The Pros and Cons of the Atkins Diet

Pros

1. A profound sense of wellbeing, at least after the first 7 days. Prior to embarking on this diet I had been experiencing serious mood swings that were affecting my home and work life. I haven't felt this happy all year. Things that used to wind me up aren't winding me up anymore. 

2. Reduced appetite. Takes a few days to kick in, granted. You might need all the willpower you can muster until it happens, but it's worth the effort. No longer being a slave to food can give you such a natural buzz. Slightly anorexic behaviour perhaps. With added cheese.

3. Cheese. Pretty liberal amounts of cheese. When I first did Atkins and didn't read the book properly I practically lived off cheese. But that's OK. I have a vegetarian friend that dips in and out of Atkins - she can eat as much cheese as she likes! 

4. A (nearly) full English every day. Bacon, eggs, mushrooms, sausage (within reason). Every single day. Hard to get sick of that.

5. Cauliflower mash and pizza crust. Now hear me out. Pureed cauliflower mixed with sour cream, butter and cheese makes for an excellent mashed potato substitute. Just ask anyone on the Internet. 

6. Drinking chocolate with cream. This is the only diet where you can sort of get away with this - only something like 10 carbs in it. Be warned though - it is possible to consume 800 calories in about 30 seconds this way, wouldn't recommend consuming it every day!

7. The curious satisfaction that comes with weeing on a stick and watching it turn pink.

8. Oh, and the actual weight loss. If you're obese, and if you're doing the diet right, generally you'll lose at  least 10lb during induction.

Cons

1. The whole Detox element. It's gonna hurt. If you follow the diet to the letter and give up starch, sugar, caffeine and dodgy sweeteners all at once it's going to be like the 8th level of hell for a while. It's called induction flu. Some sources say pamper yourself to help ride it out. I just had a Shameless marathon.

2. Sometimes you try really hard, avoid all the bread and pasta and rice and potatoes and all, and still don't lose weight. You find yourself fixating on "cheating" with chewing gum and cups of tea and cans of diet coke. No normal diet does that to people. Gum shouldn't make you gain weight, but apparently the sugar alcohols in it can cause sensitive people to stall.

3. All the time you have to spend in the kitchen. The food prep eats into your time. You can no longer just grab something on the fly. But just grabbing things is part of the reason why I got so fat in the first place. I'm spending about 1.5 hours a day in the kitchen at the moment, which isn't so bad if you enjoy cooking, and I do.

4. No booze. That takes some getting used to, but again, that's why I got so fat in the first place.

5. People think you're absolutely mental, with your numerous lunch boxes, denial of all normal foods and abstinence from alcohol. Why can't you have fruit? It's just one biscuit. It's just a crisp. Why aren't you drinking? Well I'm a pregnant alcoholic on antibiotics and I'm driving. Does that sound better than "I'm on Atkins"? I don't know. But remember it's nobody's business what you eat or drink. I've found people really aren't that bothered after they've asked you once. They'll soon be wrapped up in their own lives again. Took me a while to realise, but the world doesn't revolve around me.

6. And again, people think you're mental. It's all very ritualistic in the beginning - special breakfast, special lunch, special dinner. But it's no different to anyone else who's on a diet, they're just as mental.

7. No bread :( Worst of all...

8. NO BAKED BEANS. I usually eat baked beans with everything. Now cauliflower is the new baked beans. You heard it here first. Tell your kids.

9. (sorry) Constipation. Oddly on day 2 of my last foray into Atkins I had an alarming bout of diarrhoea up a mountain. Really odd. But yeah, expect bowel havoc for a while until your body grasps what you're up to.

10. Smelly breath. Oh boy oh boy. Just keep drinking water and you should be fine.

11. What with all the fresh meat and vegetables you consume as part of your new healthy lifestyle, it costs a shitload of money.

12. And finally, people think you're mental. Get used to it, you're going to be a bit of a weirdo for a while.  A thinner weirdo. Good luck!

Stupid Atkins diet.
Stupid work do full of carbs and beer.
Stupid period making me not lose weight and feel all upset about it.
Stupid cost of the whole damn thing!
Stupid life getting in the way. This experiment is over for now. My appetite has decreased enough to switch diets. Time for round 2.

Day 21

This diet is really getting on my nerves. It basically takes an hour to cook and eat breakfast nowadays. True, I wasn't actually eating breakfast before, but that's not the point. I also haven't lost any weight ALL week. So I'm feeling a bit fed up with the whole thing. Decided to stick with it til Monday, as I've got the whole weekend's food all planned out, and then re-assess the situation. But today I am cheating with lots of tea and gum so I don't expect amazing results.

Day 18

Rhubarb doesn't appear to be in season. I'm quite sure most of the fruit in the shop wasn't in season really - when's pineapple season? I'll have a dig around for rhubarb in other shops - I will get my rhubarb and custard!

TOM today. Have gained 1.5lb since yesterday. I'm probably going to go against the advice of many people on the internet and keep weighing myself through my cycle, just to get a good idea of exactly what happens really. I hope the weight gain is due to the TOM and not those flavoured vodkas I imbibed on Saturday. Time will tell I guess. Still feeling really mentally well, getting all my to-do list sorted like a normal person, just a bit tired today, prob period-related.

Ooh and somebody came round tonight with a huge gift for me. 20 cans of Strongbow and a box of Celebrations. Dammit. Fortunately these things can wait until I'm thinner.

