Steak Day!
Good morning, friends. Despite no turkey yesterday and a decent BM this morning, my weight jumped again--148 this morning, which puts me 2.8 above LIW. Yikes.
Still not entirely sure what's going on as there are too many variables, unfortunately. Here are some possibilities:
1. TOM is coming, though it's scheduled for 10 days away. However, I am perimenopausal, so there's no telling, really, where I am in my cycle. No tell tale pimples yet, though I was ravenously hungry yesterday which is often an indication.
2. Turkey and the fact that my turkey was pre-brined with a solution that included sugar. Though yesterday I didn't eat any turkey.
3. I did A LOT of exercise yesterday and am sore today (see yesterday's post about lugging and stacking a full cord of firewood for two hours), a clear indication of normal water retention from muscle inflammation.
4. Yesterday I ate A LOT of food, and some things that could potentially cause problems. Two dishes that included pine nuts and raisins, for one. A significant amount of coconut cream. The last of my weird holiday pie plus a piece of my birthday chocolate cake. And my mother's caponata, which is heavy on nightshades, and I hadn't eaten any eggplant in months--long before I began my HCG round in September.
5. I probably drank 1/4 the amount of water I normally do yesterday.
A perfect storm, perhaps, especially given that my weight was already on the uptick. But it's such a challenge to understand weight gain in this new world in which I can't really rely on calories in, calories out the way I used to. I didn't think my food was too sugar-starchy yesterday, as even the desserts were P3 compliant. But oh well. Here's what i actually ate:
pre-breakfast: bulletproof coffee with 1 t each ghee and mct oil plus vital proteins collagen
breakfast (four hours later): two slices bacon, two eggs scrambled with kale and a couple spoonsful of caponata (eggplant relish including celery, onion, red pepper, tomatoes, olives, capers, pine nuts, raisins, red wine vinegar, evoo)
lunch: banh mi bowl with pasture raised ground pork, homemade pickled veggies (using swerve and white vinegar), raw spinach, cucumber, 1 T homemade mayo; then I also had a piece of holiday pie with coconut cream (against all grains recipe pumpkin pie)
dinner: sicilian cauliflower with beef (ground beef and cauliflower with an herby vinaigrette plus pine nuts and raisins) and a big slice of my keto chocolate cake
The pine nuts and raisins in both the caponata and beef with cauliflower were more of an accent than a central feature of each dish.
I also began taking a new herbal supplement from my ayurvedic practitioner that calls for mixing the herbs with honey but she told me I could mix mine with ghee given my dietary restrictions. So I also had an extra two teaspoons of ghee yesterday with those herbs that are meant to act as an expectorant to help continue to clear the remnants of COVID-19 in my body.
In short, if anyone can offer thoughts, advice, insight, I'm all ears. But there's a lot going on, right? Yesterday was also the most food I've eaten in a day probably since P3 started. I was genuinely hungry, though.
Anyway, I'm not freaking out about it, despite the length of the post that might suggest otherwise.

I took a lovely grass-fed T-Bone out of the freezer and have an apple on hand for my first and only meal of the day tonight. I have so much to accomplish today it's actually perfect timing for a fast so I don't have to think about or spend time preparing and eating food. And I keep telling myself a steak day is built into the program, so to have to do one is not that big of a deal.
It does make me want to double down on my commitment to listening and being responsive to my hunger and satiety cues, however. I do worry a bit that last week's holidays and holiday eating could potentially begin a slippery slope of returning to an old pattern of overeating and using food to celebrate, which is frankly emotional eating. I think once in a while is normal, but slipping into an entire season of it, as I've done in past years, not slowing down or being mindful about it until after New Year's, is definitely a pattern I'm very much committed to breaking. So maybe this happening now and requiring a steak day is perfect timing. A way to hit pause and correct. Take stock of my behavior with food. Become more mindful.
And so that is my intention for this steak day: to use it to start again with a fresh week and a fresh perspective. Return to the path.
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