Posted on 01/04/2004 7:26:23 PM PST by SamAdams76
Next time you see a baker begging in the street, feel free to blame people like me for his plight. It seems that sales of bread have fallen so sharply in the US as a result of the spread of the Atkins diet — and what happens there soon follows here — that bakers are pondering a bleak future. One, Sara Lee, is attempting to revive its fortunes with a low-carbohydrate brand — Delightful Bakery Breads — which will go on sale next week; another large company will follow suit in May. Low-carb bread may sound like an absurdly contradictory invention, but I have a pretty good idea what it will be like, since I have already tried low-carb muffins, chocolate cake, crisps, chocolate and breakfast snacks. They have one thing in common. They all taste like ground cardboard.
I’ve eaten them because I am a convert to the low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet. This means I am also a turncoat. Last year, I wrote on these pages — in response to a report which claimed to find that fatties are thicker than stick insects — that “I’m fat, I’m thick and I’m proud.” Fine in theory, perhaps. But it turned out to be a lie. Soon afterwards, I started dieting.
So much for being fat and proud. I plead just one factor in mitigation. Take a look at the picture next to these words. See what I mean? I think the word is “jowly”. Less diplomatic souls might say “porker”.
Let’s make a deal. If you have the heart to forgive me my slide from porker to porkies, then I won’t mention if you, too, need to follow that January tradition and go on a diet. As millions look in the mirror this morning after the Christmas binge, my message is simple: it’s a doddle. Within a fortnight of starting, even I had lost 5lb. Five months on and I have lost more than three stone — with more to come. For the first time ever, I’m on a diet and don ’t have constant hunger pangs. I’m eating plentifully and yet the weight is cascading off.
I’ve noticed a common reaction from people I meet. Some are fascinated and want to know all the details. But quite a few are, well, angry. They seem somehow put out that I am losing my jowls so easily and so enjoyably.
I’m now used to the looks of admiration and surprise at my success turning, when I mention Atkins, to sneering. It’s usually followed by a variation on the theme of “well, it isn’t a proper diet”, as if the only acceptable form of weight loss is one which involves much suffering (let’s leave aside the low-carb muffins for a moment).
If these people themselves were fat I could understand their attitude, but my fat friends are generally hugely supportive. No, it’s normal-size people who seem affronted. It’s also an exclusively male phenomenon. Neither I, nor anyone I know following this diet, has ever had such a response from a woman.
One newspaper diary column became mildly obsessed — and rather offended — by my weight loss, suggesting that its readers send me “gifts of stollen and mince pies” for Christmas.
The writer wasn’t to know that I had already been allowing myself small periods off the diet anyway. I spent last week in Vienna, where it would have been a crime not to eat cake, and stuffed every carb I could find down my throat. But the more potatoes, chocolate and bread I put away, the hungrier I felt. Within a day back on the wagon my appetite had shrunk again and I’m finding it as easy as ever to stick to the diet.
Now that the weight is dropping off, I’ll happily endorse the fathead report which so annoyed me last year. It wasn’t specific about the IQ points lost per pound gained, nor did it say if it worked in reverse.But that’s an assumption I’m prepared, for the good of mankind, to make. And since I’ve lost 45lb, I must have put on quite a few IQ points. So if you have any tricky personal problems that need solving or any philosophical dilemmas which need unravelling, just get started on Atkins — or ask me to apply my now enormous, lean, honed, brain power.
In the gym, I try to lift the amount of weight I have shed and wonder how I avoided a heart attack. So yes, this year I’m now an evangelist for weight loss. Call me a turncoat if you want. I don’t care. I feel better than I can ever remember before. If only I could so easily shed those self-interested charlatans and nutritionists who would stop me and others from losing weight and enjoying it.
I love(d) Coke, and Cherry Coke too, they were my gateway sodas , I would drink a 2-liter or more a day sometimes along with a 2 liter or more of Mountain Dew or Code Red.
I would even drink Water Joe, a caffeinated water.
I had a few cans of Coke/Cherry Coke for Christmas and New Years - with rum for 2 cans :-`).
It tasted great but I could limit myself to just 2-3 cans for the 2 days I drank it. The other times I have had soda in the past 2 months they have mostly been flavors without caffeine , Cream soda, Black Cherry, orange, Sprite, ect.
FReeper carlo3b has some wonderful low-carb recipes. You may want to join his ping list.
I started the phase 2 of Atkins (skipped induction because I was nursing a newborn) last April and stayed on it 6 months. But after 3 months, I began bruising very easily. I lost 11 lbs total and many inches, but the bruising was weird. When I began eating some carbs again other than berries (I ate berries and nuts all along), the bruising stopped.
I felt much better on the low carb diet but I despised all the fake sugar things. They taste weird and they have bad side effects. Most people use the Atkins substitutes and thus do get sweetness now and again. If I were on Atkins, I wouldn't get any sweetness. I think all Atkins people who say "I don't ever crave sugar!" as they down Atkins syrups, bars, pastas, shakes... are phonies. I was doing it with nothing sweeter than frozen berries. You really DO miss sweets even if you don't crave them. South Beach calls it part of the diet to go ahead and eat a dessert now and then as long as you realize what it may cost you the next day in catching up, cravings or pound wise.
