I haven't posted about Atkins in a while, but I feel like I'm still learning.

My lowest weight achieved in the 11 months since I started Atkins was 220-222, in early to mid-July. I binged for 2 weeks on vacation, and gained 13 pounds, then got back to 222, when I decided I would start to wean myself from the program, but I set a threshold weight, 230, that would trigger full Atkins.

For a month or more, I found a pretty good equilibrium. I might have a Coke every couple of days, or have pizza at lunch with a friend, but my weight stayed down. Most of the carbs I was taking in were of the healthy, high-fiber variety, like whole wheat Total for breakfast.

As October started, I had a lot of changes that led me off the path. I had new employees to have lunch with, I traveled some, and I wasn't exercising, so when I got on the scale sometime last week, and found myself at 234, I wasn't too surprised.

So I'm back on induction, and am already down about 3 pounds. I'm going to try to ride this down below 225, then go back to more normal fare. I think this will work well for me, since the Atkins periods will serve as negative reinforcement, encouraging me to behave when I'm not on it.

I skipped the commute ride on Wednesday, in favor of a Silver Comet Trail ride with my dad. He had to bail for work reasons, but I discovered something interesting: You can actually get to the trail from Atlanta on a bike!

I didn't, but Mapquest gave me a shortest route that was pretty much Paces Ferry Road past Home Depot world headquarters, left on Atlanta Road, right on Cooper Lake, which is the road I usually get to the trailhead on. I've ridden Paces Ferry a lot, and it's a good wide street with plenty of room for bikes, and a few major hills, especially in Vinings. It also features my favorite Atlanta street sign, the "Welcome to Buckhead" sign as you cross the Chattahoochee, miles from what most people would consider Buckhead.

Since Dad bailed, I took the ride up a notch (Bam!), and had the company of my iPod (strangest transition: Fastball's cover of "The Real Me" off Substitute: Songs from the Who to "Ironic" off Alanis Morrissette's jillion-selling angst-fest Jagged Little Pill) to help me really beat myself up.

After the ride (30-45 minutes later), I had another hypoglycemic/bonk experience, like back in December. I fell off the Atkins wagon on vacation in July, and have been back on for about 10 days now, and working out for the last 4, which is very similar to the setup when it happened in December. Since it worked last time, I downed a quick Coke, and had no further ill effects.

I ate pretty much whatever I wanted during the two weeks my family was on vacation (1 week with me, 1 week without): I had Chinese food, Mexican, pizza, Ben & Jerry's, Cokes out the wazoo, and beer, glorious beer. In two weeks, I gained 13 pounds. That is not a typo. On the other hand, in 10 days back on Atkins, I've already dropped 8 or 9 pounds of that, so I suppose it was largely the legendary "water weight".

Overall, I'm sitting at 223 or 224, 5 pounds higher than the lowest I've seen since starting Atkins, down 44-45 since November.

This morning, back to the commute ride. I'm going to try to ride on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, although I probably won't brave anything heavier than a sprinkle.

The interview with Alex Beam at The Boston Globe did eventually lead to being cited in The Globe.

Beam had a column on E1 of the April 27th paper called Carbo Cults: The Atkins Diet and the Great American Tradition of Extreme Eating. I would link to it, but the Globe charges $2.95 per story for access to the archives.

I’m the only “real person” quoted in the column, along with such books as Health Food Junkies: Overcoming the Obsession With Healthful Eating and Nature’s First Law: The Raw-Food Diet.

Here’s my bit:

Frank Steele, an Atlanta-based advertising executive whose parents were both Weight Watchers, has been posting his impressive progress with the Atkins diet on his website fsteele.dyndns.org. A recent entry: “I’m considering allowing myself one day off, but the Atkins book suggests doing so would mean another visit from the headaches that accompanied the onset of ketosis way back on the second and third days of the diet.” When I asked him if there were cultish aspects to Atkins, he answered, “There is an aspect of that, I guess. I’m a Macintosh user too, ” he added, half-joking, “so I’m fairly comfortable in that kind of a world.” Because he and his wife are both thriving on the Atkins regime, I asked him how they ever planned to get off. Steele is thinking of transferring his allegiance to the common-sense principles of the Harvard nutrition professor Walter Willett, who has reaped much publicity for his critique of the US Department of Agriculture’s “food pyramid.” As for Steele’s wife, she has moved on to the next, post-New Diet Revolutionary stage: “Atkins for Life.”

The diet lives after him; the food lies interred with his bones.

