Point of View

Unable to fit comfortably into a pair of pants that are to be part of my uniform when, on July 5, I give away the bride, my eldest daughter, in the town for which Lyme disease was named, I rolled into BookHampton and asked where the Atkins diet book was.

"Not another one," a customer said, with a sigh.

Quickly, I digested the volume, as only a reporter in a great hurry can, gleaning its chief paradox, to wit, that the more fat you consume the more weight you lose - that is, if you stay away from most things I really like, like bagels, muffins, crumb buns, sugar cookies, pies, cakes, pasta, French bread, glutinous white rice, dried cereal, sugar, bananas, caffeine, ice cream, and, hold my heart, alcohol.

"I can't do this," I said to Carissa Katz. "You can't have alcohol."

"You can have vodka."

"But I hate vodka."

"And you can have some very dry white wine, I think, once you're through the initial two-week phase."

Granted, with Atkins, you can eat all the roast beef, chicken, turkey, fish, cream, mayonnaise, and butter you want, and even, in small quantities, macadamia nuts, but rolling up roast beef in Swiss slathered in mayo, spooning unadulterated peanut butter from the jar, scrambling eggs in bacon fat, and having chicken salad every day for lunch, while it fills you up, doesn't satisfy the true gourmand.

When Mary said we could have avocados, I brightened - until I realized we would be limited to our fingers, for we could no longer scoop it up with tortilla chips.

I checked at a health food store and found a whole wall of Atkins substitutes, but one soy-or-whatever muffin was priced at $6.95 for goodness sakes, and the coffee-can-sized container of low-carb shakes was, if I recall, $22.95. That's when I concluded that a high-protein, controlled-carbohydrate diet such as this one concomitantly lightens the wallet.

Then I began wondering what Dr. Atkins died of. It wasn't, I asked my sister, related to arterial blockage?

Yes, the pounds did come off quickly - enough so I now can fit into the pants, but on reading Carissa's story in this morning's paper, and the caveats about pancreatitis and kidney disease, I think I'll just concentrate on destroying my liver.

Jack Graves