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

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

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

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

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

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

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...)