feeling much better -- on a diet aimed at lower histamine

Whew -- although i'm awake and it's the middle of the night, i'm feeling MUUUUUCH better.  The DOH reports mold and ragweed readings still in the "high" range but grass pollen has dropped down to "moderate."  For the most part, i've been trying to eat a lower histamine/tyramine diet, but i've made a few additions -- and i even got a little accidental mold contact in the house in the last 12 hours!

Part of the improvement MAY be attributable to a short fasting period i enjoyed yesterday -- on Tuesday evening we ate a whole duck between us (cooked in a "new" and wonderful way as described in Dana Carpender's "Five Hundred Paleo Recipes" "Unsightly but Delicious Duck")....  Well, eat half a duckling, and you're not going to be hungry again for quite some time!  I drank mostly black coffee until Wednesday dinner, at which time i couldn't even finish my (admittedly huge) ribeye steak ... though i polished off my share of the swiss chard with asian spices that J prepared to go with it.  With this i allowed myself about eight or nine ounces of petite syrah ... oh, and twice during the afternoon (when i started to feel hunger again) i had a small square of the egg-cheese-jalapeno preparation that's on my recipe page.  Yum.

I started working on the next house-rehab project -- the downstairs powder room where the wallpaper started to fail.  That's where i found the mold, behind the toilet (which is under the window).  Some of the previous owners' rehabs have been very poorly done, and every time i pull down old wallpaper i find things that make me roll my eyes in disbelief.  Friends, if you have to make repairs to old plaster walls, do yourself a favor and put a layer a primer between it and your new wallpaper....  I'm surprised my sinuses didn't start screaming at me, working in that tiny airless room, up-close-and-personal with mildew ... or whatever it was.

***

Got back to sleep around 5:30 and got a few more hours -- and i still feel very good!  :-)  I guess my next experimental move will be to [gasp] go outdoors for a little while.  We'll see if the summer heat (which finally arrived) makes me feel crummy again.

My husband, though, says he now feels symptoms of a chest-cold and has for a couple of days -- dating to when we got the new vacuum cleaner and air filter.  Although our rugs and therefore the air we breathe are much cleaner now, there's no doubt i stirred up some almost-literal "old shit" (the stuff that Spense scratched off himself, which then got trodden into the carpets).  This may be an indication that he's catching something i just got over.  Bear in mind that J almost NEVER gets sick -- he's got the most robust body i've ever heard of, even compared to my mother's 90 years of generally good health!  Back in the days he was smoking, he was always able to blow the lung-testing machine to the top of its scale, whereas i (nonsmoker) barely got it into the "normal" range.  I'm grateful he's learned tolerance of my wimpiness!

Today's pollen and mold have been reported -- mold and grass pollen have both moderated and only ragweed is still high.  Quality of life continues to improve.  ;-)

Doing a last proofread while sitting down for awhile -- just got finished making more mayo and oopsie rolls, and clarifying the duck fat i saved the other day.  Also reclarified the last tallow i saved, but alas it's developed a little rancid smell -- this will get saved in the "ordinary tallow" bag for use in my new betty lamp, or making candles.  Damn.

perfect timing for histamine study

Oi gevals (did i spell that right?) -- if i NEEDED a "perfect storm" situation for observing histamine-related malaise, nature certainly decided to cooperate with me....  Sunday was a normal summer day when it came to environmental pollen and mold but the count doubled overnight, and on Monday i felt like death-warmed-over!  I woke up feeling a LITTLE better yesterday, but in midafternoon my stomach joined my sinuses in their land of unhappiness, and i chose to fast for the rest of the day.

This morning i'm feeling better -- hope it lasts!  At least the mold-count is coming down.  I also got two nights of sound sleep, as i've been cheating and adding earplugs to my eye-mask (if the dog or husband wake me at all, i tend to have a difficult time getting back to sleep).  I took a 24-hour fexofenadine instead of 4-to-6-hour-effective diphenhydramine last night before bed too (yesterday i woke up unable to breathe through my nose).  And as we know, allergy/histamine effects are cumulative.

We also know that EVERYTHING we eat (or think about eating) gives us a certain amount of histamine response!  I wrote before how i agree with J Stanton that fasting can actually feel good -- add to that ghrelin effect the histamine-reduction from fasting, and you significantly reduce some burdens if you're inclined to suffer allergic symptoms!  Once one is ketoadapted, eating nothing CAN make one feel better than anything else ... for awhile, anyway.

