I didn't want to do my first Carb Day until I had lost 5 lbs but it happened. I did well for breakfast and lunch, then we went out for dinner. We went to a restaurant in our old neighborhood that we have not been to in several years. I ordered fish, and it was fried fish, although I prefer grilled or baked. My first thought was that the batter will only be a little bit of carbs, but then the words "baked potato" came out of my mouth. For a split second I thought I would just eat a bite or two, but then I decided it was Carb Day and I ate the whole thing. And I enjoyed it tremendously!


B eggs, mushrooms and sausage
L 1 avacado with lemon juice plus some meat I picked out of DH's canned
beef stew LOL
D fish, with salad, baked potato, mixed vegetables

I felt pretty full when I finished, but not stuffed. I know that Tim Ferris says to eat so much you feel sick from food. I'm sorry, but I did that for the past 20 years and look where it got me! I'll not be doing that again. I didn't eat anything after dinner again, so I'm doing very well with that. It's starting to feel normal, but I know that without diligence, I could still run amuck. I have been brushing my teeth. I even got a new toothbrush. And I've been sitting out on the porch for a while, and I won't eat out there, then I go into the bedroom and lie in bed watching TV and I actually forget about food.

Rennie, I'm so glad you're back to posting here. I know it's hard. But we realy do need this, even if we have tons of slip-ups. The days that we stay on plan are what's important.

I love this thread and all of you wonderful friends!

Mars, I buy my avacados at Aldi's and they are always like rocks. Funny story. I used to buy peaches when the kids were here. They would be so hard, but the kids wanted them so they would eat them hard, never giving them a chance to ripen. One time I put them into a brown paper bag and put them in the cupboard where they wouldn't see them. I forgot about them and found them a week or so later.....sooooo over-ripe!! I only like them when they are so soft and when you bite into them the juice runs down your chin.

Good luck to all who have a weigh in tomorrow after Carb Day! I will not get weighed tomorrow. Seeing a gain would upset me and make me feel like a failure. I will wait until around Wednesday to get weighed again

Jacqui, I just read your post. Be careful with that socket! Don't be in such a big hurry to get back to exercise.

I probably shouldn't say this, and I know you just had an extraction done, but twice when I had pain in my jaw it was heart related. Once I needed a stent, and the other time I ended up with quadruple heart bypass surgery. I get really, really scared when my jaw hurts!!!

Oh my, thank you for the heads-up, Carol Sue! The teeth are related to the heart somehow, so that's good information to know! And I'm so sorry you've been through all that but so glad for the modern medical technology that saved your life!

Dear Tim Ferriss,
I gained not 7 but 10 lbs after carb day. Does that mean I will lose extra weight on Slow Carb?


Jacqui When I read your post about really getting in to carb day, I went right back to the store and got a lot of quick carbs. A lot. It was an interesting experience to feel the lack of guilt on a plan I actually believe in.

But I have also been reading Carol Sue & Chickadee, and Rennie's's comments about gettng into trouble and needing to limit themselves a bit on carb day. I'm not sure where I'll land---I think I'm someone for whom the sweets are a slippery slope. I might jump on the scale tomorrow and see if I can breathe through it and move on. Then again I might wait a couple of days. Mostly, I expect I will feel energized by the carbs and ready to get back to regular Slow Carb. Have my fridge & freezer stocked up and tomorrow I'll cook up veggies for the week.

Jacqui I agree with Carol Sue that it's better to proceed with caution with exercise. Are you feeling better? Pretty scary, first about the possibility of dry socket, then about a possible cardiac issue. That was a good heads up from Carol Sue If you don't feel fine, I wouldn't hesitate to call your doc and/or dentist/oral surgeon. Not trying to scare you here, just encouraging you to take care of yourself if you need the nudge! We often don't want to "bother' the doctor, esp on the weekend. But hopefully you are feeling great now.

Carol Sue I had a similar resolve this morning about carb day. [I'm not capitalizing the words because I don't want it to loom too large in my psyche ]. Then I thought maybe I need some fast carbs I started out eating a heck of a lot of fatty, proteiny things, go figure. I even ate samples at Costco, lol! You are really rockin' it. Seems like when you set your mind to something, you do it. That made me chuckle about your kids not waiting for the peaches to ripen.

Rennie Sending you good thoughts for starting tomorrow. We'll be right there with you!

Chickadee i'm thinking of you among the trees filled with birds.

