Blog D'arc

Sherman Loop Trail Hike

2011-08-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the boys and I did the Sherman Loop Trail hike. The trail starts off on South Kettle Crest #13, loops around Sherman Peak and returns on Sherman Loop Trail #72. We hiked from the trailhead in the parking area at Sherman Pass, which drops down into a gorge before climbing back up to cross Highway 20. That section provides quite the climb. It is also possible to follow the road out and pick up the trail directly off of the highway. I would do that if biking the trail. You also avoid a lot of mosquitoes in the marshy area at the bottom of the gorge by taking the road.

Click on the pictures for a larger view.

The trail starts out in thick, cool forest. On the middle tree, there is one of the many squirrels we came across. It wasn't pleased that were there and chattered at us the whole time we were there.

Sherman Peak is covered in these rock fields, which gives it a barren look.

The trail starts out steep. We stopped to rest so I got some pictures of the boys. I told Jake that he always looked out of it in the hiking pictures so I told him to look more intelligent. This is what he came up with.

The trail climbs up through the site of the White Mountain Fire.

Heading into the burned area. Sherman Peak and the ridge connected to it form a bowl. Most of that area burned.

Looking down into the bowl. it's coming back slowly.

There are still a lot of old snags in the area. The burn site wasn't logged afterward so most of the dead stuff has fallen, providing a lot of fuel for the next fire.

The mountain in the background, in the middle, is Wapaloosie, where we hiked last time. The mountain to the left is Columbia Mountain.

Looking up at Sherman Peak.

The trail loops around in front of Sherman Peak and then climbs the ridge. The boys are taking a break here after the steep climb.

The dead snags looming overhead were kind of eerie.

The trail on the ridge, looking toward Sherman Peak. You can cross country here to go to the top but there is no official trail.

The trail on the ridge was lined with lupine. It smelled great.

Butterflies on the wildflowers.

The back side of the mountain had more meadows and was less rocky. There were tons of wildflowers. That's Snow Mountain in the background.

We found a great place to rest for a while. It was shady and the pass between Sherman Peak and Snow Mountain funneled the breeze along there so it was nice and cool.

We met up to Sherman Loop Trail #72 on the Northwest side of the mountain. There was a great view but the terrain was less interesting. The road below is Highway 20 heading toward Republic.

There were areas where the young trees were so thick that it was like going through a maze. You couldn't see very far up the trail. Fortunately, there were no bears or cougars hiding in there.

Looking at the backside of Wapaloosie and Columbia Mountains.

Sherman Lake. We didn't go to the lake because it looked like a mosquito haven.

Wapaloosie Mountain hike

2011-08-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, the boys and I decided to try hiking the Wapaloosie Mountain trail. Wapaloosie Mountain is one of the taller peaks in the Kettles. The trail is fairly steep, rising about 1800 feet in a little over mile.

It's a popular trail with horseback riders and mountain bikers. Considering how steep and rocky the trail is, the mountain bikers who ride it must be excellent riders in fantastic shape.

(click on the pictures for bigger versions)

Garret and Jake at the trailhead

The trail starts off innocently enough in a lush forest.

However, it starts to get steep pretty quickly. Fortunately, it gets steep in sections, so you climb for a while and then the trail flattens out, allowing you to catch your breath. With the rocks, the steep sections are almost like climbing stairs in spots.

Here are the boys after one of the last of the steep sections.

After about a mile and half, the trail leaves the forest and hits an alpine meadow. With the cool, wet summer we have had, there were still a lot of wildflowers. Normally, it would be too dry by August.

The view was amazing, too.

The tall peak in the distance is Sherman Peak near Sherman Pass.

I had promised Garret that we would only go 2 miles so we turned back at that point. The trail continues on another .7 miles, where it joins up to Kettle Crest Trail #13. At that point, there is another short hike to the top of Wapaloosie Mountain. That will be a hike for another day.

What I Have Learned So Far and Where I Will Go Now

2010-04-30T16:28:00.000-07:00

It was about a month ago that I wrote my "confession" post and got serious again about not succumbing to the cravings. I have done fairly well through that time but it has been a frustrating time as my weight has not responded at all. I had assumed that I would return, at least, to my pre-"carb bloat" weight of around 172. Instead, I have been stuck fluctuating between 176 and 178.

Because of this, I spent alot of time soul searching about whether to stay zero carb. As Kristina and Karen have both mentioned, the thoughts of "why am I doing this if it isn't working" keep rearing their ugly heads. I also read a lot of low carb and paleo blogs and most of them are pretty adamant that you don't have to go to zero on the carbs to be healthy. That works on you, too, when things aren't going your way. I'll have to admit that I have strongly considered going a more paleo route.

With all of the soul searching, I keep coming back to something that is a foundational belief for me - for me to lose weight and be healthy, I [b]must[/b] eat only small amounts when physically hungry. Anything that interferes with that will keep me from my goals. With that in mind, here is what I learned over the last year+ (actually more like eleven years+):

Carbs, even "paleo" carbs like nuts and low starch veggies, screw up my hunger by making it harder to stop eating when satisfied.

Caffeine masks my hunger signals, making it harder to tell when I am physically hungry.

My body doesn't seem to take well to consuming calories in liquid form. Even if I wait until I am hungry to take in food that way, like cream in coffee, it messes up my hunger signal the rest of the day. This is true even with decaf coffee or if I do a shake (cream and egg), so it isn't just the caffeine from the coffee.

Dairy doesn't mess me up unless it's in a liquid form and I eat it with eggs or meat (the raw form seems to help with the sinus issues but I am talking hunger signals here).

Too much fat interferes with hunger frequency. It takes longer to get hungry and I get tempted to do things like eat with my family when I am not hungry. If I eat the right amount, I tend to be hungry mid-morning and then again around dinner time. I am not talking about low fat but just stuff like not snacking on the butter while cooking my steak or draining a little of the stuff that cooks out of the hamburger. I assume that my body will let me know if I don't get enough fat.

With all of that in mind, it is obvious what I have to do to get to where I want to be. Eating only when hungry is paramount and zero carb is the tool to achieve it. The health benefits are nice but they aren't my main concern at the moment, to be completely honest.

Since tomorrow is May 1, I am going to consider it as Day 1 of phase 2 of my zero carb journey. I spent the first 13 months screwing around and learning what worked and what didn't. Now it's time to implement all of that knowledge and actually do it. I am not eating carbs or anything like that today; it's just that May 1 is easier to remember than April 30.

Musings about dairy

2010-04-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

My best period of weight loss on ZC was the period between Sept and Nov of last year. During that time, I lost weight and didn't have cravings. I was meat, water and a little black tea only during this period.

The problem, though, was that I never felt great. I kept waiting for the boost of energy everyone talks about and it didn't come. When I added dairy back on our trip over Thanksgiving, I felt really good. My energy level came up and I just felt better.The only problem was I started getting stuffed up, the cravings started and my weight loss slowed.

After I fell off of the wagon over Christmas and New Years', I vowed to get back on track and went beef and water only (I misspoke about this month earlier in my journal). The cravings subsided and I dropped the weight I had put on over the holidays. However, the familiar rundown feeling returned. I also didn't go any lower than pre-holiday weight. Unfortunately, I fell off the wagon again over my birthday the first of February and that is when my weekly struggles began that I journaled about earlier and finally overcame again a month ago.

Since getting back on to ZC a month ago, I keep trying different things to see if it is possible to have some form of dairy so that I feel better but without the cravings, stuffiness and with being able to lose weight. Have my cake and eat it, too, so to speak.

At first, I suspected carrageenan in cream but it didn't change things when I found cream without it. Then I thought perhaps it was the casein and tried goat dairy because it has a different form of casein that is not supposed to bother us as much. The cravings subsided with that but it stuffed me up as much.

The latest thought from reading around is that it is pasteurized dairy that is the problem. I have read quite a few people that claim that they were stuffed up with pasteurized dairy but not raw. Since I can get it fairy easily, I figured I would give it a shot.

I just started this week so it is too early to tell anything yet. I am still stuffed up but it takes a little while to get it out of my system. My energy levels are good and I am not as tired as I was last week when I was trying to do no dairy. I haven't had any cravings since starting but it is still early. One problem I do have is that the raw milk is pretty good and I want to get in to it more than I should but it is also new and a bit of a novelty, so that may play a part.

As for why dairy makes me feel so much better? I don't know. It could be an addict getting his fix, though three months of no dairy didn't help in that regard. I don't think it's the extra fat because I eat very fatty meats as it is. If I have dairy, I eat less meat, so it isn't additional fat. To be honest, I am starting to wonder if it isn't just raising the baseline carb intake just a little.

I am also thinking I may have to grin and bear it going meat only until I am at a reasonable weight and then look at dairy as a maintenance item, like Charles is doing. I am going to give the raw dairy a little more time to see what happens before I do that.

April 21, 2010 update

2010-04-21T08:05:00.001-07:00

Yesterday went pretty well. I wanted coffee all morning but resisted. I had a bit of a headache all morning. Strangely, I was also sleepy all day despite getting a decent night's sleep the night before. I assume it's because I am still working the caffeine out of my system.

I ate a burger bowl early on when I got hungry. I was kind of getting hungry again by the time I got home from work but held off until dinner time when I had a thick ribeye off of my slab. I had been worried that this slab wasn't going to be as good because they had trimmed so much fat off of the side. However, it is very nicely marbled and not nearly as dry as the last two slabs were. It's only been aging two weeks but is disappearing at an alarming rate.

I had no dairy yesterday, of any kind. I was still pretty stuffed up last night but I imagine it will take some time to work out of my system.

My weight was down slightly, .2 pounds. That is essentially holding but better than what it was doing last week at this time - going up.

April 14, 2010 Update

2010-04-14T10:04:00.001-07:00

As I have mentioned before, I didn't have a clean week all through January, February and March of this year. I would be ZC from Saturday or Sunday through Thursday and then fail on Friday and/or Saturday. During this time, my weight would fluctuate from 175-ish right after a carb up down to around 171 by Thursday. It did this like clock-work.

My last carb up was March 27, when my wife and I celebrated our anniversary by eating at a Thai restaurant and then having some Easter candy and ice cream later that day. My weight shot up to 179 the next day, followed by 181 the next day!

I returned to ZC after that, except for the Diet Pepsi, and I expected the weight to drop back off like it had been doing. I dropped down to the 176 - 177 range but it hasn't wanted to budge since. Since the difference was in the Diet Pepsi, I felt that the Diet Pepsi was holding my weight up so I stopped drinking it last Friday. It has been six days and the weight is still holding and, in fact, has been slowly increasing over the last three days.

I kind of remembered my weight doing something similar last time, so I went back and reread my journal from last September through the first of November. I had remembered the weight going up right after giving up DP but then dropping off really quickly after that. It wasn't quite that simple, though. It looks like I better expect to stay at the higher weight for a while.

I gave up DP and all AS on September 18. My weight started to creep up after that and peaked after about a week (where I am now). After 10 days, the extra weight dropped off and I was back to where I started. On September 29, I dropped all dairy.

My weight dropped a couple of pounds after that but I held it for almost three weeks. On October 22, I started losing again. This loss turned into an almost six pound loss in a week.

Carbs are bad enough but it looks like carbs plus Diet Pepsi is lethal, weight-wise. I probably really dicked myself this time. All I can do is to stay ZC and wait it out and hopefully remember this next time I want to be stupid.

April 12 2010 Update - Starting Year 2

2010-04-12T06:39:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, April 11, was one year since I started down the carnivorous path. I wish I could say I have been ZC the entire time but, of course, I haven't. Still, I have seen a lot of health improvements along the way and am thankful for this way of life. My goal for the next year is to stay the path.

In keeping to that goal, I made it another week ZC. There were fewer cravings and temptations this weekend and eating wasn't a problem. I still haven't been very hungry. I'm not really sure where my appetite went.

Confession time #2 - about a month ago, I started drinking Diet Pepsi again. At first, it was just here or there. I started drinking it pretty heavily two weeks ago, about the time I got back on track food-wise. As before, I get no carb cravings from it and this time, I didn't get dizzy. However, I wasn't losing the "temporary weight gain" from my last carb up and I figured that had to be because of the soda because the food was in order.

I had always planned on dropping it again and finally decided to last Friday. I had my last one Thursday night. I had expected a day of headaches but didn't expect anything too bad because the withdrawals weren't that bad when I gave it up seven months ago and I hadn't been back on it very long.

I was wrong. I was useless Friday and Saturday and was extremely sick. Besides the vicious headache, I just felt ill in general. I woke up Sunday feeling better, which was good because I didn't think I could stand another day like Saturday. I had the headache come back for a while on Sunday afternoon but I think I am on the downside of it.

It was interesting that when I first started having one here and there, it was actually not that good, which is why I didn't go whole hog at first. Then, one day it started tasting great again. Thinking on that, I now believe that once it starts tasting good is when you are hooked again. It's like your body is now dependent and changes your brain to think that it tastes wonderful so that you want it more. I have heard that smokers go through the same thing - at first it makes them want to puke and then, after a while, smoking tastes great. I hope I remember this next time I think it's okay to "have just one". Currently, I am not tempted to "have just one" because I don't want to go through another weekend like this last one.

I spent most of the weekend on the couch, trying to keep my brain from leaking out of my eyes. Unfortunately, all that laying around aggravated my back and now it really hurts. It has gone from being just in my lower left back to now going from that spot, down my hip to the front of my thigh. It is very sore. Hopefully it will loosen up soon as I get to moving around again.

So anyway - here is where I am now. No caffeine, no cow dairy, very limited goat dairy, water and meat, mostly beef. I think that should get me going into year 2 nicely.

April 8, 2010 update

2010-04-08T06:43:00.001-07:00

My first day of no dairy and coffee went well. I didn't have any cravings for it and my energy levels were actually up a bit. It may just be that I am getting past the induction flu stage.

My hunger levels are still really low. I think I am going to go back to eating strictly to hunger (or to any cravings). I will watch it carefully in case the craving rear their ugly heads again. I was hungry early yesterday and had some ground beef around 8 am. I was feeling kinda, sorta but not really hungry around 2 pm and ate one boneless short rib. I wasn't hungry by dinner time and wasn't going to eat. However, when I cut a ribeye steak off for K, I decided to do a thin one for me, too. It was really good, so maybe I was hungrier than I thought.

My weight was down slightly this morning. However, my body really seems to want to hold on to the weight I gained after my last carb up a couple of weeks ago. It is coming off really slowly.

April 7, 2010 Update - Dairy goes bye-bye

2010-04-07T05:55:00.001-07:00

Well, today is the day that the dairy and coffee go. I had planned on finishing out the week. However, yesterday I suddenly just didn't want it any more. I got rid of the rest of the HWC and packed up all of my coffee making stuff at work and took it home.

The coffee and HWC was messing with my hunger signals. I always waited until I was hungry to have it but I was rarely hungry the rest of the day after having it. However, cream alone for fuel was upsetting my stomach. Then, if I ate some meat, I would feel overstuffed. It became too much screwing around. Like Mel says - KISS - so it goes.

I did engage in a little "last supper" eating last night with some cheese. It didn't affect my weight as I was down a little this morning but I woke up completely stuffed up and kept sneezing this morning. It's kind of a relief to have it go.

Dairy is definitely my "bad girlfriend". I keep going back to it, each time hoping that "this time" will be different but finding out that after the initial pleasure, it isn't good for me.

April 6, 2010 update

2010-04-06T11:04:00.001-07:00

Nothing particularly interesting to report but I want to keep journalling so that I stay on track.

I'm still on track and haven't had any cravings lately. I thought about a handful of nuts Sunday afternoon but it was easy to ignore the thoughts and stay clean.

It is a little frustrating that the weight is coming off veeeeeeeery slowly. I think it is because I have been more worried about eating only animal products and not worried about eating to hunger. I am actually not very hungry at all but I have been trying to eat with meals so that the cravings stay at bay. Once I feel a little more comfortable about the cravings staying away, I am definitely going back to eating only when physically hungry. I feel better doing that.

I am still dragging a bit too, so I think I am still going through induction flu. I hope to snap out of that soon.

April 5, 2010 update - Made it through a week!

2010-04-05T06:25:00.001-07:00

I had a really busy weekend, so I didn't get a chance to post much.

The food part went pretty well. I stayed zero carb the whole weekend, though I ate way too much dairy. I think I was engaging in a little "last supper" eating as I know I have to cut it out and I really don't want to.

