I also get to check out plenty of hot girls, like sexy Lucie Theodorova who’s picture I am featuring this time. This hot girl reminds me that no matter how hot a girl I think I have found, there is always at least one that is even hotter. I also started working on a new blog called Outdoor Pussy, which is all about public nudity, girls who will show the pink in public places and whatnot. It’s pretty hot, the really good scenes are harder to find, but I am having fun writing it. Also, don’t forget to check out Porniki Porn Wiki for new stuff, I add reviews and galleries over there all the time.

I guess the other thing is this reminds me that Labor Day weekend is here,which in turn means that summer is pretty much over and back to school is upon us. For you (over 18) university students, you would probably want to bookmark Pornpig’s Porn Party so you can find fresh new pr0n to enjoy every day, and tell your friends about it too. That’s a good thing to do.

What’s new this week? Well, mostly I have been working under the hood on stuff that isn’t so easy to show off, but safe to say it does lay the groundwork for some interesting new stuff. The blogs that I think are the hottest this week is Titu – Tits University, there are plenty of nice boobs over there, and Pudsucker, for all you guys that love to see what a girl can do with their mouths! Don’t forget to check out the new porn links updated daily at Link2x Fresh Porn, it’s certainly fresh

Oh yeah, for all you American readers out there, the political season is in full swing. Remember to register and VOTE. Otherwise you have no right to bitch about the results after!

I weighed in at 162 this morning.   Having started this whole this somewhere around 195, I would have to say that I rank up there are a success.  As time has gone on I have slowly let a middling amount of carbs back in my life, but Atkins certainly has changed me for good, I think.  I don’t eat potatoes, fries, things like that.  I still remove about half the bun from a hamburger, and I don’t eat the outside crust when I have pizza. Sugary drinks are gone, never to come back.  I am sure that Pepsi and Red Bull has both suffered a sales hit as a result of my dropping of them off the list.

I haven’t been eating as well recently as I had in the past, but I have been monitoring my weigh closely to make sure it doesn’t creep up, keeping things basically anywhere from 161 to 165 depending on the day and various other bodity function related deals.  Consistantly checking my weight and paying attention to the fit of clothes is keeping me motivated, and much of the stuff has become habit, so I don’t even think about it.

It worked for me, and it could work for you… heck, I could even have a pizza from Coronet Pizza in St Laurent to celebrate… kewl!

Yup… there ya go, another 3 pounds bites the dust… and I had Pizza last night.

Go figure.

That was about 5 days ago, and since I have been hovering… 170, 171, 172 depending on the time of the day.  That means 23 pounds (or about 11%) drop in total body weight since the start of the year, and a really positive outlook as a result.  With the weather coming back to nice, my bicycle is getting a workout again, and I am back to getting into decent shape.  I haven’t played as much badminton in the last little while as timing has been horrible (and one of the best places to play closes on the weekends during the summer) so I haven’t hooked up.  But in the mean time, I am working on being in better shape and getting some endurance, and that will make it all easier.

I am living proof that Atkins does work, if you follow not only the rules of the diet but the feeling of your body and your spirit.  I have eaten pizza and chinese food and greek food and many things that are “not in the diet” and still done well, because those things are balanced out and not a day to day thing.   I haven’t been near a McDonalds  or the like since this started, and I truly don’t miss them.  I miss soft drinks a bit, I miss ice tea very much (lemon and sugar… not good!), and I miss being able to just eat whatever whenever without worry.  I tend to work some pretty insane hours, and I get hungry late and I have to be careful, those use to be the MickeyD times…

Overall good, now I keep going more for shape and look rather than the actual number, but I will watch the number (and probably post a picture at 169 just to make myself smile)

This morning the scale said 171 and the stuttered over to settle on 172, so very close indeed.

More importantly, I am no longer trying too hard.  I am keeping an eye on things, getting stuff done, but basically I am just not getting too excited about anything and just eating reasonably well, and boom… weight loss.

So we will see how it goes, I guess.

