For this diet, I’ve attempted to take a little different path than I’ve taken with previous diets. It’s not that the other diets were unsuccessful, several were very successful. In fact, I once lost 60 pounds in 60 days! Kept it off for four or five years.

The difference is that on those diets I counted calories and kept track of what I ate and how much and so forth and so on. And it worked! But it did become somewhat boring.

With this diet (The Dr. Atkins Diet of high protein and low carbohydrates and no sugar), I count carbohydrate grams and sugar grams. I’m not supposed to be concerned with counting calories at all.

It turns out that counting the number of carb grams (and sugar grams) that I do not consume makes a lot bigger number. I mean, if you're having a rough day, instead of "cheating on your diet" you can simply say to yourself, "I should eat a big (fill in the blank.)"

Then DON’T eat a big (fill in the blank).

But, (and here’s where it gets good!) you get to count the carb grams and sugar grams you did NOT consume. Some days I avoid millions of grams of carbs and millions more of sugars.

See what I mean?

The only problem was, say you’re out at a nice restaurant or a business dinner, conference, (you get the point, right?), and you’ve avoided some unbelievably incredible scrumptious-looking dessert, how do you calculate how many carb and sugar grams you've avoided?

If you’re the scientific type, you would want some kind of accuracy, a tested method with some really silly tolerance levels for margins of error.

Here’s how it works, and by the way, I’m calling it the "RF Carb Gram Scale":

(I’m assuming, of course, that you know what the "RF" stands for!)

If the item in question looks really, really good and is obviously not something that should be consumed, it has 1 MILLION RF carb grams!

If it’s a really big piece of chocolate cake, you have to ask yourself, "Is this really a single portion or perhaps a double portion. If you determine that it’s a double portion, then it’s simple, it would be 2 MILLION RF carb grams. (Or 1 million RF carb grams and 1 million RF sugar grams, it’s really your choice since you want to avoid both.)

Now, who (in their right mind) would consume ANYTHING that contains 1 million RF grams of carbs? (Excluding me, prior to this diet!)

Let’s take a quick gander at some more examples:

*Lasagna -- 1 million RF carb grams.

*Freshly baked "house specialty" bread -- 1 million RF carb grams.

*Apple pie a la mode -- 1 million RF carb/sugar grams.

*One single, (itsy-bitsy) doughnut --1 million RF carb/sugar grams.

I could go on but …

Should you have any questions, I’d be surprised, but regardless, e-mail me at rfisher@sdnccg.com and I’ll give you the RF carb gram count for any food item that you may be wondering about. I can do this by merely reading a description of it!

Here’s all you have to remember, no matter what it is, no matter where it’s available, if you can’t have it and you know it, it will equal 1 million RF carb (or sugar) grams.

Now, I don’t mean to brag or anything but, just today alone, I’ve avoided 22 million RF carb grams. No wonder I’m losing weight.

You know that McDonald’s sign that says over " ___ Billion Hamburgers Sold"?

By the end of this diet, I will be able to have my own sign that will probably say something like "Over 100 Zillion RF Carb and Sugar Grams Avoided."