I was answering a question last week and wrote that the only difference between the time I was doing well and the time I was struggling was the reintroduction of dairy at Thanksgiving. I hadn't thought it through that clearly, so it was a bit of a light bulb moment. So, now that I hit my first goal of making it through a week staying zero carb, now my next goal is to clean it up some and get rid of the dairy and the caffeine, while staying zero carb, of course. I am still not worried about eating to hunger as I want to make sure the cravings don't get out of control again.

I am only down about three pounds for the last week. My weight was up a bit this morning but it was probably due to the salt in the ham we had for Easter dinner last night. It was pretty good ham and I ate more than I should have.

April 1, 2010 update

2010-04-01T09:01:00.001-07:00

As I have said before, Monday through Thursday is not normally a problem for me. It's when I am home on the weekends that I have problems. However, I seem to have a different mindset this week and I am feeling pretty good about staying ZC. I don't know if it is because I have been journalling about my struggles or because it has been really relaxed at home (since the boys are gone) but whatever it is, I like it. The proof is in the pudding, of course. I still have to get through the weekend.

I haven't been very hungry lately. I had a hamburger bowl late yesterday, about 2 pm, and then I basically forgot about dinner. Around 7:30, K wasn't forgetting about dinner, so I cooked up a tri-tip for her and I. I wasn't really hungry at the time but it was a very good steak, one of the best I have had in a while.

I was down another 1.4 pounds though I am still heavier than last week.

March 31, 2010 Update

2010-03-31T06:10:00.001-07:00

Yesterday went well. I had back ribs for lunch and boneless short ribs for dinner. The short ribs were from WinCo and were a different kind than we get locally. They were much more like chuck steaks and had spots that were so tough you couldn't chew it completely. However, they were very tasty and the fat on them was very good.

I haven't been eating at full hunger as I am not fully trusting my hunger signals at the moment. Until the carbs are out of my system, I will eat when I feel it coming on but not wait until full, stomach growling hunger. I will return to that after I get over the cravings.

I thought of another reason that I have been having problems on Friday. I work at home on Friday and spend most of the morning on the computer in my office. I like to take a break at noon so I would wait to eat until then, even if I got hungry earlier (that way I could eat while watching Perry Mason). I think waiting that long was helping to set up the cravings. This Friday, I think I will try to eat something early and then follow my hunger the rest of the day to see if that helps me get through the day without caving to cravings.

I was down 3.8 pounds this morning (1.4 pounds from Monday). Whoosh goes the water weight.

March 30, 2010 Update

2010-03-30T06:44:00.001-07:00

Monday through Thursday is never really the problem for me when eating ZC, so it isn't surprising that yesterday went well. I don't really have a food plan other than ZC but I am trying to stick with just meat. After the big steak off of my dry aging ribeye slab last night, I really wanted a piece of cheese but resisted. I ended up feeling stuffed after a little while, so I definitely didn't need it.

I don't know why I always want that little extra of something after eating my meat for dinner. It isn't always a carb craving; I just feel like I want something different than the meat I just had. It is probably habit more than anything.

I woke up early this morning - 3 AM instead of 4 AM. I laid there for a bit but finally got up and came into work early. I have a headache this morning and I was also hot, so there was no going back to sleep. I am dreading the headache that is coming. Stupid carbs.

I was up a couple of pounds this morning. It was probably from weighing earlier than usual after a later than usual dinner as well as the last of last weekends carbs in my system. I know that it will come back down if I get my act together but it is still distressing to see the 180's again.

Reboot time, again

2010-03-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

This has been a tough post to write. I have started it several times and deleted it and keep putting it off. It is time, though, to get it out.

I have written several times over the last few months about my struggles but I haven't put out any details. However, it is now confession time because I haven't been able to reign myself in through health and weight concerns so it is now time to try public humiliation.

I haven't had a clean week of eating since the first of the year. I start every Sunday with the best of intentions to get back on ZC. Every week, it's "this week is going to be the week I go back to full time ZC". I do great and then become possessed on Friday and/or Saturday and eat nuts or get into the ice cream. I then repent of my deeds and regain control and swear off carbs forever and then the whole cycle repeats.

Every

Friggin'

Week

I have also engaged in behavior that scares me. I have binged on ice cream in secret, even hiding the empty container in the trash and washing all of my dishes so that K wouldn't know. I have also seriously considered purging after a binge, pretty much only being stopped by the fact that I have never been able make myself puke. This behavior scares the hell out of me and I don't know why I am heading down that road. It's like if no one else knows what I am doing, then it didn't happen.

So here I am, hat in hand, at the beginning of another week, determined to go ZC again and stop the idiocy. I am going to stop doing this in secret and go for full disclosure so that if I screw up, everyone will know. I am going to post about everything, so if you don't want to see a grown man flailing, bitching and complaining, you better avoid my blog for awhile.

So why do I think it is going to work this time?

For one thing, I saw this morning that I am now a full 10 pounds heavier than my low and am bumping back up against 180 lbs. It's time to stop the slide.

I also had an epiphany last week. I have been struggling since the beginning of the year, as mentioned, and two things happened at that time that is probably affecting me.

I had cheated on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day (but not in between those days). The holidays' indulgence had caused me to put on a few pounds so I decided that I was going to very carefully eat to hunger as I got back on track with ZC. I was going to eat small amounts when I got hungry and then rely on getting hungry more often to make sure I got enough fuel.

I also started my push up routine (and later added the squat routine). This workout routine really helped to put on muscle and I felt a lot better physically even doing mundane things like climbing stairs and bending down to get something out of the lower cupboards.

I think that the problem was that I was doing something that was requiring more fuel (putting on muscle) while cutting back on fuel intake. I relied on my hunger signals to make sure I was getting enough fuel but it didn't work for some reason. I didn't get hungry more often. Instead, my body started screaming for more food in the form of cravings, probably because I had upset my insulin levels with the holiday cheats. I would end up cheating after four or five days. I would actually feel like a passenger in my body as it would go onto autopilot and start eating stuff it shouldn't.

Of course, I would feel terrible about it and vow to get even stricter with eating to hunger and being ZC and start the whole process over. I think it has been a vicious cycle.

So - I feel that I might finally be able to end that cycle. I have started eating more when I get hungry. I am also not fully trusting my hunger signals at the moment because my insulin is so unsettled. If I start craving, I am going to eat. A little while ago, I suddenly got very sleepy and decided to eat instead of ride it through like I normally do. The sleepiness went away.

Right now, I am not concerned about weight loss or gain. I simply want to string enough consecutive ZC days together to get my insulin under control and get the cravings to stop. If I have to overeat meat to do that, I will for now. I think my hunger signals will straighten themselves out once my insulin is back under control and I can trust them more at that point.

I have to do this not only for myself but for my boys. They are drifting towards ZC but they see me cheating (not everything, but enough). That isn't being a good role model for them.

March 5, '10 Update

2010-03-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

know it probably won't sound like it with the rest of this post, but I am really starting to feel that my mind is getting back to what I call my zero carb zen state. I had that from September through November and did great. I ate just meat and didn't worry about things and everything worked great.

I got thrown off track during the holidays and since that time, I keep going through periods of cravings and doubts about the sustainability of this way of eating. However, after a nice discussion with Kelly and Caitlin the other day along with reading Mel's posts on keeping things simple, I am feeling myself get that mindset back and am feeling much more optimistic about being able to continue ZC. As I said before, it is easier said than done, but I think I am getting there.

Okay, now for the obsessive part. Last weekend, I determined for sure that the milk protein casein affects me similarly to gluten. I did some research and found testimony that some people sensitive to casein can get away with dairy that is low casein, like butter and heavy whipping cream. Butter has never affected me in any way and I have contnued to use it, even during my "dairy free" periods.

I decided to see how cream alone would work, since it was supposedly low in casein. I don't really have any use for heavy cream except in coffee and tea, so I had coffee the last two days along with an organic heavy cream whose ingredients included only cream and carrageenan. It was the purest I could fine. I included the coffee with cream with my meals when I was hungry so that I wasn't eating outside of hunger.

It turns out that it is no dice with respect to the cream. It didn't necessarily bother my stomach (that could be the coffee) but my sinuses seriously clogged up after both nights I had it with no other dairy. I could keep trying things like goat milk, raw dairy and stuff like but I am not going to. I throw up my hands in surrender. Non-butter dairy doesn't work for me even outside the constraints of zero carb, not to mention that it is stupid to keep trying to add back coffee while everyone else on ZIOH is trying to kick it. I will say that part of the reason behind having coffee was that the warm weather has kicked off horrendous cravings for Diet Pepsi that have had me climbing the walls.

Yesterday, I packed up all of my coffee making paraphernalia and took it home. Some of it is going into the garage sale pile. For some really odd reason (probably because I am really odd), I never get tempted to make coffee at home, only at work. I can't stomach any of the coffee I can get close to work, so now I am done. Fini.

There is some proof that gluten and casein can act like opioids in those that are intolerant to them. I am really starting to believe it. Gluten wasn't that hard for me to give up but dairy has been a bitch. I keep acting like an addict looking for one tiny fix or some way to keep the supply coming without somehow affecting me otherwise. I never eat a lot at a time - a slice of cheese after dinner or a splash of cream in my tea - but I want it every day. It's like an alcoholic that only drinks a couple of beers but has to have it every day. I think this finally explains why I feel better when I include dairy - I'm getting my fix.

Unfortunately, like any other opioid, the only way to get over it is to get it out of your system. I think if I can make it through the weekend and the next couple of weeks without a fix, I can finally get through all of this BS that I have been going through since the holidays.

March 2, '10 Update

2010-03-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a good day. First hunger hit earlier than expected - about 8 am - and I had one of my 1/4 pound burger bowls. I wasn't hungry again until after my squat workout. Dinner was still an hour off, so I scrambled up a couple of eggs and threw in a handful of ground beef. I had been eating a couple of hard boiled eggs when hitting a "mini-hunger" but dropped that. I can seriously cook two eggs faster than I can peel the hard-boiled eggs.

Even though I wasn't hungry again, I ate dinner an hour and a half later. The eggs hadn't really filled me up, so I figured it was okay. K had done up a pork shoulder roast in the crock pot. I pulled off a hunk of it, mashed it up and mixed it with some of the juices. It was a bit salty because she had put some Italian seasonings on it but it was really good. It was the first non-bacon pork that I had enjoyed in quite a while. My weight was down a little this morning, so the salt wasn't a big deal.

I was reading Charles' journal yesterday where he was talking about eating dinner until he was stuffed and still dropping weight. Mats also mentioned it. I have been eating smaller amounts when hungry and don't really eat much. I have been a bit concerned that I don't eat enough, especially with my workouts.

Old advice from before ZC that you can't put on muscle without an excess of calories is rattling around my brain. I don't worry about calories but I also haven't really seen an increase in hunger from the workouts. I have been wondering, though, if the cravings aren't at least partly caused by not eating enough for the workouts. I had the cravings before I started consciously eating smaller amounts but I have never really eaten a lot since starting ZC, especially compared to what I read on ZIOH.

Of course, I also realize I am obsessing again, so I'm not really going to try to change anything at the moment, other than really treat cravings as hunger. If I start wanting some nuts after dinner, I am just going to eat more dinner and stop trying to white knuckle my way through the cravings. Other than that, I'll just keep eating meat when physically hungry.

March 1, '10 Update

2010-03-01T10:26:00.001-08:00

Not much to report these days. I am still dealing with cravings but I think it is getting better. I wasn't too good about the "no dairy" thing this weekend but I have definitely determined that I don't tolerate casein well so that should help keep me away from dairy now that it is firmly in my mind. It worked with gluten once I knew for sure that I couldn't tolerate it. Nothing tastes so good that it is worth putting up with a constant upset and/or painful stomach.

I have also realized that I have been putting too much time and effort into this. Like I said before, I keep trying to go with what I can get away with instead of just going with the flow and just eating meat when hungry without obsessing over it. I am not sure how to turn it off and "just do it" but it is something for me to be aware of.

On the positive side, we had a beautiful weekend. It was sunny and in the low 50's with no wind. On Saturday, I got our bikes out and cleaned them up and got them ready to ride this season. Then the boys and I went out and rode for about three hours, hitting some of the light trails near our house. It was a blast.

The amazing thing to me was how well I did physically, considering I hadn't ridden at all since last summer and I didn't do so well then. I barely rode last summer because I just struggled with getting enough air and would get winded way too easily. I didn't have that problem Saturday at all. There was one long, steep hill near the end of the ride that I got a stitch in my side on but I recovered pretty quickly. I have ZC and my push-ups/squats to thank for that, I believe.

February 25, '10 Update

2010-02-25T06:33:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-19T07:24:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-18T07:04:00.000-08:00

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)

2010-02-13T14:44:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-10T06:33:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-09T07:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-08T08:36:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-03T14:24:00.001-08:00

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

2010-02-02T06:55:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T08:32:00.001-08:00

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.

Day 292

2010-01-28T08:30:00.001-08:00

Not much to report. Still eating ribeyes and 80/20 ground beef along with a little cheese and cream. My weight bounced back up into the 171's after being in the 169's over the weekend. That isn't unusual for mid-week, though.

I am finding that dairy is a two edged sword for me. I feel much better and have more energy. I had hit a wall last week with my pushup routine and absolutely blasted through it this week after adding dairy back in.

All that is great, plus I like it, but on the flip side, I am more stuffed up and sneezy. My weight loss also seems to come to a halt, at least temporarily.

If I knew what was 1. causing the energy and strength boost and 2. causing the sinus distress, I would know what to do. The energy may come from an increase in fat but when I don't eat dairy, I eat undrained 80/20 gb and untrimmed ribeyes. I would think I am getting plenty of fat. Maybe it's coming from the very slight increase in carbs? I wouldn't think so but don't know. I don't think it is from the increased calcium.

As for the sinus stuff, is it caused by the milk protein casein, the milk sugar lactose or something else inherent in dairy? If it is lactose, aged cheese should be okay because it is supposed to be low in lactose. If it is casein, cheese is probably out but cream may be okay because I believe it is low protein. If it's something else, I am screwed and will have to figure out how to keep the energy level without it.

I think the cream is more of a problem for me. For one thing, I like it best in coffee and black tea (unsweetened). The caffeine may be why the weight loss stops. It also messes with my hunger if I have it earlier in the day. For now, I think I will drop the cream once I run out and see how it goes.

Day 289

2010-01-25T08:29:00.001-08:00

I hadn't had any dairy since Jan 3 but have really been wanting some cheese lately. I ended up eating some cheese with some burgers Saturday night and on my hamburger bowls yesterday. It really hit the spot and didn't seem to cause any problems. It's funny how some times I can take it or leave it and other times, it is something I really want and tastes really good. I don't go crazy with it when I do it eat, so I don't think it's big deal to phase in and out of my diet.

My weight has finally been dropping a little, with it going back into the 160's a couple of times over the last few days. I was 169.4 lbs on Saturday and 169.8 lbs this morning. Hopefully this trend will continue.

My hunger has been acting really strange lately. Instead of the familiar sensation of hunger that I usually get, I will just get tired and a bit light headed. I have also been extra tired lately and kind of dragging around. I think I am getting enough fat, so it just may be because it's late January (a bit of SAD).

Day 283

2010-01-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, while doing our weekly grocery shopping, I was in the meat dept, checking out the pork shoulder steaks. It seems like a lot of folks here eat them. They were fairly cheap and looked very fatty. However, the thought of eating them turned my stomach. I just can't get my head back around to eating large slabs of pork.

That said, dinner last night was pork riblets. These are long time favorites and very fatty. I used to love them but they were pretty much "meh" last night. They upset my stomach a bit, too, though that might have been the Frank's sauce they were marinated in. Pork is way cheaper than ribeyes; I wish I could get myself to eat it.

The other weird thing that happened at the store was a sudden craving for Oreo's when I walked by a stand of them. That actually brought me up short because, for one thing, I couldn't eat them even if I wasn't ZC because of the gluten. The other thing is that I don't even really like Oreo's. The cream filling was good but the cookie part kind of sucked. The cookie part always tasted chemical-ly to me. Just a drive-by craving, I guess. I went home and ate a ribeye.

I started week three of my pushup routine. The numbers I had to do took a big jump. I made it through (barely) though the last set had to be broken up a little to get them all done. I am thinking that I am hitting the wall of being up to adapt to the increases each day that I do it. I don't think that has anything to do with ZC. I think it has to do with being 45 and out of shape. Still, I am amazed I have kept up so far.

