Friday, January 31, 2014

Friday

Still swollen.  I tried an epsom salts bath last night, but nothing. 158.8 again today, and sore and bulgy in places like ankles. Here's yesterday (nothing to brag about):
  • tea with cream
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • the usual supplements
  • Jimmy John's unwich with turkey, bacon, and cheese
  • a bag of potato chips
  • another bag of potato chips
  • cheese
  • 3 Fuzzy's ground beef tacos, no tortillas
  • 1 tsp honey
Obviously, I chose to eat the potato chips - both involved effort; they weren't just sitting around. They tasted quite good. I don't know why I felt I needed them, but I did. 

Sleep last night was interrupted by the dog again - same scenario, but at 1:45 rather than 4, so my sleep was worse. I still feel like I'm getting rest, but I'm so tired right now it's not at all funny.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Thursday

Whatever is wrong with me is still wrong; I woke up this morning aching from head to toe and weighing more than yesterday - 158.8 this morning. I guess I should be grateful that the rate of increase has dropped. My shoes don't fit, and I'm all wobbly when I move and have no strength - and as mentioned above, I hurt all over. Hormones? It's not unlike my cruise issues, when I made the mistake of taking birth control to delay my period and ended up with cankles - although my legs aren't that swollen this time. So maybe. Is this my "Paleo Cold", to match the SAD ones that Lee and Elizabeth have? Possibly. The fact that I'm not getting sick is one thing that keeps me from doing anything stupid.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • 3 turkey sausage links
  • 1/2 cup of sauerkraut
  • salad with ham, turkey, swiss, and ranch dressing (about 2 TBSP)
  • 1 tsp coconut oil (to drive home on - I was tired)
  • a 1/4-lb beef burger (omaha steaks)
  • a zucchini
  • parmesan sauce (3T butter, about 1/3 cup sour cream, 1/3 cup parmesan cheese)
  • 10 chocolate covered coconut almonds
  • 1 tsp honey
The reason for all the precision above is that I want to check the nutrition values on my day's eating. So, the total worked out to be 160g fat (71%), 46g carbs (9%, but too high in general), 101g protein (20%). I should have ditched the candy - or stuck with the original 5 pieces instead of going back for more. Not sure why, but I was negative for ketones at bedtime.

I did something rather helpful last night - rather than listen to talk radio all the way home, I switched to light classical music, to see if that reduced the stress of the drive. I think it did; did it a bit again this morning. It did seem to help me avoid gorging on nuts, and I don't think the go-back on the chocolate almonds was a compulsive move.

Sleep last night was not great - we are dog sitting and the sit-ee decided he wanted out of his kennel and onto our bed at 4 am. I'd slept thoroughly until that point, so it wasn't a big issue, but I went back to hard sleep afterwards, and had an awful time waking up. Not sure I'm awake yet.

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Wednesday

I would love to give up about now, buy some muumuus, and settle down to life as a fat person, but I won't. Nonetheless, I am very frustrated. I gained more weight last night - another 1.4 pounds. The current scale says I weigh 158.6. It may be right - I don't know. What I do know is that I am not in control of things right now, and I have not been able to get control since last Fall.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • tea with coconut oil
  • olives
  • 1/2 lb shredded pork BBQ with a sweet sauce
  • cole slaw
  • cheese - about 6 pieces, I think
  • mixed nuts, eaten almost compulsively, just to chew something
  • a chocolate praline
  • 1 tsp honey
Yesterday was a fat fast, and, in theory, should have left me in a fat-burning state. It might have, if I hadn't decided to eat the praline. And I will admit that the praline was delicious. And I will further admit that adding 26 grams of carbs to yesterday's consumption SHOULD NOT have had the effect of making me bloated and nasty overnight. But it did. Something is wrong, and I don't know what it is. What I do know is that all I can do right now is eat as healthy as I can manage, try to control my stress, which is at a higher level lately than it has been in some time, and sleep.

I told Lee this morning that I will take the next reasonable opportunity to change jobs to one closer to home; wasting 2 hours a day in my car is no way to spend life, and when I get home at night, I have no energy or interest in anything but eating and sitting like a lump on the couch.

