Many of the popular diets that currently are all the rage,
like the Paleo and Keto diets, are strongly based on low carbohydrates. When I
hear people referring to them as something new or innovative, I have to chuckle. New?
Heck, over 50 years ago, I bought a copy of a then best-selling diet book that
basically allowed zero carbohydrates, and decided to give it a try.
The whole concept of the diet was that if many native Alaskans could survive on nothing but
whale blubber and no fresh vegetables for months at a time and live to be 85 or older with no weight problems, then people all over the world also should be able to achieve the same results by eating only protein. And
in a lot of fancy medical terms that most laymen couldn’t understand (yours
truly included) the book explained that when the body is deprived of
carbohydrates such as sugar, flour, grains, fruits and potatoes, it is forced to eat
its own fat.
And any diet that could eat up fat sounded just fine to me.
I read the book from cover to cover and decided the diet was a dream come
true…perhaps even too good to be true. The basic rule was that any food that
contained zero carbohydrates could be eaten in unlimited amounts. Essentially,
you could eat 20 pounds of a zero-carb food (if your stomach could hold that
much) and still lose weight.
The list of zero-carbohydrate foods sounded pretty exciting…at first. They
included just about every form of meat and poultry imaginable plus eggs,
butter, heavy cream, mayonnaise, cheese and most seafood, including
butter-soaked lobster. A small amount of lettuce, which could be drenched with
Roquefort dressing, also was allowed, to break up the monotony of all of the
meat.
The first week, my daily menu consisted of a cheese omelet with bacon for
breakfast, a grilled chicken breast or pork chops for lunch, and a big, thick
steak and a small lettuce salad for dinner. For snacks, I munched on fried pork
rinds, hard-boiled eggs, cold chicken legs or a handful of macadamia nuts.
There also was something called Ketostix the book suggested dieters should
purchase to test their progress. So I bought a container of them at the local
pharmacy. They were test strips I had to dip into a sample of my urine. If the
little pad on the stick turned purple, it meant there were ketones in my urine,
so the diet was working exactly as planned. The darker the purple color, the
greater the success.
My first test showed a deep purple color. I was excited.
But my excitement soon was hampered by the fact that a purple stick meant that not only were ketones being released into my urine, they also were being released through my breath…which made it smell like nail-polish remover. I didn’t realize it, however, until I began to notice that whenever I spoke face to face with people, their expressions ranged from a nose-wrinkling “Whew! Back off a few feet, will ya?” to a puzzled “What on earth is that weird smell?”
Unfortunately, my husband, with his chronic plugged-up sinuses, was no help. I could have been brushing my teeth with a clove of garlic and he wouldn't have smelled anything.
By the end of the first week, even though I felt as if I’d indulged in a banquet
every day, I lost 10 pounds! The second week, I lost
five. By the third week, I was ready to sneak into someone’s garden, dig up a
potato and eat it raw. I also was dying for a slice of bread, even one that was
fuzzy with mold.
The diet book recommended putting a slab of meat between two slices of cheese
to simulate a sandwich, but that illusion didn’t work for me. I wanted bread. I
wanted to smell and taste yeast.
The book did contain a recipe for “faux” bread for the truly desperate. It was
made by whipping up a meringue made from only egg whites, then
swirling the meringue into shapes that resembled bulkie rolls, and baking them
until they were of a sponge-like consistency. The rolls (and I use the term
loosely) then supposedly could be used just like bread. I tried the recipe and
eagerly bit into one of the rolls. It was like eating a deflated rubber
balloon, only with less flavor and all of the chewiness.
I also began to crave desserts, so every night, I’d whip up a big bowl of heavy
cream and flavor it with artificial sweetener and vanilla extract. There was
nothing I could pile the whipped cream on top of, however, other than a slab of
meat, so I usually would grab a spoon and sit down and eat the entire bowl of it "as is." I was positive I could hear my arteries clogging.
Still, I continued to lose weight. I should have been encouraged and happy with
my progress, but by then, I was too obsessed with missing carbohydrates to
care. I craved them. I needed them. I had dreams about them. When I saw TV
commercials for cakes, cookies or potato chips, I had to change the station
because my heart immediately would palpitate.
But I was determined to keep dieting, especially since my husband and I were
about to leave on a 10-day vacation to Disney World and I wanted to buy a new
swimsuit and a few shorts outfits for the trip.
During our drive down South, I still stuck to the diet, even in many of the unique restaurants where we stopped. I ate burgers with
no rolls. I ate broiled fish with no breading, and salads that contained only
lettuce. I watched my husband eat jelly donuts and pancakes drenched in syrup
for breakfast while I had poached eggs and bacon, without toast. I watched him
snack on Doritos and potato chips in the car, while I gnawed on beef jerky.
And while in Disney World, I resisted all of the delicious-looking treats
and international foods, and ordered mostly fish and steaks. I was proud of myself,
even though I came very close to mugging a few people who were eating those
popular Mickey-Mouse-shaped ice-cream bars as they walked by me.
The vacation was fun and I lost even more weight while on it, which was a
real first for me during any trip. On the drive home, we stopped for the night at
some motel halfway between Florida and New Hampshire. It was a cold out and I
desperately was craving hot chocolate. In fact, I could think of nothing else.
And then it happened. My brain and my nerves couldn’t handle the carbohydrate deprivation any longer,
no matter how much I tried to convince them otherwise. So while my husband was
taking a dip in the motel’s indoor heated-pool, I dashed next door to the
convenience store and went on a buying spree – fudge, chocolate bars, chips, Coke and Pepsi, donuts, snack cakes, and anything else I could find that was loaded with
carbohydrates. When my husband returned to the room, this was the scene that
greeted him.
The first thing he noticed was I’d stolen his personal stash of Dunkin’ Donuts. Then he asked if he could have my 3 Musketeers bar.
Over my cold, dead body!
But still, I wasn’t satisfied. My carbohydrate binge
lasted for three days straight. I ate mashed potatoes topped with crumbled potato chips.
I dumped chocolate pudding on top of chocolate ice-cream and sprinkled it with
chocolate chips. I ate half a loaf of bread slathered with peanut butter,
marshmallow fluff and grape jelly.
And I ended up with such a severe stomachache, I was on the verge of
calling a priest to administer my last rites.
The worst part of all, however, was that in less than a week, I gained back all
of the weight I’d lost, plus more. Still, just for the heck of it, I tested my
urine with one of the Ketostix. Not only didn’t it turn even a hint of any
shade of purple or any other color, I could swear I heard it groaning in
defeat.
Funny, but even now, over 50 years later, whenever I smell bacon and eggs
cooking, I get a sudden craving for a baked potato or a brownie…wrapped in a
loaf of bread.
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