Day 279

2010-01-15T10:15:00.001-08:00

After thinking yesterday that I might only be hungry once that day, I ended up getting first hunger pretty early - about 9:30. I had a hamburger bowl at that point. I wasn't really hungry the rest of the day until around 7 pm. K was cooking dinner for her and the boys and the smell and thoughts of food triggered my hunger.

K had bought some steaks for the boys. J didn't want his so that is what I had. They were cross rib steaks, which I think must be some form of round steak. They were way too lean and not very tasty. We have used cross rib roasts for stew meat and they work very well in that capacity. However, plain, they aren't so good. It actually kind of bothered my stomach, so I had two small chicken thighs to add some fat. That worked, though I felt kind of out of sorts the rest of the evening.

The scale is still moving in the right direction. This morning, I was down to 170.4 lbs. That is still 1.4 pounds higher than my low in December, but better than the 172 I have been at since New Years'. Adding in the uncertainty caused by the resistance exercises I am doing and everything is working well again. The funny thing is that the little extra bulk I am getting in the shoulders and chests is making me feel fatter than I look in the mirror.

Day 277

2010-01-13T08:10:00.001-08:00

I am finally seeing some progress on the scales again. I was down about a pound and a half this morning. I am still close to two pounds over my low but I think I am heading in the right direction again.

I think part of the problem is that I have been seriously detoxing over the last week. It's almost like going back to the start of ZC again. I have had some breakouts and have smelled weird at times (TMI). I have also been "sneezy" like my hay fever has kicked in, which is odd for this time of the year. Yesterday, I also had a vicious headache that lasted all day. I went to bed early because of it but it woke my up at 2 AM. I had to stumble downstairs to take a handful of ibuprofen. That knocked it back but I can still feel the ghost of it.

Food is going well. I am eating ground beef at first hunger and ribeyes at night. I am still working out the night part as I am not generally in full hunger but getting close enough that I would probably be woken up at night by hunger so I tend to eat my steak later in the evening. I think what may eventually work out is that I won't be eating more than once every other day.

It almost worked that way yesterday. I wasn't hungry until almost 12:30 pm. I ate a hamburger bowl at that time and wasn't hungry the rest of the day. However, I ended up eating a small hamburger bowl last night because my stomach was unsettled from the migraine and I was feeling a bit run down because I had given blood at 3 o'clock.

What I would like to have happen is to be hungry early one day and then be hungry again late in that day. Then the next day be hungry later in the day and get hungry just once that day. It would make it more concrete on when to eat and not have these unknowns at night. But - whatever. I am not going to force anything and I'll just go with the flow here.

Day 269

2010-01-05T06:42:00.000-08:00

I'm getting back in the swing of things. I was hungry early yesterday for some reason and ate a hamburger bowl about 8 am. I was hungry by the time I got home and ate the last of my ribeye roast that I have been working on for the last week. Other than a slight headache, I feel pretty good.

I am bummed that my ribeye roast is gone and so are the holiday prices for them. I have several packs of cut ribeyes that I got on markdown ($3.78/pound) for the rest of the week but cutting the steaks off the roast as it air dried was pretty good. Also, 80/20 ground beef was on sale here for $1.58/pound. I have been using it for my hamburger bowls. However, it has been disappointing. It is very lean for 80/20 so it doesn't taste that great. I can't get any fattier ground beef unless I get the chubs. I like the fresh ground better so I'll just add butter to this to get through it and then go back to buying my ground beef at the other store (Safeway), which has much better ground beef.

I have been feeling antsy lately so have been looking for ways to be more active. The weather has been horrible, so I can't ride my bike. I have been doing some DDR on and off and will probably continue that.

I was thinking about getting back into some of the Physical Culture stuff and stumbled on to this website - 100 Pushups. On a whim, I decided to see if I could accomplish this. I have never been particularly strong or good at pushups (I have long arms, for one thing, which changes the leverage) so it will be a challenge. When I did basic training at age 17, the best I did on my PT test was 42 pushups in two minutes. I was in great shape then but ate horribly, so we'll see if ZC can make a difference to this now 45 year old.

Day 268

2010-01-04T09:20:00.001-08:00

Thank God the holidays are over.

I don't think I was mentally prepared for eating ZC through the holidays. I wrote beforehand how holidays were so entwined around food and how different they would be without all of the treats. I thought I was ready for that and it wouldn't be an issue. However, when the rubber actually hit the road, I ate off plan way too much.

The strange thing was that I was fine in the day to day. The treats available at work or just around weren't a problem. The problem came with the "traditions", times when doing something with the family had always included treats. Those were the times I caved, unfortunately.

Well, the holidays and those traditions are over for the year and the good thing is that I have nearly a year to prep for them next time. I will also know what to expect and how to handle them different. It is time to come up with new traditions, too, I think.

Thinking back to before Thanksgiving, I think I have also pinpointed another culprit. I had been doing meat and water only for nearly three months and was feeling great and really slimming down. We went down to K's parents' place for Thanksgiving and I added dairy back into the mix because it made it easier to deal with the lean and tasteless meat eating at someone else's place. I pretty much instantly felt different and had more cravings after that.

It is pretty clear that dairy is a gateway drug to me. I do fine with it physically, except for my sinuses. However, mentally, I feel more on the edge. That great feeling I had before Thanksgiving I call my ZC Zen. Zero carb is just effortless at that point. However, add in the dairy, and that good feeling dissipates and ZC is a bit more of a struggle. I start thinking a taste of this or that won't hurt and then all bets are off.

So the dairy is finally gone again. I am back to the day to day normalcy like before the holiday season. Instead of being disappointed, I feel relief to flee back to the safety of ZC. Hopefully next year, I will be strong enough to get through the holidays without succumbing.

Day 262

2009-12-29T12:01:00.001-08:00

In an attempt to get my zero carb zen back, I am currently doing ground beef for first hunger and ribeyes for second (if necessary). I ate outside of hunger leading up to the holidays to keep me from eating the Christmas goodies and then ate borderline ZC fare like ham, deli meat and cheese while at my parents'. That led to a four pound gain. As of today, I have lost a pound of that but hope I quickly lose the rest. My clothes still fit fine but I feel heavier than I want to.

The biggest thing I want is to get my mindset back. After my ZC reboot in August, carbs just weren't an option. This mindset grew stronger after dropping diet soda and dairy in September. However, I added dairy back while on vacation at Thanksgiving and haven't been successful in dropping it since. I haven't been cheating; I've just had more cravings and my weight loss has slowed.

Now that the holiday minefields are past, I am going back to eating smaller amounts only when physically hungry and also dropping the dairy again. As mentioned before, I actually feel better when I have a little dairy but my sinuses don't like it and I think I lose better without it. As mention earlier, food will be ground beef and ribeyes for the next week or so (longer if I can score a marked down ribeye roast after work).

Day 254

2009-12-21T13:03:00.001-08:00

I haven't updated in a while because I have been super busy getting ready for Christmas.

This last weekend went pretty well. The exception was on Saturday. K and I were getting the presents wrapped and rounding up the stuff we bought for the boys' stockings. We have cut way back on the candy we are buying for them but we did get a few special treats.

As we were dividing it up, I started feeling sorry for myself and feeling deprived. I have avoided Christmas goodies so far but the reality of Christmas being around the corner kind of sunk in. It was almost like all of my habits suddenly resurfaced. I started thinking that going off plan until after Christmas wouldn't be the end of the world and wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Well, I didn't go off plan. What I did instead was take the advice of folks on the Zeroing In On Health forum and ate a ton of fatty meat (ground beef) instead, even though I wasn't hungry. I even included cheese with it partly to have something "special" and partly to up the fat. This worked and the cravings passed. I figured my weight would be up the next morning because of over-eating and because of the cheese but I was actually down about a half of a pound.

I have to say that I am jealous of the people that started zero carb and were never tempted to go off plan. That hasn't been my experience so far eight months in. I hope to get there some day. I think when the holidays are done I should be able to get my "ZC Zen" back. I had it from my reboot in August through our vacation at Thanksgiving. I guess I'll just have to white knuckle it at times until then.

Sunday, I was hungrier than normal and had about a pound of chuck eye for first hunger. I was hungry by dinner and ate meatloaf with the drippings (meatloaf = gb, ground pork and egg only). After that, last night I was super hot and couldn't sleep. I don't know if I went into overdrive burning off excess fuel but it wasn't real comfortable. This morning I was down to 169.0 pounds again. I was there a week ago but had bounced up to 170.2 lbs by Thursday.

I have been feeling more energetic (and have more than a little cabin fever) so have been contemplating adding in some activity. On Friday, I decided to dig out the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) pad and play a game that I got last summer but haven't had a chance to try yet. I went through all of the songs on Easy, just to check them out. It was weird - my legs felt really heavy during the first two songs and then were fine after that. I could tell I hadn't done it in a while but I could also tell my knees and ankles appreciated having 30 pounds less to move around.

Yesterday we did our shopping for the week and scored big at Safeway. They have their big ribeye roasts on sale for $3.98/lb. These are the cuts where they cut the ribs out and then tie them back together with twine. Having the bone cut out makes it easier to cut at home. I am going to buy another roast tomorrow and leave it uncut. Then next week, I am going to do a ground beef and ribeye only week. I'll just slice off the steaks as needed. I wish I had more freezer room as I would stock up at this price.

Day 250

2009-12-17T06:39:00.001-08:00

I had a hungry day yesterday. I rarely eat before 11 AM but my stomach was trying to tell me it was hungry when I got to work at 5 AM. I didn't think it was real, since I am never hungry that early. However, it kept insisting so I finally gave in and ate my hamburger bowl at 7 AM.

I wasn't hungry the rest of the day at work and felt great and energetic most of the day, except for a brief case of the sleepies at noon, which passed quickly. When I got home, I got to do a heavy workout called snow removal. The snow totally sucked as it was fluffy snow covered with ice, since we had freezing drizzle most of the day. It was sticky as hell and took forever to move.

When I was done, K was cooking dinner. I didn't think I was hungry but ate some chuck eye. Then my hunger kicked in and I ended up eating two chuck eye steaks (1.4 pounds) and half of a salmon fillet. I was pretty stuffed after that.

Because of the late big dinner, my weight was up a little this morning, to 170.0 pounds. However, my seven day average was 169.6 pounds, so it was a good week. For some reason, I always tend to be heavier on Wednesday and Thursday and then drop a lot on the weekend.

Day 247

2009-12-14T06:02:00.000-08:00

I've been in the 160's for four straight days (169.6, 169.2, 169.2, 169.0), so it looks like it's sticking. I was at 169.0 lbs this morning and that was weighing at 4 AM rather than at 9 AM, when I weighed at over the weekend.

Yesterday's meals were a hamburger bowl at noon. Dinner was about a pound of sirloin roast dipped in the juices. Sirloin is not my favorite but it was okay. I thought I had bought a chuck roast last time it was on sale but couldn't find it, so this was runner up.

Eight Months ZC Anniversary (day 244)

2009-12-11T09:55:00.000-08:00

Today is my eighth month ZC anniversary. I started April 11th of this year (the day before Easter). I have had a couple of slips over that time but consider them learning experiences.

Even though it is becoming more and more natural, I am still amazed that I am this far along. I was never able to stick with low carb for very long. I still have foods I think fondly of but all of the cravings are gone. I am still working on eliminating the "one taste won't hurt" thinking but Thanksgiving made a pretty strong impression on me so I feel pretty good about where I am now.

At dinner last night, it came out that I was eating only meat. The people I was with all knew me at my heaviest and saw me go through my various struggles losing the weight then, so they are used to my weirdness with various ways of eating. They asked a few questions but accepted it with out much fuss. They were actually more surprised that I haven't had any Diet Pepsi in over three months as they knew I drank it constantly before.

While explaining the various benefits I have seen since starting eating this way, it just reinforced to me that this isn't just about weight loss. My blood pressure has gone from around 150/90 to 110/63. I have effortlessly dropped 30 pounds, without exercise or counting calories or carbs. My elbows, which had bothered me for over a year before ZC, are fine now. A biggie is that my stomach no longer constantly hurts (a life long problem for me). There are a host of other small things - clearer skin, better nails, better sleep. I was telling K last night that it been easier than expected to keep eating this way because I feel so much better. Sure, ice cream and cookies taste great but they aren't worth the inevitable upset stomach.

I won't lie - the flat stomach and smaller clothes are a big motivator, too. It still amazes me to get out a shirt to put on and think there is no way I fit into that and then have it fit fine, or even a little loose.

I weighed this morning and am officially into the 160's! I was 169.6 this morning. That makes it exactly 30 pounds lost in the last eight months. Not super quick weight loss, but it is still lower than I ever thought possible. The funny thing is that I still feel a little bloated from the last couple of days, so my actually weight may be a little lower.

Dairy is now back out of my diet. I do feel a little better when I have it in small quantities but the sinus issues and the constant sore throat from drainage is too annoying. I am going to try to up my fat a little and maybe add some sardines occasionally to see if that replaces the dairy.

The other thing I am trying to do is to get back to being better about waiting for hunger. I was doing well before vacation and was really leaning out. I got out of the habit over vacation as I wasn't always free to eat only to hunger, being at someone's house and more on their schedule. Then when I got home, I ate more often to get over the cravings caused by eating off plan on Thanksgiving. Eating smaller amounts only at real physical hunger is definitely the key for me.

Day 237

2009-12-04T13:28:00.001-08:00

I checked my weight today and I was down to 170.2 lbs. Two weeks ago today was the day I did my last update. I was 170.8 lbs, so there hasn't been a lot of weight loss over the last two weeks but at least it is heading in the right direction. I would normally gain over five pounds over the T-Day vacation and have no hope of losing any of it until after Easter. If I had behaved better on vacation this year, I would probably be in he 160's now. Hopefully by next weekend.

I was hungry early again yesterday. I ate a hamburger bowl around 8:30 am. Dinner was around 6:30 and was a pretty good sized T-Bone.

Day 235

2009-12-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Not too much to report. I am back to dairy free zero carb and it has been pretty effortless. I had a few cravings on Sunday but they passed quickly.

The week I was down in Salem, I added dairy back. It was mostly because it was difficult eating at the in-laws' and getting enough fat. Some cheese took care of that. Also, we ate while out and about several times and we found that going to Burger King and getting their $1 double-cheeseburgers (bunless and plain, of course) worked very well for the family. We could all eat and be completely full for $12 for all of us.

Most of the BK's handled the bunless thing well. The first time, I made the mistake of telling them they could could put two or three of the bunless double cheeseburgers in the same dish (depending on the order). That seemed to overload their brain cells. After that, I just ordered them individually (6 plain double cheese, no bun and 4 regular double cheese, no bun). We would get a million of the little trays but at least we got the order right.

The BK we stopped at on the way home was funny. The kid taking the order was obviously new. When I ordered the first batch, he looked at me all goggle eyed and said "Wha...?!". I repeated it and he said " But you have to have a bun?". K pipes and said "No. We don't". The kid finally calls the manager over and she shows him how to key it in. He kept looking at us and shaking his head. I guess he never heard of low carb or celiac disease.

The dairy didn't affect me weight wise that I could tell but it did stuff me up again and restarted my hay fever symptoms. I also started seeing blood again when I blow my nose. That had stopped after giving up dairy. K says I have started snoring excessively again. So - back to no dairy.

I don't know where I am with my weight currently. I said before I left that I was going to stop the daily weighing and just weigh once a week and I am sticking with that. My jeans are fitting fine, so I seem to be on track and didn't gain much (if anything) from my indiscretions.

Day 233

2009-11-30T08:49:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm back. We got home about midnight on Saturday and I spent yesterday trying to get back in the swing of things and get things back into shape at home.

The trip was fun. The first half, in particular, was great. I spent a bunch of time haunting some of my old shops and also did a bunch of clothes shopping. I felt lean and energetic and it was fun buying some new clothes, especially since I was now shopping in the "Medium" sizes. I didn't find a lot of fitted clothes but I found some things that fit now and will probably resort to on-line shopping when I get to my ZC size, now that I have an understanding of what to look for.

I helped my BIL move on Monday and it sucked as much as I thought it would.

