Tuesday

Last pleasant day before yet another snowstorm.  I ate very light yesterday due to extreme lack of hunger; I'm thinking the ketosis has settled in to do its stuff.  150.2 this morning, still feeling waterlogged, though.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements - we're going to do K2 daily for a while
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• 10 macadamia nuts
  
• 3 pieces of cheese
  
• a milk-chocolate yogurt-filled Ritter sport mini bar (8 grams of carbs, and delicious)
  

That was it.  Seems odd, but I got involved working on figuring out if we can redo the kitchen properly, and before I knew it, it was bedtime.  I know I eat from boredom, but that's a pretty vivid illustration of it.  And it's nice to have something interesting to do.

Monday

I am out of shape and squidgy with water just now.  151.0 this morning and also yesterday, after a day of garden cleanup on Saturday.  Ow.  Stiff and sore.  No idea what all I ate yesterday, other than that it included potato chips and ice cream; let's call it a cheat/treat day and leave it there.  Back to normal today and this week, I hope; last week was crazy, to put it mildly, with all of the eating out we did.  Had breakfast this morning - eggs and bacon and supplements.  Aiming for nothing else until dinner, but I have a bunch of macadamias in case, to be parceled out 5 at a time, I think.

Friday

The plot thickens.  149.2 today, with water weight - my ankles are puffy.  Mild ketosis last night, to be expected after chips and salsa and flour-based green chile at dinner.  On the other hand, chips and salsa and flour-based green chile on top of the almond-flour scone at breakfast should have led to weight gain, so of course, I'm down a pound.  Calories in, calories out, right?  Except, I did nothing to expend 3500 of the buggers, as I did nothing the day before to consume that many in excess.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• the last almond flour chocolate cherry scone
  
• another small container (1 oz) of clotted cream, which I all but licked empty
  
• butter roasted pecans
  
• chips and salsa
  
• guacamole
  
• naked chicken fajitas
  
• green chile
  
• cheese
  
• dark chocolate - 2 squares of Lindt 85%
  

I think that was everything, and compared to the rest of the week, it was excessive, so of course, created weight loss.  Sheesh!

Another dinner out tonight - at a meat-oriented restaurant.  Been kind of an expensive week, really.

Thursday

Seriously?  150.2 this morning, albeit with swollen ankles, so I'm guessing some water is hanging about.  Nonetheless, here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• 10 macadamia nuts
  
• 8 oz sirloin steak
  
• southern style green beans (2 orders)
  
• cheddar cheese (ultimately 2-1/2 pieces)
  
• almond flour chocolate cherry scone
  

That. Was. It.  A little high in carbs, due to the scone (of which, I ate the last for breakfast this morning).  Fewer than 1500 calories.  There is no way I should be gaining weight on that.

Disgusted?  Yeah, a bit.  Obviously, I should not be losing weight right now, at least, not according to my body.  No idea what it's trying to hang on to, and I think the nutrition is pretty good these days.  I'm assuming it's effing hormones - or lack thereof.  

Sleep is going better than it had been, for which I'm grateful, and on most days (not today) I'm pretty energetic, so I think the fat fasts and goal of ongoing keto-adaptation, if not outright ketosis, was the right thing.  A test last night had me at light-to-moderate ketosis.

Achy and possibly tired today; don't know why.  It may be related to the water weight.

Wednesday

149.4 this morning.  No idea why, and it doesn't appear to be water.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• chocolate cherry almond-flour scone
  
• clotted cream (oh, gosh, delicious!)
  
• 12 macadamia nuts
  
• 1 piece of cheese (I think)
  
• Fuzzy's small taco salad with queso
  
• about 7 chips with more queso on them
  
• measured small quantity of cashews
  

That was it.  Ketosis measured at "None" last night at bedtime.  Things are just weird.

Yesterday was, granted, extremely stressful, what with the 2:45 commute to work (yes, that's hours:minutes).  And we have company we weren't expecting, which is nice, but very disruptive; life is not proceeding along the even tenor we are used to.  

