ongoing search for health and fitness

Since i began writing here, things have changed in the paleo blogosphere.  It's kinda funny, really -- some very fervent advocates have deserted the cause, some continuing believers have slowed their rate of publishing, others have largely lost their audiences (you can tell from the volume and variety of commenters), and some "anti's" have crowed that they just KNEW paleo was BS and it was only a matter of time....

Meanwhile, there are still seekers after improved health, some of whom have also moved on to other schemes, and some like me who have experienced improvement but insufficient wellness to satisfy ourselves, who keep tweaking and telling you about it.

Since returning from our son's farm in VA where our dog Spenser picked up a bacterium which nearly was an end to him, both my husband and i have also dealt with some health issues which i can't help but suspect of being related.  J (the last one to catch "something" as he usually is) ended up with what looked like a virus that settled in his lungs, and which he recalls began when i got the super-vacuum that stirred up all the nasty stuff that was living in our bedroom carpet.  I (earlier) got that horrible exacerbation of allergy which i subsequently identified as histamine/tyramine intolerance, which INSPIRED the purchase of the vacuum and bedroom super-air-filter.  My studies into histamine intolerance led me into beginning a study of "chronic fatigue syndrome" -- something i think i've been dealing with for most of my 58 years, but which i've been too "proud" to admit widely.

I haven't even finished reading "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:  a Treatment Guide" but i've learned some interesting things which i'm beginning to put into practice.  Don't get me wrong -- the book is far from perfect (like, the authors aren't very savvy about diet), but i AM a big proponent of looking at the experiences of others and considering whether their tweaks might be helpful to me too.  There's a LOT more reading to do, and i think i can safely promise to keep passing along what i've found valuable and helpful.  ;-)

For now my message is, paleo isn't wrong, it's just incomplete.  "Coincidentally," paleo foods -- "non-neolithic" foods -- ARE lower in toxins than what people have been eating for the last couple of thousand years ... ESPECIALLY the last 100.  A big part of our modern malaise is because:

• "neolithic" diet foods are much higher in histamines, tyramines and salicylates as well as overt toxins;
• modern reliance on antibiotics for TOO MANY things have completely messed up our microbiota;
• "recent" cultural ideals promote health-eroding behavior;
• expecting drugs/medicine to be "the answer" cause society as a whole to hand over our responsibility for wellness to those who have a vested interest in promoting antagonistic practices.

I won't be surprised when i find that few people besides me find this a compelling reason to limit diet and influence behavior.  My biggest problem is knowing that a lot of the suffering around me is self-inflicted, and that although i know my findings COULD help others it will be widely ignored.  :-(

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.

more fat/calories in the diet IS working better!

After the decades of low-cal dieting that i did, it's psychologically VERY hard to increase the amount i eat.  When i'm eating a ketogenic diet, making progress, and experiencing the lack of hunger i do, it's VERY tempting to take the energy intake lower.  This, however, is a big mistake.

Whether it's because i have a "weak" thyroid to begin with or merely normal response to under-feeding, going too low in energy-intake quickly puts me in "conservation mode."  Lowering intake further -- no matter what the CICO-promoters think -- also lowers fat-burning by the body.  (This SHOULD be good news for some of the obese bloggers we know, but they're so invested in their paradigm they're not even willing to trade their egos for improved health.)

My husband derived determination and inspiration from the LC cruise seminars, and when we got home last month we started applying some new techniques to our diet-and-lifestyle practices.  We procured a blood-ketone meter and found that our ordinary LC diets didn't get us to the range recommended by Phinney and Volek.  Using recipes from the "Fat Fast Cookbook" (adding to our regular regimen, not doing A fat-fast), we managed to raise our fat intake from sixty-something to eighty-something percent of energy, and this has done the trick.  We're BOTH losing.

Additionally, i find that by eating to appetite, i'm not taking in enough food to convince my body it can afford to "waste" fat to fuel me adequately.  Upon the 1200-1400 kcal/day intake, WHICH SATISFIES MY APPETITE AMPLY, my body prefers to being in starvation mode.  When i ADD TO my desired intake by drinking bulletproof-recipe coffee in the morning and consuming a very high-fat dessert, i DO lose.  At a moderate-protein, VLC, VHF level of eating, the body is willing to burn body-fat generously at 2000 kcal -- for me, this is astonishing.

