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Likesspace
Sun, Nov-20-11, 20:36
Long time lurker here, even though I don't post much at all.

Anyway, here's my gripe:

My dad is disabled, and has been feeling a lot of loneliness after losing my mom last February.
He lives alone and unfortunately we are only able to spend time with him on the weekends.
Anyway, a few weeks ago we planned a Saturday out with my dad.
My family and I are into hiking and about 2 hours from our home we have some awesome hiking trails that my dad has never gotten to see or enjoy.

Well I knew that some of these trails could possibly, (if you really stretched your imagination), be considered as wheelchair accessible so yesterday we loaded up my dad and his wheelchair and I spent the day pushing him up and down a few different trails.

Now just so you know, this is not what ticks me off. Even though I could barely walk today, (and I do exercise daily), we all had a great time, especially my dad.

What does tick me off is that the last thing that we decided to do was to stop at a local Ryan's restaurant for dinner, before heading home, and that's where the trouble began.....

Even though I was pretty much famished by the time we arrived at the restaurant, I had decided beforehand that I was not going to break my diet. At that point nothing sounded better than a nice salad and a piece of steak, or baked fish.

Well once we got into the restaurant I saw that they not only had steak but also pulled pork on the buffet. Those both sounded good as did the boiled cabbage and the green beans.

Now guys, that is all that I ate. I admit that I did overeat, but I would guess that all told I had 8 oz. of steak, a cup of cabbage.....possibly 3/4 cups of green beans and maybe 6 - 8 oz. of the pulled pork, (hey, I did a LOT of work shoving that wheelchair down some moderately difficult trails!).

Anyway, once I got home (about an hour and a half later) I started to get these temptations to eat some. It wasn't as if I was hungry, but I just wanted to nosh on something.
Now about the only time that I feel like snacking is when I've ingested carbs. As long as I stay very low carb this never happens so I started to suspect something was off.

Well I resisted the urge to eat (okay, I did give in and had a small handful of mixed nuts), and went to bed early. I was tired and that seemed like the easiest way to get rid of the cravings I was having.

Well to make a long story short, my gripe is this......

I got up this morning, got on the scale and found that I weighed 2.2 lbs. MORE this morning than I did yesterday.

Now I've been at this long enough, (since 2003), that I know this is not a true fat gain but I've also been at this long enough to know that I DID ingest a sizable amount of carbs to have this much of a water weight gain, overnight.

The only thing that I can figure is that the steak had been marinated in a sugar based solution and that the pulled pork also had sugar, (probably brown sugar), added, during the cooking process.

You know, this really ticks me off. I went into this restaurant, thinking I was eating on plan and walked out feeling really good about myself.

It just disgusts me that you can't even eat what LOOKS like regular meat and vegetables and not be sure that there is nothing added to make it more palatable to the masses. I guess I should have known, but I never really gave it a seconds thought.

Anyway, live and learn. I did a massive workout this morning and have been slugging water as fast as my body can take it. I'm pretty sure that from here on out I'll just be eating what myself or my wife cook and be happy with it.

This has been bothering me all day and my family is sick of hearing me rant and rave about it. Because of this, I decided to break down and actually make a post on one of my favorite websites. :-)

Thanks for listening.

Dave

Brinethery
Sun, Nov-20-11, 21:13
Did you taste the sugar in the meat?

I went to Ivar's fish and chips here in Washington and tried the cole slaw. I took one bite and could taste the sweet.

You'll get the hang of dealing with restaurants. Check the nutrition info on their website/in the restaurant and if you detect sweet, then don't eat :-)

LaZigeuner
Sun, Nov-20-11, 23:09
Dave, after all that working out pushing the wheelchair, I'm sure there's water retention in your muscles as well. And don't forget glycogen restocking, which bring water with it.

I'm learning more and more (and your experience is going into my bag of knowledge) that one can't trust ingredients at restaurants at all. I've found a few places that I can rely on the servers to report the ingredients accurately. But I have to ask. Always. Mom and sis do as well, though for them it's because they both have celiac disease. (And if the server looks annoyed at asking about ingredients or fetching the chef, we just write that restaurant off as a place that's not hospitable to us.)

ETA: my first experience with WTH ingredients in places it would not occur to me to be wary was in Texas. I ordered scrambled eggs with breakfast. They were made with a small amount of PANCAKE BATTER, to make them fluffier, you know. :Puke:

aj_cohn
Sun, Nov-20-11, 23:30
You exerted yourself quite a bit. Bodies want to replenish themselves quickly after intense exertion (that's why we "work up an appetite.") By your own account, you ate a lot of protein and not much fat, your body's typical (but slow-burning) fuel source So, it's possible the cravings you felt were at least partly the results of two factors:

Your body's signal to refuel with a readily-available fuel source: carbs
Gluconeogenesis, the conversion of protein to glucose

Or the food could have just contained carby crap.

