Spend Lots of Money! Have Bad Breath! Become Constipated! the Fabulous Atkins Way
Written: Mar 23 '01 (Updated Mar 23 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: High-protein, low-carbohydrate diets are very chic.
Cons: High cost, bad breath, constipation, and minimal weight loss!
The Bottom Line: The Atkins Diet Program is an unhealthy, unsatisfying program...unless your name is Dr. Atkins.
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| prettyinpink's Full Review: Atkins Diet |
Ah, Houston in the springtime! The azaleas are in full bloom, the skies are a vivid blue, the air is warming, Daylight Savings Time is imminent, and all Houstonians are peeling off their sweaters and jackets. prettyinpink is wondering where her swimsuit is as she visualizes herself snoozing lazily in the sunshine.
But what’s this? What are these new curves here? prettyinpink has been clad warmly and modestly in jeans and sweaters, and she has not looked at her own naked image for months. prettyinpink likes her womanly curves (and others do, too), but these new curves - uh oh, these are not in the womanly places! Dearie me, what shall poor ‘pink do?
I’ll tell you what prettyinpink isn’t gonna do. She ain’t gonna do that blasted Atkins Diet Program again this year.
Dear ‘pink is a bright gal, but between you and me, she’s a tad gullible. She’s a clear thinker when she sets her mind to it, but there are just some subjects upon which the lass reacts like a neurologically-challenged lemming. ‘pink will respond like one of Pavlov’s own doggies at the sounds of weight loss hucksterism. So rooted are the shallow American standards of beauty in Miss ‘pink that she has apparently found it more efficient to completely bypass cortical functioning upon this issue and proceed directly to the more emotionally linked, more primitive limbic system.
Bless her pink little heart. And we sincerely hope for blessings for that heart, for last year, when ‘pink embarked on the Atkins Diet Program, she funneled lots and lots of animal fat through her ticker. The Atkins program, you see, instructs the dieter to forego carbohydrates and instead load up on meat and fat. Dr. Atkins first developed his high protein, low-carbohydrate diet back in the 1970’s. He had some heavy competition from Dr. Stillman (eponymous Stillman Diet) and Dr. Tarnower (Scarsdale Diet), and he seemed to have slunk into obscurity at about the time that disco died.
Dr. Atkins, for all his excellent medical training, is also a keen observer of popular culture. The doctor apparently picked up on the sharp rise in eating disorders, notably anorexia, and just how strongly starvation was catching on among the rich and famous. Such an opportunity! Dr. Atkins dusted off his diet program and added some jazzy new graphics. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of a charcoal grill, the Atkins Diet was born again.
‘Pink bit. She was bamboozled by the biochemical razzle-dazzle, but she trusted the diet. Hey, this was a doctor’s weight loss program! ‘Pink bought beef and shrimp and pork rinds and peanuts and cream and Atkins Advantage Bars. On Sundays, ‘pink stoked up her little grill and piled the animal flesh high.
You’ve heard the claims of the Atkins Diet Program as well as those of other carbohydrate deficient diets. Let’s see what ‘pink’s experience was:
(1) ‘pink spent a lot of money. Did you ever notice how a pound of steak costs so much more than a pound of green beans? Did you ever notice how a half quart of light cream costs so much more than a half quart of low-fat milk? Well, ‘pink sure noticed! She was baffled at first, thinking that if she was eating less, she shouldn’t be spending so much more. Hmmm, Dr. Atkins never talked about that part of the diet, did he?
(2) ‘pink had bad breath. This high-protein, low carbohydrate diet eventually throws the body into a state called ketosis. God only knows the biology of ketosis, but Dr. Atkins is very careful to tell his followers that ketosis is good, that it signals that the body is burning fat. You can tell your body is in the state of ketosis because you have bad breath. Can you believe that ‘pink was so brainwashed by this doctor that she actually believed that bad breath was a sign of good health??
I know it’s not nice to talk about body effluvia, especially among gentile Southerners with two X chromosomes. But lord, if somebody had talked about it, maybe the gal would have noticed that people were now standing two feet farther away from her. Perhaps we would all have been spared that noxious odor!
(3) ‘pink became constipated. Oh, this is so indelicate! Little miss ‘pink just plain got clogged up. Eating only a few peanuts along with her steak and shrimp and pork rinds, she had precious little fiber to move the digested sludge from her system. She became crabby and logy. She longed for a satisfying evacuation, which was not to be had on the miserable Atkins plan. Having attended only to what food products were permitted to enter her sweet body, she neglected to plan for the other end of the ecosystem. She was the victim of colonic gridlock!
After a few wretched weeks, cranky, broke, and malodorous, ‘pink reevaluated this plan. She was only a couple of pounds lighter than before embarking on this regime, and many dollars poorer. Having shelled out thirty-something dollars for a box of the Atkins Advantage Bars, she realized in a hostile epiphanous moment that the only advantage was to Dr. Atkins himself. She asked herself “Who benefits by this?” The answer was clear: Dr. Atkins is the great beneficiary of the Atkins Diet Program. This cat made $30 selling ‘pink a box of chocolate covered protein powder. ‘pink, in return, got duped.
Ah, but live and learn. ‘pink trashed the Atkins plan (but kept the Advantage Bars for her hurricane preparedness larder) and said the hell with it. She stopped caring about diets and weight and whether she looked sooooo fine, ‘cause she looked pretty fine to begin with. She ate what she d@mned well pleased, and you know what? She lost a little weight. She ate only when she was hungry and what she was hungry for, just being a little careful not to overdo things. Somehow this unselfconscious way of eating seemed more comfortable for her (and for others – whew!), and those few extra pounds finally melted off.
This spring, ‘pink is enjoying lovely fresh strawberries, the sweet crunch of a leaf of Romaine lettuce, and the warm goodness of freshly baked bread (no butter). She walks the produce aisles at the grocery store as though in a museum, marveling at all the beautiful, rich colors and imagining the fully sensual pleasures of fruits and vegetables.
Yet ‘pink has had just a few too many bites of croissant over the winter months. From time to time she has topped her bread with more than a smidgen of butter or a dab of brie, and those extra little curves are the shadows of these indulgences.
‘Pink will not go down the Atkins path again. She will not stuff face with charred flesh nor will she line the pockets of Dr. Atkins again.
But will she be faithful to her rediscovered love of nature’s bounty? Will she stand firm in the knowledge of her own body, or will she fall sway to some new diet scheme? She has been reading about that Hollywood 48-Hour Diet…and that’s just fruit juice, right?
Recommended:
No
Food Variety Restrictions A short list of allowed foods
Restrictiveness of Portions Gorge all you like
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prettyinpink
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Location: The Third Coast
Reviews written: 45
Trusted by: 72 members
About Me:
Psychic Puppy says I was Betsy Ross in a previous life.
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