I ate the cheesecake

Actually, I split the piece of cheesecake - as it was our 3rd anniversary! This cheesecake was our wedding cake, so it's kinda special :)

...and surprisingly, it had fewer carbs than yesterday's apples! I'm not suggesting I start having cheesecake for breakfast everyday, but still ...

The Plan

So, I ginned this up in Excel in order to diagram my 24 hour eating & sleeping schedule.

Weird? Dorky? Looney?

Yeah, I know ...

Yeah, yeah, yeah

I know, I know....Hello, 4th meal...! Um...I mean, 5th meal?

Mid afternoon with a headache, and my Lizard Brain convinced me that a Starbucks sausage breakfast muffin would do the trick. Spoiler Alert: it didn't. And at 900+mg of Sodium, it was my heavy hitter of the day.

The 41 grams of carbs was just adding insult to injury!

I get home @ 6pm, and I'm hungry! A little steak, with a touch of Pimento Cheese can't be bad. Right?

Who knew cheese was so high in salt? At 300+mg, those two tablespoons of cheese were NOT worth it! Only 6g of carbs, but still!!!

So - I still need to work on my meal timing. And my cravings. And my attitude.

The Weekend Update

So, first of all, the good news. I'm down 26.8lbs!!! Woo-Hoo! For two months progress, that's not bad for just 8 weeks! That's about 3.3lbs per week, and that's astounding!

As far as the Sodium thing goes ... yeah .... I feel like figuring that out helped a few things 'click', but I still need to figure out how to put it into practice. Short term wins? My beloved Frank's Wing Sauce (460mg / tbl spoon) was a Whole 30 staple - but it's a MASSIVE hit of Sodium! So, two almost-new bottles hit the trash. In it's place? Well, the green hot sauce I fell in love with at Real Urban BBQ (Pain Is Good - Jalepeno Pepper Sauce) is fabulously on-plan! Not only is it Whole 30 compliant, but it's super low Sodium!

My other big easy win was breakfast - while I loved my Dunkin bowl & Jimmy Dean breakfast bowls, they were both massive Sodium hits. So, I made my old egg cups with my super high quality US Wellness Meats Breakfast Sausage, and I'm in GREAT shape!

Today's breakfast & supplements - a total of 156mg of Sodium.

Last week's breakfast w/ Dunkin Bowl & Franks - more than 2200mg of Sodium!

Oddly, the carbs & calories stay pretty much even - so it's just the processed food I have to watch out for.

Jimmy John's Gargantuan Unwich (4989mg) - I will miss you!

Oh, HOLY CRAP

Have you ever been looking at something so close, that you are totally shocked when you back up a bit & see something totally obvious?

For many months, I've been concerned that I was pre-diabetic.  I was ravenously thirsty, exhausted, stiff & sore, with occasional BRUTAL headaches, and consistently dark urine.

I've been logging my food & really trying to drill down the carbs, to the point of favoring old-school Atkins instead of 'real food'.  A Jimmy Dean breakfast bowl & a Jimmy John Gargantuan Unwich are quick, easy, totally low carb, and ASTONISHINGLY high in sodium!

Then, I was reading through Loren Cordain's site, and I came across this article:

https://thepaleodiet.com/a-rare-and-never-before-published-book-chapter-concerning-salt-and-cancer/

Well, Holy Shit!  

So, I dug into my sodium intake...

Ugh.  Ok.  I get it.  Time to seriously re-jigger the plan!

A series of questionable choices ...

... leading to an end result that's not actually very awful.

Breakfast & Lunch were typical 'store bought', but dinner was The Signature Room with wife & kiddos, which was a helluva treat. The daily numbers ended up pretty solid, too!

The illustrated need for planning

It's ok when one meal is 'store bought' because life is busy and you make the best choice from bad options. But all THREE meals?

Yeah, I need to tighten some shit up, but ... I'm already overbooked, underslept, and exhausted. Time to make some bold pronouncements like "Stop Watching TV", and "Master Your To-Do List".