For Thanksgiving, there usually isn't much dark meat, so I bought a pack of turkey thighs and had one for dinner (they are huge). Unfortunately, in a fit of temporary insanity, I also decided to have a bit of "this and that", just to try it. That ended up being three days of "I'll restart tomorrow". I didn't eat a ton of carbs or binge on anything but I wasn't ZC for that time. I am embarrassed and pissed at myself and definitely don't feel as well as I did before. I don't think my weight is up much and hopefully anything I did gain will drop off now that I am back on track.

At one point, before Thanksgiving, my in-laws' neighbor came over to say hi. She is overweight and has a raft of health issues, including diabetes. My MIL was fussing over me, telling the neighbor that I had definitely found the secret to weight loss and health. The lady was interested until my MIL told her what I was doing. She looked at me incredulously and kept asking if I ate this and that. She couldn't believe it and finally said that she would rather be unhealthy and eat what she eats (yes, she actually said that). I felt sad for her at the time but now that I found how easily I fell off of the wagon, I am just super aware at how difficult this is and how vigilant I will have to be for the rest of my life. Eventually it will sink in.

Week 32 Update

2009-11-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is actually the completion of week 32 of zero carb but I am leaving on vacation for a week so I decided to post today. It was supposed to be my seventh month anniversary but that was ten days ago and I didn't have time until now.

This morning, I weighed 170.6 pounds. It was a bit of a cheat as I didn't weigh or measure until almost noon because I had such a busy morning. I imagine that I would be in the 171 pound range if I had measured at a normal time. using that weight, though, puts me at a 29 pound loss since starting zero carb.

I measured last time on 10/24. Since that time, I have lost 3.6 pounds. It was really carving into my belly as it is down two inches in that time.

Since I started zero carb, I have lost 1.2" off of my neck, 3.4" off of my chest,
5.1" off of my stomach, 2.2" off of my butt, 0.7 off of my bicep and 2.2" off of my thigh. I have also dropped my blood pressure from the 145/90 range to 110/63.

Here are the scary pictures:

Day 223

2009-11-19T07:52:00.000-08:00

The scale is suddenly my friend again. I dropped to a new low this morning of 172.0 pounds. That makes for a total loss of 27.6 pounds. This also brought my seven day average to a new low of 172.9 pounds. I guess excessive whining about extended stalls gets things moving.

First hunger yesterday was around 10:30 am. I, of course, ate one of my ubiquitous hamburger bowls. I wasn't growling hungry yet at dinner at 6 pm but we were having ribeyes, so ate one anyway.

The ribeyes were the ones we got at WinCo for $3.98/lb. They were okay but not as good as the ribeyes we get locally. They were trimmed too much, for one thing. They were on par with a decent chuck-eye, I think.

Ribeye roasts are on sale all over right now. Unfortunately, our freezer is packed full. Since we are leaving tomorrow, we can't get one to eat fresh, either. Maybe they will go on sale around Christmas or New Years'.

I did my hamburger bowls differently this last weekend. I had always cooked them in a pan on the stove, scrambling the meat up in to bigger chunks and then dividing the meat and grease into bowls to take to work for lunch. With all the talk of baking GB lately, I decided to try it that way.

I had a four pound pack that I divided roughing into half. I put each of the two pound chunks into a 9" x 13" glass baking dish and spread it out flat. I put the two dishes into a 350° oven and cooked it for about 30 minutes. When it was done, I just cut slabs off of the loaf and divided it into my work bowls. I then divided the grease that had cooked out evenly into the bowls.

When I warm them up, I just break the mini-loafs up into chunks and nuke them until warm and the fat is melted. It has a lot better texture this way and tastes better, for some reason. Usually the top of the loaf has browned up more than the inside.

I know it sounds like meatloaf, and it is essentially. However, I don't add any binders or spices. This method of cooking is a winner and is much, much easier than standing over the stove frying up four pounds of ground beef in several batches.

Day 216

2009-11-12T08:17:00.001-08:00

I waited for the growl yesterday and didn't hungry until 3:30 pm. Since it was only a couple of hours until dinner, I had four or five bites of my work pemmican stash to tide me over 'til dinner. I was hungry again by dinner and had five leftover flanken ribs (about a quarter inch thick) and half of one of my normal hamburger bowls.

I think it was too much. I was stuffed and it upset my stomach. When I went to bed, my stomach was rolling and I had to make a couple of quick trips to the bathroom.

Some people here can eat until stuffed, but I don't think I am one of them. Every time I have tried it, it ends in disaster. I think I need to wait for the growl and then eat enough to be satisfied (or not hungry anymore). That has worked well in the past.

With the big dinner, I was up a pound this morning. It makes it a 2.6 pound gain since my low on Sunday. I am not happy about that but my jeans aren't that much tighter, so there is probably something else going on.

Day 215

2009-11-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

Today is my official 7th month anniversary of starting zero carb. It has been a bumpy ride at times but has smoothed out considerably over the last few months. I will try to get some updated stats and pictures this weekend. I will have company, though, so don't know if it will be possible.

I would be a little more excited about it if my weight hadn't bounced up a pound and a half after hitting the new low on Sunday. You never can tell the reason for things like this but I wonder if it is because I am not eating exactly to hunger. When I had the big loss a couple of weeks back, I was eating only when my stomach growled. Currently, I always wait to first eat until my stomach growls and I feel hunger. However, I tend to eat dinner with my family whether I am hungry or not.

I am not full then; I could eat but I don't need to eat. I think I will go back to only eating at the growl as it has always worked best with me. I let myself be convinced otherwise reading what other folks are doing and I stall out. I need to do what works for me, not what works for others.

Meals yesterday were a hamburger bowl at first hunger (about 11:30 am) and tri tip steaks for dinner at 7 pm. I overate the tri tips because I really like them. They are usually too expensive but we took advantage of a nice sale on them.

Hamburger bowls

2009-11-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

Amy asked me in the comments what a hamburger bowl was, so I'll answer it here.

A hamburger bowl is just my shorthand way of saying ground beef cooked in crumbles and served in a bowl with the fat added back in.

I usually cook up 4 - 5 pounds of ground beef on Sunday for the week. I break it into bite sized chunks while cooking. I like the chunks versus a more crumbly texture, like taco meat. After it's cooked, I divide it into Tupperware bowls and then add back the fat to each of the bowls. I take one to work everyday for lunch.

I used to add some shredded cheese to the bowl after warming the ground beef. I called them cheeseburger bowls at the time. When I dropped the dairy, I took to calling them hamburger bowls.

I like doing it this way over burgers. Cooking burgers gets very messy, with grease splattering all over. It also takes a lot longer as I can only cook three patties per pan.

I should mention that I tend to use 80/20 ground beef. I accidentally got 85/15 last week and it was yucky and dry. I had to add butter to those to keep them from being too dry. 73/27 would work too but I can only get that in the chubs and I don't tend to like the chubs. I don't think they are as fresh as the 80/20 that the stores grind.

As for those that might be squeamish about adding the fat back to the ground beef, you get over it. I used to always religiously drain ground beef when I cooked it. When I decided to add it back in, I thought it was going to be disgusting but it was very good. It keeps the beef from being too dry and doesn't really add a flavor of its own.

Day 213

2009-11-09T06:24:00.001-08:00

After two weeks of screwing around, my body is finally getting with the program again. I hit 172.8 pounds two weeks ago and then bounced up a pound and stayed there until yesterday. Yesterday, I hit a new low of 172.4 pounds. This morning I weighed about four hours earlier than yesterday and weighed 172.6 pounds. That puts me at a total loss of 27 pounds.

It was frustrating doing the bounce and stall thing. I was really enjoying the quick weight loss I was seeing before that. However, I just stayed the course and figured it would start up again eventually.

Meals on Saturday were ground beef both for first hunger as well as dinner. Meals yesterday were left over tri tip steaks at first hunger (about 12:30 pm) and a big chuck steak for dinner.

Day 205

2009-11-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

I had a really busy weekend. K's folks stopped by Thursday night on their way back from Florida (coming back through the top part of the states). We had a nice but very brief visit with them as they left Friday morning. They were in a hurry to get home after being gone several weeks.

Friday, I had to do some work in the morning and then spent the afternoon working on my new shed. I staked out where the poles would go and then spent a lot of time moving stacks of wood.

After a snowy Thursday and a Friday that was cold and socked in all day, Saturday was beautiful. Sunny and 58°. The only down side was a pretty strong wind came up. I spent pretty much all day working on my shed.

When I finally came in after working all day, I was beat. I came into the house and was confronted with a bowl of Halloween candy that K had left out in case we got any trick or treaters. Maybe because I was so tired, I went through a period of intense argument with myself to stay out of it. It really caught me by surprise because I haven't been tempted at all up until that point. I really came this -||- close to falling face first into the candy. I managed to resist by convincing myself that I wanted to be as thin as possible by the time we go to the in-laws' for Thanksgiving. It wasn't the best reason but it worked. I also managed to distract myself by getting immersed in the Beavers game.

Sunday was nice too. I had to do some grocery shopping with K in the morning and then worked on the shed in the afternoon after the frost had disappeared. I also had to spend some time consoling my oldest son as he is in the process of learning the travails and drama of associating with teen-aged girls. I was still wanting the candy but it wasn't as strong.

Meals were pretty basic as I didn't want to fix much. Thursday was a hamburger bowl for first hunger and meatballs for dinner. Friday was a leftover short rib and some eggs for first hunger and a flat iron steak for dinner. The flat iron steak sucked and I won't be buying those again. Saturday was a hamburger bowl for first hunger and a ribeye for dinner. Sunday was a hamburger bowl and a couple of slices of bacon for first hunger and a hamburger bowl for dinner.

One frustration lately has been my weight. After a week of quick weight loss last week, I bottomed out at 172.8 pounds last Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, I bounced back up a pound and have stuck there since. I expected to stall a little but what makes it frustrating is that is seems like all the extra weight is centered on my lower abdomen. It makes my pants tighter than before I lost the weight last week. It also makes me feel very fat despite the lower weight.

No matter, though, because I don't intend on changing anything. I have trusted this way of eating so far, so I just have to wait it out.

Day 200

2009-10-28T07:46:00.001-07:00

Now for an update. The rapid weight loss came to a screeching halt. I have been essentially stalled the last three days. The weird thing is that during that time I have been having detox symptoms - bloated stomach, skin breakouts, headaches, inflammation in my chest. It seems to happen sometimes when going into virgin fat territory but I am not sure what causes it. Doesn't matter anyway as I'll just continue to do what I am doing and will just wait it out. I imagine that I'll get over it in a few days and will start up the losing again.

Yesterday was the first time in three days that ate more than once in the day. I was hungry early, around 9 am, and ate a hamburger bowl. I ate dinner more because it had been thawed and wouldn't keep than because of any real hunger. I had a salmon fillet and a small sirloin tip steak.

Day 198

2009-10-26T09:02:00.001-07:00

The melting continues.

I was down .6 pounds this morning, to 172.8. That makes a total loss of 26.8 pounds since I started ZC six and half months ago.

After complaining a couple of days ago about my stomach being bigger despite the lower weight, my stomach was noticeably flatter this morning. I didn't have time to measure or anything but it was noticeable in the mirror. Maybe I'll see those abs yet.

I am still not very hungry. I had first hunger yesterday at 2:30 in the afternoon. I ate three chicken thighs and a small hamburger bowl. I didn't get hungry again, so that was it for yesterday.

Day 197

2009-10-25T14:02:00.001-07:00

I think I picked up a tapeworm.

Continuing a week of rapid weight loss, I was down to 173.4 this morning. Here is what I weighed the last eight days, including today:

177.2
177
176.4
176.2
175.4
175
174.2
173.4

I am still amazed every time I get on the scale and it is lower. I keep expecting the normal bounce up after a new low and a week of fluctuating around that weight, but it hasn't happened yet.

All I can think of is that it has been six weeks of no diet soda and next to no caffeine and over three weeks of no dairy and my body has finally adapted to it. I think my body trusts that there is no sweet, no caffeine and no carbs from dairy and has dropped my insulin levels. I have not been very hungry, which tells me that I am using fat stores for energy. I also haven't been getting cramps, so I don't think I am dehydrated.

Meals yesterday were bacon and eggs for breakfast and some leftover roast, with juice, for dinner. I wasn't really hungry at breakfast but K and I were going to be out and about for awhile, so I decided to eat early. Besides - the bacon smelled good. It was about 7 pm before I got hungry again and that is when I had the roast.

Day 196

2009-10-24T09:28:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, I was excited that I had broken into the 175's, at 175.4 pounds. This was after three weeks of fluctuating around 177 pounds. This morning, though I weighed 174.2 pounds. The weight is flying off right now. It puts me at a total loss of 25.4 pounds since I started ZC.

Here's the weird part though. I have felt like, despite all of the recent weight loss, that my stomach was actually bigger. My jeans felt a little tighter. I wasn't sure, though, so took measurements this morning after I weighed. I then compared it to the last time I measured, which was three weeks ago when I weighed 177.4 pounds. My neck, chest, arms and thigh are all smaller. So is my waist (the narrowest part of my abdomen). However, my stomach, measured just below the navel, is .8" bigger, despite the three pound loss.

I have no idea why that might be, except for some kind of weird body recomposition thing. What is there seems "squishier", not as firm. I have read that when fat is lost, sometimes the body will put water in place of the fat as a kind of placeholder. Once a period of time passes and the fat isn't replaced, the water is then released. This is supposed to explain the "whoosh effect" that a lot of low carbers see.

I just have to be patient and see what happens. It is fun to see the numbers on the scale drop but it is a little unsettling to see the belly increase while it is happening. I just want to see some abs. However, with as quick as the weight is coming off, I imagine there will be some shifting around going on.

After plugging the numbers into the bodyfat percentage calculator, it showed me at 15.7% bodyfat. My BMI came to 24.5, so I am finally out of the "overweight" category. It showed me still carrying 28 pounds of fat, so I am now thinking that the weight range in 160's isn't out of the realm of possibility.

As for meals yesterday, I didn't get first hunger until 1:30 in the afternoon. I had some leftover roast, in it's juice. I didn't think I would get hungry again but started eyeing the burgers that I cooked up for the boys and their friend, so ended up eating three patties around 8 pm.

Day 194

2009-10-22T06:17:00.001-07:00

My weight loss seems to be turbocharged this week. I dropped .8 pounds overnight, down to 175.4 pounds. That's a loss of two pounds in the last week and a total loss of 24.2 pounds since I started.

I really never expected anything like this. I assumed that by the time I got this low, every ounce would be a struggle and it would be sloooow, especially considering my age and (no) activity level. I must finally have my insulin levels under control. Even though I have been eating zero carb for almost seven months, it has only been six weeks since fully giving up diet soda and four weeks since giving up dairy. It has also been a week since I have had any antihistamines, which I do think makes a difference.

I would probably be further along if I had done these things from the start. Honestly, though, I don't think I would have been able to stick with it if I had. I remember telling my wife early on that there was no way I would be able to stick with this if I couldn't have cheese and cream. Then one day I forgot to add cheese to my cheeseburger bowl and was most of the way through it before noticing. I dropped the cream when I dropped artificial sweeteners because I didn't like the cream in my tea without the Splenda. Now I barely drink tea. The gradual release of my holdouts seem to be what works best for me.

I have still been on a beef kick. I had a hamburger bowl at first hunger at 11:30 am. Dinner was a small untrimmed T-bone and a chicken thigh.

Day 193

2009-10-21T07:11:00.001-07:00

I had another all beef day yesterday. I was first hungry at noon and had a hamburger bowl. Dinner at 6:30 was a chuck roast.

It was one of the best roasts I have ever had. I usually don't like roast because it was always dry and overdone (sorry K). Trying to keep it from being overdone only resulted in it being too chewy. This one came out perfect - pink and flavorful. It wasn't falling off the bone tender but wasn't chewy. It actually tasted like a steak would instead of the usual cardboard.

I had read about cooking roasts by cooking them on high for a half hour and then shutting the stove off and leaving it in the oven for several hours, cooking in the residual heat. That method wouldn't work for us, though, because we have a gas stove and they don't hold the heat as long. However, we do have a cast iron dutch oven that I bought for K several years ago and we have never used. It occurred to me that it would do nicely to help hold the residual heat.

To prepare the roast, I first turned the oven to "Warm". While waiting for that to warm up, I took our nicely marbled chuck roast (about 4 pounds) and browned it in a little tallow in the dutch oven on the stove. I did sprinkle it with a little creole seasoning (spices and salt) before browning it, but that probably isn't necessary. After browning the meat, I stuck our digital thermometer into it, closed the lid and stuck the hot pan into the now warm oven.

