THE ATKINS DIET

My mother has a habit of involving herself in the Health Fad of the Week.

She'll hear a snippet on the news about antioxidants or Omega-3 fatty acids and suddenly she's calling and telling me to eat only fish and red peppers. Wait! Did I just SNEEZE? Obviously I need echinacea and royal queen bee jelly because sneezing CLEARLY denotes the Mongolian Upper Thyroid Flu.

No, I'm not exaggerating. I love you, Mom, but we've talked about this.

So a couple of months ago she got turned onto the Atkins Diet. She called me up and said, "Do this diet with me!"

Agents, I don't believe in diets. I don't believe in the health fads of whatever deprivation you're supposed to suffer THIS week in favor of losing weight. I believe in moderation, in watching what you eat, and regular exercise. I figured if I just kept it as real as possible, I could avoid the craziness most of North America seems to go through every year in the quest to lose a couple of pounds.

I also believe in education. To that end, (and since my mother had ALREADY bought me the "New Diet Revolution" book (available at your local Safeway and any bookstore)), I resolved to try this diet for its two-week induction period while reading about it.

Hey, it was only two weeks and it would stop my mom calling me every other day wondering if I was dead of Anthrax or... or... a virus I caught from my computer. So:

The week before I started Atkins.

I started the diet.

What Atkins boils down to is this: Carbs are bad.

What are carbs? Anything that breaks down into simple sugars in the body. Bread made with white flour or whole wheat flour, potatoes, rice, cereals, milk, pasta, and of course anything containing sugar.

Why are they bad?

Because (and I'm way simplifying here) carb sugars inhibit the conversion of fat to energy. Our bodies store fat as a reserve energy layer. The more sugar we eat, the less that fat layer gets converted. The less it gets converted, the more piles on and the fatter we get.

The 80's craze was to avoid fat at all costs. To avoid calories. This, according to Atkins, is actually an egregious error. We NEED fat. It IS our fuel source. All these "diet" drinks and what-have-yous contain less fat, sure-- but if you look at the nutrional breakdown, the carbs are right up there-- whether it's sweetened with aspartame or not, kids!-- and THOSE are what make it hard to lose weight.

So for two weeks I was limited to 20 grams of carbs a day. A DAY. And when you consider that one tiny chicken wing of KFC chicken is 11 grams of carbs, you may begin to see what I'm talking about.

I ate scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. (Meat, any kind of meat, is heartily endorsed by Atkins. Be prepared to be a carnivore when you get hungry.) I had tuna for lunch, with lettuce and cheddar cheese. For supper I had steak and grilled peppers, steamed broccoli-- heck, anything green.

It was difficult at first to let go of things like cereal (which I'd had every morning practically since BIRTH, Agents!) and convenience foods. In fact, I began to notice that almost anything convenient is almost all carbs. I had to give up fruit for a bit-- while good for you, it contains tons of simple sugars which are a no-no during the two weeks of Induction I was doing.

The purpose of such a restricted carb regimen during these first two weeks (no, the rest of the diet isn't like that) is to convert your body from a sugar-burner (which most North Americans are) to a fat-burner-- the way nature intended. By denying yourself sugar, your body goes looking for that reserve of fat energy and starts burning FAT instead-- a state called "Ketosis."

You're supposed to buy these little strips at your local pharmacy called "Ketostix." Every couple of days you pee on them and they turn a colour that tells you how much fat you're burning. It takes about two weeks to get into SERIOUS fat burn.

And folks, if you cheat during the induction, you have to start all over again. I know because my mom, dear health fanatic that she is, didn't last TWO DAYS. (I made it through the whole two weeks without cheating, thankyouverymuch.)

Yes, it was hard at first, dealing with the cravings-- until I realized they were all mental. By which I mean, they were a force of habit, not of physical withdrawal. I wanted a Slurpee but I drank water instead. I wanted donuts. I wanted something BAD for me that would give me PLEASURE. But the only reason I wanted them is because I knew I couldn't just go out and have them. And so I was able to pop open a can of tuna and drown my sorrows in fish, by which time any craving would have passed.

The second week of Atkins. Those pants? PVC. Size 36. (I WAS a size 40.)

Within a week I began to see physical, tangible changes on my body. I was working out at the gym with Agent ACK three times a week-- and the fat was MELTING off my body. I could see definition on my stomach. I could see my where my hips were supposed to be instead of that hello-I'm-thirtysomething softness around the middle. My thighs tightened. My butt stopped sagging. My face-- my FACE! Stopped looking moony and began to remember it had cheekbones.

At the end of one week, I weighed myself and I had lost ten pounds.

The second week was all gung-ho for me; I complained loudly when nummy treats were passed around but only in the spirit of doing combat with fat on my body. "I can't eat you today, donut, but by god my righteous anger at this self-denial is only elevating my ketosis level!"

People looked at me funny for some reason.

Finally, the second week was over. I weighed in again: I had lost another eight pounds. EIGHTEEN POUNDS, Agents, in two weeks.

I was not "obese" by any stretch of the imagination-- but I did have fat that I wasn't using. And it shrank off me, leaving me feeling better and more fit and with more energy than I was used to. In short, the diet worked.

I had said to myself, "only two weeks," and so I was prepared to go back to my old habits-- I could taste the Slurpee now!-- only to find that I didn't feel the need to. Two weeks had taught me a lot about what goes into our bodies here in this culture, and it gave me pause. Did I really WANT the sugar, or was it just a habit? I chose water instead.

Now, some months later, I have kept the weight off, I still work out, AND I have the occasional Slurpee (it is summer, after all. It's tradition.) But I KNOW what I'm eating. I watch it. I'm careful.

And hey-- if I find I'm going soft again, it'll only take two weeks to get me back on track.

Posted by Agent M at August 28, 2003 09:44 AM