Pain, Pain, Go Away!

If high quality meat and cheese are upwards of $5 per pound and potatoes, bread and bananas cost a fraction of that, the low-carb meat-and-cheese diet sounds like it would be much more expensive than the high-carb diet. Does it work out that way in real life? Since I buy almost everything with a debit card and record all the transactions on my computer, I have records for everything I've spent on food, health care and skin care. (The only serious cash I spend is for cover charges to dance clubs.) These three things--the food I eat, my skin, and overall health--have significantly changed since I started a low-carb diet back in February. I decided to analyze how the diet has affected my spending in those areas, which I believe have changed because of my low-carb diet. Although I have data for all 2009, I have only three whole months' data for the time I've been low-carb. For 2010, I used the period March 1 through May 31. In addition, I excluded some unusual items for 2009: ...

Eating out is a challenge with diet restrictions, especially when your diet contradicts conventional wisdom about what a healthy diet is. Maybe that's why low-brow grocers and restaurants--you know, those places for people who just don't care what they put in their bodies--seem to have more low-carb offerings than health food stores and natty eateries. Most nice restaurants put a basket of savory bread in front of you when you're hungry. Except for the ubiquitous grilled chicken salad, everything on the menu has fruit, rice, potatoes or pasta. Even at the two airports where I recently ate (not exactly fine dining there), most of the food looked starchy and sugary. But the burger from Burger King was fine without the bun and the quarter-pound, cheesy hot dog in Indiana hit the spot. (Certain processed meats give me a sinus headache--this didn't.) And the chicken club from a Hardee's in that state was just as tasty as those I get at Carl's Jr. (the same company) ...