This is the beauty of a newsgroup, isn't it?

I've read Atkins cover-to-cover at least fifteen times. I've looked up
Atkins's quoted research in Lancet and the BMJ, and he's telling the
truth. And I have never, never managed to lose weight slowly and
patiently on some nice-n-easy "take it off in 7982 weeks, lose a pound
every fifteen weeks, we go slow" diet. I sincerely doubt I can:
there's something about that whole mentality that screams "masochist."

Nope: the only way that has ever worked for me to actually lose weight
is to dive in and fight the food demon head-on. Well-meaning attempts
to regulate weight loss at half-speed and three-quarters speed seem to
require the same amount of willpower for me as the off-the-wall diet I
am describing.

A pound a day, every day, is the only way it's ever worked for me,
insane as is sounds. I suspect I'm not alone, however.

Now, maybe that is my problem. Maybe I need to learn how to accept a
less-enthusiastic approach to dieting. Maybe I need something entirely
new, a balanced weight-loss program that leads me by the hand down the
road to weight loss bit-by-bit, come on, honey, you can do it, rah,
rah, rah...

Or maybe the whole mentality that says "lose it slow" is a crock of
sh.t, fed by doctors frightened by lawyers in sharp suits.

This is the beauty of a newsgroup, isn't it?

Thank you for your welcome.

In answer to your question, because real food doesn't work for me, and
it never has. I like real food, and I tend to eat more of it than is
good for me.

But Jesus Christ, who can afford "real food" that would taste
acceptable on a low-carb diet? Once you get into making low-carb
sauces and pounding down low-carb meals from the animal kingdom...holy
damn, the price tag mounts up! We're talking at least six dollars a
day if you try to eat 2000 calories in meat and fish with some level
of variety. That adds up to some serious bread, doesn't it?

Speaking of bread, once I get into "real food" and not food that
convinces me I'm on a diet when I'm on a diet, the separation in my
head between "I'm eating real food" and "I'm on a diet" quickly gets
blurry, especially in the first stages of a low-carb diet. Somehow,
when I'm consuming a cheesy medium-rare half-pound patty on a plate,
it reminds me that I'm missing a decent kaiser roll.

Putting it on some ultra-special preservative-reeking soya cracker-
wannabe ain't gonna cut it at that point. (That might fall under
someone's else's definition of "real food," but not mine.)

Being on an easy diet, for me, is kind of like being on an easy plan
to quit smoking. I've done it three times, and it does get easier each
time, but the second I start trying to make the experience anything
less than a clear separation between me and the puffies, everything
goes to hell.

And judging from the fact that going by the accepted wisdom provided
by dieting gurus means that 95% of people who lose weight on diets
simply regain it again in five years, I think that there might be some
logic to what I say. As far as I know, there is very little research
that actually targets "what losing it fast" and "losing it slow"
means. If you look at studies, an element of exercise is always
involved, as well as an element of behavioral modification. My
conclusion based on the suspicious regularity of these recurring
elements in the advice that we all tend to suck up like mother's milk
is that there is really very little difference in the failure rates of
those who lose it fast and those who lose it slow, as long as
carefully planned elements of both behavioral modification and
exercise exists. To prove that, of course, we would have to have
access to raw data, and that data is firmly in the control of the
powers that be, the ones that have all the money and the power, and
preach to all of us about how to live life on their terms.

Based on these observations, I think it's far more likely that the
reason why losing weight is so frowned upon by nutritionists is that
you very simply can't tell people of all ages and backgrounds that
they should lose weight fast. Some older individual is going to kill
himself, and it's very easy for even one good lawsuit  to establish
liability and wipe out the profitability of any diet plan.

In general, the same holds true for all marketed exercise programs,
and even things like the US Navy's delayed entrance program. To be
frank, a forty-year-old could probably follow the preparation plan our
salty dogs lay out in their DEP manual to get ready for boot camp.
Since the military doesn't recruit anyone above 28, well, you can see
the absurd logic behind detailing a TEN WEEK program that takes an
average 20-something from walking 40 minutes a day 4 times a week to
running 30 minutes three times a week.

The idiot-fix is in. The Navy's primary goal in telling you to go as
slowly as that is to AVOID GETTING SUED, not to actually help you.

Atkins proved to my satisfaction long ago that the American Medical
Association is most definitely in the pocket of well-organized
multinational agribusiness, so I have a lot of suspicion when it comes
to following any kind of accepted wisdom in dieting. If it's been
documented, if it's been proven and confirmed, I'll try it, but start
taking steps away from that, and the next thing you know, you're
playing games with yourself that you can live with just a few
cigarettes (oops, I mean dietary slip-ups) a week, and then you're
back where you started.

But Atkins is in the same boat as the rest of them. One poor bastard
dies and their spouse runs to a well-funded and well-connected
personal injury lawyer, and poor Dr. Atkins is B-R-O-K-E.

So I'm trying to eat about a thousand calories a day, with a less than
20% caloric intake from carbohydrates. I'm a bit worried about
vitamins, but as to keeping this going for something like three months
and dropping ninety pounds...now that's a challenge worth fighting
for. This is, with the simple addition of more protein, the Benoit-
study dietary ketosis diet detailed in Atkins. A peer-evaluated,
proven plan under the unflinching terms of the scientific method, as
Atkins goes on to show and I have scoured old medical journals to
confirm.

Now the issue of losing weight, when it comes to me, seems to be food
addiction before any other. Not genes, nor willpower, but addiction.
And the addict, caught in the throes of addiction, does not make
positive choices on a day-to-day basis, which is more or less the only
reason why he is typically called an "addict" and not a "role model."
The addict's brain does not function solely according to the dictates
of logic and reason, just like everyone else's, but in an overt way
that leads to a lack of socioeconomic success and personal
fulfillment, as defined by our society.

I have seen this pattern of behavior over and over in myself, and I'd
be willing to bet anyone reading a low-carb newsgroup has as well.
When it comes to addiction, be it physical or psychological, there
comes a point where you simply HAVE TO STOP. The commitment you make
to stop is not about logic. It is about a furious "NO!" thrown out
into the everlasting, uncaring ether that exists despite you and your
puny self, a determination to not give in and do what is easy but
choose instead what is right.

And that, in its turn, could be said to be the essence of faith,
commitment, or even love.

And that, for me, leads to the inescapable conclusion that I really
have to stop enjoying food, enjoying eating all I want, and
relentlessly rearrange up some of the wiring in my head to make things
lead to different places. I have tried other times in the past, and
half-finished the job, but the food demon has returned to climb once
again on my back and sink his relentless claws into my shoulders. I am
quite certain that the food demon will kill me, unless I finally
manage to throw him off and wrestle him into eternal submission.

Once again, thank you for your welcome.