Your low carb diet/or any diet really is not the source of your gout.Understand what gout is first. Will your diet make your gout go awayif you are a vegetarian? The answer is simply NO. Your body forwhatever reason is over producing or under excreting uric acid.Granted that purines in food make ur body produce more or less uricacid but this only account for a small percentage, diet wise. Whatthat really means is that cutting back on the supposed “high” purinefoods may prolong the next attack but you still have gout and ur bodyis not able to rid your system of the uric acid being accumulated. Sowhere does that leave u??? Well as you have heard many times,allopurinol is basically the best thing we have at the current time.It retards the production of uric acid so your kidneys can adequatelydo their job. What does this have to do with low carb Atkins/SouthBeach diets?? My personal suggestion is that if you aren’t takingallopurinol to reduce your uric acid, this is the first step. If youhave just started taking allopurinol, hold off on starting a low carbdiet. If you have been on allopurinol for at least 30-60 days, noattacks, go low carb and don’t look back. And what makes me anauthority on this subject?? Nothing really but my personal experience.

I had tried Atkins a few years back and after the first two weeks beinghungry as hell I gave in about Midnight after seeing a burgercommercial. So I pretty much gave up low carb dieting right then andthere. Late last year my rheumatologist told me to get on South Beachto get my weight under control. So I bought the book, followed it fora month before I customized it to my liking. (The second phase willnot net any lost weight and Atkins will also plateau after a whileunless you know how to break this cycle.) Here is my progress and howlong it took me to reach my goal weight; (starting from the bottom)

05/27/04 230 Goal weight reached.

05/26/04 231

05/25/04 232

05/12/04 235

04/21/04 238

04/17/04 240

04/11/04 243

03/26/04 248

03/21/04 250

03/18/04 252

03/17/04 253

03/10/04 255

03/02/04 261

02/21/04 265

02/20/04 267

02/02/04 272

01/28/04 274

01/26/04 276

01/21/04 279

01/12/04 289 Start Weight

I’m currently floating around 230 and 235. I have severely relaxed mydiet but consume more wisely using both the combined knowledge ofAtkins and South Beach. It was also at that visit to my rheumatologistthat I increased my dosage of allopurinol from Mg to Mg daily which Iam currently. I have not had one single attack since, mild”pre-tingle” or a little soreness is about it. Naturally my dietconsists of the many things that the traditional gout mentality tellsus to avoid; meats, broccoli, seafood, etc.

It really bugs me that I had to stumble upon this group before I couldreclaim my well being from gout. I haven’t suffered long with gout(two years) but I have chronic gout. My attacks would come severaltimes a year, sometimes only taking a couple days off in between.There must be a god because somehow I found this group and stumbledupon two guys (Arnold/Walter)that have done their homework on thisstuff and decided to share and continue to share this vital informationwith all of us, especially in a manner that is understandable by the”average joe” like me.