Monday, October 31, 2011

Monday

Ugh.  148.8 when I stepped on the scale this morning, and most of it water, I believe.  We walked a lot on Saturday, with aches and pains as a result on Sunday.  And I ate crap all day yesterday.  Here's the list:
  • Cracker Barrel hash brown casserole (but oh, did it taste good - if I'd just stopped there...)
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • chips and guac and salsa
  • iced tea
  • Chicken Enchilada Soup at Chilis (not really sure what was in it)
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • iced tea
  • walnuts
  • cheese
My stomach is unhappy this morning, so I'm fasting - the real deal this time, no cheese with me, and every intention of avoiding the machines all day.  I may have a fat-bomb smoothie for dinner, depending on how the afternoon/early evening goes.

I'm still a bit achy in a few places, such as behind my knees.  I did take my vitamins this morning, and may have had 2 fish oil, which should help with that.  We'll see how things are in the morning.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Friday

I think that's 5 or 6 days without 8 hours' sleep.  I am a zombie this morning.  Woke up at 3:30 - not because of the cold; I got that fixed - and could not get back to sleep.  The dog helped - she needed to go outside around 4:00 again.

I don't know how long cortisol takes to start doing damage, but this needs to stop. 

144.6 again this morning.  Here's yesterday's eating:
  • cheese
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • more cheese
  • pizza top (pepperoni, cheese, tomato)
  • chocolate almonds
  • walnuts
I think that was it - I don't remember.  I was utterly uninspired by dinnertime yesterday, so I went with quick and easy.  I know I need to eat things that are not cheese, but when it's just me and I'm so dragged out like this, it's very hard to even think of anything else.  Which is to say, I had cheese this morning and have more cheese with me.

Weekend in Phoenix.  I will probably have my naked double quarter pounder for dinner tonight at the airport.  Not sure what else, yet.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Thursday

Gosh, maybe the world's longest week is going to come to an end after all.  Spent some of the evening yesterday attempting to haul broken branches off of the grass/garden area and into our driveway, with only mixed success; a few of them outweigh me, I'm reasonably certain.  And also knocking the day's further accumulation of snow off the branches that had not yet fallen - that I could reach.  This turned out to have been a good approach, although imperfect; we lost another large branch later last night - well after the snow had stopped.  Summary: I got a mess on my hands, and with Halloween coming Monday, need to get it at least partly cleared up - right now, the largest bits are right on the sidewalk leading to the front porch.

Crap sleep again last night - I couldn't stay warm.  If I weren't flying to Phoenix tomorrow night, I ... no, I take that back.  Tonight after work, I am adding in the final layer of the duvet, bringing it up to a thermal rating of -10 or something, I think.  It comes in two pieces, a thin one and a thicker one.  We use the thin one in the summer, and had changed over to the thicker one last month, but putting both together may solve my problem - and it needs a solution, quickly.  The dogs awoke, cold, at 4:00, so I let them get on the bed with the mattress heater on, and they seemed to appreciate it, although that killed all chance of sleep for me.  We will keep trying, though.

144.6 this morning - a bigger drop than I'd expected.  Especially as I'd gone on a tear looking for forbidden food last night due to an incendiary bad mood after dealing as best I could with the devastation in my front yard.  Here's the day's eating:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese throughout the day
  • two 1/4 pound burger patties with prime rib seasoning
  • about 1/3 of a snack-sized bag of potato chips
  • 8 chocolate almonds
  • pecans with cheese spread
That was it.  Apparently the chips and chocolate didn't do much damage at that point.

I am not fasting today, but the pre-dinner eating will still be sparse.  Had some swiss cheese for "breakfast" and have some colby with me for as-needed eating.  Not particularly balanced, but it does keep body and soul together well enough.  No idea what I'm having for dinner, though.  I'll have to think of something.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Well, that helps

Granted, I have "broken" my fast with a piece of cheese (made about 14 hours, I think), but someone just heated up commercial lasagna in the microwave behind my cube.  Commercial lasagna, in a microwave, smells to me exactly like vomit. 

