dana Carpender (16%)
That’s quite an eclectic mix of low-carb and Paleo people in there–you gotta love it! Others receiving quite a few nods from the 2011 LLVLC Reader Survey participants included Stephan Guyenet, Art DeVany, Peter at Hyperlipid, Richard Nikoley, Dr. William Davis, Chris Masterjohn, Sean Croxton, and Dr. Jonny Bowden. The biggest shock I saw was about eight percent of the people noted their own personal doctor which was an encouraging sign that maybe the information coming from the traditional medical community is changing. We can only hope.
Turning to the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” blog, 38% of the people who responded said they’ve only been reading in the past year. WOW! If low-carb was indeed dead, then somebody needs to tell that to all these new people who keep popping up on my blog every single day. And nearly one-third (32%) of my readers have been with me for well over two years–many since the very beginning! Suh-weet! In fact, some people had been reading my blog for so long they actually forgot when they started. That’s okay…YOU’RE HERE and that’s all that matters. How did you guys find me? Another blog, podcast or forum attracted 40% of my readers, a search engine search like Google brought 25% of you here, and listening to my podcast on iTunes brought 16% of you to the blog. This is why I try to pay back the link love as much as possible on my blog to show my appreciation to the others who are in the health blogosphere spreading the positive message of healthy low-carb living!
Finally, I asked an important question that I believe is the primary reason and purpose behind all that I do with the “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” concept. I first asked the question, “How many more years do you think it will take before high-fat, low-carb nutrition is accepted and embraced as a healthy lifestyle in the United States?” Many people struggled with this question because they wanted to be optimistic about the future while remaining realistic about the prospects of anything actually changing. Over one-fourth (27%) answered “too many years” and another 16% said they didn’t know. The most optimistic estimation by nearly one-fourth of the respondents (27%) was that it would happen in the next ten years with four percent actually saying “it’s already happening.” Eight percent of the respondents said it would “never happen” and one in five said it would take well in excess of ten years.
What exactly is going to make this acceptance of low-carb, high-fat diets come to fruition? Over one-fifth (21%) say it’s going to happen at the grassroots level through the Internet. Another 17% said changes at the USDA with their promotion of low-fat, high-carb diets in the Dietary Guidelines will make it come about. Promotion by the mainstream media of the latest low-carb research is what 15% of the respondents said would make it happen while 14% noted people who have been successful on low-carb telling their friends and family about it will make the necessary changes happen. Other notable ways the low-carb revolution will take hold is when the low-fat advocates die off, doctors begin to embrace it for their patients, a famous person starts promoting it, changes happen with the way pharmaceutical companies are allowed to promote their drugs, and major changes happen in the food marketplace. One thing is for certain–this is a complex issue that when it finally get unraveled and people realize how many years they wasted eating a high-carb, low-fat diet all in the name of “health,” there will be an uproar about it. My readers are already mad about it and doing everything they can to spread the message!
That’s what I have for you from the 2011 “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” Reader Survey. Special THANK YOU to everyone who participated in my blogiversary contest and filled out the survey answers. This information is invaluable and I hope you enjoy learning from it as much as I did. Never stop learning and keep sharing with everyone you know the amazing benefits of the high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb nutritional approach. It’s worked for so many of us to give us back our health and make us better people in the process. I look forward to continuing this journey with you on a daily basis here at my blog and I sincerely appreciate all of you who make this a daily destination in your quest to become optimally healthy. God bless you guys and stay encouraged! GREAT THINGS are on the horizon. Just you wait and see.