Not only am i writing this as a progress report for a pair of overweight middle-agers, but as a refutation of the confusing information provided to mature women by young male paleos on sites like facebook.  The LAST thing new female low-carbers need is input from half-informed individuals about how little an obesity-resistant representative of an entirely different demographic has to do to achieve success!

you know your energy is better when...

That was almost like the old "you might be a redneck if" jokes.  ;-)

With me it's the temptation to run up my staircases instead of walk, the impulse to spring out of my reading-chair and do/fetch things in other parts of the house, or to spontaneously play chasing games around the dining table with Spenser.  (Of course, for the sake of my iffy knee i find it's a good idea to resist springing up those stairs....)

The supplements i've added, which i'm inclined to credit with this recent improvement, are carnitine, pregnenolone and epimedium -- which, though a little surprising, aren't really too "out there."  The last two are boosting my age-related decrease in endogenous hormones, and the first ... long story.

Wooo was taught in her medical training that carnitine binds to thyroid receptors, and is therefore not recommended for improving health in hypothyroids.  OTOH, i also read that "Hypothyroidism has been found to deplete the body of L-carnitine stores. A six-month placebo-controlled study cited in the August 2001 edition of 'The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism' examined the effectiveness of L-carnitine supplementation for the management of hypothyroidism. The subjects were given 2 to 4 g of L-carnitine daily, and the study concluded that L-carnitine effectively helped to reverse and prevent symptoms of hypothyroidism. The research is preliminary, however...." *

Whichever is the "true story" i'm not qualified to judge, but all i read gave me sufficient encouragement to TRY carnitine and see what might happen.  I started with a small bottle of 500-mg caps, but am now using a BIG bottle of the one gram size.  Again, i don't KNOW how it works but i can speculate -- does carnitine perhaps spare thyroid hormone because the receptors it binds to are where FAs are passed into cells for use?  That is, after all, what carnitine is famous for doing, and one of the many things thyroid does as well.

Short version:  carnitine HELPS.  At least, it helps ME.

Pregnenolone, as you may know, is a precursor to a whole avalanche-ful of hormones and neurotransmitters.  I was getting SOME benefits from the progesterone creme i was using, but for various reasons i chose to swap over to an "upstream" supplement -- and am i happy i did.  The negative effects of my previous progesterone boost aren't an issue anymore, and there are many less-specific plusses!  Doubtless, my body is partitioning the pregnenolone to the balance it considers appropriate -- and its judgement seems to be sound.  Is it making more estrogen, more testosterone, more progesterone, what?  I really don't care which -- i just like it.

But why don't the makers of epimedium supplements label them EPIMEDIUM?  It would make things less embarrassing when you have to ask for help in the health-food store!  ;-)  Actually, i'm joking -- the virtue of being "older'n dirt" is that you care much less for what people think!  The common name you find on the supplement bottle is HORNY GOAT WEED, widely publicized for improving sexual performance -- it's splashed in good-sized type across the label.  I think all of us users agree, though, that its beneficial effects go far beyond improving blood flow to the penis....

LOL -- it's hard to care too much about the WHY, when the WHAT is so satisfactory!  I certainly don't agree with Dr. Lustig across the board, but when he said that quality of life pretty much equates with how much energy we are able to burn, i have to raise my glass to him!

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*  from www.livestrong.com/article/432486-carnitine-uses/#ixzz23D0J4Kz7 -- and i'm not a fan of the site.  :-)  if they hadn't quoted a "respectable" source, i wouldn't have credited it as much as i did.

progress again today

Beyond that, i really don't have much to declare!  I even "cheated" on the strong-medicine regimen and had some wine and a handful of macadamias. Is the good result because i got over a hundred grams of fat in?  Also that i consumed in the neighborhood of 2000 calories?

When we report on what works for us on a day-to-day basis, the results can sometimes confuse us more than they illuminate.  Sometimes one thing works, and sometimes another.  The subject is IMMENSELY complicated, which is why statements that SIMPLE CICO are valid tend to make me start ranting.  I believe that once one gets past the basics of what the various SUBCATEGORIES of macronutrients do in the body, we can draw up guidelines that can be pretty well relied on.