I haven’t eaten any of the Atkins branded food, but from everything I have read most low carb substitutes for breads and cereals are pretty much between bland and crap.  I don’t have any interest in paying out the big dollars to find out the stuff is not enjoyable, and being in Canada, the only options are all fairly pricey.  So that gets cut off from the list, which leaves me most selection in the veg sections.  I am not a big veg guy, so I feel pretty darn cramped.

The results have been excellent, but I now know for certain that I have no interest in living a long term super low carb lifestyle.  It creates social issues for spending time with my friends (right now I am basically a bitch to eat out with, most places are just not suitable for a super low carb diet),  means I spend more time shopping for food and preparing it rather than enjoying it, and I spend inordinant amounts of time trying to plan meals and such if I do want to go out with friends.   It is a burden rather than a help.

A little story.  When I quit drinking (after getting poisoned at a webmaster event by someone who slipped something into a drink) I had to deal with the issues of social situations.  Going out with people and having them buy a round of shots, only to find out that I won’t drink it (”come on, it’s just a shot!”), dealing with how to order things in public places, how to not slip back down the slope… dealing with a personal version of the 12 steps that makes me an honorary friend of Bill… some things are hard to do, and honestly only that my body would get violently ill at the slightest hint of booze kept me on the line in the first year.  The offers, the shots right in my hand were powerful temptations to avoid.
In the end, the social aspects of not drinking are way harder to master and control than the need for a drink.  I don’t need a drink anymore at all nor do I crave it, which makes me feel better about myself.   But those social situations, the stares, the looks… people assuming you have a “personal problem” because you choose not to drink.  It is a tough road to hoe.

Atkins for me feels the same way.  I have never had an issue in my life with being different (I pretty much have always marched to my own drummer, fife, and bagpipes), but this hits in a weird sort of circumstances that requires me to be something that truly isn’t socially acceptable:  I can’t eat out without ripping menus apart and being a real pain in the ass to eat with (I have already done water and coffee for a meal while my friend ate because nothing on the menu would come close).  I don’t like that feeling, I don’t like making excuses for not being able to go out.

The other part of the deal which annoys me is that very few if any restaurants in Canada (and especially Montreal) seem to be clued in on Atkins / Low Carb lifetsyle choices.  Most places don’t, as an example, have a simple choice alternative to potatoes that isn’t another starch (rice, noodles… hello carbs!), and almost none of the servers are able to tell me if the meat would be breaded or if the sauce would be natural or thickened, or if the univeg of the day has a sauce.  Try to order anything with that, and it is pretty much a dead end.  I have yet to find a single establishment with lowcarb choices on the menu that are actually very low carb.   Atkins isn’t ready for prime time in Montreal, that is for sure.

Anyway, I am lucky in many ways.  I am approaching my target weight, I have slowly been readding carbs into my diet, and I am getting more exercise than before.  This whole process is teaching me good from bad, and has helped me to wean myself totally away from sugar drinks (pop or soda, depending on where you live) and making better food choices.  I won’t stop ordering better stuff when I go out, and I certainly won’t go back to the high starch high sugar situation that got me where I was to start.  But I do know that I need to be able to live and be social, to eat reasonably and stay fit.

More news as I keep going and attempt to flatline my weight for a while…

I played some badminton last night, but as it was out season ender party I did cheat slightly on some stuff, but small portions and just enough to enjoy the tastes, not really eating.  This morning, I am 174, which is not a terrible thing.  So from now until probably Saturday, I am still “on the diet” just not keeping as good track of things for a couple of days to relax myself.  Then Saturday I will do another sort of induction, trickle over into ketotis again, and get to work in the gym as well to push things.  My original goal was 170ish, but now I am a little more agressive and looking for 165, which would be major wow.

Anyway, I will keep it up

First off, the weight thing:  175 again this morning, I certainly feel that I am on a plateau right now, but that should change over the next few days as exercise becomes part of the game.  I am looking forward to some intense badminton today, again tomorrow, and some lighter work on Tuesday.  After that I will be a YMCA member again, so I will have the ability (but not sure about desire) to go to work out or at least play more badminton.  If I chase around enough I can find badminton to play every day or at least every other day, so that isn’t bad.   I am aiming to get good enough to qualify for tournament play this fall.

