Blog

This is a more modern Justice League. Looks like decent weather in Winnipeg today.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 117
Nothing proceeds quite as expected in this ultra lo-carb approach. I had a planned beer night cheat last night and I was expecting the beer to hit me harder than normal due to the strictness of the previous four days. Not so. The beer tasted fine and my reactions too it were completely normal and uneventful. I arose at the same time today and rode my bike. I’m a bit more tired, but not feeling off.

My body is quickly realizing that I’m back at ultra lo-carb and it’s starting to whine in its normal way.

One of the discussions last night touched on glucose and the brain. I knew that the brain needed glucose, but I wondered in my strangling the supply was pissing off my brain. So web searches to the rescue.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900881/

This section jumped out at me.

The mammalian brain depends on glucose as its main source of energy. In the adult brain, neurons have the highest energy demand, requiring continuous delivery of glucose from blood. In humans, the brain accounts for ~2% of the body weight, but it consumes ~20% of glucose-derived energy making it the main consumer of glucose (~5.6 mg glucose per 100 g human brain tissue per minute).

I wonder if I think harder if my brain will use up more glucose.

Big team shots are fun. Taber Alberta picked up a fresh hotel listing yesterday.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 116
How do you turn bad feelings, which indicate progress, into a positive attitude?

I am developing a theory that most barbarism is the result of glucose deprivation.

The worse I feel during each ultra low sugar/carb run, the more I notice delardification. But I feel bad. Angry. Sad. The smell of cigarette smoke is 10 times worse. People’s perfume and cologne – which I would barely notice before – are powerful. Taste has improved. I cheated a little by having three strawberries (local BC) and wow that tasted good.

But, overall, I feel more like annexing countries than being hip and chill. I’d love to get used to this process and be less grumpy, but I have a bad feeling that’s like looking for logic from the White House.

I love finding these old covers. Did you know Lillooet and Lytton, BC recorded a temperature of 44.4° C in July 1941?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 115
Don’t you hate it when you make an effort to go to bed earlier, but you don’t feel like you slept well?

At the trainer yesterday, it was a weigh-in. My weight was the same, but the percent body fat dropped 3.7% from the previous week, and my water weight was up by 8 pounds. Freakish to be sure, but I think I know where the water came from. I had a litre of Coke Zero the day before. I was wanting cold caffeine late in the day and this was the only size they had. I have a food intolerance/allergy to cola products and when I have an allergic reaction to anything, I hold water.

So much for no sugar pop. I will refrain from those products and see what happens next week.

In other freakish stuff, what’s the deal with my sense of smell? It’s on fire. I was standing on a busy street corner and the lady beside me had recently washed her hair (still slightly wet-looking). Had the light not changed, I was pretty sure I could have figured out what brand of shampoo she’d used. A little later I could make out the smell of burning incense … in front of The Hyatt. What the hell?

Maybe next this diet will fix my need for reading glasses. Sheesh.

The Justice League infighting. Did you know there’s a Woodstock Ontario and a Woodstock New Brunswick?

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 114
My quads, which are fine now, were put into perspective by finding out that a friend broke his elbow in an accident involving shrubbery and another friend’s father is undergoing open heart surgery today.

Holy crap.

Maybe that’s why I had a little more energy this morning on the bicycle.

Today is a trainer session and weigh-in. I had a bottle of sugar free pop (desperate for cold caffeine) and I have a feeling it’s messed with the chemistry of the weight loss. We shall see.

The Justice League of America. Here’s how to find all the Biking articles on my BC travel site.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 113
It’s Monday. Do you know where your abs are?

I had an extra 1.5 km on my morning ride. Long story as to why, but I landed downtown much warmer than planned. The day following the cheat day was no 100% but I could tell the chemistry was going back to low glucose levels.

The big win was finally fixing my quads. At yoga class I took a medicine ball to them and used a wooden dowel to roll out the quads like I was trying to make pie dough. The class that followed was very difficult but I honestly felt like the quads snapped back into place. On Friday evening, I literally could not walk down a set of stairs without wincing and grimacing.

People I know who enjoy running suggest more running as a way to make things better. In my mind, this is like burning yourself while cooking and then suggesting putting your hand to a campfire to fix it.

