An Angel On the Block

Posted on 16/01/2021 by Grumpa Joe

This morning I slept late even though I went to bed early. My body must be sending me a signal. I lifted the shade next to my bed and saw a winter wonderland. It had snowed during the night and everything is covered in the white fluffy stuff. Oh well, I thought I won’t need a walk today, I’ll substitute shoveling.

I dressed, put on some coffee spiced with cinammon and scoured the fridge for breakfast. I decided my Keto meal would consist of soft boiled eggs, a hunk of Romano cheese, three slices of bacon, and a small cluster of green grapes, yummy. My plan was to eat, dress for outside, and to move snow. I peeked outside and saw a miracle. My entire driveway and the walks in front of the house were absolutely clean, a miracle, or at least a giant good deed by a neighbor. I looked to the left, the neighbor’s walks and drive were still under snow, the same held for the right, but there across the street was a very clean drive and walkways. I spied the remnants of a trail leading from the street toward my drive. It was Tom, he is the angel. Thank you Tom.

Morty Angel on Skye Scooter

That act of mercy left me with more time to kill in front of my computer sitting on my stagnant ass processing KETO into fat instead of using KETO to burn fat.

Yesterday was Friday, and I thought why not treat myself to a home cooked meal?  I haven’t cooked in a couple of weeks so I won that debate with myself. The meal would be Chicken Paprikas over one serving of rotini. It turned out delicious and I was pleased. By making rotini I saved the effort of making the usual companion piece of home made egg dumplings called nokedli. Had I made the nokedli I am certain the portion size would have been much larger than that of the rotini. That difference would have kicked me out of ketosis and ruined a week of dieting.

Now it is time to bundle up and take a walk in the fresh clean winter air.

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It’s Not Keto

Posted on 16/09/2020 by Grumpa Joe

What a great day! The sun is shining, the temperature is in the seventies, and I am sitting cooped up inside writing this post. I’m busy eating snacks made with my Keto bread that I baked yesterday. Today, at the Dollar store, I bought a smaller bread pan for my next try. I am convinced that I can make a bread that will satiate my hunger for bread.

It is the time of year when the days grow shorter and the body craves food. I feel like a bear who is eating anything and everything to get ready for winter. The problem is that the bear loses all the weight he put on while he hibernates, but I won’t. My weight and waistline will continue to grow all winter. Unless of course, I fight off the urges and continue with my Keto diet.

Without my bike riding activity, I have packed on an extra thirty pounds and it really affected me in many ways. First, I was so heavy that riding my bike was a great effort. I had to buy clothes that fit at least three times, and I felt crappy all the time. My back aches increased in frequency and severity, nothing I did would make it go away worked. I was afraid to bend over for fear of getting the pain that resembled an ice pick in the back. The more I ate the more I wanted to eat. I was sleepy all the time, even after sleeping for ten hours. I tired easily on walks, therefore I didn’t walk. The weight gain was a death spiral for me. I had to do something.

One of Peg’s grand daughters who is skinny told me she was on a Keto diet. I asked her why she wanted to lose weight when she didn’t have any to spare. She told me it wasn’t for weight loss, but for feeling better. I liked the name Keto and began looking into it. I learned that in my lifetime I had used the Keto diet several times, and each time I lost substantial weight. In my day it was referred to as the low carb diet.

Ketogenic Foods

People now get sick of me telling them “it is not Keto” when they tempt me with some scrumptious pastry or potatoe dish. I do it as a positive reinforcement for myself. I notice that as soon as I stop saying it is not Keto that I begin to cheat. I cheat enough as it is because I refuse to give up drinking wine. I gave up wine for a month and it didn’t affect my weight one ounce, so I continue to drink wine in moderation. I also find myself switching to the hard stuff which is Keto. The hard stuff like vodka or scotch has a noticeable effect on my feelings. Like I get hangovers after a night of martinis. Although I felt weird and had a hangover after drinking more than my usual glass of wine after my last Lions Club meeting.

