I’ve been reading bits and pieces about potato hacking over the past several months … well, now one of the leading proponents, Tim Steele, has finally published his book The Potato Hack.  Picked it up Friday on Kindle = it’s a quick, easy and entertaining read.  Highly recommended.  The other sources of information are Tim’s Blog at Vegetable Pharm. Lots of good current info there.  Also Richard Nikoley’s blog, Free The Animal is a great source of info … just hit this search to see copious amounts of info on the hack, potato starch and the potato hack specifically.

Anyway – if you want to see what I’m doing and why, pick up the book … Tim does a lot better job explaining it all than I ever could.

I’m planning to do a 5 day run of spuds only.  I’m gonna record my starting weight, how many calories I burn according to my Fitbit and how my sleep quality is affected.  I’ll also note any feelings of hunger, cravings and maybe stress levels just to have a more complete record … although I feel that stress, general feelings of well being and health are so interwoven that it is hard to ‘fix’ or even assess by looking at a few random thoughts and feelings throughout the day.  (Big topic there = maybe another day.)

I’m starting out as a big guy … I have a good solid 60 lbs to lose.  Plus I’ve been carb loading (read: eating everything in sight) for a couple of weeks now, so I’ve definitely gained some ‘water weight.’  I expect to see a fairly substantial drop in the 1st couple of days … hoping that I don’t gain it all back in the 24 hours after this experiment is over.  To find answers is why we experiment…

I’m mid 40’s and my health is generally good with slightly elevated blood pressure.  I play sports 2x a week pretty hard with the young bloods for 2 hours at a time and I can hold my own = so I’m I’m not couch fodder … yet.  lol.   So lets see where this all ends up …

Day 1:

Thats a wrap.  Here is the breakdown of my calories vs expenditure as recorded by my FitBit.

Here are my Notes for the day … could be boring, but it is a complete record of how I felt and when.

• 8:40pm Another feed to help with hunger pangs. 241g.
• 8:15pm Played ball with the young bloods tonight. Initially I found it very hard and my legs really did not want to move but about 40 mins in I seemed to get my 2nd wind and could run and move freely again. After I am plesently tired and slightly sore. I ate more potatoes to fill me up and that really helped how I feel too. Looking forward to bed. Would not be surprised if I see a one day drop of 7 or 8 lbs. Lots of water dumped today.
• 6:10pm. Quick supper of 183g.
• 5:25pm. Indigestion again. Quite hungry now.
• 4:55pm. Definitely hungry again. Also have to urinate something fierce again. Won’t be home for an hour yet. Sigh.
• 3:50pm. Hungry again. Getting a bit irritable. Probably low blood sugar hitting is my guess.
• 3:01pm. Urine very light coloured which usually means body dumping water. I have had 3 or 4 coffees today which usually pushes through the system pretty fast but urine is usually much darker. Should have taken a picture … or maybe not. Lol.
• 2:38pm. Hungry now … seems to change from ’empty’ to hungry quickly. Stomach growling slightly. Will have rest of my lunch potatoes – 287g. Still have to pee like mad – have to find a public restroom soon. Feeling very calm and controlled. Not jittery. My brain is working well – no afternoon letdown (yet.)
• 2:22pm. Body beginning to dump water. Have to piss like a racehorse … and I urinated less than an hour ago. Slight feeling of emptiness again – not true hunger – just empty.
• 1:01pm. Some indigestion again. Not super bad but burping sour. Might be a result of drinks last night?
• 12:10pm. Definitely hungry now. Having half of the potatoes I brought with me on the road today. Not feeling weak or anything though. About 350g potatoes.
• 11:20am. Driving now. Don’t really feel hungry. Sort of empty.
• 10:30am Some slight indigestion. Treated with baking soda in water.
• 9:40am. Feeling some sort of slight hunger from stomach. Not grinding stomach growling hunger … not even hunger pangs – just more of a not full feeling. Gonna work through it and see if it disappears. I did eat a good amount of spuds, so my stomach does have something to work on.
• 8:30am. Breakfast 237g plain potatoes – Lunch of 637g packed

Day 1 Final thoughts.  Need to bring more potatoes for on the road.  Definitely felt hungry today … don’t want to feel too much of that or I’ll break.  Baked potatoes are WAY better tasting than boiled.  Amazing difference actually.  Will plan on baking more spuds instead of boiling.

