Each New Pound Off, An Annual Low

I'm now about 3 pounds below my prior annual low and about 3 pounds off a new multi-annual low since late 2013.  I actually got here recently but as usual spent a few days bouncing off the low. So I'm hopeful I'll drop another couple of pounds over the coming week.

I hadn't looked at newer nutritional studies over the past decade and recently came aware of the benefits of resistant starch (e.g., cold cooked potatoes). I also bought a paleo diet pack from Thrive Market, which includes a jar of ghee. I have to think of how to use that because I don't really fry entrees, but I may try cooking eggs in a very limited amount. (I also have bottles of extra virgin olive oil and avocado oil in my pantry, which I usually use for salads.) I ordered some potato starch with that order. I'm also doing a daily drink with dashes of apple cider vinegar and lemon juice and put a limited amount of coconut oil and cinnamon in my daily cup of coffee. I don't know to what effect these will have on my diet, but we'll see.

Slow and Steady

This morning I finally broke through to a definitive annual low, not by much but I'm now within 5 pounds of my lowest since 2013. There was a time during the 2-3 years I was on Nutrisystem when I lost 40 pounds, but it really wasn't that far below where I am now. I'm really shooting for, as an interim target, getting to the weight range when I was frequently working out back in 2007. (My local Maryland fitness center after 2007 changed ownership, and the new ownership did not grandfather existing memberships.) I'll look to joining a local Arizona fitness facility as the weather cools to two-digit highs.

It took 9 days after pushing to a new low to take that out. I had bounced almost 3 pounds up and spent 3 days there before losing half that and then spending 3 days at that level. It can be very frustrating but necessary to keep the faith when your weight goes up while you're eating fairly minimally.

I'm also flirting a little with the paleo diet; I've downloaded a number of paleo recipe books from Amazon and purchased a relevant introductory sampler set from a natural foods vendor. I don't really eat many grains anyway, maybe a sandwich thin whole wheat bun for grass-fed burgers or the occasional low carb tortilla for various wraps.

I've turned away from diet shake replacement meals during this diet, although I still have an unopened whey protein canister I bought from Sam's Club some time back. I've turned more towards protein bars while at work.

In the grocery aisles yesterday, I noticed Nature Valley and other vendors marketing protein chewy bars at less than 10 net carbs each. On the sweet side, Orchard Valley offers dark chocolate varieties (almond, blueberries, cherries, etc.) in measured portions for about $5. At Walmart, I find one-pound bricks of grass-fed beef for about $6/lb,; they also usually offer chicken breast packs for $1.99/lb and pound tubes of ground turkey at $2/lb.

Bouncing Off Resistance

Well, since my last post, I've relocated from Charleston, SC to  southern Arizona. While Charleston is often hot and muggy with heat often in the mid-90s, you can still feel the heat in the desert Southwest; I remember my first week here, when I went to my car to go to lunch, my car indicated the outside temperature was averaging about 114. I need to up my exercising but not in this kind of heat.

All things considered (my relocation and a recent extended business trip to Florida), I've been consistently within a 15-lb. range (currently near the bottom). However, I have not broken through my annual targets yet. Part of my recent problem is that I've eaten out a lot (my employer has paid the bill, even though I ate well below reimbursement caps) and a lot more carbs than usual. Interesting observation: I'm finding I can't even eat big meals anymore. Maybe it's a part of the aging process. During my Florida trip, I found I couldn't eat everything on my plate when I ordered a baked potato as one of my sides. Now granted, restaurants often serve huge portions, but when my typical meal might little more than an Atkins frozen meal or one or 2 protein bars, I'm just not used to it.  I remember a local Florida KFC had an all-you-care-to-it buffet in the evening and probably weren't thrilled to see me pull in. They didn't post the buffet price, and I didn't ask. (If anything, I tend to be attracted to salad bars. I ordered a 2-piece dinner (which included a good size breast piece), and my appetite was more than satisfied.) I haven't done an all-you-care-to-eat buffet say at a pizza or Chinese food place or one of those other places (e.g., Golden Corral) in years.