One day soon I will reach my weight goal, and I wonder what I will do then? In order to stay Keto, I’ll also have to cut calories to match my activity. In other words, I’ll be be starving, and starving is not a good feeling.

What I need is Keto.2

. . . and that is all I have to say about that.

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A New Record Set

Posted on 24/10/2019 by Grumpa Joe

It has been over a month since I last entered an original post. Why I have taken such a long vacation from writing I cannot explain. Maybe it is because I became deeply involved in clearing clutter from my home. At the same time I jumped head over heels into a new diet to lose my belly. It ain’t easy starving to death. People ask me why I am on a diet and I tell them I am tired of my belly hanging over my belt and bouncing off my knees. That is a slight exaggeration for effect, but my belly is enormous compared to when I rode my bike three thousand miles a year.

Which diet you ask? It is called the Keto diet. I’ve done it before a couple of times with pretty good success when it was simply referred to as a low carb diet. It is the no more bread, no more cakes, donuts, candies, no more potatoes, rice, or anything with carbohydrates diet. Keto tries to keep me below twenty grams of carbs per day.

The trick with this diet is to fill up on proteins and fat. Eggs are a staple and bacon a must. This morning I made a chicken salad for breakfast and was without energy by noon. I used up the chicken breast which doesn’t have any fat. That’ll teach me to skip a rasher of bacon. To cure the problem of no energy, I cheated and had a nice carb loaded peach for lunch with two slices of greasy salami spread with cream cheese to tide me over. Why is a peach not Keto? It has too much natural sugar and takes me over the daily limit of carbs.

Keto is short for ketosis. When your body does not have carbohydrates to use as fuel it automatically goes into ketosis and the mechanism converts stored body fat into energy. Most people on this diet rave about how fast it works. Their biggest problem seems to be finding clothes that fit. The old jeans just slide right off their asses. Not me. It’s been ten weeks and I’m down ten pounds, but my pants are a long way from slipping off. Nonetheless, I am determined to reach my goal to be as slim as I was thirty years ago. That means I have another twenty pounds of myself to abandon.

I am upset that I lost only ten pounds, yet I can feel the effect, it is easier to tie my shoes, I can see my toes again, I can button some of my dress shirts without straining the material, I can pinch several inches now. The goal is to pinch an inch of skin at the waist. When I started, my belly fat was so firm I couldn’t pinch four inches, now I pinch two, ahh progress. Does that make me a progressive?

Maybe my next post will chronicle my experiment with CBD oil.

 

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Irish Diet

Posted on 14/11/2013 by Grumpa Joe

Grumpa Joe is in need of some serious weight loss so he fell for this diet, hook-line-and sinker.

My Weight Loss Coach

My Weight Loss Coach (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

An Irishman was terribly overweight, so his doctor put him on a diet. 

“I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, then eat regularly again for 2 days then skip a day …
And repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least 5 pounds.”

When the Irishman returned, he shocked the doctor by having lost nearly 60 lbs.! 

“That’s amazing!” the doctor said, “Did you follow my instructions?”

The Irishman nodded…

“I’ll tell you though, be all the saints, I tot I were going to drop down dead on dat turd day.” 
 
“You mean from the hunger?” asked the doctor. 

“No, from the bloody skipping!” 

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Words of Wisdom

Posted on 26/01/2010 by Grumpa Joe

“I don’t like it”, I said, when Mom put something on the table.  Most of the time, if I didn’t like the way a dish looked, I hated it immediately.  When Grampa Jim over heard my complaint, he said,

“If you were hungry, you would eat rusty nails.”

I don’t think I have to interpret that one. Grampa Jim, Mom, and Dad too, all came from very poor families. They often went hungry for lack of food.

Mom served potatoes often, but Dad would not eat them.  We asked him why?  His reply was “I ate enough potatoes in the old country.”

He was sixteen when he left Hungary to come to America. That means his diet must have been all potatoes for siixteen years. What else could kill his appetite for more?

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