So I decided to start – yet again – with an old standby: butter – lots of it – wrapped in roast beef. I made 4 or 5 of these tiny little wraps, wrapped them in foil, and brought to work. In my experience there is nothing like butter to accelerate ketosis.
I remember the other side – a place where carb cravings lessen, where hunger is not so persistent, where a sort of calm descends.
The problem is getting there. As I’ve written on before, the body’s conversion from burning carbs to burning fat can be a rocky one. I’ve done it more times than I can remember but I always feel the physical effects: headache, dizziness, at least. Also – while you’re actually in the midst of the conversion you still have full-on carb cravings – worse because if you have put little effort into curbing carbs prior (raises hand) – you are going to notice.
I started the day with coffee with Atkins Shake as creamer, then had one of my mini wraps as breakfast when I got into work. It tasted OK. I must admit part of my difficulty in restarting my diet has been perhaps a tiredness as to my food choices. Why have just a burger when a burger on a toasted bun is so much better?
As the morning progressed I found the need to ask a colleague a question and – somehow – the conversation turned to diet.
I told this person I had started a diet – and told them my goal was to eat a stick of butter today to get ketosis going.
I got ‘that look’. Very used to it – I expect it. The larger issue is: I owned up to being on a diet. I’m on the hook. It was unintentional, but now I have some social pressure to keep me honest.
Late morning I had 2 big tablespoons of psyllium husk in a large glass of water – horrible stuff unflavored and not ground fine – but I am very used to it. That was about as far as my plan extended – I really had nothing after that, which wasn’t good.
I eventually took a ride to the fancy supermarket down the road and got mortadella and cream cheese. No carbs to be found – and both are on a shortlist of what I’d call the ‘Protein/Fat Inversion’. Most foods – even most fatty foods have more protein than fat – but not these two – both of these have more grams of fat than protein per serving.
The deli guy gave me 2 slices of mortadella as I waited – I guess that’s lunch. I really should eat more like that. Small, high-fat, high-calorie portions that aren’t really all that high calorie in the end because you’re not eating that much.
While mortadella is not exactly a health food, I just need to keep the fat up to get over the carb withdrawal hump. Eating things I like will ease the cutover – then I might be able to apply some discipline and eat less processed fare overall.
(I’m beginning to touch on some of the psychological aspects of food that usually derail me but I’ll avoid a discussion on that now.)
I also ‘cracked open’ my copy of ‘The Fat Fast Cookbook‘ – a mercifully short to-the-point book on basically eating 90% of your calories as fat to jumpstart a low carb diet, with a bunch of recipe ideas. It’s a Kindle book and so it’s always handy as long as at least I have my mobile phone with me.
I had an afternoon coffee and discovered – damn! – they DID use my picture!
Well, I have proven talented at using a mirror without looking at myself in the mirror. There’s a difference. I’ll have to do the same with this.
Evening was so-so. Got a pizza for the family and had a slice. Also had some vodka.
All in all – it could have been worse.
Low Carb Confidential 