I suspect I can go a while before I need to eat again.

Wednesday

I ate chocolate last night.  Lots of it - well, lots in terms of how I eat such things now.  An entire milk-chocolate rabbit left over from Easter two years ago (it dates to the start of my eating Paleo - and was in fine shape, I might add).  A Lindt truffle of some sort.  A stick-shaped thing with some sort of filling - one of those bits of lagniappe you might get at a high-end restaurant.  That was it.  Lots, like I said.  It tasted good, and I paid attention and enjoyed it, and it was enough.

145.6 this morning, despite several days of rather crap sleep.  This morning I woke at 3 am, sort of needing a bathroom trip, but it was very cold in the bedroom due to the snowstorm outside, and I didn't want to get out from under the covers, so I attempted to go back to sleep without.  Should have known better.  By the time I finally braved the room, I was well and truly awake, no going back.  Turned the radio on at 5:00, listened for half an hour, and got up, to feed the dogs and deal with the trees - too many leaves for it to be snowing just yet.  I think we lost quite a few branches of a tree that isn't right for this climate anyway.  When I'm more awake and in a better mood, perhaps I'll see the cleanup as a Primal exercise opportunity.  Right now, I'm just pissed off.  Because the only person available to deal with the mess just now is me.  I guess I should be glad that I'm in reasonable enough shape to tackle it.  "Should", mind you, not "am" - maybe after some sleep.

Yesterday's eating:
  • half of a fat-bomb smoothie
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese
  • wedge salad with blue cheese dressing, tomatoes, bacon, and slices of steak
  • wine
  • the aforementioned chocolate gorge
  • walnuts
I think that was it.  Apart from the chocolates, it wasn't really all that bad, and I did lose a bit of weight, so that's good.

I'm sort of fasting today.  I had tea with cream twice this morning, and I have cheese with me that I will eat at some point today, to try to brighten things up.

I made my very first bona-fide purchase of an eBook yesterday - I bought Paleo Comfort Foods for iBooks.  I have an iPad with Kindle installed on it, so I could have gone through Amazon, but I know iBooks supports pictures, and I had some credit in iTunes.  So far, I'm very impressed with the content - and I think Lee will be a fan as well - they have recipes straight from his childhood, like gumbo and "grits" (not so sure that cauliflower is all-useful as a substitute for grits, but I might slide some shrimp-and-"grits" by him to see how they play).  They also have a banana bread recipe, using almond flour, that I will try - and the picture looks like actual bread.  Probably not an every-day item, but for special occasions, sure.

I have some ground beef patties in the fridge that I need to eat for dinner, at least some of them (there are 4; I'll probably have 2).  No idea what I'm going to do with them - maybe there's something in Paleo Comfort Foods.  Still haven't got my copy of Make It Paleo, which is to be a late birthday present from my parents.  Kinda bummed - I'd hoped to do some test-driving while it's just me.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tuesday

I tend to think the potato chips may have triggered some reward-eating last night - to the tune of 8-10 chocolate almonds throughout the evening.  Well, that, and the fact that I was eating mindlessly - so much so that I got through 3 almonds without recalling them at all.  Just looked up and realized that they had been there and were now gone.

146.0 this morning, still.  I'm good with that - and the scale, I think, was wandering in the 145.something region before settling, so it's probably on the low side of that number.  Here's yesterday's eating:
  • fat bomb smoothie (about 2/3 can of coconut milk's worth, mixed berries, protein powder, vanilla)
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • potato chips
  • pepperoni pizza topping with mozzarella and tomatoes and herbs
  • cheese
  • chocolate almonds
  • 1 square of 85% Lindt chocolate
That was it.  I hadn't done the pizza topping thing in a while, and I really liked this version - sliced pepperoni layered in a pan with mozzarella, chopped tomatoes, italian spice blend and garlic powder, then cooked at 350 until the cheese was bubbly - I finished it off under the broiler.  Way yummy, and very messy, since there is nothing to absorb the fat or juices.  It's eaten with a fork.

