About Laura Richard

1987

1998

December 2001

Laura Richard's professional background is in nursing and healthcare administration. She has been an ER nurse, oncology nurse, hospital administrator, home health & hospice administrator, business owner, and now, a healthcare business consultant.

She began her low carbohydrate lifestyle after 15 years of steadily gaining weight on high carbohydrate, low fat diets. By the time it dawned on her that her low fat diets were not working, she was almost 40 years old and was wearing a very tight size 16. Then early one morning in 1999, she woke to the shocking news that the US government announced that we Americans were getting more overweight despite the fact we were eating less dietary fat. As she slowly digested this astonishing news, she decided to try low carbohydrate dieting even though the principles of low carbohydrate dieting went against the advice of all of her fellow healthcare professionals. And she had company. Not only did she decide to try low carbing, several members of her husband's family decided to join her. After only a few months, all of her in-laws lost weight. Her husband lost about 20 pounds, her brother-in-law lost about 20 pounds, her mother-in-law lost over 30 pounds (and lowered her chronically high cholesterol and triglycerides), and her father-in-law lost a fantastic 73 pounds!

She, on the other hand, had lost only three or four pounds total. Needless to say, she was a bit disappointed.

Rather than giving up, she was challenged by her family's success and began to research the diet by reading every low carb book in print and searching the Internet. She was a woman on a mission, determined to solve the mystery of why she was losing weight so slowly. She quickly learned that she was losing weight so painfully slowly because she is one of the unfortunate dieters who are metabolically resistant -- a difficult obstacle to overcome.

By incorporating the suggestions of experienced low carbohydrate dieters (mostly from the internet and internet news groups) into her daily routine, she was able to dramatically speed her weight loss and reach the size 8 that she is today. So her first passion become sharing the tips and advice she had gathered along the way with people who are new to, or struggling with, the low carbohydrate lifestyle. From her experience, she decided to write a book that summarized the advice and suggestions she got from fellow low carb dieters, and her book, "The Secret To Low Carb Success! How To Get the Most Out of Your Low Carbohydrate Diet" was released in January 2002.

In April of 2002, her father lost about 15 pounds (down to his normal weight) using the Atkins diet. Rather than being pleased with his loss, his physician scolded him! Pulling together research from her files to forward to her father's physician, it occurred to Laura that other low carbohydrate dieters were likely facing similar situations and would also benefit from having access to the growing body of research which seemed increasingly to support a lower carbohydrate way of eating. She began posting a rudimetary list of research findings on her website, but quickly realized that as the list grew, it would become too long and unweildy to be useful - or to be managed.

In July of 2002, she was approached by Andrea Mondello, founder of LowCarbEating.com, about cooperating on a searchable index of links to studies, professional literature and research findings that would be scaleable and easy to use and administer. LowCarbResearch.org was born! It is Laura's hope that this index will be used by both medical professionals and medical consumers in their efforts to sort through the issues (and often controversy) surrounding low carb dieting.

You can read more about Laura Richard, including more on her "low carb story", by visiting her website at: LowCarbSuccess.net.

Laura Richard also writes a regular column (oriented towards the layperson) for LowCarbEating.com, discussing in detail the latest findings, news and other low carb topics, which can be found BY CLICKING HERE.