Meat for the Mind? –Experimenting with the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Wednesday, September 26th to Monday, September 30th, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
I haven’t posted because I have been a bit of a wreck the past few days. When I was switching over my birth control prescription, I accidentally skipped a couple of days of pills and ended up randomly getting my period, which has wreaked havoc on my hormones. Despite introducing new foods, I am fairly certain that this has been the primary factor causing this downswing into further depression and anxiety.
Today, as a treat and to try to limit my obsessing over food restriction, I decided to give baking a shot. I made a modified Keto Pumpkin Loaf, using coconut flour, butter, a fresh pie pumpkin (pureed), a bunch of spices, 4 eggs, some baking powder and the tiniest splash of maple syrup. I even allowed myself some honey on the first few small pieces.
The Keto Pumpkin Loaf I made
It tasted wonderful. However, I may have enjoyed the pumpkin, fresh out of the oven, just as much by itself.
Had a very difficult time trying to regulate my emotions, catastrophizing and negative self-assessments in the afternoon. Jared was a wonderful support and we got our burpees (12 x 10 at 60 secs/rep for me) and ab workout in. By evening, I was able to go visit some friends to watch Labyrinth for a small birthday gathering. There, I managed to avoid giving in to fresh pizza, booze and homemade turtle cheesecake.
I’ve been introducing foods a little quicker than I intended to, due to my eagerness for some variety. However, I have also been a little obsessive about it – scouring the internet for details of anti-nutrients in any substance I’m considering trying, and constantly worrying about my macros. The more I look up, the more lost I feel and the less I feel I have a plan.
Jared suggested today that I try alternating days where I eat carnivore one day, then, every second day, eat at least one solid meat meal and consume whatever I like afterwards within reason (excluding anything I know is bad for me), without paying attention to my macro ratios.
Although it’s certainly helpful start, I am struggling with this idea a bit too. What is “within reason”, especially without measuring macros? If I want to stay in ketosis, shouldn’t I still be limiting my carb intake on my ‘days off’? If I just do the carnivore thing every second day, then won’t I lose all the benefits of ketosis? Isn’t the ketosis the most advantageous part of the carnivore diet? Will eating more carbs make it difficult for my body to process fats again?
Foods I can tolerate so far:
Foods I suspect don’t like me back:
– Meat (grass-fed, pasture raised is better) – Eggs – Butter – Blueberries – Peaches – Carrots – Peanut butter (consume in moderation due to oxalates) – Romaine lettuce – Coconut (wonderful – re-opens the possibility of baking) – Pickles – Raspberries – Pumpkin – Honey (to be limited due to sugar)
– Most dairy (though the higher the fat, the easier to handle): reaction = MILD – Processed sugar: reaction = STRONG – Wheat: reaction = STRONG – Broccoli: reaction = STRONG (though I have yet to try it again post-carnivore) – Grapefruit? – (only tried a bit of juice in something and got a headache – want to test eating the fruit itself) – Apples: MEDIUM (Spartan, straight from the farm, eaten fried with butter – strange heartburn for the rest of the day)
Steak dinner, looking stark
The size of the tiny apples I fried
Fried apples
Preparing haddock, riceless jambalaya
Riceless jambalaya
Peanut butter with raspberries (the flavours don’t combine as well as expected)
Meat for the Mind? –Experimenting with the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Wednesday, September 25th, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
Sleep: It was actually easier to fall asleep last night as I was very tired. I’d taken magnesium earlier in the evening too, which helped. I think I got about 9.5 hours of interrupted sleep. Dreams of eating too many carbs (peaches) and ruining all my progress…
Food consumed: 12:30 PM: Coffee with butter, theanine and collagen, whipped up in the Magic Bullet – Another rice-less jambalaya made with 2 strips of bacon, 8 baby carrots, 1/2 lb of grass-fed ground beef, 2 eggs, 6 shrimps, and a little bit of spices – quite good
5:30 PM: Three slow-cooked beef short ribs that Jared made. – Wanting to find a good coconut milk to introduce, I found a little box of creamed coconut at the grocery store today. It tasted spectacular. It was kind of the consistency and fat content of peanut butter. I immediately made a decaf and blended it in with a little butter. I put a bit on a peach. I ate a bit by itself.