If the weather gets a little drier, the bicycle will be back in service as well.  I have to be careful because my knees are not up to that much on the bike for now, but a little bit every day (even 20-30 minutes around the neighborhood) will help to work the muscles and build up a little wind, all the while encouraging my system to pull fats and turn them into energy.  Bike riding is good because you use some of the biggest muscles in your body, which means you have the potential to use much energy.  Overall not a bad thing.

As for other things, well, I will be working some more on the new movie review site which for the moment is mostly headline news rather than deep and detailed reviews.  However, I am hoping to change that around over time, and encourage people to post reviews.  Hey, check the site out, maybe you want want to write reviews as well.

There will certainly be some porn slung today too.  Want some sexy live porn?  Click here for Sexy Live Porn – well, actually, it is a site I own with the new live amsterdam feed right on the page.  Check it out and enjoy

I am posting this in more than one section today because, well, all sorts of stuff in this one post.  My mind is being it’s usual ADHD self, so I am thinking about 10 things at the same time.  I am not joking when I say that during this post I will likely go away to another window at least 5 times, check mail, and basically get lost in non-related and unimportant things as it happens.   It is the nature of my slightly fried and very hyper brain.

Atkins wise:  Yesterday was not the best day for me.  I felt tired all day, listless without much energy.  My weight remains a pretty unchanged 175, which makes me think I have hit either a metabolic wall or there are other issues I am not grasping.  I am eating pretty much “by the book”, but I am pretty much stuck.  I am also not enjoying the lack of energy that I have had for a few days now, so I am looking for alternatives.

Well, today I guess I took the other route, and went out to eat.  Woohoo, I actually went out and ate something that wasn’t measured, checked, or weighed.  Lovely.  Kojax (a montreal greek fast food style deal) is pretty good, so I stuck to an Atkins version of it:  Meat, more meat, and some more meat… with salad and feta cheese.  1/4 of one pita bread (about the size of a dollar bill cut in half) as my carb break buster (more on this in a second) and hot sauce to dip and enjoy to make it all good.   I came home feeling pleasantly filled but not over stuffed, and I surprised myself by finishing the salad pretty much before I touched much of the meet.  In my mind, that is a pretty good deal.

As for the Pita, well, I know that is a big no-no, but I am starting to feel that my carb count per day might have been a little too far under for it’s own good.  This is doubly so because I am about to start working out more (badminton at least 3 times a week, plus bike and some weights) and after the crappy feeling I got on Tueday after playing, I don’t want to take the chance.  Tuesday really put a little fear into me, as I am really feeling that my carbs were so low that my body was not even able to refill and replentish my muscles as I exercised, which left me pretty weak towards the end and playing poorly, plus making me feel a little sickly.   I got the same sort of feeling after riding my bike as well, and that makes me think that I am not getting quite enough carbs to work out properly.   Regardless of diet, working out is important and having enough energy to do it is as well.  So I am more than a little freaked out on the concept.  So today I added in 1/4 of a pita (nothing big) which should have put in about 8 or 10 extra grams of carbs.  I will be careful the rest of the day not to blow the number out, but I need to see what if anything that will do for me.

I can tell you that after a long sleep (about 10 hours) and a decent meal, I am feeling quite a bit better and more focused.  I was really sort of losing the plot last night, and that bothers me no end.   I was so gone out that I didn’t even wake up on the alarm this morning to check out Formula 1 Qualifying, which is something I pretty much always watch.  I also missed the practice sessions, which is pretty strange for me.  Proof if nothing else that i really haven’t been myself.

Now, on to other more fun stuff.

First off, I added live chat feeds directly into findpics.net.  If you go to the new sites pages (click here) you will see a new window called “really live now”.   This really is a live feed, with a number of camera options.  You can open a free account over there and chat with the lovely girl, or just enjoy the view.  It is live from Amsterdam, and it is freaking hot!