The compulsive snacking is a real problem for me right now. I think I could replace it with another equally bad habit if I could think of one, but it feels like I need to be doing something in that rhythmic way, and right now, I'm rhythmically inserting nuts into my mouth and chewing on them.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Tuesday

I had to replace the batteries in the scale this morning, and after that was done and I re-zeroed the scale, it read 157.2.  Before the re-zeroing, it read something like 167. So I don't know that I trust it. I am feeling quite a bit less swollen today, thankfully, so if anything, I think I'd show up as lighter than yesterday. I am not going to recognize that number as "official" weight, I guess. Although it may form a new baseline - hard to say. 

I'm listening to the presentations out of Paleohacks' PaleoCon this week; last night, one on intermittent fasting that recognized a Fat Fast as legit. Cool. Since we are experiencing bad driving weather (which is to say, brilliant sun, 7 degrees, and about an inch of snow from last night - but the combo added a solid half-hour to my drive to work this morning), I didn't eat breakfast, and I brought some lumps of coconut oil to work to add to my tea, and some olives.  I think I will declare today a fat fast and not eat until dinner, except for the oil and olives. Another point in the presentation was that IF doesn't always serve women well, but referred specifically to women of childbearing years - and I'm not one of them, so I'm hoping to reap the benefits of autophagy and possibly having my energy source shift harder toward fat. 

I will be n=1ing a couple of things between now and leaving on 2/19 for Mardi Gras: more fat fasts, using cream cheese, copious cream in my morning tea (i.e., 1/4 cup), macadamia nuts, and the lovely broccoli cheese soup from the Fat Fast cookbook. Maybe 3-5 days of that toward the end of the period. The other trial will be LCHF with nearly all carbs from leaves, to try to get my gut bacteria rebalanced after the stupid foray into resistant starch. Still bitterly regretting that.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • no supplements (another thing I need to get back on top of)
  • three turkey sausage links
  • gumbo soup with chicken and andouille
  • a tangerine
  • a bag of peanuts (fault of the stupid tangerine, I think - I got hungry at 3)
  • cheese (cheddar and swiss - probably about 8 oz)
  • salami - about 8 thin slices
  • 1/4 large bar of Hershey's special dark with almonds
  • about 1/2 cup sauerkraut
  • 1 tsp honey
So minimal veg yesterday, and not a lot of fat either. Sleep remained very dialed in, although my Sleep Cycle captured Lee's getting up several times to blow his nose and called it one of my less good nights of sleep.  I felt great when I woke up at 5. For the first time. I will take that every time, thanks. So I'm glad that's better, in any event.

Oh - and tea with coconut oil in it is quite palatable - way better than I'd feared.

Monday, January 27, 2014

Monday

156.0 today, still bloated and sore; here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • omelet with ham, cheese, and tomatoes
  • about 3 bites of hash browns
  • cheese
  • chocolate - 4 squares of 70% cacao
  • steak
  • salad
  • commercial ranch dressing
  • roasted broccoli
  • ice cream - 1 scoop of vanilla
  • 1 chocolate cookie - unknown ingredients, but wheat for sure
  • 1 tsp honey
I lost a lot of the water over the weekend, and I do feel better today than I did Friday, but not fully well. Annoying, to say the least. The weekend was not terribly active; I did a bit of puttering, but didn't exercise. Frankly, I felt like a steaming pile of shit on Saturday, so I spent the weekend drinking tea and trying to make it stop feeling like that.

Something is out of balance. My plan to repair it is faltering - I haven't been able to get into a groove regarding increased vegetables yet, although I made a gumbo-style soup on Friday from frozen okra and the Cajun trinity and tomatoes (and chicken and Andouille sausage) that was quite tasty. In any event, I'm not overeating, and I am retaining water like crazy. I'm going to re-read the fat fast high-fat recipes, looking for the big guns and try to incorporate more fat in the diet this week. That's the main goal.

Sleep is going well.  Last night registered not as deep as it felt, but that may be because Lee was starting a cold and sneezing explosively as we were falling asleep. After I fell asleep, though, he could have let off a bomb in the room and I don't think I would have known it - I didn't wake up at all until 4 am, which is so awesome. Getting that dialed in is a huge improvement to life right now. I will say that I'm not having hot flashes at the moment, and that's part of it for sure.

Onward. Step 1 is getting to a state of not feeling like shit.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Friday

There's a Twitter abbreviation, FFS.  I'm pretty sure it fits my mood this morning. I stepped on the scale at 158.0 again. I'm constipated as all get-out, so I know it's the lingering aftereffects of the resistant starch in the plantains, but I don't want to see that number on the scale; I'm eating reasonably well, with discipline, and it's hard not to see it rewarded. Ugh.

