My Ketosis Experiment

Since everyone is relating their experiences, I thought I'd relate mine.

3 years ago when I was 60 years old I finally managed to get on track by getting into ketosis.

Duration: 6 months
Starting weight: 247
Ending weight: 195
Food eaten: coffee, heavy cream, water, pork, beef, chicken, liver (beef and chicken), eggs, fish, seafood, butter, coconut oil, lard, salt, pepper, onion powder (yes, no fruit or vegetables of any kind). Variety doesn't really matter when you don't feel hunger except when you are truly hungry.
Supplements: fish oil and D3 due to living up north where the sun has trouble appearing and when it does it's so weak it has no impact even if you could walk around in shirt sleeves, which you can't 6 months of the year.
Frequency of meals: coffee with cream in morning, dinner at around 6 pm. No snacking.
Excerise: Just walking although I did make excuses to walk more by taking another bus to work that would allow me to walk at least 1 km each way during spring, summer and fall.
What did I count? Nothing. Jumping on the scales every morning is all I did. No strips, monitors, macronutrient component percentages. Zip, nada, nil.
How I felt: I felt better than I did in my early 20's. I had energy to spare. If I had lost some more weight I could have probably done cartwheels. I was happy all the time, my arthritis disappeared with my migraines and depression. AND the biggest thing was no hunger.
Cholesterol tested at around 6 months in: My overall cholesterol was 182, HDL 65, Trigs 104. Ratio around 2.8. We are talking absolutely fantastic for a post-menopausal 60 year old woman who was still overweight at 195 lbs.
What brought me down? Chili powder. We need to keep things simple and I started my first experiment to my utter downfall.

Keeping it simple so that you don't worry and stress out about all those things is the secret. So now I'm starting all over again but at least I know what the key to my success was.

I'm so happy and lucky

Guess what I've been craving lately? Not wheat, not sugar, not pizza, not lasagna, not cookies or donuts. I've been craving steak!!!! The problem for me is that I don't have the proper equipment for grilling a proper steak and cooking steak at home is always a disaster. I've spent money on different types of grills, the Nu-wave, George Foreman's, some other brand, and they just don't do the trick for me and I can't tolerate the smell of beef cooking. I need to go out for steak. Unfortunately, trying to find a place that has a good steak and where I don't have to put up my car as collateral for a loan so I can afford this good steak, I'm at a loss to figure out how to proceed. I'm also trying out different restaurants here in town and we do have a Brazilian here which I have yet to check out. I keep hoping I'll find a reasonably priced place that serve a good steak without bankrupting me.

No suggestions please about grilling on the balcony. It's minus 15 degrees outside and there's snow out there as well. I don't want to restrict my steak eating to only a few months in the summer :P

So, let me get this straight!

A whole lot of nastiness going on in the bloggersphere. My thoughts are:

I blog about diet and authors and books. Since those are important to me, I can say whatever I want on my blog. People can agree or disagree that is also their choice. Also, bear in mind that English is not my first language.

My blog list remains as it is until I find someone I enjoy reading and feel I can gain insight, entertainment and knowledge to my own life from reading their blogs. I have also been known to remove people whose opinions have changed and I no longer feel they have something to contribute to my knowledge or they are going against my values or opinions (S.G. and K.H. to name a few). They are still free to say anything they want on their blog, I just don't go there anymore.

I don't like podcasts so if you do podcasts exclusively it's not that I don't like what you are saying I just don't have you on my blog list.

All this business is starting to get out of hand somewhat like religion which is something I never discuss. However my son adopted a new religion and he tried several times to enlighten me until I told him that I was happy that he found something that made him as happy as I felt with my beliefs. I'm an agnostic leaning towards atheism. That seemed to work and he hasn't touched upon the subject since.

If certain bloggers are going out of their way to harrass others by email or on other's blogs, then it should be made public/known in a dignified fashion even if it is to just say "Fuck Off, " then leave it at that. Stooping to their level by dragging it out does not endear me to anyone using these tactics.

Personally, I don't mind a "wee" bit of drama but it's over the top now.

For those who want to be grammatically correct, Ukraine is a country. It's not "the" Ukraine. It's just Ukraine.

A Joe Barley Mystery

I have discovered a new Canadian author that I felt it my duty to comment upon.:

Title of book: The Kidnapping of Rosie Dawn, A Joe Barley Mystery

Author: Eric Wright, former Professor, Chair of English Department and Dean of Arts

Main character: Joe Barley, English Language Arts Sessional Instructor and Part-time Detective (to supplement his meagre Sessional Instructor pay)

Joe Barley's live-in girlfriend Carole:  Loves to read and works her entire life, career and social life around her reading and how it relates to her reading (sounds a lot like me)

Joe's militant sessional-instructor activist colleague: Richard

Not to mention that the work is short and extremely funny. You don't have to work in academia to love this book. I am now reading two of his other books and he's written many.

Ancient Egyptians ate a heart healthy diet of grains

The media seems to think that our modern lifestyle may not be entirely to blame for all our health concerns because ancient egyptian mummies had clogged arteries. Think again.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/03/11/mummies-heart-disease.html

According to wikipedia

"The cuisine of ancient Egypt covers a span of over three thousand years, but still retained many consistent traits well into Greco-roman times. The staples of both poor and wealthy Egyptians were bread and beer, often accompanied by green-shooted onions, other vegetables and to a lesser extent meat, game and fish."

So it looks like the ancient egyptian diet was heavy in grains, medium in veggies and low in meat. Plus they liked their beer. Sounds like a modern lifestyle to me.

The truth is filtering through slowly

A must read:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/03/08/f-vp-crowe-big-sugar.html

I'm glad this is finally coming out, a little late maybe but welcome.

Sugar Industry Secret Documents unearthed. The 1st or 2nd nail in the coffin.