Whisper

Challenge Day 3 (posted a day late)

Activity: 12,258 steps, 5,535 cals out.

Food: Logged 1,963 cals in. Then I had a really stressful time after a really long day at work and ended up bending some and not measureing what I was eating. Remember how I didn't buy chips? Binged on almonds, pumpkin seeds and pistachios. 

My takeaway? Need to pre-portion the stuff so that next time I go off stress eating, I can account for it afterwards. 

On 1/9/2019 at 8:29 AM, WhiteGhost said:

Ultimately, these are both personal choices so there is no right or wrong answer to either

17 minutes ago, RES said:

Echoing what WhiteGhost said, it's completely a personal choice. Some people prefer battle logs for more 'long term' things, and use the challenges for shorter term goals. Some only do one or the other, I do both depending on what it's for, YMMV.

Thank you both for you inputs. I think I do like the idea of a more long term place to keep track of my quest stuff and personal stats over time; easier to reference things like old measurements that way. I want to spend time working on the Academy stuff this weekend, so I'll probably make one then.

So, I'm thinking about starting a separate "battle log" type thread to keep track of all of my Academy quests.

My questions are:

1. Should I do that, or just post that stuff here too?

2. Should I upload my before pictures?

I've been debating the second question for a while. I wasn't going to do it if they just showed up, because it seems really damn mean to make people look at them; but I've just satisfied myself that I can indeed upload images, but keep them from displaying without active choice by the viewer.  There is a part of me that thinks it could be an important part of "owning" where I am now, and my Big WHY of why I am trying to change, but I'm not sure if it is a good idea or not.

This is a test, this is only a test...

Challenge Day 2

Activity: 4,446 cals out. 11,514 steps.

Food: 2,620 cals in. 44% carb, 36% fat, 20% protein.

5 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

I hope they figure out what is messing with your sleep soon, so you can get that properly addressed.  

That would be nice, but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Been dealing with sleep problems for at least twenty years, and actively looking for answers for the last 7. I haven't found anything that fits better than Narcolepsy, but there are some critical areas where that doesn't fit either. It's just been a long, crazy mess. But I got a good 6.5 hours of sleep last night, and today I feel pretty good, so that is something.

Challenge Day 1: 

In which I spent an instructive two hours at my doctor's office talking about things like hypoglycemia and catecholamine rush, and I got to try valium for the first time... It has been an amazingly long three days. Oh, I also might not have narcolepsy; I might have something else disrupting my sleep badly enough that it looks like narcolepsy. So I get to go to another sleep specialist. 

I only lasted three hours at work today. As soon as I started, I knew I was in worse shape than I had been on Sunday, even with adding back carbs and focusing on hydrations and electrolytes. Got worse as I was there, and left to be at my doc's office when she opened. Fortunately, there were able to squeeze me in fairly quickly. Didn't get as bad as Saturday, but i was getting really not good.

Doc wants me to try a variation on Keto with a higher carb count, around 100g instead of under 20, but focused mainly to a single meal. There are some places that suggest doing the carb meal at dinner, but she thinks I'll respond better to doing it at lunch. So, Keto breakfast, "normal" lunch, Keto dinner. So, that will be the general plan. I'll need to work out the fine details over the next few days and put it into action.

Today's activity was about 4,800 steps. Fitbit is showing 3,500 cals out thus far.

Food was 2,610 cals in. 50% Carb, 37% Fat and 13% Protein.

With the valium, I was able to get some sleep this afternoon, bringing the total sleep for today to about 4 and a half hours.

Getting ready to go to bed now, and am feeling hopeful that I might finally get a full night's sleep in.

1 hour ago, karinajean said:

I'm glad you're feeling better!

Thank you.

So, how does one get Diplomatic Immunity?

Day 0

Thank you everyone for the encouragement, support and feedback. This is what I was missing in my last several attempts at losing weight, and I know it is a huge part of why I'm still in this thing now!

