A Day on the Diet

(I will post a brief summary of the previous year, but I'm all about looking forward right now, and I want to ride this wave.)

So I'm sick with a sore throat and feel crummy, but I won't blame that on Atkins. I think I'll be able to make these first two weeks of a very restricted diet work for me. One key - I'm able to log in the food on the go through the iPhone. I can't build new foods - have to be on the computer for that - but the logging in the palm of my hand from anywhere is very helpful, especially in these early days of focus focus focus.

Yesterday was a lazy day due to feeling crummy - but again, the low energy is hardly coming from less than 24 hours of no carbs. More likely coming from my "last night" indulgence on NY's eve.

Even though my logging program does not encourage a low-carb approach, it does provide the information I need to track what I'm doing. All of the data lives on the internet, and the very detailed reports and looks at the data require a full up browser running flash. There are pdf reports that can be generated, but they don't have as much information. Specifically, the nutrition information includes total carbs, but not the fiber count necessary for counting net carbs. On-line, there is a recap that includes that information.  This is an excuse for the poor quality of the report I'm posting here - I got it from an elaborate series of steps - printing my screen from the browser to a pdf, then converting and cropping it to a jpg.

I actually ate fewer net carbs than they encourage - 35 grams total carbs minus 21 grams fiber for a total of 14 grams net carbs.  The limit for these first two weeks is twenty grams; and they want at least 15 grams net carbs coming from leafy greens.  I had no leafy greens yesterday - no salads, no cabbage dishes. I got my carbs from mayonaise and cauliflower and an avocado. But, I'm about to make an egg-spinach casserole for breakfast, and I've got salad fixings a-plenty in the fridge, so I'll be doing better from here on out.

The yellow in the pie graph is fat, the purple is protein, and the green is carbs. This is why classic nutritionists freak out at Atkins. The picture gives me pause, but I have done enough reading to understand the science says you don't get fat from eating fat, you get fat when your body decides to store fat, and the most controllable factor in when my body decides to store fat is when I have too much insulin because I eat too many carbs.

Excelsior!