• an excess of any sugar is toxic -- including glucose from starches if you're not burning it off;
• balance and limitation of the essential fatty acids promote bodily AND mental health;
• naturally-occurring saturated fats have been wrongly demonized and are crucial for us;
• protein is centrally important, and optimizing YOUR body's wants and needs should be a priority;
• eat real food and avoid snacking -- food is fuel and building-blocks, not entertainment;
• we should get enough exercise to encourage mitochondrial health, but too much can be worse than too little.

DUH, right?  To go much further would get onto shaky ground when it comes to individual variability ... but of course it also provides the bulk to make enough words to fill a diet book.

SOME progress, at least...

I don't KNOW, but i assume other people also have days when energy seems to FLOW in a special sort of feel-good way.  Yesterday was like that for me -- i found myself walking particularly fast through the Soulard farmers' market, and to-and-from the car.  I kept having to pause for my husband to catch up, and he's no slug.  On days like that, walking is no effort, but an exhilarating natural product of vitality.

Ye gods, how i wish it were always like that.

There are too many confounding variables to know why it happens.  Maybe i'd finally slipped back into ketosis after being out of it awhile -- it WAS a morning when i hadn't consumed anything but black coffee since waking.  The joint pain which i had definitely EARNED (when in NOLA) was finally gone, too.  And it was a truly beautiful autumn morning!  AND although a little congestion and inflammation persist, the worst head-cold symptoms -- fatigue and body aches -- are gone.

I haven't gotten back on the scale yet, the coward i am!  But i can tell i put on a little fat (my ribs aren't as close to the skin as they were, before my trip).  Well, i'm back on the wagon till Thanksgiving day.  NOW i know what works for weight loss EVERY SINGLE TIME, i'm not fazed by these minor setbacks.

home stretch!

With another three-and-three-quarter pound loss, i will have met my immediate goal!  I can't believe i'm so close.  And in a nutshell, it's been accomplished all through the Strong Medicine regimen with quite a bit of cheating.

I'm fortunate that i'm able to tolerate the diet -- some people have problems with VLC -- but it might be the cheating that helped me.  I use ample salt on my meat, and i try to keep the quantity to an ideal range of about 16-18oz. per day.  I DON'T regularly take the walks Donaldson requires (though i go up and down my three flights of stairs countless times daily).  I may not get in the six glasses of water a day, though it's hard to say how much i take in when downing all my supplements.  I definitely have occasional alcohol, vegetables, chocolate, butter, cream, eggs, cheese and cultured raw milk.  On the rare special occasion, i've had grains, too -- that's why it's taken me a year to lose 20 pounds!  But considering my age and hormonal conditions, i'm feeling very victorious.

I COULD NOT have done this without VLC.  Enough calorie reduction to get from moderately-overweight to within-normal-range?  This is the woman who can fail to lose on 600 calories per day -- and i'm not unusual in that respect!  Macronutrient makeup of the diet is centrally important for some of us.  Because, although one would eventually STARVE off weight, any protein shortage would cause muscle wasting -- not a good idea for an old broad like me.  NO.  Forcing my body to burn its own fat by denying it any choice in the matter (hormonally) is the key to success for a middle-aged person who once believed the low-fat whole-grain mantra.

I will continue to eat as i have this week -- plenty of good meats and fats, garnish of low-carb vegetation, moderated use of alcohol -- for the next month, not caring if i go under my 140# goal.  You see, my daughter and i are going to celebrate Halloween weekend in NEW ORLEANS!!!  It would be a crying shame not to whoop it up while we're there -- a scant 48 hours.  After that, i think i can guarantee a day of fasting will be in order!

asymptotes are a bitch

I got tough yesterday -- no alcohol or chocolate (sugar-free or otherwise), two meals of grassfed beef and coffee, and one moderate glass of well-aged raw-milk kefir augmented with an ounce of coconut oil -- and i'm down a quarter of a pound, after several days of stagnation.

I'm still five pounds from my immediate goal, which is 140#, just inside the "normal weight" boundary for my height.  When i reach it, i'll probably try only to maintain this weight until after the holidays, at which point i'll make another push to reach a final goal of 135.  I'm toying with the opinion that MAINTAINING a certain weight for an unspecified time is the best way to get your body to defend THAT "setpoint" -- even though i don't believe in setpoints as they're usually defined.

