Today was dominated by preparation for the Messiah, at least for MD. I helped minimally, mainly by giving her moral support. While she was at the Granada dealing with all the zillion last minute details, I was working hard on my own self-improvement program: I went to the driving range. Above is a photo of the moment the concert began taken from where I was sitting.
MD, for whatever reason, refused to cook today, so we started off with breakfast at a little local eating place. This was the worst breakfast we’ve had since this photo diary started. I would rather have stayed home and had a shake. The eggs were overcooked, the ham was dry, and the fruit was of weenie proportions and wasn’t all that good.
After breakfast MD took off for all her tasks and I took off for mine. When I got back to an empty house hungry, I had to fend for myself. I sliced up a little salami, fished out a pickle from my jar and some peppers, and opened a can of sardines. Made a nice little early afternoon snack. Who says I can’t cook?
For those of you wondering about the crackers, they are Almond Nut Thins. They have about a gram and a half of carb per each. I always get out the 6 I’m going to eat, then put away the box. If the box is within my reach, I’ll eat a lot more than 6. These crackers taste great and are nice for those who are wheat intolerant because they’re made with almonds and rice flour.
MD came home mid afternoon and I listened to her recount all the things that had gone wrong and blown up on her at the Granada. What a wonderfully supportive husband I am. She took a breather for an hour or so, then she got dressed for the gig and headed back, leaving me bereft of a cook. I considered (for about two seconds) preparing something for myself, but abandoned that craziness and headed up to the local deli. The local deli had changed their menu, so the hot pastrami I was lusting for was no longer available. I opted for a corned beef sandwich, so I got one to go and brought it home. Here is how it came.
Here is how I fixed it. I removed half the bread then put the two half sandwiches together, giving me a big, fat sandwich with only half the bread.
But, as usual, I didn’t eat all the bread. I do this all the time. I start out intending to eat the bread on a sandwich or the bun on a burger, eat a couple of bites, then start picking the meat, tomatoes, etc. out of the sandwich and abandoning the bread. Here’s what I left.
I took these bread remnants and threw them away immediately. If I had left them sitting there, I would have picked at them, eating a little pinch here and a little pinch there, until all the bread was consumed. That’s a lesson I learned long, long ago.
My daughter-in-law, my son (not the husband of the DIL, one of the other sons, the son of ER Dad fame) and his girlfriend picked me up, and off we went to the Granada. We got there and proceeded immediately to the Patron’s lounge, where we hit the champagne. And good champagne it was.
I had two glasses before the performance and two glasses at intermission. Here are the four of us drinking up awaiting the performance.
And here is our DIL Katherine, who was one of the underwriters. Since she is a lover of Veuve Clicquot, that’s what she provided as a part of her underwriting.
We got to our box, the lights dimmed, and my lovely wife came out and gave a little opening address to the audience.
After the performance, which was a tour de force, we all retired to the Patron’s lounge to have snacks and more Veuve Clicquot (three more glasses for moi). Here is a photo of my plate of hors d’oeurves.
I had three plates of pretty much this composition – one for each glass of Veuve. My wife couldn’t be involved without making sure that low-carb food could be had. The little meat things are bacon-wrapped veggies and proscuitto bundles – both really tasty. The little crackers were a vehicle to eat the avocado hummus (cutting hummus with avocado is a great way to pimp it lower carb.)
During this photo food diary session I’ve not eaten a few things I would probably have eaten had I not been doing this project. Tonight I made up for it. I ate something I wouldn’t have eaten had I not been keeping this diary. I had a cookie and a half. I didn’t really want them, but I figured no one would believe me if I showed only photos of a pristine low-carb diet. I actually intended to eat two cookies, but I could choke down only one and a half.
Here are the Prez and First Man of the Santa Barbara Choral Society posing in front of the mantel in the Patron’s lounge at the Granada.
And, finally, here is a photo of the whole group in the same setting.
The night was a huge success for MD. We came home and she hit the rack to get some beauty sleep before she has to get up and do it all again. Sans me this time, of course. I’ll be on the golf course.
The official website of Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, low carb pioneers and authors of Protein Power.
You have a beautiful wife! And she cooks for you all the time! Amazing pictures, I hope we can hear MD sing. Did you tape it? You didnt have to explain that you took a can of sardines and say who said I cant cook. It was pretty much self explanatory. If you post just a can sardines I would have known that MD was not involved. I am sure MD would have cooked something. Sardines are usually the last resort. I used to eat them in a car. Needlesse to say I lost few friends driving with me for a while, boy do they stink up the whole car. I learned my lesson. I still keep sardines and nuts in the car just for emergency food supplies. But now I eat them outside! Great pics!