I've made a few visits to a Jack in the Box near my work (there are closer places but parking is limited during the lunch hour; I had to start work in the afternoon but had to get some security paperwork done in the late morning). This may not be new to most people, but they have an interesting soda machine which allows you to mix different flavors via a touch screen (single nozzle); they had variations of standard flavors (e.g., you could select a vanilla-flavored diet root beer). I could even get diet ginger ale. (I'm saying this because it seemed during my recent self-serve soda fountain experiences, I was limited to diet cola, and I tend to prefer more variety.) I almost never drink soda unless I do fast food; in restaurants, particularly in the southern US, I'll usually order iced tea (not sweet).

Still, I was shocked to see I put on about 10 pounds by the time my household goods arrive in mid-August, worked that off, only to see it surge 9 pounds during nearly 2 weeks in Florida. Still, I knew I hadn't been eating 5000 calories a day; it must have been mostly water gain and would quickly drop. In fact, it took about 3-4 days to lose the last 9 pounds and then I continued to drop another 5 lbs to hit my annual low (by a fraction of a pound). I thought the 14-lb. whoosh might continue for another pound or two but found my weight bounce up nearly 3 pounds yesterday and weighed in the same this morning. It's frustrating to see the bounce off the low, especially when you watch what you eat, but it's typical.  It's tough to watch fellow workers on the late shift eat a lot more than my one or 2 protein bars (one of them is overweight, but not as much as me, and he must have brought in like 8 or 9 pieces of leftover pepperoni pizza plus had 2  or 3 lunch-size bags of chips; that's like a month of carbs to me).

I think I'll have to add a lot more exercise to break my current weight range.

One note. In my flagship political blog, I describe in a new journal format post some of my culinary experiences in Florida. A training instructor was high on a burger place founded by some chef who starred on a cooking network (the small chain is named after his dog). They have a classic, no-special-order $10 burger which includes a stack of onion rings on top of the oversized patty. I made a mistake of ordering the burger the way I like my steaks, medium rare. My bad: there were spots in the burger which weren't cooked, and later that day I came down with a bad case of diarrhea. (It could have been something else, but I'm blaming the burger.) I decided to try again a few days later, choosing a $13 variation with a fried egg and several strips of bacon on top, no onion rings. (I call it "brunch on a bun".) Best damn burger I've ever had. Oh, but this time I ordered the burger medium.

I was telling others that I remember when I first started as a UWM faculty member, the senior area professor hosted a dinner party celebration for his student who just defended his dissertation. Among other things, I saw a huge mound of raw ground steak with slices of white bread and onions. I was told it was a local custom they called "scavenger sandwiches". I did try it, no adverse effects, but been there, done that, move on. I tried Googling but really found no confirmation of the custom. Maybe my young stomach could handle raw meat, but I wouldn't dare do it now.

What the hell is the deal with my weight scales?

I swear I've bought at least 5 weight scales over the past 3 years. This is getting to be a cruel joke. I think I've bought 3 from Amazon and 2 from WalMart. Several weeks back an apartment neighbor's water pipe burst which flooded my kitchen and bathroom--and my apartment hallway, for some odd reason, which is on the other side of the apartment. Which is where I had put my digital scale. Large story short, I believe that the water must have shorted out the scale.

And did you ever notice that these scales all use different batteries? Of the last three, one ran on lithium, the second on 9 volts and the third AAA's.

So after the flooding I went down to WalMart and found a Health-o-Meter model which cost about $18. It came with a Sunbeam 9-volt battery. It worked fairly well until yesterday when the scale suddenly went dark with me still on the scale. I figured maybe it was a battery issue; I went to WalMart to buy a new 9-volt battery bundle. I got one reading on one of the batteries but then it went dark. Another battery got the initiation sequence during weight calibration and then it went dark. The third battery did nothing. I made sure the 9 volts were securely fastened. Either the battery pack was dead or I have a scale issue.

