Day 60 update

Hello blog, good to see you. Just thought I'd pop in. Today is Thursday, June 18. Otherwise known as Day 61 in this WOE.

Over the past month (month 2 of this all-meat eating experiment), several notable things have happened.

On May 23rd, I took part in the Crossfit "Murph" challenge. This was a poor decision health-wise, probably, since I hadn't been an active participant at Crossfit for about 4 weeks at the time. If you don't know, this Murph workout is

1 mile run
100 pullups (I substituted ring rows)
200 pushups (I did them on my knees)
300 air squats
1 mile run

This whole stupid affair took me 1 hour and 12 minutes to complete. I pretty much just walked the last mile. After I was done, I tested my blood sugar and I was 237 mg/dl. YIKES. Just like old times, when I used to eat paleo carbs and then work out.

I was also sore for 5 days in my legs/core area, and for 8 days in my arms. I seriously thought I had a mild case of rhabdomyolysis. But my pee wasn't dark and I didn't get puffy, so probably not. One of the folks at my gym at least DID suffer that fate, however. Crossfit is dangerous, kids.

After that challenge, I could feel my body get a bit puffier/fatter. It was probably inflammation contributing to a bit of weight gain.

Also this month, my poops have been inconsistent, still, and some acne has reappeared. I thought for sure my stomach things would settle out this month, but I feel like things are still quite unpredictable. I hope I'm not giving myself some kind of gastrointestinal disorder. This may have something to do with the fact that I've added eggs in from time to time, and cheese maybe 2x a week (not that often, but it's not off limits either). I'll monitor these things. They're very annoying and hard to miss.

I went to the endocrinologist for a checkup, and my A1c increased from 5.2 to 6.2. This one was a bit of a blow. I pretty much looked a gift horse in the mouth when I turned away from keto to carnivory, it seems. Here are my past month's numbers as taken from my meter at the doctor's office:

I'll be waiting with bated breath to see how I do next month. I have increased my nighttime Lantus dosage to 10 units, originally 7 units in mid-April. I'll probably have to increase further.

And I can definitely tell I'm getting fatter. In fact, I know I am. I bought some pairs of pants from Savers this weekend, because the pants I have are getting too tight. :'( Measurements I took this morning confirm this. I'll have a separate post up later with my measurements. It's not pretty.

I need to work on being happier and more content with myself. But it's hard when I'm not seeing the results I want. Oh well. Onward to Month 3!

Day 14 happenings

Tim is going to take me out for barbecue tonight, since I helped him edit his school paper. I always help him edit his papers, but still. If he wants to take me for a night on the town, I'm not one to argue!

Today is May 2, day 14. So far I've eaten probably about a pound of ground beef, 73/27. Nice and fatty. I stocked up on that stuff at Aldi, so I'm pretty much set for a week or two, maybe three.

A few things to note. Yesterday I went a whole day, finally, with no bowel movement. Up to now they hadn't been very inspiring or normal in nature. Maybe my body is finally being nourished by all the meat I'm giving it, and has nothing left for the toilet. I think I'm heading in the right direction.

I may be drinking too much water, and possibly confusing hunger signals and thirst signals. After all, isn't it such a common diet trope? "Stop confusing your thirst for hunger! If you're hungry, try drinking a big glass of water before you eat." How weird and lovely to live on this meat-eating path, where such fooling of the body is not necessary, and in fact detrimental to progress!

Finally, I think I'm going to have to halt the Crossfit workouts for the foreseeable future. I've been in denial about this, but I'm probably just confusing my metabolism, and not letting my overweight body heal properly. I'm sad about this.

The social aspect of it will be missed, as will the stress-relieving parts, and the parts where I beat someone occasionally with my double-unders skillz and it feels goooood. But we did the hero WOD "Manion" on Wednesday. I am STILL sore on day 4 of the aftermath. I didn't even do it the Rx way. But 145 squats at 105 lbs and 1.25 miles of running is probably just the workout to make and keep me fat. My body thinks I'm in some kind of hunting situation and is unleashing the cortisol meant to build my belly fat to protect my vital organs.

Off to chow down on some brisket!

