February 25, '10 Update

Yesterday was a hungry day. I was first hungry early, about 7 am, and had a quarter pound burger bowl. About noon, I was kind of getting hungry but was really wanting some coffee. Since I am treating cravings as hunger, I ate another burger bowl.

I was hungry again at 6:30 pm. For dinner, I cut up the rack of ribs that came with my monster rib roast. When they were finally done, I ate three of them. I probably should have stopped there, but they were so good that I ate another one. That proved to be a mistake. The ribs were so fatty that the extra one took me into fat overload and I spent the rest of the evening kind of queasy. In fact, my stomach is still unsettled this morning and I feel really warm, like I'm running a fever. I doubt that I will be hungry any time soon.

February 24, '10 Update

Yesterday went pretty well. I got first hunger around 10 AM and ate one of my quarter pound burger bowls. Surprisingly, I didn't get hungry again until around 6 PM, even with doing my squat routine when I got home. I was supposed to have my aged ribeye and the family was going to have chicken fajitas (no shells) but K decided she didn't want to make them. So I had to share the remains of my 3+ week aged ribeye. In fact, I had to sacrifice and eat the end piece because no one else likes it. It was still good but a bit chewy because of the dried crust.

One of our local markets had ribeye on sale for $3.98/pound a couple of weeks ago. They ran out before I could get some and gave me a raincheck. It has taken two weeks but I finally picked up a roast yesterday.

I had told them that I wanted a six bone roast. When I came to pick it up, I found that was a bit ambitious. The thing was 15 pounds! It was huge. However, it has worked out okay since my other roast is done. I am going to cook up the ribs tonight and then will start working on the roast in a day or so.

The other day, I was talking to Charles about clothes and he recommended Abercrombie & Fitch as a place to get fitted shirts. I looked through their site and found a long sleeved T-shirt I liked that was on clearance. According to their size chart, I should take a Medium so that is what I ordered.

I finally got the shirt yesterday and tried it on. When I was looking into the shirt before putting it on, I was thinking that there was no way that I would even get it on let alone have it fit. However, I got it on (and off) just fine and it fit okay.

Being fitted, it is more form fitting than I am used to so my mind was telling me that it was too small. K said that it didn't look too small, though, so I guess my mind has to get used to more form fitting clothes. The sleeves were surprisingly long (I have long arms, so this is usually a problem with Medium shirts). However, it doesn't fit well in the shoulders. The seam is at least an inch back from the point of my shoulder. I wonder if that is going to be a problem with Medium fitted shirts and I'll have to choose between fitting in the waist and fitting in the shoulders?

February 23, '10 Update

 I have been struggling with carb cravings since around Christmas. I am unsure what has been causing them but I need to get to the bottom of them because I am not strong enough to live with constant cravings. What I decided to do is to strip out all of the marginal zero carb foods, like dairy, coffee and tea and stick with just meat and water. I will continue to try to get in a variety of meats plus I do eat eggs occasionally. I started this last Sunday.

Yesterday went pretty well. I made sure I had enough food on hand and didn't really have a problem with cravings.

When I made up my hamburger bowls for the week, I put a quarter pound of ground beef in each one. I then took a bunch of them to work for my lunches. I wanted to have a smaller amount of food available when I got hungry but have plenty on hand in case I got hungry more often.

First hunger came about 8 am. I ate one of the hamburger bowls. I really wanted a coffee, too, but drank a mug of hot water instead. That curbed the coffee cravings.

I thought that might last me until I got home but my stomach started growling again at 2 pm. I ate another hamburger bowl.

I did my push up routine when I got home at 4 o'clock. My stomach was growling again by 6 pm when dinner was ready. Dinner was flanken ribs baked in the oven. I overate a little, having five strips, but they are a favorite of mine and were nice and fatty. I suspect that it will be a while before I get hungry this morning.

A Letter To My Sister

I have been corresponding with my sister in the hopes that zero carb may help her regain her energy levels. As a busy mother of three, I am sure they are sorely missed.

I wanted to explain, as simply, as possible why going zero carb is necessary for long term success once we are overweight. This is what I came up with. I am posting it here, too, in case it may help someone who is considering zero carb.

