@Tenax It’s funny, if fresh fruit is there and cut up nice, a lot of people will have a bite or two. Slip in some watermelon.
I’m in refeed right now and can’t even fathom a piece of cake or pie still.
Terry's 30 day + water fast journal
That would be great thx! Here’s a few pics for you…
My folks, my nephews & niece with their dog, and some pups the breeder has had:
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I should note what a big deal that pic of my folks is for their 60th. My dad is not one to be touchy feely or verbal with his love. He prefers to show it by everything he will do for you. And he’s definitely not romantic…but then he surprises me when i saw the roses he gave Mom. Even more notable…I found out mom had yellow roses for their wedding, her favorite. (She also has yellow rose china for my daughter when she gets married)
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I have 2 dogs, and I adore them. I live alone, and they are my family. I wish you a beautiful future with your darling puppy.
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Very good read! Thank you
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Weight Entry:222.0 lb
Lost so far:60.0 lb
Still to go:22.0 lb
Back down to my best recent weight with 56 hours left on my 120 hour (5 day) fast. Today I reflect on the tools I use to help motivate me to lose or maintain weight. Fasting, keto sticks & blood monitor, a new better smart watch & my scale as much as its a love hate relationship with it. I say that by way of this example…Last night I really wanted to refeed. So I made a deal with myself that if I lost any weight today I would push through another day. And so it happened & so it must be!
I love my Fitbit Versa 2! I find myself checking the stats, especially my steps & distance, often. GREAT reward for my weight loss.
Just entering ketosis again according to the sticks. Timing is about right. Cheat bbq meal on Sunday that I am determined NOT to cheat on by the macros. Combination of daughters in laws to be visiting/kids mothers birthday (my ex) so as far as I’m concerned not a celebration worthy of losing my progress, if you know what I mean. One of the reasons I love recording my food here in advance is it helps me avoid the dangers & make better choices with time to think it through. For example, my daughter plans to make potato salad for the bbq. I love potato salad. How badly do I want it? 22 g of carbs per cup badly? I would like to have a 4oz glass of zinfandel with sparkling water to sip on. 9g of carbs. Worth it? Maybe. Angel Food cake? Def not worth it (not a fan. give me chocolate or lemon thx). So probably will be a great steak, salad (bring my own no carb dressing) and veggie if reasonably carb friendly. And maybe that glass of wine. I’m not much of a drinker so I don’t know why I crave it much beyond the social environment I’ll be in. I have 4 days to reflect on that!
Lastly, in my prior fasting experiences I have been a couch slug or working enough to get a bit of exercise. As I’m not working, I intend to make that much more effort to get a daily long walk in. Yesterday was excellent with 52 minutes of activity/4 plus miles & 2800+ calories expended. Plus I helped my daughter move her stuff to her new school for fall (Honest to God…like moving a small apt. So many totes of stuff!) So I’ll try to keep that activity level going. Usually if I’m low energy I have a heavy feeling. I am not feeling that at this point in the fast. Otherwise some mild stomach discomfort but nothing major. I theorize given it hasn’t been a huge amount of time since my last fast, the detox effect shouldn’t be as extreme. Ask me tomorrow!
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Weight Entry:220.8 lb
Lost so far:61.2 lb
Still to go:20.8 lb
Another good drop this morning putting me .8 lb away from my short lived weight in 2014 (My trip to Maui & too many mai tais, crabcakes & Denny’s birds nest breakfast would add 10lb in 3 weeks in spite of my best efforts. This does remind me of articles, theories & posts about your body finding a settling weight & not wanting to budge. In less than a weak I went from feast at the lake to famine at home and have dropped almost 8lb. yeah yeah some of its water weight but shhh…don’t spoil it for me! While I have daily intermittent fasted I have not done like a fast for 3, eat for 1 or 2 type pattern & frankly have felt that either the 20 hr daily fast as a weight loss strategy is not going to get me the results I want. Maybe its my body fighting against it, maybe its needing to break the pattern. It’s never easy…for me, anyway. I do like the concept of frequently dipping into fasting even though it sounded difficult. 2 days was easy…3 that much tougher. An article a fellow faster sent me claims that the most benefits of autophagy from fasting peak at 2 days of fasting. Which if true, makes the idea of fasting long term for me anyway, just a painful exercise in will power…and maybe a touch of ego?