I set the thermometer to go off at 155°. It took about 2 and half hours to get to that temp. After it went off, I pulled the dutch oven out of the oven and left it covered on the stove top to let it rest. After about 20 minutes, the temp had risen to 163°, so I took it out and sliced it up. I ate mine dipped in some of the juice that had cooked out and it was amazing. My oldest son loved it too. K and my youngest aren't big fans of roast but said it was good.

Despite pigging out on roast last night, I was down another .2 pounds this morning, to another new low of 176.2 pounds. I am really amazed that I am still losing at a good rate, despite being pretty close to a healthy weight. I expected it to slow to a crawl by this point.

Day 192

2009-10-20T09:20:00.001-07:00

I have decided that I definitely don't thrive if I eat too much pork. We had quite a bit of it late last week through the weekend. Pork chops and pork riblets (which my family calls "piglets"). There were quite a few piglets and I was the only one who would eat them warmed up, so I had piglets every day through the weekend to use them up.

During that time we also had meals of chicken thighs and dinner Sunday night was Canadian snow crab. The snow crab was very good and I found I like it better than King crab. For one thing, it was much cheaper - $3.99/pound versus $10/pound for the king crab. The snow crab isn't prickly like the king crab, either, so it is easier to deal with. We don't have crab often - two or three times a year - so it was a nice treat.

The non-beef meals started to add up, though. My weight was up a little Sunday and Monday and I was craving ground beef like crazy. I had a hamburger bowl yesterday at first hunger (about noon) and an untrimmed ribeye for dinner. I feel much better today and my weight dropped to a new low of 176.4 pounds (I hit 176.2 pounds Saturday but it was much later in the morning and I think I was a bit dehydrated). That makes for a total loss of 23.2 pounds.

Day 191 - Then and Now

2009-10-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

In the summer of '06, I had been putzing around with low carb for a while. I hadn't lost weight but I had stopped the regaining and was sitting around 200 pounds. I stumbled onto the Meat and Eggers for Life thread on the Active Low Carber forum and was intrigued. Unfortunately, I didn't feel at the time that it was something I would be able to do but it did inspire me to cut way back on my carbs.

I decided to go very low carb and eat small amounts only when physically hungry. I decided to show my progress by taking pictures of me squeezed into some old Levis I had saved from my thinner days. They were 33 inch waist 501's. I went from 200 pounds down to around 182 pounds in three months. Unfortunately, the holidays got to me and I didn't lose any more over the next couple of months and kind of went off track after the new year. I drifted away from very low carb after that and spent a couple of years messing with calorie counting and PSMF diets. What a waste of time!

Anyway, here is what turned out to be the before and after picture in my "challenge pants" from that attempt.

The challenge pants went back to the low end of the pants pile. You know - the pile of pants arranged from "Fits Now" to "Slightly Tight" to "Only In My Dreams". That pile has been shrinking significantly lately as I have been under growing the pants. Last weekend, as we were getting ready to leave for the weekend, I grabbed the pair of jeans off of the top of the pile and put them on. They were some 34" Wranglers. As I was rushing around getting ready, I could tell they weren't going to work as they kept sliding down. I didn't want to spend the weekend pulling my pants up so I went up and threw those in the Goodwill pile and grabbed the next pair of jeans - some 33" Levis.

I was surprised that they fit as well as they did and ended up wearing them over the weekend. It wasn't until later that I realized that they were my "challenge pants".

I weighed in at 176.2 pounds last Saturday morning, about 6 pounds lighter than my "After" picture from three years ago, so decided to make a comparison picture.

No more muffin top! Next stop is my "In Your Dreams" jeans - 32" Levis 501's. I am a little torqued that I tossed some brand new 31" 501s - tags still on them - a few years ago because "there is no way I will ever fit in them again". :dodgy:

Day 188

2009-10-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

My weight has been holding steady lately, fluctuating up and down a little around 177 pounds. My hunger has been weird though. I get hungry the first time between 10 am and noon and I'll have a hamburger bowl. Then I won't really get hungry again until 9 or 10 pm and then I am only kind of hungry, not stomach growling, low blood sugar hungry.

Yesterday, I got hungry about noon and finished off the meatza crust that I had had on the weekend. There was quite a bit of it, so I kind of thought that I wouldn't get hungry again that day. Around 9:30 last night, my stomach was feeling kind of weird, not upset, but like something wasn't setting real well. I decided to cook up some tri tip steaks that were getting a bit elderly, thinking I would eat one and eat the rest this morning. Well, I ended up eating all of it, about three good size steaks worth! :blush: Even after that, I wasn't really full but I didn't want to eat more. I felt fine but was rather hot all night.

I think part of the problem is that K was baking cookies (gluten free scotchies and peanut butter) and the smell was driving me nuts. Even today, I have been a little crave-y. I kept wondering how many carbs were in one cookie but didn't cave.

I have been griping about sinus issues lately and gave up dairy a couple of weeks ago to see if it would help. It has helped a little but I have still been stuffed up and "snuffly". I kind of had a thought about it and have been seeing if I could make it better.

I don't breath well on the right side of my nose and that is where all of the problem originate. I am usually stuffed up on that side and when I have allergy days, that is the side that "tingles" and makes me sneeze. Also, before ZC, I frequently would get a little blood out of that side when I blew my nose.

I didn't realize until very lately that I wasn't getting much air in that side. The doc verified that I have a deviated septum that is partially blocking it. He said my sinuses on that side tend to be uh... "yucky".

I think not getting air in that side is keeping it from being healthy. The dairy was probably also contributing, but it can't heal from the dairy. I've decided to start using saline to irrigate that side. I also have decided to stop taking antihistamines because I think it was causing that side to plug.

Yesterday was awful. I sneezed and my nose ran all day long. I was starting to think that this was a stupid idea. However, today has been much, much better, so maybe there was some validity.

Maybe I have just swallowed the kool-aid here, but I am just going to stop taking stuff like antihistamines and try to let my body do what it is supposed to do under the influence of zero carb.

Day 185

2009-10-13T12:24:00.000-07:00

I did a bunch of traveling this weekend that had a few challenges but turned out fine (and fun).

On Saturday morning, we took the boys to Silverwood, which is an amusement park in Idaho. We frequently go there in October and have always had beautiful weather. However, this year was sunny but very cold. I think the high for the day was about 40°. It was tolerable at first but got colder and colder in the afternoon, especially as the wind came up. By the time we left around 5:30, we were all frozen.

We still had a good time with the boys. G and I rode the wooden roller coasters several times. I was disappointed that the new coaster was closed as I wanted to try it but the wooden ones were fun too. We pretty much hit most of the rest of the rides at least once except for the water rides. I definitely didn't want to get wet.

Food wasn't a problem at all. I didn't eat much Friday night so was hungry in the morning before we left and I had a hamburger bowl. To have something to eat for lunch, I baked up a Meatza "crust" on Friday and packed it in a cooler. I actually didn't get hungry until pretty late in the afternoon despite all of the walking and a couple of slices of the meatza crust worked well.

After the park, we drove down to my parents' house. We swung into a McDonald's in Coeur d'Alene, ID on the way through town. I wasn't hungry but the boys were so we ordered them a bunch of quarter pound beef patties. The boys wanted cheese on their burgers but the manager insisted that we had to pay for two slices per burger because that is the way that Quarter Pounders are made. When we got the order, each burger patty was in its own box, with one slice of cheese under the patty and one on top. With the burger being hot, of course the bottom slice was melted to the box. My wife hit the roof and chewed them out big time. We got extra cheese. I like the fact that McD's offers the choice to just buy the burger patty without having to pay for the whole burger but it really seems that any time you do something out of the ordinary there, you can actually see the sparks from the McD employee's brain short circuiting.

I was dreading meals while visiting my folks but they went okay. K and I stay at my Grandpa's and he fixes breakfast, which is always eggs and sausage links. This works fine except he always makes enough for an army. He was a logger and still has the mindset that you need a huge breakfast. Those of us that pretty much sit on our butts all day don't need quite as much.

Dinner on Sunday at my parents' was ham. I just ate a couple of slices and was good. I was really surprised that there were no comments about my plate only having meat but it wasn't an issue. I did surprisingly get hungry again a couple of hours later and had three of the hamburger patties that we brought.

We had breakfast at Grandpa's again Monday morning before heading home. This time I was able to talk him into cooking less. With the burgers the night before, I wasn't very hungry. Also, two days of sausage and ham wasn't really sitting that well.

We did some shopping on the way home through Spokane and scored some marked down chuck-eyes and pork riblets as well as some $3.98/lb ribeyes at WinCo. I also got some marked down tri tip steaks at the grocer at home. They is becoming a favorite cut of mine so I get them when ever I see them marked down. I had several of them for dinner. It was nice to get away from the processed meat and back to good ol' beef.

I thought the trip would be challenging, especially in regards to Diet Pepsi. Normally, I would have ended up buying several bottles while at the park as well as one going there and one on the way home. This time, I found I wasn't very thirsty so was okay with the bottle of water I had in the car. Also, for as long as I can remember, visiting with Grandpa was "sitting down and having a Pepsi". He seemed surprised and skeptical when I refused one but didn't say much. I had actually planned on cheating while there just to keep that ritual but didn't feel like it when the time came. I think that is good progress for me.

I expected my weight to be up a little because of the processed meat but I was actually at a new low this morning of 176.8. It may be that I am a little dehydrated with all of the traveling but I was at 177.2 on Saturday morning, so losing a little on the weekend isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Day 179

2009-10-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

I didn't get hungry yesterday until about 1:30 pm and had a hamburger bowl. I was expecting to be hungry again by the time I got home at 8:30 but really wasn't. K had made taco meat for the boys and held out a pound of GB for me. About the time I started getting ready for bed, I started getting hungry. I didn't want to spend the time cooking up the GB so decided on a small bowl of taco meat. I also decided "what the hell' and threw in a pinch of shredded cheese, probably less than half an ounce.

I had been feeling a little sorry for myself lately for giving up the dairy. Cheese is such a convenient way to add fat to a meal or to easily finish off a meal if the meat wasn't quite enough and I didn't want to cook more. I am still having a lot of allergy issues and my sinuses are still bothering me a little. I figured that giving up the dairy hadn't really helped that much.

Well, this morning I woke up much more stuffed up than I had been and my mouth and throat coated with gunk again. All day today, I have felt like there is a lot of drainage (yuck - I know). I guess it was making more of a difference than I realized. Live and learn.

Weight-wise, I have been holding around 177.8 pounds for the last six days except for two quick excursions down to 177.4 pounds. My seven day average is 177.9 pounds.

Day 177

2009-10-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I first ate about 10:30 am. I wasn't fully hungry yet (the Chiefs were making me lose my appetite) but K cooked up bacon and the smell made me want some. I ate five pieces of bacon and had some sliced up sirloin roast.

Despite the bacon, I think the whole thing was too lean. I was full but I spent the afternoon kind of "crave-y". I ate dinner at 6:30 and had a huge T-bone. It was good, but I still prefer rib-eyes. However, the T-bones are on sale right now for $4.99/pound, so I'll have T-bones for a few days.

My weight was 177.4 pounds this morning, even with weighing much earlier. That is four straight days in the 177's. My seven day average is 178.1 pounds.

I spent some time Saturday going through my clothes. With it getting much cooler, I had to find out what pants fit other than the khaki shorts I wore all summer. I also tried on all of my shirts and sweatshirts. I had to dump a bunch of the shirts and several pairs of pants because they were too big.

There were a couple of nice surprises. The main pants I have that fit is a pair of Levi's khaki cargo pants in a 32" waist. The only problem with them is that they are in a wide leg style and I keep flashing back to high school.

I also have an old pair of unworn Levis 501 jeans with a 33" waist that fit pretty well. They are old enough that it is a true size and not the vanity sized khakis (yes they do it for men's clothes, too).

The thing that makes me sad is I easily fit into my Levis jackets now but I am pretty sure they are hideously out of style.

Week 25 Update - Day 175

2009-10-03T22:13:00.000-07:00

I was planning on doing a six month update but will be gone next weekend. I decided to do my update this weekend instead, especially since I did one about a month ago.

This morning I weigh 177.4. That is a total loss of 22.2 pounds in 25 weeks. I weigh 1.6 pounds less than I did at my last update a month ago. However, the difference in the numbers is striking. My BMI is 25.0 - right at the threshold to overweight - and my body fat is calculated to be 16.2%.

From the measurements taken a month go, I have dropped .2" from my neck, .8" from my waist, 1.6" from stomach (sucked in), 1.4" from my stomach relaxed, .6" from my hips and .8" from my thigh. My chest and biceps were unchanged. It seems like every bit lost now is really carving into my body.

Here are my comparison pictures comparing the progress made from my start April 11th. Click on the picture for a bigger version.

As for a daily update, yesterday I was hungry first around noon. I hadn't had eggs for a while so had four eggs scrambled with three cut up sausage patties. I next got hungry about 8 pm and had a hamburger bowl. Still haven't had any dairy and I seem to be getting clearer sinuses. It is still rainy but I have been sneezing any way, so there is still some allergens floating around. I seem to have pretty clear sinuses anyway.

Day 174

2009-10-02T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I got hungry early again and had two chicken thighs. I expected to get hungry again pretty soon after that but it ended up tiding me over until 6 pm. I was still at work at that time and ate the hamburger bowl that I had brought. The hamburger bowl was a little leaner than usual and it didn't really satisfy me so I ate half of a chuck-eye steak about 9 pm when I got home.

I also got a decent night sleep. I went to bed about midnight and got up at 10 this morning. I was awake on and off from 6 to 7:30 while K and the boys were banging around getting ready for school. Still, it felt great.

My weight was at 177.8 pounds this morning. I weighed a lot later than usual, so it wasn't a surprise to be down. However, I weighed at the same time last Friday and I am down two pounds from that time. I'll take it. It also brought my obsessive seven day average down to 178.9. It is pretty amazing to be firmly in the 170's. It also brought my total weight loss to 21.8 pounds since April 11th.

Another dairy free day and I was definitely less stuffed up last night. However, it rained overnight so it is possible that there weren't as many allergens floating around.

The temperature has taken a sharp downturn also. I got up this morning and the house was 65°, with the temperature outside in the low 50's. Brrr. I decided to finally fire up the gas stoves (we heat our house with two free standing gas Quadra-Fire stoves), so now both cats, the dog and I are all camped in front of one of them.

Day 173

2009-10-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a chart of my seven day average weight from the time I began almost six months ago. I don't have every single day on there but I think it is pretty close.

As you can see, it gives a nice feedback on what I am doing plus the overall trend.

Obviously, weight isn't everything and it is possible to get smaller without going down in weight. In fact, this morning my weight was essentially holding but I somehow felt smaller. My waistband is verifying that as my pants are looser. I take measurements occasionally and I think it gives a better view of what's going on. I like the chart, too, for immediate feedback.

As for yesterday, I got hungry earlier than normal. I had to have some blood drawn for some tests I ordered so i had to fast until then. I did that at 8:30 am and was starting to get a little hungry. By the time I had got back to the office, I had kicked over into full hunger so I ate a hamburger bowl.

I expected to get hungry again since I ate so early but was only kind of getting hungry by the time I got home at 8:30 pm. I decided to go ahead and eat with the family and had a nice, thick ribeye.

Still no dairy and I think it is starting to help. My voice didn't get as raspy over the day as it normally does and I felt a little clearer during the night. However, I was sneezing a lot this morning, so I think I am still reacting to some allergen, which is masking the sinus effects.

As mentioned before, my weight is still holding at 179.0 pounds. My seven day average is at a new low, at 179.1 pounds. Progress.

Day 172

2009-09-30T12:38:00.001-07:00

I think I might go back to posting daily menus and times. With some of the changes lately, I want to track how it's affecting me.

Yesterday was my first completely dairy free day. I would like to think that I woke up slightly less stuffy this morning but it is probably wishful thinking. I imagine it will take a while to see actual results.

As mentioned before, I waited until I felt stomach growling hunger before eating. I finally hit that stage about 12:30 pm and ate a hamburger bowl. I still wasn't hungry when I got home at 8:30 but ate two chicken thighs anyway. I had to fast 12 hours to have blood drawn this morning and that was the latest I could eat. I didn't want to wake up hungry.