8:00 PM: I was reckless again today and introduced a second item on the same day. I decided to eat the small Caesar salad that came with the steak Jared had ordered at a restaurant. I removed the croutons and some of the Parmesan cheese, so that it was just romaine lettuce, very, very lightly dressed. It tasted refreshing – nothing special, but I enjoyed the familiar texture. I also had a couple of glasses of red wine (reckless – mistake) which went straight to my head. The creamed coconut and last peach called my name as soon as I got home.
Mood: Woke up with anxiety. I’d set my alarm for 9:30 to try to get some more sleep in to make up for yesterday. It went off and I woke up but was tired and didn’t want to get out of bed. I only dragged myself up at about 11:00 AM, feeling like a scumbag. I forced myself to make coffee and, once that kicked in, breakfast.
I was quite sad today and worried it was because I’d had peanut butter yesterday. However, there were a couple of identifiable external factors that we were able to figure out. (I often have difficulty identifying which events my feelings can be attributed to.) I was worried about running out of insurance allotment for therapy, right as we are about to get into the meat of it.
Energy levels / physical feelings: My skin seems to be clearing a little bit since eliminating most dairy. My body still feels very hot, while digesting.
We decided to take a break from burpees today, in favour of going to a small art event. We figured our bodies could use the break and doing something fun might be a mood booster.
Poop?: 1 big turd at 1:45 PM.
Unusual events of the day: I need to work on not taking on other people’s problems. I hate hearing about people being treated unfairly or cruelly and I want to help them somehow – catch a bus to wherever they are and keep vigil. However, I am working on setting personal boundaries for my own self-preservation. It is difficult because it feels selfish – which we’ve been taught is a bad thing. I keep having to go back to my flight attendant training where you must put your own oxygen mask on before you can help others with theirs. You’re useless if you don’t.
I like helping people though and listening to their problems. It is much easier than dealing with my own and I feel a vague sense of purpose. Currently, I have to work on not getting too invested – just listen. I know from experience that others listening helps me so at least it’s something I can feel good about doing. Even then though, Jared’s encouraging me to set daily time-limits on listening, as I learn to establish boundaries.
How do you limit empathy? It doesn’t feel like something that can simply be switched off. And you wouldn’t want to fully turn it off anyway, for fear of becoming a sociopath. I guess, in that sense, empathy is like food – too much or too little can both be problematic and the content of what you choose to consume really matters. Trying to figure out which contents of each are best for you and your own body feels like shooting in the dark, much of the time. Trial and observation.
Meat for the Mind? –Experimenting with the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Tuesday, September 24th, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
Sleep: About 4.5 hours. It was difficult to fall asleep and I had to be up at 7:00 AM for my EMDR appointment.
Food consumed: 7:30 AM: Coffee with butter, theanine and collagen, whisked up in the Magic Bullet
10:00 AM: 4 hard boiled eggs and 2 spicy smoked venison/pork sausages from the farmer’s market
2:00 PM: 2 peaches
6:15 PM: 3 glorious tablespoons of pure peanut butter, right out of the jar, using a measuring spoon. I decided to introduce peanut butter today, for its fat content, since I was unable to get enough fat yesterday. Peanuts are not Paleo and many people react poorly to them so we I will have to be attentive to any reaction. I didn’t feel any immediate side-effects – no bloating or discomfort. I got a headache in the evening but that could easily have been attributed to something else (stress for a friend’s situation).
Peanuts are high in all kinds of anti-nutrients: oxalates, phytates, and lectins. As previously mentioned, physical reactions to oxalates often take a very long time to become evident. Therefore, as much as I want to have peanut butter every day, now that I’ve tried it, I should limit its consumption to occasional.
10:30 PM: About 6 oz of striploin steak and a slice of bacon. Trying to make up for yesterday’s calorie deficit.