The Justice League from the 1990s. New travel article! Crescent Beach, Surrey BC.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 112
What a cheat day! Ice Cream, waffles, raspberries, steak, beer, Doritos. Yum. However, my digestive system said, “are you a complete f__king idiot?” And, once again, a quick reaction from my system.

This makes today’s process of getting back on the ultra low sugar/carb horse easier. However, I have only about 8 hours before the symptoms of glucose deprivation kick in. I’m having a hard time staying efficient.

I did a short run on Thursday and today, Sunday, is the first day I’m able to hide the pain I feel walking up and down stairs. On Saturday, I slept in and then later dozed off in a chair while holding my laptop case/knapsack.

To keep this process going, I’m going to need more rest somehow.

I was looking for a Justice League image and found the Thing vs The Hulk. The next travel articles will be about a hidden corner of Surrey BC.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 110
My quads are like hunks of tissue hanging off a stick. I went for a run yesterday with a friend – one minute running, one minute walking – for about 20 minutes. It went well except my quads did not react well. I am thinking I’m still too heavy for this kind of thing and I’m very out of practice.

Tomorrow is my cheat day. It’s a fun thing to be able to do because it allows me to enjoy summer treats with the family. To stay this strict for the length of time required would definitely feel like an extended prison sentence.

Crucial trick is to grab supplies for the following week because if the strict foods aren’t at hand, the processed food definitely are right at hand.

Another old Justice League cover. It’s challenging not to think about chocolate.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 109
Yes, there are limits. I hit one at 10 PM last night when I had to go to bed.

One of the frustrating aspects of this process is I eat a satisfying meal of meat and vegetables and then, about an hour later, the stomach says, “OK. Where’s the rest of it?”

The energy variances are annoying still. Yesterday’s yoga class was challenging as I was sore from the trainer session the day before but didn’t notice it until I got to the yoga class. Riding home I thought I would be lame, but it was a decent high energy ride.

Today I did not ride for both weather and fatigue reasons but it didn’t make sense as I slept longer.

I do not know what my body chemistry is up to, but I know that it’s still really ticked off.

Another Justice League / Justice Society cover. It’s hard not to think about Williams Lake.

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 108
I am now wondering what to think the day after a long awaited movement on the scale. We know the scale isn’t everything, but if you walk into a cardiologist’s office, and you have a blood pressure that’s not perfect, they’re going to ask you to lose weight as a first comment.

I am not complaining about finally finding a way to budge the needle on the scale in the right direction. However, it occurred to me last night that a few more diet assumptions are being challenged if not outright broken.

Fallacy #1: If you cheat in a week of dieting, it kills the entire week’s weight loss. This is clearly wrong as I managed an average of 2 pounds per week loss over three weeks with four cheat days. And these cheat days were serious with booze and ice cream and carbs.

Fallacy #2: Once you cheat, you keep cheating. This was my number 1 fear of cheat days. But I returned to the process – even after a 48-hour cheat day – and by 3 PM on the first day back felt just as horrible as I had previously from the sugar/carb restriction.

Well, one thing is for sure, it’s nice to have a process with a proven track record. I am however worried my body will plateau again. But, let’s take this one actual problem at a time, eh?

Another Justice League cover from the old days. New Hornby Island article written by friends!

Mutant Diet Phase 3 Day 107
Ouch. It was an 8 AM personal trainer session so that, ironically, I could attend a team lunch. My last personal trainer session was June 27, which was three weeks ago. During that time I’ve been doing this ultra-low carb process with a cheat day either on the 5th or 6th day of the week. And, to be clear, the cheat days have been pretty spectacularly self-indulgent.

Results? I’m now at 280 pounds, down 6.2 pounds from June 27. This is the lowest weight since before I started on March 29, 2016.

The other numbers make no sense. % body fat is up. Water weight is down. Waist has dropped an inch but chest has gone up .25 of an inch. That one is odd because I definitely feel the weight loss from the top down. Battle ropes? Measurement error?

The only thing to conclude is that the process is working as-is and at an average of 2 pounds per week, I should be content.

I have a new goal for this diet. “Become of no interest to Cardiologists”. I’ll let you know what weight that is when I get there.