March 2- Tea, Yarn, Twitch, and Pizza

Butter chai tea, using Tazo's chai flavored tea bags.

I felt lazy this morning, so I brewed tea and whipped it with butter. Much less work. Nice and light flavor, too. I added a capful of vanilla to it.

So, last night I was enjoying a Pokemon Yellow stream hosted by one of my favorite Let's Play Youtubers, Lucahjin. It was a fun stream, especially with chat naming the characters and pokemon. I wanted to craft something based on the stream, similar to fans drawing things based on streams, and after much brainstorming, I decided on a small Pikachu Cupcake from a pattern on Ravelry.com.

I am terrible at embroidery and I have no eyes the right size, so he's blind. He whipped up so fast, this morning I wanted to do the nidoran she caught.

I've also gotten a lot of feedback asking me to start a Twitch creative stream. I'm looking into that, to crochet and knit on stream. Not sure how I'm going to go about it, still messing with settings and stuff. It's fun playing around with layouts and software, though.

Finally, pizza. I ate a pizza last night. A whole medium pizza. And breaded chicken nugget things. I was so hungry after walking, and I wanted carbs. To minimize damage, I chose thin crust, garlic and olive oil sauce, and bacon and feta for the topping. The nuggets had barbecue sauce and cheese on them. The nuggets were worth it, the pizza not as good as I'd hoped. Both were a bit overcooked. I still lost half a pound, though. :D I just don't want to make this a  habit.

I have no game plan for today. I was up late, woke late... just been at the computer paying some more bills and stuff all morning. I'm a bit bored so I'll probably go out for a walk soon.

Here's hoping today is a little less cheaty.

Day 30- Marching Into a New Month and a New Me!

Holy crap, it's the start of a second month, and I am purging last week's carb bloat like you wouldn't believe. I wish I could show You my dinner from last night. It'll have to wait. I've been messing around, and found a way to stream video from my phone into my computer and onto Twitch.com, so I might just start a creative crafts stream this month. Anyway, I take photos with my phone, and right now the computer is updating the USB software so I can hopefully use the USB connection to feed video into the computer. Such fun, many waiting.

This morning was nearly plain butter coffee- I added a capful of vanilla, which is really light in the coffee, but softens the flavor up a bit. Some days I guess I just don't want a biting bitter brew. I was planning to walk to the cafe today, but it snowed overnight, and then the temperature plummeted. It's 15 degrees F out right now, slick since the sidewalks aren't cleaned off. The mental health clinic has a walk at the community center planned today, so I sent a text to the coordinator to see if there's room in the van for a ride with them. There's a free for use indoor walking path there, so I figured if there's a seat open, I could walk in warmth and comfort with my chunes in my ear. I just have to remember not to try matching other people's pace, so I don't wear out too soon. (Just got a reply, They've got room for me!)

Once again I'm at a loss as to what to prepare for dinner. There's a leftover steak in the fridge, a couple chicken thighs for soup, and a couple pork chops. Because it's so cold, I think I'll pull out the thighs and make a soup, along with a carrot and the last parsnip. Sadly, that would also mean no more broth in storage. Next time I'm in either the butcher's or the local grocery, I will have to ask for bones.

Today I'm paying bills, taking care of things, getting dad a new coffee grinder as his is difficult for him to use (and grinds beans horribly coarse). It's going to be a rather mundane day, which I need. Too much activity during a week and I start to feel stressed, which is annoying with all the energy I get when I eat Wild. I want to run around and do more than I can mentally handle, and I end up burnt out. I have to remember to allow for plenty of relaxing to prevent that burnout.

Here's to a good walk later, and lots of hot tea to counter the cold of the day. Soup sounds better and better every minute.

Day 29: Transition to a New Month, New Scales, New Goals

What is your reward for a month of dieting? MORE DIETING! BWAHAHAHA! Good thing this eating plan is frigging awesome and the food is so luxurious I feel like I should be tossing hundred dollar bills into the fireplace and eating off diamond plates with gold tableware.

First off, dinner last night:

Rib-eye steak and baby spinach, both cooked in bacon grease

and seasoned with salt, pepper, and then topped with a little butter.

