So one of the things that’s been taking up a lot of my mind space lately is Banting. Which is a term taken from the name of a gentleman named William Banting, who wrote a screed in 1869 called “A Letter on Corpulence” that proved so popular that throughout much of the 19th century, Banting’s name was synonymous with dieting. I am so fascinated by this because, you know, I can’t just be on a diet, I have to be on a 19th century diet.

OK, not really. While I think it’s neato-keen that the dietary guidelines I’m currently following are so closely aligned with advice put forth over 150 years ago, it’s modern-day research (from the likes of Gary Taubes & Dr. Robert Lustig) that sold me. In a nutshell, it’s all about cutting out sugar (natch) as well as breads, grains, and starches. Instead, you eat more meat, fat, and (non-starchy) vegetables. Basically, it’s a lot like the Atkins diet, except you don’t have to shuffle your feet with embarrassment when you talk about it. (The Atkins embarrassment factor, of course, comes from the allowance of sexy, sensual, sinful bacon. Naysayers have a very hard time getting past the bacon element. You tell people you’re on a diet and you eat bacon, they look at you like you’ve just told them you’re entering rehab for sex addiction while carrying a suitcase full of vibrators.)

Well, anyway, bacon notwithstanding, my experiments with “Banting” have worked pretty well so far. I’ve lost weight, but I’m actually trying not to focus on that aspect of my Banting adventure (What? INSANITY!) What I really care about is my blood glucose—which is under way better control. Funny how not eating sugar will help with that!

I could go on, but Mr. Banting does it way better than I do:

My former dietary table was bread and milk for breakfast, or a pint of tea with plenty of milk, sugar, and buttered toast; meat, beer, much bread (of which I was always very fond) and pastry for dinner, the meal of tea similar to that of breakfast, and generally a fruit tart or bread and milk for supper. I had little comfort and far less sound sleep.

It certainly appears to me that my present dietary table is far superior to the former—more luxurious and liberal, independent of its blessed effect—but when it is proved to be more healthful, comparisons are simply ridiculous, and I can hardly imagine that any man, even in sound health, would choose the former, even if it were not an enemy; but, when it is shown to be, as in my case, inimical both to health and comfort, I can hardly conceive there is any man who would not willingly avoid it. I can conscientiously assert that I never lived so well as under the new plan of dietary, which I should have formerly thought a dangerous extravagant trespass upon health ; I am very much better, bodily and mentally, pleased to believe that I hold the reins of health and comfort in my own hands, and, though at seventy-two years of age, I cannot expect to remain free from some coming natural infirmity that all flesh is heir to, I cannot at the present time complain of any.