All the low-hanging fruit is plucked, kids!  It's becoming harder all the time to make any progress; i feel like i've accomplished something when i make the measly quarter-pound progress i have, this week!  To get to my goal i'm going to have to be even more disciplined about the fine details, and i will regretfully give up my wine-bibbing habits.  DAMN!  Some days, it feels like the cabernet is what keeps me sane!

Well, now that the weather has moderated i'll find it easier to walk the dog in the late afternoon (my favorite time to do it), so that will contribute to the stress-relief the wine customarily accomplishes.  I also find that tea-drinking provides a similar "relaxing stimulation" so i'll be doing more of that, too.  Twilight-time with a cuppa (decaffeinated), nut bread, butter and coconut cream ... i think i can live with that.

wages of sin

Oh, i ate so many calories yesterday -- fifty percent more than my usual -- including some of the things that CW says will KILL ME!!!

Not only did i have RED MEAT for both my meals (i skipped breakfast!), but not a single hearthealthywholegrain, nor even a single serving of antioxidantpackedfruitsandvegetables!  I had alcohol and artificial sweeteners, plenty of salt, eggyolks and half a stick of butter (AKA bearnaise sauce), and even more arterycloggingsaturatedfat in the form of coconut oil!

Ya know what happened?  I dropped another pound.  I haven't weighed this little in a decade.

good sleep, good morning -- just CORRELATION

Yes, i took melatonin last night.  I woke up slightly in the wee-small hours, but drifted right off again.  Got somewhere around ten hours of good rest, making up for the two previous nights.

I woke up cheerful, serene and alert; the scale was down another half-pound.  I was WICKED yesterday, and had a couple of cocktails (home made -- only significant sugar was in the ounce or two of Cointreau) with my pound of meat (over two meals), and my supper was a good-sized glass of home-made raw-milk kefir.

Since i had tired myself out on wednesday, patching plaster in my still-renovating living room (it was all the ladder-climbing), i took it easy yesterday and included a long hot bath.  No walkies, only one or two trips to the basement and none to the attic.

Am i going to advocate this as a perfect formula for weight loss?  HELL no!

Just because a sugar-containing increase in carbs for one day RESULTED in weight loss, doesn't suggest to me that yesterday's intake was optimal.  It was just delicious and satisfying.  If i repeated it, the scale would probably be up tomorrow.

In looking at the recent iniquitous studies that condemn red meat and egg yolks and all those foods WE have been improving our health with, paleo/low-carb authors are always decrying the confusing of correlation with causation.  But ya know what i've noticed?  They don't mind mere correlation at all, when results tell them something they want to hear.  Chairs kill?  Standing-desks are best?  People who walk or bike to work are thinner?  I don't think anyone has even done a randomized, controlled study on those things.  Why are they considered gospel?  Because it fits into people's belief systems.

Now, i'm not one to deride anecdotal evidence.  In many cases -- like, when Drs. Atkins or Davis observe hundreds of patients improve health with the removal of sugar, wheat, vegetable oil, whatever from their diets -- THIS is powerful evidence and more likely to be true than a BigPharm trial that's rigged from the start.  You just have to make sure that the people telling the anecdote are on the same page with you.

So today, i'm going to resist the temptation to repeat my good-resulting behavior of yesterday.  My breakfast was a good-sized serving of Italian Almond Cream (an Atkins recipe -- if you've never tried it, you SHOULD -- delicious!) with my coffee.  I think i'll have a steak for lunch/dinner, but no cocktail-hour today.  Since i've had such good luck on weight this week, i won't anticipate the scale going down for several days.

That should correlate with long-term success.

dichotomy of good and evil ... in blogging

Something good DOES come out of the occasional dearth in publishing of the best bloggers' posts -- to keep one's insula built up, one has the incentive and opportunity to read more from the archives of the Great.  This time it's Peter's turn, and i'm reading about AGE, RAGE and ALE.