There was a recording made. I’ll see if I can put some of it up when we get it.
Those are neat-looking champagne glasses–I’ve never seen any without stems. I envy your getting loaded during “The Messiah,” LOL.
Keeps the stems from getting broken. I didn’t really get loaded – the many glasses I had were maybe half full each. So not as much champagne as it appeared.
What a beautiful family you have. Looks like lots of fun was had by all.
Thank you so much for this wonderful site and your blog.
Okay, I’m hungry now, off to find food.
Great idea on the sandwich. I use low carb whole grain bread (6 carbs per slice) from the local grocery store. Sometimes, I take a loaf with me when I go on the road, buy burgers or a chicken sandwich at McD and eat with my own bread.
Doc, thanks for your help in the past on this blog … It has been 18 months now without rice! … down 40 pounds and type 2 diabetes under control with just metformin HbA1C of 5.3 … and holding steady at 160 lbs 5ft 10″ for more than 6 months. Being of Indian origin, I think this is an accomplishment. Great news is that low carb bread, low carb tortillas … are found in stores at very reasonable cost. Dreamfields Pasta is another blessing … does not affect my sugar levels much. My wife breaks the spaghetti up into small pieces and cooks with spices and makes Chicken Biryani (as we Indians would normally with rice)… So right now, I don’t miss a thing. I suppose, where there is a will there is a way.
By the way, I know from Protein Power, that I am sometimes a hedonist when it comes to aritificial sweetners.. but it is slowly getting better.
Do you have an opinion on Dreamfields Pasta? Works for me… tastes great and does not seem to impact my sugar much.
Glad to learn of your great success. I’m sure you had an especially tough time of it given your cultural norms. Your achievement, against pretty good odds, should give the rest of us who don’t have to overcome a diet loaded with rice some real inspiration.
MD and I have also traveled with low-carb bread and swapped it for whatever burger bun or sandwich bread we got. But we now just routinely ditch the bread and eat whatever without and don’t even think about it.
I’ve heard different reports on Dreamfields Pasta. Some say it raises blood sugar and isn’t all that different from other pastas – others report, as you do, that it doesn’t seem to raise blood sugar much. I, myself, don’t know. I don’t particularly like pasta, so we never have it in or out. Consequently, I haven’t really made a study of the Dreamfields situation. If it doesn’t seem to bother you, and it certainly hasn’t hindered your success, I wouldn’t worry about it. If you enjoy it, go for it now and then.
MrFreddy I saw your comment to the previous post about cruel wife and loosing lat 15 pounds on 3 or 4 protein shakes. If I may at all give you aword of advice, keep those shakes a bit more intresting. I have tried 5 shakes a day and would still allow one whole meal and I still failed. I did lost 3 poun ds though in the first week and even managed to increase my bench press from 260 pounds max to 295, which might be attributed to extra organic cocoa I would use in my shaked pre and post work out! Again your experience might be different, but hunger would strike me at evening times. Thats when all hell went loose. Just be prepared to deal with it constructively. I did use coconut milk too, whci helps to make shakes a bit creamy. Good luck!
Today I bought chicken links from Trader Joe which stated that chicken were free range and lived under LOW STRESS! They were only a dollar more then regilar chicken links. So I bought ones with low stress ones, for a dollar more, hey its a bargain!
Dr Eades you said in response to MrFreddy that best way to deal with unruly wife is giving her a pink slip! Whats that? I have never heard that expression, I guess I havent heard a lot, but that one puzzled me!
When people were fired from jobs, they were given pick slips of paper. Now when you hear about someone getting a pink slip, it means they have been fired or let go. If you say that someone needs a pink slip or to be pink slipped, that means that person should be fired or terminated.
Today I bought Chicken links that were raised in a free ranged environment, having lived under low stress, killed in the most humane way possible under Rabbi supervision. I am serious, who would have thought? Now I was thinking, my nephew always eats a lot of chicken links that are not free ranged, low stressed, killed in a most humane way under Rabbi supervision. No wonder that at 14 he looks like an english mastiff on a bad day, angry and demanding! No offence to the english mastiff! Can it possibly be that those damn, stessed out chickens are linked to kids that are cranky and demanding? May be there is something to those links, you never know. What do you think Dr Eades, are those hormone loaded, antibiotic injected and high stressed out chickens in any shape, form responsible for today’s kids being bigger than before and more cranky and demanding?