Day 2:

Down 4.5 lbs since weigh in yesterday morning.  Less of a drop than I thought it would be … I really did urinate a LOT more than normal yesterday.  Sleep was OK – I did feel like I woke up a number of times due to aching legs.  Sports did a number on them yesterday as I didn’t play at all last week due to Spring Break here.  So sports plus dropping water = soreness.

Here is my sleep as measured by my Fitbit.

Hoping to see more sleep and fewer awake periods in the next couple of days.

OK. This is just a little bit frustrating …

When baking potatoes, you really have to pierce them well! I wacked all these with a fork before putting them in the oven. Apparently I did not dig in deep enough. lol. Potatoes for the day are baked, salted and in my lunch bag for the day. Oh, and the oven is clean.

OK – Day 2 is done.  Here are the Fitbit numbers:

And my notes from the day:

• 9:20 pm. Feeling great this evening. Got lots done. Was focused and not dwelling on food. I’m in bed now. Slightly hungry but not so it is bothering me. Tough day during the day today but a good evening.
• 4:50 pm. Suddenly feeling better. Stronger and more focused. Still empty but not lightheaded or weak. Maybe I overdid it with sport last night? Too this long for me to recover? Don’t know.
• 2:23pm. Hungry again and obsessing about food. This is not good. Still wonder if I should be eating more instead of allowing myself to get to the point of hunger.
• 1:53pm. Been eating often … just a couple of spoonfuls at at time. Today has not been great. Feeling weak and blurry … and sometimes slightly lightheaded. Gonna coffee up in a little while and see if that helps. Some hunger but not crazy.
• 11:07am. Stopped to eat some potatoes … feeling hungry and weak.
• 10:36am. Arrrr … low energy, almost light headed. Not really hungry but empty – maybe slightly queasy. No drive to get going here. Need energy levels to PU soon if I’m gonna get anything done today.
• 9:03am 245g for breakfast. Hungry this morning. Just blew up some of my baked potatoes that I was making for lunch … and I poked those things with a fork. George is not happy.
• 7:45 Not a great sleep – feeling dopey this morning. Really need coffee to wake up! Good thing I’m not planning on cutting out coffee at the same time as this hack … lol.

Summary of Day 2. Consumed less than a thousand calories again, but burned a LOT less than Day 1. Really knocked myself out today – possibly due to playing ball on Monday really depleting my energy stores. Felt crappy most of the day, but seemed to snap out of it at the end of the day. Ended up feeling good and focused again. Hopefully this continues.

Day 3:

Down a full 8 lbs this morning.  Lots of water … urinated forever when I got up this morning.  But exciting to see this much down.

Wild dreams!  Seemed to sleep ‘dead to the world’ last night although I definitely did not get enough sleep.  But the dreams … oh my.  So vivid and I can remember large portions of them this morning.  Nothing raunchy, just super vivid and spectacular.  I remember reading somewhere that this is a side effect of potato starch.  Don’t mind if this continues.

Here is my sleep as recorded by my Fitbit:

I was reading well past midnight and lost track of time. Definitely need to get to bed earlier tonight.

I have baked potatoes ready for the day today.  Wrapped them in tin foil before baking, so no mess to clean up.  lol.  Ready to do this day!

Day 3 is in the books.  Here are the numbers:

Notes and comments:

• 11:00 pm. Bedtime. Not hungry.
• 9:20 pm. Not a bad evening. No drive … but I did have a big day at work, so that did wear me out. Feeling somewhat empty now but not hungry.
• 6:20 pm. Shredded and dry fried spuds with dill powder, salt, pepper and a splash of Malt Vinegar for supper. 383g.
• 5:36 pm. Slight headache now. Mildly hungry. Feel strong. Tired though. Not enough sleep. Gout is prickling my left toe … will need to use baking soda when I get home to prevent flare-up.
• 3:49 pm. Had another spud to ward off the hunger. Lunch total was 355g today.
• 3:12 pm. Definitely hungry now. Will need to have some spuds soon. Will power and energy are both good at this point.
• 2:20 pm. Not hungry. Just empty. Feeling a bit weak so going to have a coffee to perk me up. Still feel well though. No headache or lightheaded. Could eat another potato I guess. All in all I think my body is adjusting to the low calorie intake.
• 250g for breakfast.
• 10:43 am. Did not eat until now. Was hungry but not crazy hungry. So filling my belly now before I hit the road. So far, so good today – no lightheaded feelings, not craving anything … focus is OK.