I did my best to feel better naturally, across-the-board -- staying out of the basement, using my neti-pot, inhaling tea-tree-oil-laden steam, taking serrapeptase as a systemic anti-inflammatory and encouraging stomachic happiness with the help of old-fashioned bitters.  Tiny steps, but they help.  At least i woke up breathing this morning.  ;-)

one indulgence does not a slippery-slide make

We had neighbors over last night for a try-out of two local purveyors of BARBECUE.  :-D  It was good, and i was bad, having a sample of everything including "the neolithic agents of disease."  But it won't do lasting damage because i've learned a couple of little secrets....

FIRST:  never ever ever ever EVER say "well, i've already screwed up, so i may as well screw up more."  EVER.

Second:  fast until i feel reasonably normal again.  It's just an extension of the type of fasting that comes naturally to me -- not eating first thing in the morning (when i'm not hungry anyway), but waiting till i actually regain an appetite.  Usually, this gives me a 16-18 hour window in which to burn primarily lots of endogenous fat fuel, but today it'll probably stretch to 22 hours or more.  I'll drink coffee while i'm waiting for the bloated feeling to go away ... as it will.

Third:  a tiny bit of exercise is good, but a lot is horrible.  If i TRY to burn off the stored carbs, all i'll succeed in doing is aggravate the joints which have taken a hit from the increased lectin load.  More inflammation, i DON'T need!

So today i'll act like the poisoned pup i feel, and stay away from more food while i recover.  For the record, there was no wrong answer when choosing baby-back ribs, though we all liked Bogart's (with a little cooked-on sauce) a LITTLE better than Pappy's probably-lower-carb spice-rubbed version.  The brisket isn't as good as home-made, and the smoked turkey was a little dry.  The green beans were spicy and pleasant, interesting for a change but not crave-worthy.  The baked beans got good reviews but i think they're too sweet.  The potato salad isn't in the same ballpark with my recipe, but surprisingly, the slaw was almost as good as J's.  The only thing i prepared -- our starter cocktail, the Jungle Bird -- went over well ... and of course the wine was great!

back to (ab)normality

The long weekend went by with limited havoc to my body, and once again i restart my "normal" eating patterns with relief and pleasure.  I breakfasted at 10 with a big patty of grassfed ground beef and coffee, and will dine probably in the late afternoon with a beautiful thick ribeye steak (no bone, alas).  By tomorrow morning, i hope the puffiness in my hands and feet will have disappeared -- i got pretty badly dehydrated one day, and am still feeling the effects of it.

One reason occurs to me why fasting is such an attractive concept to low-carbers and paleoids:  you get the "new diet enthusiasm" from time to time in a rather painless fashion!  I was envisioning how i would be eating today -- how i USED to eat regularly when actively watching my weight, which was pretty much ever since i was 23.

It was low-calorie, and therefore low-fat, and therefore UNSATISFYING.  For about the first three days of any new regimen, one had a great deal of enthusiasm, because the easy weight poured off (literally, down the toilet), and the novelty made it INTERESTING.  I'd start every new diet with a great deal of hope -- THIS ONE has got to be the right one!  Ah, the endorphins....

About a week in, it's not nearly so interesting anymore, and the "hunger" starts becoming a problem.  I say "hunger" rather than HUNGER, because my belly could be full of chicken or fish and vegetables -- LOTS of vegetables -- and yet i'd be pacing around the house trying to stay out of the refrigerator....  Not that there was BUTTER in there, or bacon, or anything my body was nagging me for, but anything that might fill the nutritional void.

I'll actually say what i've thought so many times over the last couple of years -- OMG, if i only knew then what i know now....

But those first three days of a new diet WERE exciting.  I read and re-read the philosophical chapters (and recipe sections) of books, and of course they all MADE SENSE ... they just weren't descriptive of how a body actually works.  CICO "makes sense" but it isn't that easy to make it "go."  Coupled systems and unintended consequences, you know.

