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Listening to your body when it talks
By Rich Fisher

This diet has led me to one undeniable conclusion: Those people who say that if you listen carefully, your body will talk to you, are absolutely right.

I don’t know if I’ve been totally ignoring these "communications" all my life, or, if in my older, wiser days, I’m just more attentive. I’ve begun to hear a lot of communications lately.

It turns out that our stomachs lie to us. A lot! My stomach apparently picked up this rather nasty habit shortly after high school. Here’s how it all started:

The dining hall at Ohio University offered unlimited choices of foods that I had previously taken in much greater moderation -- unlimited starchy carbohydrates and desserts.

Add to that the "manna" of college students, PIZZA! Well, you get the picture.

Addicted to foods

My stomach, at this age, was willing to go along with anything. It was young, what did it know? But what I didn’t know (nor did my stomach), at the time and for many subsequent years, was that my stomach was becoming addicted to those kinds of foods. It wanted more and if I didn’t provide more, my stomach contrived ways to get more. It LEARNED TO LIE! In a clever and diabolical deal with my blood-sugar levels, it learned to send FALSE hunger pains. That’s right! The blood sugar in cahoots with my stomach sent SOS-type messages to my brain that it was starving. It was like those old telegraph messages:

Need help immediately (STOP) Starvation is real possibility (STOP) That chocolate cake looks good (STOP) Some pizza would be good (STOP) How about a couple of sandwiches? (STOP) Hurry, it’s getting worse! (STOP)

Being the to-the-rescue-type of guy, I sent in supplies. Lots of supplies. Often.

Too many supplies

And all the time, my body had way more "supplies" in the form of stored energy (fat reserves) than my stomach could use in weeks! Now the nice thing about this Atkin’s Diet is the stable blood-sugar levels throughout the day ensures that food cravings and false hunger pains are eliminated. By not taking in many carbohydrate and sugar grams, my body is forced to tap into those stored supplies.

In other words, the high-protein, low-carbohydrate, sugar-free aspects of the diet eliminate the conspiracy perpetrated by my dishonest stomach. I anticipate a full rehabilitation and a total return to honesty on the part of my stomach.

If my stomach has a history of dishonesty, it is necessary to say that my knees have a long history of being …well ... outspoken. It seems, especially in recent years, that my knees feel the need to comment on anything and everything. They especially hate rainy and high humidity weather conditions.

Knees not impressed

My knees are not yet impressed with the amount of weight I’ve shed to date.

"Hey!" they screamed last week. "So, you think you’ve lost a few pounds and suddenly our lives are bowls of peaches, huh, Bubba?"

I hate it when my knees call me "Bubba."

"Stop calling me ‘Bubba,’ I admonish them, "and besides, those ‘few’ pounds are actually 26 pounds. I would think both of you would be a little more appreciative."

"Big deal!" my right knees screams. "26 pounds, how about dropping another 60 pounds, Bubba?"

"What he said, Mr. Bubba," my left knee weakly contributes, obviously following a bad example.

"I’ve asked you guys to stop calling me Bubba," I sneer. "You know that I’ve committed to losing at least 80 pounds. Hang in there and the world will be ‘a bowl of peaches.’ OK?"

"Oh sure, we’ll wait. And while we’re waiting you'll be out there on the tennis court expecting us to perform like we did when we were kids and you weighed 175 pounds," my right knee huffs.

"You know," I retort, "that’s pretty hoity-toity talk for a couple of Ibuprofen junkies."

That usually shuts them up. They don’t want to think about what life would be like without their precious Ibuprofen. Fortunately, Ibuprofen is very low in carbohydrates.

Ears ‘burning’

Other body parts apparently talk, too. Earlier last week my ears were "burning." (That’s how ears talk.) They say that when people are talking about you, "your ears are burning." Of course, when any part of your body is burning something, it is generally calories that are being burnt. Just my luck that the parts of my body not in dire need of burning calories are my ears.

I do know why they were burning though. It was because Mike Becker and Ralph Bornhorst were conspiring to find ways to fine me even more at Kiwanis. If you’ve been following along you know that every time a Kiwanis member’s name appears in the paper, we are fined. The money goes into a fund for the Kiwanis International joint project with the United Nations to fight birth defects, disease and disorders associated with iodine deficiency disorder, or IDD, mostly in Third World countries. Last week they got me for $3! And just in case my knees didn’t hear that, let me repeat it, It was because Mike Becker and Ralph Bornhorst, Sidney Noon Kiwanis president, were conspiring to find ways to fine me even more. (By mentioning their names twice, they’ll have to pay twice!) And, those two "raising-money-for-the-elimination-of-IDD junkies" get NO ibuprofen. Ha!