Carnivore 75 Hard Redux: Days 25 & 26

sharkthelion (59)in #blog • 5 years ago

Today is a double post, which I haven't done so far during this particular round of the Carnivore 75 Hard challenge. It's something I did a lot during my first attempt, but I also gave up on that attempt after a couple of weeks. Truth be told, I sort of failed to meet some of my goals on day 25, but I'm not going to let it bother me much.

Part of the reason I didn't get in a post last night is good and part of it is bad. The good is that my wife and I spent the day doing fun things together like going to the art museum and going out for a nice dinner. Afterward, we came home and watch The Life Aquatic, which is an old favorite of ours. The bad is that I somehow ended up with one of the worst headaches I've had in quite some time and ended up going to bed really early, mostly in hopes that I could fall asleep and not feel the effects of the headache anymore. It worked, and I woke up feeling fine.

Headaches are not something I typically deal with, so it was unfortunate and odd that I ended up with one. My guess is that it had something to do with the ridiculous amount of coffee I drank earlier in the day which made me feel a little bit off, almost like a hangover. On the weekends, I tend to overdo it a little bit. Yesterday, I woke up hours before my wife did, made a pot of coffee, drink the entire thing, and then made another one closer to when she'd be awake and drank half of that one as well.

This morning, I am waiting to make any coffee until closer to when she'll wake up. Instead of a bunch of coffee, I had a big bottle of mineral water.

Nutrition & Healing - Day 25

The first thing I ate yesterday was the dinner I mentioned earlier. So that means this was my longest fast of the week at around 24.5 hours. We picked a restaurant specifically because they had steaks and also pasta and stuff that my wife likes. Unfortunately, they were out of steaks. They blamed it on Valentine's Day. I was going to get a tomahawk ribeye or a NY strip, but since those were both out, I got a 10 oz filet mignon. Is that a steak? I don't think so. It wasn't bad, but it's not my favorite cut of meat, that's for sure. It's too tender and lean. It also had a sauce on it, and I normally like my meat simply seasoned with salt.

Nutrition & Healing - Day 26

Only about 17 hours fasted today, but that's good enough, right? I made about a pound of steak tips in the air fryer and had that with some bacon and eggs as well. It was quite a filling meal!

Mindset

This video is first because it's the most positive one, but I watched it on Day 26, not day 25. I've enjoyed every interview I've heard so far with Dr. Rob Cywes, a doctor who specializes in addiction, including carbohydrate addiction. This sort of talk resonates with me because I'm an abstainer, not a moderator. In the past, I've dealt with addictions to many things. That includes the ones people usually think of such as alcohol, but it also includes carbohydrates. Hell, I used to just eat plain pasta as a snack when I was vegan. Or I'd just eat plain tortilla chips until they were gone.

The rest of these videos are sort of vegan bashing videos in a way, but... well, those are interesting to me as someone who spent 10 years in that camp but now sees it as flawed at best and dangerous at worst.

This is a video I watched on Day 25 that I found interesting. Neal Barnard (there's an error in the spelling in this video, but that's okay) is someone with whom I'm very familiar from my time within the vegetarian and vegan camps. He's come to be someone I consider to be utterly ridiculous. The claims he makes and the things he tries to accomplish are both extreme in the worst sense of the word.

He cherry-picks from epidemiological studies in order to present the idea that meat and animal products are deadly. Then he uses that misinformation to try to influence policy. Luckily, there are thousands upon thousands of people living lives that are actively proving his theories to be false. In a weird way, it's almost fun to watch him squirm a little bit.

Here's a video I watched early this morning that I felt was worth a share. This is an interesting video that anyone who thinks things like Beyond Meat are health foods should watch. If you look at the ingredients on these chemical slop patties, most of it (98% or so) is just water, two types of industrial oils, and pea protein. Despite this, the cost per pound of this stuff is several dollars more per pound than sustainably-raised beef.

I also started listening to a new book I got from Audible today. I started it on the walk with Stella T. Dog today.

Movement

For the first time during this Carnivore 75 Hard challenge, I failed to meet my goal of 10,000+ steps on Day 25. The daily Actifit post for that day sort of explains why if you happen to be curious. As always, you can find that post by clicking on the image below.

Day 25

Day 26 is a little different. Why is that? Well, every once in a while, Actifit doesn't register my steps. My activity tracker did, though, so I just took a screenshot from that app instead. Stella and I did go for a walk today finally, so I made up for the lack of steps yesterday. It doesn't really work that way, but.. well, it does today.