Elizabeth and I signed up for the Bolder Boulder yesterday, so we are now committed and must do some training, even though, as I said last night, anybody can walk six miles.  

Tuesday

148.8 today.  Not sure why.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• 2 helpings (12 each) of macadamia nuts
  
• 1 helping of butter-roasted pecans
  
• 1/2 chocolate cherry almond flour scone
  
• salad with turkey; blue cheese dressing
  

I think that was it for the day.  So you can see why I might have expected a bit different result this morning.  I hardly think there were enough carbs in the scone to do much of anything in the way of fat storage; in fact, I showed light to moderate ketosis at bedtime last night.  Whatever.  It may be that I'm not eating enough to have a metabolism.  I don't know, really.  At this point, I think I need to start doing the Primal Blueprint movement stuff - more walking, some weights, and what-not.  Need to do something to prep for the Bolder Boulder, in any event.  If the weather would cooperate, I might manage it, but it's snowing again.  Seriously.  My mental state is so numb that I can barely muster outrage at that fact right now.

Had breakfast today.  A scone, clotted cream (for real - oh yum!!!), and bacon.  We'll see how the rest of the day goes, but dinner is probably taco salad at Fuzzy's.

Monday

Weekend eating was, well, odd.  Saturday felt like it was pretty LCHF but I was up half a pound on Sunday morning; Sunday felt like all-carbs, all the time, and I was down a pound this morning.  148.4.  Calories-in-calories out makes no sense here on the ground.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• Primal Blueprint beaten-egg "pancake" with berries (yum)
  
• two pieces of bacon
  
• cheese
  
• a mini "Ritter Sport" milk chocolate with yogurt
• half of an almond chocolate cherry scone
  
• vegetables with dip (mostly guacamole)
  
• about 2 tortilla chips
  
• salad with zesty italian dressing (commercial)
  
• fruit salad
  
• peppers/sausage with spaghetti sauce
  
• ice cream (more fruit salad with it)
  

I feel like there was more, but that is seriously all I can recall.  But between the candy, the ice cream, the fruit, and the almond scone, it felt very high carb - and when I tested for ketones last night, I got nothing.  So probably it was higher carb than it should have been.

Fasting breakfast today, sort of - didn't want to get up, and I'm eating through 12 macadamia nuts right now.  Anticipate BBQ turkey salad for dinner.

Friday

That's odd.  Moderate to strong ketosis last night, and I think my eating was gauged to maintain that.  So why am I half a pound up this morning, please?  149.2.  I don't feel swollen up, so it really makes no sense.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• 1/4 cup butter roasted pecans
  
• Quarter-pounder with cheese, no bun
  
• salad with blue cheese dressing
  
• 8-oz sirloin
  
• green beans with bacon
  
• measured serving of walnuts
  
• 2 squares of dark chocolate with mint
  
• about 10 potato chips
  

That was it.  A pretty short list.  No leg cramps from the ketosis, but I am having fasciculation right now.  I guess my body just really doesn't want to lose weight right now.  Fine, whatever.  I'm going to keep on with LCHF for the foreseeable future, and maintain ketosis since I prefer the mental state and energy.

No plans for tomorrow, although we are going to a family gathering on Sunday.  Not really very into it, I have to say.  At least it's sunny, and we're not slated to get snow again until after the weekend.  Unfortunately, after the weekend, we will be getting more snow.  This has been an annoying spring.

Onward!

Thursday

Yesterday turned out to be a bona-fide fat fast, I'd bet.  We none of us felt much like dinner preparations (eating was all good), so in the end, I had cheese, salami, and bacon.  148.8 again this morning, not sure what changed, but not too concerned.  Ketosis registered as "Moderate" last night, which is the highest I ever see anyway.  It's just nice to have my brain back.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream (more than usual; 3 cups this way throughout the day)
  
• the usual supplements
  
• butter-roasted pecans (2 servings)
  
• cheese (2 pieces)
  
• bacon (3 pieces)
  
• salami (about 8 slices)
  
• dark chocolate with mint (2 squares)
  

That was it.  The ketosis-lack-of-appetite is back, too, so I didn't feel like snacking the night away.  While no weight was lost yesterday, I expect to see some go shortly, as I continue eating very low carb.  And not drinking - but I think I've made that point.