Summary for Day 3.  Overall, all good day.  Did not really have the lightheaded feeling that I had on Day 2 … still some hunger, but not crazy, chew on walls hunger.  Focus was not bad … not laser … just not bad.  Mood:  generally OK.  This is somewhat surprising to me as when I have used calorie deficit in the past, I’ve had some thunderously bad moods.  Angry and irritated, etc.  Not feeling that so much = easier on the family and pets.  lol.

Day 4:

Now down a full 10 lbs.  Nice!

What a sleep.  No dreams that I remember last night, but totally dead to the world.  One of the best sleeps I’ve had in a while.  This is what it looked like:

I feel energized today … not powerful but energized.  I want to get stuff done!  The shredded potato patties that I had for supper last night were great.  Gonna make those again today for my lunch.  They are a bit of work, but the taste and mouth feel is worth it.  At this point, I’m glad I only committed to 5 days.  I’m looking forward to a steak.  lol.

Numbers for Day 4:

Notes from Day 4:

• 9:50pm Hungry now. Not in Ketosis … I was wondering if burning this much fat would do it, but nope, not even a hint of colour. Going to goto bed hungry and see where we are weight wise in the morning. Hoping for another 2 lbs today … but will be happy with any weightloss as I know any loss will be fat at this point.
• 6:20pm Finally having supper. Had to estimate the amount of spuds tonight due to the way they were cooked by my wife. Guessing about 240g.
• 4:27 pm. Hungry now. But feeling great. Working hard with lots of energy. Pretty good considering how little I’ve had today.
• 2:32 pm. Feeling a bit hungry now. Eating another potato patty to fill the hole. Otherwise feeling good.
• 1:36 pm. Coffee time. Feeling good. Steady as she goes. Some hunger today but very mild. More empty than hunger still.
• 12:12 pm. Hungry now. Gonna eat a couple of potato patties. Still feel good though.
• 10:41am. Ready to hit the road. I made shredded, dry fried cakes for lunch. Feeling good. Not hungry at all. Feeling … warm I guess is the best way to explain it. Calm.
• 9:45am. 290g for breakfast.
• 8:10am. Feeling pretty good this morning. Great sleep.

Summary Day 4.  Again – not a bad day. Felt good most of the day. Beginning to think about food a bit more … planning what I’m going to eat on the weekend. No crazy cravings though.  1 day to go!

Day 5:

Down a total of 12.6 lbs this morning.  Another nice drop yesterday!

Sleep – another ‘dead to the world’ sleep … just not long enough!  Woke up at 6:30 to discover that I slept through my 2:00 am alarm which is really unusual.  (2 am is when my wife or I check our son’s BG level – he has Type 1 Diabetes.)

OK – a couple of baked potatoes cooling on the stove.  Ready to hit the road.  Feel good … strong … lots of willpower today!  This is the last day – hope to lose another couple of lbs today.  Then the big test – see how much it comes back when I eat normally again tomorrow!

Final day numbers:

Notes for Day 5:

• 10:25 pm. Bed time. Been a good evening. No hunger … feel sort of empty now. Tomorrow AM is the big weigh in. Curious to see where we end up. Night!
• 6:10 pm. Supper! 3 shredded and dry fried patties (about 4 medium potatoes worth) … with salt, pepper, dill and a splash of malt vinegar. Very good – and very filling. Feeling full now. About 380 g of spuds.
• 5:45 pm. Having cravings for food now. Might be because I’m hungry. Already planning what I’m gonna eat tomorrow. Lol.
• 3:49 pm. Not sure if it is hunger or just the feeling of being empty. Lots of energy but very aware of the feeling in my gut.
• 1:15 pm. Full but empty. Feeling tired this afternoon. Wish I could take a nap. Still a lot of work to do though – so no rest.
• 1:00pm. Lunch time. Super hungry but feeling fine otherwise. Hard to believe I can go strong with this little food in me. Amazing. 457g.
• 11:39am. Hungry. Stomach growling.
• 10:44 am. Ready to hit the road. 457g packed for lunch. Feelin’ good!
• 9:20 am. Breakfast. Some reheated baked spuds. 173g.
• 8:10 am. Up and atom … hungry.