Ugh. Might as well hold hands and sing campfire songs...

Everything Old is New Again

So, after my carb-eriffic weekend, my Tuesday weigh-in is UP 1.2lbs.

Ugh.

That tells me I have a much thinner margin of error than I'd thought, which is disappointing now AND in the near future. It tells me that my future plateau is both closer & tougher than I'd hoped.

So ... what's the plan? Well, setting my grumpy-fit aside for a moment, it's all the same old battle, right? My carb counts are up, and I'm battling the 4th (and 5th?) meal conundrum.

I love the Nutrient Optimizer / Chronometer approach (getting adequate nutrition will satisfy cravings), but GOOD LORD it's complicated, and I fear I may just be too much of a #metabolichotmess to ride that train just yet.

I need to focus on the basics. I love my daily 'big bag of berries', but that's 25 carbs, right off the bat. I need to focus on an 'old school' low carb approach, perhaps keeping it Whole 30-ish (real, whole food, no dairy or grains). AND ... I need to revisit my idea of pushing brekkie to 10 or 11am, so that lunch can be at 2 or 3pm, allowing me to hit a 7 or 8pm dinner without a 4th meal in that 4 to 6pm zone.

Grumble, grumble ... me & my headache are gonna sit here & pout for a few hours before I stomp off down Franklin Street to the damn salad bar place. It'll be a joy, I'm sure! Wanna meet there? ;-)

So, the weekend didn’t totally suck

I'm hitting Monday morning feeling pretty good! I ate WAY too many carbs Sat & Sun, but my total calorie count wasn't too bad. Add to that a butt-load of steps & activity Sunday as I mowed & trimmed the lawn & did a bunch of other projects.

Nothing succeeds like success

Sunday - no progress
Wednesday - up 1lb
Friday - down 2.1

Sometimes I think my body takes a deep breath before letting go!

Rocks in my head

So, I need to learn more about this, but it's not *just* about carbs. Added sugar, we know is bad, no discussion needed. BUT ... starch? Yeah, it turns out, that's super bad, too. In the body it instantly & easily becomes plain old sugar. That includes all those root veggies I love :(

But the real superfood seems to be fiber. I'm cheating the system right now by supplementing it, but let me tell you - GOSH, what a difference!

I need to find a way to pump up the natural fiber, while keeping the sugar & starch low. That means sugary fruit (apples), and things like carrots & parsnips are not my friends right now. They have great nutrient profiles - but I just can't take the insulin hit.

An interesting theory put forward in Don't Eat For Winter is that seasonally autumnal foods naturally trigger our body to put on weight.

What foods are seasonally autumnal? Apples, other tree fruit, root veggies, and all the stuff that takes all summer to grow.

Gotta eat like it's Spring! Lean meats & low carb...

Solid Choices, but reverse progress

So ... my weekly weigh-in showed I *gained* a pound and a half! Ugh.

Sometimes, even good choices are just too much...

A pretty solid weekend

It looks like I'm averaging roughly 150 carbs per day. Just over a third of that are refined carbs. (1090 carbs for the week, 448 'bad' = 155 per day, 64 of which are refined.) So - a great deal of room for improvement! But how? I still crave enough, and am still not being proactive enough, that I end up backed into a corner. I have GOT to get proactive, or I'll never hold off the cravings!

A damn good day

Damn Straight

In the 3.5 weeks since I got my new scale, I'm down 11.2lbs! I'm down I.5 just since Sunday. This is GREAT progress, and I haven't even been 100% on anything!

Some thoughts on that, later...

Rough Start / Smooth Finish

So ... yesterday I wrapped up at 169 carbs. 109 were from breakfast alone! Those were refined carbs, simply because I got surprised at Dunkin' with my low carb bowl being discontinued. The rest of my carbs, I'll cheerfully take - mostly salad & peanuts. I had 20 carbs, roughly, in the fried Mozzarella appetizer, which was a lovely treat.