Fasting seems to bring back a bit of that old excitement.  We know that all kinds of little invisible changes are happening -- our bodies are gobbling up those little useless proteins that are floating around, using glycogen storage, up-regulating enzymes we need for fat-burning, that sort of thing.  If we're ketone-adapted already, we don't even feel any particular hunger.  On Labor Day, my husband and i cooked and cleaned and shopped, and didn't even notice that we ate nothing that day till early evening.

I've never really felt impelled to do the alternate-day fasting, but eating in a 6-8 hour window comes naturally to me, so long as i'm eating the right foods.  This fits in beautifully with the default diet i've adopted, a personalized version of the Strong Medicine regimen.  Two to three meals a day, comprising 16-18 oz. of animal-protein foods total, and no plant-source carbs till evening, if then.

Back on my diet today -- ah, what a relief!  There's nothing like eating what you really want to.

brisket's in the oven

I had a coffee-fast yesterday (with coconut milk).  The scale still hasn't budged.  My mind and my body are obviously having a very fun time stymying me and defying the laws of physics this week!  ;-)

The mind is working on sneaking up behind, today; yesterday was about ketosis and autophagy -- today is a protein re-feed.  I have a steak marinating to take care of it until the brisket is done.  Taking a hint from Mrs. Beeton, i sprinkled a tiny bit of allspice on with the salt and pepper, and sealed it in its foil coffin before popping it into a low oven.  I would have gone the whole way a la Flamande, but i don't have any carrots....  I like to half-cook a brisket, let it cool and slice it before putting it back in the oven to tenderize.  Trying to slice a TENDER brisket produces huge quantities of shredded beef, which is less desirable when you don't eat sandwiches anymore.

Interestingly enough, Mark's column today answers a question about carb re-feeds, and i was proud of him -- this guy is no simple-minded extremist, even if he is a jock!  ;-)

the morning after: me eating "well"

Yesterday seems to have fixed the "misbehavior" of the day before.  I had 1400-1450 calories instead of 1100, and i almost slept the clock around:  all caught up!  The scale is down again.  Oh, i did have a bit more carbohydrate, as my supper was a glass of home-made raw-milk kefir.  I also had two glasses of champagne* with my steak and butter for dinner.

I'm almost coming to the conclusion that the alternate-day fasters have a good idea.  Not that i would go the length of eating ANYTHING i wanted on the feast day, but just loosening the reins a little seems reasonable and effective.  Remember when i said that "shaking things up" seems to help break a plateau?  It kinda looks like the ADF'ing might be doing this in an ongoing fashion -- you never HAVE a plateau because you're constantly breaking up the tendency.

Hmmmmmm....
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* i know, i know -- you shouldn't call it champagne unless it's FROM Champagne, and this is from Limoux....  :-P

progress report, part 2: eating out is the DEVIL

I can't even wait a day before continuing, because looking back on all i've learned is so exciting and encouraging to me.  Looking back is an excellent Mercury-retrograde activity....  ;-)

Since the beginning of the year, when i've been at home and doing the cooking i haven't failed to lose weight, and when i've been eating out a lot, i haven't failed to gain.  It's that simple.  Because i know what the pitfalls are, i haven't gained MUCH, and i haven't failed to lose it again, but it just goes to show you what happens when other people are in charge of the kitchen.

Other people's condiments are full of industrial-seed oil, sugar, texture- and flavor-enhancers (like carrageenan, guar gum, MSG, etc), preservatives (which may or may not be a problem), artificial colors (which sensitive people find problematic), and so on.  Other people don't properly nixtamalize corn, ferment grains and legumes, soak nuts and seeds -- in other words, they take shortcuts that ruin potentially-nourishing substances.  Other people believe advertising propaganda, and think grain-fiber is a good thing, and that metabolic poisons are "a good part of this balanced diet."  Other people don't realize that anti-meat "information" is frequently from veg*an sources.

Yes, you can eat out.  You can eat out a McDonald's, for heaven's sake, and not ruin your health.  What you CAN'T do is make any assumptions about what you're getting.  The "best" Italian restaurants are known to use artificial "olive oil."  Almost any restaurant steak is going to be seasoned with things you really don't want to consume.  The first thing i look for in an omelette is, whether the egg is homogenous or streaky with white and yolk -- if you have doubts, it's best to order the eggs fried rather than scrambled, because GOK what might be in there.

