A Farewell To Carbs?

Is it me, or do some people become seized with a passion, go through years of intensive training in all forms of general anatomy, graduate, struggle through years of junior posts on very little sleep and then set up practice as doctors....just to act like superior pricks to patients?

Is that not, maybe, a little psychotic?

Please don’t get the wrong idea here – I’m not saying that the doc I saw this morning was wrong in any way, shape or form (though personally, I think he was less right than he clearly thought he was). There’s just something about some doctors that allows them to pronounce the words “And what can I do to help you?” with an inflection that translates directly as “You are beneath me, you insignificant, grovelling sack of dirty water, and one day, I shall crush you like a bug. Perhaps that day will be today. Please, feel free to speak...”

As I say, I’m not claiming he was wrong to tell me that the Xenical is pretty much entirely a punitive measure (I myself have described it as aversion therapy in handy capsule form). I’m not saying he’s technically wrong to claim that the alternatives – which he won’t prescribe – “have dangerous side-effects, including death.” I’ve watched American TV commercials, damnit, I know that death can be a side-effect of practically anything, from Athelete’s Foot cream to Viagra.

And while this creeps me out, I can’t say for definite that he was wrong to “prescribe” one of two dietary regimes (one of which seems fairly intent on selling you its own products). There was just something about him that smacked of the Grand Viziers of Disney legend.

Anyhow, that’s what he advised. Because, he said, I’ve now lost a chunk of weight, I’m using an out-dated calorie calculation for what I should be taking in on any given day – so I’d need to cut down my calorie intake further to get my brain to take notice. My brain’s diet-regulation HQ, he said, had reached a plateau-point, where it’s now all happy and comfy and content with itself, going “Cool, let’s stop here, we like here...”. Meanwhile, my consciousness is going “Nnnono, we need to keep going, foooooooorwwwwwaAAAARD!!!”...and Diet Control is whistling a happy tune and ignoring the bejeesus out of me. I need to do something drastic to shock it out of its complacent-assed state and push on down.

“Try Atkins,” he said. “You won’t do more than three months of it, because it’s so boring, I guarantee you. But it’ll jump start you back in the right direction.”

I asked for an explanation of the famous Atkins Diet – which I’m happy to admit I’ve avoided like the freakin’ plague.

“It’s all on the internet,” he sniffed, as if realising he was clearly dealing with a chimp too retarded to find things out for itself. He sighed. “Mind you, there’s a lot of conflicting stuff on the internet. Dr Atkins absolutely didn’t die from following his diet, no matter what people say...” he said.

“No?” I asked.

“No,” he sniffed. “He fell over in New York and hit his head.”

“So this is a diet that increases your chances of fatal head-splitting during rapid interfaces with the ground?” I asked, “because I’m already pretty good at falling over and breaking bits of myself...”

He shot me a withering look.

“Hmm,” he said, as if trying to play an invisible comb-and-paper.

“Or there’s the Second-Day Fast,” he considered.

“The What-Now?”

“One day you eat about what you should be eating – 1300-1500 calories a day. The next day, you only have 500. And so on, day after day...”

“500?”

“500.”

“So it’s a starvation diet?”

“No. Did you not hear me – the day after, you have 1500 calories to look forward to.”

“It’s ridiculously difficult to stick to 1500,” I muttered. “Best I’ve ever managed is about 900...”

“Hmm...” he said, playing his comb-and-paper again.

So – it’s apparently a choice between Atkins for three months and two states of relative starvation on an ongoing basis. And all to wake up my brain, which I’d rather foolishly assumed would be on my side in all this. So much for “I think, therefore I am” – rather humbling when whatever you think, another part of your brain can simply ignore you. Mind you, on that basis, much of biology gives the lie to “I think, therefore I am”...

I went and did some Atkins research. God, it’s miserable.

It tries to put a brave face on things though – protein is good! Meat, fish, green leafy veg, all that good healthy cobblers. And of course, I could survive perfectly well on this kind of diet, it just flies rather in the face of the fundamental learning that’s in my brain, which says that meat and veg are basically side dishes that balance out the carb that comes with them.

Carbohydrates, on the Atkins Diet, are the Great Satans. There is of course a vastly depressing amount of logic to this way of thinking – if you don’t take in carbs, you a) don’t have an excess to be stored as fat, and b) have to burn the reserves already stored as fat in order to get up and move around. So under no circumstances am I claiming that Atkins wouldn’t work. It’s just the part of my brain that says ‘every protein’s best friend is a carb’ that rebels against it.

Sigh...Going to give this Atkins lark a go in all likelihood – but it’s not a thing that can be done on a dime. Takes shopping, takes preparation, takes work and takes another moment of giving stuff a kiss goodbye for a while.  Not remotely sure I’m ready tonight to kiss carbs goodbye. But then you hear the figures – “lose 15 pounds in just two weeks” claims the Atkins website. That would put me at my 6 stone marker by the end of May if I started right now.

And so, you sell a little bit of your Disappearing soul to a system, which I didn’t want to do when this all began, for the promise of progress.

Oh – weigh-in today puts me at 15 stone 5.5. Hence the “15 pounds in two weeks” putting me where I want to be, and quickly.

Desperation much?