I am sorry to be going on and on like this and I hope it isn't boring you to tears. As you can tell, I am pretty passionate about it. :)

I wanted to address your low energy problem. I understand it completely because that is exactly how I felt. You described it nicely. I have done very little on the house over the last few years because I had no energy for it. I just wanted to hang out on the couch and didn't do stuff with K and the boys because I was tired. It was depressing because we won't have Garret at home much longer and we have been promising to do stuff like hiking and camping for years.

I think this summer will be different because I have a lot more energy. It isn't so much that I am bouncing off of the walls; it's just that I have a more consistent level. I also don't want to sit as much. I am watching a lot less TV lately because I just don't want to sit still that long.

You would think that overweight people would have more energy because they are carrying around bags of energy in the form of fat. However, it doesn't actually work that way. The problem is we can't access that bag of energy.

The common thought on how to lose weight is simply that you have to take in less energy than you use. Eat 500 calories less a day and you'll lose a pound a week - that kind of thing. It's so simple that it works, right? You and I know that it isn't that simple in reality. It turns out that we aren't fat because we overeat or don't move enough. We overeat and don't move enough because we are overweight. It's an important distinction.

People think that fat is just bags of energy that hangs off of us that we can dip into when we use more calories than we take in. However, fat is actually constantly circulating through us and is metabolically active.

You can think of the fat in our bodies as a series of pools interconnected by pipes. One pool might be our belly while another is our backside. The way that it is suppose to work is that when we eat, insulin drives the excess fuel into our fat cells (fills the pool) and then, between meals or at night when we sleep, the pool then drains back into our blood, giving us fuel for those times that we need energy between meals.

Insulin is the hormone that controls this process. One of its main jobs is to maintain your blood sugar. When you eat stuff with carbs in it, those carbs become glucose in your blood stream, which raises your blood sugar. Your body will pump out insulin to control this rise to try to keep your blood sugar from going too high. The more carbs one eats, the more insulin is required to maintain the blood sugar levels.

Insulin will initially try to put the extra sugar in your muscles and liver. However, once those are full, it turns to the fat cells.

This is how it is supposed to work. However, what happens is that over time, it takes higher and higher levels of insulin to do its job. The body's cells become insulin resistant, so the insulin stays in the blood at a higher than normal level (so will the blood sugar level).

Insulin's job is to put blood sugar into the fat, not to take it out again. You can only access that energy in the fat when the insulin drops again. Going back to my pools analogy, high insulin "clogs" the drain pipe, making the pools back up and get bigger. This clog also slows down the release of fuel back into the blood stream.

So now, instead of getting some fuel when needed between meals, the cells "get hungry" once the fuel in the blood stream is gone. The body has to combat this by increasing hunger and by conserving energy.

This why you have no energy. Obesity is actually internal starvation. The only way to combat this lack of energy is to either eat all of the time which, of course, only makes the problem worse, or to bypass the problem of the insulin resistance. If you don't eat food that contains carbs, you won't need as much insulin and eventually the levels will drop. Once the levels come down, the drain unclogs and the fat is free to flow out again. Once the fat is free to flow, the cells now can fuel themselves (giving you energy again) and the pools can shrink.

It has nothing to do with calories eaten or working out. It is all hormonally driven. Without insulin blocking the fuel, your body won't constantly crave food and you'll be more active because you'll have more energy.

Sorry for the lecture. I just wanted to explain why zero carb worked because it isn't obvious. Plus, you don't hear the truth in the deafening din of the "calories in/calories out" crowd.

Hopefully that helps.

Love, Ryan

February 19, '10 Update

Yesterday was another good day. I first got hungry at 7:30 am and had some goat coffee. I was hungry again at 11:30 and ate a 1/4 pound of ground beef. I expected to be hungry again by the time I got home from work but it didn't happen. I finally started to get hungry around 7 pm. I warmed up a few slices of ham and melted a little goat cheese on it. It was pretty good but salty. I was still a little hungry after that and ate a chicken thigh to round out the meal. I didn't want to overdo it on the ham. The salt from the ham made me a bit puffy this morning but I feel fine otherwise.