I'm raising an issue with manufacturer support which sent me a troubleshooting script which presupposes your batteries are working.

So I just went to WalMart and purchased a moderately more expensive competitor model. This one works--for now.

I'm in a middle of yet another range-bound plateau. I did dip to a new diet low, about 6 pounds below where I am now, which is where I restarted my diet over the holidays. So for all practical purposes I'm even for the year, but to be honest, I'm very disappointed that I've underperformed my goal of a consistent l/1.5 lb/week pace. I'm not sure why, but it could be new meds I started taking a few weeks back are affecting things. The good news is that I'm back on my thyroid medication (the thyroid, of course, is very important in metabolic rate). They put me on a lower dosage after confirming bad numbers; they want to check on my thyroid bloodwork after my second month back on. But I probably need to step up my exercise regimen.

Getting Back on the Horse

I should have known better: the holidays. I've been struggling to hit new diet lows since roughly the third week of November; I barely hit a new diet low in mid-December, but for several weeks I had been cycling up and down an 8-lb. range from the diet low.

My mom, who was widowed last year, had been pushing me for years to come home for the holidays. Being single, I normally had regularly until 2009. My professional opportunities had suffered during the Great Recession and in 2009 I was booked on an hourly subcontract through the holidays. In some cases since then, I ran into budgeting issues or I had pending assignments including possible short-term relocation which made it impossible to book flights in advance. Some of those same considerations were also in effect this past holiday season, but I had a special birthday to celebrate (I was originally due on Christmas but was born a few days later).

The holiday pounds. Mom usually did a lot of holiday baking for us, then the grandkids and the great-grandkids. But because of dietary restrictions, Mom over recent years had cut down to the Christmas staple of chocolate crinkle cookies and maybe a pie. (It wasn't just desserts. In Franco-American (French-Canadian) culture, there are ground pork based foods, like cretons and tourtière, that have been personal favorites since childhood, but Mom had stopped doing them for years before I stopped coming.) I almost never eat dessert but allowed some modest exceptions, including a handful of crinkles before my older nephew took the rest of them to his baby sister in Colorado. There were the usual things I did during my trip home, especially Tex-Mex, including breakfast tacos, Mexican food, and Texas BBQ. A personal favorite is a local chain, Bill Miller's BBQ (where they also serve great iced tea, a Texas staple). I also had pizza a couple of times,on my birthday (a deep dish place) and a place Mom and Dad liked in a nearby town. Mom also had made a couple of my favorite dishes, the above-mentioned tourtière and a lasagne (which she now tweaked with Italian sausage vs. ground beef.)  For Christmas, Mom brought a smoked ham from this smokehouse she also uses to send out food gifts for the holidays to my local brother's house, and we had a turkey on New Year's. She made waffles and pancakes on a few occasions, served ice cream a couple of times, and I joined in an occasional glass of wine before dinner.

Long story short, I ate far more carbs than I have in years and bigger meals overall, and Mom knows I have a weight problem and didn't want to add to the problem. I also joined her on brisk daily walks, so I got more exercise. I figured with all the carbs I probably gained the usual 6 pounds or so in water, but I had been gone shy of 2 weeks. Still, I was startled to see myself up by 10--beyond the 8-lb. cycle during November and December. And then it went up a couple of more pounds, even back on the grind. But the good news is that since that high, I've had one of the longest whooshes to date--about 13 pounds. Daily drops except yesterday, which was a special case. (An apartment neighbor's water pipe burst, which led to some of my floors and carpets being flooded. My digital scale was on one of the floors and is now dead. I had to go out yesterday and buy a replacement scale at Wal-Mart.) I usually try to weigh myself the first thing in the morning, so when I tested the scale, I was slightly up over the prior day, but that was probably a reflection of when in the day I took a reading--I had already eaten 2 meals, etc.

