Sunday, April 5, 2009

Why I moved away from Atkins and an awesome salad



For most of my friends, they'd probably be shocked to see me eating this kind of food.  After watching Gillian McKeith in BBC America's show 'You are what you eat'   I just couldn't bring myself to continue eating a high-fat, low-carb Atkins-style diet.  I enjoyed eating Atkins but the part I hated was the cravings for sweets and the way my body would rebel once in a while and make me feel awful because I wouldn't give in to my cravings for fruit, carbs, sugar, etc...  If I didn't give in, I might lose more weight but I felt irritable until I succumbed to whatever it is that I felt I just had to have.  Once I gave in, my body would punish me and absorb a lot of weight in record time.  What is worse is that if I ever would go off the diet for a while and say, enjoy a holiday, I'd come crashing back to reality when I stepped on the scale and discovered I had gained ten pounds or perhaps even more.  That just cannot be healthy.  I knew it but didn't know what else to do.  Enter Gillian and her butt-kicking ways with English fatties.  It is great fun to sit back and watch the sparks fly when it is on television but the awful truth is that I've been every bit as bad as most of her guests.   The one other reason I felt I had to move away from Atkins was the constipation issue.  There's no gentle way to put it other than just tell it like it is.  No matter how much water I drank and salad I ate, I still was constantly battling constipation.  No longer.  

It is amazing what eating lots and lots of fresh, whole foods will do for you.  I am feeling significantly better now.  My wife and kids are likewise, feeling the benefits of eating well.  We have a lot still to learn but it is fun and tasty.  I am still going to enjoy steak every once in a while but I just don't want it the way I used to.  I used to be slave to my vices.  They are gone and the weight is steadily leaving my body.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I decided it was time to quit Atkins when everything I ate tasted metallic. Steaks, especially, tasted like copper. I haven't been able to enjoy one in almost ten years.

But, after being on Gillian's program for two years, even though I eat a lot of beans and veggies, I have yet to burn out my taste buds.