Jac's Countdown to 50! page 8

[Jac]

Day 7 - weight is 89.1kg. Still vlc, but I don't know about ketosis - I ordered a blood test kit yesterday. It feels different to be doing vlc with an actual plan for ketosis. I've tried it before, using urine sticks, but was rarely in ketosis according to them and didn't lose weight predictably. I also got constipated and miserable, so it never lasted long! Weight loss has never, ever been predictable for me, and nor has energy or symptom control.

Yesterday I ended up with a few episodes of diarrhoea, but managed to hold onto dinner and today I feel fine. Hungry again, and a bit light headed. Breakfast soon!

Mood - fine. Yesterday was stressful +++, and I still was happy and able to focus when I got home. Not crashing is a good measure of how things are. No signs of depression.

IBS - well, the diarrhoea complicates that a bit, but I didn't have any spasms or bloating. Maybe it was a detox thing. I'm wearing jeans today at work, which is a good indication about the lack of pain and bloating . My wedding rings were actually rotating on my finger last night - another good sign! Oh, one other positive sign - Tony rubbed my feet last night, and they didn't hurt!! When IBS is flaring, the tops of my feet feel like they're on fire, and one rub across the top of them feels like I've been attacked with sandpaper. Last night - nothing!!

Weight - down. Might have been the empty-out, though. I need a pattern before I can say that it's working that way.

House - lovely!! We're replacing the furniture very slowly; cleaning, organising and decluttering as we go. We did the lounge furniture last night, and cleaned all the building material out of the hallway. Still have the bedroom to do, and then will have to tackle the office . . . but one thing at a time!

[Jac]

OK, I have no idea of what this means, but my ketones measurement at about 9am today was 0.3mmol/L. I had bacon and eggs for breakfast, in coconut oil, at about 7.45am. I'll have to keep reading to figure out whether that's OK or not. It's certainly not 'in ketosis' though.

Yesterday was a bit tough - I had mince and veges for breakfast at about 10am - all good. I didn't eat a lot of it, but it was satisfying. Then I went out for lunch and ordered the steak and egg with salad greens. I was hungry, but lost my appetite when I found a slug crawling across my plate. I stopped eating, and was still a bit hungry but not enough to ask for another meal (that one was free, after that little discovery). From that moment on, I was really hungry. I could have eaten anything by the time I got home, and (unwisely) had about 6 squares of 80% chocolate. Then I had a pork steak, a sausage, and some stewed tomatoes. Then I had a sweet hot cocoa - I put stevia in it, but it also had some sugar in the mixture. By that time I just didn't care. Then I had the last 2 sausages from dinner.

One explanation is that I didn't get enough fat - I'm not so sure about that, as the mince was fatty, and so were the steak and egg (I had probably 2/3 of it before I found the livestock). The other explanation, which I find more likely now I think of it, is that the lunchtime salad dressing was sweetened. If so, that's a pretty dramatic illustration of what an insulin surge can do when you're trying to eat for ketosis. I don't think there were any other variables yesterday.

On the bright side, I had a great sleep, woke before the alarm this morning, and started with a good breakfast. Now it's lunchtime and I find I've forgotten the leftover bacon I had packed to bring to work. Sigh. Fasting again today I guess! I think I'll stop on the way home, though, and get something spectacular for dinner. I'll need it, lol.

Edit: I found this explanation about ketone levels
Fed state: 0.1 mmol/L
Overnight fast: 0.3 mmol/L
Ketogenic diet: 1-3 mmol/L
21 day fast: 10 mmol/L
Uncontrolled diabetes: more than 25 mmol/L


There's the sweet spot I'm aiming for.

Edited again: I understand that consuming sugar can knock me out of deep ketosis for up to 3 days. If that's the case, then that reading wasn't too bad. I probably need to change to testing at a less variable time, though, like first thing in the morning before I eat anything. I imagine that the blood reading is much faster than the urine one.

[Jac]

03.mmol/L again this morning. I thought it would have moved!! That was taken immediately on waking. I'm really getting into this - it's a much more direct measurement of how my body works than anything I've tried before. I think it should get more intense over a few days.

Weight: 88.9kg I haven't been that weight since about 2005, when I did a brief and horrible diet that was 100g of completely lean protein, with lettuce, as often as I wanted. I lost about 8kg on that, and also lost the will to live. That was my last ever diet - I gained 15kg or so after that and went up to a size 22. Tony did it, too - he got down to about 85kg, but was too tired and miserable to keep it going. His memory of that time is of being so exhausted he didn't want to move. At the end of this little trip down memory lane, I'm delighted to report that my primal weight loss since Feb last year is now in excess of 17kgs. Hmmm, for the last few months I've thought it was about 11kg, but I started at 106kg. So, I now get clothes from the 'normal' racks .

