Monday

With a weekend entirely to myself and a not-terribly-taxing list of "to do" items, I actually ate really well.  Burger patty with guacamole and cheese for lunch on Saturday, steak and sweet potato for dinner, snacks on Sunday in lieu of breakfast or lunch (cheese and nuts, mostly), and beef stew with potatoes, carrots, celery, and onion, thickened with potato starch, for dinner.  I also had some coconut water thinned with Perrier (not nearly as good as I'd hoped; it went from tasting like melted caramels to tasting a good bit like dust) on Saturday to see if I could get the cramps to stay away.  And it does seem to have helped.  I'll probably have the other half can tonight in some form.

I'm down to 146.6 today, and I did a body-fat measurement yesterday and it came out at 24.2%.  The pants I made this weekend, based on the identical pattern I'd used a few weeks ago, with the same alterations, feel very roomy, all of a sudden.  I really don't want to keep altering or making new clothes, so I guess I'll add in more potatoes and corn tortillas and see if that slows things down.  Given that I'm not really losing buckets o' weight - 0.6 pounds over the last 3-4 weeks, net, I think - and given that my bodyfat is diminishing, I figure that this is just more of the body composition changes promised with this way of eating. 

Elizabeth had more confirmation yesterday that wheat is not her friend.  Had a breadstick at Olive Garden, on a fairly empty stomach, and it reacted almost immediately.  I'm glad we finally figured it out, but wish we'd tried this years ago - she probably would have been present at more of her junior and senior years of high school if we had.  Which brings me, in a round-about way, to the potato starch.  I was searching the celiac/gluten-free websites for non-wheat gravy thickeners, and potato starch, sweet white rice flour, and arrowroot came up.  I bought the first two on Saturday while shopping (never did find the arrowroot), to try out for Thanksgiving gravy.  I used the potato starch as thickener for the stew yesterday, mixed with cold water in a slurry and then added to my portion before eating, and it was perfect, so for now, I won't worry about the rice flour, which is touted as something one can make a reasonably decent roux with.  I'm thinking that with either of these, creamed chip beef on mashed potatoes can re-enter our diets - yeah!  That's such a family comfort food, and I've sort of been missing it.  And I know that Elizabeth has chip beef in her freezer.  I'll do some experimenting - maybe one night this week - and hope to bring her a recipe that works when I go out there next week.