I had the rest of the fat bomb smoothie this morning - about half as much as yesterday, so I brought some cheese with me to work, for the inevitable hunger afterwards.  Dinner out tonight - but at a steakhouse, and I am prepared with my menu selection.  Probably fast breakfast tomorrow, as it's entirely possible I will be spending that time outside knocking snow off the trees.  Ugh.  Not welcoming winter with open arms.

Monday, October 24, 2011

And later yet...

Got the potato chips.  Near as I can tell, they're less prone to prompt craving-eating later on.  Only one bag, this time - no gambling winnings.

Later, Monday

Hmm, interesting.  Had just the fat-bomb smoothie for breakfast (about 1/2 can of coconut milk's worth), and I'm rather hungry, now that it's 11:52 am.  Since I saved the other half in the fridge for tomorrow (already smoothied up), I'm thinking I'll add some bacon or something.  The more urgent issue now is, do I go get something to eat, and if so, what?

Monday

On Friday, I was 147.2; this morning, 146.0.  That's more like it.  And that's despite several nearly-unconstrained attacks on the Trader Joe's dark chocolate almonds, and a brief foray into the last shards of the bag of tortilla chips Lee had bought and left (which brings up an existential question, really - if I can't eat tortilla chips, what on earth do I use to convey salsa into my mouth?).

Friday night I suffered from the dogs and my left leg - and got rather broken sleep.  Saturday night I slept like a rock, awaking almost exactly 8 hours after I fell asleep.  Last night, I either dreamt or experienced something crawling on the back of my neck, and had a rough night thereafter.  I should be a bit draggy today; I am not.  I opted for a coconut milk smoothie for breakfast and am fizzing over with MCT-fueled energy just now.  That stuff really is a bit like speed.

Anyway, I think, if I can keep the cravings at bay this week, I have my oh-so-minor weight issues under control.  I didn't bring any snacks with me this morning, so there is a risk if things get too boring this afternoon, I'll be headed downstairs with a dollar in hand, but I am (mentally) armed to resist that urge.

Here's yesterday's eating, as best I can reconstruct it:
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • cheese chunks
  • possibly some walnuts?
  • dark chocolate
  • salami
  • chocolate almonds
  • bean-free chile
  • iced tea
It was sort of an eating free-for-all - I only really had one semi-structured meal (dinner), and otherwise, ate what sounded nutritious when I got hungry.  It seems to have worked - as did whatever I ended up eating on Friday, which is where I saw the big drop.  Actually, as I recall, that was a fast, broken by cheese at the 17 hour point, followed up with meatballs with a stroganoff-style sauce for dinner.  I would tend to guess that more fasts are in my short-term future, since getting up the necessary 15 minutes early to feed the dogs is REALLY difficult right now.

It struck me, over the weekend, that I may be fighting a normal seasonal occurrence - fattening up for winter.  Not that I'm going to cave in, but it's certainly possible that that's what is going on.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Friday, later

Ate the cheese.  I think I got in a 17-hour fast, though.

Friday

I have put the damned cashews in the garage fridge for the duration.  When Lee gets back, he can take them back out, but I need them to be relatively unavailable.  Had some more last night - for the salt, I guess.  Maybe I should just go eat some salt.  147.2 still this morning.  I am fasting.

Yesterday looked like this:
  • scrambled eggs with stuff in them (ham, mushrooms, peppers)
  • the usual supplements
  • tea with cream
  • hazel nuts
  • cheese
  • salami
  • an apple
  • chocolate blue berries
  • dark chocolate
  • bloody cashews
Cravings suck.  I will get this figured out.