Not to get all crotchety, but Alex took what I said and came up with whatever served his purpose. I pretty distinctly said that I felt like Weight Watchers was more cultish than Atkins, with weekly affirmations, group leaders, and semi-public weigh-ins.

I allowed that there is a certain shared knowledge that gets discussed when you’re around other Atkins dieters, but that’s true of any subculture, from Linux geeks to hiphop fans to Game Boy users. I don’t think it rises to the level of a real cult, which is why the “there is an aspect of that, I guess.” I thought I emphasized the empiricism of Atkins for us: we’re on it because it works, not necessarily because we believe in it, especially for the long term. That’s why I’m considering going to something more along the lines of the Willett plan, which seems to represent current best practices of nutrition and public health professionals. It’s not really about “switching allegiance.” We also discussed my relative lack of success on conventional low-fat diets, but that didn’t really fit the profile.

Also, I don’t think I self-identified as an advertising executive, though perhaps I am. Also also, my mother is still a Weight Watcher, and my father has fallen off that wagon since the interview. I don’t want anyone to get the idea from the past tense in the story that they’ve recently died.

I have, by the way, gone off the Atkins straight and narrow a few times lately. I was scared to do TOSRV carb-free, so I gave myself free reign for the weekend. This weekend we went to Chattanooga, and sort of threw up our hands at eating low-carb in a strange place for three days, so we pretty much ate what we pleased there, as well.

Despite (or perhaps because of) the lapses, my weight seems stuck at around 226 or 227, 42 pounds down since November.

As of this morning, I’m at 230, down 38 or so pounds. I highly recommend that people go on diets when their weight ends in a 2, 3, 7, or, 8 — it gives you more mini-motivators. Since I started at 268, I got a little mental boost after 3 pounds at 265, then at 5 pounds lost, again at 8 pounds for crossing the 260 threshold, and again at 10 pounds for losing 10 pounds. If I had started at 270, I would have had half as many ego boosts over the last 4 months…

I had a pleasant chat with a reporter from Boston’s newspaper of record on Thursday. His editor located the site through Google, and suggested a story. I got the decided impression that the story suggestion was “How about a story on food nuts?” since the reporter was also planning to talk to a “whole foods” advocate. He was interested in any religious aspects to Atkins — “Do you see this as a cult? Is it something you intend to do for your whole life?”

I told him I see Weight Watchers (no link, since their site tells me to upgrade from Camino .7 to view it) as more of a religion than Atkins. My parents have both done Weight Watchers, and part of what makes it work is the structure: the rules for eating, the peer pressure of the weekly semi-public weigh-in, the motivation and lessons of the group leader.

Christy and I are doing Atkins out of empiricism, not faith. In case the skeptics are right, we’ve increased our supplement intake (multivitamin, calcium, fiber supplement) and our water intake (and how). I’m still not convinced that I understand why Atkins works, but I’m pretty certain that, for the two of us, at least, it does.

Check out my Atkins archive for even more on low-carb eating.

Other than a couple of cheats, I haven’t had bread since November. A family member who has been on Atkins recommended Nature’s Own Reduced Carbohydrate bread. Each slice has 7 grams of carbohydrate, but 2 grams are fiber, so only 5 grams per slice count against your daily total.

I put two slices around some roast beef and swiss, and enjoyed it. The texture is just a tiny bit different than regular bread, but much softer and fluffier than gluten bread.

Interestingly, over at BoingBoing, I found a new link to this story about the grain growers launching an anti-“Fatkins” campaign, also aimed at affecting the upcoming revisions to the RDA food pyramid.

When I stepped on the scales this morning, I was down 37 pounds. I suppose that means I’m over the hump, since another 37 pounds would put me below my lowest post-high school weight.

I thought I would write a little on the torment of Atkins on the road, based on my trip to Miami. I planned ahead, and carried some low-carb bars along on the trip, but you can’t pack enough food for 4 days on a plane trip.

I had the tiny bag of snack mix on the plane down with water. At the conference, there was one meal at the hotel — the standard rubber chicken on rice, with a salad. I ate some of the salad and avoided the rice. Later, on South Beach, I had jerk grouper on mashed potatoes, and ate the mashed potatoes (gasp!).

Breakfast was hard, since my traveling companions were eating the hotel’s complimentary continental breakfast, so I had bottled water. Tuesday evening, I ordered a small pizza, and ate half the crust and all the (meat and cheese) topping.