Second I am still working on the new 1 hot tgp.  This site has a nice mix of galleries and such, and I am adding a ton of new ones every day.   I will be adding some great archive pages over there shortly, so you will be able to find everything you love

I am going to work on some stuff this afternoon and this evening, so I will come back to post more as it happens.

Have a great Saturday!

The car is fine, some stuff I could do to it one of these days if I have the urge, but generally things are okay.  The front sway bar bushings are squeaking again, and lubing them is about as expensive as replacing them, so that will get done some time soon.

Now, as part of my “lose weight get into shape” thing, I am going to step up my badminton (yu ma cho /  羽毛ç?ƒ ).  There is a fairly good league int he west end of Montreal, so I will be working over the summer to see if I can qualify to play at a decent level.  To that end, after 3 years plus of playing the same racquet, I went to buy a new one today (which I will get all nicely strung tomorrow) – a Yonex Nanospeed 7000.  It cost more than all the others I have combined, so here is to hoping that I enjoy it.   It is my reward / encouragement to get back to it and try hard.  The next tryouts I think are in  September, so I have 4 months to step it up bigtime and see where I can land.   I am lucky that i have some friends that are much better players and they will encourage me to try hard.  It is a really good thing, and I think being 20 pounds plus slimmer than before should make the game a little easier to play too

Motivation is your friend.

I also got a secondary signal last night, while playing badminton.  Near the end of the night, I started to feel very tired and very weak, not getting good recovery speed or anything.  Usually a few minutes break and I am good to go, but in this case I was pretty much worn out and not feeling really up to anything else.  This is certainly a sign that my blood sugar was probably pretty low, and that the conversion of fat to energy was no longer matching up to my needs.  For me it is a (perhaps false) indication that I have burned off all the easy fat, and now it is just the leftovers I am dealing with.  It may also be an indication that the carb levels in my system are just too low, and that I am missing important stuff to actually convert fat to energy.  Either way, it tells me that my diet restrictions are likely now too severe to get done what I want on those last 5 pounds, so change of course.
If I am going to work out and get more exercise, I will need to have enough energy to get that done.  So I am going to very carefully add in some more carbs, possibly allowing a fajita type shell (15 net carbs or so) in at least one meal, so that there is something there to work with.  Yes, this will pull me out of Ketosis, and I am sure my liver will be happy about that.  But I have a feeling with decent eating and exercise, the rest will come.  I will continue to work on the food side of the equation until I find that carb limit for losing level where things are still going well but I am no longer denying myself quite so much.

IMHO, Atkins works, even for someone like me who was only in the 20-30 pounds need range (I am at 18 pounds off now).  It is a clear indication that things are possible, and that this sort of deal works at least during the intial phase to get your body changed completely.  I am sure I have burned off fat that has been stored for years, and that is a real good feeling.

More as it happens… the game isn’t over yet

I am about 1 or 2 weeks away from joining a gym and getting to the more serious “fixing” part of this job… plus meaning I will have somewhere to play badminton (yu ma cho) for the summer, which is good.  I have at least one friend who is a member already so it is all good.

Hopefully this week will bring good things

Here is the deal.  One of the things about Ketotis is that there many opinions that say that staying solidly in this mode for a long period of time is not good at all for your body.  It is one of the reasons that Atkins only has a two week induction period, rather than locking you into that mode for a long time.  They say you can stay longer, but they certainly don’t encourage it.

On the Atkins diet, when you leave that mode, you are suppose to add 5g of carbs per week until your weight loss slows down and then stops.  The point at which it stops is your CCLL (critical carb level for losing).  Stay below your CCLL (which I suspect is the line of ketotis or normal sugar / fat storage processing) and you will continue to lose weight slowly.  If you go above that line, you will either stay stable or slowly increase your weight.  NOTE:  This only works providing you are still following the no sugars no trans fats no high sugar modified whatevers, etc.