In any case, if you read my posts day to day, dear follower, you should be asking yourself…what happened to all your talk yesterday about a 5 day fast? Well, I had a reminder that while I may have beaten back my emotional connection to food, I have not beaten it. Like an alcoholic, I’m but 1 drink away from the bottle. Okay, maybe too dramatic, but I think as you read the following you’ll get my point.
I went into the first hour of day 4 with good intentions. I really did. Then my Mom had txted me to look up a friend’s name in obits on the hometown newspaper. My first thought was his dad’s name was the same & he died in 2011. Hoping my Mom had somehow confused one of my best high school friends with his father, I looked. Sadly my friend had passed away…literally one day after I had left the lake to come home. And one day before his 59th birthday. Details were scant, not unusual but the tie to his birthday seems an unlikely coincidence. Which led me to dig deeper and to my horror, I found out that on March 18, 2019 he had been taken into custody for assault and attempted murder, having stabbed a woman multiple times at the gas station he had worked at for years! This was not the Mike I had known for so long, even though we had not talked for 11 years! The last mention of him I could find before the obit, was a bail hearing the day of the assault. Nothing more. In the end, while the method of his death may not really matter on the surface, it is relevant. Why I will explain in a bit.
I met Mike in 1978 under strange circumstances I only recalled again yesterday. And the situation was so out of the norm for me in our little city where I grew up on the West Hill. (If you grew up on the hills, you were one of better off kids…if you grew up on the flats you were from the poor side of town). I had few friends & aside from a couple, mine were all from the flats, the rougher side of town which intersected with a large aboriginal population in complete distress, going through life with little support & little purpose. That population did not come up to “the hills” and Mike…or Buck as we knew him (a derogatory reference now but a nickname he wore with pride) was not a person I would invite to meet my parents, not that they ever said a racist word or acted as such, but…he was like a guilty pleasure…as were my caucasian friends from the flats really. And I was a good boy from the Hills who could live a bit of a bad boy life of too much booze, pot, girls, cigarettes, parties & loud rock & roll safely in their company & in secret from my very straight parents.
I met Buck in the strangest of ways. 2 of my friends were going to a psych center to pick up a friend of theirs who had tried to commit suicide. Thats all I knew of him. Out walks this tall, swarthy, muscular imposing figure. Long black hair, a moustache I could only dream of having at 16. He looked mean & dangerous. And became one of my very best friends quickly. Buck, when you got to know him, was a gentle, thoughtful, quiet giant of a man. We almost got into a few altercations in our last few high school years, and having Buck simply stare someone down was enough to stop a situation dead in its tracks. I lived with him & another friend in a party house for a few years & when I moved 5 hrs away & started to lose my connection with my small circle of friends, I would always pay him a visit when I came back home. In part because I knew he always would be home as he had worked nights at a gas station right out of high school. Buck was always home, always had pot and a fridge full of beer and a deck of cards and he was generous & welcoming. I could visit him after not a word for 3 months & it would be confortable, like I had just seen him the day before. When I moved to Calgary with my new family, full of ambition in 1996, that change of distance from a 5 hr trip to a 9 hr trip home, killed my old friendships. Like my father to this day, I hate talking on the phone. And when I did go home, I spent my time at the lake & with parents, my partner & our kids. The old friendships seemed so juvenile & in the past. I felt I had outgrown the life I knew they still carried on in our small town. Work all week, party on Friday & maybe Saturday nights…usually at Bucks and nurse a hangover on Sundays. Its important to understand that by this time, the muscular Buck had long gone to seed. Too many beers, too many order in pizzas eaten at the gas station overnights and a sedentary sad life to me. It seemed like he simply sat at home, waiting for his friends to come & the next party to happen. I often would think of him, more so than my other 4 or 5 close high school friends because he really was a good guy who self inflicted in some ways, had been dealt some bad cards in life, to me. His older brother is? was a pen guard which if you grew up in my little hometown was the very best job, pay wise anyway. You could be fresh out of high school, little training & make $35 per hour plus in 1977…if you’re nose was clean. I often thought Buck wished he could do that too…but I imagine his psych history would have ruled that opportunity out. But he never complained about his existence. Not to me, anyway. He was the one in our group who called me in the early 90s to let me know one of our best friends had died of suicide, it was thought, at about age 30. There was going to be a wake…could I come home for it? So I did & we reminisced about wild times with our departed friend…sitting around Buck’s brothers living room in a circle…remembering but also speculating. Had it been a suicide? He had died in a garage, a screwdriver through his heart & that’s enough detail on that. But suspicious for sure & in some way, in fitting with the crazy life that friend always seemed to lead…living on the edge.