Wednesday, I skipped breakfast, and finally got a late lunch at the airport, where I had a chicken sandwich from Au Bon Pain. Yes, I ate the bread.

It’s strange, because I’ve gotten this far by rigidly avoiding the carbs, but once I hit the road, I adopted a more pragmatic approach. Even with a few more carbs sneaking in, I still lost 2 or 3 pounds last week.

Part reward, part motivation -- we ate a regular meal out last night.

Proof that learned behaviors die hard, I took a big swig of the Coke when it came, and got a major head rush. We had chips and salsa, and I had french fries AND KETCHUP. Those Heinz people know what they're doing.

The surprise was the tremendous corn on the cob. I was raised eating fresh Ohio corn and visiting the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival every year, but this was the best single ear of corn I've ever had.

Today, it's back on the program.

Eleven weeks down, and I'm down 30 (maybe 31) pounds. Still bored.

Not really craving any of my old favorites, but ready for some more variety. I'm considering allowing myself one day off, but the Atkins book suggests doing so would mean another visit from the headaches that accompanied the onset of ketosis way back on the second and third days of the diet.

Yesterday, I wore a suit I hadn't worn in 2 weeks or so, and I felt like David Byrne: "This is not my beautiful suit...."

Not a lot to report, but I will anyway, since I've reached a milestone. I'm down 20 pounds in the 7 weeks I've been on Atkins.

I haven't had another Coke since the one about 2 weeks in. I did sneak 2 french fries after a hard day moving a friend, but more for the novelty than anything else. I wanted to see if they would drive me into a reasonless potato lust, and how I would physically react to them. It was all anticlimax. They were fine, but that one taste certainly didn't leave me craving more.

We have tried some of the Atkins alternative foods. Some of the chocolate is pretty good. My mother made us some hamburger buns out of the Atkins bake mix, and it was nice to have something vaguely bread-like cradling the burger, but the consistency is closer to cornbread than bun. Christy likes the milkshakes, and I have started using sugarless breath mints to fill the hole left by Altoids.

My verdict is unchanged: This seems a tolerable way to lose weight, but it's not a lifetime destination. It's very hard to start making a change when I'm still losing 2-3 pounds every week.

I had seen some stories about Michelob Ultra. It's a beer primarily being marketed toward people on Atkins, since it has only 2.9 grams of carbohydrate (and 95 calories) per 12-oz. serving.

It was nice to drink something that wasn't water, but I think I would have enjoyed a twist of lemon more. It was like the cheap beers of my undergraduate days, and less.

(I didn't really post this on Tuesday, but I'm using Movable Type as a wayback machine so I don't look quite so slack).

Down another 3 or so pounds, for 12 overall in 3 weeks. I have my doubts about Atkins as a lifetime plan, but it seems to work quite well for weight loss. As I exercise more, I'm having no problems with energy or recovery. I still haven't been hungry.

I'm finding it easier to get up earlier in the morning, but that's usually just to go to the bathroom -- still drinking LOTS of water.

All Atkins posts

Thought I should update the Atkins category a bit. I'm still on it, but the lack of variety is starting to get to me.

It's also amazing how vigilant you have to be. I went to a Mexican place on Friday, with the intention of eating the filling of an enchilada and a burrito, and by sheer force of habit, started to slice up the enchilada and eat it, before I remembered. When we left, I bought 2 gumballs, and had started chewing them before I realized, "Hey, these have sugar!"

I still haven't been hungry. Atkins proposes that there is a metabolic advantage to the diet, but I think a simple calorie calculation (and some water weight) could account for all the weight loss I've seen; the number of calories I take in is significantly less than it would be on a low-fat diet, since I feel full longer.

The way I was feeling the other day must have been a virus or something. I've felt better since, even with a couple of tough workouts. I seem to still be on the downward trend, although I'm trying not to weigh myself more than once or twice a week.

I lost another 2-4 pounds this week (our scale is not very accurate).

On the other hand, last night I was, um, physically ill, and I haven't felt quite right since. I had a couple of grilled turkey "burgers" with cheese and a salad for dinner, plenty of water to drink, and went downstairs to work out. I did 45 minutes on the rowing machine, and came up for a shower. Within about 15 minutes, I was feeling a bit off, a little light-headed and nauseous. After I was sick, I felt well enough to go to bed, but I didn't feel a lot better this morning. I've continued to eat unenthusiastically, but I've had waves of the feeling every few hours.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but I've always got a theory. I wonder if I'm just not getting enough carbohydrate. I'm having salads almost every day, but that's the only carbohydrate that crosses my lips. Especially now that I'm working out, my muscles may be looking for a post-workout glycogen boost that my body just can't provide.