2,343 cals. 67% carb, 22% fat, 11% protein. I have no idea what I'm going to want those numbers to look like, but today I am happy with them. I still have no appetite for food, but find myself in the rare position today of finding "empty" calories better than no calories. Hopefully I'll feel more up to eating my food tomorrow. Fortunately, drinking isn't a problem, so focused on staying hydrated and replenishing electrolytes. 

I have been feeling increasingly better as the day has gone on. I'm still really tired, but that just makes me hopeful of a good night's sleep tonight. Even the "brain fog" has gotten better. I'll try to nail down a longer term plan tomorrow, thinking I might try something closer to Paleo than Keto, but want to see if there are any other diets recommended for Narcolepsy.

15 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Sounds like you are playing life on super hardcore mode, so props to you! 

I might be doing life on hardcore, but I can still be grateful for a whole lot of things, and sadly, there are people running this life on nightmare and insanity. I don't wish it on anyone, but knowing that it really can be worse, makes bearing what I've got a bit easier in comparison. 

So last night got really bad... I was debating between emergency room now and urgent care in the morning. I decided to see if chex mix could solve the problem instead... Chex Mix just saved me a huge co-pay. 

The takeaway from pre-challenge week:

Keto is really good at making me lose weight, but it is also really not good for me. So, I need to a new plan, and I don't have time and cognitive function (noticed a large decline that is still persisting). I had limited time to get food today, and no time to prep or cook today and tomorrow, so I went to the grocery store to get what food to last until Tuesday afternoon.

The plan for now:

1. Eat what I want but don't be stupid about it. I got nuts instead of chips, I got some bananas and yogurt, I got a few microwave meals, 'cause yeah, cooking isn't going to happen before Tuesday afternoon, and I need to be eating.
2. Keep tracking what I am eating. I think under 2,000 was way to little, but am going to try and stay under 3,000. I'll see how that works and adjust as necessary.
3. Email my doctor today and let her know how this went...
4. Come up with a longer term plan to start Tuesday. Did I mention that I'm not thinking great right now? I've got some ideas, but really don't want to try and work on it until the synapse are talking to each other again.

To be clear:  THIS WAS NOT A FAILURE!    I don't really think any of you are going to think that, I just want you to know that I don't feel that way even a little bit. I'm actually kind of proud of myself. I committed to giving Keto a fair try, and I did that. Trying to press any further with it would have been dangerously stupid.

14 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

 

I believe the code for it is CO[ sub ]2[ /sub ] without the spaces between the brackets.  Thus it should come out looking like this CO₂ 

Th_anks!

Ok, feeling a bit better. As soon as I started drinking the sports drink my nausea went away. By the time it was done the headache was mostly gone. Sadly, the fatigue is still there, and just about any activity is setting my heart racing. I needed a sit-down break after rinsing off and drying from the shower before I could fix my hair and by the time I got my watch back on my heart rate was up to 124!

Looking at my sleep log for the last few days... yeah, the fatigue is gonna need more than just a sports drink to fix. Hopefully the drink'll help my sleep too.  If I don't sleep better tonight than I did last night, I will break the diet and try coming up with another plan.

Only 939 cals today. Even with the nausea gone I had to force myself to eat lunch, and didn't feel like forcing dinner. Did drank 96oz of drinks with no no calories from sweetener; which is the standard I'm using for water consumption. Coffee with heavy cream and liquid stevia counts, sports drinks count, sugar and HFCS don't count.

Anyway, as soon as I post this I am killing all tech (to eliminate distractions) and heading to bed. If you feel so inclined, please say a prayer for me.

Just tried doing the warm-up, it was not a good idea. Step 1: 30 seconds of high knees. By the end my nausea was worse and headache started flaring up. Stopped. Decided that being three hours late on lunch was possibly a bad thing. I was holding lunch until after I did the warm-up, and it took a LONG time to work up the willpower to even try...

Shit, I am stupid sometimes (or experiencing the brain-fog associated with the Keto Flu)!

