I’m on a diet. I know that the word “diet” is loaded with all kinds of meaning & baggage, but for me, it’s how I eat – & a specific food group that will become a part of my ‘food world.’ (My term probably. I like it for its descriptiveness… it speaks a lot of how small the actual pool of potential edibles is in my world.)

Anyway, over time, I have discovered that there are certain foods that don’t sit well in my belly. Dairy products. Like ice-cream. Mostly ice-cream. Milk. I end up with all kinds of negative side affects, which are better left undescribed. These only have kicked in over the last 3-5 years, so it’s not like I’ve been lactose intolerant my whole life, only to finally realize it. High sugar foods, like any good dessert – hot fudge, cheesecake, monkey bread, 6 layer double fudge cake, etc…, combined with high carbohydrate refined flours & sugars, cause me to have a near-catastrophic response in my blood sugar. And even if they didn’t, they left me feeling blah, sick to my stomach, & generally grumpus-like… all of this I had thought was just normal, par for the course response to food. You eat it, then you get this response. Turns out, not everybody has that kind of a deal with food. So, I modified my approach – if it doesn’t make me feel sick, angry, & doesn’t taste like dren…

A few years back, the Atkins Diet was all the rage. I was a few pounds heavier than my fighting weight, & my 30th birthday was fast approaching, so I thought I’d at least look into this ‘diet’ & see what it would entail… cutting out refined sugars & flours… avoiding trans fats… avoiding ‘high carbohydrate’ food… eating foods high in protein. Like meat. Sausages. Chicken. Pork. Meat. Did I mention meat? And good cheese. And I thought this was a diet. It sounded like my preferred means of nutrition. So I went ‘on’ the diet, & lost 35 pounds. The only things I missed eating were cookie dough, breakfast cereal (but milk was ok to miss) & the occasional dessert, like cake. Or ice-cream, which made me sick anyway. Some people were “Atkins haters” & some nutritionists said it was bad to eat that way, but my experience & my body told me a different story. And, yes, my cholesterol was measured at 141 – 70 for the ldl, 71 for the Hdl…

The next several years of my life involved eating what I referred to as a “modified Atkins’ meaning – I ate what I wanted, mostly high in protein, & low in refined sugars & flours. It was the ‘best’ time of life – where if I felt like eating something that wasn’t on the diet, I ate it, then resumed my regular routine.

Our church family went on 2 40 day fasts – not total fasts, but fasts that involved not eating meats or the ‘nice parts’ of meals – it was a part of something our denomination was doing at the time… so I participated, & in a short time, eating cereals, bagels, veggies, whole grains, & yogurt, had managed to put back on all the weight I had lost. Sigh.

Fast forward to May 16 of this year. I had been thinking about me & how I great I felt when I had been “Atkins-ing.” My pounds were still lurking, the residue of my 3 months (& then some) of special high-carb eating… I wanted them to go away – so I decided that for me, eating what I want in the manner I want was the way to go. So I’ve been doing the modified Atkins again since then, & the results have been what I expected. About 15 pounds gone. Feeling good in my body, soul, & mind. Enjoying the indulgence of life’s little pleasures like Spam, Flaming Hot Pork Skins, Louisiana Hot Links, broccoli, & Sharp Cheddar cheese.

I take vitamins. I work out 4x a week. I eat food that is high-protein/low carb, & I drink water like my life depends on it. (I know, I know. It does. But you get what I mean.) And my ‘diet’ is the way I want to eat. The way I feel best when I eat. And yes, I will occasionally mix in a dessert… It makes me think that for all the nutritional studies publishing what’s good, bad, & ugly for us to consume, there’s a lot of generalizations in those studies, & one of the best things we can do is find out what fuel our body likes best & functions best on…

But you can do what you like. I’m going to have a 2-egg Spam omelette with Taco Bell Fire Sauce & some great cheddar…