Tastes of Culture

When I first came across an Atkins Diet book, I was working in an office in south Wales. I had been working there for five or six years and had accumulated quite a bit of excess weight. I had never enjoyed participating in sport, but my previous job had been working on building sites, which entailed a certain amount of physical activity ” just enough to keep me in reasonable shape. After five years as office-wallah, I weighed 18 stone 12 pounds (264 lbs or 120 kg), three stones more than before and neither I nor my physician were happy about it.

One day a representative of a legal firm came in for an appointment, and, while we were waiting for the other directors to arrive, we got talking about office life and its propensity to put on weight. He said that he had had the same problem before, but that now he made sure he got out of the office regularly and walked everywhere time would allow. He also said that he’d read a good book on losing weight while on holiday in America and that he would send me a copy. I thought nothing more of it and never saw the man again. Mr. Blackwell, I think his name was.

The book duly arrived as promised, but it stayed on my desk unread for months, until one day, I had a dental appointment and had forgotten to take a book to work to read while I was waiting ” the magazines are always so old and boring. Anyway, I read several chapters that day and I was fascinated. I had never been on a real diet before and I thought I’d give it a try. I had stopped eating pastry, cakes and chocolate months ago, but it didn’t seem to have had much effect and my weight was still rising, albeit more slowly.

It occurred to me that the Atkins diet was a ‘thinking person’s’ diet There is a vast amount of scope for individual tastes and lifestyles and the usual problem of self-discipline did not seem to be much of a problem because for that reason. The book warned of addictions and fads and how best to overcome or prevent them. These did not seem to be an issue for me either – I liked coffee, but could take it or leave it and I had already given up chocolate. I knew that maybe beer and bread would be my biggest problem.

The only rule in the induction phase is to eat not more than 20 grams of carbohydrate per day. The book had a clear list of most foods and their carbohydrate content. I thought it was really easy. In fact, I started eating more healthily in the induction stage than I had been eating before it! I bought a tube of Ketone sticks to check whether it was working and found that I was in ketosis on the third day. It was a very satisfying experience to know that I would be losing weight whatever I did and wherever I was now twenty-four hours a day!

I gave up bread (and Guinness!) for a fortnight and felt great. I actually felt ’springy’ or ‘bouncy’ like a boxer in the ring before a fight. I had no trouble whatsoever staying within the 20 gram limit, although I did miss fruit more than I’d expected or some fruits anyway. But I found ways to make up for everything. There are many, many recipes and recommendations in the book so I won’t go into them here, but I started eating breakfast before I went to work and dinner in the evenings. I really took great care and attention over preparing lunch for work the next day, usually consisting of a salad, some cheese and various nuts to snack on. You can eat a few strawberries too. In the evening, I would cook up something like a curry (no flour) eating it with green beans instead of rice; or a traditional British meal without potatoes followed by cheese and strawberries and cream. I lost 18 pounds in two weeks and felt really great.