Induction flu: Headaches, lethargy, nausea, confusion, brain fog, irritability. Hmmm... sounds vaguely familiar. I read about it literally (literally literally, not figuratively "literally") everywhere I read about the Keto Flu.  I wrote it off because the solution seem to be more salt and water. I'm good on my water intake, close to 100oz each day. I figured I would be good on the salt side of it. I've been adding a bit extra pink salt to the food I'm making, and my sleep med literally (again) has the word "sodium" in its technical name! Thought I would be fine on salt.

I'm trying zero calorie sports drink now. Read somewhere (don't remember, not looking up again) that an epsom salt soak can help too, so Sir Terry and I are off to take a bath.

1 hour ago, Jean said:

 

Considering a good part of it would also turn into CO2 upon your death, you'd also need to eat things with tons of preservatives and hope your body turns into stone or something to keep the carbon there. I like your approach to environment preservation more.

That is what makes modern burial so wonderful! Right at the end you get pumped full of preservatives and stuck in a hermetically sealed box underground. Unless someone digs you up and cracks the seal, that carbon is staying sunk!

Seriously though, I find our burial traditions creepy as fuck. It's an empty shell, why do we try and hang onto it? Screw the carbon emissions, when I die burn that thing up and get rid of the ashes, dumpster out back is just fine.

TLDR for below: Sleep sucks and my meds aren't working right. I don't think the diet is the problem, it's been going on for a while but it has been even worse since starting keto.

Now that I've written way too much about fat loss, I'm going to write way too much about sleeping!

So, I put this in my introduction [but not here], I have Narcolepsy. Most people seem to fall into two categories when I say that; they either have no idea what it is, or remember comically exaggerated media depictions. Even medical descriptions on places like WebMD and Mayo Clinic belie the fact that it can take as long as 10 to 15 years after the first symptoms appear before narcolepsy is recognized and diagnosed. Basically, if you think Narcolepsy means randomly falling asleep, you're not exactly wrong, but you're missing the reality of it.

Overly simplified, the root cause of Narcolepsy is a breakdown in the barrier between being awake, and being asleep. The symptom of that most critical for treatment is disrupted nighttime sleep. Basically, I don't stay asleep at night. For years "normal" for me was waking up every 15 minutes, checking the time and rolling over. Lather, rinse, repeat ALL NIGHT LONG. Leaving me incredibly tired ALL THE TIME, to the point that, yes, I can fall into a microsleep at inopportune times during the day and I even think I got in a car accident because of it while fighting with my insurance about the diagnosis after they refused to cover treatment. I stopped driving for close to 6 months after that... Even with treatment, if I am both board and sitting I am likely to konk out briefly. Fortunately I have a job where meetings are rare, short and standing, and long sit-down meetings average fewer than twice a year.  I stand in the back of the Sanctuary during sermons, and am actively engaged with either playing music, or running projection for the rest of the service. I've thought about going back to school to earn a Master's, but the sleep issues during High School and College make me afraid to seriously consider it. But day to day life? With treatment I'm fine, and yes, I do drive (my doctor has to sign off on that every year).

"So how is it treated?" I'm happy you asked that imaginary person! Every night at bed time, I take what is essentially a date-rape drug to knock myself out for 2 to 4 hours, when I wake up and take a second dose to get me through the rest of the night. For a few years now, this has been highly effective. The stuff is strong enough that I get quality sleep, but metabolizes quickly enough in the body (thus needing two doses) that I'm not completely zombified the next day like I was with normal sleep aids. At least, that's how it was.

For the last few months, the first dose has not been knocking me out nearly as quickly as it used to. I've been working with my doctor to try and make some adjustments, but thus far it hasn't worked. Since starting the diet, the second dose hasn't been working right! Last night I was feeling soooo tired that I tried going to bed early. I took my first dose, only got an hour of sleep, waited for the second prescribed hour to pass and took the next dose, but didn't fall asleep for another hour and woke up after just one more. Tried for another hour to get back to sleep and out of sheer frustration (and knowing I didn't need to be anywhere this morning) took a THIRD dose, and STILL didn't sleep!

