In part 3 of this God-Knows-What that I am chronicling, I wanted to briefly introduce the notion of ‘spaciousness’ that comes from the quieting of the mind that came with the meditation I began a few weeks ago, as well as the media diet that I’ve been on for a few weeks. I think it had a lot to do with some of the revelations I came to. Read more »
Filed under: Articles, Change, Goals, Personal Journal, Self-Experimentation, diet, general health, health, weight loss | 2 Comments »
Yesterday I shared with you my epiphany regarding what might be called ‘abusive dieting’. The realization that I had been ignoring this for so long was quite a shocker. It led me to the decision to try an experiment: eat what I want without a shred of guilt and see what happens. Read more »
Filed under: Change, Food, Goals, Hunger, Personal Journal, Self-Experimentation, diet, general health, low carb, weight loss | 5 Comments »
I haven’t written because I’ve been having a hard time finding the words to describe what happened after I wrote the post ‘The Rules This Time‘. It was something of a turning point, though maybe not in the way you’d expect. In a way, I think it has brought me to a higher level of understanding – and in my life, each ratchet up in understanding has always provided greater clarity into my own stupidity, and revealed just how much more there is to be revealed.
The more I learn, the less it seems I know.
For those of you following at home: I wrote the above post, then began following it. I did all of these things and was feeling quite good about myself – losing weight, feeling greater energy.
Then something happened. Read more »
Filed under: Change, Food, Goals, Personal Journal, health | 2 Comments »
I consider myself fortunate to live in New Jersey.
New Jersey is the butt of many jokes, but it’s a misunderstood place, known mostly for Bruce Springsteen, the notorious show ‘The Jersey Shore’ which I have never seen, The show ‘The Sopranos’ which I have never seen, and the New Jersey Turnpike – the stretch of road so ugly that I can forgive people who’ve only seen that road as they drive through the state for thinking it is nothing but a hell hole.
It isn’t just these things, by any means.
New Jersey has some of the most fertile farmland in the United States. We don’t have big farms – we have small local farms. And we also have a very vibrant local organic farming community. When I go to my farmers market, there are no less than four farms within driving distance that raise organic vegetables and even meat and eggs selling their products there.
Two weeks ago, one of our local farmers, overflowing with the famous Jersey Tomatoes, had 25 pounds of locavore, organic plum tomatoes for $10.
We couldn’t pass it up.
While they have made their way into a lot of meals since then, I was amazed at what I produced when I threw some on the barbecue grill.
All I did was coat the outside in olive oil and place on a very hot grill.
Unless you leave them on for a very long time, they can’t burn – there’s just too much water in them. What happens is the outsides blacken and the insides reduce and carmalize – making them sweeter and more tasty. The blackened outsides add a complex smoky flavor.
I left them for about 40 minutes, then put them in a bowl and used an immersion blender on them. If you do NOT know how to prevent your immersion blender from spraying tomato all over your walls, use a blender or food processor.
This left me with the most awesome thick, and flavorful tomato puree I had ever had. I ate it like a soup with no additional seasonings.
If you only know tomatoes from what you’ve gotten in a grocery store, understand that those things you bought are nothing like the tomatoes I just described.
I am hoping that I will be so SICK of tomatoes by the end of the season that I can hold out until next summer when they are back in season before I buy one again.
Grocery store tomatoes are not worth it when you’ve had the real thing.
Filed under: Food, Food Processor, Kitchen Experiments, Organic, cooking, recipe | 3 Comments »
Can ‘Low Carb’ go too far? That’s what I’m thinking here. I do admit – the image of a cute baby pig presumably being nourished on the bellyfat of their slaughtered mother is so wrong on so many levels that this whole concept is like a car crash on the highway where you don’t want to look, but can’t help doing so anyway.
Here’s a link to the company, which became famous (or infamous) for Bacon Salt. They don’t mention this product on their site – just on this blog posting.
It was posted awfully close to April Fools, and I’m hoping (praying) that it’s just a sick joke. If so – kudos.
If not, God help us.
Filed under: External Links, Fake Foods, Food, Food Porn, diet, low carb | 3 Comments »
Warning: if you are easily discouraged when your assumptions are challenged, you might want not want to read this. Check back the next time I have a recipe or something.
If you need an excuse to stay fat, grab a box of cookies, pull up a chair and read this: many studies suggest that people who lose weight actually have higher death rates than those whose weight remained stable, even if they’re overweight.
Just call me Debbie Downer. Hey: you want a ‘rah-rah-happy-go-lucky’ low carb blog, look elsewhere – I’m far too cynical and skeptical for that.
Another aspect for me is: I’m not scared of people whose opinions differ from mine – I’m fascinated by them.
