A Low Carb Knight s Tale

The story of a Certain Low Carb Knight and his adventures...

Like many a young food lover, lately out of the reach of parental guidance and boundries, the young knight commits certain acts of youthful indiscretion which lead to an unseemly increase in girth. Realizing that he is too old to continue on his wayward path, he sincerely woos one high carb weight loss plan after another. Alas! Each tryst, though begun with the best of intentions, is fruitless, and fails to win the prize he holds so dear. Our hero takes to sitting in his tower, writing sappy love poems, and eating yellow snack cakes full of trans-fatty acids. When will he find his true diet love?

Having spent the better part of his youth (and, truth to tell, his fortune) courting high carb diets, our hero has given up on weight loss and resolved himself to a life of quiet contemplation of his girth. Providence smiles on our forlorn knight, however, and he has the good chance to meet The Low Carb Lady. Letters are exchanged, tender feelings expressed, tokens of true love given and received, and finally our hero makes bold to betrothe himself to his new love - supressing his secret misgivings over her strange parentage and unusual macronutrient make up.

Once past the initial unseemliness of sugar-withdrawl, our hero feels the surge of energy that Ketosis provides, the weight is coming off fast, and he is eating foods he thought he could never eat again without guilt. In fact, he is eating them frequently in fairly large portions. (This is normal for those newly wedded to low carbing, dear reader. No need to blush!) He has become so enamored of Low Carb Eating that he has become the low carb lady's champion - challenging all who come near her castle to a duel to the death. His friends now avoid him as they avoid those with the plague, but in his besotted blindness, he assumes the cause is his keto-breath. Presently, his new on-line support family becomes more important to him than his old high carb associates. He can't imagine the bliss will ever end, and the very thought of cheating on his new love makes him violently ill. Lady Low Carb is all he needs in his life...

Our hero and his lady have their first fight over this way of eating, ie: the infamous third-week stall. He is left dazed and confused. Where did the passion go? It all used to be so EASY... At this point, a lesser knight would run home to mama and quit. Others might decide to try to recapture the thrill of the past by going back on induction, but this is often unsuccessful. Instead, our hero turns in earnest to his low carb advisors, and asks, "Where have I gone wrong?" Only to be told by those older and wiser in the quest that his expectations were unrealistic - that the rush of induction couldn't possibly last forever, and that it's now time to buckle down to the real work of making his low carb relationship work.

Our hero and his lady come to an understanding that this is going to take a bit more work than they first thought, but the two agree that the quest will be worth it. He starts getting more knowledgeable about the different low carb plans, and after a bit of experimenting with various carb and calorie levels, our hero finds the path that leads to the rose covered bower of low carb happiness. His weight loss is now slower, and in fact may come only once or twice a month in "whooshes" - but he's older and wiser now, and takes all this in stride. He and his lady are making steady progress, and they become very very comfortable with each other.

Our knight and his lady have become TOO familiar with each other. Sad to say, the sins of pride and complacency now take root in our hero's heart and - having come about halfway on his quest for the Holy Grail of Goal Weight, he stops to smell the roses. Because he's so knowledgeable, he tends to become annoyed by newbie questions. He now takes his lady, once all the world to him, for granted. By and by, he convinces himself that he's bored and needs a change of scenery. (Of course, later he'll realize that he just stopped trying...) Our hero begins flirting with forbidden carbs, rationalizing that a little "on the side" would be just what he needs to get his diet back on the right path again. After all, he's heard of others who did it, and didn't get caught! Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is a slippery slope for our hero - and once he's started sliding, he has not the strength to pull himself out of the pit. His low carb friends would help him if they could, but he's stopped coming to them for advice, claiming that he's been too busy. And indeed he has.

I shall spare you the sordid details of our hero's fall from grace, dear reader. Except to say that in the end, he realized that illicit carbs, while sweet to the lips at first, end up turning the stomach sour. He is paying a heavy price - not just in terms of his girth, but in self-esteem as well. Having felt the full weight of his actions, our now-not-so-young hero wants with all his heart to be received back into his lady's good graces, but the question is: Will his lady forgive him? With a burning heart (or more likely, heartburn) he returns out of the wilderness, and falls at her feet, begging for forgiveness. He vows passionately to give himself to her completely. And, with the grace that first charmed him, she agrees...

Although our hero has become a paradigm of low carb virtue, his lady doesn't trust him as she did before. It takes a bit longer to lose weight this time around, a few more proofs of true love and affection are required. Our hero has little time for dragon-slaying now, concentrating instead on his lady and his own behavior. And one day, after much prayer but no fasting, our hero wakes to the sound of the little birds making melody during April's sweet showers and the knowledge that he and his lady have made peace. He realizes that there are many facets to this relationship, and he starts an exercise program to become a more well-rounded (actually less-rounded) man. He now has a wisdom and perspective that helps him navigate the misty lake, and he doesn't beat himself up over little mistakes, but presses on with faith towards the end of his quest. He now finds that young low carb knights are coming to him for advice and help, and though some of their concerns amuse him, he takes the time to help, remembering how important that help was to him when first he started on his journey.

Finally, the day our hero and his lady have been struggling and sacrificing for arrives: The HOly Grail of Goal Weight is Achieved. And as the Grail is raised to his lips, our hero comes to the realization that it is filled with - sugar-free lemonade! And in that moment of revelation, the good knight knows that the quest will never be over, not til he has breathed his last. And laughing joyously, with a new freedom and knowledge, he and his lady ride off towards home to prepare a chicken caesar salad, sans croutons...