Story one: bleeding Atkins- literally, bleeding

Alright, that title was a little misleading. What I'm referring to is rare, bloody steak. So rare it's still mooing preferrably.

Now, all my life I've loved food. I have an early memory of stealing six Rich Tea biscuits, thinking I was a total ledge for getting away with it, and only managing to choke down about three and a half before cotton mouth set in.

However, I have always really, really, really liked meat. My mother used to joke that my brothers (who stand at a very respectable 6"5 and 6"7) and I were as tall as we were because of all the hormones we ingested through meat as children. While she might (somewhat terrifyingly) have a point, I've always had one true love. It is steak.

I must apologise. I failed before I started (because I didn't start). I am of course referring to my diet, and subsequent blog thereof, but I've been rethinking whether or not I will do the "follow the food pyramid and exercise" diet- one of the biggest plotholes when it comes to dieting is cheating or non completion. I'm not innocent by anyone's standards and I have to wonder how effective a crash diet is when stuck to religiously. More on that later though.

My boyfriend informed me the other day that he "doesn't get" steak. He's not the only one. I've heard this from a few people. I know what you're thinking, I know- preposterous, eh?

I, however, "get" steak. Mother of jaysus, steak does it for me. I don't even see cows. Just pre-steaks.

When that plate is swimming with water and juices, the first cut into a rare, bloody steak is just so satisfying. Eating rare meat feels naughty. Take that, HACCP.

A few years ago (actually, about ten years ago, now that I think about it) I read an article in a woman's glossy about the hazards of carbohydrates, one woman's tragic story about how she had bloated because of too much brown rice, something she had been duped into eating by the powerful healthy eating lobby no doubt. Obviously, no man anywhere wants to be seen dead next to a woman with a belly so he ousted that barrel of a woman. Plunged into a dark, deep depression by the dissolution of her wondrous relationship our heroine stopped applying herself in work, in life. She lost her job, she became homeless as a result of not paying rent and died on the streets, a husk of her former self, but more importantly, fat.

Yeah, I made all of that up. Well, not the bit about the bloating. You know that myth about pigeons exploding as a result of eating rice thrown as confetti at weddings? This was worse.

It had never occurred to me that bread and rice were so bad for you. Bread, or rice, potatoes or pasta. BREAD IS OUT TO GET YOU. Armed this knowledge, I went forth in life, eating toast and feeling really bad about it.

When Atkins started to get popular there was a lot controversy surrounding it, this new wonder diet. I read an article about a woman who had nearly died of dehydration. I thought to myself, well that foolish woman. I'll just drink more water.

I went out, bought the book, got it home, realised there was a lot of reading, purchasing and commitment required and left it unopened for four years.

For all my postive body image, "I love myself" mumbo jumbo, I'm not afraid to say I'm not happy with my body. Does this make me a hypocrite? Yeah, in a way, sure. However, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who preaches good body image and is totally satisfied with their body. I'm not making a point about nutritional experts- just about people. I just think (in the interest of full disclosure) it seems like a bit of a logical disconnect to state in one post (as I previously did here) that you're relatively satisfied with what you look like and to then state that you were on a diet as recently as four weeks ago.

Because I was.

I'd like to entitle it "Adventures in Attempting to make Carbohydrate-free Bread".

To break down the science of the Atkins diet I'll explain it thus:

For the first fortnight, you essentially eat meat. It's called the induction period, because you're being inducted into the most boring eating habits imaginable.

Now, the world and their aunt has a spare tire. When you eat glucose (sugar) you invariably eat more of it than you need to simply survive and this excess is saved up as glycogen. Glycogen is your body's secondary energy source, after food. When you exercise and exert yourself you use up glycogen. If you don't exercise and instead sit around in your pants on the couch all day, eating pringles, this glycogen turns into fat.

Fat, as we all know, is bad.

For the first three days of the induction period you feel fine. Fatty meats are something we're warned to eat in moderation but Atkins allows you to eat as much as you like, which is a liberating sensation. A clever little kook about the Atkins diet is that protein is an appetite suppressant (it takes much longer to digest), and meat is salty, so you'll be drinking a lot more water (which is recommended anyway) and you'll feel less hungry.

Day three or four is when most people initally fail. This is probably because they feel death is imminent.

The bodies of the Western world don't use protein as an energy source. Our metabolisms have changed dramatically from those of our caveman ancestors to the grain guzzlers we are today.