Here's yesterday:
  • turkey sausage
  • tea with cream
  • no supplements - left early due to the snowstorm
  • tangerine
  • salami (way more than I usually eat)
  • cheese
  • caesar salad, no croutons
  • 6 oz sirloin topped with butter
  • Southern-style green beans
  • a glass of riesling
  • dark chocolate with almonds - 2 squares' worth
  • pork rinds
  • 1 tsp honey
That was it. We ate out, and when we got back, I had a horrid case of the munchies, leading to the pork rinds and chocolate (not eaten together). I kept some space between eating that and the honey, and slept pretty well.

I'm not fasting today, but I'm going to focus on fat between now and dinner; really ramp it up. Then we will be having a chicken-andouille gumbo soup for dinner, with salad, to get a lot of veg. And at some point, I hope to get my digestive system, er, emptied out.

Weekend plans include another long walk outside - it's supposed to be in the 60's again. And trying to get things back on track. Very discouraging at the moment.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Thursday

I think the pattern of avoiding fat after dinner and taking the teaspoon of honey just before bedtime is a good one - another pretty good night's sleep, despite the efforts of our cat to wake me up. She walks all over the bed at night, and while it rouses me a bit, I am generally able to get back to deep sleep pretty quickly. So that's good.

Weight, not so much - but based on the aches and pains I woke with, it's water. 156.8 this morning. Annoying as hell. I have thrown the plantains away and will not do anything more with resistant starch. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • the usual supplements
  • peanuts (vending bag)
  • mushu chicken
  • hot and sour soup
  • a fortune cookie
  • a square of 85% cacao chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
I don't feel as bloated and nasty as I did yesterday, and the dizziness is gone. I'm groggy as all get-out this morning, though, due to a 2-hour commute through a 1" snowfall. The drivers here are impressive in their ability to milk every possible accident out of a tiny bit of weather. As I look out the window now, it's actually sunny. I'm sure the stress of events like this is not helpful, and I sure hope I can cut the commute back soon.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Wednesday

I am officially declaring an end to all experiments with resistant starch. The dried plantains go in the trash when I get home from work. I am willing to feed my gut flora with soluble fiber - pectin, inulin, mucilage, and the like, but no more starch. I ate some plantain chips last night, started immediately with flatulence, and spent the night dizzy.  Woke up bloated and a pound and a half heavier. It may work, but the side-effects are unacceptable.

156.0 this morning. And bloated. Ugh. Here's yesterday:
  • scrambled eggs
  • turkey sausage
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements
  • broccoli cheese soup
  • cheese
  • bratwurst and sauerkraut
  • a milk chocolate almond
  • plantain chips
  • 1 tsp honey
Apart from being dizzy (which I noticed each time I rolled over - and I'm still having some issues), I slept pretty well. Dreamt a lot. I feel rested, though, and I think that's key. Also, my legs felt stronger climbing the stairs at work this morning.

I am trying to take the honey after a period of not eating fat - something I found mentioned somewhere online. Hence the plantain chips. I will try other veggies if I really need a snack after dinner, but I am going to try going without a snack - it's really not needed.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Tuesday

I don't recall if I had my semi-epiphany last week or over the weekend, but I recently came to the conclusion that I needed to change back to an eating-breakfast model, so we have done that. Expect to see scrambled eggs and meat here a lot more often.

I did finally conquer the water weight and whatever it was brought on by my resistant starch divigation, and now need to wipe out at least 4 pounds of actual weight. A couple of things come to mind:
  • the possibility that my really wretched sleep over the last year has been messing with the leptin mechanism - suggested by reading Grain Brain which outright says that sleep is crucial to keeping one's hormonal systems in balance.
  • the fact that I lost a lot of weight eating breakfast consisting of eggs and meat daily unless I was doing a fast on purpose, and that we've slid out of that pattern over the past 6 months to a year.
So I'm working on both. Not entirely sure how I am going to solve the sleep issue, but I had thought last week about ditching the honey, and it's just too helpful in the sleep arena for me to do that. So I've restarted it again. At this moment - no idea for how long - I seem not to be having hot flashes at night, so I'm going to take advantage of that and try to sleep really hard for a while. Last night was awesome in that arena. I'm also using Sleep Cycle on my phone to track my sleep and maybe find some patterns to daytime activities that might be causing sleep issues.