I did find a surge in tinnitus at bedtime last night.  My suspicions are that it has something to do with one of the mineral supplements I added from reading the PHD - either iodine or copper.  When it first occurred, a couple of months ago, I added zinc and then B-complex stuff; when neither of those seemed to make it subside, I stopped taking the iodine, copper, and zinc for a while, and it quieted down nicely.  Restarted them this past week, and blammo, back it comes.  So this time, I'm going to isolate the culprit; for now, I'm not taking the copper.  If it goes away, I'll just stop taking copper, if not, I'll drop the iodine again, and if it stops then, I'll restart the copper.  It's possible that I'm not deficient in something, I guess.

Did not get breakfast this morning; a bit of crazy-town at the house.  So I'm eating pecans again because I'm hungry.  If I'm hungry around 11, I may just go get some lunch of some sort - probably a naked quarter pounder (but NO fries).  Or not - depends.  I think the fat fast has done the required work of getting me back into ketosis; now it should be possible to stay there, as long as I lay off the sugar bombs.

Wednesday

Yesterday was tough.  I worked from home due to the stupid weather making the streets into bona-fide ice rinks, and that put me in proximity to a lot of food and non-food foodlike substances.  Also, three dogs.  I did pretty well, considering, but was only in "trace" ketosis at bedtime last night.  I think I know why (see below).  148.4 this morning, so "trace" was enough.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• sausage links
  
• cheese (4-6 pieces, plus cheese curds)
  
• walnuts (two measured servings)
  
• dark chocolate with mint (2 squares)
  
• potato chips (about 10)
  
• NomNomPaleo's cherry BBQ steak skewers - which were delicious!
  
• salad with blue cheese dressing
  
• vanilla ice cream with sliced strawberries
  

I think that was it.  The ice cream after dinner was probably not the best idea, but could have been worse, I guess.  Have started today off without breakfast, in an effort to get to work before the traffic got bad (epic fail there), so I am currently working on some butter roasted pecans and will have more throughout the day.  Dinner could be hit-and-miss; we're expecting another blizzard today, so I could be looking at a 2-3 hour commute with nothing thawed to cook.  If it ends up being cheese and salami, so be it; I expect I'll be glad just to be home.  My job and commute are very non-Paleo, and having blizzards in April should make me want to stay in the cave, but I had to get out today after a workday with 3 slightly neurotic dogs yesterday.  So I'm a bit stressy, and trying to figure out how to stop being that way.

Tuesday

Still 148.8 this morning. I did have moderate ketosis yesterday at bedtime, so I am hopeful that some discipline this week will get things moving in the right direction. I'm definitely feeling the mental advantages of ketosis again, which always leaves me wondering why I get out of the state. Stupid sugar. Here's yesterday:

- tea with cream
- the usual supplements
- butter pecans (2 servings)
- macadamia nuts (less than 1 serving)
- cheddar (2 pieces, I think)
- salad with salami, feta, olives, and vinaigrette
- 2 squares of dark chocolate, with mint
- walnuts (measured small serving)

That was it. Sleep was okay, but not great. I have had breakfast today - eggs and sausage - but will be doing low carb, high fat. And we shall see what happens.

