One Week In

 W   ell, intrepid explorers all, it's been almost a week into my experiment. As you can imagine, since I haven't actually changed too much of my normal behaviour yet rather just set about documenting it in detail, not really much has changed on too many fronts.

However, what has happened to me in general over the past week could be a good indicator for any of you who might be considering imitating my diet; speaking for myself, when abiding by it I feel far from deprived. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything and aside for the occasional wistful thought of a large, cold beer, I never crave "more chocolate" or "more sugar" or a "juicy triple-bacon cheeseburger."

In fact, I get very few food cravings, and indeed in the last couple of days my appetite went so far down that I wasn't even hungry enough for last night's dinner and actually considered skipping it.

Admittedly, my present diet is somewhat limited. For example, the meal I would consider my most varied in terms of ingredients actually barely contains a variety of food groups: whole wheat pita, grilled lean chicken, stir-fried onions and red peppers, some lettuce, coleslaw cabbage and cilantro. Maybe some chopped jalapeños.

That's not exactly a smorgasbord of a little of every healthy food group on the planet. Still, it beats a Big Mac or a slice of Domino's Cardboard Special.

And since I basically only eat one main meal a day, one would think that I'm losing weight all over the place. But I'm not . . . I weigh about the same as I've weighed for many years. (All I can conclude from this is if you keep on eating what you're eating now, you're probably not going to lose anything or gain anything any time soon. D'oh.)

But since I'm not in this to lose weight, I'm more interested in sleep and mood changes. Oh, and gastric activity! After all, a continually unhappy stomach makes for a bad mood, a least in my book. And bad for me means feeling bloated (ate too much) or nauseous (too much crap) or gassy—and that last can actually be a good indicator that you're consuming enough fiber. (Or, that your liver is not digesting properly!)

But by and large I've been sleeping okay, apart from an aberration over the last couple of days, when depression and anxiety briefly reared their ugly heads—but since I haven't changed anything with my diet I can't chalk that up to this experiment.

My energy levels have been somewhat to be desired, but my blood sugar—always a culprit in low energy spells—has been pretty good. When I say that I mean that it's hovered around the 7.5 mmol/L mark (that's 135.0 mg/L for Trump supporters) so that's neither great nor awful—just normal.

Blood pressure in the 115/70 range. Mood variable, but generally mild; no major mood swings.

I've been keeping a chart, as is my wont as a graphics-type. And here it is: the week in review (click or right-click to open in a new window for full resolution).

So I'll just keep on keeping on; one more week to go until the Great Purge. And tonight I was thinking about changing things around a bit and having (low-carb) shrimp stir fry . . . what a concept!