The Atkins diet worked for me, mostly

by Jamie Dicus

I tried the Atkins diet a couple of years ago. I thought it would be good for me because I don't really have a sweet tooth but I do like meat and cheese a lot, so I thought it was a diet I could do without being hungry or craving food.

Basically it did work, at least for a while. I lost a total of 16 pounds over the course of about six weeks.

After that I seemed to hit a plateau and just couldn't lose any more weight. Also, it seemed to affect my metabolism after a while so that I felt like I had no energy and got tired easily.

There were several frustrating things about the diet too. Number one, it's harder than you may think to find foods to eat without carbs.

There are carbs in all sorts of things that you never realized before, and you have to watch for these hidden carbs like a hawk because one mistake can screw up your diet for days. Also, many of the Atkins diet specific foods are really pricey.

Second, I started craving bread and pasta and potatoes, which are foods I had never craved before. That went away when I went off the diet, but one of the main attractive ideas about the diet for me was that I thought I wouldn't being craving or obsessing over food because I could eat all the meat and cheese I wanted.

But it turned out that I had cravings anyway. I guess it's just your body naturally calling out for what it's being denied.

Lastly, it makes eating out, eating over at people's houses and holidays very hard. There just aren't that many carb free options available at restaurants and I would even question the accuracy of items labeled as low carb on menus.

Family and friends can often be annoying and lack understanding if you visit them and they want you to eat what they have prepared. They may insist over and over that it's OK for you to cheat on your diet just a little bit and have one little slice of cheesecake.

But the Atkins diet is different than other diets and there really is no such thing as cheating just a little.

So, overall it worked, but was more frustrating than anticipated.

Note from Dr. Dan

Jamie,

You mention family and friends encouraging you to "cheat" on your diet.

There is this idea that someone on a diet must eat certain exact foods, and if they don't it is "cheating."

Cheating certainly has a bad connotation. A cheater is a "bad person." It's negative.

Really, the last thing you need when you are trying to lose weight is one more thing to feel guilty about. Saying that eating certain foods is cheating is just name calling.

People aren't machines. They don't live on a rigid diet of fuel oil and gasoline.

Food is one of life's pleasures. It has very strong emotional and social aspects. An effective, long term diet has to include these aspects or it will fail.

And labeling someone who is working to lose weight a cheater is a negative message. It's time to put that to an end.

Dr. Dan