Mood: pretty darned good .

IBS is OK, too. I'm getting a FODMAP pain after I've eaten veges, but that's lower abdomen and doesn't have the huge bloating, so I tend to not worry about it too much. However, I need to check the list of low fodmap veges and rearrange what I'm eating a bit.

Edited to add that I read one of Mark's posts on ketosis. He suggests that the range I'm in now is just fine for losing weight. However, it's a completely normal reading at that time of the morning. I think I'd be best to test after dinner to see if I maintain light ketosis through the day. Maybe. More reading to do!

Edit 2: This site says, among other things
One of the speakers at the Nutrition and Metabolism Society meeting in 2011 was Dr. Adam Hartman, who is an expert in the use of ketogenic for the control of epilepsy in children. He made an interesting comment on the timing of testing for ketones. When eating the typical mixture of foods that people normally consume in our society (a mix of proteins, carbohydrates and fats), ketones are highest in the morning. This makes sense because the least flow of carbohydrates in from the digestive tract is overnight, so the body burns some fat in the night. When eating a ketogenic diet, on the other hand, the most exposure to carbohydrates is overnight especially towards morning as the liver produces glucose to keep your brain fueled and to prepare you for getting up. Therefore, if you are eating a very ketogenic diet, the blood ketones go up during the day as you burn more fat for fuel.

[Jac]

Still reading and figuring things out. That level of ketosis could mean that my liver is still insulin resistant and isn't working as it should. That's a possibility. The other is that I need to test later in the day to see if I stay in ketosis when a 'normal' diet would have taken me out. Yet another thing to think about is that as long as I'm not fuzzy headed and tired, and as long as I'm losing weight, then I'm doing fine.

I downloaded Phinney's book on low carb eating - it's got a lot of detail, and is really useful for understanding what's happening. I've been wondering about having a high fat diet, though, if my plan is to use body fat as fuel. I'll get to that soon I guess. It's heartening to read that it can take the body weeks to get fully fat-adapted, especially if you've been a high carb queen! (That's my own phrase, not theirs ).

I've had pork chops and 2 custards of egg and coconut milk with vanilla and some stevia. Now I have a stomach ache, with gas and bloating. Too much coconut? Too much food? Hopefully it'll pass soon . . .

[Jac]

Saturday afternoon. There's good news and some not so good. The latter first - I have a freaking stomach ache, still!! I forgot to add to yesterday's food that I also had 1/2 avocado - which is something I haven't had for years. It's a fodmap food - wonder if that's the culprit? It's the only new food I've had. The other possibility is that the dressing I had on Wednesday had milk solids in it but that seems very unlikely. For a start, it was completely clear so I didn't notice it on the salad. There is still the possibility that it's some kind of tolerance thing with the coconut, but I've tended towards simple diarrhoea and a bit of nausea in the past when I've overdone it. This is now 24hours old, waking me in the night, and I'm over it!! I haven't taken any pain relief - I just don't want to give in to it. I'm back with the very plain food, so it'll pass soon enough.

Better news - I measured ketones at 9pm last night, and they were 0.5mmol/L. This is great, because I'd eaten all day and they were higher than my morning fasting levels. Excellent! I had a few squares of dark chocolate last night, and a glass of diet lemonade (this was comfort food, I think) so will be interesting to see what they are tonight.

In other good news - I weighed 88kg exactly this morning. I'm not getting too wound up about it - I often weigh less in the weekend because I stay in bed longer and tend to have peed twice before I bother with the scales. I have to admit a quiet woot, though .

I'm a little . . . concerned isn't the right word . . . aware?? that I'm going to a conference in Darwin this week. I leave home on Tuesday morning to work in town all day, stay overnight in Auckland on Tuesday night, and check in to the airport at 4.15am Wednesday. I fly home Sunday, arriving at 12.05am Monday morning. In that time I'm staying with a friend who is very dairy intolerant, so from that angle I'll be perfect. However, she's a low fat eater and doesn't eat much protein either. She'll be happy for me to have eggs for breakfast, but lunch is going to be difficult as it's conference food. My plan to be completely dairy free, and get my fats and protein where I can. I'll be grain and sugar averse and see how I go. I'm trusting that my body is flexible enough that I'll be back in ketosis within a couple of days of getting home. I won't measure while I'm away.