I think next week I am going to drop the coffee again. I am not addicted to it and don't drink it at home on the weekends. I drink it more for something hot to hold and drink when I'm cold and for a shot of caffeine when I haven't slept well (which is pretty much always). I think I have been getting a rebound effect from the caffeine, though. I drink the coffee early and then get super sleepy around 2 pm. It's all I can do to stay awake when that happens. With the days finally warming up, I won't really need the hot drink anymore.

February 18, '10 Update

I struggled a bit over the last weekend. With the long weekend, for some reason, I wanted to eat more. I wasn't really hungry, just "munchy". I also had no luck staying out of the cream and cheese (cow dairy).

Once I returned to work on Tuesday I was able to get back into the groove. Yesterday worked really well. I had my first hunger about 8 and had some coffee with goat milk. I was hungry again at 11:30 and ate a quarter pound hamburger bowl. I was hungry again after doing my squat routine and ate a hardboiled egg to hold me over until dinner. I was hungry again by dinner and ate a 3/4" thick ribeye. I also had a small slice of ham with some goat cheddar melted (kind of) on it.

I probably overate a bit at dinner but I wasn't stuffed or even excessively full, so I am not going to worry about it. It was also a cow dairy free day, so I hope I can stay away from it now.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was sunny and 50°. I was stuck in the office all day but enjoyed it anyway. It was definitely giving me spring fever. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be similar, though it is foggy right now. I hope it will burn off soon.

February 13, '10 Update (44 Weeks)

The experiment is going really well. I must have eaten a bit too much Thursday night because I didn't get hungry yesterday until 2 PM. I ate half of a burger bowl (100 grams) and a little goat cheese. That held me over until about 7 pm at which time I ate the rack of ribs that came with my last ribeye roast (four bones). They were pretty filling but I ended up eating a couple of thin slices of cheddar that were leftover from the boys' burgers.

I am really torn on the dairy. I like how I feel when I eat it and I like the variety that it adds, plus I just like it. I don't like being stuffed up and my wife doesn't like that I snore worse because of it. I weighed 172.2 pounds last Saturday and weighed 169.6 pounds this morning, so the dairy clearly doesn't inhibit my weight loss. I went dairy-free all January and didn't lose an ounce.

I picked up some goat cheddar this morning and am going to try goat dairy for a while to see if I can still do dairy but have less sinus problems in the meantime.

As I said, I lost 2.6 pounds this weak by eating smaller amounts when physically hungry. Since last Thursday was 10 months since starting ZC (44 weeks), I decided to do some picture updates. Unfortunately, the lighting isn't that great on the new pictures. I have been at a lighter weight before, 169.0 lbs in mid-December, but this is the lowest weigh that I have measured at. Since I am sure I have put on some muscle the last month and a half, I think I am leaner than in mid-December, despite the higher weight.

Here are the net changes in my measurements over the last 44 weeks:

It amazes me that I have lost more than six inches off of my stomach. The bodyfat calculator I use put me at 12.4% bodyfat. However, you should start seeing abs at 15%. Since I still don't have visible abs, I estimate that I am in the 17% range now.

Here are the before and now pictures. Sorry about the bad lighting.

 

  

  

  

 

Finally, here are the other two T-shirts that K bought me for my birthday. You'll have to forgive the wrinkles as they were folded up in the closet. The food chain one is my favorite.

 

  

10 Months ZC update

The eating small amounts when hungry experiment is still going strong. I didn't get hungry yesterday until 10 am, which meant I ate too much Tuesday night. I had half of a burger bowl (about 100 grams) and some coffee and cream. I was hungry again at 6 pm and ate two chicken thighs and some cheese.

I have been doing a little "last supper" eating with the dairy, I think. I am going to cut it out again because it throws off my hunger during this experiment but wanted to wait until after tomorrow. We are going to Spokane tomorrow and the thing I know works best (both for ZC and for gluten) for eating out is the BK $1 double cheeseburgers, plain, no bun. The cream will be gone today and no more cow cheese after tomorrow.

I didn't feel any leaner this morning but the fat that is there is squishier, which is usually a good sign. It usually means I am going to drop some weight soon. I am still not weighing but may consider it Saturday, along with pictures and measurements if I feel there is any significant progress since last time I did them. It would be for my monthly update, since I started ZC 10 months ago today.