Well, I am all fine with that, but yesterday was my two weeks into induction, the numbers are VERY good (a little too good I think) so I allowed myself to enjoy a decent “carbs don’t count” meal of one of my favorite things, pizza.   Please note:  I removed all the crust area outside the slice, so the only bread coming in was that under the contents.   It was a montreal style pizza, so the crust isn’t very thick or anything.  I had a pretty low carb day otherwise, so it isn’t a really big thing – and most of what is on the pizza (cheese, pepperoni, some green pepper, some mushrooms) is mostly stuff that is allowed in the diet anyway, so there you go.  I might have blown the portion counts out a little, but basically it is about the healthiest junk food that I would regularly eat.   I ate until I was satisified and not stuffed, and then stopped.

That explains the most of what I have learned about Atkins going forward:   I controlled the portion (all good diets should teach you this), I avoided or limited the carb bomb part of the meal (the crust areas), and ate a type of pizza that was mostly stuff I could have (I avoided high carb toppings).  So even what some people would consider a “blowout” was in fact a controlled demolition experience.

This is what most diet books are loath to tell you:  You can follow our plan exactly and it will work, or you can LEARN our plan, play with it for your personal comfort and progress, and still do very well.  I think taking off as much percentage weight as I have since I started overall is very good indeed (More than 5% body weight on atkins, about 7% overall since I started).   More importantly, these drops have brought me MUCH closer to my goal weight (call it 170 for shits and giggles) – so from the original 193 to 170 (23 pounds) I have lost 15 of them, or about 65% of my total goal.  I cannot complain too much about this.

I am back in the saddle today, going to stay with it for another week, while adding in some extra carbs this week once everything settles back down.  We will see how this all goes

Anyway, the scale said just about 176 today (mostly 176 with a little 177) so that isn’t all that bad.  Today is exactly two weeks of induction phase operation, almost 10 pounds in that time is pretty darn good for a guy who wasn’t all that overweight to start with, and almost 15 pounds since I decided my jeans were way too tight.  I still have some way to go, but overall things are working out better than I could have hoped for.

A side note about Atkins style eating:  One of the comments often made is “it is too expensive”.  Well, I am not feeling that at all, maybe it is my position and stage of life.  Let me explain.  I am a single guy, and I was cooking on average less than 1 meal per day at home.  Even at local (canadian) price for two McMeal type things per day, I could easily go through $15 per day.  Now I go to my local Loblaws or Maxi and I spend about the same or less per day, and much of it has been “setup” stuff and expensive things I prefer (like sliced smoked turkey… I can plow through a pound of that with the best of them!).  I have been eating steak, eggs, back bacon (canadian bacon to you south of the border) salad, vegs, cheese… and enjoying pretty much all of it.

So for me, Atkins has not only broken the fat cycle I was in, but also broken the “eat out” cycle I was in as well.  I went shopping yesterday and I had to work to find 3 things to buy (I had enough beef, chicken, and veg in the fridge, so just salad, cheese, and a bottle of flavored water (no carbs, no sugars, 0 calories… but carbonated so it is like a soft drink of sorts).   Breaking the cycles the in the end are not good for us (we are creatures of habit) is the sort of thing that has life changing implications.  As I get nearer the end of the Atkins process (maybe a couple of months from now) and move on to the maintenance stage, I will be in a position to enjoy much of the foods I enjoyed before, but I have a feeling that they will not hold the same interest.

Actually, one of the most bizarre things I am finding keeps me from eating out is the idea of potatoes and other high carb high starch foods that seem to make up a big percentage of the total plate size at many establishments.  Montreal is the Patate Frits (french fries) capital of the universe, and it is not unusual to get a couple of huge scoops of fries with everything ordered.  BBQ breast comes ina box topped up with fries – literally to the top in most cases.   Of course, most of the places are cooking them in bad oils, so the trans-fat count of them is insanely high, so they are taking something that is an empty carb filler and tossing horrible oils on top of it.  A really not cool situation when you think about it.

