Ok, so I know it took me a little while for my first update. I plan on definitely not waiting so long for the next one. In fact, my goal is to post an udate every day from now on.
Since my initial post of me declaring that I was quitting drinking, I actually did quit drinking for about two weeks, but I wasn't committed to eating healthy or exercising and subsequently started drinking again for a brief little period there, but now I'm on tthe wagon again for two weeks, and I feel great this time around.
I officially quit drinking on Sunday, September 3rd. My last drink was the night before.
As of right now I weigh roughly 202 lbs. I was hovering right around 215 when I started.
I think I might have lost another pound or two if I hadn't messed up my back on monday and spent the majority of the last week laying on the couch, alternating ice and heating pads, trying to heal my back. But that's another story...
If you can tell in the pic I'm leaning a bit to one side. That's because I can't quite stand up straight at the moment due to a pinched nerve. Not too much fun. Trying to heal that as well. I'll keep you posted...
I know I probably look kinda angry in the photo, but I'm not. Just kinda tired. I think I got like 4 hrs of sleep last night. We did just have a baby! Pics and more on that coming soon too! And excuse the mess in the bathroom. We're getting to that soon too haha!
I'm still smoking cigarettes and marijuana at the moment.
Not like right now as I write this, but in general, I mean...
I really want to quit, especially because of the child we just had. It's pretty damn tough though. Cigs will be next.
I know I said I was going to try to quit cigs and pot at the same time too, but it's just proven to be too much. I don't really want to get the superman syndrome again and try to do too much and then not do anything at all when I fail and it all comes crashing down. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I'll take a few more steps in between this time.
With that said though, I've actually been following a pretty strict diet. For those of you who know what a "Whole 30" diet is, it's pretty similar to that, except I'm also going low to very-low carb at the same time, to help eliminate sugar/alcohol cravings, which by the way has been working pretty darn well.
In fact, I'm almost surprised by my lack of hunger. And not only that, what gets me is how great I actually feel while on this ridiculously restricted eating regemin I'm putting myself thtough. I'm feeling so good and seeing such fast results that its giving me more motivation to keep with it.
So, for those of you who don't know what a "Whole 30" diet is, I'll briefly explain.
It's basically an elimination diet of a sort, and by elimination I mean eliminating entire food groups for a period, and then reintroducing them slowly one at a time to see if you have any reactions to them.
There are many different types of elimination diets, depending on what exactly you are eliminating and what you're allowed to eat and when, and they come in all shapes and sizes. The one I'm doing is relatively simple, though.
It's just no dairy (including cheese & butter), no added sugar (although natural sugars are allowed to a degree), no grains (including breads, pastas, cereals, etc.), and no crazy chemicals or preservatives. And that's really about it. I might be missing one or two things there. I think legumes are also included in there as well. I'm not eating them anyway right now so I'm not really sure. If you're interested just google Whole 30 and I'm sure you'll find tons of info on the exact diet.
But, in any case... It's not too difficult. Especially once you get rolling with it and start noticing some results.
And what's there left to eat?
Well... basically meat, eggs, veggies, and fruits. And natural fats, oils and vinegars, nuts and seeds and stuff like that...
But our meals definitely aren't boring. Mt girlfriend happens to be a pretty darn good cook and is pretty creative in the kitchen so I'm blessed there. My meals would look a lot more boring than this if she wasn't around haha:
Breakfast with two types of sausage, bacon and eggs, with raw sauerkraut and homemade pickles and pickled onions.
Homemade meatballs with a veggie stir-fry using coconut aminos. That's home-made bone broth in the cup also, in case you're wondering. One of the most healing foods in the world. More on that to come in a later post, though.
Bacon burger and zucchini cakes, both topped with a homemade aeoli.
Tuna salad salad... with hardboiled egg, avocado, olives, and homemade vinaigrette
(I think this one's pre-whole-30 - due to the cheese. But you get the idea. We're not depriving ourselves too much over here.
We prefer to buy organic and grass fed or pasture raised meats when we can, and same with organic veggies, but sometimes the pocketbook isn't quite deep enough for that so we do the best we can in that department.
However, for my weight loss/low-carb purposes, I've also eliminated most fruit and the higher-carb starchy vegetables from my diet as well, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn (which might be eliminated already also).
