OXtoberFest ZC Challenge


(Edith) #341

Hold on to yourself. You can make it through.


(Alex) #342

@Bubby1 The appetite affects of zoloft seem to usually last a week or two. Maybe it’s a blessing if it helps you need less of the carby food?
I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must be to be in your shoes at the moment. The closest I’ve come to having no control over my food or time is staying with my parents for the holidays and that’s obviously not the same because I could leave and sneak my own food from the shops! Sounds like you’re doing the best you can to cope with all this, I think I would have snuck off the cafe too :slight_smile: can’t be worse than what they’re feeding you!
We’re here if you need to get your feelings out :heart: and hopefully less scary than the nurses!
Digital hugs.


#343

wow that area is just beautiful. and that explains your wild weather! I lived up North in NJ, CT, MA, NH and then down to NC and I know snow but you getting that much now and so unpredictable, your snow load beats mine in my life HAHA

Your post was really great SB. Explains alot about how you are approaching what it takes to change up your life and make this all work for you and not against you, using what suits your life to make your eating style fit you personally. Thanks for sharing that background because it puts more into perspective when one reads what another is doing and says, hmmm, but in the end, we all have life baggage and tragedies and more we are dealing with and confronting this stuff and making changes is such a strength! I am so happy you are working on yourself like I do :slight_smile: and want to change things up for your self care and well being. Making it work any way you can that is positive!

Meat really is a way to pain free living with joint pain and such. Love that statement!!

that was darn funny B! had me laughing! but damn, sorry you have it rough in hospital right now. Just hang in there truly. They will get you sorted and that takes some time but once there, you will feel better and get a grip on how your recovery will go! Hold strong my friend!! Sending you the best well wishes for a good recovery!


#344

I ate great yesterday

1 lb NY strip steak
burger patty
another steak, but smaller size, 10 oz one. hate those darn thin cut steaks I bought but hey in a pinch :slight_smile: eating up from the freezer, down to the last few thin cut ones.
taylor ham
leftover chicken from that big roaster I made earlier

but damn if I didn’t have cravings thru the roof last night.
tired and bored. I just wandered the kitchen wanting to eat my kid’s crap stash of everything. Luckily she eats crap I hate. She hasn’t asked me to buy anything me and her liked from before, so luckily the crap that is in the house is stuff I will never eat anyway :slight_smile: So that helped me alot. Then it was later in the evening and I so wanted french fries and more but I hate cooking LOL and to me it means ‘work’, a 4 letter word here, haha, and I wasn’t gonna put in the effort to ‘cook something off plan’ to eat so in the end while I was rummaging thru the kitchen trying to find crap to eat off plan, I munched on some salami, nibbled some cheese chunks, ate a few beef sticks and by the time I did that, I talked myself out of eating any crap LOL I haven’t had a kitchen snack attack like that in a long time. I think being over tired and bored truly put my mind right there, when in doubt eat snack crap cause there is nothing else to do LOL So in the end, I got thru fine. My little foray into wanting to cave didn’t last long and all good in my thoughts this morning, but darn, I hate little attacks like this. Pain in the azz ya know.
But years on plan now has taught me I don’t have to go there :slight_smile: and I just know I don’t have to cave so I just go thru the motions sometimes wanting to cave, in the end I don’t, and move on :wink:

be good all. today I feel like I am gonna have to eat bigger. Got me 3 steaks defrosted for today. Last night I thought, hmmm, me best have ALOT of beef to tackle if needed. So I grabbed 3 steaks from the freezer as a go to today if for any reason I require big yummy eating.

hit the road, visit mom, do some errands etc. and home to a big old steak later. So far, so good for me.


(Kellyn ) #345

I also find myself wanting to eat when bored or over tired. I usually just grab a coffee with cream though because when this happens I am at work and I don’t have any meat to eat. I have been lucky so far that when this happens there is no junk food around the office. Sometimes patients or coworkers bring cake, cookies, or doughnuts. I’ve been eating this way for 3 months now so sweets have no hold on me anymore. I just get my water or coffee and walk past. I am confident that if I did get that bored feeling here I would abstain as I have the forum here to keep my mind on my goals and health. I do know my weakest moments in the past 3 months have been special occasions. I think in the future I just need to plan more and not get into the mentality that “this doesn’t happen often so why not indulge”.
I love that you started carnivore snacking while looking for carbs to eat and then just through the cravings. This is actually a good tip for all of us in that the occasional craving will go away if we just push through and eat carnivore instead.