Breakfast
Mood: We still haven’t gotten into the EMDR of my psychology treatment, as there is so much history to sift through first. I still find it helpful though. Talking through my stories in a mostly chronological order with an active listener is making me realize a lot about causation and put a little less blame on myself. Determining causation can be quite helpful because when I do get depressed, I often have no idea what I’m immediately upset about.
I still feel fragile after every session – tired and emotionally drained. I did have some anxiety and sadness issues today. However, I’d liken it to muscle fatigue after a workout – a side-effect outweighed by the improvements obtained by putting the work in.
It’s very hard to the differentiate the effects of foods consumed vs. events of the day.
Energy levels / physical feelings: I don’t think I feel any side-effects from yesterday’s carrots so I think I can add them in. The chest constriction from yesterday mostly went away. Around 1:45 PM, We did 10 sets of burpees at 54 seconds per set. They were not too bad. My muscles and joints still felt tired though.
The wise and loving marriage of modern invention with the sustaining, nurturing food folkways of our ancestors is the partnership that will transform the Twenty-First Century into the Golden Age; divorce hastens the physical degeneration of the human race, cheats mankind of his limitless potential, destroys his will and condemns him to the role of undercitizen in a totalitarian world order.
Fallon, S. (1999) Nourishing Traditions, Preface
A 1980 study showed that almost half the leading officials at the FDA had previously worked for organizations the agency is mandated to regulate. The universities have equally powerful ties to the food processing industry. A good example is Harvard University where Dr. Frederick Stare, head of the nutrition department for many years, began his career with several articles delineating nutritional deficiencies caused by white flour and a study on Irish brothers that positively correlated a high intake of vegetable oils—not animal fats—with heart disease. Soon after he became department head, however, the university received several important grants from the food processing industry. Dr. Stare’s articles and weekly newspaper columns then began assuring the public that there was nothing wrong with white bread, sugar and highly processed foods. He recommended one cup of corn oil per day to prevent heart disease, and in one article he even suggested Coca-Cola as a snack!
Fallon, S. (1999) Nourishing Traditions, Introduction
The most well-known advocate of the lowfat diet was Nathan Pritikin. Actually, Pritikin advocated elimination of sugar, white flour and all processed foods from the diet and recommended the use of fresh raw foods, whole grains and a strenuous exercise program, but it was the lowfat aspects of his regime that received the most attention in the media. Adherents found that they lost weight and that their cholesterol levels and blood pressure declined. The success of the Pritikin diet was probably due to a number of factors having nothing to do with reduction in dietary fat—weight loss alone, for example, will lower cholesterol, at least at first—but Pritikin soon found that the fat-free diet presented many problems, not the least of which was the fact that people had trouble staying on it. Those who possessed enough will power to remain fat-free for any length of time developed a variety of health problems including low energy, difficulty in concentration, depression, weight gain and mineral deficiencies. Pritikin may have saved himself from heart disease but his lowfat diet did not help him recover from leukemia. He died, in the prime of life, of suicide when he realized that his Spartan regime was not working. We shouldn’t have to die of either heart disease or cancer—or consume a diet that makes us depressed.
Fallon, S. (1999) Nourishing Traditions, FATS
In summary, don’t be scared of good animal fats and beware of widely accepted propaganda.
Meat for the Mind? –Experimenting with the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Monday, September 23rd, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
Please note that although I am now eliminating eliminating most dairy as a trial for the next 30 days, I will still be consuming butter, in the hopes of retaining whatever lactose tolerance I do have. I will also be re-introducing various fruits and vegetables and possibly legumes throughout the month, to gauge my reactions to them.
Sleep: A lot of difficulty falling asleep last night. Very restless. I hadn’t taken my usual magnesium before bed, to see if I could do without (I was very tired). Nope! Just got very restless legs so I took it around 1:30 AM.
I woke up at 11:00 AM, lethargic.
Food consumed: 1:50 PM: Coffee with butter, collagen and theanine powder. As I forgot to put the powders in first, they were not mixing into the coffee well so I put it all in the Magic Bullet for a little bit. This made the colour of the coffee lighten and frothed it up like a latte, which was nice.
