Ahhh, back to normal

Foods Eaten: decaf coffee; cream; eggs; butter; Havarti cheese (organic); chicken; veal stock; duck fat; tiny bit of 85% chocolate (5 g)
Cal: 2218 Fat: 197 g Carb: 18 g Fibre: 1 g Protein: 92 g
Weight: 157 lbs

There's a relief in getting back to a routine. I do enjoy eating, but part of me really enjoys eating optimally. It makes me feel good and I'm really beginning to love and savour optimal foods. I crave fat. My calories have been a bit out of control lately, even while back on track, mostly because of all the carbs and food chemicals I've eaten this week. I've been starving today. I'm not even remotely surprised. I just have to flush my system out again and I'm sure everything will return to normal. Work has been stressful and new lately, so it has caused me to not be as diligent, eating-wise, but this must change. I can't keep screwing up - it's just going to make me sick.

So far, so good (and a slight epiphany!)

Foods Eaten: instant decaf coffee; 35% cream (not organic); brie cheese; eggs; unsalted butter; egg yolks; lard; salted butter; veal stock; duck fat
Cal: 2038 Fat: 193 g Carb: 13 g Fibre: 0 g Protein: 65 g
Weight: 155.5 lbs

I don't want to jump the gun, but I seem to be doing ok with dairy so far, even with the Brie cheese I ate yesterday and again this morning. I had 2 ounces each time. I know amines take a while to kick in, but it's my hope that the very very low carbs will help with my irritability factor. I was a bit cranky last night, but I chalk it up to the fact that not only did I have to drive in traffic to the laundromat, where I did 2 large loads of laundry, but we're also experiencing a heat wave right now that has the humidex listing as 42 degrees Celsius, which, honestly, would make even the happiest person want to stomp all over a litter of fluffy little kittens. Did I mention that we only have a crappy fan and a 40-year old window air conditioner that makes a sound like a jet taking off and just pisses out warm air? Yeah.

So anyway, I'm actually in good spirits this morning, partially because this office building is air conditioned, if not overly so (I'm wearing a sweater right now and considering the weather outside, that is just plain obscene), and partially because I just feel good generally. It was nice having my little ice coffee with heavy cream and hunk of Brie cheese for breakfast this morning. I felt positively French.

I've been reading Homo Optimus (I've finished Optimal Nutrition) and it's funny... the more I read it, the more I want to just embrace it as a whole. That Kwasniewski really knows how to rally the troops. If you ignore all the crazy religious stuff, what he talks about is totally scientifically sound and is, refreshingly, backed up with copious amounts of actual research and not just regurgitated science-propaganda. It even has me questioning Failsafe, as according to Kwasniewski, the Optimal Diet should take care of everything... food intolerances, chemical pathways, hormones... the whole shebang.*

Honestly, most of what he recommends naturally excludes most salicylates, anyway. He doesn't recommend very many vegetables and the ones he does include in his recipes are generally pretty failsafe (cabbage, potatoes, etc.). The one place where he deviates madly from failsafe is with amines. He seems to favour the amine-iest meats, offal and cheeses. Easier to break down by the body or hazardous crazy-makers? I'm not sure. I'm thinking that within the walls of the optimal diet, your body should be able to handle amines way more efficiently because of the lack of chemicals and salicylates. We'll see. Perhaps I'll be able to handle amines much better now that I've cut out msg, preservatives, colours and most veggies.

The interesting thing that I've discovered is that I think that AHOA has something wrong when it comes to the 'weight loss' ratio. I kept reading on their site that for weight loss, one should reduce fat intake to 1.5 - 2 g per every gram of protein because the body will be aggressively burning off its own fat supply, which supplements the missing fat in the ratio. But now that I'm reading the book, that is not the end of it. It's not just as simple as a reduction of fat and certainly doesn't mean a reduction in calories. AHOA (and Kwasniewski) talks about how after the first stage of being on the diet that protein requirements will fall and one should only eat 0.7 g of protein per kg of ideal body weight. However, Kwasniewski also consistently talks about never having to count calories or anything - that one should only keep one's ratio in mind and that the human body will always know how much food is appropriate and one should just listen to the body. So the idea is that one should just adjust the ratio for each meal to reflect 0.7 : 3.5 : 0.8 (or, in effect, 1 : 3 to 5 : 1 to 1.2) and then one should just eat until one is satisfied, as often as one's body feels it's necessary. The same applies for the weight loss ratio. One should adjust the ratio to reflect 1 : 1.5 to 2 : 0.5 and then eat until satisfied. Not counting calories. I mean all you have to look at is the menus he has provided for his patients at Arkadia and you'll see that even his sick obese patients where not encouraged to cut calories in any way, even though they were probably barely moving and very fat with very low metabolisms.

