Fall is in the air–I can feel it. The smaller trees have begun to change. I’ll miss the warmth and sun, but this is my favorite time of year–fall into All Hallow’s Eve on into Thanksgiving. And I enjoy things right through Christmas, can stand it until mid-Feb. when I’d like to bail out of here until the end of March at least. The time of year we bought pencil boxes and erasers and rulers and headed back to school, when I wore my new wool skirts in 78 degree weather because I was so excited about my “back to school clothes.” When we watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Was that what it was called? Later, as a college professor, I was still excited about the fall.
Photos: My daughter says this doesn’t look like me, but it’s how I’m used to seeing myself. After all, I see myself in this mirror. Same mirror, same light. So I look for subtle changes in myself — skin quality, neck firmness, overall weight, etc. So like weighing yourself on the same scale, I judge my diet based on that same reflection in the same light. I do feel like I lose a bit of muscle tone adding in plants, but I’ve enjoyed eating the garden vegetables. As those wind down, I’ll do a couple months of carnivore until holidays.
Still, even though I feel I’m fighting a bit of inflammation with veggies, fighting even against my body’s desire to tone, I feel I’m overall gaining in strength in the arms, legs and core. I’ve changed up my exercise routines to incorporate strength yoga and some other full body, no equipment workouts. And since I have my Apple watch (off when I’m not walking or working out), it has pushed me into a few longer walks with my dog Maggie. Since I turn it off a lot to guard against EMF exposure, it doesn’t register all my steps or stands. But that’s ok. I get a good idea of where I am.
What I like most is the heart variability rate reading–this tells me when my body is ready for a workout and when I am stressed either physically or emotionally, or even if I’m a bit ill. That number drops with any workout, so I’m getting used to noticing why/when it fluctuates. This morning it was 44 (my high numbers, which aren’t that great range between 44 and 54), and as soon as I do a hard workout or even walk fast, it might drop to 22. I haven’t figured out how to get a reading of that when I want one. However, they have my average today with workouts at 33, not really bad for me. The goal is raise this average over time. But it enables me to keep track of my workouts closer. Ok. I figured it out. After my hard workouts, it first dropped to 22, then rebounded to 31 just now. You have to do the “breathe” feature to get it to check it at any point. Will do that again later on. The “breathe” function helps you to control anxiety. And the watch will prompt you to do it occasionally. But now that I know how to do that, I can turn the watch off, then do the breathe function and check any time I want. Will do that periodically throughout the day.
Diet today: I had some lovely uncured bacon this morning along with my dark roast New Guinea Papuna coffee. I think that’s what it’s called.
It’s so rich and sweet. I also had an egg fried over easy in the bacon grease. Tonight will be a pork tenderloin with Grand Marnier sauce–yep, I’m still cheating slightly until after Labor Day–along with the first real big tomatoes out of the garden. Boys will have some garden roasted potatoes with rosemary and sage (which I will also use on the pork).
I’ve been a bit down, so helped myself out by ordering a Halloween costume (you’ll have to wait to see me), some decorations for the house. This is the first time I’ve been in a spot to get tons of kids, so will enjoy that. To get in the mood already, I watched Practical Magic and Arsenic and Old Lace. I am looking up all the scary movies I want to watch (I can only do light horror), but will get in Stephen King’s 1408, Carrie. Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler for sure. I have Bell, Book & Candle on DVD with Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart. But might get in a few scarier ones, too. I like the Good Witch movies–don’t like to scare my son Josh too much! All good to get me back into a writing/revising/dream journal schedule beginning after the holiday here.
Medicaid called and my dad should qualify on the list to stay home here by the end of Oct. which means I may get a bit more support soon as well. Dad thinks he should fly again (you don’t even want to ride with him in a car mind you. He once had a pilot’s license. One hopes he is kidding). We are taking him to camp this weekend and hope for no falls as I have a concrete floor downstairs and we are off the grid — limited medical facilities in the area.
We err on the side of quality vs. quantity of life. Yet this is shortening my life and my “quality” is debatable here. 🙂
Happy Wednesday. How are you all doing? Fill me in…
L.E.K. 
