Eats, December 12 – And An Irvingia Update (With Chart)

Well, the day, as always, started off with that big cup of coffee with 2 tablespoons of cream at 4am. I kept stating the number of calories wrong – pointed out to me by you – so now I can properly report that it’s 54 calories per tablespoon for a total of 100 Kcals.

The first hard-boiled egg of the day was at about 11am.

It was a very busy day, and my brain had shut down toward the end of it – I ate my Italian chicken (1 cup) at 5:30. Yes – I have been eating this stuff all week, but I have really been enjoying it.

I also had more of the San Pellegrino – 1.5 bottles of the stuff during the day. I wish I didn’t promise I would fill these bottles with filtered water – I’m really enjoying it. I actually felt deprived as I ran out during the day. I even stopped on the way home and bought a few more bottles, and drank one on the way home.

I did check for ketosis when I got home, just for the hell of it – nope.

In the evening, I made the kids pasta while I cooked up a pound of bacon. I played with the kids, pulled a deer tick out of the dog, cleaned up dog pee, picked on bacon, ate some of the kielbasa from the other day, then had a half-slice of low carb bread with 3 slices of the much maligned American cheese.

My older daughter wanted me to read to her, so we went to her bed, where I read to her until she fell asleep. I was about to go to sleep when I was tasked with getting a bottle for my younger daughter. 

I put the bottle in the warmer and waited in the kitchen. When it was ready, I, the bottle, and my wife and daughter all went to sleep.

What’s interesting to observe here, at this particular point:

• I didn’t drink more than 1 cup of coffee – again – I have been drinking a pot or more every day for 20 years. That’s a physical addiction – how could I so quickly taper off the stuff without any effort whatsoever?
• I’m regularly drinking water – well, San Pellegrino mineral water to be exact, daily, and with pleasure. I don’t like water in general, and I typically don’t like sparkling water either – I bought the San Pellegrino only because it is probably the only item in the water aisle that still comes in glass, and I’m trying to avoid plastic bottles. But now, I do like it – and I’ll probably buy a case of the stuff over the weekend – I’m drinking some right now and it’s 7am.
• My appetite seems to be very low – the total food for the day could have fit on one small plate.
• I had little desire to grab some of the kid’s leftover pasta – it was like I didn’t even see it.
• I had little desire for sweets – today and yesterday, I had none to speak of. I still have a stash of Atkins bars, but haven’t touched them.
• Stomach has been somewhat upset, but it is a mild upset and not too bothersome.
• I’ve had a strong craving for sour – the pickle juice in the fridge still seems enticing, but I’m trying to avoid all the salt.

Now, I am very careful in that I don’t want to attribute any of the above to the Irvingia I’m taking – just yet. But – if I were to propose a hypothesis, I might say that Irvingia, after about a week on 2x daily, has for me:

• Lessened appetite significantly
• Reduced cravings for sweets
• Reduced an existing caffeine addiction
• Increased overall stomach upset
• Increased cravings for water
• Increased cravings for sours

I also had an interesting Out Of Body experience on the scale this morning. I was 204.0 – down 2.2 lbs from yesterday, 3.7 lbs. from the day before.

I’ve had these trends before, but what is really interesting is in the chart below. I have been recording my weight daily since October 12, so I went back to each post and put the weight into an Excel spreadsheet – which sucked by the way – I had to read through all the crap I’ve written over 2 months – jeez – where does all this drivel in my head come from? 

Anyway, here it is:

Now the vertical numbers on the right are pounds, the numbers along the bottom are the dates. The little triangle is where I started taking Irvingia. The blue line is my weight over the past 63 days. The black line is a trend line based on my weight on Dec 4 of 207 (I’ve tossed the decimal points – a fraction of a pound is insignificant for a chart like this).

The trend points to my gaining weight – and the chart also shows a jump in weight, not seen in almost 60 days, after starting Irvingia. It also shows that my weight is reaching my lower ‘set point’ – my weight has only been lower than this – and only by a fraction of a pound – 4 days in the past 63. 

I have only been at this lower than this weight 6.3% of the time in the past 63 days.

It also shows an unusual sustained decline in the last few days, that hasn’t been seen since I began in mid October.

So the odds say I shouldn’t be this low – and past data would predict that my weight will begin to trend upward after this.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the next week’s worth of chart data might indicate that, by George, theremight be something to this stuff.

Right now, all this reminds me of a very insightful quote:

Statistics are like a bikini: what they reveal is tantalizing, but what they conceal is vital.

More will be revealed over the next week or so – nothing conclusive, I believe, but revealing.

Stay tuned.