Monday

I don't recall if I noted on Friday that I would be redoing the fat fast over the weekend, but I did make a fairly sloppy attempt, foiled by Mexican food among other things, and it seems to have worked.  148.8 again this morning, and feeling mentally alert, despite rather bad sleep.  I'm hitting it hard this morning - so far, I've had butter-roasted pecans to eat - and will have some sort of salad-with-meat tonight for dinner, so still not a perfect fat fast, but very low carb and ketosis-inducing, which is what I want.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• cheese (throughout the day)
  
• cashews (small measured quantity)
  
• strawberries (about 3)
  
• potato chips (salt craving - 1 handful)
  
• salami
  
• naked bacon cheeseburger
  
• two squares of 70% dark chocolate with mint
  
• about 3 walnuts
  
• a few butter-roasted pecans
  

That was it, actually.  So I didn't eat all that much, despite feeling like that's all I did all day.  In fact, I worked on the drip irrigation system and went shopping, and in the evening, made NomNomPaleo's cherry barbecue sauce to put on the smashed flank steak skewers for Tuesday (and it is fabulous tasting; they should be great!).

I will probably stop the fat fast, or slow it down a good bit, after today or tomorrow; don't really want to get used to living off 1000 calories of fat per day, and some day, I would like to be able to drink wine again - obviously, I won't be as long as I'm doing this.  The plan, though, is to move from the fat fast back to the ketosis-sustaining low-carb eating that worked so well for all of us a couple of years back.  If I lead, I know Lee will follow - at dinner, anyway.  And that means we need to lay off the faux baked goods, gluten-free pizza crust, and things of that sort - and to keep the potato starch in meat loaf to an absolute minimum.  We need to make one this week to use up some tomato paste, which is why I mentioned it - and I think I will throw a bit of ground liver into it, for nutrition's sake.  Guess that means Liver and Onions for Lee one day this week - I have tried it and do not care for the taste at all, so I will have mine ground and disguised and he can eat his straight.  Seems like I have a meal plan for the week, just like that.  Cool!

Friday

151.4 today for no particular reason, and my stomach's upset.  I ate taco meat and meatloaf at Country Buffet last night; reasonably certain that neither product is 100% meat, so it's probably something to do with that.  On the way to work this morning, I decided to recommit to the fat fast starting today; I've had nothing but tea-with-cream this morning so far, so I can.  Do it today and over the weekend and gauge the ketosis - I'm really hoping I'm still enough adapted not to be all brain dead today, but we shall see.  I have macadamias with me, and we are doing Mexican for dinner, so I will be having naked fajitas with lots of guac and sour cream.  And laying off the chips - the plan is to eat no more than 5 of them, which I was able to do a while back.

Here's yesterday:

• scrambled eggs
  
• sausage
  
• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• olives
  
• potato chips (2 handfuls)
  
• cheese (2 pieces)
  
• taco meat with sour cream, queso, lettuce, cheese, and salsa on
  
• meat loaf
  
• green beans
  
• a measured small amount of walnuts
  

I think that was it.  We got home and I took a bath, and only had the walnuts after I got out, because I was legitimately hungry.  It's a start.  Today will be a further move in the right direction.  And I will be avoiding wine for the foreseeable future.  Just sayin'.

Thursday

Great sleep two nights ago, and I was hoping for more all day yesterday - I don't know if I was having a fresh bout of low-carb flu or was just tired, but I was groggy all day yesterday.  Got to sleep okay last night, and woke up abruptly at 3:50 am, to toss and turn until the alarm went off, when I promptly rolled over and got an awful cramp in my left calf.  I ache from neck to toe (my head doesn't hurt that I can tell, anyway) this morning.  

149.6 this morning.  Not surprising; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• macadamia nuts (just over the 1/4 cup size, I think, for the day)
  
• the Snickers bar that was on my desk
  
• a vending bag of peanuts
  
• two skewers of teriyaki beef
  
• cashew chicken, no rice
  
• a fortune cookie
  
• the last of the malted milk eggs (Hallelujah!) - a small handfull of the small ones
  
• a square of dark chocolate
  
• two pieces of cheese
  

Weird, that's a short list - I thought I ate worse than that.  It was still pretty high carb, considering, and I tested for ketones at bedtime and there were none.