The thing that is so difficult about eating this way is cooking just enough and being prepared. The burger bowls make it easy but dinner is a little tougher. However, cutting the steaks off of my dry aging roast does help because I can cut them thin if necessary. To be honest, part of wanting to eat more than I need is wanting to eat the stuff I cooked up beforehand (like my burger bowls) before they go bad.

One other thing to mention is that my energy is still good, so I don't think I am undereating. I don't want to undereat; I want to eat just enough.

Feb 10, 2010 Update

Day 2 of my experiment went okay. I first got hungry early, about 7:30, so I must have eaten the right amount Monday night. I had half of one of my hamburger bowls (about 100 grams). I still have some cream to use up so had some coffee and HWC, too. The bad thing about the cream is that it takes me awhile to drink the coffee so it stretches the meal time out a long time, which throws off the next hunger time.

I wasn't hungry yet when I got home and did my squats routine with no sag in energy. About 6:30, I was starting to get hungry and decided to cook my ribeye since the family was eating then. I didn't think I was all that hungry yet but after I started eating the steak I got very hungry. I ended up eating my 3/4" thick ribeye and a bit of cheese. I probably should have stopped after the steak. I need to slow down my eating again so that I can feel when I am no longer hungry and get out of that "more, more, more!" mindset.

So, again - not perfect, but better. When the cream is gone, the cow dairy is gone and so is the coffee (yes, I know I have said that before but this time I mean it, darn it). It again may be my imagination but I felt leaner again this morning when I got up. Since I am not currently weighing, though, I don't really know what is going on for sure.

Feb 9, '10 Update

The first day of the "eat small amounts when hungry" experiment had mixed results. It was because of two factors. The first was because I barely slept the night before and was very tired at work. I decided to get a coffee to wake me up and had some cream in it as I can't choke down coffee black. I waited until I was hungry to do this but the dairy and the caffeine are factors that might throw off any results.

The second factor was that I wasn't very prepared since I decided to do this on the spur of the moment. I was okay at first hunger at noon and ate a chicken thigh. I was hungry again when I got home from work and ate four pepperoni slices (these are the "sandwich pepperonis" from the deli) wrapped around some goat cheese. I also had a little cheddar since I already blew the no dairy thing. I didn't want to eat a bunch so I would be okay for dinner but didn't have anything quick so settled for the processed meat. It didn't set off cravings but still not the best choice. I am going to try to have some ground beef I can scoop out or some eggs on hand.

At dinner, I was borderline on hunger. In retrospect, I probably could have waited. I sliced a thin steak off of my dry aging ribeye roast and ate that. It was probably a half inch thick, so it wasn't a lot.

One day isn't enough to tell me anything. I did feel a little dead doing the push ups last night but that isn't unusual for Mondays. I don't think it was because of eating less. I did feel a little leaner this morning but it might be my imagination. It's possible that there is less bloating because there is less food.

Feb 8, '10 Update

I didn't end up eating very well Saturday. My wife had been bugging me about a pack of all beef hot dogs in the freezer so when I finally got hungry Saturday I thought that sounded good for a change. They were less than a gram of carbs each so I figured that they would be okay, if not the best thing to have. Unfortunately, it was a bad move and it set off cravings. To kill the cravings, I ate dinner with the family a couple hours later, despite not being hungry. They were having "breakfast for dinner" so I had bacon and eggs. I ended up throwing in some cheese with the eggs. I got through the cravings okay but was stuffed up that night because of the dairy. No more hot dogs.

I figured that I wouldn't get hungry very early yesterday since I had eaten when I wasn't hungry the night before. To my surprise, though, I got hungry about 10 am. I had a ribeye that was about 12 oz. I also had a little goat cheese that I had found while shopping that morning. It was pretty good. I was starting to get hungry by 6 pm while making dinner for K and the boys so had about .4 pounds of baked ground beef with a little goat cheese on it. I was still a little stuffed up last night but it may still be the dairy from Saturday still in my system. I'll try the goat cheese again later in the week and see if it affects me.

I have been debating with myself about the best way to approach the eating when hungry issue. I am trying hard to eat only when physically hungry, even if it means missing dinner with the family. The thing that I am not sure about is how much to eat when I do get hungry.

When I lost almost 50 pounds doing Weigh Down, the idea was to eat a small amount when physically hungry. The idea was that if you wanted more, you just waited for the next hunger, which should be 4-5 hours later, if you ate the correct amount the time before.