Second week ramblings

I completed day 10 today, and things are going pretty smoothly. I still have no clue about buying and cooking meat, so there's that. I just way undercooked a $27 ribeye, but whatevs. I still ate it. Raw/blue steak, I ain't afraid. I should probably buy a good meat thermometer. This is what it looked like pre-cooking, didn't take an after because I was all up in it, my hands were too greasy to work the camera phone:

Still experiencing that slightly phlegmy feeling in my throat after eating a meal. I wonder what that is?? It's not terrible, I can tolerate it. Just interesting.

My body seems stuck in its weight/measurements. I'm probably on the thinner side of where I've usually been most likely (I'm guessing) the mid 160s range. Of course, that really means nothing from what I hear. Some folks seem to lose inches yet gain weight. After 29 years it's hard to walk outside of the normal dieting box, where we used to talk in pounds lost, calories eaten, etc. This is a new frontier.

Today's Crossfit workout was a doozy. It took me 19:44 to complete what amounted to a total of 1400 m of rowing, and 60 split-jerks, 75 lbs. Not the Rx level, but I was dying just the same. My endurance sucks anyway, but I don't think my eating is doing anything for it at this point. Maybe it will?

Is this high intensity exercise the great thing I once thought it was? I tend to balk when the time it takes to finish a workout bleeds over into the 20+ minutes category. Maybe my exercise tastes will change the deeper I get into this carnivore, yukshik lifestyle, just like I'm forcing my food tastes to eventually change. But it's also a social thing for me too, who am I kidding - I like those people. And I don't go every day, but maybe 3-4 per week is still too much for optimal health/recovery, but I'm not sure.

Blood sugars have been a bit lower today than they have been so far on this WOE, though still high after a high intensity workout. 195 today, taken fasting and about 45 minutes after my workout (wasn't hungry this morning). A lower-protein, more dairy/nut/veg heavy keto diet didn't used to do that to me as often - I could work out and then test my sugar, and I'd be at the most in the 140s. Hopefully that will even out, though I may have to change my insulin regimen.

I currently take 7 units of Lantus at bedtime, and Humalog on an as-needed basis. It's hard to know what my sliding scale is now that I'm not a regular ol' ADA sugar burner. I still generally follow the 1 unit per 15 gm carb rule, and I may extend that to 1 unit per 30 gm protein if I test before eating and I'm high. I really just go with my instinct by now, as I've been on the same medication regiment for probably 10 yrs at this point. I'm not the most scientific diabetic, and I wouldn't consider myself lazy... it's just that eating low carb usually makes things so much simpler.

The last time I had my Hemoglobin A1c checked in... March? I wanna say? It was 5.2, I do remember that. Fucking stellar for a type 1 diabetic, as it puts me in the non-damaged pancreas people crowd! Keto was great for my numbers.

Then again, if eating an all meat diet is for iconoclasts and folks that don't tend to trust the medical establishment, maybe even if my A1c creeps higher, it's better for my health and longevity overall? But how can I know?

Who cares really. I just want that ever-elusive HSIS weight to happen for me. You know - Hot Shit in a Swimsuit. Instagram model territory baby yasss.

End of My First Week (Day 7)

Yesterday was Saturday, April 25, and it marked my full week on this no carb lifestyle. And score - woke up with enough energy to go to Crossfit!

With a partner - 200 meter burpee broad jumps (we did it around the track at the gym)

Partner 1 starts on the burpee broad jumps
Partner 2 runs 200
When partner 2 catches partner 1 switch spots. Continue this cycle until a full 200 is completed with the burpee broad jumps.

then

100 Squats
100 Push Ups
100 Jump Lunges
One partner works at a time switch as needed on the reps.

My partner did more jump lunges than I did, my legs weren't as fast as hers. Of course, I bet I have about 50 lbs on her too. I kept up well enough I'd say. I wasn't hankering to do 1 mile run as a finisher like some of the crazy dudes in the class did.