Had breakfast today - eggs and sausages, and I have some olives with me for snacking.  I'm not hungry yet, which is good - better than yesterday, anyway.  So I hope to save the olives for later in the day.  I have also taken Advil for the aches - yesterday was certainly inflammatory eating, and that may be why I feel icky.

Wednesday

Hmm.  It appears that the fat fast worked, at least, sorta.  I ate crap yesterday (started out writing "carp", which would have been fine), and am down to 149.4 today.  That has to mean that if I could avoid the crap, I'd be lower, and that my metabolism is in a bit of a reset right now.

My problem is with sugar.  If it's in the house in an edible form, I succumb to the cravings - did twice yesterday.  I will be glad when the Easter candy is done, that's for sure.  Here's yesterday:

• bacon
  
• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• cheese (maybe 6 pieces?)
  
• salami
  
• strawberries
  
• walnuts
  
• chocolate malted milk eggs (little ones, 2 handsful)
  
• steak
  
• salad with blue cheese dressing
  
• potato chips (the end of the Zapps Voodoo chips)
  

Starting out today with a fasted breakfast and a bag of macadamia nuts for starvation emergencies.  The plan would be to get to dinner with a few of them uneaten.  However, I'm a bit hungry now, so I don't know how well that will work.  I also still have a Snickers bar on my desk, from last week, and may end up eating it as well.  I hope not, but can't predict how the day will go.

Tuesday

Yesterday evening included chocolate, tortillas and tortilla chips, and cashews.  150.8 this morning - anyone surprised?  I'm having a hard time resisting temptation right now, and we still have a lot of leftover temptation.  Starting again this morning, even though I'm working from home.  Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• olives
  
• butter roasted pecans
  
• macadamia nuts
  
• cheese enchiladas with green chile
  
• tortilla chips and salsa
  
• cheese (yes, really)
  
• malted milk eggs - a lot of tiny ones
  
• cashews - a lot, not portioned out
  

I've had bacon so far today, and tea with cream.  Plan on keeping things like that for quite a while, and steak-and-salad for dinner.  And if I need nuts, to eat them in portions set out in a container.  Some strawberries as well.  Trying to stay out of the chocolate.

Monday

Good weekend, not from an eating standpoint, but from a weekend standpoint.  Nonetheless, I weigh only 149.4 this morning - down from 150.something yesterday.  I was a bit surprised, truly, because yesterday involved chocolate and nuts and potato chips, and I woke up with swollen fingers, so I know I've got excess fluids going on.  No idea what it will take to dislodge them; I suspect they're to do with the gardening work I put in on Saturday.  I am happy to note that I did about 4 hours of gardening surrounding an hour or so of shopping on nothing more than 3 strips of bacon and 2 pieces of cheese.  Ketosis rules; I love the stamina it imparts.

Here's what I recall about yesterday:

• omelet with ham, cheese, tomato
  
• hash browns
  
• tea with cream
  
• cheese (standard hunk-o-cheddar)
  
• malted milk eggs - I think 8 throughout the day
  
• one white chocolate truffle
  
• walnuts - I tried to keep the quantity down, but not tremendously well
  
• salad with blue cheese (also some seeds as garnish)
  
• miscellaneous seafood, grilled with sauces
  
• green beans
  
• garlic mashed potatoes
  
• half a slice of the innards of key lime pie (nasty texture to it)
  
• the remains of a bag of potato chips
  

So a long list, but apparently not as damaging as I feared.  We did not eat breakfast today owing to no defrosted bacon and being tired, so I have a bag of olives with me to eat throughout the day (I have started already; if a fast, just a fat fast).  It feels just now rather like it did when I was able to lose weight pretty easily; I am hopeful that the weekend did not take me permanently out of ketosis, and that I can eat low carb during the week and be back in it.  

Aha!

