Tag weight

Keeping Busy When Fasting?

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 1 Comment

Keeping Busy When Fasting?

One Pot Cooking - Beef Roast

One Pot Cooking – Forgot to take a pic of the ham, oops! This is a beef roast that received similar treatment. Clean-up is a breeze! The fat is in there because of the Omega 3 content in grass-fed beef. And it’s so tasty!

I thought I’d try a fast day at the weekend. My fast days are typically shortened when I give in to temptation and eat dinner in the evening. That’s not all bad but, every now and again, I would like to do a full wake cycle fast. Aside from weight loss, there are supposed to be all sorts of health benefits associated with fasting and I wanted some of that. I started out the day committed, very committed. But then don’t I always! 🙂

I knew I needed to keep busy and watching soccer on TV is not keeping busy. Knowing you can’t eat is exactly what triggers thinking about food. Almost non-stop. It’s the old story about what happens when someone tells you to not think about the elephant! I wondered if I could turn that around and use it to get a positive result.

And so, I decided to spend my free time cooking!

I had a nice ham in the fridge. Pasture raised pork, what could be better? I’m not a fan of clean up so most of my cooking happens in a single pot or pan. One Pot Cooking has been a thing for me since my school years. I browned a chopped onion and half a dozen cloves of garlic in olive oil first. Tossed in the ham and covered it with two liters of organic chicken broth (what can I say, again it was all I had to hand, that’s bulk buying for you), a little rosemary, salt and pepper. Now I had some food to focus on!

This thing bubbled along its merry way for about 4 hours before I lifted it out and put it on a plate to settle. It was falling off the bone tender and it smelled so delicious. While everyone else enjoyed their meal, I was eyeing up the pot of liquid. A few more chopped onions, three diced potatoes, and a bag of frozen peas later, the pot was bubbling again. A tablespoon of curry powder and another of coriander, along with a couple of habanero peppers from the garden, and my nose told me I was done. When it had done its thing, a few minutes bouncing the hand blender off the bottom of the pot gave me this luxuriously thick, heavy soup. I added back some of the shredded ham to finish it off.

What do you think I did next?

I apportioned the whole pot to a set of containers and stuck ’em all in the freezer. Along with the rest of the ham.

But I made it through one complete fast day without anything other than coffee and water. The answer to the opening question is that to avoid eating on a fast day … I cook!

Attaboy Paul!!!

 

Free Meter for Weight Loss

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 2 Comments

Free Meter for Weight Loss

Blood Glucose Monitor

It doesn’t hurt. Really!

Blood glucose monitors are devices that we tend to associate with diabetics. According to the CDC, in 1958, about 1% of the US population were diagnosed with what was then called Adult Onset Diabetes. Nowadays, the number is approaching 10% & it’s no longer just adults being diagnosed. This is along with the many more of us that are undiagnosed, or pre-diabetic. With the growing number of Type 2 diabetics, the shelves of our pharmacies display a huge range of these things, like they are the latest best-selling tech gadget for health. Even if we are fortunate enough to have avoided a diagnosis of diabetes, these monitors can be a useful tool to help us keep it that way. Along with being a useful tool to gain some insight on the impact of the foods we eat.

Many of us have impaired our natural feedback loops when it comes to eating. A diet overloaded with sugar and refined starch puts us on the path to obesity. Staying on that path can lead to metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes. Checking our blood sugar levels periodically can help us identify how far down the road we are. And the results can provide some added motivation to change things. If you haven’t used a glucose monitor before, you’ll be fascinated to see what different foods do to your blood glucose levels. That big rib steak wasn’t so bad, was it? But, man, you should have seen my numbers after that pizza! And those cookies were off the chart!

While the correlation isn’t perfect, there is generally some decent relationship between blood glucose levels and insulin when it comes to carbohydrates. Among other things, insulin is released to prevent our blood sugar getting too high. While insulin first stores this energy into our muscles and liver, for more immediate use, it then stores the excess in the long term storage areas … our bellies and our bums! In other words, along with all the wonderful things it does, insulin is the fat storage hormone. This too is wonderful. But if we’re already obese, this probably isn’t what we’re looking for.

A meter won’t cure our obesity. But if you knew that a bagel or a muffin sent your blood sugar soaring, while a bacon and egg breakfast didn’t, how might you consider ordering your next morning meal? And how about that mid-morning snack of healthy yogurt that has 15g of sugar? Did you ever wonder what that might do to your blood sugar level? Keeping our blood sugar levels in the normal range is a good thing. The longer these levels are normalized, the less opportunity there is for storing more fat. A meter can help identify what foods increase our blood sugar so that we can think more carefully when choosing our next snack. An ongoing barrage of sweet treats throughout the day tends to maintain elevated insulin levels. And that may keep us in fat storage mode for the duration. That’s probably not where we want to be if we are hoping to lose weight.

In Canada, the manufacturers offer a “free” monitor with the purchase of a large box of 100 strips. Insurers may also cover the costs of meters and strips if you have a prescription. Most manufacturers have apps that link to their monitors now too. That can be good information to take along to your next doctor’s appointment.

A glucose monitor can be a relatively inexpensive tool to help us understand how our bodies interact with different foods. And it can help us reconstruct our diet to better achieve our goals.

I’d like to think that, one day, I will have repaired my natural feedback loops to the point where I no longer need an external device to tell me what my body is doing.

