More about what I'm eating

I started out with the following as a goal:

2 meals/day (lunch/dinner)
- meals mostly paleo
- veggies/salad/cole slaw
- meat/fish/eggs
- small amounts of rice or potato (when past initial couple weeks)
- good fats
- small amounts of fruit
- small amounts of nuts (best roasted by me from raw state)
- one piece dark chocolate (when past initial couple weeks)
- when past initial couple weeks, occasionally:
- one glass wine
- small amounts of tortilla or potato chips (max 5)
Avoid entirely:
- any high sugar especially soft drinks
- grains, especially wheat in any form
- bad fats
Think about eating veggies first.
Cognizant of amounts -- eat less! Don't end up stuffed. Take home or share.
Track all food on my fitness pal app.
Grocery list:
meat, fish, chicken, fish, eggs
green beans, cole slaw, carrots, celery, tomatoes, peppers, avocados
apples, berries, other fruits
potatoes, white rice (basmati?)
dark chocolate
raw almonds, dry roasted macadamias
Also, sweetie's homemade (bone) broth! Possibly drink in the morning with a little coconut oil, also cook rice in it.

I've been pretty close:

• 2 meals a day, definitely -- doing this kind of intermittent fasting is a huge help in keeping total calories at a reasonable rate, plus the other benefits, which I'll write about later
• meals mostly paleo: I went through a period where I ate potatoes or rice at most meals, but found that 1) I didn't portion control and 2) slowed weight loss to a crawl, so went back to mostly paleo
• quickly switched to 2 pieces of chocolate as a treat at night (sometimes with a couple oz. of a nice port!)
• Once I got past the period of too many carbs each day, I've had periodic "breaks" or "cheats" (depending on the way you look at it):  for example, Friday we had lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant: lots of chips, 2/3ds of a Mexican coke (half liter bottle), 3 enmoladas with mole and rice & beans, probably over 100 grams of carbs in that meal alone -- yesterday I followed with a low carb day, under 50 for the whole day -- however, my weight hit a new low Sunday morning of 222 pounds, down 3 pounds for the week, so clearly not a problem
• small amounts of wine--correct
• avoiding high sugar--mostly, but see above about the Mexican coke
• mostly avoiding grains, especially wheat, but some slips: a sub sandwich last Tuesday and a couple of those the week before -- some corn tortillas and chips (not yet limiting to 5!) -- need to plan ahead better--I did that more often this week, bringing food to school
• haven't eaten veggies first regularly, but am not sure that matters if I have good choices and good portion control
• much better at being cognizant of amounts/portion control 
• got back off the rice, so no bone broth recently -- will find a way, perhaps bring to school for lunch in thermos
• And . . . I've tracked almost every meal, which keeps me honest and focused!

If I look at calories the past week (Sunday through Saturday), I averaged 1591/day. Carbs were: 73, 51, 255, 59, 67, 110, 47 -- a mix of low carb days and one a bit high and one way high. However, if I look at weight loss this week, down 3 pounds this week. While I don't think I can keep that kind of weight loss on a regular basis over the long term, 1 pound/week, perhaps for awhile at 1.5 pounds/week should be totally doable.

We spent a great afternoon yesterday at a "Steak 101" class at the Local Yokel Market in McKinney, which teaches about the different cuts and grades of beef, plus info on "grass fed-grass finished" and Wagyu beef, both of which they grow and sell (plus other products from local farmers/ranchers). Very informative and then they feed you, from their grills, amazing beef of all kinds, tender and tasty! We bought a couple small roasts and some pasture raised pork brats . . . mmm! If we can find a way to do it, we'll try to get most of our meat from there--just better and better for you--incredibly better fat profile (higher in omega 3 fats and CLA, which has several benefits).

All in all, I'm moving in the right direction. I'll take labs at the end of next week, for a physical the following one, so it'll be interesting to see where my numbers are.

Intermittent Fasting

Short post today.

I've read a lot about intermittent fasting and for the past 3 weeks or so have been following the Leangains approach, which is a 16 hour fast followed by an 8 hour feeding window. For me, this means no breakfast, so from a period after dinner to noon or thereabouts, I don't eat. I'm not yet to his macronutrient approach, which is connected with intense (weight lifting) exercise, since I'm not there yet, and won't be for some time.

Mark Sisson recently had a good article on The Myriad Benefits of Intermittent Fasting and the advantages it can give.

So far, no problems with this, no hunger, energy consistent, all good!

That's all for today!

Update 10-15-2011

When I talked with my doctor, the lab has to store the blood in a particular way/container to test for A1c, which they did not, so I'm out of luck until my next lab.