Again with the cheerful - it's about 32degC during the day over there. Mary (the friend I'm staying with) tells me that they last had rain in March and are confidently expecting another shower by November! I can't wait. It's been a rainy winter here, so I'll be sooo happy in the heat! I plan to soak in it every day. I also had to go shopping to get a couple of light tops, since all mine are floppy and tent-like . I realised that if I lose another dress size, I won't be able to shop at my favourite 'big girl' store any more!! I'm now a small in their sizing, and they don't have many choices in the XS range. Talk about a problem.

Food last night was chicken drumsticks. That's all I had for dinner. Then the aforementioned chocolate and lemonade - which I don't feel bad about at all. It was lovely. This morning we went out for breakfast and I made a spectacle of myself by ordering 1/4 of a chicken (the leg part), and having a small tomato with it. Lol. Yummy!! Dinner will be pork shops and veges - a few too many O-6's, but that'll even out in the next couple of days when I have a huuuuge beef rolled roast to cook and enjoy.

Mood and energy are both bloody marvellous!!

[Jac]

Same weight this morning, earlier than yesterday. Last night I was up to .6mmol/L. It's sooo amazingly satisfying to find a measurement I can actually control - and then watch the effects. This rather than trying to change the effects with no idea how to do it. As you can tell, I'm still feeling good!

Dinner last night was yum. I have to find some good sauces, though, to change the texture and taste of my meals. It's not that hard, I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Tummy issues are slowly resolving. I ended up taking ibuprofen last night - I just couldn't take it any more.

Today I've had a couple of leftover chicken drumsticks for a quick breakfast before we took the dogs out. Bacon and eggs in co oil for lunch, and soon I'll be tucking in to that beef roast with some pumpkin and greens. Can't wait!

Edited to add that I had a mammoth session of trying on old clothes last night, and am totally stoked to report that all but a couple of my skinny-clothes fit me! I don't think I was this weight when I bought them, so now they look better than they did back then .

[Jac]

Last night (Sunday) ketones were 1.2mmol/L. Excellent!! Today I have a funny taste in my mouth - almost metallic. Hopefully it'll go away. Weight is up by .5kg this morning - I have an aching back/core and no idea whether it's actually my muscles or my belly.

[Jac]

Last night ketones were down to 0.7 - I had blueberries and co cream for breakfast, so maybe that was too many carbs?? Weight was down to 88.2 this morning.

Am in Auckland, preparing for my trip. Can't wait!! I've packed coconut oil, with the intention of using it to support a fast any time there's no good food available. The conference is likely to be a bit challenging. Anyway, this is the last post for a few days, but I'll keep a paper journal. Wish me luck!!

[Jac]

I've spent the last week in Darwin or travelling. It's a really different city - not at all cosmopolitan. The plants were lovely, and the weather was very hot and humid. I totally loved it! I stayed with a friend who has huge gastric problems, so she's always totally careful about dairy. She is also practically rabid about having low fat everything. She even found me low fat bacon and drained it before serving!! She eats about 9 servings of fruit a day, along with whole grains - she's permanently starving, and starts to feel quite panicked if there is no food to eat in her immediate vicinity.

Anyway - for the last week I've had bacon and eggs for breakfast, cooked in coconut oil I took with me. I tended to skip lunch, and had a decent amount of meat for dinner along with a few veges. I had sugar in the form of the most delicious sticky coconut rice with banana on my last day there (cooked in banana leaves - OMG!), and yesterday on the trip home I totally blew it with lollies etc. For dinner on my last night I had a huge plate of barramundi with a tomato. Lovely! I slept really well at night, the whole time I was away. My only problem was that I got really puffed up - I bought new jandals (thongs, flip-flops, depending on where you're from) and even those cut into my feet horribly. I lost my cheekbones, my eyes looked tiny, and my hands and feet looked like balloons. It was most likely the humidity - not painful, but a pain.

Today I'm back home and looking forward to getting back into ketosis. This morning I had bacon and eggs. Dinner tonight was chicken curry and a small dark chocolate bar.

Weight this morning was 91.1kg

Ketones at 8.30pm was 0.1mmol/L

Before I got to Darwin I spent the better part of 2 days fasting - it was interesting that my ketones dropped way low after that. I assume it was evidence that my body wasn't releasing any fat because I wasn't eating enough.

[NZ primal Gwamma]

Hi Jac, Its so nice to meet others from little old New Zealand. I am presuming you are from the North Island ?
I have only been primal for about 13/14 weeks, but am amazed at the changes I am seeing. Fantastic stuff. I have just today booked into primal con. I am so excited. Anyway I look forward to reading more about you and your journey.
Good Luck and keep at it !