Menu - Thursday, July 30, 2009

B: 1 Blood Sauage, broiled

L: No lunch today

D: 10 oz. Hamburger, lean meat 93/7

2 oz Sauteed onion

2 oz Irish Cheddar

3 olives

Very small field green salad with blue cheese dressing

1 glass red wine

S: 3-4 oz Macadamia nuts

2 large Vodka martinis

Menu's and Recipes

OK, I've decided to start taking the time to post my menus and recipes. I get a lot of requests for recipes and although I don't really use "recipes" I can always write up what I cook. There are some things I cook all the time and I can relay the technique and list the ingredients without posting it as a formal recipe.

So that's what you'll see most of the time. I will be posting each days menus the afternoon or morning after. I'll start with yesterdays menu later today.

There will always be things that I eat that will not be on the menus. That would be the food that I taste as I cook at work. They really are tastes, but some dishes require a number of tastes as I cook and they can add up to almost a small serving. Most of these dishes have more carbs than I would normally eat. This may even account for the stall I've been experiencing. So, if I've had quite a lot of something I'm cooking I will post it.

Zero Carb Part 3

I began investigating the Zero Carb lifestyle more out of interest in using it short term to lose weight quickly or in case of a long stall. I was thinking that going ZC made some sense because if Low Carb is good Zero must be better. That's always been my mentality unfortunately. If one pill is good 2 must be better, etc. At least I felt it would be harmless in the short term no matter what people say about the need for plant matter in our diet as a source of nutrition. And of course, fiber.

There are some who claim that there are superior health benefits to eating ZC as opposed to a Very Low Carb (VLC) diet. They believe that eating carbs in any form is the root cause of all diseases of civilization. While it's clear to me that eating refined carbs, grains, and some fruit cultivars is responsible for the diseases of civilization and the symptom of obesity, it's really not necessary to avoid vegetables and fruit completely to achieve optimal health. Hunter-gatherer societies of the past and present included some forms of carbohydrates other than those found in meat. The exception seems to be the people of the far north where no plants were available. Otherwise, these people ate from plant sources, as well as the very lean meat available in the wild. Granted, most of these people ate one or just a few wild staples from the plant world. And no cultivated fruits and vegetables at all.

In conclusion to this little series on ZC, there seems to be only one reason, and one only that I can see, for eating ZC. It eliminates cravings for a lot of people. I've never had a problem with craving carbs or any food in particular. Those that do, might want to look to ZC for an answer if the cravings are unmanageable. But in the long run I doubt that it would be a sustainable diet for life. Boredom has always been the bane of weight loss diets that rely on one or two foods only. A few folks will be able to remain ZC for a long period of time. But most of us need more than just meat and water to keep our spirits up as well as our waistlines down.

Today's Beautiful Thing

My Aunt Josephine, my mother Ann, and my Aunt Agnes.

Zero Carb: Part Two

The following quote from Charles Washington says it all for me.

This is the most frustrating aspect for me trying to run this type of forum. So many people think that the answers lie in Science and perhaps it does. However, we know that science and the results can be easily manipulated in such a way that every conclusion is ambiguous. ZC is all about experiencing it on the individual level. We are our own control group so you can't come in here and tell us how it doesn't work or what science says based on some results concocted in a laboratory or some metabolic ward. We are science, we are evidence and we are history. Our experiences mean everything. We've done it (or are doing it) and that is the most important factor.

Zero Carb: Part One

My recent experiences on a Zero Carb (ZC) forum is essentially what prompted me to make the effort to begin blogging again. First a short history of how I ended up on that forum at all.