I'm not saying that he's not an ornament in the veterinary field he graces, but DAMN, this guy probably missed his vocation.  He's a spectacular teacher.  I'm still rather behind in understanding THOROUGHLY his current series on protons, etc., but i have confidence that, if i read it through enough times and keep looking up what all those molecules do, i'll catch on eventually....

****
I started to write the above, yesterday.  The carnitine i've been taking HAS been giving me more physical energy (more on that later), and i interrupted myself to do some house maintainence and other things, though.  Then, i was "energized" by the MDA post to write what i did yesterday evening, leaving this one for later....

Some good blog-related news greeted me this morning, though -- Mike Eades has finally posted again, and what he had to say was very cheery for "our" point of view.  Mere macronutrient variation has profound effects on physical composition ... but i'll let you read it yourself if you haven't already (ha!).

Without the help of laboratories, i could have made the same attestation ... but i had to drop into VLC-land before it became apparent.  You have to understand, although i'm not averse to MOVING, i HATE to "work out."  Always have.  I enjoy taking a hike but not a walk.  If it's "play" i'm willing to consider it, but for the sake of "exercise..."?  Two thumbs down.

But i can tell that i've been putting on muscle since i went ultra-low in my carb consumption, and the mechanism has been understood for some time (hint:  what does protein do?).  ;-)  I'm stronger without having CONSCIOUSLY tried to build muscle.  If the lab-rats find new examples of how it works, that's GRAVY!

****
I'll append a progress report here, since this is such a miscellaneous post.  The scale was down a bit this morning -- hurrah!  :-)  Digestion back in balance, no weather-induced allergy woes, 8.8 pounds to goal ... life is good.

the scale relents

FINALLY.  Things are back to normal, and i can stop obsessing.  ;-)  This mini-plateau had me concerned -- i admit it!  SO many times i've thought i found "the answer" and had been disappointed....  My belief in what i learned over the last half-year is confirmed.

Ultra-low-carb, moderate protein, high-fat works for me.  "Shaking things up" with nut dishes and dairy OCCASIONALLY can help.  A little red wine doesn't hurt much.  Vegetables get more iffy all the time, and fruit is an indulgence i should trust but rarely.  This morning's weight reading is lower than it's been since i started spending time in New Orleans (has it been four-five years already?) and was seduced by the delectably evil food there; i have less than 10 pounds to go, to get out of the "overweight" category.

For somebody like me, who has always had to WORK to keep my weight within limits acceptable to myself, this is HUGE.  GOK how much time and energy i've poured into this subject since my teens (i was a chubby kid, but it didn't concern me then).  However, this may have been a blessing in disguise; how often do we hear about people who didn't have to think about what they ate, and then in middle-age started to gain and didn't know what to do about it?  At this point, i've tried almost everything, and i have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't, and why.

As a matter of fact, it's a very interesting thing to look backward.  I realize NOW that as a teen, i practiced intermittent fasting without having a clue -- i was doing that horrible thing called "skipping breakfast" (i wasn't hungry in the morning), and i frequently did without lunch as well.  The snack i had after school simply filled the glycogen storage i had depleted during the day.  Looks kinda like my eating pattern was like a Kitavan's, doesn't it -- put on fat in the evening, burn it all the next day, rinse, repeat.

In my twenties, i discovered that the CICO hypothesis just didn't calculate out right -- again, not in those terms, but just the concept.  In my thirties, exercise still helped a little, but i had to work a lot harder.  A low-fat diet meant constant dissatisfaction, but i was convinced i needed it for health.  :-(  From there it went downhill.  I ended up at 168#, lacking energy to make an effort to be fit, with early-stage carpel-tunnel problems and damaged plantar fascia, occasional hand-tremors, heart-palpitations and knee pain.

I'm not "perfect" today, but i'm happy to say that all the above problems are a lot better.  Not only the physical ones -- i'm now delighted with my increased confidence in my judgement that what "authorities" said about diet, exercise and health, and which did not fit my experience, was ALL WRONG.  It was no failure of MINE, it was not that i was self-indulgent and lazy.  I was being set up to fail.  We were ALL set up to fail.


