Twelve Black Code Monkeys

Last weekend, I couldn’t get to a bulletin board which I’ve spend ridiculous amounts of time over the last 4 years. It’s the official Protein Power Bulletin Board, linked to the official Protein Power website. Protein Power is the “diet” that I’ve been on for four years running, the longest I’ve ever eaten according to more or less the same configuration.

It is, as many of you know, one of those dreaded “low-carb” plans. But while it shares many things with the much-maligned Atkins Diet, as well as others with that brash startup South Beach, it first was published about 9 years ago. How I wish I had read it then, but that was still at the peak of the low-fat movement and reading something going so much against the grain (no pun intended) at the time, would have been unthinkable. I was not about nutritional rebelliousness quite yet. As I’ve probably written here and elsewhere on numerous occasions, Protein Power, or “PP” as the aficionados call it, is a rational, scientifically based set of guidelines for eating the most optimally nutritious diet, one that promotes improvement in critical areas of health. Weight loss, although a part of this, is not the end-all and be all. The authors explain the science in a fair degree of depth compared to any other diet book out there that I know of. They even go so far as to say that they don’t have all the answers, something you will never hear from the “diet docs” who scream and yell both in their books and on tv or radio talk shows.

But one of the key reasons I think I have stayed with the plan so long is that the Eades (the doctors who wrote Protein Power) where nice enough to provide a bulletin board for those wanting to talk about the plan and anything related. They don’t really participate themselves except on a few rare occasions, but a nurse that assisted them in their practice does show up from time to time and also does regular chat sessions. Aside from her, an extremely knowledgeable microbiologist is an administrator and there are many folks on the boards with a great deal of knowledge concerning nutrition, health, fitness, you name it. Going between this board and other diet-related boards is like going from night to day. Instead of the incessant banter, bickering and useless “me to!” messages with gazillions of unicorn pictures, animated smileys and other detritus, most threads are gems of information and perspective, well thought-out and well-written. Discussions are simply on another level. Sure there are debates, but even when people disagree, they do it in such a mature and reasonable manner, it’s like a breath of fresh air compared to the constant flame wars that make up, sadly, much of the history of internet discussions.

I am actually one of the moderators on one of the Protein Power boards and when I tried accessing them last weekend I was bet with a page not available error. Occasionally technical glitches happened, so I did not think much of this. When I tried on Monday I found the same thing. Last year there was actually concern about losing the board and so we set up a “backup” Yahoo! Group to handle situations like this. Soon there were messages from others that they were also worried. I contacted the administrator who was able to get in touch with one of the authors, Dr. Mary Dan Eades, who allayed fears that the board was going away. It turned out that it was the hurricanes in Florida, where the server is hosted on which the boards exist. Now going to the main website one is greeted with the following message:

“Due to power outages and downed communication lines
caused by Hurricane Frances, eatprotein.com is temporarily off-line.
Technicians are working to restore connectivity as soon as possible.”

Hopefully this will not last that much longer, as many people get support and a great deal of useful information from these boards, and simply enjoy chatting with our friends that we have developed over years of discourse.

While this hurricane season has been devastating to much of Florida (and now Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi), it has also at least indirectly affected others not only around the U.S., but in other parts of the world.

One of the other members of that board has a blog but hasn’t commented yet on the board going down. I’ve gotten emails from other members and I would just say that any members reading this post a comment and say hi. At least maybe we can keep somewhat of a conversation going while the boards are down.