I’m not certain that being slaughtered under Rabbinic supervision is as humane as possible. In fact, with today’s modern technology, it may be just the opposite. Have you read in the media lately about the Kosher slaughterhouses being shut down for all kinds of health and safety violations? So many have been closed that it is causing an impact in Kosher grocers and delis, many of which have empty meat sections.
I’m a big fan of Veuve Clicquot too. We like to share a split of it on the weekends… Life’s too short to save champagne for a “special” occasion. The way we look at it, everyday is a special occasion. I often quote a line from the movie The Deer Hunter, “A man who says no to champagne, says no to life…” Cheers!
Dr Eades – just wondering if the carb count for champagne is higher than for white wine? Or is it variable? Thanks. Annie
It varies a little, but it’s about the same as dry white wine.
You’re really having a nice holiday. Don’t the drinks interfere with your sleep? Even 1-2 and I end up wide awake in the middle of the night every time.
Sometimes booze interferes with my sleep, but I have to drink a lot for it to do so.
What a fun and cultural weekend! Looks like a blast.
I read that champagne has a lower carb count than white or red wines. Is this true? I’ve seen SO many conflicting numbers about the carbs in wine. In one book (De. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution), Dr Adkins gave two VERY different numbers. In one chapter, he said 3 1/2 oz. of wine has 4.6 carbs, but then in his carb counter in the index, he listed a 4-oz glass of red wine at 2.0 carbs and a 4-ox glass of white wine as 0.9 carbs? So which is it? I know you enjoy both wine and whiskey (me too!), but I’d really like to know how many carbs I’m getting witha class of wine (and with a glass of champagne). Thanks for any help, and enjoy your week!
Dry wines (and champagne) run a little less than a gram per ounce. A 5 oz glass of medium white wine (according to the USDA) contains 3.82 gm of carb.
Your photo of the sardines couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. I eat a lot of canned sardines (with bones) because I need the calcium and can’t take calcium supplements, but In Loren Cordain’s Paleo newsletter last week he writes of the dangers of oxidized cholesterol in canned fish. Very alarming indeed.
He writes “Canning also increases the level of oxidized cholesterol in fish, specifically increasing a molecule called 25 hydroxycholesterol that is extremely destructive to the linings of arterial blood vessels. This is so destructive, in fact, that oxidized cholesterol is routinely fed to laboratory animals to accelerate the artery-clogging atherosclerotic process in order to test theories of heart disease. In animal models of atherosclerosis and heart disease, only 0.3 % of the total ingested cholesterol needs to be in the form of oxidized cholesterol to cause premature damage to arterial linings.”
Can you comment on this please and whether we should be careful about canned fish.
Anne – PS the photo of you and MD is lovely…glad the Messiah was a tour de force!
I have a couple of problems with this. First, I’m not so sure I buy into the idea that canning fish increases oxidized cholesterol. Sardines are packed into cans then cooked and the tin sealed while hot to ensure a vacuum. At least that’s how I understand it. I doubt that this process creates much oxidized cholesterol. Second, early man probably ate his meat grilled on a stick over a fire, a method that would create a fair amount of oxidized cholesterol. Since early man ate plenty of it, I’m sure we evolved a means to deal with it. Lab animals, on the other hand, are by nature vegetarians, especially the rabbits that easily develop atherosclerosis. Since cholesterol comes only from food of animal origin – plants don’t contain it – these animals haven’t evolved a means to deal with it. If oxidized cholesterol is fed a rabbit, I’m sure that rabbit’s arteries suffer. But it’s not the same for humans.
I went to the performance of The Messiah at Duke last year. It was wonderful! I would love to have seen MD’s performance!
RE: eggs in restaurants. I have been having a lot of problems lately with anything other than scrambled eggs or omelets! It seems they’re undercooked or overcooked, no matter how I tell them I want them! It’s very irritating, but it’s made me learn to cook fried eggs at home (poached are my favorites and I’ve been cooking them since I was a teen).
Unrelated question. Can you tell us what the formula is for insulin vs glucose? I know there is one as docs calculate IV/sc insulin needs related to blood sugar?
Your food blogs are great!
I’m not sure, but I think your insulin/blood sugar question relates to how much insulin to give for X amount of blood sugar. As I recall from my hospital days – don’t hold me to this – the dose is one unit of regular insulin for each 5 mg/dl blood sugar.
Since you’ve been blogging about food and drink, I would like to ask about “willpower”, or the eventual success of following a low carb plan. Needless to say, I find it difficult for a million different reasons, social settings, other people bringing me things, and my own lack of control.