I was at one time a regular poster and had my own journal on Jimmy Moore's low carb forum. I was fairly active on that forum, posted a lot, and really enjoyed the folks I met there. I had joined in December of 2008, only 1 month after beginning my low carb diet, this time around. (That's another story for another day). My weight loss at the time was great. I was losing at a good clip and happy with my progress. Then came my first true stall. Weeks of no weight loss was frustrating although I new I would never give up. I did however start trying various strategies for getting my weight loss going. One of the strategies I looked at was lowering my daily carb intake to zero to get the weight loss going again. I was familiar with the meat and egg fast so popular on Low Carb Friends (LCF) forum which is essentially zero carbs. Only a few from the eggs. I began having an occasional day of zero carb eating. So my diet was Very Low Carb (VLC) and an occasional ZC day. I posted this in a message saying something like "Well I eat very low carb and sometimes zero carb" When I viewed the message I had posted it read "Well I eat very low carb and sometimes very low carb" The filter on JM's site had changed the words in my post. The phrase now made no sense. And I was very upset. Some questioning led me to the reason. The banishment of the ZC folks from JM's site. And the ZC forum that was created as a result.

I became increasingly dis-enchanted with JM and his forum and blog as I began reading his menu and the kind of food this man was consuming everyday. This is a low carb leader. Someone people look to for advice on eating right to lose weight and gain health. Some of his days food was nothing but pizza topping and ice cream with diet sodas thrown in. I was appalled. It was how a child left to their own devices would eat. I stopped posting on his site and went back to LCF. The censorship of thought and the bad example left me completely disillusioned. It also got me to start reading at the ZC forum.

I was still flirting with the idea of eating some form of ZC diet. I knew that I would never commit to eating that way forever. Or maybe I would. I was undecided. I would occasionally read the ZC forum but didn't really jump in until I registered and discovered and entire thread dedicated to JM's menu blog and his eating habits. It was almost 500 pages and read like a soap opera. I read the entire thing in a little over a week to get caught up, posted a couple of comments, but really stayed out of site for the most part. My interest in that way of eating led me to do some research on the First Nation people in Canada and Alaska. Specifically the Inuit of the west coast. They are probably the most famous of people who's native diet is completely based on consuming animals. They eat no plant material. They eat fresh killed meat, usually seal, and consume the entire animal. Raw. Meat, fat, and organs. Although their diet is ZC, it's quite different from the diet advocated on the ZC forum which is beef and water. I brought this up in a thread in the Newbie section of the forum and that's where I caught a glimpse of how the people there view their diet.

My first post on that thread:

Inuit food

I just looked at a site featuring the food of the Inuit people and I have to say no one on this forum that I've seen so far is eating their diet. They eat every part of every animal they kill with the exception of Polarbear liver and feathers.

It seems to me the nutrition they get from eating raw liver, kidneys, brains, eyeballs, blubber, etc. is not contained in a diet of beef only.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm a newbie and still trying to figure this out for myself.

---

Bear

One of the first responses:

RE: Inuit food

sfpolarbear Wrote: OK that's fine. But where can I see the evidence that all the nutrients required by humans is contained in conventionally raised beef?

I say you can see it all over this forum, with so many people who are fit and in perfect health, and many others well on their way there, from an all-meat diet.

I don't need no stinkin' studies to call it "evidence"

End of part one.

My Before and During Shots

I thought I would add these. I've come a long way. Down 75 pounds since November 1, 2008. I feel so much better.

Today's Beautiful Thing

My God-daughter Lily and her brother Jack at their baptisim.

I'm going to start blogging again.

I've let this blog languish for months on end and it's time I re-started. I'm going to make an effort to post to it daily. I will include menus from time to time but I won't commit to doing that on a daily basis.

I spend a lot of time on forums and other blogs and feel that I have a lot to say. Forums drive me nuts most of the time. One little comment taken the wrong way and people start getting their feelings hurt, then others come to their defense, more people trying to clarify what was originally said, more hurt feelings, sniping, and foolishness. I know you've seen it if you follow any LC forums. Or really any forum for that matter.

So, what can a person expect here? This will be a place for me to share what I see as interesting in the world of health and nutrition. The world of health and nutrition from a Low Carber's point of view for the most part. I've come across some great people, and some not so great people, since I began this Low Carb way of life on November 1, 2008. It's been an interesting time in my life.

I'll also share some of my personal experiences outside of weight issues and weight loss. What that means, I can't say at the moment. That will reveal itself as time goes by.

I will also continue my "Today's Beautiful Thing" feature. It's important to see and appreciate something beautiful every day.

So there you have it. Let's see where this goes this time around.