My weight has been pretty steady the last three days 178.8, 179.0, and 178.8. However, I track my weight every day in a spreadsheet that averages out the last seven days. This smooths out the bumps. Anyway, I was at my lowest seven day average this morning - 179.4 pounds. That is exciting.

Day 171

2009-09-29T15:47:00.000-07:00

Despite cleaning eating yesterday, I ended up being really short-tempered yesterday evening and then ended up with a really bad headache. I had the headache all night and into the morning. It's finally gone; I have no idea what caused it or me being a grouch.

I decided to forgo my tea with HWC in the morning while at work for a while. Also, my normal cheeseburger bowl became a hamburger bowl today. I want to see if doing without the dairy will ease some sinus problems. So far, it hasn't and I am losing my voice like I do most afternoons but I imagine it will take some time. I am still not sure how I would feel about having to do without dairy.

I also tried to wait for my normal hunger symptoms (growling stomach and a kind of pulling sensation inside) before eating. I had been letting that slide as there were times where I would eat when I was just close or just thinking about food. I am not trying to be legalistic about it or obsess about it; I just want to see if it makes a difference.

Day 170

2009-09-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

I finally dropped all of the "giving up Diet Pepsi" bloat and hit a new low this morning - 178.8 pounds. That is with early weighing, too. Hopefully it continues because I have been essentially stalled for the last three weeks.

It's funny but there are times I have to remind myself that I am making progress. I still don't like what I see in the mirror and I worry that it isn't working. When I look at pictures, I can see the difference but it doesn't seem like much. I guess it is because it has been so slow. There are some reminders, though, like the fact I can't sleep the way I used to (on my side, with one leg on top of the other) because my knees are too bony and hurts to have them on top of each other. :D There are times that my collar bones and shoulder blades seem prominent.

That said, there seems to have been some changes lately - since giving up DP - that aren't necessarily weight related. My energy level is up and I swear my arms are bigger, even though I haven't been working out. My arms went through a stage where they looked like Skeletor's (aka Madonna). They seem to be filling out again.

The other thing that has changed some is my hunger signals. I have been in tune with my physical hunger for years and knew what it felt like. It worked fine under ZC, too. Recently, though, I don't get to the stomach growling stage. I tend to eat now when I get tired and start really thinking about food. I am not sure if I should go ahead and what for the growl like I used to or just "go with the flow". It still seems to fall into the twice a day pattern.

One other thing that I have been debating about is to cut way back on the cheese (I am not ready to consider the "eliminate" word). I do fine with cheese and don't over do it. I don't have that much HWC - a splash in my tea (two mugs a day, four days a week). What is making me think about cutting back is that my sinuses just won't clear. I wake up every morning stuffed up and my mouth and throat coated with gunk (probably from breathing through my mouth all night). I seem to have "allergy" issues all of the time lately. Seeing Margot's sinus success on ZIOH after she dropped HWC is encouraging.

Slaying the Beast - Some Aftermath

2009-09-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

It's been a little over a week since dropping the diet soda and I'm still hanging in there.

The first few days were surprisingly easy. I did have a headache for a couple of days and my upper legs and backside hurt like mad for about six days, to the point of making it hard to sleep because I couldn't find a position where they didn't hurt. However, I wasn't tempted to cheat, even with a road trip to Spokane last Saturday.

I didn't intend it but I have basically dropped everything but water and a mug of hot tea on work days. I had intended to keep drinking unsweetened iced tea but ended up not caring enough to continue it. I have found that drinking plain seltzer water occasionally fills the need for fizz and plain water the rest of the time helps with the thirst.

On Monday, I was blindsided by terrible cravings, both for carbs and for Diet Pepsi. This was surprising because I haven't had any carb cravings for the last two months. I also ended up with a bad headache that lasted all night.

I persevered and continued eating zero carb and drinking water. However, Tuesday, I woke up 3.5 pounds heavier and feeling bloated. Since then, the weight has steadily dropped every day and the cravings have gone away. My energy levels were also much higher yesterday and today. I am not sure what that was all about but I had something similar with my weight last time I tried dropping the soda.

My hunger has been different the last couple of days. I haven't been getting hungry until much later than normal - usually around 1 - 2 PM. I am then barely hungry when I get home around 8:30. Last night, I just had a burger patty with a little cheese around 9:30 as I was just getting hungry then. I think it is possible that the diet soda was making me hungrier than I needed to be, which was slowing down my weight loss. Hopefully, the fat loss will pick up again once the diet soda is out of my system.

Slaying the Beast

2009-09-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

Okay - it's time to try to slay the beast.

Ever since I "rebooted" ZC a couple of months, I have still been drinking Diet Pepsi. I haven't had any cravings and was still losing weight, so I wasn't as motivated to take on my addiction.

However, I think my body has been telling me enough is enough. Even though I was losing weight, it was slow and bounced all over. Also, I would occasionally get a little light-headed if I drank it on an empty stomach, which tells me it was dropping my blood sugar because of an insulin response.

However, yesterday was the final straw. I had some with lunch and got really dizzy and kind of sick to my stomach. I also really bloated up. I felt tired, fat and miserable all day after that, which made my 14 hour work day feel really, really long.

Quitting is really tough, though. I gave it up for about a month when I first started ZC but was still having odd bits of carbs here and there so never lost my cravings for it. Since then, every time I have set a quitting date, I panic and drink twice as much leading up to that date and then find some reason to push it off.

Sounds pathetic, doesn't it? Addictions suck.

I am going to steal something from Charles on Zeroing In On Health because I can't approach this as something I am going to give up "forever". So, I woke up this morning and decided I won't have any diet soda today. Hopefully I'll wake up tomorrow and decided that again but I am not going to worry about that now.

So far, today is going well. The bloating has dropped some and I have way more energy than yesterday.

Five Month ZC Anniversary

2009-09-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

Today is five months ZC for me. I had a couple of slip ups during that time but have been going strong for the last couple of months. It is getting to be second nature now. My energy levels are finally feeling normal and I don't really have a problem with leg cramps anymore unless I am actively losing fat.

My weight is still up a little from my low last week but that bounce tends to happen when I hit a new low, so I am not worried.

Overall, I am surprised that I have been able to go this long and even more surprising is that I can see this as being sustainable for the rest of my life. Part of me, in fact, is pissed that I didn't know about it earlier and I wasted so many years with poorer than necessary health and fighting my weight and acne.

Day 147 - 21 Weeks

2009-09-05T11:32:00.000-07:00

I think I got off on my day count. It's actually day 147 which is 21 weeks since I started my zero carb way of eating. Since that is roughly five months, I figured it was time for an update.

My weight this morning was 179.0. That is a total loss of 20.6 pounds. That isn't a huge weight loss over 21 weeks, but I am at the weight where it doesn't come off fast. I have also had some set backs about halfway through that delayed my weight loss. Those couple of carb days really weren't worth it.

Here are my measurement stats from when I started and today. The numbers are odd because I measure in centimeters and the spreadsheet converts the numbers to inches. I don't bother rounding them down.

	4/11/09	9/8/09	Difference
Neck	16.73"	16.34"	-0.59
Chest	41.63"	40.35"	-1.97
Waist	37.01"	35.43"	-2.36
Stomach In	37.8"	35.83"	-1.18
Stomach out	39.76"	37.99"	-2.76
Hips	41.44"	39.17"	-1.38
Right Bicep	13.39"	12.6"	-0.49
Right Thigh	19.59"	19.09"	-0.39

When I started putting this all together, I was unimpressed with the numbers. I know I am smaller but it didn't seem like all that much smaller and the numbers kind of bore that out. However, I think the pictures paint a different story.

The "flex" pictures are a little embarrassing because I have no muscles but I think they show the differences in weight. I can work on the muscle thing later.

According to the on-line bodyfat calculator, I am at 17.3% body fat. I remember reading on Lyle McDonald's site that, for men, you should just start to see abs at 15% bodyfat, so around 17% is probably right. That means I am still carrying around 30 pounds of fat, so another 10 pounds or so would be a good loss. However, I don't really have a "goal weight", so I will just let the chips fall where they may.

The calculator site gives my BMI at 25.2 and says I am still 2.2 lbs overweight.

I also checked my fasting blood sugar this morning and it was 85. My strips are old, though, so I don't know how accurate that is.

It is hard to convey to people that are still eating carbs how easy it is to eat this way. People simply can't fathom not eating all of their favorites. Sure, I still get tempted by old favorites, but it is easy at this point to forego them. I haven't been overwhelmed by cravings in a while and food has just become something I have to do because I am hungry. The temptations are different from cravings and it is much easier to intellectually choose not to have those tempting foods. Cravings are driving one physiologically, which makes it much harder to gain control. Hopefully that makes sense.

Day 145

2009-09-04T08:43:00.001-07:00

When I got on the scale this morning, I had to do a double take on the number because it looked so weird. I finally figured out why that was - I was no longer in the 180's! 179.8 lbs this morning.

WOOT!

I haven't seen the 170's in a loooong time, except briefly after I had the flu for a week about 10 years ago, which doesn't count.

Everything is still going well food-wise, so I only expect it to go onward and downward from here. If I don't bounce up tomorrow, I will do updated stats and pictures.

Day 142

2009-09-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

Those mysterious extra pounds from last week seem to have gone. I was under 181 pounds over the weekend and have been at 181.4 lbs the last two mornings. Since I am weighing 4 hours earlier than on the weekend, I consider it a wash. I am down two pounds from seven days ago, so it appears things are moving in the right direction.

I took the boys fishing last Saturday and needed to wear some long pants because of having to go through some brush. I have been wearing khaki shorts all summer so had to dig through the closet to find something that sort of fit. I had some cheap khakis that I wore at the beginning of the summer when I had been on ZC for a couple of months so I wore those. I spent the entire fishing trip trying to not lose my pants. I guess some shopping is in order before it turns cold (no chance of that happening anytime soon).

The fishing trip was a bust, fish wise. It was more of an exploratory trip anyway since we had never gone there before. Youngest son, J, was really just wanting to practice his fly fishing. I did have to fish my oldest, G, out of the river after he fell off of a rock. Fortunately, he is a good swimmer and there is hardly any current there, so it was good for a laugh more than anything. J said it made the trip so worthwhile.

I was very pleased to see G's reaction to this and some other things that happened. In the past, he would have been uber-pissed and lashed out at everyone. Instead, he was calm and laughed off everything that happened. Learning to laugh at himself is [b]huge[/b]. I don't know if he is calmer because we have been cutting carbs at home (they still eat some but less than in the past) or because he is maturing (turns 15 in a week). Probably a combination.

It's a big milestone for G today, too, as it's his first day of high school. Then he turns 15 in a week and the day after that, starts the state-mandated Driving School.

I'm scared.

Day 138

2009-08-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

My body has been driving me crazy lately. After spending a couple of weeks flopping around 182 lbs, I dropped to 181.4 last Sunday. Then Monday morning, I was up to 183.4 for absolutely no reason that I can see. I stayed there all week. The only thing that I could come up with was that my hayfever was really bad this week (weed pollen is really high) and maybe that caused the weight gain. Nothing in my diet changed and I ate the same thing I always do - cheeseburger bowls, ribeyes or beef ribs. Not even any pork or chicken.

There were some weird things going on, though. I was hungry much earlier than normal. I didn't eat any more than usual; I just had my first meal around 9 AM instead of noon. Normally I would be hungry again when I got home around 4 PM but I wasn't this week. In fact, I was barely hungry enough for dinner even with eating earlier. My energy levels were higher than normal this week too.

So I was stuck at 183.4 pounds all week. I get up this morning and I am at 180.8, which is a new low and makes it a total loss of 19 pounds in about 4.5 months. I did weigh a little later than normal but not late enough to make up almost three pounds. I can see why people say that scales drive them crazy.

I also had leg cramps for the first time in over a month and half, which lends some credence to the theory that the cramps herald some fat loss.

Day 130

2009-08-20T11:32:00.001-07:00

I haven't updated in a while because there really hasn't been much change. My weight has been fluctuating around 182 pounds. This is disconcerting to me because that is where I stalled 11 years ago when I lost a lot of weight through Weigh Down. I was stuck there for almost five years until I started slowly regaining from too many carbs. I have been able to briefly drop to 182 a couple times since but regained each time. Hopefully this time will be different. I suppose I could live with it but I would really like to lose some more of the roll on my gut.

Other than that, there isn't much to report. Eating has been pretty much the same things - cheeseburger bowls for work lunches and ribs, steak and/or chicken thighs for other meals. I did have pork ribs the other day and didn't feel well afterward. I don't think pork sits well with me, which is weird because I used to eat it all of the time.

My energy levels have been up and down, as they have been since I started ZC. I haven't slept well the last few days which isn't helping. I do need to do something to get into better shape, though. I went trail riding the other day with the boys and I noticed I was really huffing and puffing after some pretty minor hills. I don't think I have completely keto-adapted yet, either as I run out of steam pretty easily. I seem to recover quickly but it would be nice to be able to do more before crashing.

Day 118

2009-08-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today was four weeks from my last update. I am down 3.6 pounds from that date. However, I had K do new measurements and there wasn't really much change. My stomach is down almost an inch but everything else is almost the same. In fact, the bodyfat percentage calculator gives me at a higher percentage than last time, despite being down 3.6 pounds. I think it's just a glitch because my clothes do feel looser. It is kind of a bummer to see a new low on the scale this morning (181.2 pounds) and then have the calculator say I'm actually fatter.

I was asked last week where I thought I might end up. Looking at myself critically, I think I could lose twenty pounds of fat without looking too skinny. I am currently looking forward to breaking the 180 pound barrier first and will post new pictures when I do.

I had a nice visit with my sister a couple of days ago. She was actually the first person to comment on my weight loss. She was fairly receptive to the idea of meat only and asked a lot of questions. However, there was still an air of disbelief ("you don't eat fruits or vegetables at all?"). I am going to recommend to her to just do low carb first and then keep dropping carbs if she stalls.

Meals the last few days have been fairly simple. K made pizza for everyone while my sister and her kids were here. I was going to make a pizza quiche but finally decided I didn't want that many carbs. I decided to try a meatza.

Changing the recipe to make it as low carb as possible and still stay pretty much zero carb was pretty easy. We mixed together one pound of italian sausage and one pound of hamburger along with some italian seasoning. The sausage and seasonings was just spices and herb with no fillers. We spread this out into a 9" x 13" baking pan and baked it for 20 minutes at 350°.

After the 20 minutes, we took it out, drained the grease and let it cool. When it came time to top it, I spread about three teaspoons of homemade pizza sauce over the whole thing and then topped it with a cheddar and mozzarella cheese mixture. The sauce has a only one carb in the three teaspoons but I am not sure it was necessary. I'll leave it off next time.

The meatza was very good and I ate about half of it that night. I ate the rest of it yesterday. I found it was amazing cold. It stays solid and has good flavor. It will make an excellent travel food where we have a cooler but no way to heat up meat.

The rest of the meals have been cheeseburger bowls.

Day 114

2009-08-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

I had some leftover short ribs yesterday when I was first hungry at about 11 AM. The ribs tasted okay but were getting a bit elderly. I wanted to finish them off because they needed to be used up and ate a bit more than usual. However, either because I overate or because they were getting old, I didn't feel real well the rest of the day. My stomach was upset and I felt hot.

By dinner at 6:30, I was getting hungry again, even though my stomach was still a bit upset. K made swiss steak (steak cooked in a sauce made from onion, tomato and celery) and I ate several smaller chunks of meat, though I didn't eat any of the veggies. I finished that off with a slice of cheddar.

Interestingly, even though I didn't eat any of sauce, I smelled like onion this morning when I took my shower. I didn't get any carbs from the sauce but must have picked up something from it. It didn't affect me in any other way, though. My stomach feels okay this morning and my weight was down another .8 pounds, to 181.8 lbs.

Day 113

2009-08-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

I have finally shaken the bloating from my exposure to gluten two weeks ago, so I have decided to get back to recording my zero carb journey. My last exposure to carbs was two weeks ago. I have been eating primarily beef and some hard cheese (cheddar mostly) along with some cream in my tea in the mornings that I work. This seems to work for my body and I have lost the carb and gluten bloat and hit a new low weight this morning - 182.6 pounds. That gives me a total loss of 17 pounds since I started.

I am still drinking Diet Pepsi. I had thought it was triggering cravings but that doesn't seem to be the case now. I think the cravings were coming from bits of carbs here and there - a few mushrooms with a steak, onions mixed into a sauce, etc. I do need to give the pop up, though, as I will get a little dizzy if I drink it on an empty stomach. This means I am releasing a little insulin from the sweet taste, which drops my blood sugar a bit at the time.