And that I believe, was the last I spoke with or heard from my old friends until 2009 when my dad called me to say he saw Buck at the gas station. Buck at given my dad his phone number & said to give him a call & catch up. And so I did. I don’t recall if we talked about me visiting again. In a way I hope we didn’t…because I never saw or spoke with him again.
So today I wonder about his passing…a day before his bday and how & why he died? My hope is that it was coincidence…and a quick heart attack as he packed a lot of pizza & beer onto his stomach over the years…but part of me wonders…was he in jail? Was he about to go to jail? Had he lost his job in March 2019…was that what led to the assault? It really had been his only job for 40+ years…& I could see that making him snap. After all, I had first hand experience with self destruction in 2014 after losing my 33 year career & a hair away from suicide at that time. 3 out of a group of 5 close friends, become suicidal? What are the odds. too bizarre to be true but if you believed in curses, you might think we were cursed.
Anyway, I hope Buck died quickly & under normal circumstances. I really do. As a friend, he really was the best of us, in spite of what he did March 2019. I will remember him as I knew him…gentle, quiet & of good humour always.
Finally, because I believe I’m somewhat OCD and maybe my own way of mourning, I pored through 500+ pages of obituaries in the hometown paper now online. (Hey I’m not the only one. Its the main reason small town papers can & still exist, sadly). I didn’t want any more surprises. Sadly I found out my best friend from another circle, a buddy I played D & D with many a Sunday night had died of a “galloping case of stage 4 stomach cancer” as described in his obit, in late 2019. Having first hand experience with my ex’s mom dying from it, I’m glad it was a quick end for Tom. One of the worst cancers to have. But it looks like he had a good career, made it to retirement & had a good life all in all, was enjoying a lot of golf, even though it ended early.
Speaking of exes. I met my kids mom at a party at Buck’s, wouldn’t you know it. We only made it 10 years but we had 2 great kids come out of it…so thank you for that, Buck.
Finally, yes I broke my fast yesterday. Started with raising 1 glass of Sangria to Buck’s memory & oh what the hell…I’m hungry & a refeed & breaking the fast in the moment just didn’t seem like a big deal. But not an out of control refeed thx to having a freezer full of ready made meals. And life goes on. Goodbye, Buck. And goodbye Tom.
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Dude, you need to start a writing career.
That’s as good a story as ones I’ve read in the LA Times, Washington Post and NY Times.
I also played D&D when I was in high school in Pasadena, California. Through a connection I got to play with the really smart kids at Cal Tech.
Here’s to raising a “virtual” glass to dear departed friends.
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Thank you! I’ve given thought on and off to writing a movie script loosely based on my travel adventures in 2013 & 2014. Kind of a rom com thing. There’s no excuse not to anymore given how you can submit scripts to Amazon & self publish, right? But I think a confidence issue & fear of rejection stops me. But some days I think I should just do it. If nothing else, maybe its good therapy!