Meant to offer my congrats to you Jacqui for getting out there to exercise, even though you had a little scare, and even if you need to delay a bit. Still counts!

I try to spread the word about my jaw pain because it's a woman's warning sign of a heart attack but many people aren't aware of that. The first time I needed a stent my pain was across my collar bone. Not sharp pain, but an ache. There was a woman at work who, when I told her about my jaw pain told me this story. Her mother and dad were coming to her house for dinner. Her mother called and said she wasn't coming because her jaw hurt and she was going to lie down, but her father was coming. (DH would never go if I didn't feel good, and vice versa.) So her father came, and when he got back home his wife was dead of a heart attack. They did not know that jaw pain could be a sign of a heart attack. Women's warning signs are much more subtle than men's, with the crushing pain in the chest.

BUT, Jacqui, since you just had an extraction, that's a different story.

I didn't eat again last night, but I woke up this morning feeling VERY hungry. I also felt light, so I got on the scale and there was no change. Still at 200. I didn't really go to heavy with carbs, probably not the way the plan is supposed to be, but I'm not ready to do that yet. The plan is still too new to me. In the past, if I had a slip up and ate carbs or a very big meal, it could throw me off for weeks. I have never been one who could have a bad day and then shake it off. Also, I have to keep my blood sugar in mind. I am a little sad that I have to go at least another 5 days before I can have something like pasta, but I made my choice and that's that.

Mars, this is not typical of me, not in a long shot. If you were to look back in my profile at prior posts, you would find that I bounce around like a ping pong ball, from one WOE to the next, losing and gaining the same 5 lbs over and over, and this has been going on for a long time. Years. I have never had a significant weight loss like you guys have. I am finally fed-up! (No pun intended.) With some things, I tend to compare myself to others. If they can do it, so can I. I had a friend who drove a car with a manual transmission. I thought to myself, if she can do it, so can I, and I learned how to do it. I read these message boards and see so many people who have lost so much weight and it makes me feel so inadequate. These people don't have any magic potion, they just have determination and the willpower to keep doing the right thing day after day and losing the weight. There is no reason on God's earth why I can't do it too. One time when I was doing a cardiac stress test on a treadmill, I was 2/3 of the way through the test and I told the nurse that I didn't think I could continue. The cardiologist said "Yes she can, she just doesn't want to," and he made me finish. His words just keep ringing in my ears. I want to go eat a big plate of spaghetti, right now, at 7AM!!! But I won't. I can do this.

Mars, not only do we have birds, but on my walk with the dogs this morning, mother nature had the trees trimmed like Christmas. Spiders are creepy but God's creations are talented.

Mars, I am so proud of you for not freaking out! The most I've gone up after a carb day is 3-3.5 lbs, so I am very interested to see how your body handles this. (I don't mean to make it sound like an experiment, lol, but that's just how I handle my own progress. I'm always curious by it!) Your body must have snatched up every oz of water you had available and held onto it! I don't know how much water you drink each day, but I do know you have to drink water to lose water. If your body is convinced you don't have enough coming in, it will hold onto as much as it can. Don't overdrink water, of course, because that can dangerously lower your sodium levels. Drink half an oz for every pound you weigh, but no more than an oz for every lb you weigh. And drink it at a normal rate; don't gulp it down at all once. You have to keep your sodium levels in check. I am so curious to see how this jump up affects your metabolism! After you lose this 10 lbs again, will you have jump-started your metabolism to an even greater degree? Everybody is different, so we'll see! If I were to gain 10 lbs after Carb Day, this is how I would handle it: Like you, I wouldn't freak out because it is just water. (I highly doubt you ate 35,000 calories yesterday to gain 10 lbs of fat!) Then if the 10 lbs didn't fall off completely by the next Carb Day, I'd hold off a few days before I had another Carb Day and let things get back to normal. Then I'd slow down how many quick-carbs I ate on the next Carb Day and see what that does. Like I said, I do kind of view my progress as an experiment, so I'm not beyond playing around with it to see what works best for me! Eating till he feels sick may work for Tim Ferriss but it's not going to work for me! As I mentioned on here before, when I did this diet before, I found that the more quick-carbs I ate on Carb Day, the harder it became as time went by to pick right back up on eating only slow carbs the day after Carb Day. I did it of course, but I experienced more cravings the next day, so it just made it more uncomfortable for me. I'm trying to be more picky now on how many quick carbs I eat on Carb Days. That's why I said I ate more yesterday than I intended to eat, but again I didn't feel guilty about it because I'm allowed to eat as many as I want! I ended up wanting more yesterday, so I ate more! And my jaw pain is better today. Thank you for asking!

