Atkins doesn't work? My ass it doesn't work...

Anyone who knows me or has seen pictures of me knows that I'm...um...short for my weight.

Yeah. That's it. That's the ticket. (grin)

I've been on diet after diet after diet. Even spent time in the hospital for this problem. Been on diets where I didn't eat one day a week, two days a week, whatever. I've starved myself, put myself on liquid diets - you name it, I've done it. 1200-calorie diets, 1600-calorie diets, rabbit food, soup & salad, the whole nine yards.

Did I lose weight? Most of the time - when I could stick with it. Some of these diets were excruciating.

Did the weight stay off? Not only no, but hell, no.  The weight came back - usually in spades.

As late as two years ago, I was between 300 and 310 pounds, and my blood sugar level was even higher than that. And I'm a Type II diabetic, so that's not a good thing. My prescription had stopped working, my blood sugar level was skyrocketing, and I was on the road to an early death.

Then I went on another diet, a diet unlike any on which I'd ever been - because on this  diet, I didn't starve myself. I didn't have to deprive myself and suffer for having to do so.

For it wasn't calories I counted on this diet - it was carbohydrates.

I am referring, of course, to the Atkins Nutritional Approach - or, as it's more commonly known, the Atkins Diet.

This was in 2001. Two years, 55 pounds and six inches later, never having to starve myself, I'm persuaded that going on this diet saved my life.

Except now, some damnfools passing themselves off as experts are saying that the diet that helped me get comfortably into jeans I'd not been able to wear in 10 years or more...doesn't work:


The Atkins diet works - for a while. But as renowned junk science debunker and author of "Fat of the Land" Michael Fumento points out, it doesn't take all that long to regain the weight lost on the diet.


Well, listen up, Mr. FuckedMental. After two freakin' years,  I'm not only down 55 pounds and six inches, I'm on my way out of the 250s and into 38-inch jeans - someplace I've not been in 15 years.

Explain that,  dumbass.


Fumento explains, in a recent op-ed piece published in papers around the country, that the Atkins and the similar "South Beach" diets "induce rapid weight loss in the first couple of weeks, because all low-carb diets promote quick water loss. Water is heavy, but it is not fat."


Atkins himself answers that argument here. (Sorry, guys - I'm short on OCR software at the moment, so the JPEG will have to do. For what it's worth, it came straight from the book.)

I can tell FrickinMental this  much: I didn't lose six inches of water.


And in no time at all, dieters get tired of following the low-carbohydrate regimes and resume normal eating and the weight piles back on, as shown by a 12-month study in the May 22, 2003, New England Journal of Medicine.


Oh, yeah. I'm getting real  tired of eating steak, chicken, pork, veal, cheese, bacon, eggs, ham, baloney (no, really - I like  baloney.), fish, shrimp, tuna, green beans, broccoli, asparagus...

I missed stuff like breads, pasta, potatoes, rice...for exactly one week after I started Atkins. After one week, I didn't miss them at all.

And on those rare occasions when I do  cheat and carb out. I get right back on Atkins and I'm okay. And I'm still  55 pounds to the better, FuckinMental.


As Fumento explains it, the late Dr. Atkins claimed: "Foods high on the hypoglycemic index, invariably carbohydrates, send sugar rushing into the bloodstream. The pancreas then shoots insulin like a fire hose to clear the sugar out of the blood and into the organs. But now that same insulin makes the body hunger for more sugar, creating a vicious cycle and causing obesity."

Not so, said University of Washington endocrinologist Michael Schwartz. He told Fumento, "There is no compelling evidence that in normal individuals day-to-day fluctuations of the blood glucose level are an important determinant of how much food is consumed."


That so Schwartzie, you schmuck?

Okay, let's look at me: Like I said, I'm a Type II diabetic. My current prescription calls for 2000 milligrams of a substance called Glucovance every day, in 4 500-mg tablets - 2 twice daily. And doing that, I was having a little trouble keeping my blood sugar below 120, which is supposed to be the high threshold for me - cross that, and I'm in trouble.

I just now, as I write this, took a reading of my blood sugar level: 97. And that's higher than I was expecting it, which would be in the mid-80s.

I haven't taken my prescription on a regular basis in over four months.

That's right. Four months. In that amount of time, I've taken maybe  one pill. And it had the effect I thought it would: My blood sugar dropped to the high 40s - way too low for anyone, much less a diabetic.

Sounds like an "important determinant" to me.