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You could use me as a resource. I studied screenwriting for a year with UCLA Extension. Had a friend who read scripts for Warners for a living. Took an extension class in performance poetry, self-published and sold at Borders by holding performance poetry readings just for the experience. Stopped selling and performing after I broke even.
Also you know I spent 2 1/2 years in corporate for Paramount Pictures in the late 80s.
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Well thats awesome. I appreciate that. I guess I should start by doing some writing😄
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Absolutely precious! Thank you for sharing such a sweet moment. Your father sounds a lot like my honey. He is not romantic, but he loves doing things for me. It took me awhile to to see that that was him showing me he loves me. You see, I like to HEAR that I am loved lol. But none the less, I am loved. And it is sweet to see a couple sharing 60 years of marriage together. So inspiring!
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Yes. Once you have your story down, we can talk about it.
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Weight Entry:220.0 lb
Lost so far:62.0 lb
Still to go:20.0 lb
So there it is…220. Matches my summer 2014 weight (do I feel 6 years younger? mmmmm). And next…to boldy go where this man hasn’t gone since…the 90s, maybe? Phil Collins, anyone? Sorry…can’t do Madonna. While getting there seems to have taken forever, it’s only been 6 months. I may fast now to Sunday morning before the treat meal…which I really wish was not happening at this critical point. I’m just going to have to reinforce my good behaviours. The only real cheat at this point is a planned glass of zinfandel…which I may not even bother with. The more I think about it, the less its worth it. Its currently loaded in my food plan for Sunday. I think I’m going to banish it and I will enjoy a treat/indulgence that is all good & no bad! (unless you don’t eat beef or meat). A brisket! Such a rarity to find/have in most parts of Canada. I’ve never cooked one but I’ve eaten my share. If I ever go out for bbq, a brisket is a must. So I’ll be bringing my latest culinary experiment to the table Sunday for 7…with lots leftover for moi! (It’s an 8 lb slab of one of the muscly worst cuts of meat from a cow…yet it transforms into this melt in your mouth flavourful experience. After I ordered it yesterday, I do as I do…and spent at least 4 hours online finding out how to trim it, cut it, cook it & slice it…especially because I don’t have a smoker…or a bbq for that matter. But…I do have an oven & a slow cooker & the confidence of my daughter, the host of this event behind me. I am scared & excited at the same time…more so as I’m cooking for others. But I think I’ve figured out the 2 key components…the slow cooking (judge by the temp of the meat not the hours) & the cutting (must slice across the grain!!!). Plus its a 63 dollar chunk of meat (eek…thats expensive to me, albeit cheap per lb compared to say the steaks my daughter had intended to cook to impress her future in laws. OMG…I could kill the wedding with one brisket! I guess we can give them more alcohol).
And thoughts of the brisket to be lead me to other thoughts. If not for Covid, my daughter would be heading to her honeymoon today, my folks would be here, I would have been taking today off work & planning on going to breakfast with my visiting parents instead of unemployed for almost 2 months. Today also was the annual start to the most signifigant annual event for our fair nearby mega city of Calgary…The Calgary Stampede…otherwise known as The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, featuring the parade with people bringing out their chairs to get the best viewing spots as early as 4am for a 9am start that paralyzes the downtown core. Then 250 to 275 THOUSAND people put on their cowboy hats & boots and get stupid for 1 week. I could tell you stories of debauchery that rival any "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas story…observed by myself only of course!) Honestly I went to a lot of Stampede parties when I worked in radio & did see a lot. But given I’m not a big drinker, missed a lot too, I’m sure. In a lot of ways its really thousands of people getting stupid for a week and not my thing. It was hard to manage a business that never takes a break (like a radio station) when the city gives itself license to effectively, take a holiday for one week. I always feel sorry for the police who must dread babysitting all the drunks in the street, especially when they aren’t just 20 somethings who can’t hold their liquor. Oil & gas execs…political officials, lawyers. Many people who put on a 3 piece suit can be found in the gutter, Stampede Week! Its a week long party with food, drink, rodeos, corporate parties, concerts & a pancake breakfast on every corner as Calgary shows its stuff to an influx of worldwide tourists that swells the city population by 25% every year. As an introvert, I don’t miss the madness a bit. And thank God the city cancelled it back in May. Not an easy decision to make but thankfully, we Canadians are too polite to riot in the streets over it (I love my US friends, honestly). It would have been a disaster & I still fear that there will be a CV 19 uptick in our province with the long weekend & people who feel they have to mourn the cancellation of the big show through too much alcohol resulting in a shedding of common sense. Frankly, its part of the reason I went home when I did for my annual lake trip & family visit. I’m not sure when its coming but I do think the 2nd wave is coming. I haven’t been wrong on my predictions yet with this damn virus.