I reached the point last night of being so thoroughly sedated that I couldn't even hold a book up, much less stand, but I wasn't asleep and didn't feel sleepy!  The third dose is rarely a good idea. I'll do it sometimes when I'm sick and need more sleep, or have a day off to get some extra after not getting enough sleep for several nights, but it doesn't leave my body the way the first two do. Even now, over 8 hours later I can still feel it in my, and tingling feeling in my legs, hands and chin. I feel fatigued, but wide awake. My trip to the grocery store is on hold until this feeling passes. I might try testing my balance with some exercises and see if getting my heart rate up for a bit helps process the stuff out.

I did some research this morning on whether Keto and Narcolepsy don't mix, and I'm mostly finding the opposite.  I didn't talk to my doctor about keto in the context of narcolepsy specifically, but trust that if they didn't meld together, she would have told me. Looking online, I've found several things saying that Keto helps Narcolepsy, and even one saying that Keto might improve the efficacy of the medication I am on.

Did some more research... Looks like it isn't uncommon for people to find the med not working as well over time. This is really scary for me. The med has helped me so much, and everything else we've tried has at best done nothing and often made things worse. Okay. Need to calm down and try and get this day moving.

TLDR for below: I'm losing weight! More than weight than I think is fat loss, and more fat loss than I think is sustainable, but I am happy with it.

Ok, I weight myself in this morning at 351.9 lbs. Some quick mat [361.4-351.9] puts me at -9.5 lbs over the last week, only 4 days of which were on Keto. Even if my doubts about how much Fitbit says I burn a day were entirely unfounded, I would still only have expected to see a bit less than 4 pounds of fat loss. >3,000 cal deficit over 4 days would be >12,000 cals.  3.500 cals per pound of fat would be >3.43 pounds.

So, lets round that up and say I lost 4 pounds of fat, and 5.5 pounds of water/fluctuation.  That's still really damn good for less than!

Extrapolating a whole bunch of assumptions going forward... I could be looking at up to 7 pounds of fat loss and up to 16.625  total pounds by next week! Now, I would expect the water loss/fluctuation to go down overtime. I don't care about that; I'm not trying to lose water, I'm trying to lose fat, and like the thought of losing 7 pounds of it a week.  

Fun fact: fat exits the body as carbon dioxide and water at a roughly 80/20 ratio. So 7 pounds of fat would turn into  5.6 pounds of C02 [is there a way to make that 2 subscript?]  and 1.4 pounds of H20 [that tutu?]. Now, while this could arguably make my fat count as something of a carbon sink, I think the reduced carbon emissions from eating less food will more than offset my increased personal emissions.  Amount of C02 per calorie of food varies wildly by type and source of that food; meat takes more than plants, local takes less in the form of transportation...

Buuuuuuuuuut [I like big caveats and I cannot lie] this really isn't a sustainable weight loss rate over the long term. As my weight goes down, the number of calories needed to support that weight will also go down [I decided not to graph that, for now] and I suspect that I'll also need to take in more calories per day than I currently am, thus reducing the fat loss from both ends. I'm good with that. I'm not sure what the taper rate is going to be, but overtime I expect to stabilize between 1 and 2 pounds per week and hit inevitable plateaus; I'll just be thankful for the early kickstart on the journey.

To be clear, I'm not even hungry right now, much less "starving" myself. I've given myself full permission to eat Keto friendly snacks, and when I get hungry, I'm doing just that. Most days thus far, I'm feeling just fine with my meals and not wanting to snack at all.

10 hours ago, SirPinguin said:

Morrowind still has the best progression system, that's a fact! :p

Truth friend, truth.

Also, happy to have you here. You talked some about being a "Mindhopper" but I don't think I could have laid out that much thought that clearly.  Looking forward to seeing how you grow this.

