Empyrean Engine

My husband had his colonoscopy today. So yesterday he was on broth and clear liquids only, and he had to do the "purge," which was pleasant.  He wasn't allowed any food after midnight, not even the broth. No water, either. The good news is that he was second in line this morning for his procedure. We were out of there by 8:00 am, and then we were able to eat breakfast together as I had ended my fast around 2:00 AM. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  357  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs We had some delicious, fatty barbecue brisket. It's Texas, that's what we do! It was amazing! We ate it with a salad and some homemade ginger dressing. I wasn't too thrilled with the dressing. I used a recipe I found online, and I feel it had far too much soy sauce in it. The taste of the soy sauce overwhelmed the ginger and garlic, unfortunately. Even after this meal, I felt good. No dumping. Success! Now I know how to e...

I had to stop my fast early. I almost made it to the 120-hour mark. I got to 110h:46m. I am very proud of that accomplishment. That is nearly 5 days of fasting with only water and electrolytes. I am fairly impressed with myself, actually. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight: 356.8   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  325 lbs I didn't lose much in these 5 days as you can see. I started at 361.8 lbs on May 26, 2018, and I am at 356.8 lbs today. My weight hasn't changed from yesterday to today. Over 5 days, that is about 5 lbs total. Some of that will come back after I re-feed; I can't avoid that eventuality. I felt "throat hunger," which is the feeling of true hunger, and that's when I knew I had to break my fast. This feels like a lump in your throat that you can't swallow; it's kind of like anxiety in a way. Well, it definitely causes some anxiety, for sure. And you also start to salivate more. There are no cravings or grumbles in...

I think that the keto diet and its restrictions may be driving my husband a wee bit crazy. He doesn't work tonight, but I do, and I left him with some instructions about what foods were safe for him to eat while I was away at work. Well, he pretty much forgot everything I said. He felt just a bit defeated by it, too. I could tell. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  356.8  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  325 lbs In lighter news, look at that 1.8-pound drop fro yesterday! Wow! I completed the 72-hour fast with ease, and I'm now working on 96 hours. I got this! It's also getting a lot easier. I'm not feeling as "hungry" today as I was the past day or so. For my husband, I have decided to make keto snacks ahead of time that will allow him to simply grab and eat without much thought. I'll do all the thinking and the math. Basically, to maintain a good ratio to stay in ketosis, not raise blood sugar, avoid huge insulin spike...

I did it! I hit my short-term goal! Today my scale said 358.6 lbs! I can't believe it. I am so excited, elated, amazed, ecstatic, overjoyed, and all other of the best adjectives to describe this feeling I can't think of right now. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  358.6  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  325 lbs I am under 360 lbs finally! I knew I was still losing fat even if the lying liar of a scale showed otherwise. When I got home from work this morning, my scale had the audacity to say 365.4 lbs! How dare it! I was a bit swollen, and I'm not sure how that happened. I have a theory about the electrolytes, but that's neither here nor there. By this evening at 6:30 PM when I woke to start getting ready for work, the weight dropped to below 360 lbs for the first time in... well, forever! I now weigh less than I did when I was 13 years old! Picture day! And also time to set a new short-term goal. This time, I want to ...

I am about 40 hours in to my newest extended fast. I don't have a planned goal for this one. I am generally just going to keep going as long as I feel good with it. I really hope this works to get me to drop some more pounds. So far this month, I have only lost 6 pounds in total. It's only Day 16 of the current 30-day month, so that's actually a really go amount of weight lost, but I would still like for it to be more. I am a bit impatient. The scale is going in the right direction again, so that's good. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  361.4  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I have lost point-four lbs from yesterday to today. It's not a lot, but it's something. I'm hoping that I'll have lost more by the time I get home from work in the morning. It will have been about 42 hours into my current fast at that point. I won't have anything I need to cook today, so there's no danger of my accidentally tastin...

I accidentally broke my fast! Eek! I was working on a 72-hours fast this time, and while I was fixing dinner for my man, I gave it a huge taste! I forgot I was fasting! LOL. It happened. I started over. I'm at about 15 hours of a new fast, and I really want to try to go for a lot longer than 72 hours if I can last. I'm sure I can. The good news is that my weight is down a bit today from where it was yesterday. It's only down by point-two lbs, but down is down, and I'll take it! Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  361.8  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I can see the finish line on that short-term goal, but I just can't seem to reach it yet. I will. If I can remember that I'm fasting and not taste the food, I'll be fine! The casserole I made was supposed to be a Quiche Florentine. I tried making a coconut-flour-bases shortbread crust from a recipe I found online. It was a total flop. That crust was the worst! I th...

