Insomnia

The key problem with insomnia is this. When you have insomnia there is no clear divider between days. The things from one day bleed over into the next without a divide. This means that you can sit down to breakfast at 7:23 a.m. and sigh because it's already been a long day, and it's just getting started.

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This is sausage that has basically been drowned in spinach.

Man of Action

It's 6:15 and I can't seem to stay asleep.  Soon the clock will go off, it will be 7, and I'll start my day.  As I plan it out in my head I realize that the preparations I was going to make for lunch tomorrow require food I didn't remember to buy yesterday.  It's dark, and I should be sleeping so we are at the time where there is no today.  I lament the mistake and continue not sleeping.  And the absurdity of this hits me.  It's 6:15 and I still have the power to change this.  Now I wouldn't describe myself as not sleeping, now I am awake.

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Cottage cheese has become a pretty standard breakfast for me.  It's fun seeing the forums where others will talk about the intricate spicing they do with it.  Dashes of vanilla extract and cinnamon abound.  I follow the very simple recipe of opening the container, eating the food, and then disposing of the container.

Exercise

I don't have a formalized system of exercise yet.  In all honesty I haven't read that part of the book yet.  I get exercise by going on random walks to places I would normally drive to, and by playing with random toys like the one pictured below.  It's a foam padded three section staff.  It's a wonky awkward weapon in the hands of the inexperienced.  I have no teacher, and not even really a book, so I'm learning myself with a little help from youtube.  I've managed to hit myself in the back of the head a lot, which is awkward and I'm sure hilarious to watch.  I'm sticking at it though.

Addendum

Quick addition to my last post.  I'm two bites in and I've come to accept that I don't like pinto beans.  So the afore mentioned experiment has some results.

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Sausage, onions, beans.  I'm still experimenting with with beans.  Types and brands are unsettled, and I think that making the diet affordable will require me to get raw beans, not canned, and learn to make them myself.

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Steak and guacamole are staples of my diet, the pepper mixture is a natural addition to it.  It seems more and more like Im going to move towards a rice, cheese, and corn free spin on Mexican food

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Pretty standard scramble this morning.  Essentially the usual.

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Gaming complicates my eating schedule.  Hence this odd assortment of items.

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My attempt at the slow carb interpretation of the burrito.

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Refried beans, onions, garlic, and Sausage.  Later Acorn squash will round out the meal.

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Did you know that you can upload a photo from an android phone straight to a blogger blog? It's neat.  I'm going to be posting my food diary here from now on.

Anticipation

This new diet has 5 rules, and only 5 rules. The fifth rule is that one day a week you're allowed to eat as much as you want, and whatever you want. It's a core part of the diet because of something to do with your metabolism. I remember something about T3 vs T4, but mostly I remember the earlier part of the book where it lays out the principle that you don't really need to know the full science behind the diet as long as you know the procedure. It's explained with the analogy of a microwave. The user doesn't need to know about thermodynamics, they just need to know what buttons to press.

Anyway, I've found myself thinking about the cheat day a lot. This is in part because I'm three days into this diet and there's a lot of things that I regularly eat and enjoy that I now can't have six days of the week, but there's two much more serious triggers.

The first is what I've started to think of as a minor fast food addiction. It's a compulsion that goes beyond simple hunger, so I've started to think of it as a kind of addiction. I haven't eaten fast food since starting the diet, but I have driven through twice. I drive through and get just a diet drink, which is allowed in moderation, and satisfy the compulsion without feeding the actual problem. I plan to combat this eventually, but since I'm already working on completely reworking the way I eat I think the diet cola solution will be a kind of nicotine patch to keep the problem in check until I'm not occupied reworking other behaviors.

The second is on my mind a lot more. It comes to mind essentially every time I buy food. There are items in all of these stores that I know about, that I have had before, and that I enjoy. I normally can't have them, but I can eventually, and that knowledge sates me. I walk past a delicious caramel apple with chocolate stripes and nuts and I just look at it, and say to the delicious treat "I'll see you on Friday."

I'm looking forward to Friday. Six days of discipline, one day of carnivalesque indulgence. I've thought about what I'm going to eat first. It will be my first cheat day, and I'm prone to putting symbolic importance on things like this. I want the first thing I eat on the first cheat day to simultaneously violate the other four rules. In order to violate rule 1 it needs to contain the basic carbohydrates that are prohibited. Rule 2 means that it will have to be something I don't normally eat. Rule 3 means that it will have to be a drink, since rule 3 is "Don't drink your calories." It will also have to contain fruit, since rule 4 is no fruit. I thought about it a bit, and I have my answer.

Pumpkin Pie Milkshake.

Pie is, by name, a carb and a fruit. I essentially never drink milkshakes so it will be unusual, and it's a drink, which finishes the formula. I'm looking forward to that morning, and that milkshake, but for now I just have to know that it's out there, and know that I will see it on Friday.

Good Intentions, Bad Habits

There is a somewhat bad habit I have. I say somewhat bad because my intent is good, but my actions may be misguided. As I've said in my earlier post I'm working on losing weight and improving my health. The bulk of what I'm doing comes from the core principles of "The 4 Hour Body." I'm on a diet, I'm tweeting a food diary, and I'm making sure all of my peers know so they can hassle me if I start to backslide. I've got a scale and a bodyfat monitor coming in the mail, and I'll soon have a heavy stream of data providing psychological backup.

The bad habit is rooted in my ongoing fascination with martial arts. This manifests every now and then in the purchase of another book or piece of gear. This time it's dead on the mark of the trend. It's a poster displaying basic nunchaku* katas, and a pair of cheap foam nunchaku. I know myself enough that I can't guarantee that I'll actually master these katas and that what I'm buying won't wind up essentially being another toy, but I have hope, and if I'm going to spend money on a toy I kind of think it's better to make it a toy that also encourages exercise, instead of just another video game.

*Nunchaku is the word martial arts fan-boys use when talking about nunchucks. We also have strong views about who would win in a fight between two equally skilled combatants one of which is using a Kusarigama and one of which is using Escrima sticks**. We also know what a Kusarigama is.

**The Kusarigama would own the misguided Filipino pretending that sticks are really weapons.