Day 19

I returned yesterday from my business trip in Boise and am finally getting the chance to do an update. The trip went well and keeping on plan was actually much easier than anticipated.

On Sunday, I had three cheeseburger patties before I left so was fine until dinner that night. The boss took a bunch of us to the Applebee's that was across the street from the hotel. Since he was paying, I didn't want to get anything too expensive (a decent sized steak was over $20), so I ordered one of their 10 oz "Brewtus" bacon sirloin burgers sans bun and fries. I did end up adding some sauteed mushrooms (mushrooms are 2 grams - 1 of those fiber - per cup raw, so it wasn't much). The burger turned out to be very good and was plenty filling.

I was hungry the next morning and had a "meat lovers" omelette at the hotel restaurant. It was a cheese omelette with bacon, sausage and ham. It was good, and very filling, but really salty. That tided me over until dinner, which was good because the lunch provided to us was a taco bar. The last time I had taco/nacho meat, I was severely glutened, so I had no problem not eating anything. Dinner was again paid for by the boss at the steakhouse in the hotel. I had two 8 oz bunless bacon cheeseburgers (a ribeye was over $26 and wasn't very big). I used the gluten excuse to not get fries or a bun and the waiter hounded me through dinner over alternatives ("how about sauteed green beans?"). It also was good but the two burgers was really too much.

On Tuesday, I wasn't hungry for breakfast so slept in a little. I had planned on pemmican for lunch while the others ate but it sounded like I needed to be there. Fortunately, they were having sandwiches, so I got some cheese, ham and turkey before it had been contaminated by gluten. It wasn't much , so I had some pemmican when I got back to my room and was still hungry for dinner. The boss again took some of us to Applebee's. There was only four of us this time, so I got a little grief about my bunless and potato-less Brewtus burger (especially after I put butter and mustard on it - very tasty by the way).

I wasn't hungry the next morning but I knew we would be in an important meeting all morning and didn't want my stomach to start growling. I had to go off menu to order three eggs and a side of bacon because all of the rest of the stuff was carbed out with potatoes and toast and I didn't see any reason to pay for that stuff. I didn't want an omelette since I wasn't very hungry so it was just enough, especially after they accidentally doubled my side order of bacon.

After the meeting, we took off in my coworker's Cessna and flew home. We had to fly around some weather and the trip ended up taking four hours instead of the expected two and a half. We got back about 2 PM our time (after losing an hour) and I was getting pretty hungry by then. I had some of my pemmican and two colby jack cheese sticks. Dinner was a T-Bone and a piece of cheese.

With all of the cheese and bacon I have had over the last few days, I have been getting way more salt than I usually do. I was feeling a little bloated, so I thought I would be up a pound or two this morning due to water retention. Instead I was at 189.0 pounds. This is down .8 pounds since Saturday, for a total loss of 10.8 pounds. I think I may still lose a little more once the salt flushes out of my system.

All in all, it was very easy to stay on plan despite eating exclusively in restaurants for almost four days. The best part was not getting glutened and losing almost a pound is a bonus, too. Still, the food was way saltier than I am now used to and I am definitely looking forward to some home cooking

I have been dragging around all day today because today is the day I give up diet soda. I have had tea, so I am not cutting out all caffeine. It is still a lot less than I was having. I am mostly trying to avoid the insulin spike driven by the sweet taste of the diet pop. I was originally going to ween down but I took today off and have a four day weekend. I thought it best to just get it over with. I am dragging but don't have much of a headache - yet.

Day 14

I managed to give myself another low blood sugar episode yesterday. I wasn't hungry when I got up so I poured myself some Diet Pepsi and sat down at the computer to read. Over the next couple of hours, while reading on the computer, I managed to put away almost a two liter without thinking about it. I did eat a taco meat omelette after that but was already feeling a little shaky. I didn't feel better until mid-afternoon. As soon as I get back from my business trip, the pop goes. In the meantime, I just have to keep it to smaller amounts to avoid the big insulin response.

About 3 PM, I was still fighting the low blood sugar and had four pork rinds (ingredients: pork and salt) and a piece of cheese. That helped and tided me over until dinner at 7. I had a cheeseburger patty and two piglets.