#346

Well, we didn’t get the snow that was forecasted. Duluth got it instead. Once the storm headed across the lake, it split- and just like Moses parted the sea, so it was with the clouds! Some went north of us, some went south - we escaped! LOL!

Eats yesterday.
Triple Liquid Chicken
Ground beef and cheese for lunch
Massive chunk of chuck roast with butter for dinner.

Worked a 9 hour shift, got a lot done. Gotta clean up the house now as we have company coming for dinner/bible study. Just 2 people, but still. Never know when you’re entertaining angels! =) Love them like their my own brothers!

@Fangs . … It is SO WEIRD how those craving things hit us! I’ve had the same thing happen now and then, and cannot explain it. (Hormones, maybe?) Thank goodness we have cheese and meatsnacks! LOL!
Emotionally, the last 10 years have been a tough row to hoe. But, losing my brother- watching him succumb to his lifestyle -was the final straw that broke this camel’s back. Sometimes, that’s what it takes to break a lifetime of bad habits. Hate that I had to learn the lesson that way, but here I am. And, the cool thing is now - I’m not only healthier - but 2 very close friends of mine watched that progress, and went the same route. One has lost over 35 pounds, and the other has lost at least 100 pounds. I hadn’t seen the second friend in a while, and then saw her for the first time around a month ago - and WOW WOW WOW! She hugged me, and said “you’re my hero”. Never had anyone say that to me before, and it made me cry. This sounds weird, but I am so thankful now for all that I’ve endured and how I chose to handle it. If my brother’s death was the impetus for me to get healthy, and other people catch on and become healthier because of the change they see in me, then praise God.
(Meat snacks disappear faster now that my youngest has decided to stay on track with Keto. Gotta say, she has done pretty well, all in all. I think she’s dropped around 10-15 pounds in the last month of doing this. She was growing WAY too fast and gaining, recognized it, and made the decision to try Keto all on her own. So far, so good. She is not completely carnivore, and did not intend to be. So, she will buy her Rebel ice cream, Atkins coconut bars - both for treats once in a while. And then, focuses on LC veggies, meat and a little cheese. Dairy contributes to acne big time with all of my kids - so they all try to limit it when possible. )

Its not a problem for me if she doesn’t do carnivore - in her mind, its just another step she will strive for later.

After yererday’s clean eats, I feel really really good this morning. So, better get at it! Have a great day all!!!


(Alex) #347

Hey SB, thanks for sharing today. I think one of the hardest things for me is letting go of the fact that the knowledge I have now could have possibly changed the outcome for someone I loved. It’s lovely that you’re turning the pain of loss you’ve experienced into a passion for helping yourself and those around you. Your reasons for finding this lifestyle are similar to my own, even if our current lives are in very different (we’ll be lucky if we see any snow this year!). Hope you have a great day too!


(Alex) #348

hey guys, I’ve been a bit of a plonker today.

Woke up at 3.45 after a nightmare where I was having an allergic reaction and my throat was too dry to swallow an antihistamine and I didn’t have any water. (think the histamine thing is getting to me a bit).
I’m working on a job application at the moment and I was super tired and my little tired brain decided coffee would give me energy.

Now I don’t drink coffee because a) it causes me to have panic attacks and feel like I’m dying, and b) i struggle to manage electrolytes when it’s my system.

Tired monkey brain forgot that and when the first one made me less sleepy after twenty minutes I decided to have another one. An hour later I’d gone for a wee 5 or 6 times and then I started having heart palpitations, started to panic and tried to calm myself with breathing techniques. Struggling to think I ended up taking a swig of rum neat which was enough of a shock to stop me dissociating. Still having crazy heartbearts, kinda weak and then a couple of really strong ones, weird rhythms, fun stuff.

Grabbed a burger out the freezer and nuked it in the microwave. I felt like I needed to raise my blood sugar gently so I munched half the burger while I heated a couple of pieces of cauliflower, and then ate the other half with cauliflower mash and butter and salt, and had 2tbsp of frozen berries after. Then did some yoga to try and stay calm while I digested.

Thankfully this seemed to work, my heartbeat stabilised and was a lot stronger, and eating the half a burger first seemed to prevent a spike in blood sugar.

2 hours later and I still feel like everything is wrong with the world and like someone’s watching me. Bloody caffeine! A curse on all your beans!