I was inspired to try carrots today, after reading a blog post by Theresa Piela, who manages her chronic Lyme Disease and various co-morbid conditions with the Carnivore diet. She recently re-introduced carrots in her diet, with some success.
I was getting a little hangry by burpee time this afternoon (around 5 PM) so I had about 7 raw, fresh baby carrots pre-workout. (There were no additives or preservatives in this brand – just straight up carrots.) They were tasty and refreshing.
6:30 PM: Jared and I made a mostly carnivore jambalaya, with 2 strips of bacon, 8 baby carrots sliced up, about 2 oz of left-over shawarma meat, 2 eggs and 7 shrimps. It was very good and I felt quite full afterwards.
However, I realized if I didn’t eat more, it would be too close to bedtime by the time I’d be able to eat again and I hadn’t even consumed half my calories for the day yet. My macronutrients for the day also had too much protein to fat. I had my 3 ml of fermented cod liver oil, hoping it would help, and fried up 8 more little carrots with 3 strips of bacon. This was really good too. I drank a bit of bacon grease off my plate, fully aware of how disgusting I might have found this in the past.
Eliminating cheese might be more difficult even than expected, as it was a good source of fat for me. I will need to find replacement healthy, fatty snacks that like me back.
Mood: Low motivation and a feeling of chest constriction fluctuating throughout the day. Fine after Therapy-Burpees.
Energy levels / physical feelings: I think I have been experiencing adrenal fatigue or HPA Axis Dysfunction, as I was already chronically stressed while transitioning to the Carnivore diet. The nausea I had was making it difficult to consume enough calories on a daily basis, exacerbating the problem temporarily, while my body learned to process high quantities of animal proteins and fats.
Yesterday’s bloating mostly dissipated by this morning, however, my chest still felt tight all morning and into the afternoon.
Today, my joints hurt a bit, especially my right shoulder. Therapy-burpees were a little less difficult than usual with 10 sets of 10, plus a few added on to the last set, at 55 seconds per set. Then, we did a set of ab exercises on the tabata timer (3 rotating exercices, 10 sets of 45 seconds with a 15 second rest in between each).
I felt fine after burpees.
Poop?: 1 large turd at 2:35 PM.
Unusual events of the day: In the middle of the night, I bought a book, at Jared’s suggestion, called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. It was originally published in 1995. The book was deemed controversial, even in its day, but contains a lot of proven information about nutrient-dense foods. I recognize that the research might be a little out-dated. However, considering the well-established problems and conflicts of interest with the government-endorsed American and Canadian Food Guides, I don’t think this is a bad thing.
My generation has had a lot of misinformation about nutrition hammered into us from the beginning of our lives. This misinformation has led to a generation with severe problems of obesity, heart disease and diabetes, and, in my opinion, has played a contributing role in the rise of mental health issues in North America. It may be best to scrap everything the government has taught us about nutrition, ignoring propaganda as much as possible, and start again from scratch, with our own research, being attentive to who funds each study and their potential biases, and our own trial and error.
I am looking forward to reading this book and trying some of the recipes eventually. Jared and I especially want to make fish sauce.
– Most dairy (though the higher the fat, the easier to handle): reaction = MILD – Processed sugar: reaction = STRONG – Wheat: reaction = STRONG – Broccoli: reaction = STRONG (though I have yet to try it again post-carnivore)
Meat for the Mind? –Testing out the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Sunday, September 22nd, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
Sleep: Couldn’t get to sleep for a long while last night. Probably got about 4 hours in, then we had to get up to pick up the half cow Jared ordered at the farmer’s market. I went back to bed after that for a couple of hours.
Food consumed: 11:30 AM: Coffee with butter, collagen, theanine powder and a dash of pure vanilla extract. – Two filets of haddock, cooked in the frying pan. – I was feeling reckless and ate half the butter pecan tart that Jared’s mum had left in the fridge for me. The final treat left over from her visit. It was delicious and I knew it would be terrible for me. I didn’t even wait until after exercise, unless you count carrying bags of meat up some stairs first thing in the morning.