The other issue I guess is that most “faster” foods come in a bun.  Even the companies trying to push health bring their product to you on bread.  Subway (or Carbway as I tend to think of them) put almost all of their product on breads with on average near 40g of net carbs – two times induction DAILY levels, and a huge percentage of daily for someone on lifetime maintenance   They have one carb wrap thing (net 5 carbs) but that is a rare exception in a sea of carbs, carbs, carbs… (want to know more?  I found this list of subway information ).  I won’t even mention McFood or any of the 101 hotdog stands around here.  Safe to say that pretty much all of this stuff is a carb bomb waiting to happen.

Which I guess is why they are popular – carbs push sugars, give you quick energy and make you feel good, at least temporarily.  Much like drug addiction, you can get addicted to that good feeling of a sugar rush.  Trust me, I can down redbull all day without a blink and sleep at night… I have certainly had my additictions and pleasures from sugars and whatnot.  I can see how it all works, and I can see to an extent why it is bad.

However, that being said, as I have mention before, I will not be an “Atkins for life” member.  I am not entirely comfortable with all that comes with this, I don’t want to count carbs all my life, I don’t want to have to make excuses every time I am asked to go eat out, and I don’t want to spend my life totally avoiding things I enjoy.  Very simply, Atkins in an education to me, an experience, and something that I will carry forward for a long time to come, choosing better foods and being careful what I eat in general.  That won’t exclude the occassional Pizza or whatever, but it will be better balanced against a whole backdrop of better eating.

My theory is I didn’t get fat overnight, I wasn’t eating so badly that I was putting on 20 or 30 pounds a year or anything, but that over a long period of time, pounds had collected and there seemed little I could do.  Atkins is a reset, a new start, and a warning signal all in one.  I will reach my desired weight, and I will work to maintain it.  I will be carb and sugar careful in the future, and I will work to keep it this way.

Thanks to the late Dr Atkins

I think I have reached the point of being both comfortable with the induction and low carb lifestyle that comes with it, and a little tired of having to say no to things.  I  have run into my first naysayer (” don’t do it, you look alright, yadda yadda “).  It is someone who’s opinion I value most of the time, but who recently seems to be getting further and further away from the mark on things I am trying to accomplish.  That person doesn’t realize that things like this are only steps in a process that happens in almost every life, and one we must face with the strength and courage of our convictions and desires.  So this is one of those things that I have to face with one of my wingmen sitting on the bench, not at all understanding the play.

As I get closer to my initial weight number goal, other things come into play that will change other things, and like dominos, they all fall together to resolve the issues before me.  This isn’t where I started, and this is not where it ends.  Sometimes taking a moment to remember WHY you are really doing something.   That refreshes my spirit and reminds me I can move ahead.

If you have a dream, a hope, or a desire… every journey starts with a single step.

Last night actually was the first time that I had experienced any Atkin’s related issues.  I bent over to get something out of my sports bag, and then stood up rather quickly.  Dizzy time for a second as the blood wasn’t making it to the top floor.  That is after some pretty hard exercise, so it means my blood pressure was down a little bit towards the end.   That is a sign that I am pushing about as hard as I should, I guess.

Friday will be two weeks on that plan, I am hoping to see 177 by then, which will mean 9 pounds in 2 weeks, which is fucking amazing as far as I am concerned  I have honestly been stuck in the 180s for so long that I can remember the last time I was really in this range.  With a goal of about 170, I don’t think I am far off the mark here.

Warmer conditions have arrived, so I have been riding my bike a bit and generally getting a little more active, which is good.  I am also learning the good and the bad of the Atkins plan, and I see a few shortcomings that I think are actually slowing me down rather than speeding things up.  Most importantly, I am not good at measuring food, I cook by eye (I always have) and so I might be over doing it in some cases.  Learning to eat less and eat more often is key I think to making this work out, so I am rarely hungry.  Last night I was hungry after working out, that was for sure!

The other thing that I find negative in all of the Atkins world is that while some sorts of bread like products are permitted, none of them are readily available in my area (Montreal) and I really don’t want to order overpriced stuff from distant companies only to find out I don’t like it.  That would suck massively.  So I have lived without being able to make acceptable foods like Fajitas (which I do like) and instead I am sort of on a meat and veg diet that could easily become boring for someone that is a little more adventurous than I am.