We use carbohydrates as an energy source. Carbs aren't just in bread, cereals and grains though. They're in any sugar that ends in 'ose (glucose, sucrose, etc), so they're in fruit, and anything that has sugar in it. Like... chewing gum. Or cakes, chocolate, ice cream. Even milk is out of bounds. All that damn, dirty, lactOSE.

So, basically, you can eat meat. Meat and some vegetables and a very limited number of fruits and vegetables. You can eat up to twenty grams of carbohydrates and no more during induction (as much as in one small pot of yoghurt) so you definitely don't want to waste those grams on sugar and carbohydrates. (I discovered a Kinder Bueno is around the twenty gram mark and ate nothing apart from chicken and a Kinder Bueno one day. That fairly sucked.)

After day three your body's used up its supply of glycogen, and you feel terrible. Weak, and tired. I had planned for this eventuality however. Atkins says no caffeine because it increases cravings, but I loaded up on coffee and pulled through.

After all the glycogen is gone your body has to find its energy somewhere else, lest it die. The metabolism has to be switched, in a sense, so this isn't an easy change to make, physically, or mentally (I challenge you to imagine never having dessert again). When blood sugar levels are low, as they are in Atkins (due to the lack of dietary sugar) a process called ketosis begins whereby the body starts burning stored body fat for energy. Ketosis Lypolysis is when some of the lipid stores in fat cells are transferred to the blood and are used for energy.

This is a very basic breakdown, and to be honest, I don't fully understand the science behind it. I do however know that it initally works. It works really well, and you're buoyed up with confidence. However, Atkins is not perfect. Oh no.

Atkins is time consuming. It's easy enough to pour cereal into a bowl, chase it with milk, and time permitting, eat it with a spoon. However, I have on average about a half hour to shower, get ready and leave the house in the morning, like many other people. I don't really have time to boil eggs, or poach eggs, or fry/grill bacon, or make an omelette. Atkins assures you that there's thousands of food options available to you. However, once you attempt carbohydrate free bread the expense and time involved will ensure you never attempt it again.

Atkins doesn't just require imagination and the ability to stop time in the morning- it also requires deep pockets. My mother very specifically wanted me to make the point that Atkins is hella expensive when I told her I was writing about it. Meat is really expensive, especially when it's basically all you can eat. There's a reason students live on pasta, noodles and chips. They're cheap.

Diets are limiting but in the case of other diets you can at least opt for a low fat option, or avoid one particular food group. If you're out eating with friends you have to be careful, avoiding root vegetables (anything made out of potato) and breads (that includes breaded chicken). You can't eat pizza. You can't eat burgers, sandwiches, you can't drink sugary fizzy drinks, or eat ice-cream. You can't eat chips, pasta, or chicken goujons and you have to be very careful of any sauce that comes with anything. There could be a lurking sugar content.

I suppose what I'm saying is that you could never really order from Domino's again.

If you think limiting yourself so extremely is hard, you'd be right. However, something that makes it more difficult is that your friends are not going to leave you alone. They are going to plague you with questions about how the science of the diet works and query how so much fatty food could possibly be good for you. They are going to try and tempt you with trips to McDonalds. They are bastards, and they are going to succeed.

One facet of the diet that seems to worry people is constipation. If you're ingesting less carbs you're ingesting less fiber too and something that might have come easy to you might now be something of a feat, to shyly sidestep the term "pooing".

Luckily, I was in the thirty precent of people who don't experience that. Seventy percent do, however, and I think I would have quit a lot sooner if that had been the case.

Ketones, which are a byproduct of the energy consuming process Ketosis, smell bad. Have you ever noticed after having not eaten for a few hours that your breath starts to smell? It's because your blood sugar is low and Ketosis is occurring in your body. However, when you're on Atkins you're constantly in Ketosis. Which means that you'e always going to smell bad. I'm a little paranoid about how I smell at the best of times. Some days I'll skip a shower if I really don't have time but I only did that once while on Atkins, and I spent the whole day wondering if I smelt bad and if everyone was too polite to say anything. They may well have been.

In conclusion, Atkins is antisocial and expensive. It's supposedly a lifetime plan but I have no doubt that if you were to look at the figures of people on the diet that very few would go on to the lifetime phase for much longer than a few months before creeping back to old habits. Much like any other diet, you still end up hungry and malnourished, awkward in social situations and generally grouchy, mopey and tired.

I will say however, that it's probably, save for starvation, the quickest way to lose weight. And not just water weight either- fat.