Day -3

This morning, as I was heading back to work in a department during their break, I saw couple operators carrying doughnuts, and thought to myself "Sweet! The manager brought in doughnu... ohhh... shit." Then my friend that I was giving a ride to wanted me to swing by Papa Murphy's to pick up a Pizza for her, and every fast food place we passed looked so good.

Keeping up with my log and plan. 1,842 cals, 66% fat, 31% protein 3% carbs. Fun fact; Fitbit seems to think I should be eating about 3000 more calories than I am. It also thinks I burn nearly 4,000 cals on a day off, and 5 to 6 thousand on a work day. I really hope that it is wrong, I really hope that I wasn't eating that much crap everyday to be this fat with that much output.

I've been feeling slightly queasy most of today and haven't been sleeping well this week (or most of last week), so decided to skip the Warm-up and Cool-down today. Might try to do it when I wake up. For now, I'm gonna spend some time in Sir Terry's world and try and get a better nights sleep tonight.

6 hours ago, karinajean said:

hey! I am a fellow academy forum member too. I was pretty nervous about joining these forums, because they seemed so much bigger and scarier than the friendly academy forums, but I really really love it here and am happy to call this a "home." 

They were a useful tool, and I do miss them, but I am finding this a good substitute thus far. I tried the Academy Facebook group, but that format really doesn't work for me.

Day -4

Last night (when I should have been sleeping) I ended up wandering around and snacking mindlessly.  Fortunately, I really did clear out my junk food, so rather than a bag of popcorn, or a bunch of chips, or a bowl of ice cream, I had a couple handfuls of pumpkin seeds.  Did my best to estimate the amount and added it to my food log for today.

Logging went well, following plan went ok. I don't think I would use this exact meal plan again, but it has been a really helpful learning tool thus far. 1,903 cals, 66% fat, 24% protein, 10% carbs.

Completed the Warm-up, decided to make a few changes to the Cool-down. Removing "Downward Dog" and Lunge stretch; having too much balance struggle with Down and the Lunge position puts too much pressure on my knees. I still feel I'm getting a good full body stretch without them.

Day -5 is done!

Kept to the meal plan and food logging. 1,552 cals. 60% fat, 34% protein, 6% carbs.  I haven't been feeling all that hungry, but did feel some impulses to eat junk food while driving past fast-food places this afternoon.

Completed the Warm-Up and Cool-Down. My legs were actually a little sore when I got up this morning from just the little bit of squatting and lunges I did yesterday.

1 hour ago, NicTheRugger said:

I'm thinking about adding a goal for drinking water to my challenge

If you think it'll help you, go for it. I'm loggin my water in my Fitbit app and trying to work my way up to 100 oz. (88 today)

Today I cooked! Followed the meal plan from my cookbook, and logged everything in Fitbit. Came out to 1,694 cals. 63% fat, 32% protein and 5% carbs. I've got lots of food set aside to get me through the work week.

I also did the warm-up and cool-down this morning. It was more challenging for me than I thought it would be, and took about a half hour to get through. Not something I'm going to be able to do in my rush to get out the door in the morning, but I can do it after work, and with some practice I should be able to get it done more quickly and at some point switch it to mornings.

For the Academy, I did my before pictures and my measurements.

Overall, I'm feeling really good this day -6 of the challenge. 

23 hours ago, isaac10991 said:

I think those are both good goals. I might make the first a little more specific. For instance,  my resolution was to lose an inch every two weeks for the first month and then to maintain that goal. What methods are you considering for losing that weight? I have been having good results with intermittent fasting, and I've heard that the keto diet MELTS off fat (however, It is said to be as hard as it is effective) I am going to start with the paleo diet again this year. It is easier to follow than the keto diet and less restrictive.

I put more details on the plan over on the 4-week challenge. Right now, I don't have a specific "pounds per week" goal,  instead, after talking with my doctor, I'm going to try sticking to a Keto meal plan for the next four weeks, and log all of my food.  Ideally, that will result in weight loss, but I'm looking more at method for now. If Keto doesn't feel sustainable after the 4-week challenge, I'll reasses and find something else to try.