Schwartz also wrote in the journal Science, "Although the concept that insulin triggers weight gain has little scientific merit, it remains a key selling point for advocates of diets that are low in carbohydrate and high in protein and fat."


What, because you  say so, schumck? I guess 55 pounds in two years isn't enough for you, dumbass?


Fumento challenges Atkins' belief that eating fats causes people to become satiated.


Not surprising. Atkins' diet works, and that just sticks in FuckinMental's pathetic little craw.


The literature on this is both voluminous and clear, Fumento says. "Fat and carbohydrates reduce hunger equally, although protein may have a slight edge."


Yeah, well, fat  doesn't turn to sugar in your bloodstream, bozo. Carbohydrates do.


If either the hyperinsulinemia or fat-satiety theories are true, Fumento explains, "it would certainly show up in the decades of studies comparing diets of varying fat and carbohydrate content."


Those studies exist, dumbfuck, and if you'd get up off your  fat ass and go do some legwork, you might have come to that conclusion.

Instead, you go and attack that information that upsets your little applecart, because you can't handle the truth.


[...]

He explains that the April 2001 Journal of the American Dietetic Association reviewed "all [such] studies identified," over 200 total. Conclusion: "Weight loss is independent of diet composition."

In other words, it's not what you eat - it's how much you eat.


Two words:


1. Bull
2. Shit


Atkins works. I'm living proof. And I will continue to be living proof, despite the claims to the contrary of Michael FuckinMental and the rest of the anti-Atkins asshats.


UPDATE: I should've given credit last night to the person who put me on Atkins in the first place.

Stephanie Dawn Stewart Crager - front and center. (I use her full name because I know she Googles for her name, looking for things I'm saying against her. She thinks she can rip me a new one to people we don't even know, but if I  should tell people exactly what she did to me - even if it's the truth - it's "badmouthing". Go figure.)

You were, in my opinion, one of the worst excuses for a wife a man could ever have. It was always all about you and what you wanted. You didn't marry me because you loved me - you married me because you thought I could give you a child. You fully planned to leave me once I did that - and I've had more than one friend come tell me that after the fact, so clearly could they see through your doublewide ass.

But you did  manage to do two good things for me during our time together.

One is, obviously, to give me the most beautiful son imaginable.

The other...was to force me to go on the Atkins diet. I was skeptical of this diet and thought it would do me more harm than good. You made me go on this thing when I didn't want to, when I thought it was a disaster waiting to happen.

And for that, I am compelled to say: Thank you.

PFW recap: Squash casserole, anyone...?

I said I liked my odds better this time around for a PFW, and my teams came through.

And did they ever:


Arlington Heights 67, North Side 12
Nebraska 48, Texas A&M 12
TCU 27, University of Alabama-Birmingham 24
Dallas Cowboys 38, Detroit Lions 7


Coach Christian, your job is secure for one more week. (grin)


Nebraska turned in a workmanlike effort in holding the vaunted  offense of Coach Mercenary to one touch and a couple of field goals. (snicker) Methinks Nebraska's Blackshirt defense got a stern talkin'-to this week after the Missouri debacle.

And - can I really be saying this - break up the Cowboys for the good of the game!!!  MUAH-HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH...! (snort)

Quincy Carter continues to play with ever-increasing confidence, and the Cowboys have clearly started to buy into Bill Parcells' program. San Transsexual's FairyWhiners have provided the blueprint this week as to how to beat the Pokes' next opponent, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (featuring resident NFL goon Warren Sapp), and don't think Parcells won't be watching a lot  of film this week.

On to TCU. The Horned Frogs had no business winning this game. UAB is bigger, stronger, faster and had us chasing them all game long. The TCU defense was decent enough against the run, but the secondary, with all its injuries, is suspect, and UAB took full advantage - though not nearly enough, as it turns out.

Two plays turned the tide of the game for the Frogs. Both involved injury to a starting quarterback.

The first injury was to TCU starter Tye Gunn, who may have reinjured the knee that cost him the rest of last years' season. The extent of the injury is not known as of yet. Gunn was replaced by junior Brandon Hassell, who acquitted himself well in two earlier games this year, and Hassell settled the offense down enough to allow it to start clicking at least a little bit.

The other injury was more significant.

UAB quarterback Darrell Hackney had been placing the Frogs his own personal Cuisinart, slicing & dicing to his heart's content. But a teeth-rattling hit from Josh Goolsby ended his night, and backup Chris Williams played like...well...a backup. The UAB offense was shut down for the night, enabling the Frogs to come back and win.