So, when i was in Texas in Jan/Feb and again in May/June, when i was in San Francisco a week in each the spring and summer, and when i had houseguests for a week in April, i did a LO-O-O-O-O-OT of eating out, and it totally screwed my weight goals.  Most of the time, i tried to eat according to what i know is best for me, but on about a half-dozen occasions (single meals, that is) i completely FEASTED.  The thing i've learned from feasting is, though, to FAST afterward, for a meal or a day.  When i'd get home again each time, especially when my husband was still out-of-town, i'd get right back on my VLC diet and/or the Strong Medicine protocol, and i'd be back to normal within days.  I've gained and lost the same five pounds, four or five times, but i'm about eight pounds down from the first of the year.  Twelve to go.

And rather than thinking it a privation to go back on my "diet," i resume my eating pattern with RELIEF.  I just don't feel good when i'm eating like other people do.  When i eat my 100 grams each of animal protein and fat per day, i don't feel hungry and food-obsessed, and my brain works, and i hurt less, and i'm HAPPY.  I don't like to snack anymore, even though the thought of cocktails and antipasti STILL has allure.  I still enjoy some junkfood, but i know it comes with a price i don't like to pay.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who haven't found the "formula" that works to tame their appetites and control their intake for maximal comfort.  Until i tweaked the Strong Medicine and my supplement list to "fit" me, i did a LOT more thinking about food with longing!*  Now i tell myself, "You're perfectly satisfied, and you feel great on these foods -- you're losing weight with no hunger.  Don't even think about luscious foods you're not allowing yourself RIGHT NOW -- you'll have them later.  Meanwhile, make progress while there are no distractions!"  And i AM!  :-D
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* I also did a lot more planning, shopping and cooking; a lot more SPENDING of money and time.  I love the change.

quick update

Four hours later, and i feel better already.

I can't help but think that the hypothesis is true, that the secret to coexistence with carbohydrates is all about calorie restriction -- either through modern IF'ing, or old-fashioned starvation.  Not that i'm in the least interested in embracing a higher-carb diet!  It makes me feel bloody awful.  On my beloved low-carb, the palpitations and tremors that more carbs cause are completely absent.  No muscle aches, fewer joint problems, happy intestines -- why on earth would i go back to carb-scarfing???

Nope.  ...I think i'll go pour myself another cup of coffee, WITH cream!

eat low-carb, or punish yourself

That title was meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek.  I have to announce this up front, or some doctorate-types would insist that i'm 1) lying; 2) ignorant; 3) unqualified to open my mouth in public; or 4) all the above.

Reading all the commentary (in TPJ-approved sites) on why the Kitavan diet isn't a high-carb diet in the "modern world's" sense, something occurred to me:  a truly high-carbohydrate diet is all about Biblical-style asceticism!  YES!  If you eat a high PERCENTAGE of your diet as carbs you have a few choices to make, to keep yourself from embodying the Deadly Sins of Gluttony and Sloth.

You can eat your huge percentage of carbohydrates in comparatively meagre quantity.  A very low CALORIE diet can afford to be high-carb!  And what do we call a very low calorie diet, kids?  STARVATION.  Saints used to be very fond of that; it shows that you value spirituality more than worldly hedonism -- and you get really kewl visions and stuff -- sometimes you get to hear God talk to you!

Instead of eating very little every day, you can also choose to eat as much as you want today, and nothing at all tomorrow -- it balances out the same way.  If you prefer to eat every day, you can also decide to eat for a very short time.  Fasting is a multi-disciplinary-approved means of self-denial.

OR ... you can eat enough to saturate your bodies with all those strengthening "energy foods" and work extra hard to make them go into the SPECIFIC tissues you want them in.  Punishing the body to chasten it was also very popular in the height of the monastic era (AKA the Dark Ages).  If you worked hard enough you could make your body forget it has all sorts of horrible urges like ... a LIBIDO!  Ewwwww....  Where's that Ben-Gay -- i mean HAIR SHIRT?