Despite it being an IF day, I do have cheese with me.  So I'm not necessarily aiming at making it to dinner - I can if I want, though.  We'll see how things go.  Soup or meatballs for dinner tonight - I am defrosting both and will have to eat one of them.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Thursday, continued

Yesterday's eating went like this:
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • the usual supplements
  • tea with cream
  • hazel nuts
  • 6 oz filet wrapped with bacon
  • wedge salad with tomatoes and blue cheese dressing
  • green beans
  • iced tea
  • cashews
  • chocolate cherries (only 2)
  • cheese
I came home from dinner wanting to eat.  I don't know why; seems like there was plenty there so satiate me, but I snacked a good bit last evening.  I was hungry going in to dinner, so I suppose it's possible that I just didn't get enough at the meal itself.

No idea what I'm having tonight - possibly meatballs with some sort of swedish/stroganoff inspired sauce (sauteed mushrooms, sour cream, beef stock, allspice?).  Possibly just cheese, or something like that.  On my own for the next two weeks, roughly.  I'm hoping to use the time to get rid of this 6-ish pounds I've acquired recently, or to turn it into muscle.

Wall pushups and squats tonight, I think.

Thursday

Lotsa cashews after dinner; that's what I'm blaming.  I wanted salt.  147.2 this morning, and my digestion is possibly over-fully functional again.  I guess that's good, but I have 3 hour-long meetings back-to-back this morning, which could be less than fun.

With Lee gone, I'm going to emphasize fasting - IF tomorrow morning, for starters.  See how things go.  Of course, I'm supposed to go have a farewell beer with a former co-worker; not sure if that's wise on a very empty stomach.

I'll note yesterday's eating later; the meetings call.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Wednesday

I caved into boredom again yesterday - M&Ms this time.  I made them last, though - spun out a single vending machine package over a 2-hour stretch.  I guess that keeps their carbs from being an official "bolus", right?  Seriously, I really need to find something else to keep my mind occupied during the long stretches of not enough to do at work.  I brought nuts with me today, thinking they might be a better boredom snack, since they come in lots of small pieces.  We shall see.

Eating was something like this:
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese
  • M&Ms
  • large taco salad - lettuce, tomato, gf beef (half-pound), cheese, sour cream, salsa
  • iced tea
  • cashews (just a few)
  • walnuts
  • chocolate cherries (I think)
147.0 this morning.  I will find a way to avoid the machines today, somehow.

Did 40 wall pushups during a commercial break last night, but no squats.  My shoulders feel pretty okay, and did not wake me up in the middle of the night, which makes me think I did them wrong.  I'll wait until tomorrow for the official verdict, though.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Tuesday

Already a slow week; I woke up with the alarm this morning convinced that it was Wednesday; it's not, obviously.  It is very dark in the mornings anymore, making it even harder to get up - I'm sure if I were so fully Paleo that I didn't use an alarm clock, I'd be "getting up with the sun", not beating it by an hour.  It's starting to rise as I leave the house around 6:50 am.

So, 147.4 this morning, trending in the correct direction again.  Here's yesterday's eating:
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • tea with cream
  • Monday's usual supplements
  • cheese
  • bacon
  • sliced tomatoes
  • cashews
  • chocolate cherries
The cheese came in several installments - mid-day (call it lunch if you want), and again as part of dinner.  I'm less achy than I was yesterday, although still a bit swollen, so I think there's more water there to lose.  I didn't do any lift-heavy-things work yesterday, other than hoisting a water bottle onto the cooler once, because of the aches and pains; I think I will do some tonight.

Waiting eagerly for my Make it Paleo cookbook; it looks to have shipped already, but whether it's to my place or my folks, I don't know.  I've also been listing out options for feeding myself while Lee's gone - been a while since he's had an extended road trip like this, so I have to think about it in advance.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Monday

I am a reformed character, I hope.  Hellish weekend. 