So, this new weight loss ratio results in the stated reduction in fat and a slight reduction of carbohydrate, but also, it means an increase in protein. Kwasniewski says the quantity of food and calories should not decrease and that one should never be hungry, which definitely indicates an increase in protein if the fat is to be decreased. You can't force the 'lack of appetite' that supposedly comes along with ON, which is what I was trying to do. I kept hearing people say that eventually you won't need to eat more than once or twice a day and that protein should be kept at a minimum, so I kept trying to jump to that stage without actually being ready for it. My hunger never really dropped because I think I reduced protein and calories too quickly. I tried for the weight loss ratio and the reduced protein ratio (and then tried to reduce calories) all at the same time, which is ridiculous and nowhere is it stated in the books that you should do that. That is not Optimal Nutrition as Kwasniewski describes it. I think I was trying to be too efficient and ended up sabotaging myself.

Right now, I'm just trying to do it right. It's time I actually followed this diet properly, if I'm claiming to be on it. I always worried about not limiting calories because I've been concerned that my hunger will take over and I'll gain weight, but if Kwasniewski's right, I should be able to just listen to my body and will slowly lose the weight I need to lose. I'm trying to just stick to the proper 'weight loss' ratio - including the increased protein - and then eat as much as I feel I need. Last night I was feeling very hungry at around 9:30 or 10 pm and trying to resist eating, but then decided that I should just eat something - not enough to stuff myself, of course, but enough so that my thyroid didn't start to get sluggish from being hungry all the time.

We'll see. Too bad the books aren't a bit more detailed in that department - it would erase a hell of a lot of confusion. I think that Kwasniewski likes to be a bit mysterious, though. He likes the idea of people arguing over what they think he means by this or that, just like Rabbis argue over different parts of the Torah!

*Edited in January 2008 to add: Notice that I'm questioning Failsafe, feeling good on dairy and aminey foods all because it's in the middle of summer and I'm able to tolerate those things better!

Liver!

Foods Eaten: Clarified butter; lard; eggs; egg yolks; dark chocolate (only about 5 g); duck confit; pate de foie gras; celery; cashew (only 1)
Cal: 1685 Fat: 144 g Carbs: 17 g Fibre: 1 g Protein: 79 g
Weight: 155.5 lbs

My liver craving has culminated in me going to a very high-end butcher shop and buying some foie gras! Oh my God was it good. While I was there, I also picked up some confit (they had it prepared and packaged (ingredients: duck leg, duck fat, salt and pepper). I'm sure the pre-packaging meant a lot of amines and there was pepper in it, but it was so good and so 'optimally' perfect, I really couldn't give a crap. I'd do it again!

Speaking of not giving a crap, my sweetheart has been given a gift of a $200 dinner at the restaurant of his choice. It has had me torn, but it's not often that I get to splurge in an expensive restaurant... partially because of cost, but mostly because I can't bring myself to cheat on purpose! This way, it's like I'm being forced into it :) We've planned to go tomorrow night and I'm still debating whether I should go just say 'to hell with it' and really enjoy whatever I'd like (with wine, which will kill me, I'm sure), or if I should try to at least stick to an optimal style diet but just cave in a bit on the Failsafe part of things. It is a French restaurant, which means that I probably could stay optimal if I really really tried hard at it and avoided things on my plate.

This sort of thing is so hard for me. I'm a chef, for Christ's sake. Eating and food is the absolute utter love of my life. I want so badly to just enjoy a full meal, the way the chef intended it to be eaten. Honestly, I want to have the tasting menu, which is, apparently, incredible at this restaurant. But then it really is a crapshoot. You never know what you'll get. They also have - get this - a seven course dessert. Seven fucking courses. Oh. My. God. I want it!