Lastly…my guilty pleasure seems to be early morning walks. 2, 230am. I love it. So quiet…so dark. I get on my ninja outfit (not conciously a colour matched ensemble) but my fat self loves the dark colours, even 62 lb lighter. I have a good imagination so I picture law enforcemebt bored stiff patrolling in the early morning & seeing this dude in all black hoodie, sweats, toque & gloves (hey its chilly still overnight) carrying a plastic bag full of something (the cans & bottles I pick up to make the exercise more entertaining) & walking fast. I am reassured though that as soon as they see my shoes, all will be ok. (i call them my clown shoes that I bought on a trip to texas). I call them clown shoes cause they are bright neon blue with a thick sole. Can’t hide 'em!!! Yesterday on my early morning walk at 2am in the dark, I noticed something odd at a bus shelter & stopped to investigate. Someone had broken the glass & kicked in the frame on the back of the shelter. As I’m standing there, I realize if the PoPo happened to drive by, I’m the only guy there and I look like a wannabe cat burglar. Time to go…and on that note, I’m outta here.
Happy Friday!!!
PS If you wonder what a chunk of 8 lb brisket looks like, check this out:
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LOVE brisket!
Luckily within 15 min driving distance is Lucille’s. BB King’s chain of BBQ restaurants. I ALWAYS order the brisket.
I’ve heard of the Calgary Stampede, sounds similar to Mardi Gras down in New Orleans.
Look forward to reading your post of the cooking experience.
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no excuses no apologies. I gave in to a craving I have had for months to get a large blizzard. raspberry and fudge it was delicious! okay one excuse. I had 2 walks yesterday and even though I knew it would take me out of ketosis I had lots of room calorie-wise. it was definitely worth it!
On my agenda today is cooking my first brisket! I offered to cook one 4 a family occasion tomorrow that includes my daughters future in-laws visiting from Ontario and my ex’s birthday. after the euphoria of tracking down the brisket which is not so easy in Canada, came the reality that doing a brisket is not the easiest thing to do successfully. as I did my research I realized I had a solution to test drive the process to give me a better chance at success tomorrow! you can cook a whole brisket which actually consists of what’s called a flat and a point which are almost like two pieces of meat in one… or you can cut them apart. given you’re starting with in my case an 8-pound slab of meat I thought why not cook one today instead of 2 tomorrow? and adjust cooking as necessary to shoot for Perfection tomorrow? I know a badly cooked piece of meat at a bbq can make or break the meal. or at least that’s my opinion so here I go! wish me luck! It looks good at the prep point anyway and I let it sit for 18 hrs seasoned to tenderize & let the liquid smoke & run sink in…
Wow, that was a fascinating read! I am very sorry for your loss, and thank you for sharing your memories with us all. A 4 day fast, is really quite an accomplishment. Please be kind to yourself.
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My test brisket is complete…took longer to cook then I expected so I’ll mod the recipe tomorrow to adjust. Otherwise it turned out perfectly! I sampled probably 1/3 of it! Just a few carbs in the homemade bbq sauce thats only used as a brush on. I did set tin foil on fire broiling the top & bottom to create the crust. I did not know you could set foil on fire!!!
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