We had a good long weekend - lots of puttering; I got out on Saturday for a long walk, good eating. I found myself in moderate ketosis on Sunday night despite eating a small popcorn at the movies mid-afternoon. Only a trace last night, although I ate nearly zero carb all day. Go figure. 154.4 this morning, which is my baseline for losing some weight between now and Mardi Gras in a month. I feel ketotic, if that's a word - mentally sharp and full of energy to the point of being fidgety. I was able to use that yesterday to fix some places in the kitchen paint job that had been bugging us for months.

Here's yesterday's eating:
  • scrambled eggs
  • bacon
  • tea with cream
  • (no supplements, but that will be resuming, too)
  • cheese
  • 3 milk-chocolate covered almonds
  • steak with herb butter
  • salad with homemade ranch dressing
  • 1 square of 85% cacao chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
Probably the  pattern we will be following for a while. I have the Fat Fast book's broccoli cheese soup with me for lunch today, and have had eggs and turkey sausage for breakfast. Either fajitas or brats for dinner tonight (whichever we don't eat will be dinner tomorrow).

I did dry some plantain slices on Saturday, along with making chicken stock. Whatever I read about them is correct - dried, they're very reminiscent of saltines. I will be eating them with butter, I think.

Friday, January 17, 2014

Friday

I think yesterday may win the award for the most stressy mess of a day in a very long time.  I won't say "ever", because I can look back at the post-Hurricane, newborn baby move and war period in Virginia Beach, which may always win for most stress ever.  Nonetheless, here's how yesterday went.

Start with Wednesday night, when Lee got home from a meeting at about 10, reporting that he'd thrown up twice and was not feeling well (!).  He was up much of the night, I guess - I slept through some of it, but not the dogs' needing to get up and go outside at 12:30 am. He was still sick yesterday morning, so I got the world gong and left him in bed as I went to work. 

Around 10 am, I started a migraine - suddenly found myself nearly blind, and it took a minute to realize that it was an aura getting in the way of about half my field of vision.  I grabbed 3 Advil, and had to go to a meeting, where, thankfully, the aura subsided into a fairly dull headache - bearable.

Mid-afternoon, Elizabeth called to say she was headed to the doctor with a sharp pain in her lower right abdomen. By the time I hit the road to come home, she'd seen the doctor and called to say she was en route to the ER, suspecting appendicitis.  I went there instead of home - fortunately, (or not), it turned out to be an ovarian cyst - no surgery, but no relief, either. And home just in time to get on a deployment call for work at 8 pm. That went until 2 am due to problems.

I got a different sleep tracking app yesterday - Sleep Cycle, which seems to be much more sensitive.  It tells me I slept for 2 hours and 47 minutes last night, and that it took about 40 minutes to get to sleep. Not a good night.

Anyway, 157.2 looks just freaking dandy to me this morning. Here's how yesterday shook out in the end:
  • tea with cream
  • supplements (no potassium as we are out, but otherwise, same as yesterday)
  • greek yogurt with about 1 tsp honey
  • bean-free chili - leftover from Tuesday's dinner
  • cheeseburger, no bun
  • 2 french fries (the big kind)
  • 2 squares of 85% cacao chocolate
  • a handful of pecans
I did not take the honey last night. It took a long time to wind down and get to sleep, but I don't know if it would have helped in that situation, and I want to see if it reduces the sugar cravings. Obviously, we didn't make it to the gym last night.

I am starting to track step counts and weight and maybe sleep quality against one another, to see if an increase in walking helps with either of the others. And we are resuming eating breakfast and going to a meat-and-salad pattern for dinners.

Finally, I think I am starting to get rid of some of the really nasty side-effects of my resistant starch experiment. My stomach is just now starting to feel somewhat better - less bloated and backed up. As it should! I'm also working with my feet up today, to see if I can get my ankles to un-swell.

Ugh week.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Thursday

It's just getting worse - 158.0 this morning.  Something I'm doing is very much NOT working right now, so I am going to use this entry to take a look at all of it and see if I can figure out what to stop doing, and what to do instead.

Since I'm not exercising much, although a bit more than last year, I don't think it's that - and if anything, the little I have done is keeping things from getting worse. So I am not going to look at exercise, except to say that I'm going to keep on with it on Mondays and Thursdays, and I'm going to focus my use of the FuelBand on step counts, more than winning the hour and what not.

