Zero Carb beyond 30 days

I have been eating meat and drinking water for a month. 

Do i want to go back to eating other things? Not really. 

Has anything changed since my last post a couple of days ago? Not really. 

Well, a little. Yesterday I had cravings. Not cravings for something sweet or starchy but I just wanted to snack. Wasn't exactly hungry but wanted to chew on jerky. I did eat jerky but it also filled me so i didn't eat dinner. The jerky turned out as my lunch and dinner. 
I also had a very bad mood, felt kind of down and irritated as well as tired. 
I believe all these are connected to my upcoming period. 

My face is still clear and the old marks are slowly disappearing. 

My tummy seems to be shrinking. I don't feel the same with other body parts but that's how my body is, tummy is the first to shrink or last to grow while thighs and behind last to shrink and first to grow. 

I finally stepped on the scale this morning and am down 0.2 since last time. i am not really excited about it as at this point I just want to let my body to do it's thing. 

I haven't been trying to lose weight. I just want to be at peace with food. I am tired of the addiction and pre-occupation with food. 
It will take few months for my body to change, the fast changes I was used to from carb/calorie controlled eating will not happen here. The changes from this way of eating feel different. I have a feeling that my body composition is changing. 

I am guessing that in 6 months if i look at before/after photo there will be a difference. A big difference. We shall see......

I have finished the antibiotics and didn't have any severe reaction like some people said on FB, I have been a bit more tired and actually still am. I went to sleep before 10pm last night and was still dragging at 7am. 
I do not have tons of energy. I hope that this will improve with time. 

The other thing that is happening with me is that I am not very excited about my food. I am not particularly enjoying it or the taste. The only 'food' that I do enjoy and like is the beef jerky. I also really like the chicken wings that I make. I do eat beef, ground beef and about once a week hamburger and it really fills me up for a long time but i do not enjoy the taste even though I still put spices in my food. 
I do like my eggs and eat a little bit mozzarella cheese approximately every other day. That is filling for only about 3-4 hours, not as long as meat. I also use about 1tbs HWC in my coffee once a day. 
I have 1 or 2 plain cups of coffee and plenty of water as I still do get thirsty. 

I hope that my taste will change and i will acquire the taste for natural meat and it's texture. Sometimes i just gag on certain bites. Not even sure why? The jerky sometimes has fat in it and i do eat it but i don't like the texture.  

Feeling great today and planning ahead

Eating zero carb is tasty, satisfying, filling and low cost. With each day I feel better and less doubtful about it.

I just finished my lunch, 10 (plain) chicken wings I bought at Safeway earlier (for $8) I might have a piece of fish as I think I still haven't lost interest in food.

I had eggs and chicken for breakfast (estimated cost $4?) and will make ground beef for dinner (estimated cost $3). 
I have been drinking coffee (can't calculate this but probably around $1 a day?) sometimes I add about a tbs heavy whipping cream (25c?). 
A whole day worth of food for about $15 and it is soooo simple! 

No need to spend much time (and money!!!!) at the store, plan menu, count calories and nutrients figure out why this hurts or why this happens or why weight isn't dropping and how can you eliminate this or that or what to change in my diet? 

Also, no need to store tons of ingredients at home. When I was low carb I stocked up on: nuts, nut butters, almond milk, protein powder, flax, almond/coconut flour, psylium husk, quest bars, a large variety of (low carb) veggies, avocados, olive oil, avocado oil, and probably even more items that I cannot remember right now.

It all adds up and require me to go to the store more often since veggies have limited shelf life. I needed to cook few times a week so I could prepare the veggies.

I have been at it only about 4 days now and I feel great. I have no cravings AT ALL!!! The first few days it was a little hard to wake up, but on these first days I also had a little bit of cabbage in my beef. I am also eating a couple squares of 100% chocolate and 5 brazil/macadamia nuts, a habit I can't yet kick.
Now I am only stuck with the chocolate and brazil/macadamia nuts.

My skin cleared. I have no cystic acne since I switched to meat, it completely cleared. It improved from yesterday until today. Unbelievable! I still have dryness in that area. Hope it will improve tomorrow. I don't feel any new acne developing which feels great.

Switching to (almost) Zero Carb

I have about 15lbs to drop which I gained on low carb grain free diet. 
I have been eating ultra healthy diet, my friends think I am very srict since I do not touch grains or sweets. But in reality I have been over thinking food for a very long time. Paleo/LC recipes. All those nuts and almond/coconut flour baking ...... Even all the veggie recipes. 

I have been doing xtra lc for a couple days now, almost zero carb, with just some cabbage that I had made before with my ground beef (crack slaw), 5 brazil nuts and 2 squares of 100% chocolate. I am feeling really good. I even think my skin is starting to clear. I have always had hormonal acne (only learned about this term in the past week!) on my chin (even though I am turning 46 next month!) I haven't stepped on the scale but I can feel my clothes fitting a tiny bit looser, I feel my tummy a little tighter. Can't report anything on my thighs and behind ;-) I will weigh in and report either way in the next few days.  

I have been at around 20-25 net carbs for about a month and did not lose any weight. I did have appetite, hunger and cravings sometimes but in the past 2 days I haven't experienced any problem! 

Life is so much easier. I just need meet.

What I am finding interesting is I am not sure about how much to eat. I think that with time my body will adjust and give me signs of fullness. They say to eat until I am full/satisfied but even after over 2 years of low carb and grain free my body is not exactly trained in when to stop eating. When I was still on the old SAD diet I stopped eating when I would explode and not be able to eat anymore. I had to overeat because that rice, quinoa, hummus, whole wheat pasta or even vegetables, tasted soooo good and I just 'had' to have another serving.

When I was on MF/TSFL I missed that fullness but stuck with the diet and started to enjoy not feeling so full. But psychologically I still had some expectation for this feeling and a bit of deprivation of not having it.

It has been getting better but I am still not sure when to stop eating or if I had enough. Sometimes I know I want to eat out of just wanting.

I hope this psychological eating will disappear.

Week 1 Day 2 C25K behind me

I did not make any excuses. Even though I got home after 9:30 (late school start day) and had a ton of things to do, I popped the chicken breasts in the crock pot with all ingredients and ran out of the house for my week 1 day 2 couch-to-5-K training. 

I really really enjoy it. 

I am also a little motivated by this friendly competition with my husband. 
He said that if i run he will run, so my excuse to actually do it is to either be better than him or just keep him healthy (he has really difficult sleep and stress issues and this running is actually very helpful for him). 

It is amazing how good I feel with this training. I don't know why I stopped. 
I think i just let myself get bored, or just let myself tell myself that I am bored. I kept doing the same streets but who cares! I am feeling so great! I have flexibility with my time and as long as I don't make excuses and just make it a priority I "Just Do It". 

My sleep has improved tremendously, well more like waking up improved, I have never had sleep problems. I wake up not tired and much earlier, without the alarm.

Something Dr. B. said in her blog or book (or both) really touched me. She said that she is 60 (or something near that age) now and it seems like just 2 weeks ago she was 45. So she has no illusions, she will be 80 in no time. I look at both our parents (my husband's and mine), they all have health problems, they can barely walk (they are 83/84). They didn't exercise until they retired and even then it was just walking. Our moms never drove a car so they always walked to work and/or store, bus etc. 
I watch other people near that age at our Synagogue, they are active, they actually exercise, they have vitality! I know I cannot plan that far ahead but I want to give myself a fair chance.