I tested the theory by drinking most of a can of Coke, my first in 15 days. It was good. Some of the fog seems to have lifted, but I still don't have much of an appetite. It will be interesting to see if ~35 grams of sugar will kick me out of ketosis.

Rather than the energy boost that Dr. Atkins expects, I have found myself sleepy and slow in the afternoon the last two days.

We made it through Thanksgiving, although it's psychologically hard to come in the day after Thanksgiving, and rather than having mounds of leftovers, you've got a few slices of turkey and a couple of deviled eggs. Christy represented for her mother (who was visiting in Miami) with two pecan pies that looked delicious, but would have accounted for our carbohydrates for about a year on the Atkins plan.

I'm also back to working out; I did about 35 minutes on our Concept II rowing ergometer tonight. I don't think I felt any better or worse than I usually do when I start on the rower, so I can't say Atkins has drastically improved or decreased my stamina.

Concept II has had a basic website for years, but in the last year, it's morphed into something that's actually useful. You can now keep your logbook through the web, and see how you stack up against others in your age group, geographical area, or college affiliation.

There are training tips, a selection of workouts, random drawings for prizes, and a holiday challenge, where they'll give you a pin if you row 200,000 meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The diet is progressing well; I'm down about 6 pounds in a week. Atkins opponents suggest that must be all or mostly water, but judging by my bathroom visit frequency, I can't imagine I'm two-thirds of a gallon short of last week.

Haven't felt hungry all week, haven't cheated once. It helps that we discovered some reduced-carbohydrate chocolate bars made with Splenda and sugar alcohol (maltitol), which are both Atkins-compliant.

One downside to this diet is that you can get pretty tired of eggs. For breakfast, there aren't a whole lot of other choices, so I've had scrambled, fried, poached, boiled, and omelette since we started. Atkins addresses this in his book by suggesting you "break out of the breakfast box" and eat leftovers or salads for breakfast. Yech.

I'm trying to make up for the lack of variety with vivid flavors: Tabasco, taco salads, Dijon mustard, garlic butter, sour cream, etc., and that makes it feel less like denial. So far, I've punted when eating out, just ordering buffalo wings, which are generally sugar free.

I'm just about through Day 3, and things seem to be improving. The headaches are gone. I had some hunger pangs too soon after lunch, which made me wonder if the buffalo wings I had for lunch might have had sugar in their sauce (most don't).

I haven't resumed exercising yet. I thought about working out today, but had to walk a short distance uphill at my daughter's school this morning, and it was hard, which it never would have been before. I assume I'm low on glycogen stores in my muscles, and I'm sort of wondering how effective the program will be for endurance exercise (can I burn fat calories fast enough to ride my bicycle at my usual pace?).

The withdrawal symptoms are here. I woke to a pounding headache, right down the middle of my brain. A few Tylenol have reduced the pounding to a regular strumming for now. A friend suggested caffeinated water to aid my withdrawal, and I may go that route if things don't improve by the end of the day.

Since we went out last night, I'm not sure what my final tally for water yesterday was, but it must have been very nearly a gallon; I drank 78 ounces before we left, and had my glass refilled three or four times at dinner.

Atkins Archive

I need a Coke.

The Atkins Diet, which I'm trying for the first time starting today, prohibits high glycemic-index foods. Coke, packing 39 grams of high-fructose corn syrup and very little else, certainly qualifies. In fact, a single can of Coke has all the carbohydrate you're supposed to eat in 2 days of the plan's first phase. Therefore, I'm going through only my second Coke-free period in about 20 years (the other time, I quit for a week or 10 days in preparation for my first 100-mile bike ride).

By my calculation, at a conservative 2 cans of Coke a day (and for more than two years, I worked at Coke, and got drinks from free-pay vending machines in every office) since I was 16, I've gone through at least:

13,870 cans of Coke
1,941,800 calories
554.8 pounds worth of Coca-Cola (Classic only, thanks) corn syrup

I haven't yet had the headaches I've had when I go deep into the afternoon without a Coke, but there's a little hole in my day that I keep thinking about.

Whether I stick with Atkins or not, this is probably a habit that's overdue for shaking up.

