Friday, March 30, 2012
Here is a complex formula for not feeling like crap:
Eat lots of food -> sleep and wake up at a reasonable time -> see the sunlight -> feel awesome!!
Yesterday I did something unusual in that I saw a solid 40 minutes of direct sunlight. Man, real sunlight is sooooo vastly superior to a lightbox, sometimes I forget that. In a way the lightbox is bad for me because I tend to say "well I used the lightbox today, I don't need to get sunlight!" which is of course completely WRONG. Real sunlight, even later in the day, one hundred thousand times more effective than a light box.
I don't know what is in sunlight that makes me feel so much better; it must be magic dust from heaven or something, because after being exposed to it I usually feel radically better within a few hours. Sunlight also totally reverses the "shift worker death cast" ... I see it on all of my night shift coworkers, it's this look of deathly sickness in the face. Within an hour of seeing the sun I instantly look healthier; my skin is radiant, glowing, pores shrink.
The past few days I have been focusing on feeling better vs weight neuroticism specifically. As a result I have allowed myself to pretty much eat plentiful of caloric energy while in the context of ketogenic nutrition. I have come to realize many of the problems I have been dealing with re: sleeping / coldness are a direct 100% result of not seeing the sun and not sleeping, and most of those are a result of my job and trying to starve myself of food.
I have discovered the magnificence of dairy. I have been eating tons of marscapone, prosciutto and mozzarella, fresh mozzarella , havarti, muenster, and of course cream/butter as per usual.
While typing this I am eating a diced avocado with fresh giant scallions, a squeeze of lemon, sea salt, and chopped up smoked fresh mozzarella. Sooo yum.
I have been piling back the marscapone which is my new love. It tastes like the most awesome combination of super thick overwhipped cream, plus ricotta cheese. Sprinkle a bit of erythritol on top, and eat with dark chocolate and nuts. I eat this for breakfast. Clearly, low reward is how my diet works. Nothing says low reward like thick rich whip cream and chocolate covered in granular sugar and roasted almonds. And then, tons of cheese and avocados. I go out of my way to eat the most tasty delicious food, PS I am skinny as hell and wear a size 0 and maintaining a massive weight loss, did I mention that?
... clearly all of this is less rewarding than bread and potatoes that's why it works. My brain tastes the flavor attack and it's like "yea, this is not as good as stale crackers!"
Stale crackers = ravenously hungry want to eat constantly = high reward I guess.
Marscapone with granular erythritol + chocolate + nuts = less appetite and a lot of energy = Must be lower reward than stale starch I suppose!
Certainly can't be insulin because Carbsane has a new blog entry up saying she is afraid of lowering her insulin levels (LOL) because the dauer state in worms is triggered by starvation (low central insulin) and leads to thrifty metabolism so that is the same as a fat human lowering their insulin levels, apparently. No, insulin can't possibly explain this! It must be that in my particular brain and body, drowining in chocolate and cream and sweet tasting food and savory food and salt = low reward, meanwhile cornflakes = high reward.
DUHHH THAT MUST BE IT!
Anyway, I also made a batch of chocolate butter. I took a brick of 100% chocolate and mixed it with coconut oil and butter, and a splash of vanilla, and poured in some erythritol, splenda, ace-k. I poured them in little peanut butter cup sized pastel colored wrappers which were filled with almonds. Delicious, almost no carbs, pure fat, and my appetite totally vanishes if I eat a small amount.
I want to take this moment to say that sleeping is the key to having a working metabolism and feeling well. I feel much, much, much better. I am sleeping better, and because I am sleeping better my body is working normally. I am very warm (because I am sleeping), and I feel calm and peaceful (because I am sleeping), and my body is easily using energy // my appetite is quite low (again, because I am SLEEPING!)
I have come to realize much of the difficulties I have had the past few days was a result of insufficient sleep, which in turn is a result of insufficient (fat)calories.
Not sleeping after a chronic period of it will trigger a thrifty metabolic state. Body temp drops, glucose tolerance goes to hell, hungry more often, storing fat more easily.
