Visualize! In other words, once you've said, "Okay, I will lose 35 pounds and I will weigh 140 pounds again," go even further. Instead, imagine how your body will look, think about the clothes you hid in the back of the closet that you'll be able to wear again and the admiring looks from your friends and family. Imagine actually being comfortable in shorts or a bathing suit or feeling confident on the ski slopes or going for a jog! If you are like many people, over the years that you've gained weight your world got a bit smaller. When you went to a pool party, you came up with some excuse to avoid going in the water. When your kids wanted to play, you just weren't up for it. When your friends hiked up a hill with ease, you had to lag behind, huffing and puffing-or just had to call it quits. At work, you may have had a great idea at a meeting but been too self-conscious about getting up in front of the group to express yourself. Imagine all the things that you will be doing with ease and pleasure with your friends, family and co-workers. Visualize, visualize and visualize. Then go out and make it happen! Having a specific goal also helps you keep tabs on your progress as week after week you get to see the pounds vanishing. So when you've sent 15 of those 35 pounds reeling into oblivion, you know you're almost halfway there. After so many years as the enemy, the bathroom scale and the measurirg tape are about to become some of your best friends. The mirror, too. You know that mirror, the one you could barely look at? And when you did, some overweight person you barely recognized stared back. I'd like to remind you yet again that there are people who don't ultimately succeed doing Atkins because they can't get past the notion that a diet is something they get on and then get off, as you would a bus. But a true "diet" is not an excursion. Such individuals-who get on and then off Atkins-are often the people who need to lose 40 pounds but lose interest at 28. Then they go back to their old way of eating, and four or five months later they're back where they were to begin with. Typically, each "excursion" and retreat leaves them with a few more pounds than the last time. Don't be that kind of person!
A Second Chance I'd like to introduce you to someone who did get off the Atkins bus. Fortunately-in the long run anyway-he got back on the bus and has committed to being a permanent passenger. Back in 1979, Gary Rizzio, a computer programmer from Colorado who is now 45, lost 60 pounds doing Atkins. But while recuperating in bed from a broken ankle, he alleviated his boredom with allout indulgence in the junk foods he used to eat. That broke the spell, and before long his weight was back up to 250, and there it stayed for the next eighteen years, when he had a mild heart attack. His family history in heart disease and diabetes ran deep. His doctor was blunt: "Diet and exercise," he said, "or you'll have a short life." Gary tried a low-fat diet and lost 1 pound in three weeks. So he came back to me. It took him six months to lose 50 pounds, during which time he became a creative cook. He says he might make an omelette with turkey, avocado, sour cream and cheese, or he'll saute red onions and add them to scrambled eggs. He also eats a lot of chef's salads and seafood and chicken salads. And he now exercises forty minutes a day, five days a week. Gary had been on his way to becoming diabetic, but Atkins improved his blood-sugar levels so much that his primary-care physician took him off one medication and decreased another. His
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