On the diet front, I admit to a lot of fail.  I'm focusing my eating on cheese and nuts because they are convenient - not having meals, and not being strict about cheats.  I had potato chips yesterday - not once, but 3 times during a meeting.  Very bad move on my part.  I seem to be fighting some cravings right now - mostly losing, too. I get home and I want crunchy and salty things, with a bit of sweetness - probably I could use shorthand and say I'm craving cookies. And instead of having a cookie or something like one, I'm going on a rampage through the cheese and nuts, trying to get that same effect. It's not working - and it's making me fat.

On the way to work, I was thinking about our eating habits and what has worked in the past.  And what has worked in the past has been the meat and salad pattern at dinner, with eggs and bacon for breakfast.  We haven't wanted to get up and cook, so I've been coming to work basically hungry and falling to temptation when offered. Not good. 

I think we need to go back to eating breakfast regularly, even if that means nothing but nuked turkey sausage. I think we need to lay in a stock of small (6-8 oz) steaks, pork chops, and start eating the chicken I bought. With salads. Go back to making dressing on weekends - it's not that hard, truly.

Berries only for sweets. And not too much. High fat, low calorie and very low carb from starch/sugar. I'm even thinking of giving up the honey at night in case it's making me crave sugar at other times of the day. I'm sure there are other ways to get my sleep dialed in.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • supplements - fish oil, magnesium, D3, K2, potassium, biotin, turmeric - that's the usual lot du jour
  • the innards of 2 half-sandwiches - turkey and roast beef, with tomatoes and lettuce
  • a pickle spear
  • 3 helpings of potato chips
  • cheese - aged gouda and some abomination from Hickory Farms titled "swiss-flavored"
  • mixed nuts - mostly cashews and almonds
  • two squares of 85% chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
That may or may not have been it for the day - I feel like there must have been more, but can't think of anything. I am currently somewhat constipated and bloated, and my ankles are twice their normal diameter, so obviously something is not right.

In an attempt to help with the constipation, I finished off my greek yogurt this morning, with honey on it. I have brought leftover chili to work for lunch. I am going to the gym tonight, I am taking the long way around to get tea water, and I will figure this thing out.

And in case anyone is wondering, yes, I've abandoned the Whole30. 

Again. 

Bother.

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Wednesday

Okay, this is simply unacceptable.  I weigh 157.6 this morning, dammit.  What on earth is going on? Needless to say, I stopped the resistant starch experiment after the weekend, although I suppose it could be aftereffects.  Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • 10 olives
  • a Jimmy John's unwich with roast beef and cheese
  • cheese
  • bean-free chili with more cheese on top
  • one holiday chocolate
  • peanuts - maybe 2 handfuls?
  • 1 tsp honey
The peanuts and chocolate were out of line, obviously, and the peanuts were very salty, to boot.  My feet were so swollen this morning that my shoes were tight, so water is involved, but things are very much out of hand. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do about it.  Thinking maybe it's time to go back to eating breakfast, even if I have to cook it.

My stomach is somewhat unhappy at the moment; I don't think today will be a fast, but I'm a bit constrained in how I might eat lunch, because of meetings. Possibly another unwich.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Tuesday

155.6 this morning; inflammation from working out, I hope. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • salad with ranch dressing (commercial, heaven knows what's in it)
  • greek salad with feta, salami, and homemade red wine vinaigrette
  • cheese (aged gouda)
  • BBQ pork with sauce
  • cole slaw
  • an after-dinner mint
  • 1 tsp honey
I'm pretty sure I didn't eat after we got back from dinner, which was probably itself pretty sugary (but tasty). The honey didn't work at all well last night - I was hot, the cat was wandering the bed all night, and I woke up a lot. Not a particularly good night's sleep.

For a workout, I walked 13/11.5 of a mile (our gym's indoor track is just lame). I was going to do weights as well, but it was obvious Lee wasn't into that at all, so I didn't; we got dinner and went home.

I have olives with me today, and if the snow has stopped by lunchtime, I will probably go get a naked burger somewhere (probably McD's, since it's handy). I'm still looking into alternate options for resistant starch, and think I will start drying plantain chips as cracker substitutes. Also eating okra if I can find any.

