I’m familiar with the insulin response to artificial sweeteners. Perhaps a little stevia in your water would make it less of a chore to maintain hydration. Whether stevia provokes an insulin response, I don’t know.

I must confess I don’t have a weight problem but I don’t consume desserts very often anymore. When I do it’s usually whipped cream on fruit or pie. The whipped cream is sweetened with minimal powdered sugar. By the way, you can make powdered sugar from granulated sugar in a ten dollar electric coffee grinder. This is the part I like. If you make a lot of whipped cream you can freeze it in a yogurt, sour cream, or cottage container. It doesn’t taste exactly like regular ice cream but it’s pretty good sprinkled with nuts mixed with a little granola. Let it thaw a bit before dishing it up. Or you can chip it out with a fork and wait until it softens a bit to eat it.

PS – On the prosciutto front, the Italian deli at my Wegmans does not carry prosciutto di San Daniele, but they do carry prosciutto di Parma, which is made the same way as the other (only sea salt to cure).

I too have forsworn processed and artificial foods while doing low carb, and the results have been wonderful.

As for water, I installed a brita 3 stage filter on the sink. It filters water and adds in minerals. I was a bit of a bottled water snob, and I really enjoy it.

I still want to delve into Paleo more; I think the concept of returning to the diet of our ancestors is intriguing. (BTW, you’re a sashimi fan, but you draw the line at liver? Maybe it’s the vision of Mia Farrow that people in our age group have burned in their memory banks.)

From what you said about artificial sweeteners and what I learned a few weeks ago in GC,BC, I think our bodies are getting WAY too out of hand with this insulin response thing. I say we force them to only secrete if we actually ingest carbs, not just see, smell, taste, or think about them, and not if we’re eating something that’s fake! Who’s with me?!?

You’ll see in my post tomorrow the results of my cutting out the Italian salamis I’d been enjoying in increasing quantity during the alcohol respite. I believe whatever was in them, whether the nitrates, nitrites, or simply the salt, was causing me to not only stall but gain in slight and steady increments. I don’t want to lump prosciutto in this group because if you buy the authentic meat, like Prosciutto di San Daniele, the only ingredient used to cure it is a sparing amount of sea salt (the salt content in a properly aged Prosciutto di San Daniele is less than 6 per cent).

Water: I’ve found drinking water is something you just have to do without thinking about it. There’s nothing exciting about it, yet without it, we die. We have a fridge at home with a dispenser and a built-in filter (we used to put a Brita pitcher in the old one), and we simply refill and chill a bunch of plastic bottles we bought that once contained commercially produced water. Grab a bottle and drink half, a while later, repeat. Do this four times a day and don’t think about it. I have a PDA program I picked up for free called, “Water Log;” it lets you keep track of your intake and even rings an alarm periodically to remind you to drink some more. I don’t need it now, but there was a time it came in handy.
I don’t think there’s anything out there as far as water flavorings without artificial sweeteners of some sort. Fruit2O has Splenda in it. I’ll look for some though and let you know. Even so, if there’s sweetness of any kind in it, it sounds like your body is going to secrete insulin as a result of the taste, not the true content.

Veggies, raw: I did this as a weight loss gimmick of my own design many years ago, and I did lose weight, a lot of it, just by replacing my daily lunch with a combo of raw broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Again, very boring, but something I did without dwelling on it, and without knowing at the time that the bulk of it was low on the glycemic list. I’m not so into veggies anymore, and even the salad I had last night felt like I was being a traitor to myself.

PS – Congrats on the loss! I wish I weighed what you do right now, and that’s five pounds less than my primary goal of 200. I still haven’t donated my skinny pants to charity yet, they’re sitting here in a pile staring at me, waiting. By the time I fit back into them, they’ll probably be out of style!