HEY! Rhubarb IS in season according to Wiki. Booths is just crap. Exists in Sainsbury's, Asda and Waitrose. Seriously can't wait for Waitrose, I'm going to be there every day!

Day 17

A revelation!! Rhubarb and custard! I can have rhubarb and custard on Atkins! True I never really ate rhubarb and custard when I wasn't on Atkins, but this could be the perfect pudding!

Day 15

Woo two weeks of semi-Atkins diet completed. Obviously I haven't been sticking strictly to the rules of induction. Notable cheats have included that cup of double cream, a bottle of red wine, sneaky portions of ketchup, gum and tea, quite starchy veg and curries made using sour cream. Not induction food by any stretch of the imagination. BUT I have lost 7lb so far. That's with cheating. Hurrah! I am the lightest I've been for four years and I'm really keen to keep going. Bring on the next two weeks!

Day 13 (2)

I misread a label and managed to consume 990 calories in 1 minute. I feel cheated, that's nearly 5 pints of cider. Bugger. Have a feeling that's wrecked my diet for a few days.

Day 13

Quite tired today. Was very tired yesterday too. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, I probably just need an early night. But I'm not feeling as amazing as I did last week. I have however lost 5lb in 5 days :D

Day 12 - reasons to be cheerful

- 10 more sleeps til tank driving and archery and kind of unavoidable carb-fest.
- 11 more sleeps til K&E's engagement partay.
- 12 more sleeps til Nandos lunch with the girls. They don't know we're going to Nando's yet but I seriously doubt there'll be any objections. I plan to eat a whole chicken.
- 25 more sleeps til my summer holiday of fun - Liverpool - Lancaster - London (all the Ls) - Northampton - Newcastle - EDINBURGH FESTIVAL - Lakes Chilli festival maybe.

Hang on in there me.

Day 10

Bit of a headache today, took a while to get going, feel a bit better now. Yesterday's dinner was too good to be true. Managed to make low-carb chicken curry, with cauliflower as a rice sub, and sour cream as a yogurt sub. Delicious - am going to do the same tonight I think. In other news I am spring cleaning - I've changed.

Day 9

Just a quick one. I had half a gammon joint for my tea yesterday, and didn't drink on the work night out. I do believe that counts as an epic win.

Day 8 - sad lunchtime blogging

I now blog for a living, it's a bizarre state of affairs really. So you'd think I'd be spending my lunchtime doing something completely different. WRONG. I'm so enamoured with the Atkins Diet that I want to spend my lunch break extolling its virtues. I've just eaten half my lunch and don't want anymore. Ketosis in full effect. Love it.

I've only lost 3lb this week. This is really quite poor for week 1 induction weight loss, but I've got to take the positives from this.

1. I have actually lost some weight rather than gain it or stay the same.
2. I feel brilliant and happy and focused and capable. But a little bit headachey.

I'm even dipping my toes in the task that I ran screaming from two months ago. My outlook has changed that much. It may be unwise to attribute this solely to cutting out sugar from my diet, but I bet it's been a contributing factor. Too many long words in that sentence. You know what I mean.

Day 5

Just checking in. Not sure blogger likes the iPhone. Well it wouldn't do would it? *shakes fist at Google overlords* Anyway, day 5 of my most successful start to Atkins I've ever achieved. Well I say successful. I've only lost a pound so far when once I would have lost 10. But I feel really really well. Aside from Sca Fell Sickness (can only assume that was an allergy to strenuous exercise) I just feel loads better all round. Am able to wake up in the morning, sleep at night, don't feel an overwhelming desire to nap while at work. All those things mean I must be doing myself *some* good, even if I'm not seeing the weight loss results I'd first expected. So I'm sticking to it for now. The dreaded day 5 has passed without incident. Hurrah!

Scafail

The plan yesterday was to climb up Scafell. It didn't happen because I was unwell, quite possibly due to the new way of eating. And when I say unwell, I mean stomach upset (ew ew ew), fever, shakes and shivers, the lot. Managed 500m ascent before we had to call it off. And actually, the descent was really cool. Walked down the valley with J singing Many Rivers To Cross. So although it was disappointing to not get up Scafell, I stuck to my diet, and got to see parts of the Lake District I wouldn't have got to see. HM and J got to drink beer too in the Wasdale Head Inn, and the Manor Arms in Broughton.

Wasn't this supposed to be a diet blog?

I think it was. Project Popstar - as in a diet project to get the body of a popstar. Now that was three years ago and would you believe I'm still the size of a house? Bloody ridiculous. But I woke up this morning with a hangover FOCUS AND DRIVE AND THE WILL TO SUCCEED.

So it's back on the Atkins diet, which is the most annoying diet in the world for everyone concerned, especially my girlfriend. I told her how annoying I was going to be, and I came home to a dinner involving potato waffles and baked beans that I couldn't eat. She also had to hide some chocolate covered pretzels :( I don't really care, I'm going to win this time, there will be plenty of time for chocolate covered pretzels.

It sounds like I'm not having a good time with it already, only 12 hours in. This is not the case. I had a really scrummy lunch and dinner, didn't manage breakfast (someone told me off about that!). I haven't felt as positive as I do today for months, so it's got to be a good thing. I had three steaks for dinner. However I did not have any ice cream. Or cake. Or chocolate. Or sweets. And I won't be having those things for quite some time either. Hmmm. Well we'll see how it goes.

This is definitely my diet blog now, so for anyone who still reads this blog and was mostly interested in any of my travel adventures or random ramblings, the links will take you to their new homes.