Let’s see where we are.

Today, I weigh 278 pounds, spot-on 60 pounds lighter than my first day of low-carbing, September 5, 2003. My highest weight ever was around 345, but I was 338 that particular day. That’s a shade over 6 months of Atkins, or Atkinsesque eating, with a few bumps in the road, planned and unplanned.

My wife got me on the diet, which I had thought of as kooky before, having vaguely heard of it and having dismissed it when I saw all the fat in it. I’m cynical by nature. If it sounds too good to be true, I reasoned, it usually is. I didn’t like the tone in Atkins’ book, either. I hate to be sold, and the good doctor sounded like he was trying to sell me something. I’m guarded like that, and probably miss opportunities from time to time. When someone full-court presses me, I don’t respond by giving him what he wants.

Another friend had been on it, and had lost over 65 pounds in 5 months, so it started to gain credibility in my mind. I went ahead and jumped in on that day in September.

What have we learned so far?

• I knew nothing of food or nutrition before Atkins. Obviously by my weight, I was doing something wrong, but I had no idea what it was. I wasn’t adhering to low fat, low calorie, or low-anything. I took stuff I heard on television, so I was as zombified as the next guy that saturated fat had made me fat and would someday clog my heart up. I didn’t act on that belief too well, but I bought into it. I never ate pork. I rarely ate red meat. I had chicken by the barnyard-full (still do, I like chicken). I ate bread and pastas to fill out the menu. I used to grab a can of Ragu and spaghetti, and think because I wasn’t adding beef or pork, it was good for me. I slowly started to educate myself, mostly on these forums, since November. I’m still learning.

• Throw protein at cravings. I say that having just staved off a trip to the freezer for ice cream with a slice of roast beef & cheese.

• Sugar is the prime enemy. I count back and realize that I ate frightening amounts of sugar previously. I wasn’t even a huge sweets addict (starches were my downfall), but even so, I consumed an appalling amount of sugar.

• You have to do it for yourself. I think having Kyra last May was a catalyst, but I don’t know that I could do this strictly for her. It has to be for me. I put myself in the hole, and I can’t use others as a crutch to get out.

• That which cannot be measured cannot be corrected. I used to avoid the scale like the plague—I didn’t want to know—but now I go daily and record weekly. I know many who don’t scale to avoid stress over it. I weigh to make sure I understand the implications of what I’m doing, and to center myself. Always been goal-oriented, so this is a way to quantify the goals. The thing I haven’t done is to tape-measure. I know I’ve gone from a size 48 pants to a size 40, but I don’t know if that translates to inches.

• I hate jeans because the sizes that fit my waist feel like a skirt on my legs, they’re so big. Chelli tells me “you have no butt anymore.” I usually love em, I just need to find some that fit well.

• I can eat like this the rest of my life. I enjoy it, and have taken it to be the norm. I can shift around and have carby stuff, and if I isolate it into a single meal, I usually see no ill effects. Often, I see a whoosh.

• Introspection is vital. I say things in my journal and on these boards that I wouldn’t dare say to people in person. It helps me work out the root causes of fat, and the machinery of motivation. I’ve needed to have this conversation with myself for 20 years.