Anyway, just needed to rant about the shambles of a day I’ve had so far. It’s not been strict zc but I did the best I could with limited brain function. Looking forward to a much less panicky burger for dinner and I’m gonna do some electrolyte water for a couple of days as I feel super dehydrated still.

Patiently waiting for my glorious inner peace and joy to return. :grimacing:


(Edith) #349

Yesterday, was a good carnivore day.

Lunch:
Canadian bacon
hamburger with 20% organ meat mixed in
an egg
bone marrow spread on some pork rinds

Snack: beef stick

Dinner was 2.5 big bratwurst

Today has started out well, too.

Breakfast was a beef stick, two eggs, some beef bone marrow spread on a few pork rinds.

The beef stick started off as a snack to tide me over until lunch time, but I decided I might as well just have a whole meal.

I would still like to work on getting away from processed/aged meats, but they’re so so darned convenient.

Dinner is going to be chicken fricassee. My kids love that. I, of course, will only eat the chicken.:innocent:

@Alexaar, It sounds like caffeine is a poison for you. I hope the it leaves your system soon.
My body seems to clear it out slowly. Even a small amount in the morning messes with my sleep. I try to drink it only when I’m driving long distances.


(Alex) #350

That sounds like an epic carnivore day! how was the bone marrow spread on pork rinds? Not something I’d even thought of but sounds yummy.

Caffeine is definitely a poison for me :frowning: I already knew it but now I’ve had it in isolation when I was feeling well it’s really driven the point home to see just how many of my body’s systems it’s messed with. Salt levels are off, skin is dry, headache, my knee pain flared up for the first time in ages, stomach pain, plus all the anxiety and existential mehness.

It sucks now, but I’m kinda grateful for the experience because it’s changed how I see caffiene from a bad choice for me to just a definite non-option.

Had another butter burger and starting to feel less jumpy :slight_smile:


(Edith) #351

A nearby grocery store sells a package of marrow bones cut into about one inch thick slices. I just fried them up in a pan, sprinkled with salt. I just scooped it out and plopped it on the pork rind. I thought it was pretty tasty, but it wasn’t that much. It maybe equaled a tablespoon or two.


(Keto Koala 🐨) #352

@Fangs Poor old lady thinks her husband is in the room… And thought I was her daughter… And thinks it’s 1972. I snuck out and bought her and the other lady a plushies sloth each. What’s with bloody sloths.:see_no_evil:. I sent Shinita three of the damn things… Lol. But i got get well cards… And a Thank you card to the hospital . They will probably think I’m a freaking weirdo… well I am.:upside_down_face:. I had chicken salad last night… I mainly ate the chicken. Roast beef is for lunch I think. :heart:.


#353

Day #24 One week left on this challenge.

Riding through a rough patch. Even tough love from Fangsy has only had a limited effect.

I can see it in the posts from start to now. 25 posts in 24 days. It’s a compliance thread for me. Intended to do beef, salt, water carnivore. That broke at about day #3. Coffee drought broke the day before that. Realisation that I am addicted to somethings occurred at the same time. Dairy snuck back etc. I don’t need to re-live it.

Yesterday I had sausage meat that I am sure had some kind of spicy carb filler (that doesn’t happen when one just eats meat), chicken and salad, including avocado and a taste of a cake. I reckon it’s a hangover from the wagon fall 2 days ago at the gas station on the long drive home. It releases the demons and they speak to me - scientifically that would be put as the carbs changed my gut biome and now the increased population of carb loving bacteria are communicating with my brain. Then worked all day.

I thought I would fix it last night and ate a big fillet steak and two eggs with rain water as the drink.

At 2am this morning I was woken with heart palpitations and increased heart rate. I started dosing magnesium and some pink salt. slept some. At 5am the rate had slowed but the arrhythmia persisted. More magnesium. I keep oral dosing to gut tolerance. At 8:30am only the occasional jolt in my chest. I had a large cup of warm salty chicken broth and a long, relaxing hot shower while doing breathing exercises. I have emerged from the shower back to normal.

I have to digest what happened. But going off the plan provides cautionary tales to anyone who reads this, as well as a strong learning experience for me.

The horse is waiting. I’ll go and get on it again. The beauty of having a plan, even if you go off it, is that it is there waiting to go back on it, when one is ready to ride again. That is much better than trying something, failing, and then being lost as what to do next. This has been another important lesson learned this OXtober Fest.

