Feeling deprived

[Adena]

When you talk to people about Atkins, they often tell you how they "could never give up" bread, pasta, sugar, or some other poison of choice. I'll be honest... occasionally, I feel deprived.

But as I ate my dinner tonight at Ruth's Chris.... incredibly tender filet with a few grilled shrimp -- both sizzling in butter, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, creamed spinach (made with heavy cream), and sauteed mushrooms.... I didn't miss those things at all. There are times when I'm enjoying a great meal and truly find it hard to believe that the rich and decadent food I'm putting in my mouth is actually helping me to lose weight. It's almost too good to be true. This was one of those nights.

As it turns out, all I was "deprived" of was the bad feeling I have when I eat bad carbs. I was deprived of feeling out of control. And I was deprived of cravings. Oh, and I was deprived of putting myself back on the path of fitting into my old size 26 pants (versus my current comfortable 14/16s).

Dr A, you can "deprive" me any day.

[ValidRouge]

Re: Feeling deprived

WOOHOO!

Man, that sounds sooooooooooooooo gooooooooooooood!

[Alexa]

Re: Feeling deprived

That sounds YUM!

I had a similar moment last night - I'm struggling to lose at the mo and BF wondered whether I should try the standard 'healthy diet' and see what happens. But as I served up lots of veggies in butter and chicken cooked in olive oil with pesto I thought 'I'm not missing the pasta, but I would miss the taste of this if I went low fat'.

[SandyL2002]

Re: Feeling deprived

I hear you.. I have those thoughts many many times.. But then I remind myself that I can have a Juicy Fat Steak and eat the fat... Or REAL Salad Dressing (hate the lowfat stuff) Cheese is not bad for me.. and actually lose weight and not starve to death..

We can go to the Seafood restaurant and Dip our Shrimp or crablegs into butter if we want... YUM

Your dinner last night sounded WONDERFUL!

[sadie147]

Re: Feeling deprived

The time I feel deprived the most is when walking throught the bakery section of the grocery store...why must fresh bread smell sooooo good? LOL. and it's funny, before this woe i never bought fresh bread from the bakery anyway, I was never a big bread eater aside from sandwiches.

I always compare this woe to when I followed weight watchers, being able to have a rib eye and veggies and salad for dinner now... when on ww i would have to have a weighed 3oz piece of skinless boring chicken and salad with exactly 1 tbsn of ff italian dressing (blech!) while watching my husband eat his rib eye....THAT was feeling deprived!

[SunnySmile501]

Re: Feeling deprived

It took some effort on my part, but I have worked to find even more foods that I love to take the place of old high carb favorites. I have discovered that I love many very healthy foods and recipes that I would never have tried if not for making this a complete lifestyle change. Always before, it was a diet, so I just deprived myself, ate a lot of processed foods because it was easy to keep track of calories and fat grams that way, because as soon as the weight came off, I could stop and eat good food again. This time I can eat great food while losing the weight and have improved my health to boot! How great is that?

Sunny! Atkinseer for life!

[blue996]

Re: Feeling deprived

I'll admit that sometimes that darn great smelling bakery calls my name but I remember the one thing I love that Dr. Atkins has deprived me of...thinking of my weight 100% of the day and worrying about what I am going to wear. Now I have a closet full of great looking clothes and I know there are smaller sizes in my future. For that I'll gladly give up the bread!