Treats

Most diets have some form of "controlled cheating" or saving up for "treats". The idea is to give yourself a safety valve for those cravings and special substances.  Back decades ago on Weight Watchers, they had points you could save up and use for a beer on Saturday night. The Carbohydrate Addict's diet, which I followed during the Big Loss, every single evening had a Reward meal, where you could eat anything in moderation. I was a big fan of Why Women Need Chocolate, a fairly ineffective diet that emphasized exercise at a more vigorous level, and chocolate, of course.

Not so this version of Atkins I have. There are very strict food lists, and there is no deviating from them. As you move through the phases, a wider variety of foods are added, but it never gets to the Cream Cake with Chocolate Mousse Filling that is our office birthday staple (from CostCo, $20, incredibly good, serves 30). And moving through the food lists is supposed to be in specific order, with careful note taking. All references to sweets are in terms of "mistakes".

This is a bit too joyless for me. I totally understand the up front elimination of sugars and the gradual adding back foods that might trigger an insulin rush and follow on carb cravings. I also understand that even small amounts of the wrong thing at the wrong time can be the trigger. But I've got to figure out the right things at the right times.

I miss my treats. I think I miss my habit of treating myself, alone in my house before bed, as much as I miss the actual treat food: chocolate.  The treats don't have to be chocolate or even sweet, but I think I need that little treat ritual. The truth is, I really focused on it too much. It both mattered to me a lot (I'd get in the car and drive to get those Dove Darks even if I was already in my jammies), and it often was getting out of hand (three Dove Darks is 100 calories, but nine or ten starts to get into serious calorie and sugar loading).

I've started to figure out some treats to fit within the current restrictive food lists I'm following. I had a third of a cup of blueberries (from Chile) mixed in with an equal amount of mascarpone as my after dinner treat on Sunday. It was absolutely terrific, very special and "treat-y". I bought some nice hard cheeses, and last week I had a small piece of pate de campagne. I'm stocking olives from the olive bar at Whole Foods. (Today's lunch of tuna salad was made special with the olives.) I've got an array of new teas to try from Whole Foods, and I buy these really terrific but ridiculously expensive flavored waters from Whole Foods.

This is all good stuff and will help keep me from getting bored and going off on a carb loading binge. But I do have to know I'll be able to work some of my favorite foods into the plan at some point.  There is advice in the book on how to order and eat in restaurants, but its all about how to find the right foods, not how to incorporate some off-plan food into special occasions without throwing away weeks of work. The only mention of "chocolate" in the index has two recipes mixing unsweeted cocoa powder into ricotta cheese with sucralose. I actually did this once (its on the South Beach diet) and its not terrible, but its also not a chocolate treat.

One thought - the original Atkins had alcohol coming back in by the second week. Dr. Atkins allowed red wine nearly from the start. This newer version is more strict, but it does come back, because who would live without drinking?  (They do suggest staying permanently away from regular beer. Not going to happen.)  I'm going to read about their approach for that, and then figure the carb grams in Dove Darks can't be worse for me that an equal amount of alcohol carb grams. I'm going to postpone the chocolate, but I'm not going to say good-bye forever.  However, I'm imagining tiny little perfect gems of sweets - a demitasse of hot chocolate, minimally sweet. A single Dove Dark. One slice of my boy's sour dough bread, toasted with farm fresh butter. Oy, I feel my insulin levels rising with these thoughts, so its time to turn to bed instead.