2:00 PM: A teacup of black coffee
5:30 PM: 1/2 lb of shawarma meat
10:00 PM: Half a jar of buffalo kefir, and a piece of fried cheddar, finishing these off before eliminating dairy tomorrow. – A peach – About an ounce or two of ground beef.
Mood: A bit tenuous for much of the day. A bit of foggy brain. I could feel that I was a misstep away from very bad anxiety, if that makes sense. Luckily, though, it was a pleasant day and I got to spend much of it with friends, doing something creative, which helped immensely. I had been anxious about socializing but Jared convinced me to go and I’m glad he did.
Energy levels / physical feelings: I had to pee frequently today. Jared thinks this was from expelling excess glucose.
By the time I returned from my friend’s house in the evening, my body felt very tired and lazy and I really did not want to do any exercise. I strongly considered skipping it but knew that the added carbs and the bit of wheat I’d eaten probably needed to be burned off. My belly was also surprisingly bloated, as were my ankles. Jared said he could see the bloating in my face as well. I also had a little bit of milia on my face.
Around 9:00 PM, we did a tabata set alternating between 11 burpees and 10-squat jumps on a minute timer per set.
In the evening, although I didn’t feel mentally anxious, I had a familiar crushing feeling in my chest and it was a bit difficult to catch a full breath.
I realized that, still feeling in a celebratory mood yesterday, I had accepted a glass of red wine at a friend’s house last night. We’d also been away from home and had forgotten to bring our own meat to cook at their place (it was in a bag on the table at home). Jared and I got quite hungry while out so we ordered burger patties with cheese and bacon and some wings from a nearby takeout restaurant. I’d asked for no bun, toppings or sauces on the burger (to the cook’s confusion) and no batter on the wings. However, although I hadn’t noticed it, Jared, with his chef experience, mentioned that the wings appeared to be dredged, meaning that I’d likely consumed more wheat flour.
Also, as Jared pointed out, I’ve spent a month getting my body accustomed to grass-fed beef. Eating takeout the past couple of days has meant that I have probably been consuming grain-fed beef (since it is cheaper in bulk and therefore more commonly sold in restaurants). Another sabotage!
Although the glass of red wine could be partially to blame, I strongly suspect my bloating is directly related to my wheat consumption.
LEFT: before I cheated on the Carnivore diet. RIGHT: bloating after cheating with wheat and refined sugar. Both pictures were taken in a relaxed state. The one on the right was after exercise (hence the sweat).
Meat for the Mind? –Testing out the Carnivore Diet for Mental Health
Friday, September 20th, 2019
*** If you would like to read about my rationale for starting this diet, my first post about this is available here.
Thirty days is, of course, insufficient time to correct a lifetime of sugar and processed food consumption, decades of mental health issues or complex trauma. I am certainly not healed yet. However, I am pleased to find that there have been several improvements in my well-being over the course of this experiment.
I must say that I feel very privileged to have the option to embark on such an experiment. I am lucky in many ways. Having Jared as such a wonderful, supportive, intelligent, playful, kind and empathetic partner, with all his extensive knowledge of nutrition and the effects of different foods has been life-changing. I feel lucky every day just to know him, let alone have him as my partner. We are lucky to live in a relatively safe country, to have physical fitness, a roof over our heads, access to health care, enough money to buy meat, the ability to acquire products from grass-fed, pasture-raised, well-treated animals directly through local farmers. These are certainly not things to take for granted.
It is difficult to determine which benefits are attributable to which lifestyle change(s), however. Much can be said for time off work, which has probably been the primary helpful added-in factor. As much as I feel guilty about it, it as it has allowed me to spend the little energy I’ve had on getting better. Consistent, daily, high-intensity exercise has the most immediately noticeable effects on my mood and has obvious benefits for my physical fitness and metabolism. Finding a great therapist who genuinely actively listens and takes an interest in her patients is invaluable for helping me deal with past issues and how they are affecting the present. Removing sugars and processed foods from my diet has allowed my blood sugars to stabilize. The Carnivore Diet has allowed me to build muscle, affecting my metabolism (and thus, potentially, my body’s ability to properly dispose of anti-nutrients) and I believe it has given me a bit more mental clarity. All of these factors combine to provide additional wellness benefits.