So after that workout and me taking my time in the hot tub afterwards, I just took my time going back home. Stayed in the foyer/living room/cafe area of the gym and read my book a bit. On the way home I was mesmerized by Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, so I stayed in my car for like 15 min even after I parked at home. By that time I got inside I was hungry since I didn't have any breakfast. I had another ahi tuna steak that needed eating, so I cut it up as best I could after googling a yellowfin tuna sashimi demo video. The guy had a real knife and all my knives suck, so I just went with it, eating as I cut.

And then I added a shit-ton of butter to compensate for all the fat that this tuna did NOT have. Made my tummy a bit scared, but all was fine. No really progress on the poop, things have reverted to slight looseness. When do I get the poop magic???

Later that day, the hubs and I went back to the new Whole Foods nearby to check it out and walk around/stretch our legs, since we'd basically been lumps all day. I mean, I did make it to my Crossfit workout, but after that I basically just read my book and lounged around the house, mostly on the couch. By about 5 pm we were feeling cooped up. 

More crowded than before, since people were getting their dinners there. Yeesh, that deli section was full. But I did break my (tenuous) all-meat rule and sample a few morsels of cheese. My GOD. My sweet tooth is hopefully on its way to dying. I had some kind of 3yr aged gouda, and it was like caramel on my tongue. I was blown away. Lookin' forward to all the enhanced senses of taste and smell that some people have reported on this WOE.

We went to Five Guys for dinner, and I just got a bacon burger (2 patties). It was not nearly enough. For all the love Five Guys gets, their burger patties plain just aren't anything to write home about. I had a second dinner of ground beef probably an hour later :) 

Trying not to worry too much about total calories, just trying to optimize my fat because my blood sugars are running higher on this diet than they were on keto. May have something to do with the fiber, or the lack of nuts/cheese. Those were pretty much staples for me for the past 14 months.

Here's to being zen and relaxing, letting my body heal before I worry (too much) about hotness:

This was Day 6

Trying to get my posts done within the correct day. I'm not a very diligent blogger by nature,* so maybe after tomorrow, since the first week will be out of the way, I'll switch to a more weekly or biweekly report schedule.

I ate more today, but that was probably to be expected considering I dragged my ass to Crossfit today. It wasn't a terrible workout, kinda fun actually. Really took it out of me though, even though I scaled down from burpee pullups. This is what I did:

For time:

20 burpees + 20 ring rows
30 ground to overhead (Rx was 95 for girls, I did 75 lbs)
20 ring rows + 20 burpees

Did it in 14:38. That was in addition to a horrible warm up with jump squats/lunges, and a few snatch exercises. But it was fun. I've grown quite fond of that sweaty burn in the last 2+ years I've been a Crossfitter.

I keep track on Myfitnesspal of my calories and macros, just to see. I also try to emphasize fat for steady blood sugar control so it helps me there. Yesterday I ate roughly 1700 cals, today was 2300. But at this point, I'm so over calories. The idea that we humans know exactly how our bodies will burn foods every single time is now quite laughable to me. If you want to learn and laugh too, check out this series on Dr. Jason Fung's site, https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/how-do-we-gain-weight-calories-part-1/. It's so long, but so great.

(grossness warning) Another development today is that my poop changed. Instead of being so loose and liquidy, what I managed to squeeze out today resembled little dark brown squiggles. To me, they resembled green beans, but smaller? In my whole adult life I cannot remember it ever looking like that. Weird and cool! I'm so pumped for my next bowel movement.

As I recall, The Bear had said that stools are smaller in general on an all meat diet, because the unnecessary roughage/unavailable nutrients of all plant products are what really make up the majority of people's feces. No plants, less poop (I'm going to make this phrase into a t-shirt).

Planning to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I truly intend to make it to tomorrow's 9 am Crossfit WOD, but if I'm too sleepy I'll just reevaluate.

Final thought: the frozen ground beef patties from Costco (big blue bag, 78/22 beef) are pretty much awesome. So fast, so fatty, so easy.

*Seriously, I've had a lot of blogs that I just kinda gave up on. I run out of steam after a month or so. This issue goes all the way back to livejournal, man. I'm also torn about people knowing my business, because I also like attention and praise. I'm a super human being. #complicated - ok hashtags are dumb, especially in a blog, sorrry. #notsorry