You see, I've been eating healthily for a while, but my weight hasn't shifted. Fish once a week, a good range of veg, quality meat, that sort of thing. I was certain that there had to be a way of losing that weight without spending a fortune I no longer had (thanks a lot, ConDems) on gym sessions and still enjoying the odd treat. (some on my colleagues in work make gorgeous cakes; you'd have to be a well trained monk to resist them.) This book appears to be the missing link. The proof of the pudding will be ... ahem ... in the eating.
Having only been doing this adjusted, "diet," for a few days now, I've decided to document one day. In fact, the only thing which is concerning me is that the immediate reaction of my body is a touch of insomnia. This morning, I got up at 6am! I had been awake-ish since 4am; almost unheard of for me as I'm normally a solid sleeper.
When storms hit Calella in Spain in the 80's, picking up cars and choking the area with silt from the mountains, yours truly slept right through it. (now, I'm in bed at about midnight and up at 6am; things have settled to that pattern, which means extra time awake to do things. It took a while, though.)
The first golden rule which Tim has proven, if by no other means than his account of his father, is that breakfast should be eaten within an hour of getting up. For the slow-carb diet this also means getting off the cereals and toast; they'll do more harm than good. This morning I was standing at the hob by 6:15 and I'd had a cooked breakfast by 6:30am. Ouch.
WARNING - if you're going to act on any of my experiences, then consult your GP first; my experiences are personal to me and my body. Yours may be different, or things like allergies or other medical conditions could affect you differently.
Breakfast consisted of about a table spoon of oil in a frying pan. Two rashers of good bacon, de-rinded, cut with a scissors. The small pieces of bacon cooked quickly. Then I added the eggs; two eggs beaten with a splash of milk and a touch of cinnamon. (Tim's book has more details on the cinnamon types) I didn't need to add salt or butter because I already had an oil/fat mix and some salt in the pan as a result of the bacon. Cooked in five minutes and dishes in the sink in ten. If this mornings protein injection delivers the goods, then it is worth spending that little extra time to do that rather than have cereals or toast.
Good bacon - ie. some decent stuff from the butcher rather than that supermarket crap that is loaded with salt water.
The cinnamon, like fresh lemon juice, blunts the Glycemic Index of foods. Most useful when eating high GI foods like rice, white bread or potatoes.
(alternative breakfasts will be a tin of baked beans with a teaspoon of cinnamon, or the porridge mixture I eat; I won't go as far as Tim's extreme bean mixtures)
The protein thing was also reported recently by BBC's program, 10 things you need to know about losing weight. Protein is a way of damping down the chemical reaction that tells the brain that it is hungry. We'll see if I last from 6:30am to 1:30pm without feeling that I need something serious to eat.
To me, this is not new news. Working on the trucks, we'd have to be up early, typically get a good cooked breakfast inside us and be in our vehicles and out of the yard while other people were still molesting their alarm clocks. Doing the active loading and unloading, (known as, "handball") was a good bit of exercise. So long as I wasn't sitting behind the wheel on long hauls, I seemed fine. Tim's book effectively validates the morning fry up for those who are doing active jobs; (not the long haul runs where you're just sitting behind the wheel).
Nibbles have so far consisted of bananas, oranges and apples. Unfortunately, these are high in natural sugars; fructose, something to be avoided. Bananas are high in potassium and oranges are good for vitamin C, so I'm not killing these from my diet, but I'm replacing some of them with pears and seedless grapes. ('cause I hate the seeds) Today I'm going to work with an orange, some grapes and a banana.
Tim is also echoing the age old thing of taking on more water. It does have appetite suppressing benefits, but I've known people go overboard with this advice and water down their blood so much that they've ended up in hospital. However, there is a water cooler behind me so I'll take in my 1 litre water bottle and I'll make it a goal to fill and drink that in the day; but I won't chastise myself if my body didn't feel like drinking the whole lot.
I've wanted to switch from regular tea to green tea, but the Japanese tea I drink is quite expensive and Twinings confirmed to me that their green tea comes from a variety of sources, including India, so I won't be switching to their cheaper green tea any time soon.
Sandwiches are being replaced on occasion by soup, with no accompanying bread and butter. This helps cut down on the large amount of bread I was eating, but I get a good, hot meal out of it. Fortunately, there is a microwave at work, so I can do this.
The biggest change is at dinner time, quaffing the juice of a fresh lemon. The quandary is how to drink it without putting any sugar in it, because you're relying on the acid to do its stuff in your stomach. (same as the cinnamon effects for breakfast) It also presents a greater quandary for me because acid leaches calcium (the body uses calcium to neutralise the acid) and one of the things I'm suffering from is osteoporosis. However, it is reportedly great at blunting the GI of things like potatoes, rice, etc. which is one of the staples at our evening meals.
