Day 8: Dr. Dan – I Think You Nailed It – And In Other News, Wall St. Spends Bailout Money on Bonuses, and The Earth Will Burn to a Crisp

It was a comment by Dr. Dan that hit home: this bit about no time to go on a diet but going on one anyway, the feeling that things are out of control yet going back on Atkins hardcore, might be a psychological compensation mechanism so I can feel a sense of control over something.

Why didn’t I recognize this before?

Oh, yeah – because ego defenses are by definition, unconscious – Dr. Dan just pulled the rug out from under that, though.

I should have noticed this myself – jeez, I’m driving around with a copy of ‘The Ego and Its Defenses’ in my car as reading material when I’m waiting for my wife and/or kids, which is a lot. I was reading just yesterday about the ego defense of ‘compensation’ – I should have put 2 & 2 together, but again, an ego defense is unconscious by definition, so that explains it.

So what happens now? The truth is out, and now I’ll pork up on White Castle burgers and be fat, dumb, and happy?

For those of you interested in plumbing the depths of your own psyche, you can check out this article. What ego defenses do you have up and running full bore? Take a read and see – if you dare. Please note that while the defenses themselves are pretty real (you’ll see them in use by yourself and others), the whys of all this, as described by Freud, are crap, in my opinion. 

But…I digress, this is a blog about low carb diets, right? Where’s the recipes, the tips, the observations about being a low carb person in a high-carb world?

Oh yeah. Anyhow, I started the day with coffee and cream (cream is a weekend luxury – I drink coffee during the week black.) Had my fiber therapy, and started my ‘cabbage noodles’ for the beef stroganoff I am making.

Next up was the beef. I cooked that more or less to the recipe, though I didn’t bother with the cover with water and cook for an hour part. It came out fine. It had been a while since I made this – the last time I did, I got lazy on cutting the cabbage thin and cooking it long enough to soften the cabbage to the range of al dente pasta (with a few crunchy parts).

This time I cooked the cabbage correctly and had a bowl for breakfast at 9am. It was great. I had my 2-year-old try some, and she ate it, but didn’t ask for more. 

At least she didn’t spit it out.

The Heliosphere

I then read an article about how the Sun’s heliosphere is disappearing, and this could lead to the destruction of all life on Earth. Jeez – I can’t do anything about that – recycling more of my waste paper or combining trips to save gas won’t do squat.

So…first, we have to deal with global financial collapse, THEN cope with the wacky US election that now has the entire world on edge because it has been made obvious how what happens here can completely screw up the entire earth – even the countries we like – then I read the sun can burn the inhabitants of the planet to a crisp in less than 30 years if the current heliosphere diminishing continues.

Oh, wait – the scientists who noticed this, though they never saw such a thing before, said the heliosphere will probably go back to normal again – nothing to worry about. 

They might be right, but is that before or after the sun microwaves us into oblivion?

Ahem, where was I…the diet, yeah. Tried making some crunchy cheese crackers – I took 4 slices of american cheese (not the processed crap in plastic, but the crap you have to carefully peel apart) and while 4-slices thick, sprinkled them with cayenne pepper and cut them into small squares. These I took and put in the countertop convection oven on ‘broil’.

Well, because broiling cooks from the top, each cheese thing swelled up like a bubble and burned the top – it looked like a chesty girl leaned over a campfire too far. The bottoms were still mushy, though. They still tasted good, and my older daughter and I finished them up.

I’ll have to try this again – maybe watching when they bubble up, then turn the oven to bake?

I had about 3 slices of cheese-worth of these things around noon – that was lunch. Later in the day I tried the green bean recipe I mentioned before, but more or less only used one trick from it – the addition of lemon juice. I think that was a nice touch – it brightened the flavor considerably.

Still in ketosis, but as I was home, I jumped on the scale a few times during the afternoon: 206.4, 206.0, 205.4…odd. My scale is pretty exact from time to time – was my weight really fluctuating like that?

Later I had another tomato, mayo, bacon bit whatever – finishing up the tomato I tore into the previous day – and a cup of coffee with cream and Splenda.

Evening consisted of the last of the pork chop I made the other day – about 1/2. 

I was surrounded by cookies, cookies, cookies as my daughter had a friend over and she brought home-made chocolate chip cookies. Then the two older girls went out with my wife and came back with even more cookies. There was also warm apple cider, and a pathetic attempt by yours truely to start a fire in the fireplace.

So I go into the week with some low carb home-cooked dishes to get me through the week. And the weight?

205.2 – a loss of 8.8 from my start weight of 214 – and essentially no change from the day before.

Oh – and I just read that 70 billion in salary and bonuses will be paid out to Wall St. – courtesy of Uncle Sam. 

Now I see why the people on Wall St. thought the bailout was necessary – they have payments on their yachts to keep up with.

I’m beginning to see a diet analogy to all this: let’s say I’m fat as a house, and I come to you and say ‘I need to go on a diet. Give me some money, make it 700 billion, and I’m going to go out and buy some healthy food and maybe an exercise bike.’

Then I go and blow it on fast food, scooter pies, cigarettes and booze.

To me, that’s Wall St.