Category: Phase 3

Team shot! The fact there’s a region in Canada called Avalon is just cool.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 81
The hernia doctor said that the hernia is big, won’t get better on its own, and my BMI is not too far above the recommended level. There’s no indication of the hernia is strangulated or incarcerated. I’ve had the thing since April 2016. Apparently, and I asked, it is not an alien trying to escape. It’s good to be sure of these things.

The 4th year student doctor who was in-training looked about 12 weeks older than my daughter.

In the department of euphemisms, I saw the sign for “Acute Behavioural Stabilization Unit” at St. Paul’s today. It sent such chills down my spine I had to look it up. “The Assertive Outreach Team includes a nurse, social worker, psychiatrist, physician and Vancouver Police Department staff.” Good grief.

Anyway, it is day 4 of the zero carb/sugar experiment and today is first morning I don’t feel totally screwed up. Last night was brutal as I was running a meeting while feeling like I was going to start shaking at any moment.

The big question is, will this show up on the scale next Tuesday?

Spider-man and Morbius, who is a vampire made by a science experiment. Have you ever stopped in Golden BC on the way across BC?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 80
Nobody at work believes me that the impact of going this low on refined carbs and sugar is so intense.

I attribute this to the random factor called allergies. Back in the mid 90s I saw an allergist in Ontario that used an immunological approach and could shut off my ragweed response by injecting me with an extremely dilute amount of ragweed. I still have a diet book from him that talks about removing food sensitive material for at least five days. The process was so daunting – I felt like all I could eat was moose and pine nuts – I kind of gave up and shortly thereafter moved to Vancouver where my allergy symptoms are a fraction of my southern Ontario ones.

Today I noticed that by removing the sugars and carbs, my joints feel looser. I mean all of them. Knuckles, knees, ankles, etc. What I suspect has happened is that I’ve reduced my overall body inflammation.

I still feel tingly — like I have small ants walking all over my body.

Spider-man and Wolverine are always fun together. Could you imagine ever going to Makkovik in Labrador?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 79
So, if you look at the scanned diet sheet you will see zeroes for sugar, carbs and alcohol. Literally yesterday was the most strict day of this Phase.

At lunch I ditched the carb salad parts and did the minimum amount of the dressing. No ketchup.

I had thought that, since I’d loaded up on treats on the weekend, my body would not react much to this level of strictness. That was wrong. By 2:30 PM, my body was screaming at me for sugar. I had water and Tylenol instead.

Dinner was equally strict as lunch. Within an hour of finishing dinner, my body was literally tingling. I cooked a pile of chicken and ate some of it to offset the cravings.

I drank water before bed.

It strikes me as really weird that the reaction to knocking the last of the carbs out of my routine would precipitate such quick and aggressive sensations.

I now take on the second day of this with curiosity. Remember, even if I keep this going for the full six days, it is not a guarantee that I will trip the system over into lard consumption. There’s no guarantee this will show up on the scale.

I see the personal trainer today. That won’t hurt at all.

I do like the whole group art work. Take a gander at Gander Newfoundland.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 78
It’s funny. I had everything sorted out. Eggs and bacon cooked, meat for lunch prepared, salad ready to go. I remembered everything except my eggs and bacon.

Therefore I had to go to the evil tempting Urban Fare across the street. They have a buffet where I could obtain scrambled eggs. Mine are better. And less expensive. Sigh.

But I am aware. I am focused on the problem. I reduced the cream in the coffee. (I haven’t been putting in sugar for months.) Despite threatening weather, I rode my bike.

And last night we did a crusher of a yoga class. My legs are still baked from whatever the hell I did to them last Thursday.

The chemistry experiment continues! What is the minimum sugar/refined carb intake that will trigger the consumption of stored lard?

This is a shot of the Sinister Six but I only recognize half of them. Here’s where I am watching it rain. West Vancouver.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 77
Happy Father’s Day to me. I had a plan. A good one. It involved my first mistake, believing a weather forecast, and hoping I could lie on the beach and read a book. Nope. Rain.

As I prepare for a super low sugar and refined carb two-week sprint, I’m thinking about weak points and counter measures.

2 PM at work. My Waterloo hour where the craving for sugar is the worst. I need to use the “it’s only until Sunday” logic to avoid trouble. First step, the Urban Fare food store across the street is off limits. Only for a couple of weeks. I can do that, surely. And don’t call me Surely.

Night. No fluids except water. And maybe acetaminophen, which isn’t normally a liquid. Emergency backup: bacon.

I have to totally watch the sauces and extras that sneak in.

No diet sheet today. I’ll double up tomorrow, plus it’s my swan song weekend to carbs so it won’t be instructive in any way.

