Primal Journal-deMuralist page 162

[athomeontherange]

Yes with the protein.. when I do not have enough my satiety sucks.

[demuralist]

My plan for June (I will keep copying this until it is in my brain!)...

No restrictions or targets on Fat or Proteins
No added sugars or flour....yep
8 to 9 veggies with no more than 1 fruit, berries...nope, may have to quit worrying about this one for now
Let the carbs fall where they may
Eat only when physically hungry (tummy growling)..., yes, but I cannot figure out why I am hungry
Eat mindfully...yes, but why am I so hungry lately, and for sweets at the end of the day?

ooo, the doily rug is looking good. I have a couple more rounds and it will be done.

Sleep issues keep me from feeling like I have enough energy to do anything and it is making me feel very sad, I so wish I could figure out the problem. Read Mark's article about sleep yesterday, biphasal. That is what DH does, he sleeps for a couple of hours then wakes up and goes to bed, party animal that he is. I do wonder though, since my witching hour tends to be around 4pm if I wouldn't be better off just taking a nap and then going to bed later. Problem with that is that I don't use that later time for anything useful. Not that I am super useful at 4 either.

The handyman made it by 8! and the garage is done, looks fantastic. He is going to start on the deck this morning, he has to do it in the mornings only as it is too hot later in the day and the sealant will dry too quickly to work with.

Yesterday's stats....

Calories...1952
Carbs...54 Net....42
Fat...132
Protein...114
Fiber...12
Sugar...32

Result...259.8 down 1 even with the high calories. But the carbs are pretty low and the protein and fat are reasonable. The sugars are almost all from the dates. Which are thankfully finally gone. I had them with the homemade cream cheese and walnuts.

Yesterday's nourishment was spread out through out the day, with some intake happening about every 3 hours. It felt better than worrying about not having snacks. Lets see how it goes today.

The protein did not keep me out of the kitchen after dinner. I think I need to figure out a small sweet that I can have that will signal my brain that food is done for the day. The Red Velvet tea used to work, but doesn't anymore. May have to go back to a piece of dark chocolate. It would be half the calories I got from the dates and way less carbs and sugar believe it or not!

[demuralist]

My plan for June (I will keep copying this until it is in my brain!)...

No restrictions or targets on Fat or Proteins
No added sugars or flour....no
8 to 9 veggies with no more than 1 fruit, berries...no
Let the carbs fall where they may
Eat only when physically hungry (tummy growling)...hungry, but not physically
Eat mindfully...no

No chance to work on the rug, rats.

The handyman started the deck. He decided that I should pay for the "job" instead of by the hour. Fine. Then when I went to pay "half" since he had not finished, he told me I misunderstood what the "job" was. Now how that is possible I don't know. I want the wood on the deck sealed, the underside power washed first. Anyway, he wants an extra $150 from what he told me. Which he will get when he has finished the job.

then after that discussion, I went downstairs to work on organizing my new pegboard covered garage and dh called. He was in a car accident. He is fine and the car is not too bad, but I had to stop what I was doing and start making phone calls while he waited for the police to arrive (an hour and a half later-it was rush hour).

A little bit of stress, and while I would not have admitted it at the time, I can see that my eating after that was probably stress related.

I made him some PB/chocolate/cream cheese/graham cracker balls (they were supposed to be like his favorite pie, rolled into balls) since I knew he would want ice cream but I had not put the container in the freezer. Anyway, taste testing did occur. Probably a lot. Then we had pizza for dinner. Homemade, but obviously the crust is not primal, just homemade.

Yesterday's stats....

Calories...?
Carbs...? Net....?
Fat...?
Protein...?
Fiber...?
Sugar...?

I didn't keep them, the PB thing...too much of a pain to even consider tracking it, top it off with the homemade pizza...again too much of a pain to track.

Result...260.2 up .4

I am playing with the same 3 pounds for the past month and a half. For the most part it is not a mystery, I am not eating entirely clean or within my targets on a regular enough basis. Part of it is that "being good" does not seem to have any more of a positive impact than "being bad". Of course long term, health wise the "being good" is going to be much more useful. So I need to focus on feeling better.

Wish I could get the sleep thing figured out. Starting tonight I am going to try flushing my sinuses to see if that will help. It was a little better last night 81% efficiency, so maybe it is turning itself around.

[demuralist]

I smoked for years, from 8th grade until I was 30. After I graduated high school, I wanted to quit. Everyday I would wake up and say "today is the day" and everyday I would finally give in, usually during the witching hour (sometime around 3pm give or take). Finally I just decided to stop, not forever, but just for the day. I put off gratification until the next day. I made it through that day and decided to do another. I strung these days along for a few weeks. After about 3 weeks it suddenly became very difficult. I had to actually change the things I did and who and where I hung out and began to shift myself into a non-smoker. Now I still plan to pick it back up, but will wait until my 90th birthday.

Point being, I think I can use this plan for food. It is after all just food. I need to enjoy what I eat but I don't need to eat everything I enjoy every day.

About 8 years ago, I became a vegetarian. It wasn't to lose weight, although I thought I would, it was to support my daughter in her quest to be a healthy eating member of the planet (it was what we knew at the time). It was actually very easy. I didn't "eat a vegetarian diet" I became a vegetarian.

