I’m really big on having more data for my experimental group of one, and now that I’m very close to being at my final goal weight, I want to make sure I don’t gain weight back. I’m sure I will gain some weight back once I start working out, but I certainly want to know if I’m eating the wrong things, and the meter can tell me quite a lot about that.
After reading at the Heart Scan Blog about how cheap blood glucose meters are, I decided to buy one.
I’m currently on a very low calorie diet (though probably for just a few more days), and though I’ve never been good at skipping meals, whenever I split up my tiny ration of food to make three meals, I wind up less happy and more hungry. This means I’m skipping breakfast, something I normally don’t do. Yesterday, I came home with the blood glucose meter at 11:30 and decided to see if the number matched how lousy I felt. It sure did: 63. Yikes. My post-prandial number for that meal was 89, the PP for dinner was 98, and my fasting blood sugar this morning was 96. So, everything is in line there. I’ll have to do some testing again when I start eating a more reasonable amount of food.
I’d been leaning pretty Paleo/Primal with my diet before this round of low-calorie dieting, and my little meals are actually very close to Primal: 100g lean meat, pile of low-calorie veggies, small apple or orange or can of V8, and two little rice crackers. I’ve tried dropping the crackers for more veggies, but I don’t lose as much weight that way. I find that mystifying, but I want the weight loss part over as soon as possible, so whatever voodoo is going on there…I’m sticking with it.
Anyway, I’m planning on doing a 30-day maintenance period where I watch my weight and intake carefully. It’s not like I’m going to go hog-wild after that’s over, but the maintenance period is not going to include any starchy stuff. It will include grass-fed (mostly raw) dairy products. They don’t give me any trouble, I love them, and since I already have a cow share, I’m keeping that in my diet. I already eat very little grain and legumes, typically they pop up in an occasional holiday meal or otherwise special meal at home, or in mexican food. When I say grain, BTW, it’s never gluten grains as I can’t digest them. I’ve been off those since October of 2008, and I never eat them except by accident, and wow do I feel it when I do. While I will be off potatoes for the 30 days, I’m not prepared to banish potatoes and cooked carrots from my life either, and this is the main reason for the blood glucose meter. Yams are not under debate. I intend to eat them (though maybe not for a month, we’ll see) as they don’t seem to put weight on me. When I say potatoes, I mean whites, yukon golds, fingerlings, etc.
I’ve always been a bit better at being an absolutist about dietary rules than making on-the-spot modifications, but I’ve got to learn some moderation if I want to be happy, and I think more information will help me answer the question of “how much is too much carbs?”
I also won’t be adding any Intermittent Fasting for the foreseeable future. I’ve never been good at skipping meals, and now I know why, again, thanks to some confirmation from the glucose meter. I wasn’t sure my problem wasn’t related to electrolytes. I drink a lot of water, so I thought that could be an issue. I have *never* been able to eat a sugary breakfast like pastry or cereal and not turn into a raging bitch and need to eat again in about 90 minutes. When I was in high school, I used to make a ham sandwich for breakfast before school and have that with a glass of milk. It’s just as fast as cereal, and I wasn’t starving and cranky by the middle of second hour. I don’t have any problem not eating snacks though. As long as I eat normal meals, I don’t need snacks.
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