The new Spider-man movie has a version of the Vulture in it. Aren’t you curious about Portugal Cove-St. Phillips in Newfoundland?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 76
So this weekend is a planned bust because damn, what the hell, eh?

Monday, however, I’m going to be all ready for a variation on the so called “Slow Carb Diet”. See medium.com/@erinfrey/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-slow-carb-diet-a67062761d92

I’m going to do a two-week experiment. You see my theory is that, despite my efforts, I am taking in too much refined stuff (wheat, rice, corn, sugar) to trigger the use of fat. My personal trainer has been telling me this all along but the impact of removing this stuff on my mood and head is so intense that I’ve been “cheating”.

What this means is that I have to go after anything with even a hint of refined carb or sugar. From the link above they summarize the diet as follows.

Follow these rules if you want to lose weight on the Slow-Carb Diet:

• Stick to Slow-Carb Diet approved foods 6 days a week: lean meat, beans, and veggies and no white foods like sugar, pasta, rice, bread, cheese.
• Eat the same few meals over and over again, especially for breakfast and lunch. You probably do this already; you’re just picking new default meals.
• Don’t drink calories. 1-2 glasses of red wine is okay.
• Start your day with protein, shooting for 30g within 30 minutes of waking (boosts success rate by 11%).
• Don’t eat fruit. Tomatoes and avocados are allowed in moderation.
• Take one “cheat day” a week: Eat whatever you want on cheat days.

I do most of this anyway. However, to avoid sugar completely, it means no ketchup, really looking at salad dressing labels, no eating late unless it’s bacon or some other non-dairy protein.

My cheat day is going to be Sunday. I want to see if I feel a difference in 6 days.

What’s going to be tough is taking dairy out of my coffee and my eggs. I’ve been relying on scrambled eggs in the morning and it does a good job of keeping me away from food until lunch.

More interesting is the cheat day. I don’t want a stupid cheat day where I go berserk. What I want is to be able to tell myself, when struggling with food choices, “it’s only until Sunday.”

Tonight however … beer. And steak.

Spider-man fighting monsters sounds right to me. Kingston and Ottawa ghosts.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 75
There’s nothing like someone you know from childhood, your own age, dying of cancer to take the wind out of your sails. Good grief.

The strange thing with cancer is that it’s an insane disease. Normal things like viral or bacterial diseases don’t kill everyone because it wants a place to live and evolve. But cancer is your own cells going completely mental utterly in contrast to the normal desire for self-preservation.

Sigh. I send nothing but good thoughts into the ether. And today’s a good day to sit and reflect because my legs and glutes and hamstrings are fried from yesterday.

This image has Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Spider-man and (out of shot) The Hulk in his grey form. I have no idea where this is from. It’s really wet in Vancouver right now.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 74
Here’s a tip for the day. Don’t stay up late drinking beer and playing trivia games and then expect to kill a personal trainer session. The session is more likely to kill you.

And I gave blood yesterday.

Later, I go bowling. Urk. What astonishingly bad planning.

I am feeling like I will extend Phase 3. It’s supposed to end June 23, but I don’t have any logical reason not to try out the new dietary tricks from new (to me) sources.

August will be a mess so I will definitely take a break (at least from blogging) at that time.

Wish me luck for the rest of the day.

This is Spider Woman, an image I found while looking for something else. I was thinking about Calgary yesterday.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 73
If you donate blood, is it OK to have a muffin? Probably not. Too late. I got a cool Canada 150 pin from blood.ca.

Anyway, I’m thinking of extending Phase 3 because normally I align it with vacation or other travel when it’s too much of a pain. This is not an issue until later in July.

I’m also looking at a review of what I think is lo-carb. A couple of folks at work who are dealing with different issues and goals identified that what I thought was lo-carb is actually not lo-carb enough for my super-efficient, lard hoarding body.

Check this out. https://medium.com/@erinfrey/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-slow-carb-diet-a67062761d92

What’s interesting (and very British) is the inclusion of red wine. Of course that leaves out the entire grain-based universe of alcohol.

This is Spider-man from The New Avengers #1. I have a new client near Merigomish Nova Scotia How’s your Canadian geography?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 72
We are all bags of chemical reactions waiting for the next chemical to stimulate us. Sugar, caffeine, theobromine (active ingredient in chocolate) and of course alcohol.

One way to move the chemicals around is to have a registered massage therapist try to adjust your right hip muscles that are twisting you into a pretzel. This happened this morning. I’ve been sitting very still, with reasonable posture, since I got to my desk. My head is kind of wobbly.

I have to focus but all of those items on the to-do list are Things that will Cause More Work. Have you ever procrastinated, finally forced yourself to do it, started to see the virtual worms crawling out of the can and said, “I knew there was a reason I procrastinated!”

So I must finish this to open some cans of worms.