Fat, Dumb & Happy Day 19: I Screw Up

March 25, 2014 – 222.8

(Continued…)

I ate lunch at noon – two ‘sandwiches’ consisting of mortadella between slices of the Kerry Gold Irish Swiss cheese with mustard. Satisfying. Mid afternoon a wave of tiredness made me get more Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Late in the afternoon I had perhaps 20 macadamia nuts before leaving work.

Today was the day I screwed up. I had some wine, then went to the fridge to grab some pork shoulder after making pasta for the kid. I had a little bit of the mortadella left and was going to finish it up.

There was leftover toast by the fridge, made by one of the kids, untouched. Without thinking, I ate it – then the ‘What the Hell Effect kicked in. A tiny bit of pasta and Trader Joe’s mini meatballs, 2 small bread rolls with butter, and 2 regular chocolate candies later, I went to bed.

As binges go, this was small potatoes (small potatoes….yummmm). I had been waiting and waiting for when I would screw up – then stopped waiting for it. It wasn’t stress or even a particularly strong craving. Like a lot of criminals, it was a crime of opportunity.

Maybe the ‘reward’ of the mortadella had something to do with it. I love the stuff and it’s certainly low carb, but I don’t believe that it’s good for you. I’m not even saying I know that as a fact or not – maybe mortadella has life-extending properties unknown to science for all I know – it’s the *belief* itself – in it being a ‘reward’ and being ‘bad for you’ that might be the culprit here.

I didn’t want to go all ‘pop psychologist’ in watching for the steps that lead to a failure, albeit a small one. There’s nothing much to see here: maybe some moral licensing mixed with opportunity, with a dash of the regular stress and fatigue thrown in. Boring.

Maybe the interesting part is not preventing the fall off the horse but ensuring you get right back on after the fall?

March 26, 2014 -223.6

Still in ketosis – at least this morning. Sometimes there’s leftover ketones that will disappear from the afternoon measurement. What’s concerning is the blood glucose: 135. I believe that’s an out-of-shape glucose regulation mechanism responding to a small amount of carbs.

I could have recovered there – but I didn’t. I thought I was going to. I bought more cheese and roast beef and was prepared to get back on the horse…but there’s no pizza on the horse, so I stayed off the horse and had 2 slices of pepperoni pizza after having my low-carb-friendly cheese and roast beef with what turned out to be a not-so-friendly leftover salad dressing that was obviously sweetened with sugar.

Then, to ensure that I screwed up big for the day: 2 crappy energy drinks and a small bag of chips for the ride home.

I felt wasted and bloated by all this. When I came home I didn’t have much of an appetite. The kids had some coconut shrimp, and I had a few of those – and that’s it except for water.

March 27, 2014 – 225.6

Any reasonable person, assessing the current situation of my diet, would most likely throw in the towel and begin looking elsewhere. There’s plenty of new diet books out there – there always is.

I suspect that diet books have become a trope: there are standard devices and conventions for these things, and all you need is a good ‘hook’ – the diet book equivalent to the guitar intro to ‘Smoke on the Water’ by Deep Purple – or a celebrity, or a reasonably attractive and slim author for the cover.

Lastly you need a good title. ‘The End of Dieting’, currently on the bestseller list, is a common title convention: the ‘This-is-Not-a-Diet-Book Diet Book’. It promises something different, but it’s another diet book.

Then there’s ‘Hungry Girl Diet’. Since most diet book purchasers are women, they take the risk of leaving the fat guys behind by making the women feel like it’s especially for them – a girl’s club. It’s worked for this title – it’s #1 at the moment.

Where’s the diet for the guys? Oh, there it is: ‘Super Shred Diet’ – that sounds macho. And there’s a manly man on the cover.

Then there’s the nerd diets that blind you with science: ‘Wheat Belly’. Cute, yet sciency for the folks that want real data. Invent a disease, then cure it with your diet. I haven’t read this one, but I might add it to my collection as this is the one that most appeals to my particular sub-genre of diet book reading.

For those of us that want to hear from an actual doctor, there’s ‘The Doctor’s Diet’. You buy that one on the basis of an authority, though doctors have failed to halp anyone lose weight for 50 years, so I don’t necessarily see the allure. It’s probably for people who haven’t thought this proposition through.

Smoothies are cool. They’re fast to make and convenient for busy folk, so of course, there’s a Smoothie diet on the bestseller list, as well as a Paleo diet book. There’s also a book on dieting with Intermittent Fasting – as well as a ‘fast’ diet – we fat suckers *always* fall for that one: “In a couple of weeks i’ll be in Speedos just so long as I buy this book!”

Anywho…end of rant. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.

I bought Applegate Farms american cheese and when I had it today for the first time, I was blown away. Delicate flavor, yet distinct – not what you think of when you think ‘American cheese’, with it’s in-your-face-sloppy-wet-dog-jumping-on-you-bold-dumb flavor.

I had family duties and drove home eating some to pick up my kids for class after school. I also stopped at McDonalds. (Doum-Dum-DUMMMMMmmmm.) I bought 3 double cheeseburgers and they were gone in a flash. I also had 2 energy drinks because I was tired and was not going to make it through the evening. Got home with the kids after nine and was shortly in bed where I quickly fell asleep.

March 28, 2014 – 226.4

Ate mostly the Applegate American cheese, which has a wonderful flavor. I think I ate the entire pound of the stuff in work and on the way home. I also had a Fage yogurt with EZ-Sweetz – and if I could find any more of them, I would have had some macadamia nuts.

In the evening the family want to a steakhouse. I indulged in a vodka martini as well as some of the bread brought to the table. I had a salad, then the main course: a prime rib steak with wasabi mashed potatoes. I had ‘em – they were good.

At home afterward I had some frosted flakes that the kid left out on the counter and some soft sweet bread of some sort with Nutella.

Not low carb. No point in testing for ketones, eh?

I did lose 2 pounds the next day – but that’s for the next post.