Eats, December 10

Had the morning tub O’Joe at about 4:30am with my 400 cal worth of heavy cream. I stopped there, and did NOT do my usual drink another routine – am I actually thinking about cutting back on coffee?!?

It must be the Irvingia clouding my judgement.

I ate my fast-becoming-ritual hard-boiled egg at about 11am.

That lasted me until about 1:30, when I had a small portion of lunch – the rubber chicken from the other day. 

It’s not that bad, really.

Anyway, I did something slightly different. As a means of portion control, I used 2 containers, each 1 cup in size, as opposed to a larger container. I think the container might dictate what I eat more than my appetite.

So at 1:30, I had maybe only a third of a cup – and followed it up with some psyllium in water.

One poster to this blog had mentioned the theory that fiber might block the absorbtion of some calories. I don’t know if this is true, but that tiny bit of chicken and a glass of the fiber sure filled me up.

Around 5pm I finished up the remainder of the cup. This evening was music lessons for my daughter, so I ran home to pick her up, grabbed a hard-boiled egg and brought her to the teacher.

When I finally got home I really didn’t seem all that hungry. I had 3 fried eggs and some steak, with some wine, then a few slices of the kilebasa from the day before with saurkraut.

I followed this with some sour cream with Splenda for dessert.

If the my day was 23.5 hours long, I would have been OK. 

But it isn’t.

After getting in bed, I needed to get a bottle for my daughter. So I went to the kitchen and stood there waiting for the bottle to warm.

Jeez – what’s a tired and bored dieter to do, all alone in a kitchen full of candy and cookies?

I’ll let you guess: choose one from the following:

• Congratulate oneself on the incredible willpower and fortitude in resisting temptation
• Eat a few handfulls of M&Ms

So…anyway, the scale this morning told me 207.8 – it’s less, not by much, but less.

Irvingia Field Report

On the Irvingia front, I would say that day 5 and day 6 did seem to have a reduction in appetite overall. Now, I am adjusting my diet more toward real Atkins than faux Atkins, and am trying to cut out nitrated meats, the low carb crap food, and cutting back on the Splenda. This could confound any evidence for the effectiveness of Irvingia, but I said this isn’t scientific. Point is – If I’m in the low 190s at the end of the 60 days, I’d say there might be something here, as I have not been able to get to that weight in a long time.

Some posters are getting impatient – me, I’m trying to forget I’m taking it. I’m just going to watch for any effect other than weight loss and be patient.  This isn’t touted as ‘Lose 10 Lbs. in 5 Days’ – the study showed only a 7 lb. weight loss in 4 weeks.  

Here’s the chart:

 

	BASELINE WEIGHT	4 WEEKS	8 WEEKS	10 WEEKS
Irvingia group	215 pounds	207 pounds	197 pounds	187 pounds
Placebo group	212 pounds	210 pounds	209 pounds	211 pounds

 

So if at the start I was 209, I would expect (if my results were the same as reported) to be 201 on Jan 4, 2009, and 191.2 on February 3. 

So a week into this, to have noticed nothing should be expected. Personally, if I reach 201 by Jan, that wouldn’t convince me either way that Irvingia had an impact.

But if I’m 191 in Feb? Wow – I’d say there’s something to this – but I have to wait until Feb to know this. 

I also seem to notice increased thirst – also noted by someone else, and an odd an unexplainable reduction in my coffee drinking. Suddenly, too much coffee isn’t sitting well in my stomach, and for 2 days I’ve had my morning 16oz mug’s worth – and that’s it. One coworker looked at me in surprise when I didn’t go for the coffee.

But the kicker is – I didn’t seem to miss it all that much. I’ve been substituting water and actually enjoying it – maybe ‘enjoy’ is too strong – I haven’t been hating it like I’ve done in the past.

I also noticed some slight dizziness the first few days that I dismissed as part of my normal variations – but one poster noted the same thing, so maybe there’s some connection – maybe.

But it was mild, and I don’t seem to be bothered with it now.