Weight is slowly dropping, feeling stable

I have been zc almost 3 months now (2.5). Things are pretty good. I have a pretty balanced appetite, no craving usually. I eat 2-3 times a day. Life is much easier. I thought I got rid of hormonal acne but it seems like about 1.5 weeks before period I still get 1-2 breakouts and get a bit moody. It seems to be coming together. I get into this down mood, things that don't go the way i want bring me down. I also get these hormonal acne, not exactly pimples but a small painful 'hill' in various locations on my chin, it's under the skin condition. Relatively easy to hide with makeup as there no white head. The acne goes away after a day or 2, the mood evens up after few days to a week. My energy seems to have balanced. I have good energy and good sleep. I haven't had any dramatic change in weight but over the past 2.5 months I have dropped 3.5 lbs without any effort and with ease. It sort of happens by itself. I am fitting into my small jeans which i wasn't able to to when I started zc in Feb. I am very happy. I wish the acne would go away completely..... but it is what it is. Perhaps it will change with time, after like 6 months? I am sure I will have some interesting changes when I go through menopause but there's still few years to go until then..... wink emoticon

Infection seems better, ZC still working out well

It seems like the infection is getting better I am feeling much better since i started the new antibiotics. I have better energy. I didn't have any cheese, just eggs, water and once it twice a day a tbs of HWC with my coffee which I am trying to limit to one in am after breakfast and one decaf in afternoon. 

I was surprised to have a small pimple on my chin a couple days ago. It was above skin, not my typical bump under skin and it was very small. I thought it was reaction to cheese I had the day or two before and perhaps even antibiotics and infection. I didn't do anything with it, no cream or wash and it is almost gone now. The marks from my old ones are almost gone. I can't wait for them to be gone already and for my hair to grow....l

I bought different cuts of steak just to get familiar with tastes and texture. I just sear them in pan with some salt and TJ 21 seasoning and a tiny bit of tallow. I really like the rib eye taste and texture so far. I am not a big fan of meat. I hear all the ZCers talk about what they eat and I am not there, have a very long way to go yet. I am ok with burgers but the ground beef is just not tasting great. I really like sloppy joes but without tomatoes ground beef is just not the same for me. 

I hope that the steaks will make it better for me. 

I like chicken wings but they are not as satisfying as beef. 

There is also the matter of smell in the house. cooking beef leaves a smell in the house and while I don't mind my husband really doesn't like it. 

I hope to figure these things out along the way. 

I am not missing cheese and my food cravings and funky appetite or just wanting something to chew/eat is gone. 

I am suspecting I am not eating enough and will need to somehow to eat more beef. I still have a couple more steak cuts in fridge to try but if I am not excited about them I will just go with rib eyes, burgers and ground beef and probably couple times a week chicken wings as my kids love them. 

I love not being entertained by food anymore. I was at a lunch yesterday and just wasn't tempted by anything since I was still full from my breakfast of eggs and ground beef. 

I took my daughter to a birthday party yesterday, the theme was candy land. The amounts of candy was INSANE!!!!!!!! I just saw a huge buffet of drugs. It is absolutely criminal! Chocolate fountain, various candy, sugar sticks, mousse, Oreos, marshmallows and of course 'healthy fruit' to dip in fountain or just eat plain. I am really torn with this as I don't want to not let my kids have it but I also truly believe it is horrible, addicting and not just plain unhealthy for our body it is horrible for our teeth. I really do not feed them the way I believe they should eat, I cannot do that mainly because my husband is not on board. He will never give up bread. 

I am hoping that if I make meat in a way they like, such as chicken wings they will eat it and be too full for anything else (like rice or pasta). I haven't figured out yet what meat to give them for school lunch. I got Applegate beef hotdogs last week, my 8yr old loved them but my 11yr old didn't like them. Perhaps another brand? I need another alternatives of fatty meat. The lunch turkey I can buy all have sugar and/carrageenan and while I still get it I hate it. 

Will try to tackle it and research the topic. 

I don't think I lost any more weight. Did not step on the scale and am not eager to do so. My clothes are feeling comfortable. I am hoping to drop a clothes size to fit back into my size 4 jeans which are still a bit tight for me. For that to happen I will probably need to be under 140. At least 4-5lbs to drop....but I will not focus on that but rather on healing my body. Need to get rid of the infection first and then let my body heal with meat and water. 

