Hello Atkins, I'm back. Did you miss me?

This seems a fitting follow-up to yesterday's article on indulgence! 


In case you’re unfamiliar with the Atkins diet, its basic premise is that we get fat because we eat too many carbohydrates and that if we severely limit said carbs, we’ll lose weight.  I did it a few years ago and was very successful.  Over several months I lost about twenty pounds.  I got back to my very slim high school weight, which I thought I’d never see again.  I found Atkins pretty easy to follow and stayed on it and uber-thin for a few years before falling off the wagon and slowly gaining that twenty pounds back.  This past snowy winter of bored baking in Virginia capped off that upswing.

I moved to east Tennessee in April, determined to get moving again and have spent the last several weeks walking five miles a day to very little result.  Walking is great for lots of health reasons and I don’t intend to give it up, but losing weight isn’t really one of them.  Not willing to slide into fat old lady-hood quite yet, I’m back on Atkins.

Atkins has changed a bit since I last visited.  The New Atkins involves a lot more vegetables, claiming even a vegetarian can do it.  They emphatically deny that eating mounds of fat is the way to a slender future.  To be fair, Atkins never did make that claim in the first place but a lot of people believed it.  The new book, which I downloaded to my Kindle a couple of days ago, spends some time directly addressing and debunking various Atkins myths.  Although you’re still not allowed a glass of wine, you can have a cup of coffee in the morning, making it somewhat easier for those of us with a caffeine habit.

My morning yogurt, granola and fruit breakfast has been replaced with a two-egg, vegetable omelet and I’ve let a little seafood slip back into my mostly vegetarian routine.  I’m complying with the three meals, two snacks regime since I’ve learned how important it is not to trigger the “oh my gosh she’s starving me” response in my body.  This plan leaves me feeling like I’m either eating or thinking about eating awfully frequently throughout the day.  I don’t much like that part but I suppose I’ll get used to it.  So, I’m dieting again.

I don’t always love having to wash my face and brush my teeth every morning and every night; sometimes I’m so tired I just want to fall into bed.  All that interminable showering and shaving isn’t fun but do we ever even think about giving it up?  Why can’t dieting be like that? Is it because there are no temptations out there to skip our personal hygiene?  We aren’t bombarded with exhortations to indulge in a little time off from flossing.  There are no sexy commercials featuring slim, beautiful women chucking their shampoo and razors out the window. 

Most of us have spent our entire lives agonizing about what we put into our mouths.  We vacillate between chucking it in and hitting the Ben & Jerry’s and being disgusted with ourselves and striving to make our way back to where we were.  I know, we’re not supposed to call it dieting; we’re supposed to just “lead a healthy lifestyle”.   Call it what you like, it’s hard work.  Constantly showered with the message that it’s possible to eat, drink, be merry AND slim and lovely, we resent the reality that, no matter how hard we try we are unable to achieve this ideal.

I know I’m extremely susceptible.  If I see a television show with a bunch of women gossiping around the kitchen island with glasses of wine in their hands, I suddenly want one too.  I saw a commercial the other day with a guy sitting in a chair with a bowl of M&M’s by his elbow and, with no previous thoughts of sweets, I wanted a bowl of M&M’s on my side table too.  I’m generally able to hold fast against these various temptations but they are insidious!

I don’t blame anybody but myself for my inability to completely change my lifestyle to the point where, like brushing my teeth, I no longer think about it.  It is against everything I believe in to imply that chocolate, like cigarettes, should no longer be advertised on television.  It’s my job to control myself and, once again, I’m on it.  We’ll see how it goes.

What about you?  Where are you in the eternal struggle?  Succeeding, failing or currently letting it slide?