Meals yesterday were a cheeseburger bowl at 1 PM and a small bowl of taco meat, cheese and a little sour cream for dinner.

Catching up

2009-07-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have been neglecting my blog as I have been trying to get my head on straight and to back on track. I am going to be lazy and post a series of posts that I wrote in my journal on ZIOH instead of writing a bunch of new stuff.

7/22

I haven't been posting lately because I have been struggling a bit and I figured no one wanted to read about that. However, Suzanne wrote this earlier in Kristina's journal:

Suzanne Wrote: New and old people need to understand that zc is NOT easy. If we only write about the good times, the new people will think they are the only ones who struggle. They need to read about our struggles, so they know it is all normal.

It made me think that I might do better if I posted more often. I guess if someone doesn't want to read it, they don't have to click on my journal.

Since my 90 day update, I had been doing really well, food-wise, while trying to cut out the diet soda. Last Sunday, K and the boys left to go to K's folks for a couple of days and I ended up with a carb day that day. I'm over that and using K's absence to try to do mainly beef. I grilled up a bunch of beef short ribs for dinners and fixed a bunch of ground beef for my lunches. I also have ribeyes in the freezer if need be. The food's going well, but now the soda's back. I'm working on it.

Somewhere along the way, I was exposed to barley. I get an autoimmune response in some glands, usually my throat, when I get barley (wheat is a different response). The glands below the ear, under the jawline, swell and get painful to the touch. I have that going on now, in both glands, which is unusual. It made it very difficult to sleep last night as I couldn't find a position for my head that didn't put pressure on my neck.

It sucks but I have to just ride it out. Ibuprofen isn't even touching it at the moment. The weird thing is I am feeling pretty good except for that. My energy level wants me to bounce around but then my neck starts saying "Ow!!!!".

I am not tracking my weight right now as I am up a bit from the carbs last Sunday and even more from the glutening. That showed even before the throat started hurting.

7/22

KathyAnne Wrote: Also, sounds like you are right back on track!!

I hope so, but I thought that last week, too. I went all week ZC eating and no AS at all. Then I get on the scale Sunday morning and see my weight is UP! The little voices in my head said "F*** it. If that's the way it's going to be, I might as well eat what I want".

I now think I was glutened on Saturday (by some hot dogs that we grilled up while K's dad was here), which explained the weight gain.

Another problem is this idea of restarting. Another part of Sunday's carbfest was the idea that I had just restarted the weekend before, so it wouldn't be losing much time if I had carbs and then "restarted" again.

I'm not counting days anymore. I am just going to try to go day to day now and do the best I can. My biggest hurdle now is that I am not 100% convinced that I need to be ZC. I am not trying to fix any health problems and I am not horribly overweight. My head reads the info on ZC and thinks that it would be the best way to prevent problems in the future now that I am middle-aged. My heart, however, isn't completely convinced I need to do it now. I am going to give it a good try, though. I am fearful that anything else will spiral me out into carb land.

7/23

Yesterday went well. I was hungry early and had two short ribs. Surprisingly, I didn't get hungry again until late. I actually wasn't very hungry when I decided to grill up the flanken-style ribs that I had in the fridge. I basically just needed to get them cooked as they had been thawed several days. After I grilled them up, I decided to eat a couple of them so that I wouldn't get hungry during the night again. However, they were so good, I ended up eating about six of them. Maybe the glutening short circuited my hunger signals for now? These are definitely my favorite type of ribs, though the short ribs were good this time, too.

My neck is still bothering me, though I slept better last night, so I think it's on the mend. My weight is still way up so I still have some inflammation going on. I have had it take a week to clear up so hopefully by next week it will be gone. K e-mailed me that the hot dogs bothered her, too. She isn't Celiac but eats gluten free as we have to keep the household GF because of me and the boys. She can tell when she has gluten now. I don't think that stuff is good for anyone.

7/23

While eating dinner last night, I watched the first half of the Mystery Diagnosis that I had on the TiVo from Monday. That segment was about a little girl that had trouble swallowing, couldn't move very well and was frequently sick with respiratory problems. It turned out she had something called Pompe Disease which is a genetic disorder where you can't utilize the glycogen in the muscles so it builds up and causes an autoimmune reaction in the muscles.

When she was first diagnosed, there was no treatment and she was expected to die before she reached her 20's (she was 11 at the time of her diagnosis). Her family got involved with the experts and got them together and there is now some gene therapy that can slow the progression of the disease. The girl is now in her early 20's but is confined to a wheelchair.

I was curious if there was any kind of dietary treatment. It seemed that if the body couldn't deal with glycogen very well, you would want to get as little as possible in there. I did find that there has been an attempt to treat them with a "high protein, low carbohydrate" diet but only about 25% of the people responded to it.

I know I am just a layman and just thinking "out loud" here, but it seems like a "high fat, adequate protein, zero carb" diet would work better. From what I could find, it is just completely unfathomable to researchers that people could actually not eat any carbs at all. From the description of the treatment diet, it sounds like it is also unfathomable that "high fat" would work.

As the segment on the girl ended, it showed her and her family sitting at the table, eating pizza.

7/24

Another good food day yesterday though I still haven't been very hungry. I had a cheeseburger bowl at work at about 11 am. In the evening, I wasn't very hungry but ate a short rib and a half and a little cheddar, mostly so I could take a handful of ibuprofen without upsetting my stomach.

I thought my throat/neck was getting better but it isn't. It was kicking my butt yesterday (and so far today). It has moved to it's typical spot on the left side and intensified. If I hold my head in one position for very long (like when working on the computer), it will clamp down hard when I next move my head.

This is getting irritating but I can't do anything about it but pop ibuprofen and wait it out (and eat right). Oh, and I can whine about it here. LOL

Some people on another forum that I'm on were posting pictures of themselves from their childhood up through current pictures. It was fun looking through them and I went through my pictures last night so that I could post too. I was struck by the fact that I was actually fairly thin up 'til a year after I got married and then God flipped the fat switch (actually - I blame my wife LOL). I never saw myself that way (thin) at all, which meant that I never got to enjoy the feeling, either, if that makes sense.

7/24

About 3 1/2 years ago, I had been studying gluten intolerance in an attempt to get to the root cause of a lifetime of stomach problems and some bad headaches. I didn't know for sure that I was intolerant, but I was willing to give it a try to see how I felt. I didn't have any trouble at all being extremely strict and sticking with it because I felt great right away. After accidentally eating something with gluten and getting sick about three months in, there was no question I needed to eat that way the rest of my life and I have never been tempted to stray. There are times it sucks being different and having to be a pain when eating at other people's houses but it really hasn't been that difficult and except for a surprise brief period of mourning, I haven't really missed anything.

I would like to get into the same mindframe with ZC but it hasn't been very easy so far. For one thing, I didn't get the immediate feedback of feeling good like I did dumping gluten. It makes it harder to stick with when you feel run down, have leg cramps and "bathroom issues", especially when the scale slows down.

That said, I have been feeling motivated lately by looking at my old pictures. I don't want to go into my later years carrying a belly and feeling tired all of the time. Heart disease and diabetes runs in my family. I actually have had a bunch of issues clear up, as listed in the Benefits of ZC thread. I want to give it a fair shot and I am feeling pretty good about it right now.

Must be all of the beef I'm eating while the family is gone.

7/26

Everything is still going well, except for the neck thing. I'll think it's finally getting better and then it flares up again. Oh well, it's my own damn fault.

I was worried about this weekend since I'm home by myself. However, I haven't been tempted at all to eat stuff I shouldn't. In fact, I haven't been very hungry. I didn't eat yesterday until after 1 PM (hamburger) and just had one and half short ribs and a slice of cheddar at about 9 PM.

I've dropped more than five pounds of bloat this week. I am still a pound above my lowest weight but hopefully that will be gone soon as I continue to eat right and as the inflammation dies down.

When I got up yesterday, the weather was much cooler than expected so I went out to do some much needed yardwork. It was mostly pulling weeds with a little mowing thrown in. I worked most of the morning and got a bunch done. However, I kept having a problem of getting really dizzy when I would stand up to move to a different spot. One time, I seriously thought I was going to black out. It felt exactly like my blood pressure was dropping too fast. It could be because I hadn't eaten yet but I don't think so. It's just something I will have to watch (and get up a little slower).

Day 90 Wrap-up

2009-07-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday wrapped up the original 90 "challenge" period for my new way of eating. While it was 90 days since I started, unfortunately, I can't say I was zero carb for 90 days. Over the last four - five weeks, I have several times where I have fallen off the wagon with different degrees of severity. Also, over the same time period, I added Diet Pepsi back in because it helped clear my throat when I was having problems with my allergies.

Coincidence that the time I struggled was also the the time I added soda back in? - I think not.

I originally added it back in with the idea that it would just be until the pollen died back down and I didn't need it. I happened to drop to my lowest weight about a week after I started drinking it again and I figured the pop must not bother me or affect my weight loss. However, it was not long after that low point that the cravings hit hard and I started struggling and falling off the wagon here and there.

I also started getting the light-headed feeling in the afternoon again. As far as I can tell, it must be a low blood sugar reaction from the sweet taste. After this experience, I can truly say that diet soda won't help me be healthy and lose weight. It has to truly go this time.

I never got measurements during my lowest weight times, so my spreadsheet doesn't look very impressive. It shouldn't though, because I haven't been at that point in two weeks. I basically have made no progress since the end of May.

I've kept track of my average weight over the 90 days. It is a moving average of seven days. The averaging takes out the bounces and gives a truer picture of what is going on. As you can see, it dropped quickly and then just honed in to the 185 range over the last five weeks or so.

Here are my before and after pictures. There is no denying that I have dropped fat. It is just that I could be further along now.

The "after" pictures are going to become the starting pictures for the next 90 days. I am going to do zero carb the way it is supposed to be done - no artificial sweeteners, no snitching a few macadamia nuts after dinner here and there, no falling of the wagon just because I am eating at someone else's place, etc. Just water, meat and high fat dairy. I will also drink unsweetened tea to help get through the soda withdrawals but will have to evaluate it as I go along.

I have to do this to evaluate if zero carb will be something that will work for me for the rest of my life. If all goes well, the cravings should go away, the weight should drop off and it should become easy enough to stay with for the rest of my life. Two things that have to happen, though, is my energy level has to come up and the leg cramps have to stop. If those don't happen by the end of 90 days, I may have to look for something else. I don't foresee that happening, though.

Day 87

2009-07-07T12:06:00.000-07:00

I've neglected my blog and my journal because of the long weekend. I work four 10's, so had half of Thursday and all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. I stayed off of the computer almost the whole time, even though I didn't really do much. We had been gone the previous two weekends so just hung around the house.

It was also blazing hot, so I didn't much done, except a little yard work early in the day. K is in a cleaning out the excess mode, so I helped her go through the kitchen, sorting out stuff we don't need anymore. We are going to end up having to have a huge yard sale, with no relatives invited that weekend. :lol:

Food wise, the weekend was a bit of a struggle. I didn't do too bad, but just fought cravings all weekend. I think part of it was just from hanging around the house. I don't have nearly the problem on days I work. Weekends have been a problem for me because of that.

I experimented a little over the weekend, too, to see if I could kill the cravings. I thought maybe that I wasn't eating enough so tried eating more ZC food when I got hungry. That didn't work at all and I just ballooned up and felt crummy. I have decided the only way that works for me is to eat smaller amounts when I get hungry. I am not leaving myself hungry or anything like that; I just can't stuff myself.

I still haven't lost all of the bloat from the previous weekend at my parents'. I think the biggest part of that is because I was glutened. It almost always takes a week or so to lose the gluten bloat. My weight hovered in the 185's all weekend, though it was down to 184.2 this morning. Hopefully I'll get back to my losing ways soon.

The 4th was my 12th week since I started this challenge. I had intended to do an update of my stats and pictures but decided there was no point with the gluten bloat. Friday the 10th is my 90th day, which is how long I originally intended to do this challenge. I will do an update then. It will also be a new start as I have some changes to make for the next 90 days.

Day 81

2009-07-01T10:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated since last weekend, where I was concerned with being at my folks' for the weekend. It turned out to be a mixed bag.

K and I drove down Thursday night and had dinner at the Golden Corral on the way. Dinner was okay but not great. I have decided that I don't like whatever it is that they sprinkle on their steaks. It has a weird aftertaste and ruins the taste of the meat. I could probably ask to leave it off but it is all over the grill so it would still be on there.

I also had a little mixed meat from the salad bar (chicken and ham) plus a little cheese. This turned out to be a mistake because it glutened me. The rest of the night and most of the next day, I had that familiar "glass in the intestines" feeling. Dumb, dumb, dumb. One of these days, I'll learn to not ass-u-me about restaurant food.

The next day was good, food-wise. Breakfast at my grandpa's was typical - massive amounts of eggs and sausage. The sausage links were supposedly 0 grams of carbs but they tasted a little sweet to me. Not too bad, though. Dinner was tacos, so I had a little meat and cheese and then ate two of the hamburger patties that we had brought. I think my mom was a little put out by that but I wouldn't have done well with more taco meat.

Saturday was a repeat for breakfast. Even though the breakfast was huge, I still ended up getting hungry around lunch and had a couple of burgers. For dinner, K and I had bought a bunch of marked down chuck-eyes from a local store and I grilled those up for dinner. They turned out well and everyone raved about them. Amazing how a little fat on a steak will improve its taste.

That dinner was where the problem started. I was feeling ten foot tall and bulletproof and decided I could handle a little baked potato with my steak. Well, as can be imagined, that potato led to a salad, which led to a few chips, which led to *mumble* chocolate chip cookies.

If that wasn't bad enough, I ended up eating chili and ice cream the next day at home. I had only regained a pound and a half from the episode at my parents' but the other stuff led to a total of four pounds regained. I have been doing well since but have only dropped a pound of the bloat. I am also fighting some severe allergy problems at the moment, which I think is causing me to hold on to the water.

I have decided that I am going to avoid the Golden Corral in Spokane. Not only does their meat taste weird but it has set off cravings both times I eaten there. Taking the burgers worked really well and I'll just do that next time. On longer trips, I'll probably take something in a cooler. Restaurant food is just too big of a risk for me and isn't satisfying from a ZC point of view. It is also too expensive for what you get. It cost K and I $28 to eat at GC. In comparison, on Saturday we shopped for the BBQ and bought eight 1/2 pound chuck-eyes, a bag of chips, a can of Bush beans and a can of olives for $24 (and most of that we wouldn't normally buy). The high cost of the restaurants just isn't worth it to me.

Not too much happened in respect to our way of eating. I was expecting comments from my dad but he never said anything to me directly. My mom said something about me not eating lettuce with the taco "salad" and said I was cold because I had lost weight (I had to put a jacket on because I was sitting by the A/C when we were playing pinochle). I know it is only vanity but I was a little disappointed that no one said anything about my weight loss from a positive point of view. I was down 16.6 pounds at that point and feel that I look a lot better but not one word. I guess they are waiting for my arteries to explode.

I did have to deprogram some nutritional "wisdom" that my dad told my boys. I had to explain to them that the brain can get all the glucose it needs without one having to actually eat carbs and that one can get all the vitamins and minerals from just meat, as long as it isn't cooked beyond recognition. Apparently, the nutritional lectures are going to the kids instead of me.

Because of my epic fail two weekends in a row, I thought about resetting my time back to "Day 1". However, Charles recently told someone that going off plan was actually on plan because it shows you how carbs affect the body. I am definitely learning that lesson. I realize that my results so far are different from someone doing ZC flawlessly over the same time frame but I think these bumps will happen when trying to make a lifestyle change.

Day 75

2009-06-25T07:39:00.000-07:00

I finally have lost all of the bloat from my diet fail last weekend. In fact, I hit a new low this morning. I dropped 1.2 pounds, down to 183.0. The stupid scale teased me by flickering 182.6 a couple of times before settling on 183. That's a total loss of 16.6 pounds.

I wasn't very hungry yesterday. I got hungry the first time about 9 AM. I ate two flanken ribs that were pretty meaty with lots of fat. I expected to get hungry again in the early afternoon but it didn't come. I kept expecting it but - nothing. I finally got hungry about 6 PM and ate three cheeseburger patties. I also ate an extra slice of cheese while waiting for them to cook. I was pretty hungry by then.

