Lessons Learned

The holiday is over. I'm back home - back in the environment where it's easier to control what I eat.

I stuck to my LCHF eating style to a large degree while on holiday. But there was the odd loosening here and there. Those bits of naan with the curry which I mentioned. An actual dessert one evening - well, it was our wedding anniversary. A couple of occasions when I ate the dressing which came with my salad, even though I was pretty sure there was either honey or sugar in it. The store bought curry on the evening we arrived home - 21g of carbs in that meal, which is as much as I often have in a day.

And these relaxations have consequences.

The dessert.... I tested my blood sugar an hour after eating, and it was 8.4. I hadn't seen a number that high for several weeks. Another hour later and it had gone down... all the way to 8.3. This is not good - there is evidence that glucose levels above 6.7 begin to do damage to  your small blood vessels. That's how diabetic complications arise. And I don't want them.

The other thing about the dessert is that within about half an hour of eating it my guts were feeling incredibly uncomfortable. I was very glad to get back to the hotel room... if you know what I mean. Now, that could be coincidence. Or it could be something else that was in the meal. But a lot of the people on LCHF facebook groups say that when they do eat refined carbs they get digestive issues.

Other consequences.... I am not as far into ketosis as I was. I didn't take the ketone meter with me, so I don't know what was happening while I was away, but this morning my ketones were only 0.6. Still in nutritional ketosis, but only just. So, I intend on dialling the carbs back down, and hopefully should see my ketones nudge up again.

My fasting glucose levels were pretty good through most of the week - aided, no doubt, by the two 10-mile walks we did on consecutive days, plus the amount of time spent on feet on the other days. Towards the end of the week when we were a bit less active, they crept up a bit, and this morning I measured at 6.2.  Again - a few days of strictness should bring them down again. Even so, my average for last week was 5.7, which matches my best so far.

And weight.... I didn't lose any in the week we were away, in fact I went up a fraction of a pound. BUT, I have one of those body fat measuring scales, and that assures me that I've lost 2lb of fat. And with my food intake and level of exercise, that's perfectly plausible. A likely explanation is that, with a slightly higher carb intake, I've retained a bit more water. Easily solved - ditch the carbs, ditch the water weight.

So, we'll see what happens over the next few days. Saturday, 5th November, will be 4 months since I started eating this way. A nice round interval over which to report the effect on my weight.