Fiber Menace, back on antibiotics, removing cheese

Heard about this book on FB, Fiber Menace and finally downloaded it on Kindle. Right from the start was shocked! I remember knowing that corn flakes where discovered by accident but I never knew the real origins of Kellogg cereal. 

 http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg

I was amazed to learn that the whole Fiber and whole grains trends are based on vegetarianism and conservatism. 

Even Graham cracker have origins is this nonsense.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_cracker

I am still digesting how harmful fiber is for our body. I don't know why most shocking for me is how much damage it does to our teeth and gums, cavities and gingivitis. It totally makes sense since fiber is present in carby food and carbs basically turn into sugar in our body. 

For few months before zc I was living and calculating net carbs hoping to lose weight but with no success at all and with cravings and wanting to eat. All these mathematical calculations.....it is so much easier just eating meat. If I ever do go back to other foods it will just be vegetables and I will never count net carbs! 

I am too scared to have nuts now since I really like not having acne. Having a clear face every day without doing anything is such a blessing! I still wake up every morning and look in the mirror with disbelief. I keep touching my face trying to feel if there is any new breakout forming under the skin (which would always happen and I would try to tackle it with sulfur or tea tree oil before it grows). 

I did urine test on Tuesday but still have some sort of infection. I am taking another round of different antibiotic for 10 days, I am not supposed to have milk with it. I suspect that dairy isn't doing much for me but create cravings and wanted to eliminate it anyway. I don't really need it. Meat is completely satisfying. There is no reason for me to have any cheese, I don't eat it much anyway and it is a snack for me. Plus I really want to drop a size and will never know until I really give meat and water a try.

I am still clinging to my coffe an really want to have HWC once a day but I will give up the cream once I finish the one I just bought and probably will make whip cream for my daughters to finish it faster. 

I will stick to coffee and have it after I eat just to make sure I am not suppressing my appetite. 

I might ditch the coffee in a month.....who knows? 

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.  

4 weeks on zc milestone

It has been 4 weeks. Really?

The transition became easy and smooth once I gave up the little nuts I was eating and the 2 squares of 100% chocolate. It took me about a week but once I stopped I sailed smoothly into the heaven of zc land.

The hormonal acne I had nonstop just ended as by miracle.
I was doing a lot of research online trying to figure out what to use but could only marginally handle the breakouts after they happened with sulfur cream. My face has been clear for 3 weeks! I still cannot believe it! So simple. The photo shows all the products I am bagging and don't need anymore to control breakouts. I also have some wipes not pictured.....
No more energy waste or upset about breakouts or looking for cure and no more buying products to treat this unpleasant condition I have battled with since teenager years.
Phew, what a relief!

When I started originally I was already vlc, eating about 20g net carbs. Switching to meat only really simplified my life.

I have more space in my fridge, pantry and kitchen, I don't need long shopping lists or frequent trips to store, I spend much less time cooking and eating and most of all, I am no longer obsessed with food.
I was hoping for it on vlc bur it didn't happen. With zc I am no longer thinking food. I eat until  I am full and I stay full for hours. To the point where I really do not want to eat anything. ANYTHING!

Some days I will eat twice a day and some days 3 times a day but usually not more than that. There were a couple of days during this month that I only ate once, it was a bug meal but I trusted my body and ate until I wasn't interested in food any more. I am glad I did it.
I haven't experienced ANY cravings or wanting to nibble or snack on something for over 3 weeks, since I cut off the small amount of nuts and chocolate.
It's amazing!

My kids and husband are carboholics and my husband is a meat phobic too. He raises humane issues regarding animals. But I think that it doesn't makensense. He still eats meat just not enough. So he still consumes animals, why not do it in a way that helps him stay healthy? He eats nonstop in the evening, getting 3 or 4 dinners. He is religious about eating his salad, bread and cottage cheese and will have some nuts even after claiming he's full from dinner but after an hour will eat more, and after another hour some more and sometimes even more at night (cheese, bread, fruit. ... all things he considers healthy). All this while I feel totally happy, full and satisfied.

I look at him and vaguely remember how I ate like this or how I limited my eating with meal replacement products when I was on Medifast. I used to rely on my willpower not so long ago. Just a little over a month ago I was dealing with ending a habit of afternoon snacking. Well, it is so simple now. I have no habits anymore. Just eating meat and drinking water (or tea/coffee). I do not need to execute  any will power.
It is amazingly simple I am still shocked.

Yesterday I finished my antibiotics and after the last pill finally peed the right color. I feel that finally the uti is over. I will do a urine test tomorrow. I have been somewhat tired since the antibiotics and hope to have more energy from now on. I also suspect that I didn't have much appetite this week, also due to antibiotics.

