Ilana's beef binge buster thread

(mole person) #222

I think that your test strips are probably fine and those numbers are really quite optimal. To me they say that you are eating a very good diet. Not too high in total calories, not too high in protein, and with good amounts of fats.

I’m actually very impressed that such numbers are achievable while still having some carbs in a diet. You’ve taught me something now! If I can ever get my health back to where I can tolerate more plant matter I may try to achieve what you are currently doing. I wouldn’t mind a couple of vegetables on my plate from time to time in the future again.

It’s fine that you can’t test for a few days. It’s more important to test when you change something to see how it affects you. We’ve seen now how good your numbers are when you are doing things right. I don’t test every day either.

(Diana) #223

So today, I had exactly 1 cup of frozen spinach (measured prior to warming). The pork shoulder, 2 tablespoons of tallow (that accumulated on top of the chili). I’m feeling an itch to just finish off my meal with something…usually this would have been nuts/seeds or a piece of dark chocolate…trying to get it together.

(mole person) #224

That sounds like a great meal. I doubt a square of chocolate is as bad as the pumpkin seeds. Maybe if you find it too restrictive put two or three squares aside as a weekly quota. I can’t do this myself. I’m unable to stay away from finishing the entire bar. but you seem to have better self-control than I do so it may be a possibility for you.

I do find it easier to deal with when these items aren’t in the house though. I use the mindset of an addict. I tell myself everyday that these items are always a choice that I can make but I don’t need to have any today.

(Diana) #225

Weight exact same as yesterday. I did work out last night for 2 hours (1 hour weight class and 1 hour cardio class). So perhaps some of it is inflammation, at least that’s what I’m telling myself so I don’t get deflated. Or I’m over-eating…today, this is the plan. I’m going to try and push myself to not eat until dinner, however, if I get hungry i’ll have 2 eggs with some fat, then dinner will be a ribeye with half cup mushrooms. No seasonings, no nothing.

I just keep looking at your progress, and I know we are not supposed to compare our journey to others, but I keep thinking I’m doing something wrong. Maybe I am eating too much…

(mole person) #226

First of all two hours of exercise will cause inflammation. Don’t worry about that. It’s good for you. But be aware that you can’t expect losses to be visible the day after. And often for longer especially if soreness persists.

But you also have to realize what sort of losses are reasonable to expect, or even want, when you are so close to your goal already. Any really rapid weight loss would indicate that you are overdoing the caloric restriction. For the last five pounds a slow trickle is ideal. Be happy with .3 to .5 pounds a week. Those would be excellent results.

I can promise you. My last 5 lbs were not fast at all. Trust the process. If you see the scale going the wrong way for a few days we can can re-evaluate.

But keep in mind exercise really will affect scale weight. Sometimes for days. But it all comes out in the wash eventually since if your losing fat it will all show when the inflammation subsides.

(Diana) #227

Okay. I trust you…I will keep moving forward and stay on plan.

I guess the most recent summary In your thread was after you had already lost weight and then regained just due to the vacation. So you were getting back to status quo and it wasn’t the initial loss, hence faster perhaps. I know you’re right and i want this to be a permanent loss, not just water weight. So even if it’s slow I’ll take it.

(mole person) #228

Oh my goodness. Yes! I didn’t realize you were comparing my post cheat losses to your own. Let me explain the difference in detail.

I never cheat that badly or for that long. Mostly I’m off plan only when I visit with family. So take for example my worst cheat this year. Mostly I was still doing my regular diet but my aunt had nuts in the house and as the days went by my will to avoid them deteriorated. So I ate quite a lot over the last four days. I also had a tiny amount of white wine nightly and a couple of squares of chocolate. But think about it. How much actual fat do you think someone can put on doing that for so short a time? I’m guessing not much more than a pound.

So what’s the rest; since I probably came back up at least 6 pounds? It’s a few different things all of which disapear at different rates.

  1. Inflammation. Nuts kill me. I swell up a lot.

  2. Liver glycogen. This takes two to three days to deplete again after you’ve had a bunch of extra carbohydrates. Glycogen holds enormous quantities of water with it and so as you lose it you are losing that initial keto water weight all over again.

  3. Muscle glycogen. Same as liver glycogen but it decreases slower as you do exercise over the coming days.

Thus by 8 days or so post cheat I will have lost all the weight that wasn’t fat and maybe some of what was added fat. But the fat was only ever a small fraction of the total and it responds slowly. Maybe a tenth of a lb a day or so.

When you changed your diet that first day and saw that big 1 lb shift, that’s what you were seeing too. Almost all of that was going to be from shifting glycogen loads.

So don’t compare. Real fat loss is slower. Always. Your body can literally only do so much.

(Diana) #229

Update:

Yesterday I broke my fast after 28 hours, I was hungry at 24 but not near food so had to just push through. Dinner ended up being half cup of cauli rice with salt, a T-bone (I did not eat the filet part just the other side) with one easy-over egg. I was worried the meat wasn’t fatty, so I added a tablespoon of rich olive oil and also had a small serving of pork shoulder to top…

by some magic, I’m down a full pound since yesterday :slight_smile: :smile: :):grinning:

Goal today is to keep it up, I’m waiting on my next grass fed beef delivery, so today plan is bacon and eggs :slight_smile:

(mole person) #230

See? This is important. No one at our size can actually lose a pound of fat overnight. So what this is telling you is that over the last couple of days you have been consistently losing fat but it’s been masked by scale variance from inflammation and water weight.