As it stands, I'm just 2 pounds plus over my mid-December diet low. I do know the current whoosh is long in the tooth and wouldn't at all be surprised  to wake up tomorrow and see a 3-lb. bounce. But it does seem I've already taken off the holiday weight. The problem is that since November I've been off my target 1-1.5 lb. weekly loss pace: I'm probably about 10 pounds higher than I thought I would be. I probably need to tweak my daily exercise.

My latest dietary tweak is plain Greek yogurt and no-sugar-added frozen berries/cherries. I'll defrost a handful of fruit and mix it into yogurt, and I'll sweeten with a packet or 2 of stevia.

Miscellany: 11/14/15

More Please--Double the Crickets

This is a follow-up to a recent comment I made about Exo Protein's unique protein bars, made with cricket flour. (Note: I'm making an assumption you don't have certain common food allergies; see the website for more specifics.)  I had ordered a sampler and promised to write about my reaction. Indeed, very tasty. My favorites were the peanut butter and jelly and apple-cinnamon. The former is a little higher in carbs than I would prefer but remarkably tasty. Almost immediately after my sampler purchase they launched a savory meals variety (BBQ, Mango Curry, and Mediterranean). I'm currently trying an alternate raw food protein bar (they were running a BOGO promotion on boxes); I just ate a blueberry macadamia bar for breakfast at less than 10 net carbs, which was great. I may discuss the brand in a future post.)

I'm normally not big on gimmick foods; the Exo bars are a little pricey, but if you read the nutrition labels, they are phenomenal, not your typical nutrition bar. They are times that I don't feel that hungry, and the bars serve a useful purpose as a check against binge eating. (I've sometimes found than a tin of sardines also does the trick, with Omega 3's in the bargain.)

The WHO Processed Meat Fearmongering Scare

First of all, I don't regularly eat processed meats; I can't recall the last time I bought hot dogs at a supermarket; it's been years. Occasionally I've bought sausages or bacon, but mostly I've focused on ground or full cuts of meat, chicken parts, eggs, etc. Still, one should remember there's a difference between correlational and causal evidence, and the correlational evidence is fairly weak and/or not well-replicated among studies.

One thing we should keep in mind is that cancer occurs without known risks, e.g., over 10% of lung cancer victims have never smoked. In the case of processed meats, related cancer risks are less significant. Consider the following image for context:

Courtesy of Cancer Research UK

It's always prudent to minimze known health risks, but occasional, modest portions should not be a significant issue; note by the above image, 4 out of 5 bowel cancers were not explained by consumption of processed meats.

Finally On Another Whoosh

I hadn't had any net loss from my last post; in fact, over the past week, I completely covered the gap from my last 5 lb. drop; I kept oscillating up and down a 3-lb. range over the past 2 weeks--until this morning, with a 2.2 lb. drop to a new diet low. I've done some interim weighings which suggest at least another lb. or 2 on this whoosh to go, which would be consistent with a 1.5/2 lb./week pace which I consider a slow, but decent pace. But I'm wary--the last time I posted, I thought I had more to go, too. I still have another 13 or so lbs. to hit a 2-year low. I'm not sure I'll reach it by year end, but hopefully by January.

Miscellany: 10/28/15

Stevia, Artificial Sweeteners and Health

I was looking at an ad today for a raw protein bar (I'm not a big fan of gimmick foods, but sometimes based on my schedule and appetite, they can be convenient and a change of pace) when I noticed they were marketing: "No wheat! No soy! No stevia!"  Now I've been aware of the wheat belly diet (see here for WebMD's review); I modestly use whole wheat products like sandwich thins and tortillas, stemming from my low-carb period of 2003-4--there are often in the range of 4-15 net carbs a serving (after netting out fiber grams). As someone with underactive thyroid issues, I normally try to stay away from soy. But stevia?
 