The lemon juice doesn't taste too bad if you down it in one. Sipping it is a lot worse. Drink it after the meal.
At an earlier chat with my GP, we talked about tomatoes. The lipids are great for the heart, but they are acidic and also leach calcium. You can't win, even with healthy foods. However, my run on sweet, sugary drinks has all but come to an end (but I still have coke with my Rum when friends visit, and I'm not adverse to downing a can of something if I feel I need the sugar, but these instances are becoming very rare.) so for the period that it takes to make a dent in my weight, I'm downing extra calcium supplements. Thereafter, the lemon trick will be reserved for large meals only where I'll be socially expected to heat a hearty meal.
A few other changes were made. Firstly, the 12" plates were swapped for 10"; an old but effective mental appetite trick; a way of eating less but feeling like you've eaten a full meal. Also, eating fast is apparently doing me no favours. It is hard, but I'm starting to slow down the rate at which I eat food. There is evidence to support this but I'll leave that to Tim's book.
Exercise is the final piece of the puzzle, but that will come later; I'm still working on validating what Tim has written. The results of a couple of weeks on this food style this will also come at the same time; I'm keeping my figures...
The other thing that Tim espouses is measurement; but measure the right things; because if you transfer body fat to muscle then a simple weighing scale measurement will fool you. Your diet could be working brilliantly, but because muscle is more dense than fat, you won't see the weight number go down and that can demoralise you to the degree where you give up.
Well, I'd already been on this particular jaunt so I have some basic gear. I'll be replacing the bathroom scales with an electronic version that is easier to read, but I already had a measuring tape by my side in the home office, and a small blood pressure monitor (with an arm cuff, not a wrist monitor) so I'm good to go without much cash outlay.
I had to replace the scales with a more accurate electronic version; (one decimal place; but they're a bugger to turn on!) indeed I had a shock when, early in the morning, I was weighed at 91.9 kilos. I couldn't believe it, so I got a couple of 5kg dumbbells to check it and, sure enough, it was bang on. So if you run an electronic scales, check it now and then with a heavy, known weight and if it is off, change the battery. Also, we gain and loose a few kilos every day, so always weigh at the same time.
As I'm a programmer, I created a small web based program to enter my details. Fortunately for me, I don't spend much time on the road these days and even if I was, a measuring tape doesn't take up any space in a hand bag. The blood pressure monitor won't take up much of my overnight bag, so I should be able to keep good records. A good number of people I know have weighing scales in their homes but it won't be sensible to use them; relativity is more important than accuracy to zero, so if you can't carry the same set of scales with you, don't bother, it could actually throw your data out.
The only really awkward thing is measuring yourself. I've been doing the measurements for a couple of days already, but I ditched them because of lack of practice. Now, I'm getting a bit better. Weight, upper arms, naval, hips and upper legs in the morning, along with blood pressure and heart rate at rest at both morning and evening.
Blood pressure is a means of applying pressure to your arm and listening to the blood flow. It is gauging the ability of the heart to pump sufficient blood around the body at sufficient pressure. Not enough blood to the body, or too much, and the body starts to malfunction.
For example, your brain needs a certain amount of blood so your heart has to be strong enough to get enough blood up there. However, if it is pumping too strongly, then too much blood gets pumped around, too fast. There is an ideal pumping rate and an ideal pressure flow, for the blood.
The systolic is the point at which the heart is able to overcome the restriction that the cuff puts on the arm. Too low a number the heart isn't operating efficiently. Too powerful means the heart is under stress; it is working itself silly and you need to calm it down. This is where the 120mmHg comes from as a nice, regular figure.
Diastolic is the point where the pounding of the blood pressure is too low to be heard; if the cuff pressure is still quite high when it looses the sound of the pumping, then that indicates the heart isn't putting very much pressure behind its pumping action. This is where the 80mmHg comes from. A healthy heart will be able to put a reasonable amount of pressure behind pumping the blood around.
As I stopped the gym work when I found out I had a partial prolapse, I've lost fitness and I'm up in the low hypertensive bracket again. The question is, how much exercise will it take to get me down again. Time will tell on that score, but Tim is suggesting it will take a lot less than previously thought.
Just as you can measure the strength of an arm or leg muscle in terms of weight, mass or endurance performance, blood pressure and heart rate readings are the mechanisms of measuring your heart muscle; and like all muscles, if you don't use it, you'll lose it. Exercising your heart is important.
As a little extra, Kat Maul happened to mention as to how I knew the weighing scales were accurate at the higher end of the weight spectrum. That was also tested; first by weighing myself and then re-weighing myself holding the two 5kg dumbbells. The scales accurately added 10kg on to the weight. Proof positive; I can trust the scales.
1 comments:
Makes interesting reading. Looking forward to following your journey.
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