I inadvertently ended up with a lot of salt yesterday between the taco meat, pork rinds and piglets. I was very thirsty all day, which is partly why I over did it on the pop. I switched to water in the afternoon and felt like I couldn't get enough the rest of the evening. I figured I would be sloshing around this morning and would be up several pounds but I was actually down .4 pounds, to 189.6. That makes it an even ten pounds in the two weeks that I have been eating this way. I only lost .8 pounds during the last week but my measurements show I have lost inches

I also compared my measurements to when I had dieted down to 188.4 pounds last fall through calorie restriction and higher carb. Even though my weight is still more than a pound higher, I am quite a bit smaller. That tells me that I am losing more fat and putting on a bit of lean tissue.

I have a bit of a challenge over the next four days. I leave tomorrow to do several days of meetings with my employer. They will be providing some of the meals, which, of course, I won't be able to eat because of the gluten. My plan is to get a big omelette for breakfast and then eat the pemmican that I am taking when I get hungry after that. I think I will be okay that way.

I'll update more when I get back Thursday.

Day 13

Meals were pretty simple yesterday - three piglets and a beef spare rib around 11 AM and three cheeseburger patties at dinner (about 6:30). Dinner was right on the edge of being enough but I didn't quite feel like having more. I got up to use the bathroom at 3:30 and was almost hungry (but didn't eat) and was still on the edge of hunger this morning, though it faded before I ate anything.

Since I did the Weigh Down way of eating for so long, I am no stranger to hunger signals and waiting to eat until I got them. It has been different on zero carb, though. I don't always get a full blown hunger signal like before. I suppose that if my insulin levels are coming down, I have more fatty acids available from my own fat stores, so the hunger signal isn't as strong as when the insulin levels are high and internally starving the cells.

It is something I am adjusting to. I have read that it is important to get enough food in. I am not intentionally cutting back on my food; I am just not that hungry. There have been times that I didn't get the stomach growl but ate because I felt weak. I think that is okay and is just a different hunger signal. It is an adjustment that should become clearer and easier as I go along.

Another thing that is interesting to me is that I am losing my cravings for other food. I dished up a little ice cream for the boys last night and wasn't tempted at all to lick the spoon or taste any of it, unlike last time. This lifestyle gets easier all the time.

I am down .4 pounds, to 190.0 - my lowest so far. That is a total loss of 9.6 pounds.

Day 12

I was super busy at work yesterday and barely had time to eat. I got hungry fairly early but didn't have time to stop to eat until about 1:30 PM. I had a beef short rib and three piglets.

I went to Spokane right after work for my son's track meet and then did some running around after that in Spokane, so I had a pretty late dinner. I had a plain, bunless triple cheeseburger at Wendy's. It was good but tasted really salty to me.

It also really irks me that you can't just buy a burger patty at a fast food restaurant. Paying for a full burger, at full price, and then only getting half of what you paid for (no bun, no lettuce, no condiments) rankles. When I worked fast food as a teenager, we could sell a plain burger patty at a reduced price (people in the drive-thru would buy them for their dogs) but apparently no one does that anymore. If I had been hungrier, I probably would have gone to the Golden Corral, where I could have loaded up on plain meat.

I have really noticed this week that I am losing my cravings for non-meat foods. G was eating fries with his burger last night and I had no desire to "snitch" any of them (I did have a fleeting desire for a Frosty but it didn't last long). I feel that I am starting to adapt pretty well to this lifestyle.

One other thing I noticed last night is that K's skin is really nice. It is very smooth and soft, especially on her legs. It seriously felt like she had just put lotion on (she hadn't). Another nice benefit of this lifestyle for her. I haven't noticed the same for me, though. The back of my arms are really dry right now for some reason.

My weight was up .4 pounds,to 190.8, possibly because of the late salty dinner. My weight has been bouncing all over this week but I am not concerned. The odd thing is that I feel thinner, even with the higher weight. My newer pants in the smaller size fit better now than they did last week near the same weight. I think there must be some body recomposition going on, so I am just riding it out and seeing where it goes.