When your diet food doesn't look like diet food. I wasn't super hungry, so I kept the meal simple. About a fourth of the steak was fatty bits, which I'm still picky about, so that was trimmed away. It was bloody and tasty, though.

This morning, it's just a plain butter and coffee kind of morning while I wait for laundry to dry. Because tomorrow starts a whole new month, March, I wanted a transition record since I'm switching to the new scale. I weighed myself on both, to get a starting number and an ending number, and to see the difference in weight the two registered.

Taken within minutes of each other, the picture on the right taken first.

That's a 5.5 pound difference. If I only looked at the new scale, you'd think I'd gained a couple pounds overnight. But going by the trend of the old scale, I lost two pounds and little extra. So, you see why I wanted a transition day.

I think the photo above is also a good illustration as to why we don't rely on bathroom scales for accurate numbers. They're great for a relative number, and to track a trend, provided you use them at a consistent time when you weigh yourself, and take notes as to your eating and activities. But as you can see, you have variance from machine to machine.

I also took my after photos last night, and I'd posted them in the Wild Tribe Facebook group. Here they are for the blog:

Front view, before and after

Side view, before and after

This is from 28 days of not being super vigilant on the Wild Diet, but adhering to most of the guidelines. I was strict during the first two weeks, and did my experimentation during the second two weeks. I had to test some of the tenants Abel set forth in his approach. NEVER TAKE DIET ADVICE AT FACE VALUE! Ever. Each body is different, and there are no real diet gurus. There are people with ideas that worked for them, and we all have unique bodies. Primal may work for one person, vegan another, and yet another can eat anything they come across, and all could achieve relative health on their eating plan, and be obese and sickly on another person's plan. This is why there are no universal miracle diets.

Experiment, test the ideas presented. Keep consistency in mind, and take copious notes to avoid fooling yourself. It's okay to cherry pick things that work from different diet plans if they also work together. This is how the Wild Diet came to be- ideas from different lifestyles that worked for Abel were combined into a plan that works for others, as well. If you have issues, experiment to see why you're having issues. Cut out dairy for a couple weeks. Add dairy back in for three days after. Take notes and compare. Maybe that rice you're carb loading with the night before is causing an issue. Perhaps you have trouble with sweet potatoes. Maybe you just don't like leafy greens, but you adore broccoli and brussels sprouts cooked with bacon. Maybe you're allergic to pork, so you skip bacon and use smoked spices to season your greens.

Eating Wild isn't a plan set in stone, nor is any "diet" a plan set in stone. It is a philosophy that revolves around eating whole foods. It has elements that make cravings few and far between, and that help with weight loss. But it is, at its core, a lifestyle because it has a defined philosophy with it, and a sustainable lifestyle should fit your biological makeup. If you're trying to make your body follow a book, and not the guidelines in a book work for your body, you're going to have negative issues.

That said, following the Wild Diet as close as I could afford to, I had amazing results the first two weeks, on into week three where I started deviating. Inflammation decreased, mood elevated- people were constantly telling me how bright I looked, how I looked like I was doing world's better than a mere month ago.

I have bipolar, and my mood changes often, with a predisposition for depression most times. The depression swings are the most noticeable for other people, because I lose myself to it and it takes incredible effort just to be awake and semi-dressed. Within days of eating Wild, I was being told I looked healthy, happy, good, all sorts of positive adjectives. I found myself forgetting to grab my cane as I walked around. You will notice, the Feb 1st pictures I'm holding a cane, and in the Feb 28th pictures, I'm standing on my own. I reached that point within two weeks. Being so free from severe pain, I experienced happiness I hadn't felt for a long time. I thought I was going manic!

I also experienced incredible energy. Again, I thought I was going manic, and I even considered talking to my psychiatrist about reducing my medication. Turned out, I just needed to go outside and walk, because it was just extra energy, probably from my body burning my fat stores. I needed a healthy way to release all that stored energy, instead of just sitting around being lazy. Week 4 I was eating more glutinous foods, and my sluggishness set in again after only a few days, along with knee pain returning. That has confirmed, no glutinous grain for me. I don't want to be immobile or days away from a wheelchair again. To me, that pain isn't worth a meal's indulgence.