It's like in the 1930s films i enjoy so much, when the heroine puts up with the hero's BS till she gets to a breaking point, and then she dumps his sorry ass with a scalding character assessment and change-of-philosophy statement right before the grand finis.  Conventional Wisdom, in your conservative, oppressive, self-aggrandizing way, you've completely failed in your mission.  Your job was to build us up and make us strong, healthy and happy, and your pompous self-interest has achieved NOTHING.  You've been revealed as an insecure private-millionaires'-club, a mutual admiration society of nitwits who don't even know what figures of ridicule you are to everyone who has a functioning brain.  You only maintain your place in society because of the deep pockets you use to bribe the corrupt, mediocre poseurs whom your money also helped to promote to positions of policy-making authority.  Enjoy what time you have left, because TRUE science knows you for the farce you are.  Those of us who KNOW you are now your adversaries, and will fight you every inch of the way till you're universally acknowledged to be the losers you are.

"The End."  ;-)

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 update conclusion (i think): what WORKS

I'm down another pound this morning, putting me under my "San Francisco starting weight" of three weeks ago.  As i don't have to go anywhere for over a month (knock on wood), i COULD actually make my goal weight before summer ends.  Here's hoping i won't get any surprises in my life to derail me....

A year ago, i was coming to the conclusion that i might have to reconcile myself to being overweight the rest of my life.  I felt i had gotten all the good i could out of low-carbing and paleo/primal eating, and that hormones had finally gotten the better of me; no matter how i reduced intake, it didn't seem to make any difference to my fat load.

This morning, i sat down in my thinking-chair (OKAY, the wing-chair in my bedroom where i like to read and watch movies) KNOWING that what's healthy for me is effective, and vice-versa.  It doesn't take super-human willpower to eat a restricted diet, and i can even have a wild splurge every month or so with no ill effects.  WOW.  This is the definition of empowerment.

I think that the first thing a person like me has to do is BECOME A FAT-BURNER.  If you're not fat/ketone-adapted, your body will fight you every step of the way.  Hunger and cravings will take over your mind.  Now, i was lucky in that i had broken the spell of carbohydrates quite awhile ago (and fully realize how seductively dangerous they are), so my quest was all about learning to control the metabolic flexibility we all need to thrive ... although, i didn't know that when i started.

I've learned that my instinct to wait a considerable time in the morning before eating is the correct one.  Kindke blogged about the morning cortisol peak, which gave me a good reason to indulge myself.  At home by myself, i have supplements and black coffee for breakfast most of the time.  :-)  The funny thing is, i've learned to PREFER my coffee black -- never in a million years would i have predicted that!  If i have a good reason to eat a meal in the morning, it HAS to be a protein-fat one -- i'm a walking example of a carb-laden breakfast inducing appetite later in the day.

Being fat-adapted, i sometimes have to make myself eat a meal in the middle of the day, because (with the load of "food" i carry around under my skin) i constantly have fuel to burn.  But i NEED my protein, so my dinner (my largest meal, whenever it is) is ideally about a half-pound of pastured meat; if it doesn't carry its own lipids along, it gets the addition of butter or real-cream sauce.  Depending upon how "good" i'm behaving, black coffee or 4 ounces of wine is the mandatory side-dish.  Drinking water or other cold beverages with a meal is a BIG mistake for me -- one thing a hypothyroid needs to make sure of is stomach acid!  Coffee and wine unbalance me the least.

Water, i drink at the midpoints between meals.  If i feel like a cocktail in the afternoon, but am inclined to deny myself the carbs, i'll make a pot of tea.  Jasmine or Earl Grey make for the perfect stress-buster, in lieu of a Gimlet!  The important thing is to make it in a pot and pour it in a cup (not a mug), and not work at anything while drinking it.  It makes you slow down.  Speaking of tea -- should i not be in the mood for coffee with food, i find lapsang souchong is about the only tea that isn't overpowered by a meaty meal.

I make sure to have something to eat before it gets too late; i never really like to start a meal after 8.  If i'm allowing myself any carby food at all, this is when it's acceptable.  Supper can be like dinner if i really feel an appetite, or it can be a tin of sardines, glass of raw-milk kefir, home-made gelatin, or even my own ice-cream if i'm not particularly hungry.