In the past experiments with trying to sleep / eat more were complicated by the fact I used either excessive carbohydrates, insufficient dietary fats, or central stress sedatives . I do not do well with these at all. This time I am not taking any additional CNS depressant substance, not even supplements... and I am eating fat to make up additional calories. The result is I am sleeping better but not at all experiencing signs of increased depression // decreased mood as would be the normal outcome of sleeping more / eating more. I feel like I have taken drugs in the sense I feel so giddy and awesome.... but I also feel very centered and peaceful. It intuitively feels like I have crazy endorphin right now as I associate this way of being with using opiates (giddy peaceful contented happy). My brain is like "omg, look, normalcy! sleep and food and a few hours of sunlight! what have i done to deserve this bounty of health and nourishment and care???"
Again this only goes to support my suspicions that if I stay in mild ketosis I am highly depression resistant. I can even eat a lot of calories and sleep more, and experience no problems.. merely reap the benefits of superior health normally associated with sleeping/eating with otherwise for normal people leads to feeling well. PS pee sticks still pink! Trace or small all the time. I have never been negative. PS These few weeks/months of staying in ketosis have been hands down some of the best for my mood since I was 20 years old and was in deep ketosis for a year. Like every single day I feel "normal".
It is noted sleep problems are very common in women. I tend to think those sleep problems which are not directly the result of menopause/estrogen deficiency (well noted to mess with sleep) are a result of the chronic disordered eating found in women...the irrational, unhealthy calorie restriction and over exercise, which amplifies the stress response, which normally inhibits sleep, disrupting serotonin and central endorphin. Men sleep well because men eat like normal human beings, typically. Women can't sleep because they do things like eat 1200 calories and exercise a lot. Yea, you sorta can't sleep if you are telling your body-> "STAY AWAKE OMG NO FOOD LOTS OF TROUBLE! WAR? CONFLICT? WHO KNOWS BUT DONT SLEEP OK?"
Too much central stress, to keep up blood sugar, to respond to low nutrition, yea you won't be able to sleep. Don't be surprised when you feel like you are dead after awhile.
Want to fix this? Eat like a normal person. Eat when hungry. It isn't about carbs, it's about the central stress response and When your mind says " damn I want food", walk to the kitchen and eat. It's that simple. There is no complex psychological food addiction resulting in the "damn I am hungry" thought...it is caused by food not being in your belly because you are dieting.
Similarly, the fake eating disorder known as compulsive eating or binge eating disorder isn't so much an eating disorder or food addiction as it is a response to chronic self starvation, i.e. dieting. If you are a woman who finds that she inhales an entire bag of chocolate bars if she tries to have one, it's probably because you have spent many many years starving yourself so that your brain is totally FUBAR with food compulsivity.
The way to resolve this is to allow yourself to eat like a normal person, meaning to hunger, when hungry. You do not have an eating disorder, you are expressing the normal response to food deprivation/energy imbalance, which is to freak out and binge (the less typical response is obsessive compulsive starvation, another type of eating disorder).
I think one of the most harmful ideas to permeate society is the idea that binge eating is an emotional problem or a food addiction. It so totally isn't. Find me a single binge eater who is NOT dieting/starving themselves for many years otherwise. You can't do it. Even in animals, binging behavior is always preceded with sportatic or restricted food availability. Binge impulses after starvation / spotty food availability are entirely adaptive which is why they develop.
Anyway, point of this entry?
Low carb eating isn't the reason you feel crappy.
The reason you feel crappy is because you will not allow yourself food.
Because you are not allowing yourself enough calories and food, you cannot sleep and your metabolism is utter garbage (...and not sleeping will also make you feel uber cold FYI)
Don't ditch your low carb diet, particularly if it helps your weight control, blood sugar, or well being otherwise. Just eat food, stop believing in made up fairy tales of food addiction or emotional eating, and then magically you can suddenly sleep and feel well.