We finally had the brats on Friday, with kraut and mustard, and not too much afterwards, for me.  Unfortunately, I'd played the mild gambling game of buying food from the machine on Friday afternoon, and won - sometimes, if the machine doesn't spit out your first selection, you get two of it, as it rolls its dispenser mechanism in order to free the one that got stuck.  And I got two packages of chips, and ate them both.  Bad move.  148.0 on Saturday morning.  Plus, at some point, Friday night (I think), I'd done some more pushups and squats and had some inflammation from that.  Anyway, Saturday, I had a fat-bomb smoothie, no real lunch (probably some cheese), and Mexican for dinner (enchiladas, chips and salsa), and Sunday, I was up to 148.6.  Saturday, I also spent several hours pulling weeds and picking up leaves and what-not, increasing the stiffness and inflammation.  Sunday, I fasted breakfast altogether, had a bit of cheese and an apple mid-afternoon, and pot-roast with potatoes and carrots and salad for dinner, followed by crustless pumpkin pie and ice cream.  As a result, I'm at 148.4 this morning, aching like nobody's business, and none too happy about it.

Maybe I was very low carb for too long.  And you know what?  It worked just fine for me.  So maybe I should consume an occasional safe starch, but I don't think it's imperative.  I'm going back to meat, cheese, leaves as my basic food groups, with occasional forays into fruit and a potato in non-fried form here and there.  Maybe a very little rice.  Because I don't like being in pain head-to-toe, and while I do know that the exercise and muscle building stuff is some to blame, I think perhaps it wouldn't be quite so painful if I'd avoided the safe starches.  Just saying.

So I have some cheese with me for snacks today, Lee will be out of town starting on Thursday for about 2 weeks, and I'm going to go back to routine fasting, taco salad type things, and snacking on cheese or nuts (a few fewer than before, but some).  That worked for me, and all this other stuff isn't.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Friday

I am not surprised.  I should have known better, to start with, but when I'm tired and hungry, some of my self-discipline goes down the tubes.

We had thawed some brats for dinner last night - in fact, part of the reason I was unable to get back to sleep at 3:30 yesterday morning had to do with making sure that they weren't on the counter, but had made it into the fridge.  But by the time I got home, I was sleepy, bored and frustrated with work, stiff and achy, and I wanted something that tasted good - not that brats don't, but they didn't taste like the taste I wanted.

Which was, as it turns out, a Smashburger.  And that's what we had for dinner.  By itself, would have been fine.  Accompanied by fries and a strawberry shake, not so good for me.  Tasted amazing.  And I'm back at 146.8 this morning.

Here's yesterday's eating in toto:
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • the usual supplements
  • tea with cream
  • trail mix (also a bad move, but coulda been worse)
  • cheese
  • smashburger with cheese, pickles, tomatoes, mustard and ketchup
  • fries with more ketchup
  • strawberry shake
At least I had the sense not to come home and eat more, I think.  As far as I can remember, we didn't eat after we got home last night.  I have a mild touch of indigestion this morning - not sure what from, though.

We'll probably have the brats tonight - at least, we probably should.  Then I have a fairly empty weekend, in which I need to do some cooking.  Lee's golfing both days, leaving large swaths of time free to be creative in.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Thursday

Fasting yesterday turned out to be almost a non-issue; I did not eat until dinner, and then we had Chinese food.  With some rice, which I'd been avoiding before.  But yesterday, I read the discussion of safe starches on the Perfect Health Diet site, and what they said made sense to me, in line with other safe-starch discussions (possibly on Archevore or Robb Wolf's site).  And I can't complain, much.  I lost 0.2 pounds overnight (146.4 this morning), between the fasting and the eating of rice.  Given that my diet has tended to be very low carb, I'll introduce them slowly, but rice and white potatoes are good food that I like, and if they don't cause issues, will probably contribute to even better health than I have now, eaten within reasonable limits.