;-)  Thanks but no thanks.  Their self-righteousness is not for me!  The believers in Gluttony and Sloth (reincarnated as food reward) may think i'm damned because of my faith in the Golden Calf (BEEF, yes!), but i'm not afraid.  Even if they're right about my destination, their idea of hell has no terrors for me -- and the music there is said to be much better.

the power of "no appetite"

Since my LAST guest left, i put in about 24 hours -- 4 meals'-worth -- of the Strong Medicine protocol, which is to say that i ate 8 ounces of fatty meat and a cup of coffee for each meal, and nothing else but 3 cups of water between breakfast and lunch, 3 more between lunch and dinner, and NOTHING else except for the water and supplements i took first thing in the morning and before bed.  My appetite left me.

This morning's weigh-in shows that i've re-lost the pounds i put on during this last trip.  Now i can work on actually making some progress!  It's annoying that i spend so much time "recovering" from the damaging effects of "normal" (albeit low-carb) food!  Sometimes you can dig in your heels and say NO to the inappropriate things available to eat, but there are moments when it's rude or just plain unkind to resist.  [sigh]

On those rare and golden occasions when i lose my appetite, i've learned that it's best to RIDE that pony as far as it'll take me!  The first time i tried the StM technique, i was actually alarmed at how fast the weight came off, and i added in some vegetable matter at dinnertime to slow it a bit.  Donaldson said that it's "safe" to take off three pounds a week, but that you want your skin to "follow" the fat reduction....  After two abdominal surgeries, my belly is unattractive enough without screwing it up more, so i got concerned -- or is that too much information?  :-)

If i back off any plan while the going is GREAT, i lose a lot of impetus, AND re-entering the program is less effective than it was before.  While it's working ya gotta HANG ONTO IT!!!  Let the goodies pass you by, and explain to the disappointed face in front of you that you've developed digestive difficulties with whatever it is they're offering ... but that it looks SO GOOD that only the fear of later pain keeps you from digging in.  ;-)    In theory, anyone who cares about you will want to spare you PAIN, so it'll be a lot more acceptable than "you want me to screw up my diet for boxed cake mix and cool-whip frosting???"

So, one would think that having to detour from the StM for a couple of days would be a downer -- well, not THIS time, because the reason is different!  Yesterday i was not hungry until late afternoon (i DID have some coffee during the morning...) so around 5:00 i had a tin of sardines, a little of my hazelnut-chia bread, butter, and some white wine.  (It filled me to the "80%" level, so i really didn't feel the need to eat more, and i didn't wake this morning ravenous.)  Success!  I'm on a roll again, and i give full credit to the diet plan that CAUSES a lack of appetite.

Incidentally, i'm back to feeling good about skipping breakfast -- Dr. Donaldson frowned on this because it "put out the fat-burning fire."  Kindke recently posted about the morning cortisol surge that's normal for us, and how it encourages glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, and fat storage if one eats during it.  Now, this may be fine and dandy for gymrats who want to use it to put on muscle, but frankly i'm FAR more interested in how i can work around it to LOSE FAT.  I simply am not hungry in the morning unless i've been eating too many carbs, so why fight nature? ... As a matter of fact, fighting nature at ANY time is just plain stoopid.

So, fighting natural appetite is HISTORY from my point of view!  The thing that i've found workable is to manipulate it through food choice; i eat StM-fashion till my appetite is pretty much gone, and then i ride it with prudent low-carb variations like a surfer rides a wave.

Kowabunga.

when is a fast not a fast?

Hint -- this is like when Peter asked "when is a high-fat diet not a high-fat diet."

When Dr. Atkins prescribed a "fat fast" for people who are extremely resistant to losing weight, it was incredibly low in calories, and he only recommended doing it for a few days at a time.  It had enough fat to suppress the appetite, and it forced the burning of body-fat for fuel, because it certainly didn't supply enough protein to convert to a LOT of glucose.  I feel sorry for those on it who didn't have the metabolic flexibility or gut-bugs to get ENERGY from fat, and yet had to go about their daily business....

I assumed that the fat-fast was all about getting into ketosis ... until recently.  There are a few blogs where isolated posts give hints on why eating like this may promote weight loss by other pathways, too. 

In one of Peter's posts, he speaks of intestinal biota which prompt the brain to eat "fiber" and store fat, or to release stored fat for energy (so the host can go out hunting) ... and fat ingestion signals the latter.  The use of fatty foods during an intermittent fast (like drinking coffee with cream) is suggested by the Drs. Jaminet as "not counting" as food....