I was originally going to try to cut out the dairy but I have found I just do better with it. I think the cravings that led to my eating ice cream and yogurt last Sunday came from trying to cut out the dairy the week before. I have also found I don't get the leg cramps as bad if I have dairy, probably because of the calcium. Finally, it's just easier to stick with eating this way if I can include some dairy. Whether that is because of something dietary or because it allows for a little variety, I don't know.

The next couple of days will be a challenge. We are going to be spending the weekend at my parents' place. We are driving down tonight and will probably eat dinner at Golden Corral so that we can stuff ourselves on steaks. Breakfasts aren't bad since we eat at my Grandpa's and he cooks us eggs and sausage. The meals with my parents will be challenging as they are usually carb based. I cooked up a bunch of burgers to take with us, just in case.

I was worried about getting flak from my folks for the way I am eating but I have decided to just go with it. I am not going to be shy about it and the nice benefits I've had. I am going to take the Good Calories, Bad Calories book and if it gets too annoying, I'll just hand the book to my dad and tell him we'll talk about once he's read it. Otherwise, conversation over.

Day 74

2009-06-24T09:53:00.000-07:00

I have been hiding from my blog the last few days because I didn't have a good weekend. It started with having some serious cravings a week ago. I don't know where the cravings were coming from as I was eating pretty well but they were annoying. I would eat a bunch of meat and just didn't feel full afterwards. I wasn't still hungry but had a "hollow" feeling in my stomach. It's hard to explain.

We went to Spokane on Friday to meet my parents so they could take the boys with them (the boys are camping with my dad this week). After dropping the boys off, K and I did some shopping and then stopped at the Golden Corral to eat. We were both very hungry by then and had a really nice meal. I had one of the best steaks that I have ever had there off of their grill. When I back for seconds, though, the next steak wasn't that great. I also had some rotisserie chicken (way too salty) and a little ham.

At the end of dinner, I decided to have "a treat" and had three strawberries. They were incredibly sweet, almost too much so.

I was okay the next day, except for being up slightly in weight, probably from the few carbs and all of the salt from dinner. However, by dinner, the "can't get full" feeling was back and I ended up just picking at more stuff after dinner. It was all in the ZC vein but I just ate too much.

The same feeling was there on Sunday and I did the same thing all day. By dinner time, I was very frustrated and ended up talking myself into a big bowl of real ice cream. Dumb excuses like "It's Father's Day and I deserve a treat" and "I've gone 10 weeks without a serious cheat, one time won't hurt". I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but I definitely didn't enjoy the stomachache afterwards or the 2.4 pound gain on Monday morning!

Feeling disgusted with myself Monday morning, I went back to mainly beef. I also have made it a point to eat smaller amounts only when physically hungry. As of this morning, I am back down to 184.2. That isn't my lowest but it is where I was before the cheats. Also, the weird cravings are gone. I don't know if it is because of going back to smaller amounts of beef or if my discretion satisfied whatever was causing the cravings. I hope it's the former.

I didn't do a 10 week update because of the salt/carb bloat and won't do an update next week because I'll be out of town next weekend. I'll do a 12 week update with new measurements and pictures. I hope to be lower in weight by then but all I can do is stay on plan.

Day 68

2009-06-18T07:26:00.001-07:00

After having several days of not being very hungry, yesterday was totally different. I got hungry early, about 7 AM, and had two chicken thighs. I was hungry again by noon and had a big cheeseburger bowl. There was only a little shredded cheese in it but a lot of hamburger that hadn't been thoroughly drained so it still had a lot of fat. That kept me full pretty much the rest of the day.

Dinner was ribs, both back ribs and flanken-style beef ribs. I grilled the ribs and ended up eating one back rib and two meaty flanken ribs even though I wasn't that hungry. They looked really good (and they were).

My weight this morning dropped back to 183.2 pounds, my low so far. I expected it to bounce around after hitting the low on Monday but it would be nice if it would drop some more now.

Besides the weight, another thing that has happened lately is that I am getting my energy back. I had several weeks there that I just didn't have as much energy as earlier and my legs felt really heavy and leaden, like my muscles weren't getting energy or something. Hopefully this means I am finally getting fully fat adapted.

Day 67

2009-06-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was another "not very hungry" day. Part of the problem was that my stomach was bothering me. It was having a regular spasm on the left side, just under the rib. It did that pretty much all day and was extremely annoying. I wasn't sick or anything; my stomach was just unsettled and spazzing out.

I ate the first time about 10 AM, thinking it might settle my stomach. It didn't. That meal was a cheeseburger bowl. I wasn't hungry at all the rest of the afternoon and evening until I finally got really hungry about 7:30. I had two chicken thighs, half of a chicken breast - all with the skin on - and a cheeseburger patty. My stomach was fine after that and is fine today.

I was back down to 184.0 this morning, so still up a little but heading in the right direction again. I had mentioned that my khaki shorts were getting loose. Last night, I found I can slip them off without unbuttoning them. These are the 32" waist shorts that I started wearing about a month ago. I am not sure what is going on with the weight but there is definitely body recomposition going on. I did change the battery in my scale last night in case that why I was seeing all of the bouncing around.

Day 66

2009-06-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

I expected a bounce up this morning but was surprised when it was 1.4 pounds up! I wasn't very hungry yesterday and didn't eat much though I had a very late dinner.

I got hungry the first time about 11 AM. I had picked all of the steak strips out of the leftover Beef and Pineapple since it didn't look like anyone was going to finish it and it was getting elderly so I had that when I first got hungry. Dinner was three chicken thighs and half of a chunk of chicken breast, all with skin. Dinner was about 7:30 PM.

It's possible that there were a few residual carbs in the steak strips but it didn't really taste that sweet. The weird thing about the bounce up is that my 32" waist khaki shorts are hanging off of me today. I am starting to wonder if it's just time to change the battery in the scale. I'll be bummed if the lows I was seeing was all because of a bad battery.

Day 65

2009-06-15T11:52:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated in a while. Last weekend was very busy. We had relatives here Thursday and Friday. My parents, K's parents and K's sister all came up for G's 8th grade graduation. They were gone by Saturday morning and we spent the rest of the weekend doing stuff around the house. I wasn't on-line very much.

Thursday night was the graduation party. G wanted pizza, so K made a pizza quiche for her and I. We also had a crust-less, sugar-free cheesecake and some ice cream a la Bear. I ate quite a bit that night and still dropped a pound, down to 183.8, a new low. On Friday, I ate to my in-laws schedule, not mine, and ended up overeating and bounced back to 184.4 lbs.

Saturday was leftovers and I dropped down to 184.2 Sunday morning. Yesterday, I wasn't hungry in the morning, so didn't eat until around 1 PM. While shopping in the morning, I bought some carb-free bacon. When we got home, I cooked it by putting it all on a cookie sheet and baking it at 400° for about 20 minutes. This cooking method worked really well. It was a lot less messy than cooking it a pan and it got nicely crisp.

I ended up eating a leftover beef rib (way too lean - yuck) and about 2/3s of the bacon. It was very good bacon and it hit the spot. It also seemed to be pretty low salt as I didn't puff up from it.

I had a new low weight of 183.2 pounds this morning. That makes a total loss at this point of 16.4 pounds in a little over nine weeks. My normal pattern is to hit a low and then bounce back up for a while before dropping again. We'll see how it goes.

I am a little unsure about the dairy now. I had thought it was holding me back. However, between the ice cream, cheese-cake and pizza quiche, I had a ton of dairy over the weekend and still posted a decent sized loss. Maybe I was just primed for it and I lost despite the dairy and not because of it. I am still going to try to keep it limited for now to see what happens. I do think I breath easier when I don't have it.

Day 60

2009-06-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Since this is day 60, it marks the 2/3rds point of my original 90 zero carb try out period. I am planning on taking it to at least six months now (and probably make it my lifestyle) but I am just marking it now for posterity.

I was hungry early yesterday and had the final two piglets at around 8 AM. Surprisingly, I didn't get hungry again until after 5 PM. Dinner was supposed to be short ribs but they hadn't thawed out. We made chili for the boys and K and I had leftovers. I had two burger patties and three all beef hot dogs that needed to get eaten. I sprinkled a little shredded cheese on the burgers for flavor. The hot dogs had less than 1g of carbs each.

We are having a bunch of family visiting tomorrow and having a party for G's 8th grade graduation. K had to do a bunch of baking yesterday for it including making a gluten free yellow cake that smelled really good. I think it set off an insulin reaction. We also tried making a batch of "The Bear"'s zero carb ice cream for the party so that K and I could have a treat.

The ice cream turned out really good right out of the ice cream maker as a soft serve. I had about three or four spoonfuls. However, I noticed that it was pretty hard in the freezer this morning, which is always a problem if you don't get enough sugar in ice cream. This recipe relies on milk protein powder and powdered Splenda (or aspartame) to keep it from freezing solid. We had to modify the recipe for our machine and I don't think we had enough. We have a few ideas for next time.

Even though the Bear called it zero carb, it really isn't, though it is close. For two quarts, the breakdown for the whole thing is 248g of fat, 53g of protein and 28g of carbs. Each cup, therefore, would have 3.5g of carbs. Not too bad for a very occasional treat. It didn't set off any cravings for me which is big. i was a big ice cream fan before zero carb and I was a little worried that this would make me crave "the real thing".

The downside for me is that it looks like dairy might be on the outs for me if I want to continue to lose weight. After dropping steadily over the weekend while eating no dairy, I am up again this morning .4 pounds, to 184.6 pounds. This is after eating hardly anything the last couple of days but adding back a little dairy. This sucks big time.

Day 59

2009-06-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

It was an odd day yesterday, food-wise. I got hungry early, about 6:30 AM. I ate two leftover chicken thighs. They weren't very big so I thought I would be hungry again fairly quickly. It turned out that i didn't get hungry again until almost 2 PM. Since this is getting fairly close to dinner, I just had two leftover piglets.

Well, it ended up being a really good thing that no one else at home was hungry enough for dinner because I wasn't even remotely hungry when I got home from work. I finally ended up eating some burgers at 7:30. I was cooking them up for the kids and got hungry then. I don't know if I really needed to eat before then or if the smell just triggered it. I had three plain burger patties with some spicy brown mustard (I'm lovin' that stuff lately).

Possibly because of the late dinner, I was up slightly, .2 pounds, to 184.2 - essentially holding.

I posted a few days ago about benefits I had seen while doing zero carb that weren't just weight related. I came across another one recently. I am much more tolerant to a wider range of temperatures.

In the past, while dieting, I would frequently be cold all of the time. After I lost the 45 pounds doing Weigh Down, I had several years where I was cold all of the time, even in the summer. I wore sweatshirts to work in the summer because the A/C made me too cold. I wouldn't turn the A/C on in the car if I was alone, even when the temperature was over 100° out. Winters were very uncomfortable.

When I wasn't dieting, I was always hot. Our house doesn't have A/C but where we live it cools down at night so we just put fans in the windows and cool the house naturally. My goal was always to get the house as cold as possible overnight so that by the end of the day the inside temperature was only in the mid-70's. The problem was that it froze out K and the boys when they were home in the summer. K and I had some disagreements over this method.

This year, I have found that I can be comfortable in the house through a wider range of temperatures. I haven't minded it even the times it has gotten up to the low 80's. This isn't the same as when I was cold all of the time because I can tolerate it when it is lower, too. K is happier now, too, which is always a good thing.

I have also noticed another really trivial thing. When I first started LC five years ago, I noticed that I got considerably fewer of those white spots on my fingernails. I don't know what they are or what they signify, but I found it interesting. The thing was, though, that I never was completely free of them. It seemed I would always have at least one. Now, since starting zero carb, I haven't made any new ones and the last one will be gone when I cut my nails next. Like I said - trivial, but interesting to me.

Day 58

2009-06-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

I wasn't hungry yesterday in the morning, so I went out with K to do our shopping without eating. While picking up our piles of meat (80/20 hamburger for $1.58 a pound), I found a one pound package of pork belly strips on markdown for $1 and decided to pick it up to have for lunch when we got home.

The pork belly strips are basically uncured bacon. I decided to try cooking it in the oven at 400 degrees on a cookie sheet. To avoid splatter, I put them on a rack in the sheet. I think this ended up being a mistake, though, as it didn't brown except for a few spots where it sagged through the rack and touched the grease. I am a little leery about getting too much grease splattering around in the oven since it is a gas stove.

The pork belly was good anyway. I have really been liking spicy brown mustard (zero carbs) on meat lately and it worked well with these. I ended up eating about three quarters of the package.

I wasn't hungry again 'til dinner. Dinner was baked chicken thighs. I talked K into leaving the skin on and it made a world of difference in flavor. They were very good and I ended up eating four of them.

Another day of no dairy. No beef either, though it didn't seem to make much of a difference as I was down a pound this morning, to 184.0. That is my lowest since going zero carb and brings the total lost to 15.6 pounds in about eight weeks.

Day 57

2009-06-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

After talking about being beef only, I had more of the piglets yesterday when I got hungry. We needed to be out the door in a hurry and the leftover piglets were the only thing really available. Since I had jumped up in weight 2.4 pounds last time I had them, I was a little leery. I didn't seem to bloat from them this time, though, and they seemed fine. I am starting to think it was just coincidence with some random thing that caused the bloat Tuesday.

For dinner, K made a Vietnamese dish that the kids like called, simply, Beef and Pineapple. Since it has a full can of pineapple in it (with 3.5 pounds of london broil), I cooked up a chuck-eye. I had a few strips of the meat that I fished out of the broth, just for a taste of it.

The pork didn't seem to cause a problem, weight-wise, this time. I was the same as yesterday, at 185.0 lbs. The scale even wavered for a second to 184.8 but settled at 185 (sigh). I am getting the sinking feeling that it wasn't the beef that getting me back on track but the fact that I haven't had very much dairy. Having to give it up would severely suck, but you do what you gotta do, I guess.

Week 8 Update - Day 56

2009-06-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

The beef and water routine seems to be working. I was at 185 pounds this morning, which is only .8 pounds from where I was two weeks ago. It's frustrating that I am still over that point, though. I am hoping that I will continue in the right direction.

I was hungry pretty early, about 8 AM, and had a beef short rib. I was hungry again at 2 PM and had six flanken-style ribs. They were good and fatty and very filling. I thought it would take me through the evening but I got hungry again about 9 PM and had a small chuck-eye steak.

Since I am doing "official" updates every four weeks, it is time again for one as this is Week 8. I am still higher in the measurements than two weeks ago but it is close. I have still lost a fair amount where it counts over the whole eight weeks.

Here is a new series of before and after pictures. You can click on any of the pictures for a bigger version.

I think there is a fairly noticeable difference and I feel I put on a little muscle (or, at least, uncovered it). I still have a lot of fat on my belly and it is irritating that it refuses to drop faster. However, I can't do anything about it but to keep plugging along and wait for it.

These kind of updates are good for me mentally. Looking at the scale day to day and not really seeing any progress stresses me out. I can tell by how my clothes fit that I am smaller but it's easy to forget that as you kind of get used to yourself over time when there aren't big changes. Seeing it this way helps to reaffirm what I am doing.

I still haven't gotten the energy boost that some people see on zero carb. I am doing okay but find my legs feel leaden sometimes and I just don't have that extra gear yet. I think one thing that has been working against me lately is that the pine pollen is really bad and the cottonwood trees are, too. I haven't been sneezing too bad but I have been stuffed up and have a stuffy head and always scratchy throat. Maybe that is adding inflammation or something that is keeping me puffy and run down.

Day 55

2009-06-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been very frustrating. Tuesday night we had pork riblets (piglets). The piglets had been marinated in Frank's Red Hot sauce and some wheat-free soy sauce. They weren't particularly salty and I only had four because I wasn't real hungry. However, the next morning my weight had jumped up 2.4 pounds to 188.8 pounds!?! I really don't know what caused the jump but it was definitely bloat as my stomach that night felt distended and hard.

I went beef only the next two days, except for a little cheese yesterday with my cheeseburger bowl at lunch. I ate primarily fatty beef ribs and hamburger over those days and my weight fell to 187.4 yesterday and was at 186.0 this morning.

My energy levels have started to come back up. However, my workouts on Monday and Friday were really tough. I am managing to match what I did last week but I couldn't make any progress. I am hoping that I will be hitting that keto-adaptation soon so I have more energy and endurance.