Even though they're puitting themselves at risk for a host of diseases by eating carb-laden foods all the time and straining their bodies, I do envy runners. They have such a high metabolism that they can eat whatever they like in any amount and still stay so slim. I know several of them. They eat like pigs and drink their faces off on a daily basis but are almost underweight, simply because they are 'addicted' to running 10 km or more a day. I can't run for more than one minute straight. Maybe I'll eat the tasting menu tomorrow, then try to work out really hard the next day to make up for it? Ugh, that sounds horrible. I'll decide tomorrow.

Cravings

Foods Eaten: Egg yolks; eggs; clarified butter; lard; rice flour; lard; chicken stock; chicken; potatoes
Cal: 1438 Fat: 135 g Carb: 20 g Fibre: 1 g Protein: 38 g
Weight: 156 lbs

I've been craving liver lately. Part of me tells me that my body needs it, seeing as it contains so many vital nutrients. Unfortunately, it also contains amines. Not sure how to handle this one yet. I had some bone broth yesterday because I was craving that and so far I'm OK. Of course, amines usually take a day or two to have their effect on me. I just feel like it's so counter productive that some of the most nutrient-rich foods are full of amines. And pork? The most suitable meat for human consumption, in Dr. Jan Kwasniewski's opinion, but full of amines that make me cranky. Do I sacrifice my health for my emotional well-being?

In Optimal Nutrition Dr. K even recommends that meat should be aged well before eaten - preferably turning brown. Either that or pickled, cured or processed in some way. He doesn't say why specifically, but I'm sure it's to do with his theory (that he mentions elsewhere in the book) that one shouldn't waste the body's energy breaking down foods if one can do it in advance in the kitchen, which is why everything should be well cooked/processed before eating. And I have to agree with his logic. Why on earth wouldn't it make sense for humans to function well on aged or slightly rotting meat? In a natural setting, pre-dating refrigerators, there would be lots of instances when meat would have to be consumed in a less-than-fresh state, or would have to be preserved (dried, cured, pickled) in some way, rather than go bad. People have been eating that way for millennia. It seems odd that the human body would react so poorly to amines when it is likely that one would be eating amine-rich foods on a semi-frequent basis.

By the way, when I ate chocolate I had no real ill-effects, except my forehead broke out in a rash. I find the vast array of symptoms that all these food chemicals cause almost amusing. It's like a guessing game... trying to figure out what horrible thing will pop up from this food or that food. Either way, I've been very bad lately and I must get back on track. I've also decided to give up methyl donors for now. Something tells me they're not making a positive difference in me and the time when I felt best on Failsafe was before I reintroduced supplements. I will continue to take Vitamin C and my calcium/magnesium/vit. D supplement, due to the lack of dairy in my diet. I may also continue the selenium, zinc and manganese, but I haven't decided yet.

Mmm protein

I finally received my copies of Optimal Nutrition and Homo Optimus in the mail yesterday. I'm still waiting for the molybdenum... what's the point if it takes this long to arrive??

Anyway, I haven't started reading the books yet (that's for this weekend), but I do recall seeing the following on the ON site in regard to weight loss ratios:

The main exception from that rule is the state of obesity. In such a case, the proportion between protein and fat should be changed to 1 : 2 in the initial period of 3-4 weeks (by the increase in protein and the reduction in a fat intake), in order to stimulate the catabolism of the stored fat. The amount of carbohydrate should be kept low, preferably at no more then 50 g/day. Subsequently, when the weight loss is well on the way, the amounts of protein and fat can be adjusted to the ideal proportion.

I find it interesting that it says that the ratios change by an increase in protein and reduction of fat, but doesn't say how much to increase the protein by. The implication is that one should not necessarily reduce calories, but just change the protein amount as well as the accompanying ratio.