Here's yesterday's eating:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • hot and sour soup (has tofu in it, and was beyond delicious, and I don't have it that often)
  • beef with green peppers
  • white rice
  • a fortune cookie
  • hot tea
  • chocolate cherries
  • walnuts
  • tea with cream
That's it.  I was completely full after dinner, but have a very bad snacking habit, and the cherries and walnuts helped with that.  I was hungry for breakfast this morning, something that isn't always the case.

I have begun doing some of the Primal Blueprint workout stuff - the wall pushups and squats, anyway.  Did 40 pushups the other day, and tried again last night, only to have to stop after 26.  I think I stood further away from the wall last night, which was the proper form.  So I don't need to shift to a new approach just yet.  On the squats, I made it to 10 before having to give up.  Between just those two exercises, I woke up at 3:25 this morning quite stiff and sore, and could not get back to sleep.  I need to remember some anti-inflammatories before bedtime on nights I do the "lift heavy things" work.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Wednesday

Fasting this morning - 146.6 and a slight case of indigestion said to.  Not sure where the latter came from.  Here's yesterday's eating:
  • scrambled eggs with spinach, mushrooms, ham, and cheese
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese snacks
  • M&Ms - work has not been helpful lately, and I'm eating from frustration
  • BBQ turkey
  • baked potato with butter and sour cream
  • cole slaw
  • wine
  • chocolate cherries
I think that was it.  Not sure what is causing the indigestion, but it - and the need to get Lee and my car on the road to the dealer (oil service, early) - made a good reason to do a fast today.  I didn't even bring cheese snacks - so I hope that I've still got the keto-adaptation to keep me going until dinner.  I think I do.  I'll know for sure around 2 this afternoon.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Tuesday

Aargh!  Is that how it's spelled?  I want to indicate mild frustration.  I think I ate well enough yesterday, despite a snag in my overall plans (see below), but here I am this morning at 146.6.  I would really like to believe that it has something to do with body composition, but I don't.  Even though we went to the gym yesterday and I strolled a mile in 16 minutes, with a couple of sprint intervals (racewalking sprints, that is), and came home and did 40 wall pushups and a few wall squats.

I think doing 40 wall pushups means that I have to shift to table pushups now, or something - that's in the Primal Blueprint workout e-book I got.  But I need to go refresh my understanding of it; when I read it originally, I was too interested in how the videos worked (fabulously), and skipped over some of the text.  If that is the threshold, though I would like to note that I've only done 3 sessions of wall pushups, and have improved from being able to do about 20 to being able to do 40 with only that much effort.

The squats aren't going quite as well, although last night's effort was hampered by my t-shirt.  It has a large yellow circle on the back, in rubbery paint, and the circle sticks to the wall, preventing a good slide.  So I tried doing them with only my head and butt touching the wall, and I can't think that the mechanics were even a little bit okay.  My knees did not like what I was doing one bit, no matter what, so I stopped after about 5 of them.  I'll try again tonight.

So, yesterday's eating, including the snag:
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese snacks
  • bunless philly cheese steak
  • iced tea
  • cole slaw
  • grassfed beef burgers (1/2 pound total)
  • swiss cheese
  • avocado
  • tomato slices
  • pickles
  • mustard and ketchup
  • iced tea
  • chocolate cherries
  • vanilla ice cream
Did you spot the snag?  Lee wanted to go to lunch - and on weekdays, I rarely eat lunch, so there's half again as much food as I usually consume.  I kept things pretty clean, though, and I do feel a bit swollen and stiff today, so the extra weight may just be water.  I'll keep an eye on it, and if things don't subside soon, see what else I can do to shed the excess.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Monday