Here, too, is an explanation for the benefit of oil-swilling in the Shangri-La regimen!

Now we have this discovery that eating fat-with-no-carb spurs glp-1 production, which in turn turns off appetite and turns on spontaneous movement.  I find this very exciting.  In the average human, excessive energy "wasting" -- i.e., going to the gym -- is discouraged by our very beings (see Naturally Engineered); as a result, forcing yourself to exercise when you don't want to is more stressful and less effective.  But by this pathway, the urge to move is instinctive rather than a choice.  One gets the benefits of movement on the tissues and the mood-enhancing aspect of exercise in the brain -- all with no hunger or nasty cascades of BG and insulin.

So, yeah -- i now see the fat-fast as being a LOT more powerful than i believed possible, just reading Atkins.  ...I'll be sure to eat MORE CALORIES of it than he recommended, though!

plateauing problems

One of the irritations we encounter on ANY weight-loss diet is the plateau. How to break through these stalls is tricky indeed, and i suspect they may be the reason most people never manage to meet their goals -- especially for those of us who have a hard time losing weight in the first place.

Sometimes you read a person's record and they say, "i plateaued out but kept doing what i was doing, and three months later, i started losing again."  THREE MONTHS???  Hell, i plateau that long, and there's no way on earth i'd be able to keep my motivation to continue what i'm doing!!!

On the other hand, i have a suspicion that the body so likes to have homeostasis that it can actually be good for you to remain at a stable weight for an extended period.  The problem arises when your mind has a reason for wanting to continue losing, and your body refuses to cooperate. 

I think Dr. Atkins didn't consider a plateau a real issue until it had gone on for a month.  He had a set of suggestions ready and waiting for his patients when/if it happened, but not having my book available right now, i really can't enumerate many of them.  I suspect his first rule would be to step back 5 or 10 daily carb-grams, and to make sure one was using all the appropriate supplements.  Making sure allergies and hormones are under control would be another suggestion.  Checking fat-burning status through the use of keto-sticks might be yet another, and if they didn't show "enough pink" he might have recommended a fat-fast.

The tricky bit is, if you ARE producing ketones, a fat-fast is superfluous -- ITS major virtue is forcing a recalcitrant body to burn FFAs rather than glucose.  In the presence of decent ketosis, other tricks will be far more effective in spurring weight loss.

I've long suspected that "shocking" the body with an abrupt change in food or exercise habit makes it perk up and take notice, start "thinking" about how it functions instead of coasting along on autopilot.  What we DON'T want to do is make it think it's threatened, by dipping protein or total calories TOO low, or working out so excessively that stress hormones actually encourage more fat storage!  That's the "logical" thing to do, from the point of view of a physicist; unfortunately, the biological system doesn't behave like a mechanical one....

This "shock technique" MAY be why low-carbers who abruptly start eating more starches see an immediate loss -- the question in my book would be, how long can it last?  Now, in my case, an addition of carbs to spur weight-loss is out of the question -- i start feeling terrible, i get palpitations and tremors upon a too-large increase of carbohydrates in my diet!  Not fun.  Adding in fasts are effective for some people, too, which could theoretically work the same way, shaking things up.

For me, the most effective thing seems to be to stop drinking wine and spirits, stop eating any nuts, dairy or fruit that i may have been indulging myself with.  A more strict observance of what kinds of vegetables i eat, too, can be important.  Anything that sets off allergic symptoms is an automatic suspect.

Please, everybody -- leave a comment on your favorite and most effective means of breaking a plateau!  I think that learning from each other is one of the best aspects of the internet!

semi-fasting day

My husband and i tried a new restaurant on Saturday evening; we probably shouldn't have, though we generally love trying new places.  I had a night of poor sleep and "unhappy" guts, even if i had no overt distress, and a disinclination for breakfast yesterday.

Today, it's back to discipline, beginning with a fat-fast before resuming my usual ULC (ultra-low) regimen.  I had frothed coconut milk in my coffee for the first time in a month -- and very satisfying it was!  :-) 

...So, how do you keep coconut milk fluid, in the spring and fall???  Summertime, it needs no help, and in winter i set the can on top of the kitchen floor grating (i have an old-fashioned "gravity" furnace in my old house).  Pot-pourri heater, maybe?  Hmmmm....