Add to that the easter holiday weekend.  My sister has already invited me for dinner, which would include much many piles loads and buckets of carbs and sugars, which is just not on my list of things to do.  So I have to decline, which I hate because I enjoy seeing my neices and other family members, but I guess I do what I gotta do.  I have a feeling they will understand more when they see a slightly more healthy me the next time around, I guess.

Overall it isn’t bad, the food situation is getting a little dull due to the limited choices I have during induction, but the results are there and the suffering is really worth the end result.   I can physically see the difference (which when combined with other steps I took starting in January now totals up to 15 pounds), and my clothes either fit better or fall off, which is good in my book.  8 more pounds and I think I will have hit as low as I would want to go, but I guess that is based more on the look and my health and less on just what I weigh.

Just wanted to post up a pic to show where I had gotten to. I had started out about 192 or 193 at the top, so 179 is certainly a major improvement and it shows (no, I won’t take those pictures yet!). I am rather happy at this point, and happy enough to say that the goal is very much closer to 170 than I am right now. It all really depends on if I lose weight faster or build muscle faster (as muscle is a little bit heavier than fat, so I could lose fat and gain muscle and have my weight actually go UP, not down).

Yes, I am using Atkins, which is working out pretty well, although it is a modified Atkins (my own design) and it is doing pretty much everything I set out to have it do, which is, well, excellent. This week is certainly slower than last week for weight loss, but I have a feeling that I am just bumping a wall and that will solve itself within the next 48 hours or so as I adjust the food intake slightly (still eating a ton, just a slightly different ton). Plus the weather has turned nice here in Montreal, so I will be able to take my bicycle out and get some good rolling miles done there as well, which should help to raise my metabolism a little bit.

Overall, it isn’t so bad, and it is getting better.

Atkins is a life changer, even if you don’t guy into it completely or follow it like a religeon. It is true that much of it is very extreme sounding (I have never eaten so much steak, back bacon (what americans call Canadian bacon for some reason), salad, chicken, and turkey than I have in the last 8 days. I am literally eating like a horse, and yet the weight keeps going away. I am filled with energy, and I can feel my entire body changing gears into a much happier mode. It is a nice feeling. But I can understand that much of this isn’t entirely a natural situation, and that sooner or later, I will have to allow a fair bit more carbs back into my diet. However, the religeous part of Atkins will stay with me (and it is pretty much the same as every other diet deep down inside):

Empty calories, those generated from sugar and especially things like high fructose corn syrup that just blow your body away with huge shots of almost unmanagable sugar doses. Stripping away some of the carbs (moving from a potato or pasta to a salad or low carb veg replacement), and eating more of what comes naturally is pretty much all in the cards. Soft drinks, high sugar energy drinks (like Red Bull, example) are toast for me, as well as most of my high end coffee habit (I went from probably a pot a day to 1 cup a day when this started, and I am trying to find a way to ween that down further as I go along). All those things are generally bad and must be moved off the daily consumption list.

The most interesting about atkins is the lack of fruit in the intial stages (what they call induction) as they move your body into a state of Ketosis, which basically means your body needs to start converting fat into energy rather than just using the wildly abundant sugars in your system. Fruit is fairly high in natural sugars, and as such, would stop this process from happening. I suspect I am pretty much in this state right now, which is acceptable to hold for a couple of weeks, especially if you are consuming enough calories and protein, which I am certianly doing at this point. After the two week window, I think fruit is one of the things I am looking forward to occassionally adding into my diet, if for no other reason than I miss the tastes.