Sleep is immensely important to me.  Even though some experts get really hot about the legitimacy of "adrenal fatigue," i've found that treating it like it's real has improved my health considerably.  Stress creates a whole cascade of horrible effects on anyone with a weak thyroid, so by doing my best to pamper my adrenals, i save myself a world of discomfort.  I've installed F-lux on my old not-quite-dead laptop as well as on the one i'm using now, AND my husband's.  I darken my bedroom to the best of my ability, and cover the blue light of my cellphone.  The goal is my ideal of eight to nine hours of uninterrupted sleep, but if i wake during the night, i no longer stress about it; with the knowledge of biphasic sleep i've gained, i just read something soothing for an hour or so.

Sounds so simple....  But like my supplement routine, it took a lot of trial and error and PAYING ATTENTION to my body to come down to it.  It took input from knowledgeable sources of all kinds, many of whom write the blogs on the list on this page.  It took reassurance by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Dr. Donaldson and Lucas Tafur that i wasn't ruining myself with the "extreme" diet i thrive on.  It took the notions put forth by eccentric doctors whose central points are sound, despite the lengths to which they push them.  Hell, i want to thank the WORLD for the help i've gotten in managing this tricky body of mine!

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
________
* I also did a lot more planning, shopping and cooking; a lot more SPENDING of money and time.  I love the change.

progress update time, part 1

More than half a year has flown by, since i started writing here.  Whereas i haven't made much linear PROGRESS in losing weight, the scale hasn't been stuck anywhere ... and i feel i'm significantly wiser about the whole subject.

In January, i began the Personal Paleo Code program, which was an eye-opening experience.  Whether a person wants to lose weight or not -- i firmly believe it's in EVERYBODY'S best interests to go through a strict elimination diet and slowly add back every other ordinarily-eaten food, just to see what causes problems that were never even SUSPECTED before.  I understand the Whole 30 is pretty much the same thing, and there are others out there, too, which offer a description and how to go about it without spoiling the results ... but i really think people who care about their health need to check it out.

I discovered that i have issues with nightshades, which i never suspected before.  Industrial seed oils seem to give me zits, especially when i'm not getting enough zinc.  Milk products (even fermented) seem to contribute to tremors (like any overdose of carbs) -- could high insulin the be the cause?  Cream SOMETIMES contributes to an unhappy gut, but butter, never -- could have something to do with carrageenan in the former....

Wheat doesn't give me overt gut symptoms, but it really brings on the knee pain ...AND hip, and shoulder.  Oats (even soaked) do the same, to a lesser degree.  An occasional (rare!) bowl of porridge will stay in my future, but it's gotta be the unsteamed kind, and it has to be soaked overnight with whey.  I allowed myself so little of the true-sourdough ("salt rising") rye/rice bread, i don't know if it causes much trouble -- further tests are in order.

Home-cooked food (by me) is the highroad to health and weight control.  I've eliminated dozens of products i used to use with confidence because SO many of the things we buy are adulterated -- you have to be careful even buying tuna in "water" because it ISN'T -- it's a soy-laced broth.  "With olive oil" in the commercial world doesn't mean OF olive oil; i make my own mayo and dressings anymore.  The caveat above, "by me" is important -- my husband is sympathetic but not thoroughly aware.  And as for other people?  Absolutely, completely, incomprehensibly BLIND.  Obviously, most people think that if it doesn't kill you SOON, it doesn't have a negative impact on health (face-palm...).  Think CIGARETTES, kids....

I've learned a bit about alcohol, too.  The "cleanest" drink i can have is warm sake; a small amount satisfies and it's easy to stop there.  Even cold (filtered) sake is more ... moreish!  And other things also contribute to a low-grade headache while sake doesn't.  My low-carb cocktails come next, then tepid wine -- which is to say, reds.  White and/or chilled, and the "food reward" thing kicks in -- wonder if the "good doctor" can explain that one?

A very nice lady who went by the screenname "H" made the next big impact on my dietary adventures; she introduced me to "Strong Medicine," Dr. Blake Donaldson's retrospective on how he learned to treat allergy and weight loss, in the early part of the 20th century.  This book, and my subsequent reading, have revolutionized my view of limiting carbs.  H did her good deed, then kinda disappeared like The Shadow.  OOOOhhhh.  ;-)

This, as the title suggests, is going to have to be just the first report, because i realized after i started that the ground i've covered so far this year is going to take longer than i thought.  ;-)  I do hope this isn't just an exercise in self-absorption, but a useful record....