I start the next chapter of my Wild adventures tomorrow. I know now how I should eat. I know I can stick with it, and I want to stick with it, because it tastes good, and it makes my body feel good. But eating is only part of the equation. It's an important part, but my body has little to no stamina, and eating does not build stamina. Eating doesn't really build muscle, either.

For March, my goal is to make walking a regular habit. The ice on the ground is no longer a huge issue (not until the March pre-spring storm, anyway) and the weather is slowly (and fitfully) warming up. I can no longer use below-zero windchill as an excuse to stay indoors. I know I can walk a mile, and I know I enjoy walking more when I have a destination. So. My plan is to make walking up to the local cafe a habit, three times a week being the first goal. I will increase it after that. I can reward myself with a tea or coffee, none of the fancy crap though. I can carry a backpack with my laptop and knitting, knit and sponge off WiFi, walk home, and have a productive day that way.

THis might be a harder goal, so I'm going to have to be more ready with non-food rewards. While I had rewards set for February, I only halfway followed through with one- talking to my sister about a handmade apron. It's been three weeks, and I'm sure I may never see it. What I want to reward myself with is this:

Special mugs just for my butter coffee.

After a month of walking to the cafe and back, a minimum of 3 days each week, I will consider the goal reached and I will have earned those mugs. (They're sold as a pair.) I just hope they aren't sold out by then. :x

I wish everybody good luck as the Challenge ends tomorrow, and a new month begins as well. This is my last day with Tribe access, and I will miss being able to scroll through the Facebook page. I hope everyone who enjoys the Wild lifestyle keeps fresh goals in mind, and keeps working hard for better health and better performance. It was great meeting everyone, and the support I got was so helpful. I wish I could hug everyone. Take care, and continue to be excellent to each other.

edit to add: Oh... was about to post "Goodbye" in the FB group. Guess yesterday was my last day. xD

Pumpkin Spice Fatty Coffee, Take 2

I've got some pumpkin in the fridge yet, and I wasn't too impressed by my first attempt at pumpkin fatty coffee. It's currently mid afternoon, and I'm kind of hungry but not like rawr feed me hungry. I decided to make a fatty coffee since I couldn't figure out what I wanted to eat.

This mug contains regular strength coffee, 2 tablespoons of butter, 2 caps of vanilla, some cinnamon, and 2 teaspoon sized scoops of pumpkin. No sweeteners, no dairy other than butter. Blended it all in my Ninja.

It's definitely not a clone by any means of the drinks from the cafe. It is coffee with a faint pumpkin note and a hint of spice. Because I actually like the taste of coffee, I'm happy with this. Happier than with the production I tried to make before. There's still the fiber and vitamin boost from the pumpkin, and the extra smooth texture it adds to the beverage. I'm sorry I don't tend to measure my spices in this stuff. It's usually a few shakes in the blender cup, and then a light sprinkle over the finished product for the aroma. I also use a 2 oz bottle of vanilla, so my cap fulls are sized for that bottle.

Day 28- End of Week 4 Weigh-In and Secret Experiments

First off, the weigh-in photo:

This morning.

First day I was able to record a number instead of an

error in Week 1,

The estimate is I started at 450, because this scale stops registering me somewhere below that number. I was also barefoot in the older photo because I wasn't able to get socks on, my feet were too swollen. Yep, either barefoot, or barefoot in sandals in February in Minnesota, because my feet were too swollen for appropriate footwear. I've been wearing shoes for two weeks now, with socks. And I need to buy new socks because the ones I have were kind of ratty when I was forced to stop wearing them.

My weight loss was very rapid that first week. I was losing near three pounds a day, peeing it all out twice in the night. It slowed to 2 pounds a day in Week 2, to one pound Week 3, and this week it's at half a pound.

Why such a dramatic slowdown? EXPERIMENTATION! I don't like taking diet advice at face value, not when foods are being eliminated. I cut out sugar, wheat, corn, soy (aside from the soy that's slipped into certain foods because I can't afford the non-soy versions), most dairy aside from butter... And of these foods, wheat is the most vilified in The Wild Diet. So, naturally, I wanted to see if wheat itself really does have a profound effect on my body and pain levels.