I made some really yummy broccoli and shrimp today. It created 6 servings of absolute heaven! I served it to my husband with some Lasagna Casserole. He was enjoying it so much, and then tragedy struck! He set his plate on the corner of his table, and down it went. It up-ended and left all of his delicious food all over the floor! It was all I could do to keep from crying. It's not that I had worked so hard, but the loss of such delicious food made me really, really sad. To hide this, I panicked instead. The true emotion was a deep sadness, though. It was a great sense of loss. No one would be able to eat that food. I didn't know I was so emotionally attached to food! I thought I was immune to its siren call. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  362  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs The scale is up again today about point-six lbs. I'm not going to worry, though. I will simply have faith and carry one. This, too,...

Today my husband and I finally tried adding the 100% Premium Ghiradelli Baking chocolate to our BPC. It wasn't easing trying to get that grated and shopped up so I could add it to the Ninja for blending. At first, I wanted to simply grate it using the food processor. I tried, it failed. Then I tried simply processing in in the food processor. Again, this was a no-go. My husband found the tiny grater that is used for zesting citrus fruit. That worked, but it was so difficult. Finally, he just grabbed a knife and chopped it up. That was the best method! It was worth it! Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  361.4  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs The scale is not being very friendly to me these days. I'm wondering if it's due to stress, or whether I'm somehow eating too much or eating the wrong foods. I don't know. I raised my calories a bit, but not much. My meal today was 1288 calories in total. That shouldn't hav...

I'm only point-two pounds down today from yesterday. This feels like a stall to me. it could be the calm before the woosh, though. I'm not going to enter into a new 72-hour fast for another day or so, but i really, really want to. I know I can lose more weight if I fast. I liked fasting. I lost a lot of weight doing it. I mean, technically, I fast every day, but what I'm talking about is an extended fast. That's a fast that lasts longer than 24 hours. Generally, when I eat OMAD, I fast for about 23 or 24 hours. I try for 22 hours at least. Some days I go a bit longer, but usually no at least 22 hours. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  360.6  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs This last pound before I hit my next short-term goal sure it being stubborn. I think it has developed a mind of its own. I think it may be sentient... it's sentient, and it's mad at me! I want to get rid of it, and it knows it. I want to get ri...

Plateau! I'll take it! It's far better than gaining weight. Gaining is for the birds! LOL. My husband is feeling much better now that he has had an opportunity to speak with his doctor. The doctor was fully on board with the plan to go keto to try to reverse the  blood glucose issue. She will follow up with him in three months to see how he is doing. In the meantime, we have ordered a blood glucose monitor, and we will make sure that he is doing well, and his blood glucose is dropping. He is coping much better with his new diet, too. I'm so glad. I was really worried about that. He was so glum. He was definitely experiencing a bit of mourning. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight: 360.8 lbs Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I'm hovering just above my next goal weight. I know that it is going to be stubborn. I wonder if my mind can affect my weight loss. Maybe I should stop settings goals. Instead, I could simply record the weight loss ...

I have been thinking very seriously about trying another extended fast for even longer than 72 hours. It felt great to do it, and there are a number of benefits to doing it. Also, I have plenty of fat stores to be able to keep myself "fed" for a great amount of time. I think I wouldn't do it unless I first get under the care of a doctor, but I am thinking very seriously of trying this. I had a "re-feed" today. I ate after not eating for 3 days (72 hours). Immediately after, I felt sick, and I found myself in the bathroom quite a lot. I was expecting to gain some weight, but I only gained 0.2 lbs. That's not too bad. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  360.8  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs My husband is eating the same foods as I am eating. Today he has decided to also fast more than 20 hours a day with me. I advised him not to do it as it is too soon, but he is convinced that he can tough it out and do it. If...

