Day 24: nausea wants me to keep eating eggs and meat
Day: 24 (Lose Your Middle-Aged Middle diet plan suspended)
Starting weight: 78.4kg Last recorded weight: 72kg
How I'm feeling today: still queasy, fatigued, and when I eat my heart rate goes up rather fast
Well at least the throwing up is over. I still look like luke warm death, and my blood pressure is low. My legs feel like lead.
Serendipitously I met guy in supermarket selling a new energy drink called GO FAST! I managed to get enough energy together to mumble something about carbohydrate levels in the beverage and he engaged me in an almost evangelical spiel about GO FAST! I suspect he may be one of the inventors.
His name is Andy Pine, and he told me he has been advising sports people on nutrition for over ten years. I told him about my recent research into low carb theories and my current state of nausea, and (not surprising for someone passionate about selling a sweet fizzy drink) his belief is that entering ketosis (or a "protein fast" as he put it) will burn muscle and protein before it burns fat. I've reviewed Lose Your Middle-Aged Middle, and the Eades don't go into this specifically. They simply say that it will encourage the use of fat as fuel and to take Leucine to preserve your muscle mass as you lose weight. So who's right?
Andy also told me that not all sugars are created equal and although his drink is sweet, the sweetness comes from honey and sucrose, not glucose (other than what's in the honey). He told me that your body won't break down the more complex sugars (and store them as fat) unless it needs them for fuel, so his drink is far better for you than a can of, say, Redbull. I pointed out that if your liver has stopped efficiently mopping up insulin that your body will probably continue breaking down unnecessary sugars merely due to this factor alone.
He also gave me the "what our ancestors would have eaten" speech, but his take is berries, fruit and vegetation with a little bit of meat, as opposed to the proponents of ketosis as a way of Life, who reckon we ate primarily meat. So there's obviously no consensus amongst the experts. I argued that thousands of years have passed, and that surely our bodies have evolved? I even brought up the old what's-the-appendix-for question.
And of course there is always that very sensible concept worth tucking away for these kinds of discussions: if you swapped the places of an Indian vegetarian with a blubber-eating Inuit, not only would they find the climate disagreeable, they'd both probably die of malnutrition. So given most of us are human mongrels, it's quite possible that each of our bodies process foods slightly differently.
Before we parted Andy was even gave me his card in case I wanted to talk to him about it in more detail, which was nice. I walked away having had a sample (tasted like almond essence) and thinking his drink does seem a lot better than the refined sugar-packed competitors, but normal, nonathletic people just don't need - nor can use - that much carbohydrate in one hit.
So my plan is to simply avoid carbs after lunch until I feel better, then re-assess.
Breakfast: creamed corn on toast
Lunch: toasted ham and cheese sandwich
Dinner: spinach and asparagus soup
Starting weight: 78.4kg Last recorded weight: 72kg
How I'm feeling today: still queasy, fatigued, and when I eat my heart rate goes up rather fast
Well at least the throwing up is over. I still look like luke warm death, and my blood pressure is low. My legs feel like lead.
His name is Andy Pine, and he told me he has been advising sports people on nutrition for over ten years. I told him about my recent research into low carb theories and my current state of nausea, and (not surprising for someone passionate about selling a sweet fizzy drink) his belief is that entering ketosis (or a "protein fast" as he put it) will burn muscle and protein before it burns fat. I've reviewed Lose Your Middle-Aged Middle, and the Eades don't go into this specifically. They simply say that it will encourage the use of fat as fuel and to take Leucine to preserve your muscle mass as you lose weight. So who's right?
Andy also told me that not all sugars are created equal and although his drink is sweet, the sweetness comes from honey and sucrose, not glucose (other than what's in the honey). He told me that your body won't break down the more complex sugars (and store them as fat) unless it needs them for fuel, so his drink is far better for you than a can of, say, Redbull. I pointed out that if your liver has stopped efficiently mopping up insulin that your body will probably continue breaking down unnecessary sugars merely due to this factor alone.
He also gave me the "what our ancestors would have eaten" speech, but his take is berries, fruit and vegetation with a little bit of meat, as opposed to the proponents of ketosis as a way of Life, who reckon we ate primarily meat. So there's obviously no consensus amongst the experts. I argued that thousands of years have passed, and that surely our bodies have evolved? I even brought up the old what's-the-appendix-for question.
And of course there is always that very sensible concept worth tucking away for these kinds of discussions: if you swapped the places of an Indian vegetarian with a blubber-eating Inuit, not only would they find the climate disagreeable, they'd both probably die of malnutrition. So given most of us are human mongrels, it's quite possible that each of our bodies process foods slightly differently.
Before we parted Andy was even gave me his card in case I wanted to talk to him about it in more detail, which was nice. I walked away having had a sample (tasted like almond essence) and thinking his drink does seem a lot better than the refined sugar-packed competitors, but normal, nonathletic people just don't need - nor can use - that much carbohydrate in one hit.
Today's Food:
Since I'm still feeling so awful, I'm just following my body's requests and eating what it's craving. And it seems the only thing I want is toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, even though I don't eat pigs if I can avoid it. The only thing you really feel like when you're sick is carbs! I'm dreading how this is going to affect next weigh in. I'll probably gain everything back. And I've not been able to get back to the gym. :(So my plan is to simply avoid carbs after lunch until I feel better, then re-assess.
Breakfast: creamed corn on toast
Lunch: toasted ham and cheese sandwich
Dinner: spinach and asparagus soup
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