For what it's worth, I got a lot of veg yesterday.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Monday

Over the weekend, I bought some plain greek yogurt and tried having it with potato starch and honey in it.  Didn't taste too bad, but the downstream effects were maybe more than I'd bargained for. Indigestion and flatulence, to be blunt.  Not pleasant.  So I think I'm going to come up with other means to provide an encouraging environment for the gut flora.  Probably eat more plants, specifically. Berries for pectin, another good pre-biotic. Leaves for bacterial transport and other useful stuff - in the Heisenbug blog analyses of American Gut profiles, he seems to be indicating that a plant-heavy diet encourages the butyrate-producers. And truly, apart from blood sugar control, I'm not entirely sure what the benefits of resistant starch are, yet. Since I'm not diabetic, I doubt I really need that. I will keep reading, of course.  And hoping that the indigestion will stop. Anytime, dudes.

154.8 this morning - meh. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • greek yogurt with potato starch and honey and strawberries
  • cheese
  • mixed nuts (cashews and almonds primarily)
  • boeuf bourgignon-style pot roast
  • green beans
  • two squares of 85% cacao chocolate
  • 1 tsp honey
I got ambitious last night and made up greek salads with salami for Elizabeth and me for lunch today.  Forgetting that I have a work lunch scheduled. So it will be breakfast or something. Not sure yet. I may hold on to it - if work lunch turns out to be sandwiches, I'll need something.

Sleep last night was insane. I woke up around 3:30 trying to figure out what day it was, but had been so deeply asleep that I was just zombie-stupid and fell back asleep quickly. Again at 5:10, and that was it. The honey worked really quickly last night - I'd not been watching TV, just reading in dark rooms, and once I took it, went back to reading, but only lasted a couple of minutes before I gave that up. I could use a couple more nights like that, though - we had nasty winds on Friday night that made the whole concept a complete wash, so I have a deficit.

Gym tonight. And dinner involving plants of some sort. Along with meat and fat, obviously.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Friday

Gah.  Yesterday was just wretched. I've had some stomach problems for the past 3-4 days, unfortunately including this morning, I think, and they were front and center most of yesterday. I'd slept very poorly, and had a pain in my left hip as a result. I did almost no work standing - and that's pretty unusual these days.

Anyway, I had an incredible craving for Skittles around noon, and I went and got some.  (Note to self: the trip down to the vending machines is apparently 5 minutes worth of movement - I won that hour.) I ate them.  Was it worth it? I don't know - they didn't really make me feel better, for what that's worth. Tasted kinda good, though.

155.2 this morning; I am not surprised. No ketosis at bedtime either - surprise! Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • no supplements, I think
  • cheese
  • olives
  • Skittles
  • more cheese
  • roast chicken
  • salad with balsamic vinaigrette and ham
  • dried cherries
  • mixed nuts, mostly cashews
  • 1 tsp honey
I know. By SAD standards, hardly a junk-food pigout. But not helpful to my attempt to get rid of the 5 pounds I seem to have gained over the Christmas chocolate-eating season.

Since my gut is already unhappy, I think I will try to consume some potato starch today - see what happens.

And the Whole30? I don't know what I'm going to do about it. I'm going to think about it over the weekend. Eat a lot of green veg then, too, since it apparently encourages the population of the butyrate-fermenting bacteria.

And no, I did NOT go to the gym last night.  Ugh.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Thursday

Weird eating day yesterday, and while I'm not feeling particularly well today, I don't think that's why - I am continuing an issue from yesterday.  Anyway, 153.8 again this morning, although my ankles are puffy.  I was in "Trace" ketosis yesterday - understandable and I'm glad it wasn't worse.  Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • cheese (a lot)
  • full-fat Greek yogurt with honey flavoring
  • low-carb pizza with pepperoni, bell peppers, and mushrooms
  • 1/8 bar of 85% cacao chocolate
  • more cheese
  • cashews - just a few; the end of the container
  • 1 tsp honey
So, very NOT Whole30 yesterday; back to business today.  I have olives with me to eat, and cheese in the work fridge if those fail to satisfy. Gym tonight.

Understandably, sleep was crap last night - I woke at 11:00, and a couple more times that I can recall, and my left hip is killing me.  One of the wakeups was because of a calf-cramp, to boot. Just lovely, and I feel horrid today (intestinal distress, bodyaches, and weariness do not make a good combination).  Probably won't be working on continuing my "streak" on the FuelBand, unless things improve dramatically.

Ugh.

I continue to read up on prebiotics and resistant starch, and feel like it could be quite helpful, if I can find a way to increase our consumption of it. Potato salad seems like a good vehicle, oddly enough - and it's something I had tried earlier in the year, without paying much attention to the results. The other thing that seems to be important is green veg - which I've certainly been skimping on more than I should.  Need to figure out how to improve that - more salads to start with, I guess. Learn to love greens, maybe - that would be a feat!