Summary.  Day 5 went well.  No major drops in energy … some hunger but nothing that I couldn’t deal with.  Still glad these 5 days are almost over.  Can’t wait to eat a bunch of stuff I’ve missed the past 5 days.  Disappointed that my focus on food and hunger has not diminished …

Final Day – Weigh in – Notes – Thoughts – Summary

… and he steps on the scale … 15 lbs lost!!! Nice. Was expecting at least 10 going by past low calorie efforts, so 15 is pretty wild.

A comment from yesterday asked me to give my specs, so here they are:

• 6’1″ male
• mid 40’s
• No major health issues past or present
• Resonably fit
• Starting weight 308.5 lbs
• Finishing weight 293.5 lbs

Here are my daily totals from my Aria Fitbit Linked Scale:

Wish I had taken some body measurements.  My pants are definitely looser and my face has visibly narrowed.  I feel like I am more flexible … probably from dumping water which makes cells and muscles less turgid. I notice my joints are looser, some popping and movement which I’m not used to … probably from reduced inflammation?

Heart Rate:

Here is something I’ve not seen mentioned much in the Paleo or Potato Hack literature.  My resting heart rate dropped like a rock over the past 5 days.  I measured this with my Fitbit again, and they use an algorithm instead of the waking pulse rate that your Dr uses when he/she says ‘resting pulse rate’ but it is still a measure of change.  Check this out:

This is a substantial change and below 60 is pretty good for a guy my size and shape.  I suspect this is due to the lower body inflammation.  Pulse rate is greatly influenced by heart efficiency but also by what the body is dealing with at any given time.  A night of drinking will increase your resting pulse for up to 12 hours the next day … exercise increases resting pulse for a good couple to 3 hours … illness definitely increases resting pulse.  Pretty much anything that stresses the body will increase the resting heart rate.  So this kind of drop can only indicate that my body is no longer fighting … something.  It certainly is an interesting finding.

Wish I had been keeping track of Blood Pressure.  Suspect it dropped appreciably as well.

Cold:

I noticed that I was cold at night especially the last 2 days.  Others have talked a fair amount how they are often cold while following Low Carb or Keto style diets.  I too had noticed this.  I was not expecting to feel cold at night while sucking on potatoes … but I was.  Not sure what the mechanism is behind this feeling and supposedly potato starch solves this issue for Low Carbers but it did not solve it for me.

Mental Issues:

There definitely were parts of days that I felt foggy mentally.  I was unable to focus, unable to think clearly … and I made mistakes in my work.  This was primarily in the 1st couple of days.  Coffee helped but did not ‘solve’ the problem.  I think that this was probably due to time it takes for the body to switch from a food intake burning machine into a body fat burning mode.  I’ve noticed this in the past when switching between Low Carb and Mid to High Carb eating.  The funny thing is = the switch back (from fat burning to food burning) does not produce this fogginess. I guess that energy being readily available to burn from food is something the body is ready for.  Famine = not so much.  My advise is to just work through it knowing that the feeling will pass.  In the last couple of days I did not feel this fog and even had periods of hyper focus and flow.  Just press on.

Food Obsession:

This probably should fall under ‘mental issues’ but this has always been a big one for me … and it did show up on day 5 again.  When I say ‘food obsession’ I’m talking about periods of time where you can’t think about anything other than food … or if your mind wanders, it always goes to food. I’ve always had issues with this when eating a restricted diet, and it drives me nuts.  This time I was not obsessing about junk food or alcohol, it was meat.  lol.  Mostly steak actually.  Thinking about cooking it, smelling it … chewing it … ahhhhhhhh!  This my mind can focus on, but not my work?  What is wrong with me?? lol.  Anyway, my two post Potato Hack days were mostly planned out foodwise by the end of Day 5.  I don’t know any solutions to this one – just roll with it is what I do = it was a substantial irritation though.

Irritability:

Probably another ‘mental issue’ but I’ll talk about it separately here.  I did have some periods of minor irritability where I had no patience for anyone or anything while Potato Hacking.  It was minor though.  Again, in the past while losing weight using other methods I had long periods where I was totally impossible to get along with.  I hate this part of losing weight … and so does my family.  This time the irritability was usually around meal time and really only lasted a couple of minutes till I got focused on other things.  I could see it being an issue if this was a long term weight loss method though.  Find something to focus on to get past this.