Now, some of you reading this might be asking “why would someone who is fat but not obese be doing Atkins style dieting”? The simple answer is that at my age (41) and with the length of time that the fat has been on my body (probably 10-15 years), it is very hard to get acceptable and dependable results from just the standard “careful what you eat”. Much of the fat on my body has been that harder, more concentrated fat that is hard to get to break up, andadding activity alone hasn’t really helped out. I get maybe 3-4 hours a week of exercise (hard, as I play badminton, which is a pretty intense sport at better levels) plus I am a stair walker not elevator taker. But almost without exception, I have been able to lose a certain amount of weight on each try, but it comes back quickly and I have sat between 183-184 and 195 for most of the last 10 years. More importantly, I have been my pant size slowly slip up the scale, to dimensions I don’t like (but that many people would still only dream about). I can remember buying jeans on my 21st birthday that were size 28… today that would be more like 36. While I know I will never wear the 28s again, my goal and aim is 32 without overhang (everyone knows the dreaded overhang).

To that goal, I am adding in more physical exercise over the next couple of weeks, working to tone the muscles and tighten up the waistline a bit.

So yeah, I needed Atkins style thinking to really make a change, and now that I have “hopped the fence” and made it past the first few days of craving and stuff, I am pretty much good to go. I do look forward to re-adding some of my favorite fat foods back into my diet, but I have a feeling that they will not be anywhere near as desirable or enjoyable when I get to that point. Changing your thinking really does go a long way to obtaining the long sought and rarely found results.

So I keep on my path for my goals, and hopefully they will come to me over time. If you don’t have a goal, you have nowhere to go. I have a goal and I am heading that direction

Any other atkins people out there? Drop me a line or a comment, the comments are open on this blog.

Well, I went back to look at the why, and some of it was pretty obvious: snacking, bad eating habits, bad eating hours… yadda, yadda.

So around February this year, I started to try to take better care. From Feb 1 until about 2 weeks ago, I managed to shave off about 6 pounds… not bad, not great, but certainly headed in the right direction. But I didn’t really feel that it was all that I wanted it to be, so I started looking for help. I spent a bunch of time online, a bunch of time talking to some people I trust, and finally some time in the book stores looking for the right deal.

In my case, that deal turned out to be Atkins.

I know, I know… it is voodoo dieting. Some of the requirements and idea in this program are, well, somewhat less than normal. Counting carbs not calories doesn’t seem like it would make a ton of sense. Basically, the idea is to move your body in to a state of ketosis and work from there, having your body burn up existing stores of fat rather than consuming sugar, and expelling excess fat through urine (you have to drink a river of water every day, which is fine by me, I like drinking water so no biggie). The idea would be to literally turn your body into a fat burning machine, and when you near your goal weight, pull out of the dive and slowly adjust your intake of “bad” stuff (carbs, processed sugars, certain oils, etc).

So, one week later, I have dropped 6 pounds and I feel wonderful – not about losing the weight, but in fact I feel good, not starving, not under eating, and certainly not avoiding food (I eat probably 4 times a day now). It is pretty weird to eat more and lose weight, but there you go.

One of the most shocking things now is going into a supermarket and realizing how little of what is in there that I can eat at this point. Way too much processed sugars, carb intensive snack foods, and unnatural food sources in the mix. It is a little overwhelming.

Now, unlike many Atkins types, I don’t intend the “Atkins for Life” approach at this point. However, I will certainly be taking much of what I am learning in this process to heart. Avoiding empty sugars and pointlessly high carbs is something I think that will be with me for life now, as I can see the changes already and what it is doing for me. I would like to bring some comparitively bad things back into life (like rice, as I eat chinese foods very often) and some of the starches and thickening agents that come with this type of food. I don’t think I will ever be able to handle the levels of sugar that I have in the past, as I realize that this one thing, more than anything, has contributed to my weight woes in the past.

I don’t want to be an Atkins martyr. I don’t want to make my friends hate me because I can’t go to eat out with them, or that I need to order special, that I can’t just enjoy the buffet or whatever is being served. I don’t want to be a lifelong annoyance (more than I already am) so Atkins is a process and a revision of lifestyle, and not a hard religeon.

However, for the next few weeks and possibly months, it will be much closer to religeon than would be normal for me. I still have about 10 – 15 pounds to go before I reach what is my correct weight, but that isn’t going to happen only with diet. Exercise is being added starting early next week, and the end results should be good once I get there. Here is to hoping that everything goes well