What Motivates You?

So, obviously I've been ultra slacker blogger partner, which is neither helpful or motivating for you.  It's silly really, because I have photos on my phone and ideas in my head, all of which were meant to live here, on this page.  Intention and action are different though, and I can be a scatterbrain without systems to keep me focused.  This is why I like lists, love having a whiteboard in the office to jot notes on, use the Sticky Note desktop gadget, and email myself to do lists often.  This morning I moved the bookmark for the blog into my bar, and now it's visible whenever I'm online.  That visual reminder will be helpful, and I will suddenly post more.  Although, to be fair, at this point once is more.  ;-)

STRANGE but delicious Jell-O

Today I had an epiphany.

I realized that I could make a Jell-O cheesecake with sugar-free Jell-O and a brick of cream cheese.

Here it is:

In a bowl.

Under plastic wrap.

Tomorrow, I will eat it for lunch. And it will be delicious.

Directions:
Prepare 1 package Jell-O of your choice. I chose cherry.
In a mixer, beat 1 package (8 oz) of cream cheese.
Slowly pour in the Jell-O.
Pour the whole lot into a bowl and refrigerate.

806 calories, 76.7g fat, 9.1g carbs, 17.3g protein, 1000mg sodium

Delicious Jell-O

I just bought 20 more boxes of sugar-free Jell-O.

It makes the best snack, ever.

Doesn't that look delicious? Sweet, gelatinous and delicious.

A Waist Is a Wonderful Thing to Mind

I have now lost an inch off my waist.

Boo-yah! I'm thrilled. CC told me to measure my waist instead of my weight (since my weight isn't budging). SUCH GREAT ADVICE!

Today's post-workout breakfast: Blueberry Lassi
1 c full-fat (10%) yogurt
1 c half & half
1 c blueberries, slightly thawed in microwave

Blend. Drink.

664 calories, 49g fat, 40g carbs (4g fiber), 21g protein, 100mg sodium

I'm off of calorie restriction (so I'm now eating about 1700 calories every day) but still doing intermittent fasting (or lean gains strategy of fasting about 16 h a day). I'm also pretty much fat adapted, my urine ketone levels are now at 'mild', which means that my body is at the stage where it's stopped shedding excess ketones in urine and is now converting them more efficiently for energy.

I can do this. ;)

Pulled Pork for Dinner

This is 8 ozs of the pulled pork I made yesterday, with 1c of rinsed sauerkraut.

Sure, other things look more appetizing, but this tastes great.

Pulled Pork

An easy food for a few days' worth of meaty fatty meatiness is pulled pork.

This is about 2 lbs of rib pork loin boneless roast (closer to 800g). Sprinkled liberally on top are ground cumin (about 1 tsp), smoked paprika (between 1 and 2 tsp), cracked black pepper (I guess about 1 tsp), and salt (about 1/2 tsp). In the bottom of the dutch oven is about 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar.

I've stuck the lid on and popped it into a 275 deg F oven, and I'll let it sit there for about four hours (despite the weather being disgustingly hot today—my thanks to whoever invented the range hood). You could also make this on low in a crock pot over about 8 hours.

When this is cooked, it'll be fork-tender and should easily be shredded with two forks. If it's not fork-tender, stick it in the oven again and give it another 1/2 hour (repeat as necessary) and make sure there's still acidic moisture in the bottom of the pan (add more vinegar). Last time I did this I used lime juice instead of vinegar and it was delicious.

Brunch (solo meal of the day)

This is a low-cal day (ha! 1200 calories is hardly low-cal for a meal, but whatever).

Pre-brunch, I drank my usual two cups of coffee, with about 8 tbsp of half & half, total.

While I made my brunch, I ate 3 ozs of cheddar cheese curd.