High-Fat Diet: Count Calories and Think Twice

NY Times personal health columnist Jane Brody, who may not be entirely objective, offers her take on the Atkins diet (from September, after the Washington Post unloaded on the Taubes article in the Times Sunday magazine). One of the interesting things about Brody's perspective is that she can't separate "fruits and vegetables" -- they're both nutrient-dense and low in fat, so they must be equally good for you, right?

Atkins believes that the primary cause of obesity in the US is sugar overconsumption (in sweetened foods, refined white flour, artificial sweeteners, and starchy foods), which triggers "hyperinsulinism," with the body too readily releasing insulin and causing blood sugar to spike and trough, leaving you hungry too soon after eating. Fruits have almost uniformly high glycemic index values, and so have an immediate effect on blood sugar levels. Many vegetables, while still rich in nutrients, don't have the same effect.

With Paul's kidney stone, I took special note of Brody's claim that Atkins could lead to kidney stones. I can't see why Atkins would necessarily be higher in the foods on the list Paul references (the plan precludes around half the foods on the list), and I know that Paul has a diet that is extremely healthy by traditional low-fat, '5 fruits and vegetables a day', standards, and that resembles the Atkins diet in approximately zero ways.

I'm not trying to create the he-man's carb-hater's 'blog here, but I have added an Atkins archive that includes anything Atkins-related that's ever been on the site. It's also linked at right.

So, having worked through some of the recent articles on the Atkins diet, and Dr. Atkins's book, as well as last year's Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, my wife and I are going to try the Atkins Diet for at least a few weeks. Having read the doctor's book for myself, I find I may actually have to increase my greens consumption (which admittedly is close to zero) on the plan.

Reports on the plan focus on the first phase, which Atkins calls 'Induction.' During induction, you're to eat no more than 20 grams of carbohydrate per day (versus probably 300 grams/day on a typical American diet), and what you do eat should be in the form of 3 cups of salad greens or a selection of vegetables (broccoli, peppers, spinach, cucumbers, etc.) with a low glycemic index value. The idea is to force the body to start burning your fat stores for energy, while avoiding insulin spikes that trigger binging and snacking.

You can move off the induction phase after as little as two weeks, increasing your carbohydrate intake slowly to whatever level you can handle while losing or maintaining your weight (depending on your goals). Atkins neither likes nor allows many of the foods I've come to rely on -- corn chips, pizza, soft drinks.

Here are a few of the recent stories on the diet:

Low-carb Atkins diet good for cholesterol

AP reports from the convention of the American Heart Association on a study that confirms the seemingly counterintuitive Atkins result: Fat profiles improve among people eating high-fat, low-carb diets.

Waiter, are there carbs in my soup?

New York Times story on how restaurants are dealing with the large number of New Yorkers trying out Atkins.

Doc Searls: Less is more

Doc is down more than 25 pounds in around 3 months on Atkins, and says he's feeling great.

Out of Greasy Pan, Into Fire For Bacon-Besotted Author

The author of the controversial cover story in the New York Times magazine has signed a $700,000 contract for a book along similar lines.

It looks like he may have to go digging for some new sources, since the folks he quoted for the magazine piece aren't happy with how their material was used.

Despite the criticism from his own sources, Taubes apparently remains a true believer:

As far as his ideas about fat are concerned, Mr. Taubes said he was exasperated by CSPI's campaign against him. "What CSPI is doing is trying to tar and discredit the messenger so they don't have to discuss the message honestly," he said.

The message, he explained, was that after health organizations like CSPI have flogged a low-fat, high-carb diet for 30 years, Americans have become fatter; meanwhile, evidence showed, he said, that the Atkins Diet led to weight loss without increasing cholesterol.

Previously discussed here and here.

Seen at Romanesko's MediaNews.

Experts Declare Story Low on Saturated Facts (washingtonpost.com)

It's a pretty complete look at the studies that Gary Taubes overlooked in putting together his Atkins-boosting article in the New York Times magazine. Taubes himself is interviewed for this story, and says one thing no journalist should ever say: "I sound like if somebody finds something I believe in, then I don't question it."

Followup:
More on 'Big Fat Lie'.

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?

This is the most interesting thing I've read in weeks, about the growing possibility that the dogmatic belief in low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets may be the cause of US obesity. Medical orthodoxy is finally getting around to testing the Atkins diet, and other low-carb diets, and finding that they work pretty well.

Followups:
Washington Post Debunks NY Times Atkins Story
More on 'Big Fat Lie'

From the New York Times Magazine, by way of Scripting News.