Sleep:

I was expecting that my sleep would be better/deeper.  That did not really happen.  I did sleep well but I don’t think that the quality of sleep was all that much better.  I usually sleep pretty good anyway, so maybe this is a non-problem for me.  My biggest issue with sleep is getting to bed early enough to get a full 8 hours.  My body and brain work way better on 8 hours compared to 7 and it accumulates.  So I can have one night of 7 hours and it not affect me much, but 2 or 3 nights in a row of 7 hours really hurts me.  I’ve messed with straight potato starch in the past and had some substantial changes in my sleep patterns – that did not happen this week.  Others may notice changes depending on how they were sleeping before starting this experiment.

Final Thoughts and Advice:

This Hack really is a good way to blow off some weight quickly.  It is basically a Very Low Calorie Diet with the added benefits of Potato Starch and bulk.  It is very simple, cheap and easy to follow.  While there are still the normal issues that come with low calorie intake, I found those things mostly manageable.  I suspect that a 3 day would have been easier than the full 5 days and I may do this in 3 day bursts in the future.  I did add Dill and Malt Vinegar to a couple of my meals so I guess I did do one of the Variations listed in the book … I suspect that the other variations would make this easier.  However I suspect the weight loss would be less.  I smell another experiment!  Definitely going to continue cycling the Potato Hack to continue losing weight.

Thanks for the book Tim and good luck everyone trying this.  Would love to hear from you in the comments.

The sub-title of this post could be ‘Why I no longer post on Facebook.’

The NY Daily News just published an article that in every way defines the Western Liberal hatred of anything Christian or Conservative – “San Bernardino killers were radical, ISIS-loving monsters — but one of their victims was just as bigoted.”

The author, a Linda Stasi seems to be living up to her namesake by promoting the view that anyone who believes in Christian or Conservative values … and dares voice those opinions … deserves to die.  From this hate filled article:

Nicholas Thalasinos, was a radical Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew

Thalasinos was an anti-government, anti-Islam, pro-NRA, rabidly anti-Planned Parenthood kinda guy, who posted that it would be “Freaking Awesome” if hateful Ann Coulter was named head of Homeland Security.

He asked, “IS 1. EVERY POLITICIAN IS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR?

2. EVERY POLITICIAN IS A MORON?

So lets look at what this man was according to The Stasi:

• Born again Christian. I’m a born again Christian …
• Anti-government. I’m a small government Conservative (often construed by left wing haters as anti-government.)
• Anti-Islam. Islam teaches the Mo was greater than Jesus. In that way I am anti-Islam.
• Pro-NRA. I support gun ownership.
• Anti-Planned Parenthood. I am Pro-Life.
• Ann Coulter supporter. I like Ann … and support many of her views.
• Paid for politicians?  Asked this myself just yesterday as I read about the Canadian delegation to the Paris Climate junket.
• Politicians morons?  I wonder about this too … (see anything to do with Trudeau here in Canada.)

So wait, all the things that The Stasi says this man should die for … many of those things, I am too?  And not only me, but many, many Christian Conservatives are too? Wait. So, if he deserved to die, do I deserve to die too?

This thinking, promoted by the 4th largest print newspaper in the US, should be viewed as a warning.  We need to understand that, in North America, are not at war with ISIS or Syria.  The war that is coming at us is from within.  It is from those that hate Christ … those that hate liberty … and especially those that view opposition as something that needs to die.

This is why I left Facebook and why I use a pseudonym as protection.  There is no doubt in my mind that the day is coming, and may already be here, when people who believe the things that I believe will be grouped and targeted.  Facebook and other social medias will either be complicit or coerced into forwarding the data that we give voluntarily everyday in our social media posts.  Read the above article, and listen to what The Stasi is saying … and think about the end game.  Where is she going with this?  What will be the effect on you and your loved ones?  Are you and your family safe?

I’m now through week 3 of my Anyman Fitness program and things are going well!  The losses continued although not nearly as great as the 1st week which was expected.  My waist measurements dropped significantly and I dropped another almost 5 lbs the 2nd week by the scale.  The first week was definitely a big blow off of water and waste … literally.  Now that I’ve been eating clean with out a single cheat morsel for 3 weeks, I know that any weight that comes off is mostly fat.  Taking measurements will confirm this for sure and I expect more losses from my wasteline when I measure again tomorrow.

