Last Day...

So this is the last day.  Today all I have to do is crunch my way through fourteen more little meals like the ones commonly served at zoos and we're done.  Here's a few thoughts on the experience this time, and maybe for the last time at least in India.  This would much be easier in the US... though far more expensive.

What I will miss:

• Spinach cooked in pork fat...too much trouble
• Chomping into raw onions... without the dietary restrictions my wife may feel more inclined toward me being fat than having this "snack"... 
• The nuts...too expensive to continue, 
• Coconut milk in my coffee and tea...again too expensive, 
• The trim look to my face...bet the carbs will bring the puff back with a vengeance but I have enjoyed the trimness 
• The coffee...  it's better than having bag of chips and distracts me from food by turning my thoughts to things like... starting pure green trans-atlantic shipping companies that rely on sailboats...maybe a bag of chips is not that bad after all...

What I will not miss:

• The thought "whoa that looks good, now what am I going to have for dinner...?" 
• Skipping chia
• Explaining to a rice-based diet population why I'm not eating rice (tantamount to insanity), 
• Seeing a pile of veggies turn into a few bites after 10 minutes in the pot, it's just withering to the soul.
• Eating orange seeds... hard to turn down any food that's officially sanctioned by the diet.
• The twinge of guilt while tossing a banana peel because after all...it is eatable. 

What I will retain:

• More real food, veggies, fruit, meat, nuts... really filling and tasty... because it's real food.
• Less junk.  Even my nemesis The Oreo...seems empty... like wasted eating.
• Sifting though my food domains and only eating when I'm actually hungry, not just bored, tired, angry, up late at night, watching a movie, or in the market near a chia-guy.

Countdown to Fit: Day 3

Ginger lives here...

Sagaar Khanda lives here...

Breakfast:  Eggs...  forgot to salt them and so the boys didn't eat very many of theirs.  I ended up eating most of them during my "clean-up" time which consists of me piling up dishes near the sink for someone else to wash... I hope that someone shows up soon, it's getting crowded in here.

Lunch: For lunch I had pressure-cooked vegetables seasoned at super-saturation level so that dry seasoning was actually precipitating out of the food as I brought each bite to my mouth.  Both dishes were meant to be eaten with a huge plate of rice and so the flavor is supposed to be able to spread out, but I can't have rice and so it's basically like eating two flavor blackholes (from which tastebuds do not return) at the same time.  

 Sagaar Khanda and ginger
I mean...they could at least
be cousins...

Dinner:   Half a Deviled Egg, Sagaar-Khanda (the local version of sweet potatoes) onions, and cauliflower stir-fried in pork fat and sunflower seed oil.   But the effect was weird.  I have a suspicion that I accidentally chopped up an entire root of ginger instead of the sweet potatoey things... they look similar and one lives just above the other in the vegetable high rise...  I think I'll pay for that later.  

I almost lost it when:  I realized that there was only three days left which means I've been doing this for 27 days which means that by rounding, I could arrive at nearest Whole-30.  But these are the kinds of thoughts that people have in the dessert, and so I ate a banana and tried to forget about the math if that's indeed what it was.  

Fit... hold your horses... I'm almost there.

Day 9 Countdown to fit..ter

I am actually eating less.  I know this because I don't go back for seconds, my portions are smaller, I am more quickly satisfied.  However.  I feel like I eat more.  Perhaps it's just that I have to work harder to do it.  I shop more, cook more, chew more and while  food takes up less of my thought time... ravenous cravings etc... it takes more of my actual time just getting it done.  Here is a sample of the fruit and grass that I will eat in the next 5-7 days... Now some of this will go to the children, and I think the grass is actually for a local cow, but the rest of this fruit will be peeled, chopped or slaughtered (in the case of pomegranates) and eaten, by me.  Today I ate 6 oranges at various times.  And after orange number three you stop bothering with the seeds and just eat them because darn it... they aren't off limits.  In any case it's day nine in the countdown to fit, and I feel great.  Perhaps there is a bit of tiger blood... but the tiger is either still a kitten, or is asleep.  Perhaps tomorrow he will roar but for now... I'm looking for another orange.

