Halfway

So I weighed in at 185 this morning after subtracting my clothes. 2 more pounds lost in week three. All water I imagine. I've sunken to the level of applying moisturizer to my desiccated remains but even that is little help as my finger tips are cracking open. anyway I`m halfway to my weight loss goal.

I'm back on the dairy again with no ill effects. Today I reintroduced the gluten. I am invited out to supper Thursday so I had to speed up the challenge phase of the diet because what if they serve something like spaghetti? Then I've got both nightshades (tomato sauce) and gluten (pasta). So I bought a bagel. No problems so far although that bagel really sat in my stomach a long time and I was a bit noddy this afternoon. I probably should to pick up something else though to have some more gluten tomorrow and see what happens.

The danger of reintroducing two groups at the same time is that if I have a negative reaction I won't know which group caused it. Then I'd have to start all over again and only the Boss wants that. What exactly is a negative reaction? I'm not really sure. I'm going on the assumption it will be heartburn or an upset stomach or the runs or a noticeable drop in energy and hopefully not all of the above.

Nationals

I ran in the Canadian National Snowshoe Championships today. I came in last in the 10k event. However I did beat my December time by about 13 minutes! I ran it in 1:23:22. I`d had this plan to run to trance music but about 20 minutes in my MP3 player ran out of juice. I think if I have it charged up for the Mad Trapper finals in two weeks I`ll be under 1:20:00. That`s going to be my goal - sub 1:20:00. Bear in mind a snowshoe 10k is harder than a trail 10k which is harder than a road 10k.

In some bad news, I broke one of my trail runners. A plastic clip on the alternative style lacing system broke. One near the top and now they cannot be cinched down to the foot. I don`t see a way to fix it so I guess my Salomons just became my new around the yard sneakers. It`s a shame, I had grown fond of those shoes after a rocky start .

In some good news I now get to enter the challenge phase of the HAD. Tomorrow I start in on the dairy products. Thursday I`ll bring back the nightshade group and next Monday gluten. A few days after that and it`s full on toxicity. That means coffee, real tea and beer!

The third week of the HAD was not so good. I`ve gotten more used to the strict diet and I`m finding more and more palatable food combinations but the side effects are freaking me out. I may have mentioned in week two that I was getting dry skin. Well in week three I have been feeling generally dry and stiff all over. I`m not a flexible guy to start with but this last week has been ridiculous. I`ve been eating myself into the poor house with the almonds and olive oil and I am drinking the 8 glasses of water a day but it all seems to pass through me without being absorbed. Hot yoga last night helped some.

I think I will do the HAD or some variation thereof again in the future periodically but only for a week or two at a time. It`s not comfortable but I think it does give the digestive system a rest and the body a chance to repair itself some. Sort of like how you keep your house clean but every now and then you would like to have a few extra days off work to really clean stuff.

Eye of the Tiger

I got on the scale at the gym today. I weighed 189 pounds in gym clothes with a light breakfast in me. I'm willing to call that 187 and another four real pounds lost this week. So there is the healthy weight loss diet plan. You can eat as much as you want as long as you limit yourself to foods that do not taste good.

I was in the gym to go for a treadmill run. I couldn't believe how stiff I was from the run on Sunday and after 20 minutes of warm up running I decided to do some stretching. Not enough sleep I think. So don't call me Sunday morning I'm sleeping in.

I went to the heart and health fair at work today and got my vitals:

B.P. 131/73 very good said the nurse.

Pulse: 53 I'd like to shave off three beats.

Glucose 5.4

Cholesterol: 3.89 my best ever!

I attribute the cholesterol and good glucose to the HAD.

The weather in Georgia today was 14 degrees celcius and partly cloudy. Next year around this time I hope to be on the trail. I'm of a mind that starting out on February 14th might be cool. It's the Chinese new year in 2010 - the year of the Tiger.

Last year was the year of the Rat which signifies new beginnings. This year is the year of the Ox which is associated with slow, sure action building to last. Next year (starting February 14th-15th) is the year of the Tiger which is associated with good fortune.

Eye of the tiger!

31 pounds

It was abeautiful day so I went for an outdoors run yesterday. As usual, the legs wore out before the lungs. Then this little girl ran past me. It`s gonna be another tough snowshoe race Saturday. It`s the Canadian National Snowshoe Championships so I`ll be running with my ``last place is better than DNF`` approach. Then again, now that I`m down to 160 pounds maybe I`ll be super fast!

So in the last week, my second on the HAD, I`ve dropped 31 pounds. Or my scale is broken. Probably the latter. I certainly don`t look like I did when I was 160 pounds. This means I don`t know if I`ve continued to lose weight on the HAD. I think so but I don`t know. At any rate i`ve decided that the race Saturday is the end of the HAD. When I eventually drag my carcass into the Ark I will be famished and the spread is not going to be HAD compliant and I am going to eat. A lot.