While I am elated and excited and ecstatic to be losing my weight, my poor husband is now suffering general malaise because of his recent high blood glucose result from the physical he had. He didn't feel up to coming to work tonight, he was feeling so out of sorts. It's not just the blood work that has him down. He has decided, begrudgingly, to choose the keto way of eating (WOE), and he is really in mourning for his old eating habits. It is truly a mourning period for him. I am doing all I can to help him through it, but this transition is not what he would have chosen for himself. He is being forced to change for his health. The alternative is far worse. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  360.6  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs My good news is that I am down more than a pound from yesterday! Woo! I'm less than a pound away from my goal of 359 lbs! This is exciting, for sure, but that "woo" was halfhearted; who a...

Woohoo! I'm doing nothing but losing weight now! I love it! My husband and I went grocery shopping, and I got all the fixings for making the Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole -- this is my husband's favorite keto casserole so far -- and I developed and bought ingredients for a new Lasagna Casserole. I hope he likes that one. I think I will. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  362.2  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs My sweetie is really concerned about the state of his blood glucose. He is starting to manifest psychosomatic symptoms of diabetes. He is really scared of losing limbs and dying. I keep trying to keep him sane and assure him that we got this. We can reverse what's happening, and we can cure his diabetes before it's a real issue. I get that he's scared. I know how that feels. We will take care of it, and I hope I can get him to trust me. I feel as though God gave me this answer to my weight problem at the rig...

I had a non-scale victory today when I got to work. My boss hasn't seen me in many moons, and I walked into his office. He said I looked fantastic, and he wondered whether it was diet or exercise or something. I let him know it's keto. I'm really very proud of myself, and that made me feel so happy all during my shift! Woo! I have actually dropped 23 lbs since i started Keto in April, and I think that's stellar! Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  363.2  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs On a less-than-stellar note, my hubby got a bit of bad news today. He got his results from the physical, and everything looked good except for one thing: he had a high fasting blood glucose result that was over 160. This scared him a bit. He hasn't really been doing keto with me, but hes been eating my food along with his carby sides. He has decided to try to turn this around by doing keto with me. We will discuss things with his doct...

I hit a new low! 364 lbs even, and this is after the 52.5-hour fast and then a re-feed. It is also after eating my normal OMAD meal this morning of pizza casserole and salad. This WOE is far too easy. Surprisingly it is not too good to be true; it is simply too good. I'm loving this. I can do this. Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  364  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I have been struggling with whether I should say my starting weight is 425 lbs, 415 lbs, 401 lbs, or 386 lbs. My initial starting weight before Shangri-La was 415 lbs. My highest weight ever recorded was when I was about 26 years old, and I was 425 lbs. I had gotten down to 374 lbs in November of 2017, and then I re-gained back up to 401 lbs by March of 2018. I started to lose again at that point. I brought that down to 386 lbs using Shangri-La concepts, and then I discovered Keto and Intermittent Fasting. So if I am to be absolutely fair and accurate...

My shift changed this week, so today is the first day of my new weekend. I am also still fasting, and I didn't eat until after my husband's appointments. The good news is that I only gained one pound after my re-re-feed. Gain was expected. I was exlecting moe than 1 lb, though, so this snall gain was welcome. I fasted for 52.5 hours! Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  365.2  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs We went to the mall food court, and we ate at Chicago Cheesesteak Company. Apparently they have the #1 cheesteaks. I wasn't all that impressed. I had a large cheese steak sandwich in a bowl without the bread. It consisted of three or four large pieces of thinly sliced lean beef, a few slices of tomato, some sauteed onions, a few pickles, and some shreds of iceberg lettuce all topped with some shredded cheddar. I had them add mayo because I needed a bit more fat. When I tasted it, though, it was sweet as i...

Woo! I succeeded in an extended fast. I decided not to eat anything after work. I didn't really feel like cooking, and I let my husband eat my meal instead. At the moment, it's 2:45 AM, and I'm at work, and I'm 43 hours and 55 minutes into a fast. I haven't eaten anything, and I have oly been drinking electrolytes. I don't feel hungry, and I have had steady energy. This is amazing. What's better? The last weight measurement I did at around noon. Wow! Just look at the data: Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  364.2  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I lost 2.4 lbs from yesterday to today! I can't believe this! I broke my stall, and I'm well below 366.6 lbs now. I think I may continue losing, too. I bet I drop even more. I shouldn't get ahead of myself, though. I don't want to get disappointed if I stay at 364.2 lbs for a while. I'm just so excited about this progress! I started watching YouTube vi...