So if you’re game, let’s explore this avenue for a little while. Read more »
Filed under: Books, Change, Food, Research, Self-Experimentation, diet, general health, health, weight loss | 9 Comments »
I’ve been in the state known as ketosis, brought about by following the rules of Atkins Induction, more times than I can count. I have also been either very successful or not-so successful at staying in Induction for an extended period of time and losing weight.
While I am not recommending long-term ketosis- Atkins doesn’t, and you’ll find few people who do as there’s little research as to what it might do to long-term health – I try to stay in Induction for extended periods – months.
Anyways, for those of you who don’t follow my blog, to summarize the last couple of years: I’ve been maintaining while trying to lose – win on one level, but a big fat fail on another.
I lost my weight in 2003, when I was a carb fiend. Such an abrupt change to low carb produced phenomenal results: 65 lbs. in the first year – another 15 in the second.
As is standard with losing weight and aging, some has crept back on. I’m still down 50 lbs. from my high in 2003, but I’m not satisfied.
So I did some looking back at what I’ve tried that succeeded, what failed miserably, what caused initial progress to evaporate, what and what traps have I fallen into again and again. Read more »
Filed under: Atkins, Change, Goals, Hunger, Induction, Nicotine, Personal Journal, Self-Experimentation, diet, general health, health, low carb, weight loss | 7 Comments »
Over the years I’ve noticed patterns in the low carb dialogs on my site as well as others, and some of it is great – perceptive and enlightening.
Others – not so great.
I got to thinking about this when reading a post on ‘low carb Nazis’, the link to which I promptly lost. Ugh.
Anyway, first, let’s put aside the justified criticism of the use of the word ‘Nazi’ here. I know many people are offended that the word ‘Nazi’ is linked with things like ‘food’, ‘feminism’, or ‘soup’. They think it trivializes the atrocities that the real Nazis did in the last century. They can be very militant about it – I suppose we can call them ‘Nazi’-Nazis, but they wouldn’t be happy about that.
The fact is, you can’t control language. If that were possible, I would first banish the word ‘blog’ as it’s about the ugliest word coined in the past 100 years.
But there’s more than just the low carb Nazis out there. There are multiple groups that each interact and sometimes learn from one another, and sometimes are angered by one another – or haven’t a clue what the other groups are talking about.
Below I’ve arbitrarily identified four groups, not that there aren’t more, and not that these are even correct of fair. You make that judgement – I’m not going to be a Nazi about this. Read more »
Filed under: Goals, Mindset, diet, low carb | 2 Comments »
I loved the book ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’ – the seminal work on the science behind low carb dieting – but I hated reading it. In my opinion, Gary Taubes is not a great author – he is a great presenter of information, but his writing style is dry and sterile – as if he places each word on the page with tweezers while wearing rubber gloves.
His style leans too much toward an audience accustomed to clinical research, where the author removes themselves from the content. In research, this is necessary as science is a presentation of ‘just the facts’ and any warmth or emotion carried in the message will put the research into question, making readers think that the message conveyed might be biased by the researcher’s own opinions.
This is always the case, of course – we’re just not supposed to show it.
I have read way too many books of similar depth that were more engaging, so I was very disappointed – this was supposed to be a work that would show the world the sound scientific basis for a low carbohydrate diet – and he created a near unreadable tome that would allow laymen critics to seize on the style rather than the substance.
I have always wished it would be rewritten – perhaps co-authored with Bill Bryson or Michael Pollan – two of my favorite authors – with both of them, I could read anything they wrote, no matter the topic or my interest in the topic because of the warmth, passion, and wonder they can inject into their narratives.
I have found engaging writers make me interested in subjects I never knew I had an interest in.
That’s what Gary Taubes needed to do in ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’ so that detractors could come to see that low carb is not as quackish as many think.
He failed. Read more »
Filed under: Books, External Links, Reviews, diet, low carb | 4 Comments »
Don’t have much time this morning, but I thought I’d share this:
Cognitive Biases – A Visual Study Guide
I wish that losing weight was just about what you eat.
It isn’t.
It is also about what you think.
When you cave and give in to temptation, it was some thought that allowed you to do this, that bargained for that piece of cake, that told you it would be OK.
But it wasn’t.
My own problem is ‘bargaining’. My mind tells me things like this:
“You’ve been very good – now you should reward yourself.”
“You can cheat now and then and not gain weight – why not build this in to your diet?”
“It’s a special occasion – enjoy.”
“Life is too short NOT to have a RingDing now and then.”
When I’m tired or stressed these thoughts can catch me with my guard down – and afterword I say to myself: what was I thinking?!?
Understanding how we trick ourselves can go a long way to prevent these lapses, and the above presentation is an encyclopedia of how we trick ourselves – and is a great introduction to the weight-loss mind game.
If you are the type of person who thinks: ‘It’s my thought, so it must be correct”, read this and see just how many ways our minds can lead us astray.
Filed under: Articles, Mindset, Personal Journal, weight loss | 6 Comments »