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.

state of the weightion

We now interrupt our regular series of philosophizing and rants to bring you a progress report....  ;-)

The past month has been a little disorganized for me and my dietary explorations.  With one thing after another after another, i haven't been able to stay in a dull little groove of eating what i know is optimal and systematically testing other things.  The bad news is that i gained about three or four pounds, though half of it has gone already, and was probably mostly water anyway.  The good news is ... i've lost my appetite.

During each phase of this experience, i tried to keep my carbs and omega-6s from getting outrageously high, while acknowledging that they WOULD be notably higher than usual.  The problem with eating out is largely, to become satisfied one has to eat the potatoes, too.  ONLY at Billie's is the omelette big enough and full enough to be a complete meal -- bless their little hearts!  Most places, they're hopelessly wimpy.  And it's shocking how few places have REAL saturated fats on hand.  :-(

Feeling rather poorly one day in Virginia, when my husband planned a steak dinner i had him buy me a big fatty ribeye and cook it VERY rare -- that perked me right up.  Lesson -- restaurant food is usually lacking in the "vital force" which rawtarians praise but can't definitively describe; i think it's a combination of enzymes and ... what vampires crave.

When we were back home, all my guests were gone, and i looked forward to eating "normally" again (for me -- "really weird" for everybody else), i plunged back into the Strong Medicine regimen.  Only problem was, my stomach wasn't ready for it.  Three meals of that and i felt overloaded.  When i used StM before, i had a similar reaction which i attributed to lack of salt, but that wasn't to blame THIS time.  And like before, i'm reminded of Stefansson's men and their early loss of appetite.  I guess this reaction is to be expected EVERY TIME one transfers from a "balanced" diet to a VLC one.  The full digestive process needs time to get on board.

So yesterday i finished the kefir for breakfast and had coffee-with-cream for lunch, before eating my last patty of ground chuck with the leftover roasted okra.  (I put the leftover mashed yams in the freezer.)  Later this morning, WHEN i actually start to feel hungry, i'll cook the tenderloin filet that i thawed the day before yesterday, and eat it rare with a big dollop of GF butter.  I have another chuck roast thawing, to turn into more lovely juicy burgers, which i'll make a little smaller than the last ones:  see if that doesn't reduce the load on my digestive equipment!

I have ANOTHER out-of-town adventure coming up -- a living-history event the weekend of Memorial Day, and a visit to my daughter.  This time i'll do some preparation that will -- with any kind of luck -- keep me from confusing my body quite as much as the last trip did.

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!

frightening activity turns out well

Yep, you guessed it -- i'm referring to stepping on the bathroom scale this morning, for the first time in over a week.  ;-)  I anticipated MUCH worse than i observed:  i didn't lose ground.

Considering the concentrated evil i committed during the week, this is astonishing.  My activity level must have made up for ALL THIS:  sweet-potato fries (Molly's), crisps at McGurk's, half a "baby bridie" and chips at the Scottish Arms*, risotto at Lombardo's, one-and-a-half onion rings and a half-dozen corn chips (Square One)....  Also (home-made) potato salad, mashed Japanese sweet potato, a handful of cocktails, and wickedly-good appetizers made by my dear neighbor INCLUDING (hanging my head in shame) a bruschetta....  Yeah, we whooped it up perty guid (have i mentioned, i lived in Texas for over a decade?) last week.  :-)

Anpwt has smiled upon me, forgiving my dietary sins in return for my good intentions in entertainment!

And my representative-of-St.-Louis restaurants didn't let me down!  We sat on patios in the beautiful weather and soaked up the spring sunshine, till the April showers came and we sat inside (oops -- i left out the Hardshell Cafe's rice-laced dishes).

But we walked all over at Cahokia and the Mount Pleasant winery, as well as incidental walking in other places, and up-and-down my staircases countless times. 

My guests seemed to enjoy everything, and were terrifically good sports.  Come back soon, girls!

***
SPECIAL commendation to the S.A. -- even though haggis has been removed from the lunch menu, Lisa ardently wanted to try theirs and the kitchen agreed to do it!  THIS attitude is what takes me back to businesses again and again!