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Taking one for the gut

One of the things I read yesterday in the Mr. Heisenbug blog was that honey is a pretty good prebiotic and useful for transporting live culture probiotics (bifida bacteria, for example) through the small into the large intestine.  He specifically mentioned the traditional combination of Greek yogurt and honey as an example of this.  And, since I don't know what's in my gut flora but am always up for improvements, I thought I would try it - if (a big "if) I could find some full-fat Greek yogurt. 

A little research ensued, and I thought I had a source at a nearby health food grocer. I went there at lunchtime today to check it out. In the end, they didn't have the yogurt I was looking for, but they had another one that was full-fat and included "honey powder" as an ingredient. I don't know for sure if that's indicative of honey as a source or not, but decided to try it anyway. 

Damn, that stuff's tasty! What I think I will do in future (after the Whole30 is over, probably), is take plain Greek yogurt and add a teaspoon of honey to it.  Good combo, though.

Unfortunately, today's experiment added 25g carbs, of which 19 were sugars, to my day's eating. I hope it doesn't blast the ketosis into oblivion.

Wednesday

Some of the stiffness and soreness from Monday's workout has passed, but not quite all of it. Nevertheless, I slept pretty well last night - woke between midnight and 1 am and then at 5, both times just long enough to check the time and go back to sleep.  I can totally live with that. 

I barely made my goal on the FuelBand yesterday - but I did make it. I think that means that if I make it today, I've started a streak. This thing is effective in getting me to get up and move a lot more than I did before I got it, which seems like a good thing. If I could arrange for the movement to be something other than gerbil-like spins on the wheel, that would be a better thing.  It's a start, though.

153.8 this morning, water seems to be going away. Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • two handfuls of pecans
  • gyro taco salad with tzaziki guacamole - a recipe from Health-Bent. It was pretty good
  • 3-5 pieces of cheese, due to the salad not being nearly big enough
  • walnuts
  • 1 tsp honey
So a short list, but too nutty. After the weekend, I am cutting way back on nuts - or trying to. I think they (cashews, in particular) were at the root of my issues on Sunday.

Ketosis continues - the "Small" reading last night was starting to look "Moderate". Whether it will help me lose any weight or not, I cannot tell, but I know I feel better in this state. That said, I read some really interesting stuff on the "human microbiome" yesterday, on a blog called Mr. Heisenbug, which is all over the Resistant Starch and gut flora enhancement stuff. I don't know if I'll break the Whole30 to do it or not, but I'm thinking of starting to get some galactooligosaccharides (if that's spelled correctly, I'll be very surprised) in my diet, possibly through some full-fat greek yogurt with live cultures and honey - supposedly, the bacteria can ride the honey through the small intestine into the large, and help improve the population there. Also maybe starting a bit of potato starch supplementation, once I understand what that would look like. But maybe not until 1/30, when the Whole30 is done. We shall see. I want to do some more reading before I launch into the potato starch, anyway.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Tuesday

Successful fast yesterday; I did not eat anything until I got home after work around 5.  I'm thinking that makes for a 21-hour fast, give or take.  Not bad. Then I had 3 pieces of cheese and went to the gym; walked a mile and did weights, and then had dinner (Qdoba naked burrito without rice or beans and with guac). 154.4 this morning. I'm not really holding my breath that it will be the start of anything, or even that it will be the same tomorrow.  Based on recent history, it won't.  I'm not going to stop my Whole30 on that account, though.

Lee and Elizabeth have stopped Whole30-ing; he had rice last night, and her comment was "I'm eating whatever I want when I'm away from home".  They're now officially on their own. I can't control them; I can only control me.

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • the usual supplements (added Biotin to try to get my thumbnail to stop cracking)
  • cheese
  • Qdoba naked shredded beef burrito, with cheese, sour cream, guac, and salsa
  • walnuts (not very many)
  • 1 tsp honey
I was in "Small" ketosis last night again; hope to keep the streak going there.  No leg cramps yet - note that I figure they will show up in the near future.