Blood sugars have been good, fasting in the morning always under 100 (usually 96-98) and low post-prandial. Even yesterday with a lunch at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants, where my wife and I shared a carne asada: probably around 15 chips w/ salsa beforehand, steak, rice & beans, 1/2 avocado, and 3 nachos (chips with melted cheese), my one hour post-prandial BG was 126. It will be interesting to see when I go back to a more "normal" diet, what happens to my BG and if this brief low calorie/low carb diet has made a difference in how I process sugars, per the study in England.

Weight and Bodyfat:

Weight loss of 1 pound. Total now 24.5 pounds.

A bit of a slow down this week. Hard to know if I've adapted in some ways to this diet and down-regulated, or if it's just the way it is.

I've certainly seen exercise continuing to get better (reps increasing), although I've found the more intense schedule difficult and my back is sore today, perhaps from planks, leg lifts, and squats being one day right after another. If my back's still sore next week, I'll modify.

I've also been seeing pants becoming less tight and belts at yet one more notch tighter, so I'm losing inches. It could be that the muscle increase (since muscle is heavier than fat by volume) is making up for some of the fat loss. Again, we'll have to see.

I have only one week left on this restricted, mostly liquid diet, then will relax back, but hopefully still to an amount that will mean continued weight loss of a pound or so a week.

Oh yes, tried a fast this week (Monday dinner to Tuesday dinner). Neither difficult nor easy. Definitely felt hunger pangs. Broke fast with a taco salad, instead of shake. Not sure if I'll do one this week or not. My wife's gone this week, so I'm on my own Monday through Friday.

Week 4 Report

Here are the results for 4 weeks:

So, a pound and a half this week, 14 pounds in the first 4 weeks--truly good, especially considering the surgery this week and terrible sleep, plus lack of exercise.

Friday, protein shake in the AM (still makes me feel bloated--air in the blender shake or problem with the dairy in the whey protein?); hot dog w/o bun at 5 Guys; cheese, tomatoes, 1/2 avocado. Then a small amount of home-made ice cream (mostly cream/half & half, egg yolks, very little sugar), blood sugar afterwards 107.

Getting good sleep has been a long-term problem for me and sleep is one of the elements mentioned prominently by writers and researchers in the area of weight loss. Adequate sleep takes down stress levels, where inadequate sleep raises cortisol and insulin levels, both negative for healthy weight loss.

Robb Wolf makes it a very important part of his program. One of the things I eventually want to do is some intermittent fasting (Swede Martin Berkhan has one of the more interesting sites on this and has a particular protocol of working out and intermittent fasting to get very lean and muscular) and Wolf as much as says that until both your diet (paleo, of course) and sleep are in order, you shouldn't even attempt intermittent fasting.

My own sleep is made worse by being inconsistent--my natural tendency is to stay up late and I can very quickly be back to a late (read, 1-3 AM) bedtime. Any book on sleep disorders or increasing good sleep will mention consistency of bed-time/wake-time.

I also have interruptions to my sleep almost every night (i.e. I rarely sleep more than 4-5 hours at any one time) and once awake am often up for 1 1/2 to two hours. Part of the interruptions are normal for middle-aged guys: waking up to pee. But it is often because, since I use a CPAP for my sleep apnea, if my nose gets plugged up enough, you wake up (because the mask means you only breathe through your nose). That's the reason for: 1) doing the sleep studies and getting a new, better CPAP device and 2) doing this surgery and improving the air flow through my nose.

Temporarily, of course, sleep is much worse, since my nasal passages have been extremely swollen/inflamed due to the surgery, and I was having to sleep in a recliner to keep head higher to make drainage better. This meant three nights of even worse than even my usual crappy sleep: the night before the surgery with about 3 hours (on a late-night pattern, had to get up very early, stressed about the surgery), then not more than 2 hours at any one time for the next couple nights, waking up totally dried out (from breathing through my mouth) and uncomfortable. As my surgeon said, you'll have several days of cat-naps only.

Last night was my first night back in bed (yay!). My nasal passages weren't clear enough to use the CPAP when I went to bed (around 11:15). Slept until 1:30 or so, up for about an hour and a half, used saline to clear nose and got back to sleep around 3, but able to use my CPAP, awoke 7:30--so about 6.5 hours total (and I might yet go back to bed for another round).

Long-term, I need to work on several things:

• consistency of bed-time/wake-time (weekends as well as weekdays)
• figuring out a cut-off time for liquids to make sure the need to pee doesn't wake me up
• consistency of bed-time routine
• shutting off TV and not using computer after a certain hour
• dark as possible room (I usually do this)
• cool sleeping room (impossible now with the high heat here--I've had to keep our thermostat up near 78, even at night)

Hopefully this can lead to more consistent and deeper sleep (I would like to see around 7.5 hours per night), which should have huge physical and mental benefits.

I'll start tracking sleep better as part of this whole transformation.