3 eggs with bacon coming up as mid-afternoon breakfast. But checking in with myself, I don’t feel hungry. I know Fangsy would say to take a carny test bite and re-evaluate that lack of hunger.

There’s a big football game tonight and the outlaws are coming over to watch it. I am kicking myself that I didn’t think to get wings!

Looking forward to “NoExcuseVember”. Or, “NoCarbVember”… getting in early on the brainstorm.

Need to have a closer look at this as well: Feasting-mimicking diet for carnivores


(Alex) #354

I love this, it’s exactly the sort of internal diatribe I have going on about how I feel vs how my brain understands the science.

As someone who also has heart rhythm issues, I gently recommend you keep aiming for a coffee drought. Caffeine seems to completely dysregulate the way my body processes water and salts, as well as supress my appetite, and I can’t help but feel it’s not helping you reach your goals.

Glad you’re back on plan and feeling better :slight_smile:


(Edith) #355

I wonder about the same thing myself. My caffeine source was Diet Coke which goes right through me. I’ve been considering the idea that drinking the Diet Coke contributed to my electrolyte trouble on keto.

Since I’ve been Diet Coke free this month I tried stopping my salt, Mg, and Ca for several days. Last night my muscles started tightening up and I took some Ca (via eggshells) and Mg citrate. It’s amazing how quickly it helped.Bai for now, the supplementation continues.

On another note: I have a problem with dairy. If I eat it, it makes my joints hurt, especially my back, and gives me a painful itchy bumps on my scalp and back. (Yeah, just those places for some reason).

I’ve heard that ghee, because it’s been clarified, is okay for people with dairy issues, so I decided to give it a try, just for variety. Well, I’ve tried cooking with it twice now and both times, within an hour or so of eating it, I’ve had intestinal cramps and trips to the bathroom. So thoughts everyone: are the intestinal problems a reaction or just because my body isn’t used to the different type of fat in the ghee? I do have to add, that it does not seem to cause itching.


(Edith) #356

I like “NoCarbvember.”


#357

that is wonderful. when we pass on some helpful knowledge about health and more to others it is a wonderful feeling when they run with it and succeed. But only this can happen when the person receiving the information is open to that info and jolted enough to follow that info and make the results happen and it seems everything aligned for them. very good story to read SB and a great share! You are mastering your lifestyle to suit you and that is the best gift of all you can ever give yourself!

holy cow it was tough to read your post. You did go plonkers thru all that crazy. WOW on the caffeine reaction.

this is the big lesson here. you hit an elimination menu of zero carb and when adding something back, like this dreaded coffee, your entire system went off kilter, sounds like a horrible experience for you. NOW you know caffeine is a poison to your body. With reactions like that, I know you will never drink that crap again!! Learning is key on this plan, you learned the hard way, but key is you know what it does to you and that is always a great thing :slight_smile: Work thru it, you got this!!

I know, I know LOL the very few things I keep in my life, like my Taylor ham is just so darn convenient and I get what you are saying. I tried to dump the little I kept, and when I did try to do just that, I found it irked the heck out of me. My menu is so narrow now thru choice selection being on this plan that I can’t ‘voluntarily right now’ take out a few processed things I rely on just yet, might never. I decided I can’t put this limit on me, just yet, and heck I am longer term on plan LOL One thing I don’t want you to do is ‘stress out’ over this keeping a few processed meats in your menu. You ‘focus and stress’ over it TOO much it will become such a negative to you and will then just make the zc plan ‘seem unbearable and severely limiting’ MAYBE to you, and this won’t be good. Carefully low ingredient choice processed meats are allowed on zero carb if you do well on them, so be sure to cut yourself a mini break here on being ‘too controlling’ on this right now :slight_smile: Not saying this is a problem, but saying it could creep up on you this way, so just be mindful kinda thing :wink:

You are doing wonderful on carnivore!!!

---------guys caffeine got me with my heart PVCs and what else got me was the aspartame crap in my Diet Pepsi I was drinking. I read up on how to watch food intake with PVCs and caffeine was a huge flag trigger and then I switched to caffeine free diet pepsi and still I had tons of PVC episodes, and they are darn scary so I dropped all diet soda and boom, I improved immediately. That damn fake sweetener crap was my poison along with the caffeine so? Beauty of this carnivore plan, full elimination and when we add back like coffee that ‘seems innocent’ or slip by mistake with bad foods and our bodies react, wow that is direct info that you are sensitive and boy ya feel it :slight_smile:

So it is a learning journey. A path we all mostly go down. We eliminate and try again and BOOM, you either do great and are fine with that being added again or you suffer immensely and learn valuable information about your food and food/liquid reactions.