The point to all this? It's DAMN hard to get super low on carbs! Especially if you still want to incorporate at least one 'big ass' salad every day.

Breakfast sets up the day for success or failure, and since I apparently can't count on Dunkin', I need a better solution for myself.

Breakfast is too important!

Good Choices / Bad Choices

How I start the day, is how my day goes.

Or to put it another way: Breakfast = Success (or lack thereof)

If my breakfast is on-plan & good, my day will be a winner, plain & simple! Even if I go off-plan later in the day, a satisfying breakfast keeps that later off-plan choice from blowing up. Conversely, a bad breakfast will equal a bad day, no matter how tight the rest of the day is. It'll be a shit-struggle, too!

So - as Dunkin heartlessly discontinues my PERFECT sausage scramble bowl - I have made some off-plan choices, and have struggled to Stay The Course.

What to do?

I may order some Jimmy Dean refrigerated breakfast bowls & keep them at the office. Totally on-plan, and easy to microwave. Might take some planning & effort - but that's better than an off-plan choice!

Four Day Holiday Weekend

I certainly wasn't 100% with my food choices over the holiday, but I took my own breakfast stuff, and my 'big bags of berries', which allowed me to make some good choices at dinnertime. The wood-fired pizza Saturday was WAY off-plan, but it was 'real food'. It was serious validation to see my weight continue downward. My blood pressure continues to vex me, even though my Doctor had me bump up my medication. I'll be contacting him so that we can address this, but I know that continuing to lose weight is the best medicine of all. Being able to do that without feeling deprived is what will allow my success to continue!

Planning ahead

Weekends & holidays away can be a special challenge for me. Excuses of 'it's a special occasion' and so forth ... and 'small' thing like that can easily derail me. So, a little bit of planning & prep can go a long way.

I did some nice hearty portions of Honeydew, Cantaloupe, Red Grapes, Kiwi, Blackberries, Blueberries, and Raspberries. This should be a low glycemic nutritional antioxidant powerhouse!

Somedays you win...

Yesterday went really well.

So, let's talk about *why* it went well.

1. I was fairly busy, and didn't have so much time to think about food.

2. I timed everything later, giving me the ability to 'skip' one 'meal'.

3. I front-loaded the day with a hearty breakfast, allowing me to stay in front of the hunger.

Now ... let's see if I can continue to apply this model as we move forward!

One foot in front of the other...

I've said it before, but it bears repeating - Nothing succeeds like success!

This may be more of my own personal truth, rather than a universal truism! 90% of my battle is inside my own head, so it's good for me to be self-aware.

So - I'm trying some new things! The Nutrient Optimizer is great - however I still prefer logging my food through My Fitness Pal vs. Chronometer. I know Chronometer is 'better', but the food database isn't nearly as complete, so it's a moot point. If I can figure out how to download MFP to then upload to Nutrient Optimizer ... then that'd be a helluva win!

I also signed up for Day Two. They analyze (DNA Sequence) your gut microbiome, in order to give tailored recommendations around carb tolerance. I have my personalized conference the morning of July 12th, so stay tuned! Some of the default advice looks pretty standard (remove red meat / eat more whole grains - ugh!), but I still have hope that it'll give me some good insights.

...and I signed up for the Balanced Bites nutritional Master Class! I've wanted to do this for a few years, so I finally bit the bullet! THIS is going to be good - I really like the common sense Paleo approach, and I hope this lets me drill down beyond the typical Cross Fit athlete style recommendations.

I know that my home-brew routine is working right now. My paleo / whole food / low carb / nutrient focused outlook "works", but I need to know "why", so that I can continue to refine it. I have to keep my own interest, fight my cravings, and push through plateaus. It's a tall order!

...but I'm figuring it out, and getting there with a 'progress, not perfection' mindset. I've just gotta keep the momentum of progress going!!!

Onward...