Vet Visit, Weight Loss, and a New Blogger

Molly Goes to the Vet
Although my dog Molly has been on the cavity healing diet for awhile, I found out last week she didn't actually have a cavity, just some scratches in her enamel, which the vet said was probably caused by chewing on bones. The vet says she rarely sees true cavities in dogs. Molly had some gingivitis, but no bone loss or infection in her teeth. She now has a layer of dental bonding on the scratched tooth. We'll both continue on the cavity healing diet.

Weight Loss
This Christmas found me three pounds over my normal weight, and Molly at 64.5 pounds, her weight from three months ago. I know three pounds isn't much, but on my frame, it's enough to make slightly loose jeans tight. It's a step in the wrong direction, and if I kept gaining three pounds a week, I'd weigh 200 pounds by summer. Given how few women in my family weigh less than 200 pounds after age 30, that's a real threat. I knew what the problem was: too damn many dark chocolate bars. I gave them up (and stuck to my usual low-carb diet) and those three pounds are gone. Not only that, but my hair feels cleaner, I feel warmer, and my stomach feels better.

Dr. Davis's recipe for walnut mocha brownies is a pretty good substitute for the chocolate bars; however, for the next batch, I'm going to try adding another egg and using a little less almond meal to make them moister and less crumbly. As is, they're very filling: a one-sixth piece was my entire dinner tonight. Just as Dr. Davis promises, they don't stimulate appetite the way wheat products do. Tasty as they are, I won't want any more tonight.

Molly weighed in at 62 pounds today--down from 64.5 pounds last week and 70 pounds last summer. This week, I stuck closely to her low-carb, lacto-paleo diet of 700 calories per day. She may have unwittingly done some intermittent fasting over the holidays between our eating breakfast late, and then eating again around 3:00 when she let me know she was hungry.

New Blogger in the Blog Roll
I'm pleased to add Dr. Richard Feinman, professor of biochemistry, to my blog roll. Dr. Feinman founded the Nutrition and Metabolism Society and as a professional researcher, he's well qualified to take apart popular junk science studies promoting a high carb diet, and does so with a dry wit. If you haven't yet given his organic chemistry lessons a go, give them a try--they're here and here.

Comments

Blog Lineup Change

Bye-bye, Fathead. I've enjoyed the blog, but can't endorse the high-fat, high-carb Perfect Health Diet that somehow makes so much sense to some otherwise bright people. An astrophysicist makes some rookie mistakes on a LC diet, misdiagnoses them, makes up "glucose deficiency," and creates a diet that's been shown in intervention studies to increase small LDL, which can lead to heart disease. A computer programmer believes in the diet and doesn't seem eager to refute it because, perhaps, scientists are freakin' liars and while he's good at spotting logical inconsistencies, lacks some intermediate knowledge of human biology. To Tom's credit, he says it's not the right diet for everyone, but given the truckload of food that has to be prepared and eaten, impracticality of following it while traveling (or even not traveling), and unsuitability for FODMAPs sufferers, diabetics and anyone prone to heart disease (i.e., much of the population), I'm...

Collagen-filled Low Carb Burritos

Low-carb, grain-free Mexican food is hard to find, but it's easy to make your own at home. This recipe has an authentic ingredient: carne de lengua, or beef tongue. Don't be put off: beef tongue is tender, delicious, and full of collagen. Look for it directly from farmers in your area. To cook it, cut it in 1" to 1-1/2" slices and pressure cook for one hour. Enjoy the delicious broth as a bonus. Ingredients 1 slice cooked beef tongue, peeled and cut into small cubes 1 egg wrap (I use these from Egglife) 1/4 cup cooked black or pinto beans Chili pepper Oregano Garlic (powdered or minced) Cumin Guacamole (with no emulsifiers) Salsa Shredded cheddar cheese Sour cream or homemade cream cheese with no emulsifiers Put the egg wrap on a plate and put the beef and beans down the middle of it. Sprinkle with the herbs and spices. Wrap, turn over and microwave for 1-2 minutes. Spoon salsa over the burrito and sprinkle with cheese. Add guacamole and sour cream or homemade crea...

Not Only Cheaper, But Easier

A while back, I wrote about saving money on break time coffee and snacks. I haven't done very well putting it into practice. But a post by James Clear today got me thinking about it again: Warren Buffett uses a two-list system to prioritize things. Check it out --and follow the instructions. Using Buffett's two-list system, two of the goals I ended up with were taking care of myself and saving $400 more per month than I already am. As I said, I've been wanting to save money, and the system made me really focus on this. I came up with 11 money-saving ideas, six of which had to do with food. Buying hamburger in bulk. Ranch Foods Direct sells one-pound packages of 80% lean pastured ground beef in bundles of 20 for a lot less than Whole Foods. Sprouts only carries super-lean beef that's grass-fed, and it's more expensive, too. Not driving to Whole Foods. Whole Foods is out of my way, and saving a weekly trip saves gas. Coffee at home, tea at work. Tea is fr...

Palpitations Gone with Iron

Thanks to my internet friend Larcana, who alerted me to the connection between iron deficiency and palpitations, I doubled down on my iron supplements and, for good measure, washed them down with Emergen-C. It's a cold medicine with a mega-dose of vitamin C, plus B vitamins and minerals. I don't think vitamin C does anything for a cold (a friend bought the stuff and left it at my house the last time she visited), but vitamin C does help iron absorption. After doubling up on iron in the last three days, I feel back to normal. (I'd already been taking quite a bit of magnesium and potassium, so I probably had sufficient levels of those.) How did I get so low on iron? Maybe it was too many Quest bars instead of red meat when I had odd cravings during my dental infection recently. Maybe because it's too hard to find liver at the grocery store and I haven't eaten much of it lately. Maybe the antibiotics damaged my intestines . And apparently, I'm a heavy bleeder . ...

In Defense of Fast Food

Another modern trend - healthy food should be expensive, not nutrients-dense and preferably exotic, or you would be eating like plebs who live on a dollar McD menu. --Galina L. I don't try to jump over seven-foot hurdles, I look for one-foot hurdles I can step over. --Warren Buffett, pleb who eats at McDonald's Despite all the talk about wild-caught v. farmed, grass-fed v. CAFO and the vilification of fast food, a lot of us plebs benefit simply from carbohydrate restriction. But even though diabetes and obesity are rampant, and carb restriction alone would help millions of people, the impression is out there that you need to eat in a very specific way, far beyond just watching the carbs. Following a low-carb diet is already a high hurdle for many people. If some people want or need to raise the bar for themselves, that's fine with me, but there's no need to turn low-carb into a hurdle that a lot of people can't jump over. Organic produce and grass-fed or p...

Pain, Pain, Go Away!

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