Day 20 Countdown

 So it's day twenty.  I've almost made it.  From here it's only a ten day countdown to pizza fit, and victory over carbs.  Of the permanent changes that this experience has wrought in me naught will I speak ere the end come (been reading Fellowship of the Ring lately).  But I can say, that onions... even raw onions have become close friends, and now fit into the category of "snack" in my mind.  A few days ago I found out that clarified (I prefer to say rarified) butter is allowed in the Whole 30 diet.  Luckily I'm in India and rarified butter, called Ghee, has a prominent place not only on the Hindu plate, but also figures largely in Hindu mythology, a kind of South-Asian Ambrosia, food for the more deific among us.  So it's easy to find, and cheap.  Though heavy in cholesterol it has been a welcome break from frying eggs and veggies in pig fat.  At this point it might be appropriate to take bets on what food I will break my carb fast with.  Pizza?  Oreos?  Ice Cream?  Milk and Peanut Butter Sandwich?  Toast with butter?  It's hard to say.  And now for the the last ten days.  Have just begun to look a bit thinner, but not enough to make a huge-impact if you will.  Mostly I just feel better.  Am skipping breakfast today because a handful of nuts was enough to today, I am just never ravenously hungry which is a welcome change from the last 36 years of ravenous...ness.   Let us see if I can make it all the way... to fit.

Day 18...Caving?

the nearest chocolate cake...very near indeed.

Today is just hard.  My wife is coming to my aid with the advent of her famous tomato soup for lunch today and yesterday we BBQ-ed some chicken, flavored with an olive oil, lime juice, cilantro mixture.  But still, Tiger blood my foot, I just want a peanut butter and Oreo sandwich with cheese and sugar on top as a side-dish to a big plate of rice.  I think maybe instead... I'll go get a haircut and a shave which is awesome here, includes a head massage and costs a whopping $.50  Argh...but maybe I'll just crank into the nearest chocolate cake instead.  Help.  

Day 17...Surviving the Village

after a huge breakfast of...everyone else's omelets

It's day seventeen, and I would love to say that I made it through our week in Sikkim with flying colors but it was more like... with flying cauliflower.  Sikkim is a little-known formerly-independant kingdom turned Semi-Independant Indian State.  It is developing quickly but there are still many small villages to be found with friendly people, no shops and tons of rice and lentils.   To one very kind lady who was trying to give me rice I said
   
Me:  Hoina...Adja-bholi ma bhaat khaadina...
        No please...These days I am not eating    rice...       
Lady:  Bhaat Kanuhunna?!   Kina?!
          You are not eating rice...Why?!

in Rumtek looking East toward Gangtok, early morning

Me:  Kinabane mero dzyulai break garnu chahanchu.
        Because I want to break my body.
Lady:  Eh?!
           What the...?!
Me (realizing my mistake):  Kinabane chini bata mero dzyulai chutti dinu chahanchu.
        Because I want to give my body a holiday from sugar.

And it did mostly feel like a holiday except whenever sweet sweet sweet chia was served (this was like every 10 minutes or so) and it felt like a scene out of Dante's inferno, you know... hell level seven for people who ate too much sugar... always smelling never tasting.  Not eating rice here was tantamount to self-starvation because honestly... if you're not eating rice... what else is there?  Except for a few sips of chia and a big fried chickpea chip, I made it by toting along cooked cauliflower, boiled eggs, plenty of nuts, and coffee.   The sugar cravings are still bad, today for instance I think I could take down a super sized Hershey's Chocolate bar by myself in under a minute... but I am pushing forward to... fit.

Day 12: Gettin back on the horse...radish

I have begun again.  It is now round two, day 12.  Yesterday I went on a picnic with the family and had rice and chilli-chicken but my rice was actually stir-fried cauliflower.  It's a great substitute.

This time I am going to focus not so much on meat but on volume of vegetables.  I am past the initial sugar cravings and oreo dream sequences, and am pushing forward hoping for the promised tiger blood of days 20-30.  Tomorrow I travel north into Sikkim, which is deep in the bowels of rice and bean territory.  For ensuing battle am arming myself with cauliflower, boiled eggs, nuts, coffee, oreos, fruit and resolve to finish.  Check here for updates as I again attempt to answer the question... will I be fit... or fat?