I am expecting my period and am starting to have some back discomfort. Looking forward to see how this month will go.

I wanted to lose 15lbs when I started zc but somewhere along the way about a week ago lost interest in the scale and my weight. I know that if I lose weight I will feel it in my body and clothes and besides, I am starting to accept my body the way it is.

I am enjoying the simplicity zc introduced into my life and am looking forward to what lies ahead.

Still doing great on ZC

For some reason my food addict brain decided to experiment with cheese. I asked about some cheese I got on forum and someone said it had 1g of sugar and it's rather high. That sent me into curiousity on how cheeses are made and why some have lactose and some don't. My research was interesting and I finally have better understanding about cheese making process. It starts with milk. Some,of them go through more process (the hard cheeses go through most) and some a little less. For some hard cheeses there's also bacteria involved. It's a mixture of art and science. After understanding better how mozzarella, mascarpone and ricotta are made (least processed) I got, for some strange reason I can only explain by addiction, curious and just had to buy them. Stopped at TJ and spent $20 on something I didn't really need. Had to try sour cream mixed with mascarpone. Why I don't know. It wasn't a huge joy. Made waffles with ricotta cheese (1/4 cup ricotta, 2 eggs, 1/2 t baking powder and some cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves). Topped the waffles with sour cream. Really?! I just had to have variety. I had some sort of tiredness with meat. 

It was ok. I was full for shorter time. Normally when eating meat for breakfast I will not get hungry before 2/3 pm but with dairy I was ready for lunch around noon/1pm.

I also felt a little bloated for a couple of days and my stomach was grumbling like crazy. 

On a different front I have a UTI and am on antibiotic for 5 days. 

Feeling some relief today on 3rd day of antibiotics. Will have to test urine on Monday to verify that all is well. 

I am nearing 4 weeks on this way of eating. All I can say is WOW! It is mind blowing on so many fronts.  Simplicity, cost, health, hormones, appetite, cravings. 

It is just simple. Meat is so filling. I can eat a large quantity that initially scared me, but I will stay full, completely not hungry for a very long time. Like all day. I had a day when I just had one large meal. Like 4 hamburger patties, that's it, I was done for the day. Not interested in food at all. 

It's so simple. When I started I asked on the forum how to know when I'm full as my body wasn't really signaling me.. I was told to eat when interested in food and stop when not interested. It made my life so simple. I stopped doubting myself. I stopped thinking about hunger signals and instead when I just entertained though about food I just ate meat. It became very clear to me when I was full. I just didn't want to eat any more. I was FULL, without any doubt. In addition, I stayed full for a L O N G time!!! Very long time. I never experienced it before. 

Nowadays I eat mostly twice a day, that is if I don't mess up with cheese.....then I eat 3 times. 

I still want to eat steak. Yesterday I met a friend at BJ's Brewhouse. Ordered steak, well done. It was really good. 

I do not have cravings any more. I don't need snacks. The snacking habit was so hard to kick, even when on VLC. I always carried with me a Quest bar and some nuts and 100% chocolate, just in case I need to snack. I don't remember what snacking is nowadays. I do carry 4oz of beef jerky with me but it is not for snacking, it is for when my meal is not enough to fill me or if I am in the run and cannot stop at a burger place. Eating on the go is so simple and cheap now, I will stop at Burger King and order patties. 

I am shocked at how simplified shopping became and the grocery bill is down. If I hadn't experimented with cheese it would be even better. 

Best part so far is I haven't had acne breakout on my chin for about 2 weeks!!! No more under the skin volcanos, no painful bumps under my skin!!! I still use concealer to cover the remaining marks but hope that with time they will clear. I have some photos I've talken in the past 3 weeks of area but it doesn't really show the big improvement, something with the lighting. I'll put it here anyway. The one on the bottom is from today, middle is last week and the top left one is from few weeks ago. 

I am still not a huge meat lover. I have some resistance in my mind and am still not totally excited about the taste of pure meat. I do use spices, salt, pepper, paprika, cumin, cinnamon. I am giving it time though. Even if I don't grow to love meat, I am really enjoying lack of cravings, hunger, snacking and constant thinking about food. I really don't miss working in the kitchen preparing veggies and trying to figure out net carbs or recipes. I also realize that chicken breast is not so tasty thus the need for recipes and various sauces to make it.....like teriyaki chicken or sweet and sour.