What I Learned from Dr Atkins

I know, I know... I have been gone too long. I offer no excuses. But I will say that my self-flagellation in my absence was worse than anything you could have devised for me. I spent the summer having knee surgery, cracking my ribs in a spectacular ATV accident, burying my father, and experiencing commensurate emotional turmoil. In short, I spent the summer stress eating.

Current weight: 283. Considering the above, I am not too upset about that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that a handful of the pounds I do not currently weigh were lost during a flirtation with the Atkins diet. One of my doctors suggested Atkins as a way to progress on my weight loss, and I went immediately to the bookstore, pulled a mound of Atkins-related books off of the shelf, downloaded recipes, made weekly menus, even inflicted my eating habits on my husband and a couple of wonderfully supportive friends.

In three weeks, I was underwhelmed, and have just today decided to find a less counter-intuitive method. So, here are the things I learned from Dr Atkins:

1. I am not the carnivore I thought myself capable of being. I like chicken, turkey, and fish, and I really enjoy the occasional steak or pork chop. But I cannot tolerate an all-meat diet.

2. My husband is every bit the carnivore he knew he could be.

3. Fruit is a big part of my diet. I do not see the need to apologize for this. Isn't fruit supposed to be good for you? Isn't a diet supposed to be good for you? Isn't a diet that represents a sustainable lifestyle change supposed to teach you how to eat healthy?

4. I am not interested enough in seeing the fat "melt off of me." Apparently, if I was, I would have really loved and lost on this diet. Que sera sera.

5. I am, in fact, capable of turning away from carbs. I used to swear that my life could never be carbless. I was wrong. I didn't have nearly as much trouble with the carbless thing as I did the fruitless thing, the low-veggie thing, and the low-fiber thing.

6. I have never in my life had as much acid reflux as I had on that diet. And what's worse, I had to find a chewable antacid that didn't add to my daily carb count!!! (There is one, but that's not the point.) I was chewing antacids like they were on the list of approved snacks!!!

So, like Wile E Coyote, it is back to the old drawing board for me. Come along. Let's do this together!