In short, there are no panaceas when it comes to weight loss. It does seem, at least in the short term, stevia does not have the dysfunctional metabolic effects sometimes seen with artificial sweeteners:

A 2004 study in rats found low-calorie sweeteners led the animals to overeat, possibly because of a mismatch between the perceived sweetness and the expected calories from sugar, according to the paper in the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders. The author of that study later argued that people who use artificial sweeteners may suffer health problems associated with excess sugar, including metabolic syndrome, which can be a precursor to diabetes.
"A number of studies suggest people who regularly consume ASB [artificially sweetened beverages] are at increased risk compared with those that do not consume ASB," Dr. Susan E. Swithers said in a 2013 opinion letter in the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.

The same effect does not occur with stevia:

 A 2010 study in the journal Appetite tested several artificial sweeteners against sugar and each other in 19 lean people and 12 obese people.The study found people did not overeat after consuming a meal made with stevia instead of sugar. Their blood sugar was lower after a meal made with stevia than after eating a meal with sugar, and eating food with stevia resulted in lower insulin levels than eating either sucrose and aspartame.

I know I've mentioned this incident in my political blog and probably also in this blog that I was active in a Yahoo low carb group forum about a dozen years back. I was dealing with Atkins fundamentalists with a wolf pack mentality on anyone deviating from orthodoxy. I was more liberal in terms of dietary restrictions (in particular case, this one woman who complained that she wasn't losing weight and posted her menu (I think which came from a nutritionist). Almost immediately the fundamentalists fixated on the corn kernels in her mixed veggies; I rolled my eyes and said, "Give me a break." I asked the woman, "What exercises are you doing?" The woman responded, "What exercise? I'm wheelchair-bound..." Others then joined in the discussion with suggestions.) The forum, which generally consisted of otherwise healthy people with weight issues,was a sinkhole of time. Near the end of my tenure, I got blasted by some mother, whose child is epileptic and found that a low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet had worked wonders for her child, irrationally accusing me of attempting to dispense medical advice without a license. The Atkins fundamentalists gave the mother high-fives for putting me into my place.

So let me say for the record that while I do have applied research skills, I haven't done original research in the nutrition or related disciplines; I do know how to evaluate experimental design, measure validity, statistical power, and limitations on inferences from results. I haven't been trained in the health/medical sector and realize that people with serious physical conditions--e.g., organ disease, diabetes, disabilities, etc.--may have nuanced dietary restrictions. Not to mention there are something like 4B prescriptions written a year and it's very possible that dietary changes could offset or confound one's condition or medicines.

Let me give a couple of examples from stevia. There has been a limited number of studies which suggest that stevia may have moderating effects on hypertension and diabetes; some forms of stevia have been traditionally used for contraceptive purposes. So obviously if you are taking related medicines (e.g., hypertension) or fertility treatments, you need to check with your physician, e.g., to ensure any stevia use doesn't exacerbate dosage issues and result in dangerous low blood pressure or other issues.

The interested reader may want to read this response to various Internet fearmongers on the safety of stevia. NOTE: I have purchased several kilograms of stevia powder over the past 5 years, almost all of which has been used to sweeten beverages, principally iced tea.

Finally: The October Staircase Whoosh

My earlier posts this month voiced frustration I seemed to be zigzagging the same 6-pound range for weeks when I finally broke through over the past few days, dropping 5 lbs. below my range floor to a new diet low yesterday. I did have a couple of readings below my official recorded weight (my current digital scale readings tend to vary; I require a confirmatory weight reading), suggesting up to 3 more lbs. possible in this whoosh--only to weigh in this morning 4 lbs. higher. Sigh. I know my diet was rigorous yesterday; this is likely what I've termed in the past as a dead cat bounce. It wouldn't surprise me if I quickly lose 3 of those back by Friday; who knows? Maybe this bounce ends up lower on the staircase. All things considered, a 5-lb. drop over a month is a respectable 1-1.5 lb/week pace. I seemed to drop twice as much 12 years back, but my exercise regimen was more rigorous back then.