Carol Sue, I had heard of the collarbone pain being an indicator of a heart attack in women before, just like left arm pain is an indicator for men, but I had not heard of jaw pain before, so I am glad to know it! I do think, like you, that my jaw pain is related to my extracted tooth right now. It's not a terrible pain, and it has eased up today, so yay! I think I just have to take it easier. I have all the patience in the world when it comes to other people, but I am not a patient person when it comes to myself, and I tend to push myself too much whenever I'm sick or injured. Some things you just can't "snap out of" and I am very aware of that, but I'm still pretty impatient when it comes to me. I'm not stupid though, lol, so I recognize that I'm going to have to take things slower. I'm going to continue to exercise but slowly. If it's strenuous enough that I have to breathe out of my mouth, I'm going to slow down or stop altogether. I'm going to eat my food on one side of my mouth. I was starting to chew on the extracted side also. I'm just going to slow it all down now that I know the possibility of getting dry socket lasts for two weeks, not two days! And I'm sorry you have to wait on your pasta, but it will be a healthy wait, and I'm glad you got to enjoy your baked potato!

Chickadee and Rennie,

Thank-you for sharing that picture Chickadee! What a beautiful gift from Mother Nature. I ued to be terrified of spiders, and still am if one lands on my pillow Once I took a class about seashore animals and learned that spider are related to crabs and lobsters. I had this great teacher who explained what a big innovation it was for animals to have jointed legs, and how those legs work. The next time I encountered a spider, I couldn't help thinking about this tiny animal trying to coordinate and keep track of all those joints. You live in a beautiful place!
I watched a woodpecker nest from my window this spring--I was so worried the crows would get the chick--they were sure watching for it to fledge. I would wave a black plastic trash bag to scare them off, and I think I spooked the parents. The chick would peek out of the hollowed out tree truck nest and wait for food. I so worried when the chick disappeared. Then this morning I saw a woodpecker youngster flying around the trees & pecking away like a champ--I'm sure that was the chick I had watched.

I am finally marginally pulling out of my post carb day fog. I slept really late, felt groggy when I woke. Scale is 172.2, 5.4 lbs up. It will be interesting to watch the next few days. I think this process is really key. I don't want to lose another day to feeling so sluggish but on the other hand, I DID need a day to indulge and vegetate a bit after the week. Stacking up Saturday errands probably triggered the amount of fast carbs I decided to eat to balance things out. It's certainly a learning process and only time will tell if yesterday's indulgence leads me off track or keeps me going!

Carol Sue Thanks so much sharing the info about those warning signs for women. I hope you fed your hunger well today. Sorry to hear you feel sad about the long week in between carb days. I usually feel that way too. For some reason I feel ok this time, maybe because I know i don't need to go hungry in between. We'll see though--I still have a LOT of carbs in my system, way more than you!

I have been thinking about your post a lot. I think you have some challenges that others on the threads don't have, e.g. a DH who can & does eat carbs, and with whom you like to share meals. And taking care of a family, so you put everyone's needs first, even though your kids are grown. If you are taking meds for diabetes, they also can slow down weight loss, as well as the diabetes itself. Being exposed to those carb temptations day after day and doing as well as you have is a HUGE accomplishment . You've said that you don't have a choice because of the health issues, but there are plenty of people with those issues who continue their same eating patterns (I am closely related to some of them).

I lost 60-70 lbs a few times. The last time I was much heavier than the previous times and felt utterly stuck after several failed attempts. And I was older, post menopausal, etc etc. blood sugar was normal but creeping into the warning zone, and my knees hurt all the time. Someone even bigger than me was on the diet I eventually adopted and I saw him lose 100 lbs, looking healthy and energetic all the way down. Next, another co-worker was on the diet and described how workable it was and that she was losing well.

That's what got me going--I believed that the plan would work. And it did. Once you believe it's possible, it's easier to tap into your own inner strength.

Well, carbs sure make me gabby, heh heh!

Hi Jackie, I just missed your post. Thank-you so much for the encouragement and wise words. I was kidding about the 10, but also was posting that to allay my fear. If you hadn't written what you did about the 7lbs gain, I would be freaking out at my 6-ish lbs uppage.

I am so glad you're feeling better!