Now, I'd done an elimination diet a few years ago when I first started seeing signs of swelling in my legs, and I cut out wheat, gluten-y foods in general, and corn. I was vegan at the time, and it was  a struggle to find food in compliance, but eating lots of brown rice and potatoes, and protein where I could it, I found the swelling went down and I dropped a lot of water weight. Everyone told me I was going to kill myself, though, from doctors to social workers to family and online friends.

I started adding back corn. I felt okay. I stopped being vegan. That went alright. Gradually gluten and wheat itself made its way back into my diet and my swelling came back, but I paid it no mind as I worked my way through bloody steaks bringing my health back up to manageable after so much time with too little protein.

Well, The Wild Diet is a type of elimination diet, cutting out suspected inflammatory foods and filling up on satisfying foods to negate the cravings one would normally feel after giving up favorite foods. But you're not expected to add foods back to see if those foods actually caused the health issues that disappeared after several types of food were removed.

Wheat being the villain, I thought I would eat small doses the past couple weeks, to see what would happen. I weighed myself daily since the start to keep a steady relative number as I added small amounts of wheat products. I paid attention to frequency and relative amount, and looked at my numbers in relation.

February 19th was a fish fry on a Friday (Fry-day) to see how that would affect my digestion. It rolled around in my tummy, but I enjoyed myself that night. I gained 3 pounds when I was able to weigh myself that Sunday.

The next dose was a beer Monday night, and the next day I was up a pound.

I ate a ton of sugar the next night in about any form I could find, not realizing my actual period was starting, two weeks later than normal. I was up another 2 pounds by Wednesday.

Since then, I've had one more beer and two traditional cookies, and my loss has slowed to tiny fractions.

But! More important than the scale number is how my body feels. I've gotten sluggish. I'm not waking before dawn, I'm not keeping up on hygiene so well, and my shoes are getting tight again. I just feel emotionally icky, beyond the period slump I always get. My knee pain is also returning, which has slowed my walking.

I have concluded that for my body, wheat is indeed a bad guy. It seems to stall my weight loss, which is bad considering how overweight I am, and it seems to worsen my body's inflammation. The added pain worsens my depression symptoms. I will be eliminating this food from my diet, since two different elimination diets have shown eliminating then reintroducing it correlates with pain and inflammation. I think this will make for better results over Month 2.

My weight loss over Month 1, the first increase being

from water retention during what I thought was PMS, but

was just spotting

Today, I have made my fatty coffee, adding some almond extract and some cardamom to make a nice warm and slightly Christmasy-flavor. (Grew up in a Lutheran church with much Swedish good in the bake sales.) I plan to keep the day simple and work on eating Wild like I should be. I want to see how a full month eating as Wild as I can will affect that graph.

I will also be taking my after pictures tonight- I took my before pictures before I went to bed, so for consistency, I will do the same for the afters. In my swim trunks again. xD

I will write up my email for Abel's 30 day challenge entry, and get everything prepared for sending.

I hope everyone following the Wild 30 Day Challenge has been experiencing better health and happiness this past month. It's been an interesting experiment, and I've learned so much about myself and my body. I've learned to be a little selfish, and that it's not a bad thing. I've learned I can do what I put my mind to, even if it seems impossible. I've learned I can cook! It's truly been a month of great things, and I'm looking forward to continuing for a lifetime.

Day 27- Dinner

I ended up eating the leftover steak as a late lunch, so I cooked some shrimp in butter and olive oil, with chopped onion, garlic, salt, and pepper. The veggies are 2 carrots, 2 small parsnips, and some thinly sliced fennel, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.

It was all super delicious, and I'm finishing off the meal with a green apple for dessert.

Avocado "Ice Cream" Attempt #1

One frozen avocado, a handful of frozen strawberries, water to get things moving. A bit between a smoothie and soft serve in consistency. Good mouth feel, not so good taste wise. I will definitely tweak this before coming up with an actual recipe to share. Was kind of hard choking this down. :P Avocado does make a smoother ice cream texture than straight up bananas, though.