Food. Glorious food. My love affair with food began when my mother first gave me chocolate milk in my bottle as a young child.

Growing up, I thought seafood was frozen fish sticks dipped in ketchup. A wonderful snack might have been a mayonnaise sandwich, broiled bologna, or my mom's wonderful potato salad (she would always show-off the latest batch by demonstrating the weight of the large bowl of dense and aromatic mixture).

Then came the joys of fast food. Oh how fortunate for me and my buddies to have a variety of drive-thrus just a short walk from our neighborhood. My personal favorite was the now-obsolete Bonus Jack from Jack-In-The-Box. A predecessor to the Big Mac, it was a luscious heap of burger meat and steaming buns with the famous tangy-sweet "secret sauce." Oh, how I loved the Bonus Jack. A few years ago I wrote the president of Jack-In-The-Box demanding the re-introduction of my favorite sandwich. No reply.

During high school, I joined the cross-country team and became an obligatory runner. I ran and ran and ran. Our team was so good that my 16:30 three-mile time put me near the bottom of the roster. I was about six feet tall and weighed in at about 135 pounds. And when I got home from practice I slept like a baby full of chocolate milk.

It wasn't until I entered the workaday world when the problem of eating more than doing reared its fat ugly head. I traveled extensively for a large software company. Eating while traveling, with a sponsor footing the bill, is a food lover’s dream job. I ate and drank at the best restaurants in the country.

Well, now I'm 41, am married with a teenage son, and my doctor tells me I need to lose "some weight." Hell, I need to lose a lot of weight. So after my last carb fest, (Thanksgiving day at the in-laws) I decided to buy a copy of DANDR and take on the Atkins Approach head on.

I started on December 1 and have lost 17 pounds during the first month of Induction! I know this is cliché, but I feel great, have tons of unlocked energy, and am taking increasingly longer and more strenuous walks in the hills around my neighborhood. I plan on doing Induction for six months, and still haven't gotten too bored with the plan. I've never had too much of a sweet tooth, so I don't really miss sugar, but I do miss milk, corn, and fruit juices. But I don't miss the pounds that continue to fall off.

I'm really looking forward to becoming part the community I've stumbled on here, it appears to be one of the best out there; and I look forward to my journey.

--Peter