(Click on image to enlarge.)
Breakfast: 6am
1 Chocolate Covered Strawberry Visalus Shake
Mid-Morning: 10am
1 Cheeseburger Patty (w/Green & Yellow Onions, Jalapenos, Black Pepper, Ketchup & Mustard)
32oz. Water
Lunch: Nothing.
Mid-Afternoon: 4pm
1 Sirloin Steak (w/Pepper)
32oz. Water
Evening: 8pm
1 Butterfinger Visalus Shake (I know,… I’m boring. But this flavor is addictive.)
(Click on image to enlarge.)
State of Being:
Good day today.
Got a couple friends started on their own 90 Day Challenges and heard the
amazing results of some others whom I got started almost 90 Days ago!
I Love that helping people get healthier is what I do for a living now. Just a few minutes of conversation with someone who has reached their goals since getting started is about the most satisfying and
(in a totally selfish way) validating things you’ve ever experienced.
In other news, I did something to my knee getting out of the backseat of a car today. It was a compact and the back-door was,
(this will only make sense to morbidly obese people) at an extreme angle to climb out of. It wasn’t really climbing out that did it, but
(here’s another one that only the very heavy will comprehend) that first awkwardly quick shuffle-step to correct my balance once I was standing, that did it. I felt a sharp “POP” and it’s been aching ever since. Also, the sole of my right foot keeps going numb. It’s very distracting.
I’m looking at some changes I can make to my diet in the next few days/weeks. I’ll go into this in more detail in tomorrow’s weigh-in video, but the gist is this… In the wake of my slipping-up and getting so sidetracked in the first few weeks of this current challenge, I’ve been looking at ways to make my diet a bit more livable.
Granted, some really big, potent sources of stress jumped out from behind a corner to waylay me with a sock full of doorknobs and buckles right as my first Challenge was ending and the second was beginning. But, stuff like that is
going to happen and I need to do everything I can to make sure that dietary-fidelity is not one of the first things burned on the altar of frustration, should it happen again. So,…
1. Reintroducing Pop.
(That’s “soda” to those of you not from Northeastern Ohio.)
Don’t freak out. I’m not doing it blindly. I’ve done my homework and there’s a very specific way I intend to do this. That way can be summarized in two words; “Diet Rite.”
The big issue that drove my decision to eliminate diet pop in the first place revolved around questions over the artificial sweeteners they use and how they might slow down weight-loss or even trigger an insulin reaction in people with insulin conditions (like me.) I should also note that I still can’t determine whether or not that’s even
true because, while the internet drowns one in information, it provides no compass for discerning credibility.
So, here are some facts, verifiable to me by my own life-experience;… Diet Rite,
(in addition to having zero carbs, sodium, caffeine or calories,) uses the exact same sweetener
(Sucralose) in the exact same proportion as Vi-Shape. Obviously, Vi-Shape hasn’t been slowing my metabolism, anymore than gasoline will slow a campfire, so Diet Rite’s gotta be OK. Also, I’ll be restricting myself to
12oz. every other day, and as much as I want while gaming on Saturday nights. This is a far cry from my old method of 2 to 3 liters of Diet Coke per day, 24-7-365.
2. Introducing Whole Grains.
With Insulin Resistance, you need to be very careful with grains of any kind. Yes, even the
healthy kind.
The problem is the glycemic index,
(how quickly something raises your blood sugar.)
Since, insulin is released into the bloodstream specifically as a countermeasure to regulate blood sugar, anything that raises your blood sugar significantly is inherently dangerous when you’re blood is insulin resistant.
The blood response to insulin is to stop the production of insulin. When your insulin sensitivity is low,
(ie; your blood is “Insulin Resistant,”) your blood doesn’t respond to the insulin. The body however, is designed to keep producing insulin
until your blood responds. In me, this doesn’t occur until the levels are very high. Everything else, however…
does respond to the insulin… pretty much right away, like it’s supposed to.
The blood reaction, however is your body’s
one-and-only governor on your insulin levels.
The result is that…
1. Your metabolic serum-sugar regulation system responds to the insulin big-time as your insulin spikes through the roof and your blood sugar, commensurately drops down through the basement floor. This makes you feel like absolute
hell, both physically and emotionally. Severely low blood-sugar means low energy, fatigue and
borderline-suicidal depression.
2. Your brain’s starvation hunger-response, is activated. With a normal level of insulin this means that you have some slight cravings. As your insulin
spikes, however you begin feeling
ravenously hungry.
3. Your metabolic starvation response is activated. With a normal level of insulin this means that your body begins holding back and storing a small amount of what you’ve eaten in your fat cells. As your insulin
spikes, however you begin storing
practically everything you eat in your fat cells.
4. Bonus: If your insulin ever gets high enough…
your heart will stop. Yeah, it has that effect too. In fact, direct injection of insulin into a sleeping victim, via a freckle or mole has been used as a virtually undetectable murder-method in a couple of mystery novels. Now, I’ve managed to avoid this, thus far despite having insulin spikes high enough to literally
(no kidding) kill a horse, due to the fact that my IR began in early-adolescence and has gotten worse over the years. So, I’ve built an immunity to this particular effect. But, I’m not completely impervious to it. It could still happen if my levels ever got high enough. In fact, eventually… it
would happen. There's no doubt about it. That’s one of the reasons behind the pair of terminal diagnoses I got a few years ago.
So, glycemic index becomes a very important thing for you to check out when you’re insulin resistant.
It can be a tricky thing, too.
For example; Did you know that Shredded Wheat has a higher glycemic index than table-sugar?
Did that register?
Shredded Wheat raises your blood sugar faster than sugar.
Shredded Wheat... the
"Heart-Smart Breakfast Alternative," could stop my heart.
Yeah.
Makes the whole world suddenly feel like it's filled with landmines.
Anyway, in spite of being on a very strict glycemic index diet, due to my condition,… I still have to have carbohydrates. When you only get your carbs from vegetables, you really start to feel the pinch, so to speak.
So, I’m going to be reintroducing a modest serving of whole grains, once every three or four days. I’ve gone over this decision with my doctor and he believes it to be a good idea, as a way to control cravings, long term, as well.
To be fair,… in my first Challenge, it made a lot of sense to be in Super-Beast-Mode, diet-wise. I had a lot to prove to myself… and I did it.
You can’t keep sprinting forever, though. Eventually, you’ve got to come down to a more sustainable pace, or you’re just setting yourself up for failure as surely as if you'd started having chocolate cake for breakfast.
So, after… believe me… a
great deal of soul-searching, deliberation and, most importantly, consultation with my doctor, I’ve decided to make these changes.
Don’t get me wrong, here… I mean,... look at these changes. I’m still very much in Beast Mode. lol Just not White-Knuckled, Swinging-for-the-Fences, Guns-Blazing
Super-Beast Mode.
Again, I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming video. But, I wanted to cover it here, in writing, where I can make sure to leave nothing out.
See you tomorrow!
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