Probably my last word on Atkins and dieting in general

The following should be written in the past tense now as you'll see from my last paragraph, but I'm keeping it present because it's even now mostly what I'm still doing and I only very recently changed in any case.

=================
I've been continuing my new eating regime and continuing to lose weight slowly, about three to four pounds a month, which is a rate I'm happy with. As I've said, I've been doing a loose version of Atkins, the differences being that I'm counting calories, which he discourages, and allowing my own chosen level of a daily carb count of 25-to-40 grams. This allows slow weight loss and keeps my blood sugar within acceptable limits.

The starting phase of the Atkins diet, the two-week Induction phase, keeps you under 20 carbs a day, and I've never tried to be that strict with myself although I have had some days when my carb count comes in at about 20. I do believe the testimonies that the Induction phase gets most people off to a very motivating large early weight loss without hunger, but I'm just not that organized or disciplined. What I'm doing takes organization and discipline enough for me. I'm not sure how many carbs he allows after that beginning period, I'd have to go look it up, but I recall that you are to gradually phase carbs back in one at a time to test their effect on your weight loss, and to avoid any that interfere with the loss until you are at or near your goal weight -- and even then for most people there are some carbs you are going to have to recognize you have to keep to a minimum for the rest of your life.

I recently encountered a typical misunderstanding about Atkins that I would like to answer. This was from my doctor, who is happy enough with my weight loss and not trying to discourage me from what I'm doing, but did express what is apparently a common notion that the Atkins diet is "just meat and fat." In his book Atkins mentions that people often get this wrong idea about the diet.

This idea may come from mistaking the Induction phase for the diet itself. But there are four phases to his diet and I didn't really study them all since I ended up skipping the Induction phase and did my own thing with the basic formula of majoring in protein, keeping carbs low and not worrying about fat. He is aiming for a special effect with his Induction phase, speeding up the burning of your own body fat which occurs when the carbs are kept under 20 grams. I'm counting calories instead because losing weight fast isn't my objective and I don't want the technical concerns that require you to do a home urinalysis to be sure you're burning fat as he wants you to. Maybe I'm just lazy but since I am losing weight it hasn't become an issue. Some people who have a really hard time losing weight may stay in the Induction phase for a long time, but it's not the norm of his diet. There is also a very specialized diet he puts a very few rare individuals on for a brief period because of their severe metabolic resistance to weight loss, which is, interestingly, all fat (cream cheese, pork rinds, macadamia nuts for instance). He only keeps them on this for a few days as I recall. But these are exceptions to his basic diet plan and it's not fair to characterize the overall plan by them.

In my own experience Atkins is mostly "meat and non-starchy vegetables," not "meat and fat." The very strict minimal-carb Induction phase is meat and green leafy vegetables, which are the lowest carb vegetables, even in that case not really describable as "meat and fat." You do have more meat proportionally on this phase because of the low carb requirement but still you can have a slice of tomato or some spinach with your bacon and eggs and a very large green salad at your other two meals, or one large green salad and some steamed asparagus or the like.

The idea that Atkins is loaded with fat is also wrong. It's simply that he doesn't restrict fat, considers it very important to get enough fat because fat satisfies hunger which is crucially necessary when you want to lose weight. So you are allowed the bacon and eggs, you don't remove the chicken skin, you can have a chicken salad or an egg salad made with real mayonnaise, and you can put butter on the cooked vegetables -- it doesn't affect your weight loss and it helps with the hunger. You have to use a non-carb salad dressing like olive oil and vinegar, and the oil is another fat that adds up the calories if you're counting, but again not interfering with weight loss. And he gives lots of research information showing that fat is NOT the health hazard people have been claiming for decades, in fact that cholesterol counts DECREASE on his diet. My doctor agreed that this is so.

My own sloppy version of Atkins usually results in a plate that is a half to three-quarters non-starchy vegetables, hardly all "meat and fat," -- except for breakfast which is harder to do that way. I've been gravitating to having lean ham rather than bacon with eggs for breakfast and thinking of putting the egg on a bed of spinach cooked in butter with onion [July 24: I tried it! GREAT combination egg and spinach!]. Eggs Florentine is a spinach-based egg recipe that could be adapted to eliminate the carbs. The famous Joe's Special of San Francisco is something I want to try for breakfast when I get around to it -- a perfect Atkins style meal -- hamburger with onion and spinach all scrambled together with eggs. So even at breakfast this way you are getting some vegetables. At dinner I usually include a salad with three or four raw vegetables, and a cooked vegetable as well, alongside the meat -- which is only three or four ounces and may be beef or pork or fish or chicken etc., not a huge slab of beef or whatever people imagine Atkins inspires. I may saute the meat in oil or butter and don't worry about the fat, but neither the meat nor the fat is in great quantity. (Of course some people may require greater quantities of both. If you read Atkins you'll see how individual the diet plans can be based on different metabolisms).

In fact, since I've been eating this way I've noticed that I buy a LOT less butter, even only a quarter of the usual, probably because it's the "bad" carbs that need butter -- the potatoes and rice and bread that I'm no longer eating -- except for the occasional half slice of rye bread or a Wasa cracker. I can eat steamed vegies without butter though sometimes I'll add some. I've also been using a lot less mayonnaise, no doubt because I don't have sandwiches any more. I now put heavy cream in my coffee instead of milk because of all the carbs in milk, but you usually need only a very small amount of cream compared to milk. Overall I'm sure I've reduced my fat intake by quite a bit.

Of course I can't claim to be doing the Atkins diet, but I do believe what I'm doing is based on his principles enough to justify these claims in his favor.

However, although I did want to defend Atkins, all that has changed for me recently anyway as I'm now eating according to the Lord's leadings instead of according to Atkins or my own reasonings. Much has stayed the same, some items have been eliminated as luxuries, and the overall calorie count has gone down by a couple hundred points. The Lord's objectives are not the same as a dieter's. He's interested in training a believer in obedience and self-denial and weaning us away from worldly attachments. The result will certainly be weight loss as well.