Here's more:

There are many approaches to weight loss, new ones are invented all the time but the number of obese people continually increases. What then is the opinion of science regarding the effectiveness of these methods? Every dramatic reduction of food quantity markedly accelerates ageing, particularly of blood vessels. In the obese people treated with a diet containing 1200-1500 kcal and forced to exercise, the cloudiness of serum (hyperlipidaemia) increased even further. Low-calorie diets are ineffective in the permanent treatment of obesity. Low-fat diets cause an increase in lipid production, depression and overall exhaustion.The treatment of obesity with fasting is totally ineffective. The final result always failure. Fasting causes apathy, the lowering of the perception of morality, the lowering of mental abilities, asocial and egoistical behaviour. The dropping of the fast produces an improvement in mental numbness. Based on experiments with isotopes, it was shown that fasting, diuretic drugs or products derived from the thyroid gland cause loss of water and lean body mass with minimal, if at all, loss of fat.

It's funny, as crazy as his description of what happens to you when you fast is, I have definitely shown signs of all those symptoms: lowered mental abilities, antisocial behaviour... etc.

Now I've been eating a diet of approximately 1400 - 1500 calories per day with some (slight) success in reducing weight. This is also, however, the level of calories I was eating when my body decided to start gaining (prior to introducing the high fat element of LCHF). Only by increasing my fat intake was I able to stop the weight gain. I've tried eating within the proper ON ratios and not lost any weight that way - I've maintained just fine, but not actually lost weight. I have only been on the diet for just under a year, however, so I don't even know if I was on it long enough for my body to start the weight loss process.

I certainly don't want to negatively affect my blood vessels or my thyroid by cutting calories, but I don't see myself losing weight at 1800 to 2300 calories a day. I'm not supposed to use the weight loss ratio for more than 3-4 weeks. On top of that, I am not even obese. I am only about 20 - 30 lbs overweight. I'm sure Dr. Kwasniewski would not recommend that ratio for me at all, let alone for the 3 to 4 weeks. He'd probably suggest that the regular ratio will produce results all on its own. I wonder if you only get really great weight loss results if you go from a high carb diet to ON, like most people do, rather than from a different low carb diet to ON, like I did. I think if you don't have that initial water loss that comes from the introduction of low carb, your results aren't nearly as dramatic.

I'd better get reading to try to answer some of these questions.

Have I lost my way?

Foods Eaten: Clarified butter; eggs; egg yolks; peeled pear; cashews; lamb; cabbage; rutabaga; potassium salts; ascorbic acid; sodium bicarbonate; coral supplement; zinc supplement (to meet RDA); L-Methionine; TMG; Methylcobalamin; B6; Folic acid
Calories: 1729 Fat: 166 g Carb: 24 g Fibre: 3 g Protein: 44 g
Weight: 154.5 lbs

It occurs to me that Failsafe and even ON combined with Failsafe is not the be-all and end-all. There are so many other factors that can interfere with your own personal good nutrition. I figured that since I was still sticking to the basic principles of Failsafe and ON, that I should be OK. But really, I wasn't OK.

When I decided to give up dairy, I filled the carbohydrate-void with grains (flour mostly, but more recently oats). That would have been fine if I had been reacting well to grains before I gave up dairy, but the truth is, I have no idea how I was reacting to grains before because I never included them! The milk I was drinking was providing too many carbs and I had only trialled potatoes up to that point. So here I was, giving up one suspicious element and just throwing a different one in the mix. Thanks Emma, for noticing this!

So out go the grains. I never really felt like I should be having them anyway, since my Atkins "programming" had made me feel guilty every time I ate them. I'll miss them, I assure you, but for right now it's too important that I eliminate them until I sort things out.

So let's recap, shall we? No salicylates (fruit and veg), no amines (aged proteins, chocolate... etc.), no dairy (self-imposed due to cravings, possible hypoglycemic reactions and tell-tale dairy sensitivity symptoms, such as pale skin and undereye circles) and no grains. Part of me feels like this is absurd. But then I always feel slightly absurd. My partner suggested I was developing Howard Hughes-ian paranoia last night. I tried to assure him that it has always been there and that I'm actually doing much better now that I feel like I'm discovering why I'm such a mental case. It's a chicken/egg situation in many ways.