(Diana) #231

Reporting in…I went according to plan (2 eggs, 4 pieces bacon, 1 level cup of frozen spinach with 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease). Off plan I did have 1 serving of pork rinds, and in the evening I was making dinner for my husband and I wasn’t starving, but just felt like eating so I went against what I know which is don’t eat unless hungry and I did eat 1 can of sardines. I know, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just 150 calories but it does cause an insulin spike and it was not necessary as I wasn’t truly hungry…maybe just looking for a snack.

Well all that and I’m down .1 pound. It’s still something…I am seeing my stomach is a lot flatter. :slight_smile: That progress needs to start moving to my thighs which is the problem area.

But hey I will take the .1 loss. I didn’t work out last night, I normally do. I took the night off as I wanted to see if my loss would continue and if I was perhaps causing too much inflammation with my workouts. But I was proven wrong…also working out in evenings keeps me from snacking. As I really snack out of boredom.

Lastly, I realized I never replied to your one statement about me having strong willpower and only eating 1 piece of chocolate. Honestly, I do NOT know where this came from and I strongly credit my keto diet. I used to have major major sugar addiction. I was the opposite of keto, my diet was so high carb it was insane. I rarely ever ate protein, it was breads, pastries, FRUIT to the heavens as I LOVE fruit and miss it so much, desserts, desserts, desserts, ice creams. But once I truly made it over the hump of keto and truly adjusted, I can now safely make desserts for my family (as I’m the baker and carry on traditional recipes from my grandma) and not even taste test. For a while I was ‘cheating’ technically by making the keto friendly desserts, but I have stopped and I’m holding strong thus far. don’t want to jinx myself.

My ideal world…ideal…would be to get myself to where I want to be (you’re helping :)), and then be able to maintain that and have a serving of fruit here or there, and a sweet potato sometimes. Those are the things I miss the most…I love my fruit (watermelon, strawberries, peaches) and then a sweet potato sometimes.

My ketone strips arrived today, I’m going to try and hold firm until dinner but I’ll report in later. Happy Friday!!!

(mole person) #232

Don’t worry about working out. Inflammation doesn’t prevent fat loss. At worst it’s just preventing the fat loss from showing on the scale for a day or two (or sometimes, if you really torture your body in a workout, even longer).

Just keep in mind that at your stage you cannot expect to see scale losses every day. Make a graph and watch the line move week to week. That’s a much more reasonable metric.

I was a fruitaholic as well. I thought it was healthy, but it was actually what made me put on thirty pounds…lol.

I keep my fruit down to a few times a year now. Pretty much as often as I have ice cream…lol.

With respect to the food, you’re right that you want to minimize the insulin spikes. Nothing is wrong with pork rinds or sardines but you want to be hungry, and when you are hungry, you want it to be a single larger second meal rather than two smaller snacks. Basically if you aren’t ready to sit down to a proper plate of food it’s best not to eat at all. Always. Snacking is the absolute enemy of weight loss.

(Edith) #233

And… as you go through your monthly cycle you will have days when the scales go up due to the hormonal changes. Unfortunately, keto doesn’t make that go away. At least, it didn’t for me.

(mole person) #234

@VirginiaEdie An extremely good point that I tend to forget!

(mole person) #235

On the subject of body weight fluctuations even while losing fat I found this on another thread. @Karim_Wassef is doing a very long water only fast. I think he said he’s shooting for 19 days or more (his last record). Karim is pretty outstanding about keeping data on his self experiments.

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Now note that between day three and four his weight actually increased by 0.2 pounds. Of course he lost fat that day. It’s literally not physically possible that he didn’t since the body must have fuel. So never stress about these very short term backwards pops. Your body is doing other things at the same time as losing fat and some of them cause short term increases in weight.

(Edith) #236

You’re such a good mentor @Ilana_Rose.

(mole person) #237

Aww, thank you @VirginiaEdie. :hugs:

(Diana) #238

She is indeed!

(Diana) #239

Checking in for today.

Weight is the same.
Just checked my stats as I will need to have 2 smaller meals today as I’m going out with some friends and cannot wait until the late dinner.

Ketones 4.0
Glucose 63

I’m getting a headache and figured I should go ahead and eat now. So made a hamburger patty with some salt. Also am having a electolyte drink (it has some stevia but otherwise very clean and no carbs). I’m hoping this evening the restaurant has a special as otherwise there aren’t many high fat options. I did see a burger option so may need to do that. It’s just such a late dinner not sure how hungry I’ll be.

(mole person) #240

Your numbers are perfection! Have a fun night out!

(Diana) #241

Sad report but one of my own doing. I’m up 1 lb. as noted I ate before going out however it wasn’t a huge meal. The restaurant got delayed so we had to wait at bar and ordered appetizers. I ordered some shrimp which I didn’t realize had cream sauce until I was eating it. So that was insulin spike 2. Then our table was finally really at 9:15…I ordered pork shoulder appetizer and had about half of my husbands pork chop. I did have 1 vodka soda. Unfortunately, I wasn’t full and I was upset so when I got home at about 11 I had half a bag of pork rinds. Those officially are getting put away today and out of sight. I feel so defeated…today I’m making a huge prime rib that will be my food for the week. But still feel defeated.