Soreness

The 1st week was characterized by extreme soreness, to the point that it was waking me up at night.  By the end of the 2nd week, the extreme part of the soreness was finally gone.  I still had quivery, mushy legs after leg day, but not the bone deep ache that was haunting me the 1st week.  I love this part as I know that my workouts are still effective because I’m driving the muscles to exhaustion but without paying for it for days.  I don’t know if there is a way around this for people either starting lifting or getting back into lifting after a time off.  I tried starting ‘light’ but that is a relative term and I found it really hard to pull something light when I know I was capable of doing so much more.  Plus I’m not sure that light would allow me to gain much strength without wasting a bunch of weeks working up to strength again.  I suspect this soreness is just something to gut out with gritted teeth and Advil.

Gaining Strength

If week 1 was characterized by soreness, the 2nd and 3rd weeks would be characterized by strength gains.  I was amazing at how light the weights felt the 2nd week … and even more the 3rd week.  I ended up jumping up by double plates on a couple of lifts just to feel a bit of burn.  My workout notes for almost every lift in week 3 said, ‘go heavier next week.’  This is exciting … and VERY encouraging.  I was shocked at how weak I had allowed myself to become when I sat down to do my 1st lift.  Jason also has me doing pushups – and it has been a lot of fun to see the numbers going up each time I do a set.  I’ve almost tripled the number I’m able to do on my 1st set.  Again, I was shocked (and it was a blow to my manliness) to see how few pushups I could do my 1st week.  Thank goodness this has come along quickly, if nothing else than for my ego.  lol.

What I’m Eating = Food

Our garden harvest continues, so there is a lot of sampling.  Cherry Tomatoes, Green Beans, Peas, Peppers, Corn … just to name a few.  I’ve been using these as sides in my meals and they are wonderful.  However for the main bulk of my calories and food, I’ve chosen simple packaged food – mostly dairy.  I don’t have any intestinal issues with dairy, so Cottage Cheese and Yogurt have been real staples for me.  The reason why I’ve chosen to stick with the packaged stuff is ease of calculations.  When

starting out, I really had no idea how much of what macro was in any food.  So food labels were essential and a source of discovery for me.  Further, calories are sneaky.  They seem to get into food and meals a lot easier than they should … like

Gremlins gumming up the system.  lol.  The other thing that makes packaged food easier is that I can often find foods that are either all of one macro (all carb or all protein) or balanced macros.  This also makes calculations and meal food choices easier.  I love Skyr Icelandic Yogurt as it is almost a perfect balance of protein and carbs (16 and 18) so it makes it really easy to do calculations.  So I’ve stuck with labeled food to make this learning and calculating easier.  As I learn, I will move back to my own homegrown food more … which will be cheaper and certainly more healthy in the long run.  Just finished processing another 12 liters of pickles … with dill and garlic from our garden.  These are going to be amazing!  Thank goodness pickles don’t count for much in my macros.

Some Hard Numbers

Down 20 lbs on the scale
2.5″ Inches off my waist
2″ Inches off my chest
1″ off my calves!
I’m shrinking overall pretty much everywhere.

All this while eating over 200 gms of carbs per day (including bread) … hmmm, some guy named Paleo said this would make me fat.  Turns out he was wrong. I wonder what else he was wrong about.

You’ve been working your diet plan, eating for success and staying the course through thick and thin (hopefully more thin, lol) for a while, and now the time has come to go out for a good meal. That is where I found myself today.

Results: I had a GREAT meal and a spectacular desert and stayed within my eating plan = all is well with my diet AND my brain. (I’ll explain more on this later.)  For those wondering: Boston Pizza = great food!

This is how to do it.