Onward.  I'm very stiff this morning from the workout. I figured out weights for me - I will be doing back extensions, crunches, bicep curls, chest and overhead presses, inner and outer thighs, and leg presses. Got some baseline weights/reps numbers last night and will be doing them every time we go to the gym.  Which should be Thursday - I suspect I will become the family nag for that, too. I should just embrace the role.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Monday

Complete cocooning weekend.  We left the house only for absolute needs; it was snowing both days and just ucky.  My "Fuel" points were accordingly minuscule.  Whatever.  155.0 again this morning - starting to feel like a broken record here.  I need some of them to go away. My ankles are a bit puffy, but nowhere near what they were last week.  Ketones were "Small" (up from "Trace" last week) last night and Friday night, although nonexistent on Saturday. I feel a bit inflamed - achy overall, especially near joints - but cannot account for any of it.  Annoying.
Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • a smoothie made of a can of coconut milk, an avocado, protein powder, and a bit of pineapple juice. It was nasty.
  • cheese
  • salami
  • 6-oz sirloin
  • Caesar salad with no croutons
  • 1 tsp honey
Son a short list, with the only carbs being pineapple juice, lettuce leaves, and honey.  And no weight lost. None. Did I mention I went to bed hungry? 

Since I didn't eat breakfast this morning and brought no lunch with me, I am fasting today. Especially because I have meetings at 10, 11, and 1, so the opportunity to get lunch is pretty much not there. If I get crazy, I will order an unwich from Jimmy John's to be delivered. But my plan is to just skip eating. My stomach was sore and irritated yesterday morning and I delayed eating nearly to noon as a result; it's better today, but not perfect, and would probably appreciate a rest.

Gym tonight. The plan for dinner is low-carb pizza.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Friday

155.2 again.  Annoying to be sure; I'm guessing it's still water.  Here's yesterday:
tea with cream
  • roast beef - a couple of slices
  • the usual supplements
  • Cobb salad with no egg, blue cheese dressing
  • hamburger patty
  • zucchini noodles with sour cream, butter, parmesan
  • smashed cheesy cauliflower - boursin and parmesan
  • tea "latte" - regular tea with whole milk and maybe honey? not what I ordered at Starbucks, which was plain black tea
  • 1 tsp honey
That was it. Lots of good fats, hardly any carbs. I was in "trace" ketosis at bedtime.  Sleep was reasonable; woke up at 1:50 am but was able to get back to sleep pretty quickly. Next waking was at 4:50 am.

We also hit the gym again yesterday; I walked not quite 2 miles with the graduated playlist, which meant a good bit of it was at a sprint.  With that, and with a concentrated effort to "win the hour" yesterday, I ended up with 11,000-some steps.  That was a light workday; I really don't know how anyone would be able to do the 10,000 steps thing daily if they work for a living doing something other than walking.

Today has involved breakfast already; I may or may not eat lunch. Working from home - one would think that would make the hour-winning easier, but not so far.

Thursday, January 2, 2014

Thursday

Holidays on Wednesdays are an abomination.  Just saying.  Yesterday felt about as "holiday"-like as Trash Day (which it normally is, on non-holiday weeks).  We went out to breakfast, went to a movie (at 9:30 am - I'm not a fan of that time for a movie), and puttered a bit.  I got thank-you notes written.  Dinner was good, but certainly not festive.  

Anyway, 154.2 this morning - down from earlier in the week, I'm happy to say, but up from Sunday after we got back from Santa Fe.  I'd lost all the water last weekend, and gained it back this week by going to the gym and doing my "win the hour" stuff at work, I think.  My ankles are still puffy, which I seriously hate.

Really good sleep last night, finally.  Uninterrupted by animals for once, and I woke up at 4:52 for the first time all night, I think, although I semi-recall rolling over a couple of times for mild soreness in a hip or something.  

Here's yesterday:
  • tea with cream
  • omelet with ham and cheese-food (I'm betting on individually-wrapped Kraft singles) and tomatoes
  • cheese - 5-7 pieces, throughout the day
  • cashews - total of 2 handfuls
  • Pork rinds from the bag, but not a huge lot
  • Philly cheesesteak stuffed peppers - with provolone, roastbeef, onions, and mushrooms - yum!
  • 1 tsp honey
Was that it?  I think it was.  I wasn't particularly hungry for lunch so I never ate it formally, but I did go back for cheese several times.

Didn't exercise much yesterday; we'll call it recovery. My "Fuel" total for the day was 902, which was the lowest so far at all. No hours won.  I meant to go for a walk, but didn't end up going; the weather was weird.  Gym tonight again; aiming for Mondays and Thursdays each week. And I will be working on fuel points today as well.  Starting now, since I just got a reminder.