1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 33 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
3 ankle weights missed

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 34 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
4 ankle weights missed

My plan will be to practice these 2 habits for 3 months or so. I began January 2, 2017 and will see how I feel and consider the benefits April 1 , 2017. I'll post observations and or struggles when they occur.

1) Avoid Sweeteners: This includes natural as well as lab made.

2) Avoid "un-healthier" Oils: ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/ ) In particular oils high in PUFA and/or over processed.

Observations:

1) Oil's are the easiest to avoid as there is no real pleasure center difference that I can tell between eating PUFA and saturated fat. This is more of a mental discipline by paying attention to any food that I don't make myself (maybe once or twice a week average?)

2) Sweeteners are more of an "emotional" discipline as the thought of having something sweet (my habit would be ROCKSTAR energy drink with sucralose) pop into my head situationally or even randomly. There is still a slight urge to act on that feeling but fairly soon after I remind myself I'm skipping on that stuff for 90 days the feeling goes away. The trailing feeling is kind of like the feeling of loss, it is brief tho. Now I can count on the feeling, not acted upon, to fade quickly.

It's going pretty good, still have periodic dry skin on my face, I might look at my use of "night shade" foods next. I eat A LOT of peppers both mild and extremely hot. It would suck to remove those from my diet but if that's what causes skin issues it would be worth knowing

Nightshade foods are an interesting bunch, as I too like and use them a lot in my meals. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant are the ones most frequently in my pantry and meals. The most common claim is that they can trigger or worsen arthritis in some. Before going low carb, I was starting to get some pain in my hand joints. Since going low carb, I no longer have any pain, despite the fact that I include nightshades in my dishes. Not sure if there are any other minor symptoms that might be the result of my nightshade consumption, but the recommendation for people who may be candidates for these issues is to cut them out of the diet for 4-6 weeks to determine whether they are the cause. Thud, I'm in the same boat as you, my friend. I eat spicy foods and have tomatoes in my salads and make a mean eggplant sausage Ratatouille, which is a reunion of the nightshade family with tomatoes, eggplant, spices in sausage, peppers, the whole clan seems to be there! It's said that cooking helps minimize the effect.

Here's a couple links that may provide some information for those who are nightshade sensitive. I may be one as well, so it would be a fairly radical change in my meal planning. For me, I'll get through this 90-day challenge (you're a tough taskmaster!!!) first, before I try something else. Hey, I'm not a monk!

From Weston A. Price:
http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/nightshades/

From PaleoLeap:
http://paleoleap.com/nightshades/

Thanks Rob, I'll check those articles out. I'm thankful that, even when eating grains and stuff, I've never suffered from joint problems/pain. I first condidered dropping night shades mabye a year ago since I would make everything off the chart spicy in the corse of that time and with intermittent fasting (which seems to make my tastebuds livelier) I've cut WAY back on spice chilies but still used the fleshier ones quite a bit.

I have enough other types of vegetables that I can use if I decide to eliminate them. Like the sweeteners, it's harder to "Think" about eliminating them from the diet than actually doing the work day by day.

Thanks again for your reply!

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 35 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
4 ankle weights missed

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 36 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
4 ankle weights missed

1) No artificial sweeteners. No diet soda, no sucralose, no aspartame.
2) Dairy elimination trial. Saying goodbye to cheese, HWC, cottage cheese, and even butter for a while.
3) Track food daily and keep calories under 2200 and net carbs < 35 on average for the duration of this challenge.

The streak is over. I have some strikes to report.

Strike 1: I had dairy as part of my lunch last Sunday. I was visiting my daughter at college to help her on a project. She had prepared a low carb meal for me in advance (Alfredo chicken over spaghetti squash). I did not tell her that I was now going dairy free. I at the lunch.

Strike 1/2: I have remained artificial sweetener free for 2017. But for a 10 day period ending a few days ago I was accidently consuming an unintended natural sweetener... sucrose (regular sugar). I was using a Truvia baking blend without realizing it. It is a blend of regular sugar and SF natural sweeteners. It was adding a significant number of extra carbs to my diet and totally messed up the value and accuracy in tracking my food.

Strike 5: After the baking blend fiasco, I found myself getting that need to snack back. I didn't log everything I ate for a few days. This past weekend I was out of town and did not track. I'm going to be doing some fasting and I'll start tracking again when it is completed. I do find that I am getting hungrier now that I have added cardio workouts several times a week to my routine. That 2200 calorie limit may be tough to achieve. If blended in with periodic IFs or fasting the average should be OK.

As far as the dairy free experiment goes, I have some observations to report:

1) Even though going dairy free had a major impact on my daily food selections, it wasn't really all that hard to do. I like dairy products and consumed them often. But after a short adjustment period I am quite OK with not having them. There was really no "withdrawal symptoms" from going dairy free as there was with kicking the carb habit early on in the diet. Apparently dairy products have no addictive properties for me.

2) I didn't really notice any improved health from going dairy free. I still get occasional unexplained nasal drip. I thought that it might be a histamine response to dairy. It doesn't look like it.

