OK. It was ridiculous six months ago. Now it is far beyond absurd. This Atkin’s thing is just not healthy. Not for our bodies. Not for our economy and culture.

Bakeries are literally going out of business because of this pop-culture craze. I recently read an article about Krispy Kreme losing stock and closing stores because of this popular diet (Wasn’t Krispy Kreme the big fad not three years ago?).

The deli where I work just started offering a low-carb lunch wrap.

It just makes me cringe any time somebody says they are on the Atkin’s diet. I just want to scream out, “NO! It is NOT healthy!” Don’t these people realize what they are doing to their bodies? The theory, I realize, is this: Our bodies burn carbohydrates before they burn fat. Eliminate the carbs, and our bodies won’t hold any of the fat we eat.

Boy, if it were only that simple. It doesn’t take a genious nutritionist to look at the food pyramid and think, Hmmm carbohydrates are supposed to be the single largest part of my daily diet. They must be important. I’ve heard countless times that as soon as somebody re-introduces carbs to their body after a time on the Atkin’s, their body is so shocked by it that it will absorb every single gram of carbohydrate and fat that it can. Why? Because it’s been starved of what it needs!

Atkin’s is simply a way to starve yourself while filling your stomach at the same time. Isn’t this just some grotesquely glamorized version of an eating disorder? I do not understand how countless thousands of people can be so brainwashed by a simple fad. It never ceases to amaze me that we are, in fact, sheep.

Well not me. Give me loaf of french bread, and let me smother it in butter and garlic!

I finally did it! I finished the first draft of my novelette, Four Days to Islana. I’m going to let it settle for a while, then do a rewrite, which I don’t anticipate to take too long (maybe as quick as a week). I may share it now with a person or two, but I’d really rather wait until the rewrite is finished.

There is something intensely satisfying about “completing” a work like this. Especially this one, since it has taken me entirely too long to do. It was on-again-off-again with the distractions of other works and some of just plain real life. Not to mention that my plan of a 7,000-word short story somehow augmented itself to 11,000 words.

It’s amazing to see it come together. Honestly, I thought I had another day or two of writing to do, another few scenes, but it just hit a point and I realized it was the end. The other scenes I planned would only detract from it. And the meaning! In three short pages the themes which had been subtle and difficult to get a grasp on just leapt out of the story. I suddenly realize what the story is about, and I like it.