So, if a person has a fasting glucose of 110, HA1c of 6.0, fasting insulin of 12 miU, would a medicine like metformin help any? Is there a role for any prescription drug in getting over the “hump”?
Thanks again
I’m not sure the metformin will help with willpower. But it may help a little with weight loss. I’ve never used metformin for weight loss, but I know some docs do. It is my go to drug for diabetes that can’t be controlled by diet.
You may want to consider some magnesium to help with cravings. Take it at bedtime. Many people swear by it. And if you need to lose weight, odds are, you’re magnesium deficient.
kind of a long Friday, wasn’t it?
anyway, thanks vadim,
that’s just the general template I plan to use for shakes, I’ll vary the flavorings and fat sources as much as I can. I happened to have some sugarless jelly on hand, so I tried that out. When I get around to it , I’m gonna order some of the syrups, etc.
Here’s a list of 50 recipes that can be used as inspiration – just add more fat as needed, and less sugar:
http://www.straighttothebar.com/2008/01/fitness_and_food_50_protein_sh.html
don’t know if I’ll even try going to do just shakes… for one thing, the evil one, the one who stands to gain from my weight loss failure, has threatened to cook steaks, scrambled eggs, etc. not for herself, but just to leave around unattended!!
as for the pink slip, if I threatened that, I’m sure she’d respond along the lines of “good! the door’s that way! see ya!”
depraved and cruel and evil, she is, I tell ya!
Thanks for the heads up. It was a long Friday. In fact, it stretched over two days.
Yes, indeed, it’s best to use the pink slip ploy carefully. Unlike the workplace, at home the pink slips can go both ways.
Hi Dr. Mike,
We females don’t usually get spouses who cook for us. (It does rankle sometimes to be competing in the academic arena with men who do). You’re a lucky man.
I always enjoy your blog – informative and entertaining.
Best wishes.
Thanks, Dr. Wendy.
I’m sure it does rankle. I admit that I am a very lucky man. And I’ll be the first one to admit it.
Cheers
ref slaughter do yall know who Temple Grandin is ? (relative to the above comments about slaughtering)
If not please read about her.
The Beeb did a fascinating docu on her i saw a few years back when in Blightly
Know her very well on many fronts. Have a post planned with her as the star.
Hehe I’m glad that you finally posted a pic of eating a few bites of cookies and stuff. Reading the diary thus far, I had suspected you were subconsciously making perfect choices, almost ketogenic eating. I am a 120 lb female and I know if I was eating the way you were eating, I would be rather close to losing weight. I was beginning to wonder if this was causing weight loss for you.
I think a lot of people can’t stick to LC because they assume it’s all or nothing – that if you are on a LC diet you’ll never eat cookies or bread or anything with sugar. I eat cookies and bread and sugar almost every day, but the key is that when you are on a LC diet you never eat enough of it to eat more than your carb allotment. A single small cookie like that probably only has 7 carbs max. That’s perfectly acceptable if you’re eating 70ish carbs in maintenance. Each meal is rarely more than 10 or 15 carbs so there is a lot of room for like, cookies and stuff if you want them.
This “all or nothing” attitude seriously contributes to failure in my opinion, because people feel like they’re not LCing the minute they take a taste of a cookie. They associate that first bite of a cookie, with eating crappy. That’s just self destructive thinking. It’s good that you’re showing people a more realistic way of maintaining a LC diet (that it actually does involve eating normal foods… just not eating them the way most people eat them, which is to eat them all the time thus being unhealthy).
I agree with you. But the cookies I ate one and half of weren’t small and contained, I’m sure, more than 7 gm carb. I would imagine that those were of the 20 gm apiece variety.
I do my own low-carb diet on a day-to-day basis. In other words, I don’t set a certain number of carbs to use to maintain and stick rigidly to that. Some days I step out and over do it a little, others (today, for instance), I’m pretty rigid. I’ve had a couple of shakes today and that’s it. I’ll have a low-carb supper tonight with maybe a glass of wine, and that’s it. So, I’m overcarbed a little one day and undercarbed the next. That’s what works for me, but it may not work for everyone. I know people for whom an over carbed day would be 500 gm, and that’s a little much.
I am not convinced that Dreamfields or similar product with a low GI rating do not adversely affect BG.