Every now and then I'll have a little slice of an apple, or this morning I had a sip of my girlfriends ridiculously tasty smoothie haha... but that's about it.
Basically I'm trying to stay below 50g of carbs per day, which would be considered a very low carbohydrate diet so my body is forced to go into a state called ketosis and is forced to burn fat because it has run out of carbs.
In order to maintain this state of ketosis, you have to continually monitor your carb intake and not go above a certain threshold that will make your body begin burning only the sugar that you just ate.
This is a ketone test strip. It measures ketones in urine. As far as I understand, ketones are what is produced when your body is burning fat.
Mad Ketosis. Notice how dark it is. Been in ketosis for almost two weeks now, about a week and a half has been like this. Longest stretch ever for me so far. Going to keep it going. My goal is one year in ketosis.
It's a delicate little dance to do with your diet sometimes, but the results can be amazing.
And it has tons of health benefits, also. I'm not going to get into all of them right now, maybe in a later post...
I'm personally going very low carb because I've done this a couple times before and I'm somewhat experienced with it, and also because I like to see results in my body fast.
If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it all the way. That's kinda the type of person I just am.
So, if you're tying to go low carb I'd recommend starting with a few more carbs. 50-100 would be basically regular low-carb, 100-150 would be the higher range. Anything above 150 for most people and you've kicked yourself out of ketosis and you are no longer burning fat as your primary fuel.
What's really cool about being in ketosis is that it totally zaps your hunger because your body has a ready, steady, constantly flowing source of energy - your fat!
Mealtime comes around and I'm not even hungry most of the time. Usually I eat anyway, and I'm glad I did because I do feel like I need to eat still, but it's not this cranky, hangry, stomach-wrenching hunger that I used to get before much of the time.
It's just more like "Ah, I can feel my stomach is empty. It feels like I should put something in there, but I'm still ok if I don't."
It's kind of an odd feeling. You'll have to experience it for yourself.
Be aware though, it takes a little bit of time for your body to adjust to ketosis, if you're thinking of trying this. Not like you're really putting yourself in danger most of the time (however there are some specific conditions that ketosis can make worse, so if you're unsure please do your research. I'm definitely no doctor!)
But, in any case, usually it takes your body about a week or two, maybe three to really start adapting to burning fat as it's primary fuel instead of sugar.
I think the best comparison for it I've heard was this one:
Imagine you have a factory that makes cars. Say these are some Chevy's being made off in Detroit somewhere (or maybe China now, who knows...).
This factory making cars is like your body burning sugar.
One day the manager comes in and says "Ok, tomorrow we're going to start making iPhones."
You think that factory is going to churn out any iPhones on it's first day?
Probably not.
And the same goes with your body.
If you're like 90% of people in western civilization (and possibly the world) your body primarily runs on sugar, and probably has for it's entire life, unless you've purposefully done something like this already and gone on some sort of a low-carb diet before. It just doesn't really happen by chance very often. Its something you have to do on purpose in this day and carb-crazy age.
And while it may not take as long for your body to start running efficiently on ketones as it would take to swap out most of the machinery in a factory, it's the same sort of principle, and be aware that you might feel like crap and be tired as hell, cloudy, cranky, hungry, etc... for a couple weeks initially.
And usually this will pass. If it doesn't, try increasing your carb intake a little. Some people do better with a bit fewer carbs than others. You may be a person that does better a few more carbs.
I personally do pretty well on a low to very-low carb diet so far. I can't really speak from a long-term experience because the two weeks I've been in ketosis is the longest stint I've had in straight ketosis so far. But I actually feel pretty good now. It wasn't that way for the first few days.
For the first few days I was pretty miserable too, and I just wanted to quit.
I'm glad I've stuck with it this far though. I'm confident that I'll be able to do the whole "whole 30" - which is 30 days. After that
I'll probably start reintroducing certain foods here and there to see how I react to them.
I might stick with this diet even a bit longer though, however, also. It just kinda depends on how I'm feeling and how things have gone after the first 30 days is over. So we'll see.
So that's it for me now. Thanks for reading and checking out how my eating/lifestyle change is going! I'm going to be posting many more updates on a daily basis with lots of useful tips and tricks that I've learned along the way so please check back soon!