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.

Another great post by Dr. William Davis on blood sugar

Yet another great post on blood sugar by Dr. Davis. Speaking of carbs with fewer bad effects than wheat, oatmeal, etc. (brown rice, black beans, etc.), he says:

So these non-wheat carbohydrates, or what I call “intermediate carbohydrates” (for lack of a better term; low-glycemic index is falsely reassuring) still trigger all the carbohydrate phenomena of table sugar. Is it possible to obtain the fiber, B-vitamin, flavonoid benefits of these intermediate carbohydrates without triggering the undesirable carbohydrate consequences?

Yes, by using small portions. Small portions are tolerated by most people without triggering all these phenomena. Problem: Individual sensitivity varies widely. One person’s perfectly safe portion size is another person’s deadly dose. For instance, I’ve witnessed many extreme differences, such as 1-hour blood sugar after 6 oz unsweetened yogurt of 250 mg/dl in one person, 105 mg/dl in another. So checking 1-hour blood sugars is a confident means of assessing individual sensitivity to carbs. 

Of course, others such as Robb Wolf (whose book, The Paleo Solution, is great) wouldn't want you eating them because of anti-nutrients (I'll write more about that some other day). And even Paul Jaminet of the Perfect Health Diet (another great book, by the way), who does advocate more carbs, around 100 grams/day (although not for those whose metabolic systems are compromised), only wants "safe carbs" (i.e. those without the problems) such as white rice (no anti-nutrients/safe source of glucose) and tubers such as sweet potatoes and taro.

Davis further says:

Some people don’t like the idea of checking blood sugars, however. Or, there might be times when it’s inconvenient or unavailable. A useful alternative: Count carbohydrate grams. (Count “net” carbohydrate grams, of course, i.e., carbohydrates minus indigestible fiber grams to yield “net” carbs.) Most people can tolerate around 40-50 grams carbohydrates per day and deal with them effectively, provided they are spaced out throughout the day and not all at once. Only the most sensitive, e.g., diabetics, apo E2 people, those with familial hypertriglyceridemia, are intolerant to even this amount and do better with less than 30 grams per day. Then there are the genetically gifted from a carbohydrate perspective, people who can tolerate 50-60 grams, occasionally somewhat more.

People will sometimes say things like “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about because I eat 200 grams carbohydrate per day and I’m normal weight and have perfect blood sugar and lipids.” As in many things, the crude measures made are falsely reassuring. Glycation, for instance, from postprandial blood sugars of “only” 140 mg/dl–typical after, say, unsweetened oatmeal–still works its unhealthy magic and will lead long-term to cataracts, arthritis, and other conditions.

Humans were not meant to consume an endless supply of readily-digestible carbohydrates. Counting carbohydrates is another way to “tighten up” a carbohydrate restriction.       

Clear for me that I need to stay where I should!

A good example is today. Still recovering from surgery, had a visit to the Doc's to check up on results (very good!), clean out my nose at the sites with stitches, etc. Afterward, my wife and I went to a great breakfast restaurant. I had two fried eggs, two slices of bacon, about a half portion of hash browns, and a serving of strawberries. One hour later, blood sugar was 144. Not something I should do! But I'm willing to bend a bit around this kind of illness and stress. But tonight I'll be back on low carbs--and hopefully blood sugar in the 95-105 range.