#bantinglikewilliam

Banting dinner part 2!

My first Banting dinner! Pepperoni, leftover palak, three little rusk like crackers, claret, sparkling water, and other food tbd, probably gyro slices. Tea not pictured because I chugged it, Constant Comment is lit.

So I made several mistakes and had several victories today.

Mistakes:

- Reorganizing kitchen so no way to cook right now, and I did not sleep well, so when I got hungry I also got lazy. I had a few ounces of butter, a protein shake and half a small bag of keto almond crackers like I would normally do keto. By 8pm I had a stomachache, a mild headache, and burps. It was almost 12 hours in between meals which I think was a big mistake because I was active and moving about for hours. I don't do well if I don't sleep more than 6 hours and don't eat during the day. Breakouts, colds, all kinds of mildly annoying things happen. Since eating my symptoms have improved greatly, but after eating everything on the plate except the salmon and most of the two beverages I'm still feeling bloated and will have more baking soda water apres diner.

- Forgot salmon was forbidden. I didn't have a problem not eating it though- this was a different brand of smoked salmon than I usually buy and it smelled and tasted like ointment, so I only had a small bite. I'm gonna take it back, it's that bad, I wouldn't even give it to my dog as a treat.

- Thought I had berries in the fridge, but they were moldy.

Victories:

- I had never heard of Claret, and so imagine my surprise when I found it at Walmart. I read up on it and was prepared to buy Bordeaux or Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, but Francis Coppola made it easy! It's smooth and very good, not too sweet or acidic.

The Great Banting Like William Experiment begins!

I had my baking soda water upon waking (not a tablespoon, I'll get more into that later).

My first Banting breakfast! Starbucks tea, Trader Joe's grass fed beef roast, and half a keto hotdog bun (you better believe I'm buying real bread and rusks (Melba toast or similar) later today!

Yes, I will be eating real bread (no sugar added) and fruit and drinking red wine and chewing nicotine gum. There is a reason I am choosing to experiment with straight up antique Banting, and I'll probably go into that in a lot more depth later. But suffice to say for now that IF tends to make my immune system take a nose dive and I can't take any more nausea and headaches and low blood pressure I get with the keto flu. I am in ketosis right now, lightly, because I didn't have an appetite yesterday and ate very little (confirmed last night with ketostix). But the last time I got into deep ketosis, even without strict IF, I felt awful for three days.

In the past I figured out I can use alcohol to put the brakes on the keto flu and fix the symptoms I tend to develop by the late evening with a meal and a drink or two. So although it runs contrary to common advice, I think it will work well for my personal situation. Plus I'm already riding the yellow pony (nicotine, don't start if you haven't kids, you may NEVER get that monkey off your back).

I once asked an expert what he thought about the original Banting diet, and he was concerned about epigenetics. Also, there is the fact that I am a woman, and also that when I start working again I can't be having multiple glasses of wine at lunch. And I don't think most American meat is fatty enough to not use butter. I dipped the bread in the au jus, but the roast was dry and I had to make an extra cup of tea to get it down and chewed an inordinate amount. I'm also curious what eating this way will do for my microbiome and digestion. I find ramping up fat quickly seems to be rough on my poor pancreas, and although nothing abnormal happens I do have looser stools and gas. Maybe all this dry stuff and cutting out dairy will help ease me into low carb in a more gentle way.

Fun fact: I am starting The Great Banting Experiment at almost the exact same weight as Banting was when he started: 203 pounds. He was 202. I will be recording my weight in the same time intervals that he did to compare my progress with his. I'm PMSing so I expect the first weight loss to be more than his was over his first 12 days (which was only 2 pounds) due to water weight.