Another thing -- this is kind of scary -- my beautiful 10 month old baby is wonderfully healthy, and filled out with cheeks and thighs and all, but he is INCREDIBLY UNDERWEIGHT. He is bright, advanced in his behaviors, and he is at the 5th %ile in height, but WAYYY off the charts below the norm in weight. He weighs what a 5 month old would. 13.5 lbs. He is healthy and loves to eat, but I wonder if my diet affected him. How I hope not. My other two kids were normal to upper weights at his age.
Anyway, I love the low carb way of life, but maybe Atkins wasn't right for me as a nursing mom.
Another weird thing? On Atkins I used to use heavy cream as a dessert, either whipped or simply poured onto berries with a sprinkling of chopped nuts. I used to buy a LOT of that cream and I loved it. My treat! Once I started eating carbs, I couldn't stand to THINK about that cream! I had a half-gallon of it (you can find it at Smart and Final stores) that I just let rot in the fridge. When I think of that cream I shudder now. I don't know why. The desserts I made with it were pretty yummy.
The South Beach diet ricotta dessert is awesome. Low fat ricotta cheese, mixed with a tiny bit of fake sugar (I can only use stevia) and a small amount of cocoa powder (Dutch process, not chocolate milk powder). Yum. Like tiramisu.
There are quite a number of recipes archived at http://madsrecipes.com/ These are formatted for the MasterCook program (available at Wal-Mart for $20 and plenty of other places), but they also have a recipe reader available on the site.
Anyhow, I've really enjoyed searching through the recipes for low carb alternatives.
By the way, this is the first time I've posted since the addition of the spell checker. THANKS ADMIN MODS!!!!
That makes it hard for me to consider an Atkins type diet. I go thru a gallon of 2% milk every few days. Love the stuff. Fortunately, I am not (too) fat (6'2", 198#).
Indeed, there are published studies on what body-builders (who seek to achieve a Very Low Body Fat) call an ECA stack -- a combination of caffeine, aspirin, and ephedrine hydrocloride (yes, the artificial form of the stuff that's supposed to be banned). The amounts needed are small -- 200 gm caffeine, half-an aspirin, and 25 mg of ephedrine hydrocloride. The published studies indicate it boosts metabilism about 10 to 15 percent over what it would be without the stimulus. And (as I've discovered) the side-effects wear off in about 10 days, though the metabolic boost continues.
In my case, all I added was the ephedrine hydrocloride (purchased over the counter at Wal-Mart's). I was already taking a daily aspirin, and a large mug of Italian roast coffee in the morning.
I've been on Atkins since June 1. I've lost 40 pounds. I only have 45 more to go to return to my marriage weight. I feel sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo damn good!
When I was hi-carbing (my life before Atkins), I would usually stop eating for purely mechanical reasons -- it was uncomfortable to push any more food into the stomach. AND, a couple of hours later, I was hungry again.
Two weeks into Atkins, I was shocked one evening to look down at a half-eaten plate of Atkins-compliant supper (yes, it was tasty and plentiful), and found myself thinking, "I not only don't want any more, I positively want NOT to eat any more of this." I can still remember how amazing that was.
My doctor confirms that Atkins is correct -- a very low carb diet forces a switch in metabolic dynamics, from burning carbs to burning fat, with the result that blood ketone levels increase dramatically, which also suppresses appetite. Want all the neuro-metabolico-chemical details? Get Atkins' book and read it. It's all there in mind numbing detail.
The upshot? Yes, you can eat all you want. BUT, you'll want a whole lot less. I love the food I eat, and I eat all of it I want. And, I'm still losing weight (down 40 pounds since June '03).
Atkins was hard for me to, but not for milk. I like milk, but I've got to have the lactose free stuff, and I prefer the skim milk. I don't really miss milk that much, because it was to wash down all the stuff you can't have with Atkins... Fruity Pebbles, brownies, oreos, etc... The funny thing was I never had any cravings while I was on the diet, until that one post here on FR about how some loons in CA wanted to ban the sale of Oreo cookies to children. That was the only time I craved something! I wanted Oreos, but I was able to fight off the craving.
No, my problem is with fruit juice. I can drink 1/2 gallon of grapefruit juice a day, easy. And right now, in KC they're selling a local orchard's apple juice. I fell off the atkins wagon at Thanksgiving, and figured I'd get back on after new years, but I've still got a gallon of that juice in the fridge, and there's no way it's getting poured down the drain... 8oz glass is 28g of carbs! But WOW, is it good. So, I'll probably start up induction again on Thursday.
If I can give up my breakfast of fruity pebbles, you can give up on the milk, at least for a few weeks (just the first 2).
Mark
It is just easier to cut it out totally, not even Diet Rite, which has Splenda (don't like the cola or the white grape), is a good idea for me to drink or I might start wanting the real thing.
So I will stick with water, tea, kool-aid and low carb shakes.(when I go back to low carb)
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