Day 11

I was getting hungry when I got to work yesterday about 5 AM so I had a couple of mugs of tea with cream. That lasted until around 11, at which time I had pemmican and two cheeseburger patties.

On the way home, I stopped at the store and found that they had a bunch of packs of short ribs on markdown. I bought three packs and grilled up one pack at dinner time. K had also made Parmesan chicken. I had two pieces of chicken and two smaller ribs. I also had a piece of cheese after that because I was worried that I hadn't had enough fat because of the chicken breasts. This was dumb because we still had leftover piglets, which are plenty fat. I also think I should have bought more ribs as my oldest son, G, inhaled the two biggest ribs. They were definitely a hit.

It is amazing how hard it is to get decent fatty meat. Even the ribs, which should be really fatty, were trimmed of almost all of the fat. The cheaper stuff like chuck steaks and roasts are more gristly than fatty. The low fatters have had way too much influence.

I was down two pounds this morning, back to my low of 190.4. Maybe I can break through that 190 barrier soon. It's funny how it seems certain numbers are hard to get through.

Mystery solved.

I asked this morning down at the market about the Diet Mountain Dew problem with their fountain. It turns out that the CO2 had run out so I had nearly straight syrup! It appears that the excessive sweetness triggered a cephalic insulin response (the bit of insulin that a body releases in anticipation of incoming food) and dropped my blood sugar down. Low blood sugar is what it felt like.

It's odd that I don't get the same response with regular Diet Pepsi. I have been drinking it so long that maybe my body is accustomed to that level of sweetness and "knows" that food isn't coming with it. Still, it's a good idea to cut it out totally to keep the insulin as low as possible.

Day 10

I had something strange happen yesterday. About midday, I was really craving a diet pop and decided to walk down to the store to get one. I think a big part of it is that it was one of the rare nice days here and wanted an excuse to get out of the office for awhile.

Anyway, I walked down and bought a Diet Mountain Dew from the fountain. I was sipping it on the way back and kept thinking it tasted different. For one thing, it was way sweeter than normal. I kept wondering if perhaps they had gotten the syrups mixed up and it was regular pop instead of diet. It did seem to still have the aspartame aftertaste.

I got back to the office and went back to work while debating with myself whether I should drink it of not. I started to feel really strange, kind of spacey and lethargic. I had been getting hungry before I left, so I ate, thinking it was low blood sugar. I also tossed out the rest of the Dew. I drank maybe six ounces of it in total.

For the next four hours, I was really sleepy and didn't feel well. I started to feel better by the time I got home but had a really bad headache by then. The headache stayed with me the rest of the evening.

I am thinking one of two things happened. It's possible that it was sugar pop and I reacted badly to the blast of HFCS that I am not used to anymore (about 22 grams). However, I would have thought that I would have had a burst of energy before crashing. On the other hand, I felt puffy the rest of the day and didn't drop any weight overnight, as if I had a large infusion off carbs.

The other possibility is they got the syrup mix wrong on the diet pop and it was way sweeter than normal. This elicited a cephalic insulin response which flooded my system with insulin and dropped my blood sugar quite a bit. Since I am not eating any carbs, it then took my body a while to bring it back up. The strange thing is that I still drink several diet sodas a day and I don't normally respond like that. I have even tested my blood sugar after drinking a Diet Pepsi while fasting and didn't see any change.

I am not sure which it was but am leaning to the second option. Maybe I reacted to it because it was much sweeter than what I normally drink. Either way, it convinced me that I finally need to stop drinking diet soda. It has been in my plan for a while but I kept finding reasons to put it off. I have a business trip this weekend and don't want to be dealing with withdrawals while on it (I get vicious headaches for several days when I go cold turkey). I am going to stop the pop when I get back.

The meal I mentioned above was my first hunger of the day, about 10:30 AM. I had several bites of pemmican (it has greatly improved in flavor as it has aged) and two cheeseburger patties. I was hungry again when I got home and had a piece of cheese to tide me over to dinner, which was at 7 PM. Dinner was three small pieces of pork loin (with a nice rind of fat, so it wasn't too lean) and four piglets (pork riblets). The piglets were nice and fatty and tasted great.

As mentioned above, there was no change in my weight and I am still at 192.4.