Ugh!

Well, week before last, it was decided that my gut was too big, and I needed to lose weight. The only diet I have ever had work was the Adkins diet. I spent about 6 months on it about 2 and 1/2 years ago and dropped 60 lbs. I lost it come the Christmas holidays and never geared back up to it, despite a couple of false starts. I have several weaknesses when it comes to food. I love sweet stuff, pasta, rice all personana-non-grata in low-carb land.

If you have never had to pleasure of low carb dieting, a couple of things you might want to know. There are several out there. Atkins, South Beach, The Zone, and Sugar Busters are the most popular, and they all start out about the same. The first two weeks, you eat almost no carbohydrates of any kind. You can have about 1 cup of green vegetables per day, otherwise it is mainly protein (meat) with some cheese thrown in to try to keep you from getting bored. Now you had better drink a ton of water for 2 reasons. Reason one is the diet is a diaretic and you'll piss your brains out and reason 2 is that if you don't pour the water in and take a mild laxative, you'll feel like you've crammed a beaver dam up your butt. You'll only shit once a week and feel like you're passing lead bricks.

Also, if you try this, read the book all the way through. One thing about the Adkins, day one is okay, day two isn't bad. Day three, four, and maybe five, you feel like crap. I can't describe it, you just feel bad, like early stages of flu maybe. You have no energy, you have a mild headache, you feel weak. Then all of a sudden you feel great. You get a rush that last several days and you start preaching the low-carb gospel. Then you kind of balance out.

Now, I don't know the medical validity of the diet. Some doctor's like it and some hate it. Mine likes the South Beach Diet. What I do know is, I loose weight on it, and if I can survive the first week, I will feel good. I had excellent blood work when I was on the Adkins too. Now if I can just stick to the diet and the treadmill.