I need to become a "health-a-tarian". I have done the research that suggests the best path to make this happen. Now is the time for me to implement it. Stop the focus on diet and weight loss. Shift to being healthy and living my life.

Every single day, I wake up and say...today is the day, for the rest of my life, I will start to eat clean, I will take care of myself, etc we all know the drill. But then, well we all know the drill here too.

So for today, anything that is not clean, I will hold off eating until tomorrow. Not until I lose all the weight, just until tomorrow.

For today, I will focus on my health. I will ask myself is this the best choice I can make for the betterment of my health right now. If the answer is no, then I need to rethink the decision.

What the heck, it is only 1 day right?

[RMS123]

Chris, hope today went well!

[demuralist]

Welll...

What I did right...I was not hungry for dinner so I did not eat it.

what I did not so right.... I wasn't hungry for dinner because there was some taste testing going on.

We are going to our concert in the park tonight, and it is a picnic dinner. We are taking another couple and it is the woman's birthday. The meal itself is basically primal and reasonable. The dessert is not. I made Stout cupcakes using DH's homemade stout. The frosting is cream cheese made with my homemade cream cheese. They are sprinkled with crushed pretzels.

The good news is that I did not come close to my normal level of taste testing, especially where the frosting is concerned, and that I admitted to myself that it went on and that I did not need to eat dinner. I made the rest of the family individual pizzas, equally dividing the rest of the homemade dough between the 3 of them-a little help to keep me from changing my mind.

Now for today. Well, I know I will eat one of those cupcakes tonight. So my plan for today is to drink coffee and tea (both with hwc) and water. It should not be hard as the house is a wreck and I need to get it cleaned up before they arrive at 5 so I will keep busy.

The result of yesterdays foray into cupcakes and frosting...260.8 back down .4 honestly I am playing with the same 3 pounds and need to get serious, but it will have to be tomorrow.

I have been reading a thread on MDA (as well as on Jimmy Moore's site...Jimmy Moore?s n=1 Experiments: Nutritional Ketosis Day 1-30 « Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low Carb Blog) about ketosis and becoming a fat burning vs. a carb burning machine. Now I admit that Jimmy Moore may not exactly be the person to give weight loss advice, BUT, his N=1 experiments are interesting and I think that for the very reason that he has such a hard time and has gained even while still trying to lose then hit a plateau, and is now apparently back on the way down makes for an interesting and thought provoking read.

So his idea is to try VLC coupled with moderate protein and pretty high fat. He is testing ketosis via blood sticks instead of urine via ketostix, has gotten himself into ketosis and started losing weight again. significant weight.

This combo of macros I have not tried before and may give it a shot in the next week or so. I will continue to do net carbs so that I can keep my fiber high enough to keep things moving (sorry), could be interesting.

[Pebbles67]

I like your thoughts about the one day at a time plan. I find I spend way too much time worrying about tomorrow and it messes with my head. I'm trying to delay gratification. ie. I can have that food tomorrow if I want.

For me the macros don't seem to matter as much as eating enough food. I ate a ton of primal food yesterday and was down in weight today.

[RMS123]

I don't know where I'm at myself I'm giving very serious consideration to the Precision Nutrition Lean Eating coaching program. I feel like a failure for admitting that, but nothing else seems to be working all that well.

Hope you have a GREAT time tonight. The cupcakes sound good...

[demuralist]

Not sure why considering the PN lean Eating would make you feel like a failure. That plan is hard work, and seems to be very close to primal and low carb with some serious heavy lifting thrown in. Not at all CW or SAD or anything like that. It might be just the motivation/push you need to get that last bit gone. You are really so close, and honestly you have to do what feels right. I think that program has so many good things going for it.

I personally would have 2 issues with it....1 is that I have already told myself that I will NOT throw any more money at this problem. I know what to do, essentially, I just need to do it. and 2 is that I have zero interest in working out, at the moment. I am working on making my life more active and not have it be about exercise. I will likely add weight training of some kind back in, but currently I hate doing it and I have miles to go before muscles will show, I just cannot seem to force myself and I have decided to pass on that stress for now!

Problem with the cupcakes...they are fantastic. I made them in mason jars so I could transport them, and my best tasting cream cheese frosting is very soft, but since it is enclosed in the jar I can use it. The cupcakes themselves have a very deep chocolate mocha flavor, next to my red velvet the best cake I have ever had/made. I will not make them often!

The thing about the macros, they don't seem to make a difference with my weight so much as they do seem to make a difference with my witching hour. It seems that as soon as I get past a certain amount of sweetness in my diet (from fruit, veggies or sugar) that I start craving and looking for it. The things that seem to head that off are to keep busy and not to do the carbs until after the witching hour, so maybe eat them with dinner as I almost never go back after dinner looking for food.

[RMS123]

On the money thing, I'm with you...except I haven't gotten to where I want to be. It's getting to be my last attempt…I hope. I feel embarrassed, though, because as smart as I am (sounds terrible), and as much as I know, why can I not make this work???

Hope you had a lovely day (and enjoyed the cupcake!).