 

 

Results … Month #3

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy 2 Comments

Results … Month #3After 3 Months

Well, well … another 7 lbs down for the month of September, for a total of 24 lbs for the first 3 months. I think that’s pretty good!

I’m not sure what the “perfect” rate of weight loss is but I’m guessing this is in the ballpark. I’ve been down the high-speed weight loss path before &, while it’s very rewarding to see the scale numbers drop quickly, those are tough diets to do. Even tougher to sustain over time. And all too easy to rebound from. The irony of this month’s progress is that I felt I wasn’t doing the right thing for most of the month. It was a sloppy month, during which I ate far more French fries, chocolate & ice cream than was my intent. I didn’t always choose the best ingredients for my meals so that, more often than not, sausage & hot dogs won out over wild caught fish & grass-fed beef. I was definitely way short on leafy greens. And I can’t recall successfully doing one full wake-cycle fast. I think the few times I tried, they all broke down by dinner time. And some even sooner than that. It was just that kind of crazy month.

On the bright side, I remember at least two occasions where I left food on my plate. Not because I felt I should but simply because I’d had enough. That’s new. You don’t get to my weight by leaving food on the plate! Are the natural control mechanisms starting to cut back in again? The other interesting thing is that I wasn’t hungry, between meals, during the month. Was I tempted to eat something totally off script? Of course! Watching the skinny people eat a totally synthetic sticky pudding, slathered with Baileys infused whipped cream, is torture. But my own dark cherry ice cream, (sometimes with a little hit of Baileys), is a pretty good substitute. So far though, this regimen is proving to be satisfying, quite flexible, and it seems to hold up, reasonably well, under pressure.

I don’t want to tempt fate by celebrating too much, nor too early in the process, but it is encouraging. Okay, it’s really quite (fill in the blanking adjective!) wonderful! 🙂

What’s to come for the month of October?

I wish I knew!

All at the same time I’m guardedly optimistic , yet anxious that it won’t hold up. I’m worried that I’ll fall off the wagon. Maybe I’ll come down with some awful illness. A fast food commercial will get to me. Maybe someone will hold me down & stuff candies into my face!

Or is it time to start experimenting on how to integrate the occasional glass of wine into my dietary regimen!?!?! 🙂

Printing & Dieting

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment

Printing & Dieting Printing & Dieting

I don’t print very often but when I do, it’s usually for some last minute emergency thing. This is roughly what happens when such an event arises …

  1. Wireless printer connection lost.
  2. Reboot printer, laptop, modem & any other piece of electronics within a 100 yard radius.
  3. It comes alive!
  4. Print a draft copy of aforementioned critical document to see if everything is okay.
  5. Everything looks great, so now print a best quality page.
  6. That doesn’t work, so must change printer cartridge.
  7. Don’t have new cartridge, swear several times.
  8. Go to store & buy new high capacity color cartridge.
  9. Come back, stick it in, & print alignment page.
  10. It doesn’t look right & the scanner can’t scan it. Error!
  11. Twenty minutes later, discover that it was the black cartridge!
  12. No spare black cartridge either. Back to the store.
  13. Leave store, only to realize that all the good paper has been used up testing.
  14. Phew! At least I hadn’t gone back to the office again.
  15. Come back, spend another twenty minutes & a dozen more pages of paper to confirm that everything is working correctly.
  16. Admire first good print. And yes, it’s good!
  17. Go for coffee & cigarette to de-stress.
  18. Now have coffee ring on the corner of the good page! S@#$!!!

Despite how many times I’ve printed stuff over the years, this seems to happen all the time.

My experience with starting diets, & adhering to them, sometimes resembles this process. But it’s particularly difficult to stick with the dietary plan when you’ve got to deal with this printing challenge to kick the day off!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Dieting on the Road

Paul - The Wry Eye Guy Leave a comment

Dieting on the Road

Tandoori Platter

It’s not as challenging to eat “well” on the road as we dieters like to imagine. I’m not talking about going the chicken salad route (hold the chicken skin, the croutons, the dressing and the dried fruit & nut pieces) … you can do that if you want but that’s not how I diet!

Yes, you have to have some dialogue with the server. And yes, they’ll probably think you’re a bit of a pain. But better that than blow the diet. Again!

On the road last week, I was led towards an Indian restaurant this particular evening. And that was just fine by me. I pretty much love all food but if you forced me to pick just one national cuisine, I might have to go with Indian. As it happened, I was on a low-carb regimen that particular day. Oh boy!

I love rice, naan, samosa & pakora but those were not going to be allowed today. Yes, there were salad options. And yes, there were vegetarian dishes aplenty. But I was drawn to the Tandoori Platter. Right away, the word platter promises a gut-busting feast of goodies. And it was. Beef, chicken, lamb, shrimp and who knows what else. There were some token veggies in there too, just to assuage any little fear I might entertain of it being an unhealthy choice. One of the key reasons for this choice was that it didn’t come with a sauce, Tandoori dishes are dry spiced. And I refused to ask about their spice recipe … just in case there were any bad ingredients in there that would have forced me to order that chicken salad! I do love those sauces, by the way, but there’s always some bad stuff hiding in them. And today was to be as sugar & starch-free as any reasonable road warrior could make it.

The bottom line was that it was delicious. I was stuffed. And I was sufficiently fortified to resisted all the starchy temptations offered by my dining companions!

But did it work?

I don’t know!

I’ll have to wait for the official end-of-month weigh-in on October 1st to see how it all plays out. Though I might have been grateful that I didn’t have my scale with me during my travels!