Susan has been on the Atkins Diet for some time now, so in the spirit of solidarity and shared suffering ("For the next 12 ounces, I'll be counting calories with you..."), I decided to try it myself. How hard can it be, I thought? Cheese, meat, cheese, cheese, meat (apologies to Jack-in-the-Box). Well, for a confirmed carbohphile like myself, it was a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated.
It's not as if I need to lose a lot of weight. I come it at about 225, and I figured that I'd be happy if I could get back down to 210. If I could do it on Atkins, so much the better. Yeah, right.
Day one was OK, even though it felt decidedly weird eating nothing but fatty foods. No problem, I thought; you'll get used to it. Even day two wasn't too bad, although I could tell that following Atkins was definitely going to leave me feeling differently than I was used to. I did notice that my hunger changed. I didn't feel the normal low-blood-sugar hunger that I've grown accustomed to on my normal breadophile diet.
By day three, I noticed a pronounced lactic acid buildup in my legs. It felt as if I was walking on two wooden stumps, and I had no energy. I was also experiencing some strange migraines- strange in that they were unlike my normal migraines. I was under a tremendous amount of stress last week (wanting to fillet and batter-fry your supervisor will do that to you), so it was difficult to say if the migraines were related only to my change in diet.
When I woke up on day four, I knew that I was done for. It wasn't that I missed my morning cereal and coffee (which I did), but I hated the way I was feeling. If I had bothered to read Susan's Atkins book, I would have been aware of some of the potential side effects, and perhaps I could have done something to deal with it. In the final analysis, though, I really and truly hated the way that I was feeling. Combine that with the fact that the house always smelled of fried food, and my mind was made up. Come day five, it was back to my cereal and coffee for breakfast, and it felt like getting a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card.
I feel badly, because Susan is still faithfully sticking to Atkins, but I just couldn't do it to myself any longer. I understand the whys and wherefores of the Atkins Diet, and why it really does work for some people. Even so, I couldn't see doing that to myself for any appreciable length of time. I'm all for eating sensibly, but to my way of thinking, the Atkins regimen is more work and more self-denial than I can reasonably justify subjecting myself to.
I still plan on trying to lose those 15 pounds, but I'm going to do it in a way that doesn't leave the house smelling like a short order grill. Ah, my kingdom for some buttered toast....
