In the Balance

We're 6 days into my new diet, and I've lost 5 pounds. That leaves me with very little to complain about. But complain I shall.

The worst part about low-carb diets, in my opinion, is the attitude adjustment that goes on in the first week. What Atkins calls "induction" generally induces some sort of malaise. I've heard it described as insomnia, flu-like symptoms, or, in my case, depression. I seem to be weathering this bout better than the last time or three I've decided to offload some tonnage, but still, it's no fun.

To make matters even more exciting, there are many additional stressors in my life. Buying a new house--we started packing today. The Wife is feeling poorly. No exercise today, as I topped 4 miles total for the last two days; don't want to push to hard and wind up with tendonitis or somesuch (it's happened before). Oh yeah, and I did my taxes today.

Boy did that suck. I used an online freebie service (actually, I used two, but HR Block kept insisting that I had an error in my return. I couldn't find it, became convinced it was a bug in the program, and went to a different service and started over), which was relatively painless when compared to doing taxes on paper. Let me add that I will never do my own taxes again. I did 'em this year because 1)this year's taxes are fairly simple. They're going to get very complicated next year; 2) my tax preparer just retired. Recommendations for tax prep in N'awlins would be appreciated about now.