I mostly eliminated nuts from my eating over the weekend, and my stomach is grateful.  I did have some cashews last night, but not too many.  That said, I'm at 146.2 this morning (up from 145.0 yesterday), so I don't know that it was altogether a better move.  Here's yesterday:
  • fat bomb smoothie-and-a-half (didn't want to waste coconut milk, and Lee didn't want one, so I eliminated the water and had the whole thing)
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese
  • chips and salsa - okay, that's not a good thing
  • hot dogs and mustard
  • chocolate cherries
  • meatballs with spaghetti sauce and cheese
  • salad with meat and cheese and homemade italian dressing
  • iced tea
  • cashews
The smoothie had its usual effect - I ended up doing lots of little things around the house all morning because of the excess energy - and that was a good thing.  I also didn't want anything to eat for quite a while afterward.  The chips and salsa was a dumb move on my part, although I had maybe a cup-and-a-half of chips (measurement includes lots of airspace).  They tasted good, I must admit.

Over the weekend, I did have a fair amount of potato-based starch, and it seems not to have had a weight impact, overall (unless this morning is a delayed reaction to it - and I doubt that).  I also had an apple with cheese as one of my non-nut snacks - tasted amazing, and was very satisfying - love the crunch.  Someone tweeted not long ago that Paleo eaters seem to be morphing from low-carb into whole-foods/sensible eaters, and that seems to be happening with me as well.  Avoiding pre-fab food appears to be the most important thing we can do - and something we are thoroughly on board with around our house (except for those chips...)

Friday, October 7, 2011

Friday

Yesterday was a minor disaster - or should have been.  After a 3-hour software demo, I started feeling mildly unwell - like a cold coming on again - and went with cravings, ending up consuming a bag of potato chips an one of trail mix before my next meeting.  The whole day was aggravating and stressful, so when we had taco salads for dinner, I added chips (corn tortilla chips).  Finished up the day with pecans and cheese spread.  And yet, this morning, I was 145.6, so maybe it wasn't so bad.

I think I'm eating too many nuts.  I've noticed several blog articles indicating that they may not be so good for us after all - and while I'm not going to forswear them altogether, I am starting to think that they might be contributing to an ongoing digestive issue, so I think I will be cutting back a good bit.  I'm thinking of alternatives for snacking - maybe apples and cheese (also going lightly on the apples), or more meat-and-cheese, or carrots and peppers.  Hopefully those options will provide me with a happier stomach.

That said, I probably am going to tinker with the apricot/pecan bar recipe from last weekend to see if I can come up with something like carrot cake - I think it could be fairly amazing.

Here's the specifics of yesterday's eating:
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey bacon
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • potato chips
  • trail mix
  • cheese
  • taco salad with meat, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, and salsa
  • corn tortilla chips
  • hot tea
  • chocolate cherries
  • pecans and cheese spread
It's supposed to be cold this weekend, so I foresee some cooking.  Not sure what yet.  I think my mom got me the Make It Paleo cookbook for my birthday, but it's not published for another 2 weeks - looking forward to it, though.  Maybe I'll make the spaghetti sauce I planned on last weekend and never got around to.  Maybe a crustless pumpkin pie (custard).  Fall food.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Thursday

Two restaurant meals yesterday, 145.8 this morning.  Could be worse - and I could have chosen better, a little.  Enchiladas for lunch, a naked "philly" burger for dinner.  Mindless walnut noshing through the evening.  Gotta find a way to stop that, I think.

I'm in a bad mood right now, and on the brink of a 3-hour software demo that I have absolutely no interest in, so I think I'll stop with that for today.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Wednesday

Better sleep last night, at last.  I think the problems over the past few days - maybe over the past week - have been hormonally-driven, or at least related in some way.  At my age, I guess one has to be somewhat resigned to weird surges of stuff that used to be fairly well-behaved, but the doctor told me last spring that mine had died off completely and that I should be done with all this.  They were, apparently, very wrong.  Anyway, things seem to be settling down again, and I'm seeing a pattern to my sleep - I fall asleep pretty soon after lights out, sometimes with the help of audio, sometimes not, and wake briefly around 4:00 am, give or take maybe a half hour.  Then the alarm goes at 5:30 and provides a mostly-gentle reminder that I should consider getting going for the day, and about a half hour later, I stagger up and get going.