Interesting how you can tell the addition of plants affects your muscle composition. I haven’t ever gone ‘full carnivore’ but eating low oxalate means much fewer carbs and I have noticed my clothes fit ‘better’. I am going to lower vegetable intake further as well, and inch closer to full carnivore this fall and winter — once my garden produce is done!!
I always do well on carnivore and feel well, but I like to remind people if they try it that intermittent fasting seems a must because of the MTOR pathway. Also, my cholesterol does go way up without berberine, something I take most of the time now. I want my cholesterol somewhat higher, though. I want it about 240-250 with a good ratio. People live longer with higher levels. But most people wouldn’t like it even that high. I go MUCH higher without berberine and get a little uncomfortable being too high! It’s an experiment for me and I have only been on carnivore/carnivore-keto about a year. Good results so far, though!
I would also add that if someone tries carnivore and starts to feel worse (body pain, increased anxiety, trouble sleeping, kidney pain, bladder issues, etc.); they most likely have a lot of stored oxalates that are starting to circulate and leave the body — a process which takes months to years to clear. That is ‘my story’ and I know many other people too on my oxalate support group discovered an oxalate issue after trying carnivore (so I try to ‘get the word out’ 😊)
And that is interesting about the berberine, I am glad it is working and also glad you mentioned it. I have heard of it before; will check it out. I haven’t had my cholesterol checked since changing my WOE and having skyrocketing cholesterol is one of my ‘big concerns’ with eating so much meat. So thanks for the tip!!!
Yep, I believe most people feel worse for a while for various reasons, though I really didn’t feel too bad for long. I think just getting rid of way too much roughage improved how I felt pretty fast. But I had already been on keto for months before so that may have been why. Depends on how much you are changing your diet.
I don’t believe cholesterol is related much to heart disease. No good testing and they have not proved it anyway. But if you think about it. Could high cholesterol from grass fed meat and butter possibly be the same as high cholesterol from someone who eats donuts, transfats, and has type II diabetes? Not nearly enough testing. And as I say, most people who are hospitalized for cardiac events don’t even have very high cholesterol. If you eat a lot of carbs, your cholesterol goes down, even bad carbs. But your triglycerides, sugar, blood pressure go up (metabolic syndrome.) Now what is wrong with this picture? i have also had life line screening that shows NO plaque in my carotid, abdominal and peripheral arteries. I Am at risk for osteoporosis and not sure how my diet is affecting that good or bad.I also have a great ratio to of HDL and to triglycerides. Lots of details about my health numbers scattered throughout my blog!
I haven’t had time to fully delve into cholesterol yet myself, but it sure sounds like you have and so I am ‘taking notes’ haha, from you and so far I have to agree with you on all your points– is there a difference from having high cholesterol from meat versus donuts???!!! Indeed, one would think it would make a difference. So many diets recommend avoiding red meat now, and I always think to myself that there’s a difference between a burger meal at McDonald’s (with very cheap ‘beef’ — PLUS tons of other unhealthy things added to it, and the bun, and fries, and sugary drink that often goes with it) and a steak dinner with a quality cut. And it seems that if an overall WOE includes meat (particularly red meat) then it gets blamed automatically instead of everything else people are eating along side of that red meat. I will have to search through your blog soon and read more of your story, thank you for sharing so much of it here!! I haven’t eaten a SAD in over a decade, myself, and remember when I first made changes, cutting out gluten and processed foods, back then and I had nothing but positive results doing that–so yes, the ‘keto flu’ and also ‘oxalate dumping’ are real occurrences and can vary in severity for many of us!!!
But thanks for reminding people keto or carnivore might cause flu like symptoms for a bit!
I love fall, too. It’s cooler here this week, but I suspect the heat is not yet over!
You’re on the ball with that Halloween costume, My neighborhood is always a bit dead. Maybe 3 kids trick or treating. I usually go to a party with friends….or go to the gym.
Got to be ready! They claim 600 kids or more here in our little town. Down in Romeo we had one street that made national news — thousands of kids. But it’s been over 15 years I was anywhere we got lots of kids. So it will be fun. Get a look at the goblins!
A party doesn’t sound too bad, though!