When I started zero carb, it seemed that eating until you couldn't another bite was strongly encouraged and just eating a small amount when hungry was considered "restricting" and was frowned on. I have struggled with that from the beginning. My stomach isn't happy when I eat too much and I end up eating only once a day or getting hungry at odd times. However, I wanted to do ZC "right" and didn't want to screw something up.

I have decided now, though, to try eating the smaller amounts when hungry and just eat more often if I get hungry sooner from not eating so much. I made the hamburger bowls I take to work smaller this week and will just eat the pemmican I have stashed in the work fridge if I do get hungry again during the work day.

I am not trying to force weight loss or anything like that. What happens, though, is that I will get hungry around noon, eat a big lunch and then not be hungry at dinner time. I'll end up eating anyway just because the family is eating and I'll end up with more food than I need. What I am hoping for with eating the smaller meals is that I'll get hungry more often and be able to eat just enough.

Feb 4, '10 Update

Yesterday went really well. My hunger worked out perfectly. I was hungry early, about 8:30, and was stomach growling hungry for dinner at 6:30. I had a couple of left over boneless ribs and some meatballs (made from 2:1 ratio GB and Italian sausage) for first hunger and a thin cut ribeye off of my dry aging roast and a couple of chicken thighs for dinner.

I had good energy again yesterday though not exactly bouncing off of the walls or anything like that. I did get a trace of the headache back but it stayed just a trace, so not so bad.

I had been doing my push up routine three times a week but have decided to drop it to twice a week. I have added two days of the "200 Squats" routine instead. I started the routine last night and it went okay. My thighs kept wanting to cramp up between sets but would work out once I got going. That was kind of weird. My legs are a little sore this morning but not too bad. I do have to be careful on our stairs after the workout, though.

Feb 3, '10 Update

Yesterday was a much better day than Monday. I didn't get a recurrence of the headache and had much more energy. I got hungry a little earlier, around 10 am, and had ground beef. Again, at dinner, I wasn't full stomach growling hungry but ate a pork steak anyway. I had done my push up workout and was feeling tired. Eating a little helped. I just had the one steak (maybe 10 oz?) so it was enough to bring the energy back up but not too much, since I wasn't full hungry yet. Ideally, I would like to be getting hungry early in the morning and again at dinner but it is up to my body. I don't want to force it.

Because we were travelling last Friday and I had the headache Monday, I didn't do the push ups in almost a week. I thought the extra rest might help my recovery but it didn't turn out that way. Yesterday's workout was brutal. The amount I was supposed to do increased by 18 over the five sets. That's a big jump. I did all of them but had to break the sets up with a little more rest time. I'll keep repeating the day until I get through it. The next day's workout jumps another 17, so it's getting into the hard stage.

One thing about not weighing is I keep having this little voice in the back of my mind saying "but how do you measure your progress?" That's the diet mentality rearing it's ugly head. Progress should be "did I eat carbs today?" If not, and ate to hunger, than I was successful

Feb 2, '10 Update

One problem with not counting the days anymore is coming up with a title for the daily (or near daily) updates. unless I can figure out something clever in the future, I'll probably just title it with the date of the update. Boring...

Everything went pretty well yesterday. I didn't think I would get hungry yesterday until late but got full on, stomach growling hunger at noon and ate some ground beef. I was getting hungry by dinner but not growling yet. However, it was my birthday dinner, so ate anyway. I had a rack of ribs that I had cut out of my ribeye roast.

I was actually craving coffee and tea yesterday. I must have been having it more than I thought or it could have been because I was wanting the dairy that I have with those. I didn't have coffee, tea or dairy though. I don't know if not having those things caused it but I ended up with a brutal headache last night. It was one of those "curl up in the dark and try to keep your brains from leaking out your ears" headaches. I took a handful of ibuprofen and went to bed early. Fortunately, it is mostly gone this morning.

I ended up skipping my push up routine because of the headache. I have decided to try only doing it twice a week rather than three times. This old body was having trouble keeping up with the ever increasing amount with less recovery time. I am going to also do the same guys "200 squats" program on alternate days. Push ups on Mon/Thurs and squats on Tues/Fri.

