Category: Phase 5

Earth 18 is a world stuck in the 19th century. Like my diet. Next week we go to Toronto.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Finale
In the finale of a phase I guess I’m not supposed to tell you I gained weight, lost my temper, came quite close to putting my fist through a wall and generally swore enough to make members of the British Special Air Services blush.

The level of violent feeling was fueled by the fact that I feel lighter but none of the metrics reflected it. The unfairness is beyond description.

Apparently, however, I’m strong. I can easily lift medium sized women.

More annoyingly there’s no direct evidence that the non beef and chicken approach helped. I did feel the difference in terms of allergies, i.e. less inflammation. But was it enough to be worth the money?

So, I retreat and think. I made an appointment with my GP for next week and am looking at counselling for stress/anxiety, appointments pending.

In January the longer Phase 6 will start and I will not weigh until the end of March. The scale comes with adult frustration and childhood trauma. Time to mostly dispense with it.

Earth 13 a world where it’s entirely supernatural. Even Superman. Kenora is near Lake-of-the-Woods Ontario, which is magical.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 30
Last day of Phase 5. I see the trainer and weigh in. Tomorrow I’ll reveal the results and plans for Q1 2018.

I’ve had a lot of people in this journey tell me that diet is a bad word. (Besides, is it a noun, verb or pejorative term?) They want me to consider the word lifestyle instead. This doesn’t sit well with me because I don’t think I could maintain this as a lifestyle.

However, I see the diet/fitness process as the Correction Diet with the long term food and fitness choices being the lifestyle.

I’d really like to be closer to the long term state as opposed to this battle I’ve been in since March 2016.

Earth 12 is a near future world where things don’t go so well. I have an urge to hide in a Bed and Breakfast in Ontario.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 29
Oh, yeah. I’m supposed to be on a diet. I see the personal trainer for a weigh-in tomorrow. My goal for today is to reset my innards after a too indulgent weekend.

Don’t try to diet if you have any sort of social life after the first week of December. You should go into Damage Control mode.

However, I’ve asked myself to stay strict today to see if I can drop any allergy water before weighing in tomorrow.

2018 will be most interesting because last night at yoga, which was a tough class, I did not have any hernia related fear. I could push the boundaries and feel supported in the abdomen. That was a “Whoa. Cool.” feeling.

Earth 11 is a world where the world is matriarchal in nature and the major superheroes are women. If I were in Ontario, I’d go to a beach near Picton for hangover recovery.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 28
I am an idiot. Here I am minding my own business at the company party this past Friday. And then unexpectedly I, and a fair few others, are being told the place is closing. I went from slightly tipsy to full-on shitfaced in what seemed like a heat beat.

The following Saturday morning I was responsible for coffee and muffins for the 10 AM Strata Annual General meeting. At the AGM, where I admitted to having a hangover, the Millennial-aged owner said, “Awesome!” A friend closer to my age said, “Uh, not at that age.”

Somehow I took notes at the meeting, which was a surprisingly smooth and civilized affair. A variety of other chores had to be done that day. Lie-downs were had. However, to cap the evening off, I attended with Handel’s Messiah at the Orpheum.

Earlier in the day, I bought a really lovely poinsettia with kalanchoes arrangement for my wife who more than deserved them for being so understanding at me coming in after 2 AM to then promptly barf.

The diet logs are not attached as I’m not sure what stayed down.

Earth 9 has a woman Green Lantern that can raise the dead. Try Stratford Ontario for a change.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 26
I’m very happy to report that donuts have entered the dietary equation.

Well, this is a planned cheat day which started around 3 PM yesterday.

With concerts that have all my family members in them plus work social events, the decay of the diet/fitness process is unsurprising.

Let’s see if I can keep some semblance of moderation between now and Tuesday.

Earth 8 is a world that DC used to create a parallel Avengers universe. Do you see it? Niagara-on-the-Lake came to mind today.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 25
Today I’m going to talk about someone else’s journey as an illustration of the peculiar nature of third party perceptions of other’s appearance.