Having said that the second week on the HAD has been much better. I`ve made some better tasting concoctions and I think if you have superior culinary skills than my own limited abilities it might be something you want to try. I think my real problem with the HAD is while I know it`s doing me some good I don`t know that it`s doing enough good to be worth the hassle. I have this sneaking suspicion that it`s really just the sugar part that is helping me. I am going to phase the foods back in to watch for any reaction. If I get a reaction to something other than sugar (which I already know I will get) then I`ll consider doing the cleanse again.

I think the order I`ll phase in is dairy first (cheese!), then gluten (bagels!) then nightshades. the known poisons, sugar, alcohol and caffeine will wait until March.

the HAD

I got on the scale this morning. I've lost four pounds in the eight days I've been on the HAD. At this rate in 32 days I will achieve my weight goal. 32 more days eating like a medieval Japanese peasant. That seems like a long time. Monday I will check my weight again and make a decision to stay the course or not.

I'm considering a modified HAD in which I allow myself one flavour category per week. The idea being to see if I feel better some weeks than others to identify a shorter list of problematic foods. So one week I could eat my HAD foods but also the nightshade group (potatoes, tomatoes and peppers) the next week I could eat the HAD foods plus gluten (bread) and another week I could eat some cheese. I don't miss milk. The nut milk and rice milk are good enough substitutes but man,

I miss cheese.

Boil-up 2009

First things first - congrats on the FTF bro! Sounds like you are having lots of fun with the geo-caching.

Today was the annual boil-up day. On the off chance that someoen reading this doesn`t know what a boil-up is a boil-up is when you go into the woods and boil a kettle of tea over an open fire. Those little gas stoves don`t count. Why you may ask? Simply put: tea boiled over an open fire tastes better. Same as applies to toast and weiners. Participants today included yours truly, the newly nick named tank and Prometheus and a beautiful woman! all good Labrador folk so there was no messing around. Once we got into the woods.

This year`s boil-up was in a slightly differnt part of Marboro Forest. We like Marlboro Forest since it`s not so busy as the parks. We started at the same place but different times as Tank and beautiful woman arrived a bit late so Prometheus and I had gone for a walk to keep busy but we all met up at the bridge as Prometheus and I back tracked figureing to meet up with the latecomers deftly tracking us. We met up by the bridge at Roger`s Pond and procedded around the pond. It was the best weather day we`ve ever had for boil-up in Ottawa and I liked the area we were in. Lots of deer tracks but no sign of birds, not even chickadees? We probably walked about 7kms today, 6 for the loop I think and I`m giving an extra km to Prometheus and I for our early stroll in the deep snow.

The hardest part of the day was this stupid hypo-allergenic diet. I`m torn at the moment. I can already feel a positive difference in my health eating this restrictive diet. I`m caffeine free but without the usual tiredness (I did still have the withdrawl headaches a few days ago) so I guess that means I have more energy as promised which presumably means the immune system boost is also happening but today, watching the others enjoy redberry jam on tea biscuits with real tea, I had to ask myself: is it really worth it?

I`m going to give it one more week before I decide.

Oh and I think I may need to take my carea into the shop. WDYT?

A month gone already

Went out for some snowshoeing Sunday pre-Superbowl. Me and the two J's decided to break the pre-game tension by hitting the Gats. We choose Wolf Loop, us and about 400 other people.

After a short wait we snagged some parking and set out to climb the big hill. You can do Wolf Loop in two directions (of course), one way is a steep climb followed by a long gradual downhill. The other way is a long gradual climb followed by a steep descent. We chose the former. It was an excellent day for snowshoeing, cold enough to keep you moving but not freezing. the frost was still on the trees in mid afternoon making for some very nice views from the ridge. I have no pics to share because my camera is acting up again. I am going to have to break down and put it in for repairs. We ended up taking the shortcut down the main cross country ski trail because we took a longtime climbing the hill and were concerned about getting to Jones' for the festivities. We got there early in the end.

So day two of my hypo-allergenic diet is over. So is the idea of following Canada's food guide. That thing is a cruel joke and a half. I'm not a small guy and fairly active and I can't recall the last time someone accused me of not having a healthy appetite but there is no way I can eat that much food and not explode. In two days I have not yet been able to eat my full daily amount. It seems pretty obvious after two days that Canada's food guide is a devious plan to make people eat buckets of grain until they are morbidly obese. The question is why?

I am going to stick with the hypo-allergenic diet though. I'm just going to reduce the grains portions since they are the blandest part. Vegetables without added flavours are fine but boiled grains without sauce make me wonder why ancient people gave up the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in exchange for agriculture. So far the only answer I can come up with is beer.