Day 75

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.