This has been quite the week. Wednesday after having lunch at a local BBQ joint with my pal Rob I got a letter or rather a note in the mail from an old friend and well . . . the resulting post is below this one. I posted a link to it on facebook on the group page for our graduating class and in messages to a few other people who knew Curt back in the day. 145 page views so far. Wow the other posts get maybe 10 the first week and then a few dribble over time. The pages with a photo do better. I think the photos turn up in weird random searches and get clicked on by people from all over the place. Especially the Ukraine for some reason. They love that picture I posted last year of Crickett chewing a shoe. Anyway it was an excuse to make contact with people I haven't contacted in a while. I think Curtis has the opportunity to renew some connections himself. It's all good I suppose.
After last week's weigh in I decided that the cookie diet was a bust. I lost allot the first 2 weeks but water loss can account for most of that. I got 6 weeks worth of cookies and still have more than half after 4 weeks. I just can't eat 6 of those things every day.
I've done a little more looking into the Wheat Free diet or the not eating one thing meal plan or however you describe it. The factoid about the A TO Z: A Comparative Weight Loss Study was very interesting to me so I had to follow up. As is my usual way of finding things out I went to the podcasting section of iTunes. I found a number of interviews with Dr. Davis who wrote the "Wheat Belly" book. One with Dr. Christopher Gardner who did the research for A TO Z. One reason I favor podcasts is that I can tell more about the topic by the way the person talks. Especially if they are not a professional media person. Just a random person with a mike and a computer. Then again some give too much information. I like what a crack pot some of these people are. For example the Fat burning man. Show # 6 is with Dr. Davis. It had some good info but I'll not subscribe. Connie Bennett has one called Gab with the Gurus. She is an anti Sugar fanatic. While I agree with the premise that sugar is a bad thing in general the way she talks about it is off putting. She does interview some interesting people however. The one where I liked the host the most is called Dana's Low Carb for Life. I was frankly surprised when at one point she mentioned her husband. She sounds like a friendly old dyke that is also a serious geek about this low carb thing. Her overview of Wheat Belly was good. Sad to see she hasn't done a new show since Thanksgiving. Overall the interview with Dr Gardener was the most informative. He pointed out that while the low carb high fat diet works best when tested against the others each person is different and has to find what works for them.
Along with the low carb/high fat diets are the Paleolithic diets (Paleo diet). I had heard of the Paleo diet years ago and just assumed that it was a fad that came and went. As it turns out they both have world wide communities of people some who are just looking to feel and be healthier and a few who are on a march to stamp out all modern processed food. This includes food like grain that pre agriculture humans would have never have eaten because it has to be cooked first. (technically meat can be eaten raw and I guess was but eew) The non-gluten eating community that has grown out of the increase in Celiac Disease is a bit more mainstream. They have created a situation where they enjoy the comforts of mainstreaminess without all the pesky business of having to deal with a broken world.
What I have experienced so far this week is mostly positive. I have been using self hypnosis on myself so it is difficult to quantify the extent of some of the elements. Customizing my focus with hypnosis is useful but doesn't lend it's self to the scientific approach for analyzing my own data. Removing the remaining wheat from my eating has had many of the effects I have come to expect from the book and other things I have read/heard. I have very little appetite. A couple of times a day I feel hunger that is soothed with a surprisingly small amount of food. I found myself nibbling some the last day or so but I think that may have more to do with boredom than anything else. One thing that has become more common since this adventure began is having a clear mind. Sometimes for almost a whole day at a time. I was so confident that this anti-Wheat anti-Carb thing was right for me I started to reduce my Omeprazole and may stop the other anti-acid too. My stomach has been very quiet with a couple of upsets in the mornings. Yesterday I was at Costco and got a polish dog with sauerkraut. I threw away the bun and my lemonade was mostly water. I'm thinking the spices in the dog or the vinegar in the kraut is what made my bowels convulse quite liquid a couple of hours later. Otherwise, to put it this way not at all for shock value, my turd production has yielded individual units in lieu of the intermittent continuous production of the past couple of decades. A good thing.
I made 3 trips to the store this week in an effort to forage for the new kind of nutrition I now require;
First I went to Lassen's health food store. I was delighted at all the special shelf signage marking the many many "Gluten Free" items for sale. Just as I had been warned in too many of the items wheat and gluten were simply replaced with other simple carbs like rice of corn starch. Still a few carbs are allowed and so what if they are high on the glycemic scale. I got mac n cheese flavor cheese puff balls. and some nice 3 cheese flavor rice crackers. A pack of 4 Gluten free bagels was over $4. 2 gluten free pizza crusts were almost $5, the larger ones were 2 of $14. In all I spent $35 for one fairly light bag of groceries.
Next after doing more reading and listening about low carb/high fat I went to Winco. Finding low carb and/or gluten free is not as easy in this store but they have the best bulk section for 100 miles. This trip got me 2 bags filled with lots of different kinds of raw nuts, meat and a half gallon of full fat milk. this time the bags were heavier and cost $58. This store is kind of out of the way but just as before is worth the extra drive once a month or so to get what other stores don't sell.
Finally yesterday I went to Costco. I am a person who abhors all things corporate that functions as if profit is the only value worth, . . . well value. This includes all but a very few. Ben and Jerry's at least pays lip service to being part of the communities they serve (while over dosing them with sugar). It may be the straight forwardness of the way they do business. Anyway for what ever reason it is one of very few store that I truly like shopping at. I got lettuce and a big old spinach salad (add some lettuce and it is easily 2 salads). They had racks of ribs ready to cook on sale and I got more than a mess-o-ribs. Artichoke hearts in oil are now okay, darn they only come in a 2 back, throw em on the cart. I wanted BBQ sauce for the ribs but the 2 kinds they had were kind of high in carbs from sugar and wheat. Plus I make my own that I really like better than store bought that I think can be done lower in carbs. In all this trip cost me $80. One thing is becoming even more clear, easy and cheap carbs from wheat and other grains are what makes up a large portion of the cost effective food available.
I have had to do this post in small portions to get through it. I have a zillion more things to talk about. However one thing that has not improved yet is, ironically, the pain in my hips and butt. Last week my beloved seat cushion sprang a terminal leak and is on it's way to be replaced. I have the lower cost version of the same thing. It is helpful but sitting for more than a few minutes gets painful quick. I may add a picture to this post later so our friends in the Ukraine can enjoy my wisdom too.
later.
Today's weigh in. 335.1
Down another 2.0
Total lost so far 18.6
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