A new mindset

I am not one for new year's resolutions but I do frequently make big changes around my birthday, probably because I tend to reflect on my life as I approach being another year older. An example of this was when I went gluten free on my birthday four years ago. That was a positive, life changing choice.

I now hope to make another one.

I have posted a lot lately on being frustrated about not losing more weight. I struggled (and lost that struggle) mightily over the holidays. I have screwed around with tweeks - dairy or no dairy, all beef, etc. I have perused other blogs looking for other tweeks that might work.

It finally hit me this last weekend that what I was doing was dieting! Despite my protestations to the contrary, I was still focusing on losing weight only. I still entertained occasional thoughts about relaxing ZC when I got to goal.

I think the daily weighing was keeping that alive. It was all about getting that lower number to show, despite knowing that a scale is terrible way to actually see what is going on in my body. When I wouldn't see a drop for awhile it made me want to do something different in an attempt to get it going the right way again. A month of beef and water with no loss made me question zero carb.

So - what I have decided to do for my birthday is to quit dieting. I have packed away the scale. I will stop counting the days that I have been ZC on my blog. I won't track my average weight any more.

I have to admit to myself that zero carb is what I have to do for my health - for life. I know there is a "one day at a time" mentality that is important to have but I have to realize that if I want to keep lifelong digestion problems at bay as well as keep feeling better than ever, this is what I have to do.

It is just like when I went gluten free four years ago. I didn't go into that thinking that I would go gluten free for a while and then add a little back in when I felt better. I just knew that my body didn't tolerate gluten and that was it. I know now, after attempting zero carb for ten months, that my body doesn't tolerate plant carbs and sugar either and that is it.

I didn't really struggle with no gluten but I did go through a mourning period. I don't expect to not struggle with carbs though and I imagine that there will be a mourning period, too.

For me to be successful at this, it can't just be a matter of not eating carbs because I feel a flatter stomach and don't want to lose that. That also keeps the diet mentality alive because I tell myself that if I eat carbs, I can just jump back on zero carb and lose anything I might gain by a foray into carb eating. Being zero carb, like being gluten free, is living in a way that maximizes my health and well being.

I have had so many improvements in my health since starting ZC, despite my occasional failings. I have effortlessly lost a bunch of fat. My blood pressure came way down. I have next to no inflammation in my body. My joints stopped hurting. I sleep better. I seem to muscle on faster. Some scary symptoms, like shortness of breath at times, went away. Very importantly, my stomach stopped hurting all of the time. None of this is worth giving up for chemically tasting ice cream and candy.

So, at the risk of sounding like I am still in diet mode, here is where I am now.

I have lost being in tune with my body. I have been eating pretty much the same thing at the same time every day - a hamburger bowl at first hunger and a steak at dinner. Charles says over and over that our bodies have different energy requirements each day so I am going back to really paying attention to my hunger and eat only when it shows up. If it means not eating dinner because I am not hungry and then getting up to eat at 2 am because I get hungry then, so be it.

The various issues that crop up when I eat cow's dairy are very annoying, so that is out again for now, except for butter. Because gluten intolerant people frequently also have issues with casein, I am thinking that I am sensitive to the casein and it is keeping my cravings alive. In fact, the reason I feel better on dairy, despite the other issues I have with it, may be because of the opioid effect that it has on those sensitive to it. A bit of the "hair of the dog", so to speak. In the future, if I decide I want some form of dairy, I will experiment with goat cheese as it doesn't have the same form of casein.

Going for now on the possibility of a bovine serum albumin (BSA)/casein sensitivity link, I am also going to add more variety of meats back in. Since it looks like BSA is denatured with cooking, I will cook my beef a little more too.

I am also packing away my tea for now. I don't drink it very often (2-3 times a week) so it isn't a big deal. However, my goal is to feel the best I possibly can, so I want to strip the extras away for now.

Feeling the best I can should help avoid those moments of carb weaknesses. Eating gluten for me is like introducing glass into my intestines. If I am feeling great on zero carb, introducing carbs should have similar effects on my well being, fat gain or loss notwithstanding. While I would love seeing my abs at the age of 46, remaining healthy into my later life is getting to be increasing important to me. I have full faith that zero carb is the golden ticket for keeping (and regaining) my health.