So I’ve been doing really well avoiding the sweet drinks. I’m a soda nut.

And when I drink coffee, I have lots of cream & many, many, many sugars.

I’ve been able to avoid all of that for the most part.

I figured out that for me, variation is the key. I get bored drinking the same thing over & over & over. I can do ice water & in past dietary expeditions, I stuck to ice water as much as possible.

The thing is that when all you’re drinking is ice water, you just get bored.

You CRAVE something else!!!

Maybe a blue Monster, which I love. Probably sweet, bad stuff.

So what I’m doing is having ice water, soda water and coffee with no cream or sugar (sometimes cinnamon) throughout the day. The variation in what I’m drinking prevents my tongue from getting bored & then going out to look for bad choices.

If you’re addicted to soda or diet soda, give these 3 a try!

So with the dietary changes, I’m lucky that I got a great present from Santa this year.

I got a Soda Stream!

Drinking only water gets boring after a while.

At least the bubbles liven it up a bit!

So today was my first cheat day. I was looking quite forward to it but feel a bit like I got gypped.

There were so many things I was going to eat & then I forgot some. There was even ice cream on sale and I was going to get some but forgot.

We bought a loaf of LaBrea French bread and a French baguette & I only got 1 slice & a 1/2 sandwich. I was going to do damage on that bread!

I got a box of parmesan crackers for Christmas that I was going to break into but I was too full.

Anyway, I did go quite a bit crazy. Lots of Ruffles & onion dip & some Funions.

I love the concept of this. I’m still not sure if I did it right. The concept is that you can go nuts 1 day a week from midday meal on. It allows you to indulge your cravings. It gives you something tangible to wait for (just a bit longer). And supposedly if you go super hard, it can OD you on some of the junk food to prevent cravings.

I’m not sure how I’ll go tomorrow but it was fun today.

We’ll see how my brain holds up this week.

No Carb

So I lost a bunch of weight way back doing the protein sparing modified fast (PSMF). Then I gained a bunch back over time. I read Gary Taubes book, Why We Get Fat.

That made a lot of sense to me so I started the no carb diet. I started to do really well with it but then I let myself get too dehydrated. I wasn’t pounding water at one point & the lack of carbs let my body drop my water levels.

I was still going pretty good in the gym. I thought I was going light but it wasn’t light enough. Did an upper body workout without squats or dead lifts & still managed to put my back out. Think it was the bent over rows.

Well that knocked my no carb system off the rails. I went bad for a while & then tried to eat that way off & on without being too diligent about it.

Slow Carb is Different

As we’ve gone down the slow carb path, getting a feel for it & definitely getting a different lens on things. In my old no carb regimen, I was just trying to avoid all carbs & eating whatever I liked that fell within bounds: bacon jerky, pork rinds, low-carb Monster, etc. No real avoidance of urges.

With what I’ve been reading from Tim Ferris, in the not-crazy-carb world, calories count too. He counsels not to ingest fat calories you don’t need or your body will just use that to burn.

So when I looked at some of the old stuff I used to eat, I could see where I was losing ground with calories.

The pork rinds I felt no guilt about eating are 90 calories per serving for a 3 serving bag (it’s tiny). I’d hammer that in a second. So there I was putting down 270 extra calories without thought as it was “within plan.” Same with the bacon jerky. Tons of calories even though it was on plan.

With Tim’s slow carb plan, you can still eat as much as you want but it’s protein (preferably lean), beans or lentils (the slow carbs) and vegetables (not much calories there). Water, coffee, no/lo carb drinks. And with these you can eat as much as you like as long as it’s on plan.

Beans Are Key

I think the beans make a difference. If you’re eating beans, you’re getting lots of fiber and bulk. You’re going to be full. And it’s not a quick sugar rush like with candy or bread or such.

So what is happening is that I’m eating 3 or 4 times a day and I’m not getting hungry. I’m not getting tired. Eating the right stuff (without letting rampant calories come in) is keeping me full and happy.

As I worked late last night, I took the typical walk to Circle K but in the end, I didn’t get anything other than soda water. I realized that my visit was just craving based. I wanted crunch. I wanted sweet. Yet when I really took stock of my body, I wasn’t the least bit hungry. My protein, beans & veggies had done the trick. I ended up grabbing only a couple bottles of soda water.

We’ll see where this all goes but so far so good.