I am a person who has more food allergies and food intolerances than I’d care to list out for you. Trust me, it would be a very long list. I learned that doing the Atkins diet meant I needed to work it around my allergies. To my surprise, there are some advantages to doing Atkins as an allergic person.
One of the very first things I did when I decided to start the Atkins diet was to alter the meal plan I found on the Atkins website. I was allergic to many of the food ingredients that are considered to be acceptable foods for the Induction Phase of the diet. It took some playing around with things, but I managed to find a way to modify it.
The worst part of having food allergies while trying to stick to a diet plan is the potential of accidentally eating or drinking something that will make me sick. I got sick when I drank part of an Atkins shake that had more milk in it than I could tolerate. This resulted in me eating some gluten free crackers to settle my stomach. In short, I spent about two days recovering, (and cheating on the diet).
Despite these setbacks, there are several situations where it was actually advantageous to be doing this diet as a person who has tons of food allergies. The Atkins diet requires you to keep track of how many carbs are in the foods you eat. This means you have to read the ingredient labels on each and every package of food that you are considering eating.
I had been reading labels for years. Previous to this diet, I was checking to make sure that the food didn’t contain anything that would kill me, or make me seriously ill, if I ate or drank it. This has been a way of life for me since I was a teenager. I think it would be frustrating for a person who had never before read the ingredient labels to suddenly be forced to take the time to do that for this diet. For me, this part was easy.
My friends and family are completely used to me eating very little at meals, and avoiding certain kinds of foods. When I started the Atkins diet, I had to start avoiding some foods that I would normally be able to eat. Not one person gave me any hassle about this. I imagine it must be hard to be someone who could always eat anything at all, and to suddenly have to explain to family members that you can’t eat something because you started doing Atkins.
I don’t really miss eating many of the foods that I am not allowed to while I am in Phase I of the diet. This is because I know that if I decide to go eat some ice cream, or a plate of pancakes, that I will be incredibly sick shortly afterwards. I don’t need to have as much “will power” as the non-allergic people who are on the Atkins diet.
Image by ilovebutter on Flickr