Image: moon rise at the beach last night.
Went off plan. Back on plan. I can feel the difference.
Plan slip was due to travel (to the city) for a work meeting about workload for 2022 with my line manager. We agreed best to do it face-to-face, as it was important to communicate well. We can all see what happened to @Karen18 when a robot sends a letter.
So, I drove 3 hours to the city to arrive at 9pm on a Sunday night. I’m going to write it out here. Hopefully to learn from. I had eggs and bacon afternoon breakfast. At the fuel stop I started the slip. Not hungry, but driving is inherently, physiological stressful, I bought a packet of something at the pay counter. “Packet of something” is the red flag. It was pork crackling. But we know they mass produce it deep-fried in cheap oil and then chemically flavour enhanced.
It triggered something, half an hour later I felt that I needed food. I wasn’t hungry. This was a craving. Red flag. I found a drive-thru takeaway chicken joint in a sad, grubby, little retail strip in a sad, grubby, little wayside town. The chicken was covered in flavourings on the skin. An hour later I felt nauseous as I drove, with an hour to go.
Arriving in the city I threw up on the front lawn of my brother’s house. The Labrador cleaned it up. Before I could restrain her. But I felt sad for her because of the toxins. My joints had become all stiff and sore, and I had a headache. Billie the Labrador seemed to not suffer any ill effects despite the toxin exposure.
Next morning, Monday, I still had joints flared up and a brain full of fog. ‘The horse’ was waiting and I climbed back on it with eggs and bacon that required me to show a COVID vaccination certificate. Checking my work emails, the line manager, at 10pm the night before, had changed the meeting to online. I could have stayed home.
It was a hot, summer day in the city. Too hot. I could hear the lemons boiling on the backyard tree.
It was a crap meeting. There was important stuff to talk about, but the manager’s internet connection made it so it was hard for him to hear my points. May have been a meeting tactic? I was delivering my prepared notes like a professional boxer introduces an opponent’s face to hooks and jabs. It was one of those stupid meetings where things remain unresolved and somehow I end up with more work to do. Would’ve been better face-to-face.
At Italian family dinner that night I had my once per month glass of home-made red wine that my 89 year old father-in-law makes. The plate was huge. It had beef, chicken and fish on about 50% and cooked garden vegetables mixed through a fresh summer salad in the other 50%, after we had a tiny plate (like a tea cup saucer) of fresh summer fruit.
I look at my parents-in-law, they came from a rural upbringing in the steep hills of Sicily, and they are as vigorous and bright as anyone in their early 60s, even though they are finishing up their 9th decade. They mentally spar with their teenage grandchildren and dispense love, family connection, and wisdom, as easily as they fill a plate with home-cooked goodness.
During apperitivo, pre-dinner nibbles, when the others have a small dose of mysterious spirits, I have water, my mother-in-law evasively swerved the main platter away from me with 4 types of cheese, chopped celery and carrot, and 3 types of nuts. But rapidly reappeared with a small platter of halved boiled eggs and cold cut meat. She apologised and admitted that Mrs. Bear, my wife/ her youngest daughter, had phoned and told her not to feed me cheese 
. It is hard for an Italian mother-in-law to restrict food.
I drove back down country roads taking me home yesterday, Tuesday. Broke fast, NoFUN, with 3 pasture fed chicken eggs and bacon cooked in butter. Powered through a lot of admin paperwork. Straightened out the manager above me but below my line manager on a few tasks. They offered me a promotion again. I said no. So, I got out into the summer sunshine and bucket watered our food forest. I could do it with a hose. But the 10kg buckets and mindful “farmer’s walk” (walking while carrying weight in both arms), is so satisfying. Back on the computer. After looking after the needs of the employees I supervise. It was time to take Billie the Labrador for a walk at the beach. It’s almost full moon, so we stayed a bit longer after dusk and played on the brightly moon-lit white sand beach. The summer night was warm, t-shirt and surf-boardshorts weather. It was a bit magical.
For dinner I ate an all-beef stew. Slow cooked beef cooked with beef bones and salt with added beef bone broth. Today I feel great. Reset after that failed trip to the city.
Moral: don’t eat anything from a packet. It’s the rolled carpet ridge you don’t see at the top of a flight of stairs.
Thinking about bathroom scales after chatting with @Alecmcq in other threads.
your wraps do look nice though.
Oh how wonderful it feels to be totally free of all that! This forum and carnivore has been totally liberating for me
) interspersed with 9 sets of 12 reps of sumo squats, for a total of 108. The whole thing takes me about 30 minutes. I would like to think the weight increase is due to building muscle mass, but my clothes actually feel like their getting tighter, not looser and my measurements are increasing, not decreasing. 