1.  Decide where to go. I would suggest if you are new to calculating macros and calories that going to a restaurant with an online menu with nutrition values would be best. (Lets call this a ‘documented’ restaurant. lol.) Maybe later, when you’ve got a good feel for macros and what sort of calories are actually in real food, going out to an ‘undocumented’ restaurant will work.
2. Plan your food. The trick here is to decide ahead of time what you are going to eat. Shop the menu carefully and be realistic. If yer going to have Nachos to start, be honest about it. Don’t try to say to yourself, ‘I’ll just nibble or I’ll just have 1 or 2.’ You won’t. You’ll eat 10. So decide now that you are going to eat 10 … with sour cream … and cheese … and yer gonna lick your fingers when done! Remember, you are going out to enjoy yourself and your food. Any resolve you have now is going to be reduced there. Plan for it.
3. Calculate your macros and calories and see what you’ve got. If you are blowing over your whole day worth of values, you might have to switch out a few things. (ie. go with a Ceasar Salad instead of Deep Fried Mozzarella sticks for a starter, or a meat dish instead of Pasta Primavera with Garlic Bread.) You know what I mean.
4. Build in a buffer. This is a carry over from other calculations that I’ve done in other areas of my life recently. (I’m currently building a solar power system for my cabin … when calculating the amount of power required, a buffer is used to cover errors and unforeseen eventualities.) Ya, I know were are talking food here not power, but the principle is good. When deciding on a buffer, I had no idea what to use to make this calculation, so I just pulled a completely arbitrary amount out of thin air = 10%. I took my calories (I didn’t bother with the macros as they were already a bit out of whack) and added 10% to the total. This amount covers things like ‘just one more’, inexact portion sizes, ‘tasting’ my wifes meal, ‘helping’ kids with their meals and general finger licking. lol. All the stuff that you will do when eating out. This is being realistic.
5. Now calculate out the rest of your day around this meal. In my case I only had a few calories left to work with, so I planned a small Brunch and then booked our reservation for an early supper. I also tried to correct my Macros with this, but in the end my Macros were slightly off for the day, but my calories were good.

Desert!

For desert, we had a cheesecake at home that my wife had made from scratch and we have grape syrup that we made from our grapes harvested this year. So we planned our desert for at home. The big question was how to calculate the calories and macros.

This is how you calculate Calories and Macros for homemade food and recipes:

1. Find a recipe calculator. You can do this by hand but it is way easier to use an on-line recipe calculator. I use this one: https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-calculator.asp This makes it really easy. Just enter all the ingredients and amounts and press calculate. The longhand way of doing it is to record the calories and macros for each ingredient and adding everything up and then dividing by weight or servings. I’ve done it a couple of times to verify the Sparkpeople.com calculations and came out very close to what they say, so I’m satisfied with the accuracy of their tool.
2. Decide on serving size. You can do this by weight or by number of servings. In the case of our cheesecake, we used a round cheesecake pan and it was easy for us to cut into 8 slices. So for our calculations, we said 8 servings.

I use my Fitbit and their online website to calculate food intake and keep a log of my foods. It’s an amazing tool that works great for keeping track of food … I’ll do a post about it sometime. So this is what my evening out ended up looking like.

Now THAT is a shitload of calories … but still within my daily intake so all is well and I feel really good about how this went today. I’ll do this again next month. (I’m not going to make this too regular of a ‘thing’ … the reason why I have to rebuild my body is because I was way too free eating out for years. This is one of the habits that I’m breaking.)

Feeling Good!

Earlier I mentioned how this was good for my brain. Feeling good this evening is what I’m talking about. You know the ‘morning after’ blues … where you beat up on yourself for a binge or a food breakdown? Planning your evening and eating to plan allows you to totally avoid these feelings. One of the biggest issues for those who are losing weight is keeping on top of your brain. For many of us, the brain is what got us into trouble to begin with. Learning to actually enjoy food again without using it as a crutch for other issues is an important part of breaking bad eating (or drinking) habits. I’ve often read how people refer to the ‘morning after’ feelings as guilt. It was never guilt for me … it was far worse than that. I would say a more correct description is self-hate based on not being able to trust your own word to yourself … and then giving up on yourself. When you don’t trust yourself, your brain treats you like it would treat anyone else that it does not trust. This causes all sorts of self-loathing that encourages the binging and uncontrolled eating that is a big part of the problem to begin with. Whew – OK, that was a whole lot more amateur psychology than I intended … lol. I’m not sure there is any medical evidence for any of my speculation, but that is where I ended up after a whole lot of reflection and self-analysis. Your brain might be wired different.