There’s a fellow who works where I work but in a different office. I will call him Quintus. I see him once or twice a year when he comes into town for meetings. I was having a discussion with another co-worker (he’ll be called Caecilius) about diet and Christmas and the usual failure of the latter. Caecilius said, “But hey, there’s hope, Quintus lost 100 pounds this year.”

He did? Of course Quintus was standing 10 feet away and I looked at him and realized that indeed he was a less massive person. Quintus had always been a big guy and when I’d seen him earlier in the week and said hi, I hadn’t noticed. This was because I don’t go around the office assessing people’s weight.

Naturally I said, “Quintus, how did you do that?” The answer was “intermittent fasting.” Wow. The trick seems to be not to eat anything after 2 PM and keep yourself very, very busy.

So I learned a couple of things.

1. Fasting could be a usable technique. Although my wife thinks if I tried it I would go mental.

2. People don’t see people’s huge changes because we aren’t looking for them. When we see people we know, we’re seeing more than the superficial. Which explains why when you are on your own voyage, you may be struggling with how you are feeling and looking. It sucks, because that hard earned 1-pound-loss will likely not be observed.

My hat goes off to Quintus because apparently his blood work is now normal and he rarely has sick days anymore.

I was looking for Earth 7, which apparently is a wasteland and I found this spooky image. Let’s go to Gravenhurst and hide from the news.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 24
OK. Today’s not going anywhere near according to plan. I did not plan for the shower head to break and spray water pretty much everywhere except on me. I could not find my building pass. I did not expect things to be going weird in another context not suitable and not related to this blog. And of course the building I work in was offering free croissants and coffee.

You can guess what I did.

But I’m going to yoga and I’m going to eat my bison and salad at lunch and I’m going TRY to stay clean for the rest of the day.

I am in agony from yesterday’s Personal Trainer session because I asked her to ramp it up because I’m sick of being injured. Of course now my inner thighs are burning.

The heroes of Earth 6. I never heard of them either. The data is clean for Collingwood.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 23
I believe that dogs are bigger than cats. That’s about all I know today. From a diet/fitness perspective I know that coffee helps my short term awareness better than tea. I also know I’m supposed to see the personal trainer today and I want to feel whipped like a fondue at the end of it. Otherwise I don’t feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.

Despite the cheat day on Sunday, Monday felt like I’d been on lo-carb for weeks. It was the slight light-headedness and general hunger. I realized I was exhausted so I managed to get off my feet by 10:30 PM.

This is a time of year where faith is discussed and it comes in many forms. In this case, I have to have faith in my own judgement that the dietary/chemical experiments on my body are the right thing. And I have to have faith that continuous tweaking of the process is OK.

Bugger I just noticed when posting this that I’m 1 week away from the end of Phase 5. Yikes.

Earth 5 has the Marvel Family, a more friendly universe. I just did some data clean up for Burlington Ontario.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 22
Yesterday was indeed the full on cheat day. I enjoyed it but want to be back on full on ultra-low carb today. I have all my supplies and I’m back to having tea … not that tea has anything to do with carbs. This is part of the no beef, no chicken and no coffee experiment.

Honestly I think my overall body inflammation is down from the process. Whether this translates to the scale will be determined next week Tuesday.

These are heroes from DC’s Earth 4. I wonder how far I can go? People in Toronto think North Bay is north. Try Thunder Bay.

Mutant Diet Phase 5 Day 21
It’s odd. Yesterday I broke the diet, but really only in the morning. By dinner I discovered I was starving and had a big meal of meat and vegetables. Much later I was hungry again but when I pondered what I would like to eat, the answer was not specific. The usual emergency food of nuts and bacon were not appetizing. So I skipped. This is not normal for me and in the morning, I was only mildly hungry.

Was my body sending hungry signals because I was tired an ought to have gone to bed? Why after a clear cheat in the morning was I still feeling like I was at zero carb in the evening?

Huge concert for the family today at The Orpheum. We shall see how this goes.