Atkins Diet: Low-carb Boot Camp

By HARRY WOLF Published on 6/22/2003

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Dr. Atkins, I presume. You were always confident that thousands of us would end up in the torturous two-week Induction period of your diet, in which all but the most minute portions of carbohydrates must be avoided. But you must be more than pleased that millions have just started in the few weeks since your accidental death April 18. And now here I am, cruising supermarket aisles, passing up carbohydrate-laden villains such as carrots, heading for the bacon and sausage and eggs and steak and real high-fat mayonnaise. This is a diet? Sounds like a cinch. I just have to stay away from any bread.

I would kill for a piece of bread. There is some kind of gluttony principle going on here, but better I just go no further into thinking that way for the next two weeks. End of Induction is but 10 days away. The Atkins diet book, my bible, tells me that the next step, OWL, ongoing weight loss, will be so much more forgiving.

Unfortunately, the path to OWL is strewn with the washed-up bodies of ex-inductionaires, such as my wife. We started on this journey together only five days (or was that five years?) ago, and now she, like many other women I am told, is not shedding as much as her man. She is beginning to founder, to hit a reef and go down to the forbidden bottom of the sea where tandy-cakes lurk.

But, hark ! She is coming up for air, and there is still hope! And that's great news for me since a one-Atkins family cannot stand the slings and arrows

Not that this inductee would be alone. We are everywhere you look.

And now I am going into ketosis, the body's burning of its own fat, and starting to get scared. Is this really a safe diet? Should I really be having two slices of bacon, one link of sausage, and two fried eggs for breakfast? It sounds like Bizarro-world, but meanwhile, the basketball that was hanging over my belt has become a small, deflated soccer ball.

But maybe this isn't so safe. I read stories on some medical web pages about lack of potassium and electrolytes and ..... . well, OWL is almost here, so no quitting now. But, shhhhh....I just might sneak a banana.

Harry Wolf is a writer who lives in Somerdale, N.J.