So that is how to safely incorporate eating out into a fairly strict diet that you don’t want to blowup. Planning each step of the way makes the process easy. No thinking, or wondering or ‘being tempted’ … just follow the plan you’ve laid out for yourself. Easy.

The precedent has now been set for the state to control the information that we are allowed to possess. In New Zealand a 22 yr old man has been arrested and accusedof distributing the video of the recent Christchurch shootings. He faces up to 10 yrs in jail for the crime of possibly showing others what happened during the shooting last week.

Now understand, this event actually happened … it is part of the world we live in. This kind of terror is rising in many western cities, although usually from religious fervor rather than eco-torrorism as the shooter tells us motivated him. But this is real life. You are not allowed to see it.

Following is a list of the approved things you are allowed to see:

• Simulated violence and gruesome deaths as movie entertainment = OK.
• Almost any kind of vile pornography = OK.
• All sorts of vehicle accidents, fires, etc often with multiple deaths = OK.
• War videos = OK.

But this one is not.

Just another step down the path of controlling your thoughts.

Thoughtcrime stepping out of fiction into reality.

Update: The kid is 18 yrs old. Faces 14 years in jail and has been denied bail. Wow. He is a real criminal now!

Update 2 – Mar 21, 2019: Illegal information now includes Jordan Peterson self help books. I’m not a huge fan of word salad and I’m really not sure how helpful his philosophy will be in the long run (kinda like putting lipstick on a pig,) but banning information is probably the worst thing that can be done to solve the problem of extremism when it come to eco-terrorists.

There are things you can know about people by their past actions. If a person has a history of corruption and conflict of interest ‘issues’, you can bet there will be future issues along the same lines.

Enter Canada’s Justin Trudeau. In his short 3 years of rule, he or his party has been ‘investigated’ 4 times for possible ethic violations and now he is embroiled in a major corruption and ethics scandal where he put pressure on the Attorney General to overrule a court case that was going against a company that supports him. This is tinpot 3rd world dictator stuff.

Then in a blinding flash of corruption with extra sauce, he announces that he has appointed Anne McLellan to look into the affair. He could not have found a more supportive ‘investigator,’ (other than his crazy mom,) if he tried. We now have Liberals investigating Liberals = corruption.

Politicians wonder why the common people hate them? This is why.

To start with, I don’t believe in this thing called White Supremacy. It’s a term that makes no sense in the grand scheme of the various ‘nationalisms.’ (More to come on that topic another time.)

That being said if you “Implicate All White’s” in the Christchurch shootings you will bolster the idea of White Supremacy and help propagate and spread it.

I can’t escape the feeling that all of white Australia is implicated in the deaths—a white majority that has fomented and let foment hate.

If you want to create a beast that you will NEVER tame, keep blaming a skin colour for all horrific crimes. Not only are you creating a real live strawman that you can’t control, but it is fundamentally dishonest. And dishonestly breeds more dishonesty … every time. If you tell the lie enough times, you run the risk of actually creating what you are lying about.

White skin is not to blame for this eco-terrorist. Just stop.

This Sodomite TSA agent really seems to be enjoying the most thorough pat-down I’ve seen in a while. I mean they don’t pat down criminals this completely. I can absolutely guarantee that if that agent went at my 14 yr old son that way, that we would be marching right back out of the airport = trip canceled. Flying does not give the state the right to feel up the boy’s private area at least 3x that I can see in this video.

Makes me wonder how many 14 yr old white terrorists or drug runners have been apprehended at the airport. (I’m willing to bet none, but hey, maybe there is some epidemic that the mainstream media is hiding from us.)

Anyway, this guy is certainly acting very pervy with this boy and needs to be put on the other kind of bag check duty (luggage bags,) where his very thorough inspection routine might be helpful.

Remember this?

Well. Guess what … budgets don’t balance themselves and the promise of ‘modest deficits for 3 years‘ has been long forgotten. What are we left with?

A 20 Billion dollar deficit this year and projected deficit spending till at least 2040.

Just another lying politician spending other people’s money “like a drunken sailor. When will we (the peoplekind) ever learn?

Edit:  “We will balance that budget in 2019.” – Trudeau

This kid, a Canadian I might add, has some set of stones on him. The bad part of this story is that he was alone.

Hats are not racist people, neither is the message Make America Great Again. The rhetoric of calling people racist who support Trump will not end well. More people are going to have to die before this gets fixed.