And the weight: that's water weight from the muscles restocking their glycogen.

Nancy LC
Sun, Nov-20-11, 23:34
I always gain weight after an especially big workout. It's just muscles hanging onto water.

SylvieK
Mon, Nov-21-11, 05:20
I don't consider meat in supermarkets or restaurants an LC-safe option anymore. A few months ago I bought a steak at the supermarket, and noticed it looked a little weird before I cooked it, like there were separate pieces. When I cooked and ate it had a very similar reaction, odd cravings for carbs, like I'd just eaten something high in MSG or sugar. I felt like I was on a roller-coaster ride of cravings that I didn't want to take!

It seems that "flavor solutions" with undisclosed ingredients are routinely added to meat, as well as "meat glue"; MDA did a post about it: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/meat-glue-separating-fact-from-fiction/

The restaurant may not add anything to the meat, but if it's a food industry product may already be altered. People might think we're paranoid, but we know our bodies and if there's an unusual reaction like this then something is up.

Likesspace
Mon, Nov-21-11, 09:40
You know, I guess it could have been my muscles holding onto water, but I don't remember ever seeing a weight gain after doing a workout.
Also, I do some form of exercise every day and I never get any cravings after eating my nightly meal.
It could all be in my head but I just hate not knowing what might have been added to the food that I eat.
Especially when I was so pumped about eating on plan when everyone around me was filling their plates with high carb choices.
Oh well, it could have been much worse had I followed their lead and as of this morning all but .4 lbs. are gone.

Thanks for the ideas everyone.

Dave

colipdx
Mon, Nov-21-11, 10:19
I can safely wager $$ that I will gain weight when I eat out. It is usually due to the massive amount of sodium they put in their food, which I do not do at home. It can take me up to a week to recover from a LC restaurant meal. I have not figured out how to get the water retention to quickly leave my system and the lower I go in weight the slower my losses come so going up and holding for a week pretty much sucks! But I can't seem to resist the occasional restaurant meal so am my own worst enemy these days.

norrodb
Mon, Nov-21-11, 12:04
I'll also wager the continued urge to eat was from the workout. Your body is looking to replenish.

lovemypets
Mon, Nov-21-11, 12:23
Hi there Dave :wave:
I read your story and thought...
how nice it was that you and your family took your dad for a stroll.
that you pushed him so he could see your hiking trails
be positive ;)
it was a beautiful day

beernutz
Mon, Nov-21-11, 14:50
Hi there Dave :wave:
I read your story and thought...
how nice it was that you and your family took your dad for a stroll.
that you pushed him so he could see your hiking trails
be positive ;)
it was a beautiful day
Ditto! If I had to trade gaining 2.2 lbs just to have my dad back for one day (or 22 lbs for that matter) I'd do it in a heartbeat. You were a very considerate son to push him over those trails.

Likesspace
Mon, Nov-21-11, 20:13
lovemypets and beernutz........

You both make a really good point.
I had an absolute blast sharing something that is so dear to me with my dad.
His health has really failed over the past few years and I really don't know how many more chances I will have to share something like we did Saturday.
Seeing his face when we got to the end of the first trail, (which ends at a beautiful 75 foot waterfall), was pretty much priceless. As you said, the extra pounds, which weren't really pounds at all, was more than worth the reward.

Sort of off topic but, if any of you ever get the chance to visit the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, don't pass it up.
It's a truly beautiful place that offers both easy, peaceful hiking and also some very challenging trails.
My family and I have been going there for years and have still not covered all of the miles of trails that are offered.

Hope everyone is having a great week and thanks again for your responses.

Dave

VickySail
Mon, Nov-21-11, 21:47
You exerted yourself quite a bit. Bodies want to replenish themselves quickly after intense exertion (that's why we "work up an appetite.") By your own account, you ate a lot of protein and not much fat, your body's typical (but slow-burning) fuel source So, it's possible the cravings you felt were at least partly the results of two factors:

Your body's signal to refuel with a readily-available fuel source: carbs
Gluconeogenesis, the conversion of protein to glucose

Or the food could have just contained carby crap.

And the weight: that's water weight from the muscles restocking their glycogen.

Yeah. Any of these. Or all of them. Good post.