When I first got interested in low carb I made what I now consider to be a wrong turn by going down the glycemic index road. However, I soon became concerned in that GI test protocols cut off the testing BG levels at 2 hours. Then I came across an article on a study that found that low GI and high GI foods of the same carb load stimulate the same amount of insulin secretion. The difference is that low GI foods don’t raise BG levels as much initially as high GI foods. But BG and insulin levels stay elevated longer with low GI foods.
I suspect that if one were to test BG levels for up to 4 hours after consuming a low GI pasta it might not look as good as it would after only two hours of BG monitoring. In the end I have come to believe that a low GI carb is still a carb.
You are right. I’ve never bought in to the glycemic index idea. Carbs is carbs.
Dr Eades thank you for explaining what a pink slip is! I guess I must have been lucky to not only being able to avoid them, but not even heard about them. I had few jobs, but never got fired. Thats why I am a such a huge believer in Capitalist system and not government oversight. I cling to the notion that if one works their butts off, the results usually there to show for it. Usually at least! I was being sarcastic about those stressed out chickens , it is just funny to me how they advertise them. And believe me I know how few Rabbi treat their chickens or their congregates for that matter. Thats why I follow Tao Te Ching and La Tzu, not follow it, but go along with it. I am more od an equal oppurtunity guy, and I celebrate all Holidays! I love Christmas , especially here in NYC. Its just a magic moment! I didnt know about slaughter house being closed , thats intresting. Thanks! I immensely enjoy your posts! Really puts a smile on my face!
Thanks for your opinion about canned sardines and oxidized cholesterol…..you don’t know how very worried I had got about that. I eat a can of sardines as part of my breakfast most days and I would have been loathe to give them up.
Many thanks for your food diary too ! My husband has downloaded each day to his ipod Touch (his new toy) and he says it looks wonderful on the little screen 🙂
all the best,
Anne
I’m glad I’ve eased your mind.
ME: You may want to consider some magnesium to help with cravings. Take it at bedtime.
I am in the process of correcting a long term chronic magnesium deficiency that has only recently become blatantly obvious to me. So I have some observations on Dr. Eades comment.
For the past month or so I have been taking anywhere from 800 mg to 1500 mg of magnesium in various forms (mostly mgcl hexahydrate) a day in divided doses. One thing I noticed after about 10 days of high doses of magnesium was that my appetite suddenly began to increase. Before this my appetite had been well controlled and minimal. I seldom snacked and had adjusted to fairly small meals just as Dr Eades said. Some days I did not even feel inclined to eat. I rarely snacked. Now I found myself snacking frequently. I gained about 5 pounds over a short period. However, my appetite is now decreasing again and I am losing the weight I gained.
Dr. Eades recommends taking a dose of magnesium at bedtime. Like some others have reported I found that I initially could not sleep if I did this (although I now sleep very soundly). In terms of my energy levels, magnesium is like rocket fuel.
My symptom picture and the amount of magnesium I am able to ingest suggests that I have been severely deficient in magnesium for a very long time (I suspect about 40 years). The literature I have read on magnesium deficiency says that it can take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years of supplementation at high doses to correct a magnesium deficiency and that the results will vary greatly from one person to another.
In hindsight, I suspect that the reason for my increase in appetite might be that the supplemental magnesium is enhancing my insulin sensitivity and glucose transport into my cells causing my BG to drop lower than it has normally been dropping. If I had suspected this at the time I would have monitored my BG. It would be interesting to know if anyone has had a similar experience.
Dr. Eades, it would be nice if you could hook up a search function on your blog. I’ve tried to get a history of your take on lodoral and magnesium, for example, and it would be helpful just to search your posts through the words themselves rather than scroll through all the comments of all the posts. Just sayin. In the meantime, of course, I’m off to the vitamin shoppe to buy a good quantity of the same. Thanks thanks thanks for your availability to your adherents. Just had my labs done: HDL 78, LDL 104, Triglycerides 37. Fasting blood glucose is 105, hence the search for magnesium. Would you do a combination of magnesium aspartate and lipoic acid to bring it down? In what quantities? Can I safely add lodoral to that combination? Don’t need to unintentionally OD on the minerals & stuff …
There is a search function on the blog. I, myself, use it all the time. What there isn’t at this point is a search function on the comments. I have never posted on iodoral, but have discussed it only in the comments, which is why you can’t find it if you search via the blog search function. I have a comment search function in my blog software – I just need to figure out how to make it available to everyone else.
I can’t really comment on your specific blood sugar situation since I know nothing about you. I typically give my own patients 300 mg of magnesium at bedtime and 300 mg of lipoic acid per day. There should be no problem combining iodoral with these, but I would check my patient’s iodine status before giving the supplement.