Sunday, July 19, 2009

Carnivore: Day 3

Yes, third day of the meat-only diet. Slept in ('tis Saturday after all, the end of an exhausting week back at work) and awoke to a scale whose batteries had died! Awkward. Didn't want to eat until I had weighed in, as is the procedure for this experiment. So, we nipped down the street and grabbed batteries, and then swung by my butcher to pick up my pork fat. The damn shop was closed. Closes at 1pm on a Saturday, apparently. What is this, the country?? So no rendering of pork fat for me, sadly. Not til at least Tuesday. In the meantime, I checked out the 'spreads' department of the local Coles, and found myself some lard:


Not quite as primal as I would like, as I don't know how the 'animal fat' (so the ingredient list non-specifically states) was rendered - were chemicals involved? Was it overheated at any stage? And, most importantly, what was done with the crackling?! But anyway, it will do for the meantime.

So, arrived home, and inserted the new batteries - 80.1kg. That's over 1/2 kilogram down from yesterday. I'm not getting excited yet though, since I was weighing in at around 79kg just over a week ago, so my body is still adjusting to the early mornings and recovering from the nut binges. Nonetheless, it's good to see progress since so many seem to have gained weight on this diet. And it may help to note that Day 1 & 2 have both resulted in consuming more than 2000kcal each day. Given that my BMR is around 1800kcal without exercise, 2000 should not be an obvious goal for weight loss!

Lunch today (slept through 'breakfast')- 220g organic minced beef, worked into mini burgers, and fried with a small amount of lard:


Then we went out to a restaurant in Southgate to feast before taking in some culture - Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, produced by the MTC. While my associates ordered fish & chips, and bread and dips, I nabbed the 300g porterhouse steak (ordered rare, served medium-rare) and gave the chips and onion chutney to the others:


Still going strong, although the delayed lunch ended in some major grumpiness (note - I had eaten last the night before at 9pm, and today I didn't get lunch until almost 3pm. So that's an 18 hour fast; some grumpiness isn't uncommon!), and I was pretty moody when trying to order dinner at 7:30pm, when it was revealed that the menu online was not reflective of the current menu in the restaurant, and therefore my chosen dish was not available (and the meals were now incredibly overpriced). Noticed the irrational irritability, and felt my mood lift once the steak was in my belly. So that's the first 'symptom' if you like, although it's not one that is specific to zero carb for me. I hadn't noticed much in the way of mood swings while I was trialling intermittent fasting on the more low-carb primal diet though.

Roll on Day 4...

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