Jared thinks the diet may have helped to heal my gut somewhat, as I am no longer nauseous from eating meat and he has noticed improvements in my short-term memory. Before the experiment and throughout the first few weeks, I’d been frequently forgetting what I was doing, mid-activity, throughout the day and had to write myself long lists to remember simple little tasks. I still write lists but don’t rely on them so heavily and I have less brain fog now. I am no longer having panic attacks daily – just once in a while.
I am less often hungry and when I am, the feeling is less urgent. I have learned more about the value of good fat, as a source of energy and as a macro-nutrient, not as something to be feared. I have fewer and milder headaches and migraines and less PMS-related bloating and breast pain. I am less sensitive to the sun. I forgot to put on sunscreen yesterday, for our long bike ride, and would normally have burned badly but I didn’t. My chest and face were a little red by the evening but not painful. The redness was gone by this morning. It feels like a superpower.
Another unexpected benefit is that this diet has been surprisingly cost-reducing, since it is almost impossible to order takeout. Eating at restaurants is not as enjoyable since the options are so limited and ordering might be awkward (you might as well eat at home). And even with eating at home, time spent on meal planning, grocery shopping and meal-planning is greatly reduced. There is less food waste because we simply pull what we need out of the freezer the night prior.
Whether a Carnivore Diet is the best option for me remains to be seen and can only be determined with experimentation. I am not sold on the idea that a meat-only diet is best for me in the long run as I enjoy other foods more. However, this experiment has been far more eye-opening than I expected it to be. Jared’s talked about nutrition with me a lot and I acknowledged the information on a surface level, while still finding his diet extreme. Because of that, and the fact that he has type 2 diabetes, I subconsciously dismissed a lot of the information as not applicable to me.
Dramatically reducing the variety of foods consumed over an extended period of time, has allowed me to notice and identify the immediate and extended effects of different ratios of macro-nutrients on the body. The reduction of variety, without severe nutritional-deficiencies, was only possible thanks to the animal products I was consuming being so full of bio-available forms of about all the nutrients and energy necessary for optimal function. Until I experienced a diet like this first-hand, I couldn’t fathom how much more in touch I could be with my body and what it needs. Practicing listening so closely to your body after everything you consume is an experiment I recommend to everyone since everyone is so different.
The main drawback of the diet has been the social factor. It is harder than expected not to be able to eat what everyone around you is eating. It is especially hard with cravings and people questioning your choices. It is difficult to turn down delicious-smelling, free food that people are excited to offer you.
The more minor cons for me so far have been the lack of variety of flavours and colours in my food, tartar build up on my bottom front teeth, increased body odor, and an inexplicable, mildly sore throat sometimes. The painful poops and minor skin issues on my face I’ve had are likely directly correlated with over-consumption of dairy. (I regularly have skin issues anyway.)
As I truly enjoy fruits and vegetables, I am eager to re-introduce them to my diet as I continue to listen. I accept that with trial, there will be error. I am sure some things will make me sick along the way – but I am curious to know what that will be. For now, I hope to maintain a higher protein and fat ratio to my carbs to try to continue to heal my gut and avoid hormonal and sugar imbalances. I suspect that I should continue to avoid grains, especially wheat, as I realize that these are addictive to me and contribute to over-consumption of processed sugars. Maybe one day I will reintroduce rice and see how it goes. Maybe one day, after prolonged abstinence from wheat products, I will no longer crave them.
