As it turns out...

When I get busy, I get busy.

Phew! So I moved to Canberra and took up a Master of Music degree. That has been keeping me well out of trouble, I can tell you. Thanks to the Australian Government not prioritising post-graduate music degrees as essential learning (and I guess I can see their point), whenever I haven't been trying to learn German vocabulary or memorising song after song after song, I've been working in general administration, and trying to figure out how I'm going to juggle everything with the opera on next month (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, with new prologue by Geoffrey Lancaster).

As soon as I got to Canberra, I really started using the Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food cookbook. I had begged and wheedled my sister to give to me for Christmas, and then never really embraced anything new in it. Since I had whittled my possessions down to few, and had a lot of time on my hands in the evenings when I first got here (social life in Hobart: amazing; social life in Canberra: not so amazing), I got cracking and experimenting with Jamie's miraculous book. What a lifesaver! Honestly, if you've never learned to cook, or you're feeling like you could benefit from any education in cooking, this is the book to get. It's a non-patronising way to look at time-honoured ways to prepare traditional dishes that everybody should know how to serve. I, for example, had never eaten or prepared an omelette before. Now I'm an expert!

But enough raving about the book. I got hooked on three of Jamie's pasta recipes, and just started preparing those over... and over... and over... and over... and over again. They are delicious, just so you know, and I love them. However, my body didn't. I began putting on the weight I'd lost last year (remember I went from 115.7 to 107-ish - fluctuated a lot), and felt tired, bloated, irritable... and my migraines were back in full force. Holy toledo. Wow. I was ill.

Then, somebody (a few somebodys, in fact) suggested I go on the Atkins diet. I'd heard of it, obviously, but had no idea what it was other than I'd heard a few people mocking it before. As it turns out, Atkins was developed for those suffering heart disease and diabetes by Dr Robert Atkins, an American doctor who just can't figure out why more people aren't on his diet because it's so good. (Well, not anymore. He's dead. Heart attack, ironically. Or so I've heard.) My periods were becoming awful, I was feeling terrible... and decided to give it a try.

Hallelujah!

My migraines are gone. All of the food triggers that trigger migraines in me are gone. I get migraines when I'm stressed, but now, because my mind is so clear and my body feels healthy, I recognise them as soon as they start and zap them with dissolvable Aspirin. My periods don't give me any grief at all (other than period pain - and unfortunately, that's normal for everybody). I HAVE LOST WEIGHT. I don't feel bloated. I never feel full (or "Stuffed", as they call it on The Sims 3). I have so much more energy. I am literally bouncing off the walls. (Okay, not literally. I've also managed to fall in love this year, so maybe that's contributing to the energy). I just feel so much BETTER!

Weight: 99.2

Status: Overjoyed.

Thank you, Dr. Atkins. Your diet has made me feel a lot better.

xxx