This was my brunch. At left, about a cup and a half of rinsed and pan-fried sauerkraut with a scallion. No oil added (enough fat in the eggs, cheese, half & half & bacon I ate today). In the middle is scrambled eggs with chervil and pepper (it makes it look hideous, but it tastes pretty good). At right, about 9 slices of bacon (1/2 a package). The cats get about three slices between them, the rest is mine. This is not an everyday meal, because it's almost twice the daily sodium intake a person should get. Nevertheless, it was good.

I'll have a 'snack' of an ENTIRE package of sugar-free Jell-O later (yeah, two cups of Jell-O!). Lime, if you care. It smelled delicious when I mixed it up last night. Sugar-free Jell-O for the win!

My whole day's intake (everything I talked about in this post) is about 1200 calories, 88g of fat (67%), 21g of carbs (7%) and 77g of protein (26%). And - OUCH - 4300 mg of sodium. I'll drink lots of water.

Intermittent Fasting: It's Not Hell on Earth

For the last week, I've been doing what's called "intermittent fasting". Intermittent fasting is when you make an effort to go through a substantial part of the day without food. Essentially, you try to spend as little time in an 'eating window' as possible.

Hugh Jackman, as part of his training to 'become' the Wolverine, followed an intermittent fasting program (although he was following a high protein, low fat, low carb approach). He would eat from about 10am until about 6pm, and nothing until 10am the following day. He would also work out fasted (meaning, work out before he had anything to eat).

I have always been a major breakfast person. Let's face it—I loved to eat. But since I've switched my body over to using fat as fuel instead of carbs, I've been quite happy to skip breakfast.

So, here it is. For the last week, or thereabouts, I've been eating either only up until lunch, or until an early dinner time. Then I stop. This means I consume my calories in huge chunks rather than spread out over the day. Oddly enough, I'm essentially never hungry anymore. I'd like to think it's because my body's using the fuel it's carrying around instead of bugging me to put more sugar in the tank (isn't putting sugar in the tank what people used to do to wreck the engine of someone they despised?).

Mango Lassi: The Perfect Post-workout Shake?

I'm following a calorie cycling approach with this weight loss journey. I lift weights three times a week, in the mornings. On those days, I eat over 60g of carbs and try to approach a 70% calories from fat balance, eating a total of about 1700 to 1900 calories. On off days, I eat between 800 to 1000 calories (a huge deficit) and keep my carbohydrate count to less than 50g.

Part of my rationale behind this is that on workout days, my metabolism is somewhat boosted from a workout, and my muscle glycogen is somewhat depleted. If I put some extra calories in, and make sure that I get a fair amount of carbohydrate in there, I should be able to give myself some extra fuel to run on and top up the glycogen tank for the next round.

Today's carb boost was a mango lassi.

Mangoes are delicious. You could equally do this with any other frozen fruit (except cranberries, which is what I had on hand and it sounds revolting).

High-fat Mango Lassi

1c frozen mango
1c 10% fat yogurt
1c half & half cream

Blend. Drink.

644 calories, 49g fat, 33g carbohydrates (8g fiber), 21g protein, 100mg sodium

Flavour Your Fuel

A great idea from CC (and one so simple I'm ashamed it never occurred to me) for your morning coffee: try flavouring it with baking extracts.

Vanilla and almond are particularly nice—just a few drops and your coffee goes from beany to baked goods, without the sugar and carbs.

Top that off with a generous serving of full fat whipping cream (no sugar added), or just table cream or half and half, and you're good to go.

Welcome to Yum Yum Fat

This is a blog about fat. It's about eating fat, it's about being fat, and it's about how eating fat will ultimately make us less fat.

If you don't believe it will work, go over to eatingacademy.com and have a read.

There are many diet websites out there—many times many. This is one primarily for the authors to collaborate and co-inspire. We hope it might eventually inspire others to try eating differently than society may have taught you. I firmly believe my diet made me fat, and it's only through dietary change that I can be less fat. Ironically, that dietary change involves eating more fat—SO MUCH fat, in fact, that the body switches from burning carbohydrates as a primary fuel to burning fat as primary fuel.

And with that: May the fat be with you!