Several years ago, I decided to go on the Atkins diet because I was a bit overweight. Now, this is the first time that I have done any dieting. I was able to drop 10
pounds on the first week so I could not understand why so many people are always saying that losing weight is difficult. Of course, I found it a bit challenging on the
first two weeks because I was not used to eating low carbohydrate foods exclusively.
Fortunately, I found that it was an easy diet to follow once I got past
that two week mark. The Atkins diet suggests that a dieter eat foods that are rich in protein. This was an easy part because I have always been a big meat eater.
However, giving up the potatoes and bread that I usually eat along with my meat was more difficult for me. I decided that I need to find alternative foods that were
allowed on the diet to cure my craving for those foods.
To solve my problem, I purchased an Atkins diet book which not only outlines the diet but also has
recipes. I found it amazing how you can eat a lot of food on the Atkins diet and still lose weight. The main challenge with this diet is getting some variety into your
meals. The dinner meal was very easy to prepare when I first started the diet. I would usually have some type of protein, fish, pork, chicken or beef and a large leafy
salad with blue cheese dressing for my dinner. This meal was not very different than what I ate before it was just minus the potato and bread.
However, the
lack of variety started to bore me after a few weeks. I was still motivated to continue the diet because I was losing weight but I was getting tired of eating the same
meal every night. Fortunately, I discovered some of the recipes in the back of the Atkins diet book. Mashed cauliflower became my favorite recipe because it has the
same texture as mashed potatoes. The Atkins diet book also had a recipe for a salad that has all the same ingredients as potato salad, minus the potatoes. I just
substituted cooked cauliflower for the potato. It tastes wonderful although I was a bit skeptical at first.
I have added carbohydrates back into my diet over the
years. I gained some of the weight back at first, but I have now found the right balance. I was able to take off excess pounds with the Atkins diet, even though long
a term diet with very low carbohydrates did not fit my life style.