If I have to name the diet I am aiming towards next, I suppose it would be a high-fat, high-protein, low-carb Paleo diet. (I found this website helpful in determining my approximate macronutrient ratio goals: https://paleoleap.com/keto-paleo-5-macronutrient-ratio-options/)
I aim to gradually introduce plant foods, one at a time for the next couple of weeks, while keeping meat and eggs as my primary source of nutrition, and keeping my carb-count low. I will try my best to listen to everything my body says about each item. On Monday, when Jared goes full strict Carnivore (only eating meat from grass-fed ruminants), I will also be eliminating almost all dairy, since I can now confirm that I react poorly to it. I will likely continue to eat butter, in the hopes of maintaining whatever tolerance to lactose I currently have.
As I realize that carbs are so addictive to me, I know it will take a lot of willpower to limit them, as I re-introduce them. I will try to temper my OCPD a little bit though by considering my own rules as guidelines, rather than beating myself up for small slip-ups (instead, accepting and using the knowledge I gain from mistakes). I accept that I may also change my mind a few times about these guidelines, based on observation of my body’s reactions.
I also still hope to eventually re-implement intermittent fasting, eventually, for the potential benefits autophagy may have on eliminating any repercussions from the consumption of anti-nutrients.
All that being said, after a workout today, I am still planning on eating the piece of lemon-poppyseed cake that Jared’s mum left in the fridge for me to eat as a celebration of the completion of my 30-day experiment. We will see what my body says about that.
Sleep: Very difficult to fall asleep last night due to the very large meal I ate so late in the evening. I was very hot and restless and didn’t get to sleep until some time after 3 AM. It was still restless after that and I woke up numerous times. Strange anxious dreams of my mother chaining herself to the ceiling of her Gothic castle and trying to cover up a severe narcotic addiction…
Food consumed: 11:45 AM: 3ml fermented cod liver oil, coffee with butter, a couple drops of pure vanilla extract, theanine and collagen powder.
3:45 PM: My electrolyte cocktail as I was feeling low-energy.
5:00 PM: As soon as we finished burpees today, I cooked up some strip loin steak and ground beef. I had about 300g of steak and a 1/2 lb of ground beef and didn’t have too much trouble finishing it. We wanted to ensure that the carbs I would be consuming would be soon after exercise so that they’d be more efficiently absorbed. Jared thought it might be a good idea to eat my meat for the day first though, as I likely wouldn’t want it after cake.
Then, it was time. I was excited. The lemon-poppyseed cake was made from scratch by an excellent local bakery tasted amazing. Surprisingly though, it was not as spectacular as I had been expecting, to my relief. Not sure what kind of fireworks I was expecting…
Although the portion would have seemed reasonable to me a month ago, after eating such a low carb diet for an extended period, it now seemed huge. Each forkful was a magnificent tower of cake.
Halfway through the portion, I got a mild headache. Almost immediately after finishing the cake, my belly was very full and I wanted to lie down. My belly was uncomfortable and distended but I had also eaten a significant quantity of meat in the same sitting. I had to take a rest. The headache was still present. As I lay on the bed, I wondered if the strength of my cravings would return full-bore tomorrow, as I’d opened the carbohydrate floodgates. I hope I can resist. Jared says to expect to be quite hungry for carbs when I first wake up in the morning as has been his experience when he cheats on his diet. I’ll try my best to be good tomorrow.
I was stuffed until late in the evening. At around 9:40 PM, I had a cup of beef and chicken foot broth and a little later, a cup of decaf coffee with some buffalo milk.
Lunch
The pièce de résistance – my piece of leftover cake in all it’s glory. (This is the “before”. There was not a crumb to be seen for the “after”.)
Mood: Generally relatively decent. A friend stopped by in the evening and stayed for a good long chat with us, which was nice. I had a bit of anger/rage, upon hearing about another friend’s misfortune.
Energy levels / physical feelings: Burpees were very difficult today. We did 10 sets of 10 at 55 seconds per set on the tabata timer, then a rotation of ab exercises on another 10 minute timer. My legs felt slow and my joints a bit stiff.
Poop?: 1 medium turd around 12:30 PM. Still painful. TMI: It was interesting to see that the fruit fibers from the peaches yesterday were digested differently than everything else.
Thinking in Stomp-Claps 