Yesterday's eating was fairly crap-tastic.  Had a craving for M&Ms mid-day and did not resist, unfortunately, and had more chocolate in the evening - AND ice cream!  145.2 still this morning, but the scale was considering larger numbers.  Here's the breakdown:
  • scrambled eggs
  • sausage
  • turkey bacon (hmm.  wonder if they're "rewarding" and maybe triggered the M&Ms thing?)
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • cheese snacks
  • M&Ms
  • cheese
  • chicken breast marinated in commercial salad dressing
  • salad with ham and homemade italian dressing
  • walnuts
  • chocolate cherries
  • strawberry ice cream (which, I must admit, was beyond wonderful)
I think that's everything.  Lunch out today, and taco salad, I think, for dinner.  I will try very hard to avoid the machines, but when I get bored and really don't have an outlet for it, it is very hard.  And, unfortunately, that's happening frequently at work these days.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Tuesday

I do hate being tired, and I was hatefully tired yesterday, toward the end of the workday just clinging on by the fingernails, wishing it would end.  Lee went to the gym last night before dinner; we were both supposed to be going, but I just couldn't.  I stayed home, had some cheese and cashews, and got dinner ready.  Here's yesterday's eating:
  • scrambled eggs
  • pork sausage
  • tea with cream
  • the usual Monday supplements
  • cheese snacks
  • two pecan-apricot bars (found a recipe via Robb Wolf's blog, I think)
  • more cheese
  • pecans, eaten mindlessly
  • chocolate covered cherries (about 7 of them over the evening, I believe)
  • ribeye steak
  • salad with blue cheese dressing
  • Omaha steaks potatoes au gratin, which were very weird
  • iced tea
  • a whole boatload of shredded coconut
I think that was it.  145.2 again this morning.  I have two cheese snacks with me at work for snacking emergencies.  My sleep last night was better than the night before, but still not very good - and I dreamed at one point that I sat down and ate my way through about 2/3 of the bag of halloween candy we have in the pantry - stuff I haven't eaten in ages and am not that keen on.  I blame it on the Food Reward Hypothesis - I read a couple of blog articles discussing that yesterday, and while I get what they're saying and tend to agree that the mechanism exists (see me eating either chocolate cherries or cashews), I don't think they're explaining it very well at all; the comments are uniformly befuddled.  Anyway, I figure reading about the hypothesis triggered dreams featuring it, in some way.

I've spent the last two days sneezing.  No idea why.  I don't have a cold, although Sunday night I thought I felt something starting and took 10,000 IUs of Vitamin D to head it off, which worked.  I'm eating in such a way as to prevent or heal leaky gut syndrome, so it shouldn't be allergies, but it sure acts like hay fever - which I don't tend to get.  So I'm stumped.  With luck, it will go away soon.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Monday

I am really not sure how on earth I lost weight over the weekend, but I did - 145.2 this morning.  And I was 147-something yesterday, to boot.  Water, I think - and hormones.  No clear idea of what I ate yesterday - an omelet smothered in hot green chile at one end of the day, and meat loaf and green beans at the other, with a lot of snack-food (nuts, cheese, chocolate-covered fruit) in between, I believe.

Wow - nothing much else to say.  We ate at a French restaurant with friends on Saturday night and I had a great salad, and a chicken-and-stuff dish with sausage and potatoes in it - and Floating Island for dessert, which was so sweet it nearly hurt to swallow.  Tasty, but painful, and I didn't finish it.  Friday I made the mistake of thinking that PF Chang's Orange Peel Beef would be free of flour - they breaded the beef.  Also tasty, but I paid for it in spades on Saturday morning.

We had a pretty restful weekend - which I needed after being just wrung out all week last week.  No idea if it was enough, and last night's sleep was not helpful at all, so I'm a bit worn out this morning.

Ah, well - onward!  Plunge into a new week.