3) After going dairy free for more than 30 days, the dairy heavy meal that I had at my daughter's apartment had no ill effects. If I were sensitive to dairy, I would have expected some sort of reaction to so much cheese. One of the great things that has happened to me since going low carb is how sensitive I am to how well I am eating. If I eat some crappier OP food options (like pseudo food - aka Atkins bars or something containing wheat) I typically feel it (and not in a good way). When I stick to eating simple, real OP food - I feel great. After eating the dairy I still felt great.

My point here is that I don't think that I have any issues with dairy. I'm not sure that I will make this a permanent change. I still do want to see how going dairy free affects my LDL cholesterol. I will carry on with the challenge through to the end. I will decided what to do after the challenge and after my next lipid panel in March.

Awesome and insightful update Ken. Thank You!

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 37 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
5 ankle weights missed

Truth is that I hate doing the ankle weights even though it's not very hard to do and doesn't take a lot of time. I have to decide if I will continue or just figure all my hill walking is keeping my legs fit and be content with that. Of course yesterday was a nasty snowy icy day although I managed to get my walking done early before the snow ice mess started. Today is probably slippery out there so who knows how much walking and tomorrow is supposed to be a moderate snow storm so also maybe not any outdoor walking. Maybe I should force myself to do the ankle weights.

Jean - sounds like the ankle weights are insurance for when bad weather hits. I agree with your observation, I've noticed that when there's a portion of a fitness activity I dislike, I tend to avoid it, and it's easy to understand why. There are things that I don't like doing on a regular basis, but are great for indoor (inclement weather) purposes, so cutting back makes it a little easier.

Ken - one thing I'm noticing is that a 90-day challenge in some cases can be a challenge. I've also had to avoid dairy as a guest at someone's house (Super Bowl), and I've been polite a couple times and had a small amount of cheese, as the host purchased something specifically for me due to being low carb. I have noticed during the time I was 100% dairy free, that my skin has improved due to (I believe) the absence of cheese. I will continue to forge ahead with this 90-day challenge, since I feel the period of time will really give me a good sense of whether I should consume dairy, and what types of dairy cause me the most inflammation. I'm curious if you're still planning a blood test, as that should be revealing regarding how your blood lipids look in the absence of dairy. Thanks to Thud for arranging an elimination protocol that enables us to learn about ourselves.

Was an interesting food day. Getting food on the run. Dinner time was thinking about a bunless burger from Culvers and thinking "I'll just get the mayo, no, maybe I'll just get mustard..." Then decided to drop into a fancy grocery store and have their salad bar (by the lb) and got to the end and saw those tastey dressing that i'm sure had soy bean oil in them - there was a bottle of olive oil and Red Wine Vinegar so I used those and it was pretty good. I did really want to dump a bunch of blue cheese dressing on those greens and meat tho.

No trouble with sweeteners yesterday, would have thought more trouble with all the time in the car. A favorite place of mine to have beverages.

1. only 1 ounce of sunflower seeds a day (for the vitamin e)
2. meditate twice a day (morning and evening)
3. strength training (dumb bells) 3 times a week)
4. strength training (ankle weights) 3 times a week.

Day 38 accomplished
2 morning meditation missed
2 evening meditation missed
5 ankle weights missed
1 day eating more than 1 ounce sunflower seeds
1 day dumb bells missed

I seem to be in a slump, lacking motivation. I'm blaming it on too much winter weather.

My plan will be to practice these 2 habits for 3 months or so. I began January 2, 2017 and will see how I feel and consider the benefits April 1 , 2017. I'll post observations and or struggles when they occur.

1) Avoid Sweeteners: This includes natural as well as lab made.

2) Avoid "un-healthier" Oils: ( http://www.marksdailyapple.com/healthy-oils/ ) In particular oils high in PUFA and/or over processed.

Observations:


Good weekend for me staying away from the sweeteners and the oils. I can only recollect 2 sweetener thoughts, again, revolving around getting coffee. Coffee is fine without it and I think I tend to drink less if not sweetened.

I'm about half way thru my 3 month trial of avoiding PUFA oils and all sweeteners. So far so good.

My thinking today is that I may add some PUFA oils (non heated) as a convenience when eating out but turn away from their ownership and use at home (goodbye store bought mayo for instance) I've done this with cheese and it's worked out very well for me. I had a couple of cheese sticks yesterday waiting for my car to be repaired. I can't remember the time before that I had it. I think that will be a good solution after the 90 day practice.

Sweeteners; I've made the break and I don't think I'll go back to using them at all. There is no reason to use then other than to light up the brain. At least that's what I think is true for me. And I also believe they lead to over consumption. personal observation...

When I was using sweeteners in my coffee (mostly driving) There was hardly EVER an empty cup in the cup holder. I'd slam the rest down before going inside, mmmm delicious! Now, with no sweeteners, there is often coffee left in the cup, blech gross!

See what I mean, I need less "mmm delicious" in my mouth. Food is pleasurable but I'm coming to an understanding that it's first function should be proper fuel and maintenance for the body. Sugar is out so why pretend with the other stuff (Like I pretend with Shirataki noodles - at least I can remain hypocritical - I wouldn't want to loose that valuable trait! )

Explore on Sisters and Brothers!