And I love your comment about big time fast carb indulgence. I think from now on I might avoid that, but I am so glad I did it because I let myself do it from the perspective of 'this is part of the plan". And it IS an experiment. I did not feel an oz of guilt. So what I do next week will be feel like a choice rather than a fear of letting go. This carb day is really important to me as a tool to learn about what makes me tick with my eating behavior. It sure is a tangled web for sure, but no one ever accused me of being uncomplicated, lol!

So today I do not feel carb energized, more like hung over a little. But that will recede and I WILL feel great, and have a few reserve carbs to keep me that way, along with the slow carbs. I really respect carbs and important they are for supporting mood, sleep, thinking.

Thank-you all for you feedback & suggestions, and just for thinking of me. It means so much.

I am beyond understanding what my body is doing! I ate a third of a LARGE pizza last night, and earlier in the day I ate a piece of carrot cake with cream cheese icing, ambrosia fruit salad (you, know, the sweet kind with the jello and marshmallows), bread, cheese, and waffles, and I took 4 ibuprofen for my jaw, and I weigh 204.5 again today! I got on the scale 3 times, moving it around twice, because I fully expected to gain at least 3 lbs! I give up trying to predict it! I've eaten only a baked potato and a single piece of chocolate candy on Carb day before and gained half a lb! It's not a complaint, mind you. I'm happy! I'm just confused, lol! I did get a better night of sleep last night and supposedly you lose the most weight overnight, so maybe that had something to do with it. It will be interesting to see if I continue to lose this week or if I just keep rattling around between 204.5 and 206.5.

Week 5: High 206.5, Low 204.5
5/31--(202.5) 206 Carb Day
6/1--(203) 206.5
6/2--(202.5) 206
6/3--(202) 205.5
6/4--(201) 204.5
6/5--204.5
6/6--205.5 Carb Day
Week 6: High 206.5, Low 204.5
6/7--206
6/8--206.5
6/9--205.5
6/10--206.5
6/11--205.5
6/12--204.5
6/13--204.5 Carb Day
Week 7:
6/14--204.5
6/15--
6/16--
6/17--
6/18--
6/19--
6/20--

Today's Meals:
Breakfast:
2 fried eggs
2 slices of bacon
Mio water

Lunch:
Oops! Forgot to eat lunch!

Snack:
A heaping soup-spoonful of Jif peanut butter

Dinner:
T-bone steak
Steamed broccoli and cauliflower
Baked beans
Mio Water

Today's Exercise:
Slow 4-mile walk around the track at the Y

Mars, lol! 5.4 lbs is much more understandable! For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how your body had held onto so much water overnight! Funny lady! I'm glad to hear you are just in the normal range of gaining weight after Carb Day!

Jacqui YAYYYYY!!!!! I say TAKE IT! Just goes to show this isn't a linear process!

Hm, I messed up today. I ate breakfast around 10 am. I should have had lunch around 2 pm, but my body didn't send me that cue, so I didn't think about the time. All I thought about is, it's midday so we have to make sure we get to the Y on time today because it closes early. We went to the Y at 2:45 and stayed till 4:30. We are going to have dinner around 5:30, which is a bit early for us, but I've just realized I forgot to eat lunch! That normally might not be a big deal but that is exactly the thing that triggers my reactive hypoglycemia, and it happens just about every single time I go on a diet. Either I'm not on a diet and I overeat or I'm on a diet and I forget to eat! When I was a teen and not overweight, I used to forget to eat all the time. I can't get away with that now. It will mess me up. I must pay better attention to time if my body is going to stop sending me hunger cues on time. Okay, and now I'm going to go grab some pecans because I don't think I'm going to make it till dinnertime. Now that I've sat down, I'm starting to feel the effects. I don't know if pecans will do it, but I'm going to see. I just have to remember to chew on one side, lol! What a bother! I hate getting old, although it is better than the alternative!

EDITED TO ADD: Went for the sugar instead. I realized pecans wouldn't be fast enough. I ate a heaping spoonful (using a soup spoon) of regular Jif peanut butter. We eat dinner soon.

Jacqui Wow, good thing you noticed! How about a using a
timer? Watches and smartphones seem to all come with them these days. I don't think I've EVER forgotten a meal. I hope you aren't concerned about the fast carb issue--it's medicine after all.

Really interested to hear how the new gym went. Sounds like a serious bout of exercise!

I'm working my way through chores and umpteenth glass of water.