So the only remaining question marks (for now) are regarding supplements. Last night, I prematurely started on a copper-reducing cocktail of supplements that now I question after Emma's enlightening methylation post. I don't know if I should just go back to having nothing, or if I should just eliminate the ones specific to copper-reduction, since some of them are really methyl donors and may be helpful for me. [Edit: Impatiently, I picked some methyl donors up from the store and started them this evening. I figure if I'll know if I'm reacting to them pretty quickly.]

I feel pretty good today, by the way. And my weight is back down to the ever-faithful 154.5 lbs. Hilarious. Didn't get hungry until about 11 am again this morning. Had a bite of deliciously ripe pear instead of the oats or the flour. Yum.

Optimal Diet Ratios

Emma's post today about ON ratios is prompting me to pontificate about my own ratios.

When I started ON, I began with ratios of about 60 to 70 g protein: 210 to 230 g fat: 40 to 50 g carbohydrate (excluding fibre). I started dropping weight right away. Then I stalled. Then I tried reducing my fat a bit. Then I gained. This, of course, made me convinced that dropping the fat was a big mistake and I just couldn't get my head around the ON 'weight loss' ratio, as dropping the fat, for me, had made me put on pounds, not lose them.

It's now, later on, that I see that small fluctuations in my ratios were not the problem. My diet was still full of salicylates and amines. I was eating coconut frequently and regularly had aged cheese, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli, kale and asparagus... never ate potatoes or flour. I suppose Atkins had affected my opinion of these foods too much and I just didn't 'buy' the fact that they were the preferred form of carbate.

I was totally dumbfounded as to why I'd lose 3 lbs in a week, then gain them all back overnight for absolutely no reason. Needless to say, it was incredibly demoralising. I would blame minor fluctuations in my ratios... Maybe the protein/fat/carb is too high/low! I would blame a fluctuation as small as 2 or 3 grams as the culprit of a 3 lb. gain, which I now realise is totally ridiculous. I tried every incarnation of protein:fat:carb within the allowed limits, and even sometimes went outside those limits in the hopes it would trigger some consistent weight loss.

These changes in diet, especially when I would increase fat intake, would cause me to excrete more salicylates than usual, which would cause a temporary weight loss, followed by a chemical build-up, followed by weight gain, The weight fluctuations would worsen the mood that was already compromised by all the chemicals, so I was constantly miserable and paranoid about what I was eating.

I am definitely still struggling with my weight and my ON ratios. I do feel that, more important that anything else, consistency is the key. Changing my ratios every couple of days did not help and only caused me to obsess over them. I still do obsess, but am trying to resist tinkering with them. The fact that the reaction to the food I ate last saturday didn't even show up until 4 days after I had eaten it proves that even a one-meal deviation can cause ramifications well beyond what I had previously thought and totally explains why I have not lost the excess weight yet. I'm still having headaches and irritability from all that crappy food - why would my body be ready to bounce back weight-wise, yet? Still, I am discouraged all over again, sitting here at my old faithful 154.5 lbs, which is basically what I started out with before Failsafe.

Having said all that, I have decided to try reducing carbs a bit; I won't mess around with the protein and, if anything, I will keep fat high because I do feel my body still needs a great deal of healing. I had been sticking to the accepted 50 grams of carbohydrates, but now I wonder if that's just too high for my reactive hypoglycemia. I still experience hunger between meals and occasional irritability, which really shouldn't happen with the level of fat I eat. My protein is already quite low, as Homo Optimus apparently states that protein should be reduced to 0.7 g/kg of ideal body weight (which, for me, is 60 kg, according to my height) after the initial 3 months, or 'reconstruction' period, according to the AHOA. I would love to get a copy of Homo Optimus, but haven't been able to get my hands on it. I'm also mildly concerned about the quality of translation, which I've heard is a bit questionable.

More thought is still needed in this department - I'm just not sure which direction to go, or if I should just stick with what I've been doing. I'd started questioning dairy (which I'm still eliminating) and now I'm questioning wheat flour - not because I have any particular reaction to it, but because I have had a bad week and I'm looking to everything to try and explain why my body reacted so poorly (and for such an extended time) to this one indiscretion. Now I'm thinking... is it the flour in my pancakes? The 1 shortbread cookie I occasionally eat at night?

I can't possibly restrict my diet any more than I already have. I just can't do it.