As I mentioned, I found myself seriously under the weather late Tuesday, after drinking more than I should have.  What mystified me the next day, when I was in my right-but-painful mind, was that I remember only 4 glasses of wine consumed over a 4-hour period with food.  And since I recall dinner pretty clearly and don't recall being particularly inebriated until the very end of it (and I confirmed with a fellow diner that I didn't seem all that drunk when we left dinner), I couldn't help but wonder what on earth was going on.  A colleague suggested that I'd fallen victim to the "endless glass" - we had waiters circulating and refilling throughout the evening; maybe they had snuck in a few extras that I just hadn't seen.  And it could have been that.  But I think I found a more likely explanation - a very low carb diet, which I'd been on last week for certain, seems to go very badly with alcohol - a quick Google search found multiple anecdotes of other low-carbers who found themselves almost completely intolerant of alcohol consumption.  Several of the anecdotes sounded remarkably like my evening - a worse reaction to drinking than they'd ever experienced before, after what seemed like a fairly innocuous quantity.

It is still possible that I just missed seeing some refills.  But having spent the prior week on a fat fast and demonstrating stronger ketosis than I'd seen in some time - and finding that I was still producing ketones even yesterday, I think it's possible that I ran into the same issue with alcohol.  The explanation offered on the forums where I found the anecdotes had to do with ketosis in particular; that the enzymes in the liver that produce ketones are somehow also used to detoxify and clear alcohol from the body, and that they might have been "busy".  Simplistic, I know, but maybe that was it.

Friday

I would not advise my weight-loss method this week to anyone, but I am at 148.8 this morning.  The net result of my business meeting was a two-day fast.  I say "net" because I did eat on Tuesday.  I also drank to excess.  I think I'll leave it at that.  I did not eat on Wednesday, except for about half a bag of Skittles.  Junk food, pure sugar, but it was all I could stand; I didn't even like the taste of tea.

I am more or less recovered now and was able to eat yesterday, but not a lot.  Here's the details:

·         Tea with half-and-half

·         A couple of pieces of bacon

·         A couple of strawberries

·         About a half-cup of hash-browns

·         A bag of potato chips

·         A burger and a half (sirloin burger patties, not grassfed)

·         Green chile

·         Cheddar cheese

·         3 malted milk eggs and one white-chocolate truffle

Not a very paleo or low-carb day, I admit, but I was treading rather carefully.  And, for what it's worth, I managed to be in ketosis at the end of the day.

Tuesday

Regress.

Annoyingly, I topped off a modest dinner with rather a lot of chocolate: seven or eight malted milk eggs and three Godiva truffles. 151.8 this morning. My ankles are puffy, so some of it is water, but three years ago, I could get away with mistakes like that, and now I can't. Grrrr.

Yesterday looked something like this:
- tea with cream
- the usual supplements
- broccoli cheese soup
- butter roasted pecans
- burger patty with Swiss cheese
- salad with ham in it, vinaigrette dressing
- potato salad
- too effing much chocolate
- two pieces of cheddar

Today starts a 3-day work conference, at the Ritz. Seriously. I will eat low-carb, and try to avoid desserts. Bringing macadamia nuts for emergencies.

Monday

I did not achieve my goal for the weekend.  And I'm not entirely sure why.  I ate pretty clean on Saturday; bacon, cheese and nuts, a naked burger for dinner without carbs.  Sunday morning, I was up half a pound.  And Sunday was a garbage eating day, including candy and potato chips and dessert and potato salad and a sweet fruit salad.  No change in weight from yesterday to today.  151.2.

I cannot list yesterday; I lost track.  Suffice it to say it pushed me well out of the ketosis I'd achieved.  So we are starting all over today.  No breakfast, I have some fat fast broccoli soup with me to eat if and when I get hungry today, and burgers-and-salad for dinner.  We need to buy some steaks for dinners, I think, and we will be eating a meat-and-leaves pattern for the foreseeable future.  Sheesh.

On the other hand, after rather crap sleep nights Friday and Saturday, I slept like the proverbial rock last night.  I would like more of that - and I felt energized when I woke up, not sluggish.  A very nice change from the past few weeks, I must say.  Drove to work without sunglasses, too, in hopes of getting more tonight.