This is great chat on the board.

As one holds to a clean zc eating plan, you absolutely learn FULL truths about your body and what it can and can not tolerate. But this is all good information :slight_smile: All this we need for our better health journey!


#358

Nope, don’t need a re-live but you need one thing, a memory and lesson from it. You will find ZC will open up a ton of ‘issues’ and they are all not about what we eat…it is about why we eat and react and more. It is a carb addiction and it ain’t pretty for many of us. I was an addict to the max on the low carb hamster wheel of insanity. ZC got me off and gave results so I floundered around a long time til I hit one realization and it is a biggie. Do the darn zc plan as intended it should be done and hunker down the willpower, eat up as much great meat/seafood I required at all times and lean in low and put that shoulder forward and power thru like a darn linebacker!

See, for me personally. plans like very low car/keto/whatever name ya give it—meant I could have allowances. My carb limit was total 20g per day but I could easily ‘allow’ a heavier carb day when the addiction arose and I would go up to say 60g day and get a tad out of control, but I could then bring myself back to 20g eventually, but damage was done. All I did achieve was bounced out—again!—thru a plan mentality I could ‘control carbs’ but I never could control one thing…what they did to me. Until I accepted that part, I didn’t have a prayer. This is when I had to commit full on with zc to give me the chance to ‘see and feel’ what zc truths I could establish for me. Would it be good or bad? I found it was my savior point blank, but unless I hunkered down and did the plan as needed, I was never gonna get the chance to learn if zc would help me as it has, so again, personal choice on how you go at this.

Elimination plans like zc open up small fissures in our life that we DO SEE in full on truth. Now it is what do we do about them as we have to face them :slight_smile: I had to face it and damn it was a friggin’ hard row to sow for me also but I made it and am thriving for my work I put into myself. We all got it in us!!

I love this!!! It is very true. When we juggle a plan with carbs we can play so much more, and sneakily get away with it ya know, but on a plan like zero carb. Carnivore is it. We eat NO carbs. So our plan when we do grab back on is very simple. But this means nothing unless one eats, eats eats as needed when we start this plan. Without that, one will be on the off/on cycle a long time. Ask me how I know this HAHA Only when I accepted to eat til full, any and all times I needed it is when I flourished! When I ‘tried to control’ my appetite and more, I would find failure. So…learn learn learn thru the hard times, success is right around the corner on the next time you put your efforts into play!!

will have to go see what this is about :slight_smile: no time to read it yet either.

BUT ONE THING----you haven’t mastered staying ON plan long enough to even get real changes from the plan, so what is important now, very very important now is you do not tweak, mangle, manipulate YOUR zc eating at all. Keep it as super simple as possible without brain info overload…eat all you want when hungry to full satisfaction, don’t eat when not hungry but do not allow yourself to go too long without eating ‘just cause we can’ :wink:. ZC when one starts is the most basic easy simple thing. EAT. Friggin’ eat any time you need it and never limit yourself. This is the whole darn key item about zero carb…which many find it to be the most misunderstood part of zc :slight_smile: People fail cause they do not eat enough. It doesn’t get any simpler than that for most new zc people. We see it over and over in failure on zc on the strict zc forums. You come in with ‘dieting’ baggage and apply it to zc and boom, it hurts the plan terribly. Let go of all old info, just eat eat and eat more LOL I can’t scream this out enough for new people coming onto this plan.

FB it is hard to see real truths. I know, I walked them. Key to it all is when you know what is happening, what are you going to do to tackle those issues? I have a personality while I could flounder in self pity and cry life is unfair and all that, and boy I did do that HAHA, in the end my personality finishes with ‘I am going all in’ and fighting a darn battle cause this won’t win over what I want to achieve. We move forward and fight a tad harder and learn more thru our failures and turn all that crap into victories!

and I am with VE! I am liking NoCarbvember for sure. We are a group, a small one at that LOL but we are a darned determined group to find our health thru this journey and we are not walking it alone at all…we are a group running this race :slight_smile: A great one at that too!! :sunny:


#359

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, @Fangs!


#360

So nice! October is when many of us started this challenge!! and here we are with an anniversary date! Love it and thanks!!!