Woohoo! I'm down again. And not only am I down, I'm down below where I was at my lowest! This is great. I wonder, though, whether this means I'm about to drop even lower and hit my next goal of getting to 359 lbs or under. We shall see. I'm very hopeful! Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  366.6  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs I feel 100% better. I am not feeling bloated and uncomfortable at all today. I woke up energized. And between you and me, I had a great dream. It was a sexy dream. Eek! LOL. My point in telling you about this is that it was a pleasant dream. It wasn't stressful or scary at all. That was a welcome change. Now, Dr. Berg says that when we have vivid dreams, that indicates that we have a B-vitamin deficiency, so it's not good. We should be forgetting our dreams. So I guess I need to add more nutritional yeast into my OMAD meal to make sure I'm getting enough of it. That's sad, though. I was en...

I feel so yuck today! I don't know what happened. I think it may have been the stevia in the drink I had. I decided to try some of Dr. Berg's Wheat Grass Juice Powder mixed with some of his Electrolyte Powder in my ironic pineapple... along with the electrolyte drink I already had in there consisting of potassium, magnesium, and sodium with no sweetener. My own electrolyte drink is fine. It doesn't break my body. And the Dr. Berg supplement powders shouldn't break me, either. There isn't anything else that I can think of that would have caused this. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  368  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lb I gained 1.2 lbs from yesterday, and I'm terribly bloated. I had more fats than I should have, but that would not have caused so much bloat. This seems more like a response to too much insulin. At least, that's what I think it could be according to Dr. Berg's YouTube videos. I had half the salad...

My pizza was missing! What? I went to grab my pizza casserole from the fridge, and it was nowhere to be found. I think someone ate it. I'm so sad about that. So instead of eating that, I had to make myself someone I hadn't planned to eat. So the first step was grabbing my Carb Manager app and manipulate the keto foods I have, checking different quantities, and mixing and matching until I could fall within the range of my caloric goal and still meet the macros. I need 75% of my calories in fats, 20% in proteins, and 5% or fewer in carbohydrates. It was tough, but I did it! Starting weight:  401 lbs Current weight:  366.8  lbs   ⇩ Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs Also, the scale has me at 366.8 lbs again today! So that's a victory. Nothing I did yesterday ruined my diet, apparently. That's good to know. So what was this miraculous meal I made for myself? 6 eggs fried in 5 tbsp of butter. 2 tbsp of sour cream 3 slices of the Till...

I didn't eat my leftover pizza casserole tonight. Also, the scale reading went up today.  I don't blame it. I weighed myself after I ate a whole package of beef jerky. I had 4 oz of the stuff. It was good, though. We got the jerky on our way to Tucson from California. We stopped in Quartzite, and Eric thought very seriously about uprooting us to move there. The guy behind the counter of the beef jerky place was very convincing. LOL. Starting weight:  415 lbs Current weight:  367.4  lbs  ⇧   Long-term Goal:  145 lbs Short-term Goal:  359 lbs Anyhow, this jerky's been waiting for weeks just for me. It has no sugar or carbs, and that's why we bought it. Working it into my OMAD has been difficult, but as we were playing board games (and celebrating our anniversary), I didn't think much about pulling it out as a snack. It was around 2:30 AM when I ate it. it was close enough to my eating window that I didn't worry about it. I pulled out some o...

I made the pizza casserole finally! It was very delicious. The holdup was in getting the gumption to mix up the Italian sausage. I made Italian sausage using ground beef and Italian seasonings, then I had to let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours to allow all the flavors to blend. It was worth it. This pizza casserole, and it's hard to imagine that it helps you lose weight and is healthy, consists of a bottom layer of ground sausage, then a layer of sauteed mushrooms (I used baby bellos), and then a low-carb sauce on top of that. Then you spread some grated mozzarella over the top and place pepperonis on it.  Wow! That was yum! The pan was four servings in total. I had one. My husband ate two. They were huge servings. I put this in a 13 x 9 pan, and that means a serving was 1/4 of the pan! I put that on top of a bowl full of greens, and I topped it with some sour cream and nutritional yeast. That was my one meal, and it was totally worth the effort. I need to make that ...