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real life

A 3704-post collection

Shitstirring for humanity

Vegans struck me as a little peculiar. Okay. You don't want to eat anything related to animal exploitation? Good for you. Just... please don't try to make me change my ways and we're aces.

Alas, there's a certain section of people (coughcoughivorytowergranolasetcoughcough) that claim that honey is bee slavery.

This just gets a big fat WAT from me because they continue eating fruits and vegetables that use bee labour regardless.

Like... I've tried to do some research on this and... unless you're guaranteed hand-pollinating your crops... This is what you're left with on a freedom-for-bees vegan diet:

  • Navel Oranges
  • Leafy greens
  • Brassicas
  • Root vegetables
  • Legumes
  • Corn and other wind-pollinated vegetables1
  • Herbs
  • Celery
  • Onions and Leeks
  • Mushrooms

And that's it. There's not an ounce of fat anywhere, but loads and loads of carbohydrates. And we all know what a low-fat, high-carb diet does to people - yep. Diabetes and obesity.

And you can't cook it, as far as I'm aware, because all the plant oils available come from plants that need bees.

I guess there might be a fat-burning component in eating all foods raw, but is it enough? Vegans claim so. Long term data has yet to appear because veganism is a new thing.

And aaaaalllll of this came up because Beloved and I started gassing about doing a Ketogenic restaurant. I even have a name for it: Ketogenesis. Serving up everything organic, natural (or as natural as you can get after ahem-mumble-something over 20 000 years of tinkering...) Ketogenic foods with a vegetarian option and one pure vegan salad made out of a little of the low-carb stuff in the list above.

And if the vegans complain, then I have some education for them. If you believe that honey is bee slavery, then you can't eat any fruits and vegetables that bees pollinate. Which means, should you go ketogenic vegan - your options are hellishly limited.

You're welcome to try the ample vegetarian options if you admit that bees are vital symbiotes with humans, and honey is a tasty byproduct that you can choose to use as a sweetener on feast days.

Correction: I just looked some more stuff up and, since peanuts are root legumes, vegans can use peanut oil for cooking. But if you're a ketogenic vegan, you need LOADS of peanut oils in your food.

But you can't have the peanuts because they're loaded with carbs.

It's complicated, I know.

  1. My source did not list them, alas. ↩

Easing up

Beloved informed me on our morning walk that we had been hitting the Ketogenic diet hard. It's why I've been having difficulties the way I have been.

So we're easing up. We're no longer fasting for 16 hours. We're going back to 12 hours and allowing some fruity sugars in as well as the carbs that come in the veggies.

Both Beloved and I have been waking up earlier and I forwarded the idea that it would be an ideal time to

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The down side

Every diet has a down side. Slowly rationing fruit to small amounts so I get just the right kind of carbs in the correct amount is just one of them.

And I've discovered what fellow dieters are calling the "Keto flu". As the body gets used to not having carbs around, it goes into carb panic and starts trying to conserve energy. The result is a listlessness and a lack of energy that gets some people swarming back to carbs.

But what

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Proof in the absence of pudding

This is my fourth day of doing the Ketogenic Diet and I have some fantastic news: I now weigh 87.4 kilos. My previous lowest record, recorded in 2012, was 87.7 kilos.

In four days, I have gone to my lowest recorded weight.

I feel energetic and happy and Beloved and I have gone on our 15-minute walk and not felt drained or strained as a direct result.

Hell, I even put on a load of washing before I was desperate

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I feel fantastic!

Okay, to start off, I have to note that what I've been calling the "Ketonic" Diet is actually the KETOGENIC Diet and works similar to Fatkins but doesn't induce Ketoacidosis like Fatkins does.

How? By replacing carbs with natural animal fats and the simple sugars found in fruit. That keeps the ketones behaving themselves and reduces the need for processed, carb-o-riffic nastiness that makes everyone fat.

That skim milk the doctors recommend based on the Lipid Theory? Carbs.

That lo-fat, Atkins-approved diet

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Things I Wish I Knew About

I'm starting in on the Ketonic Diet and there's loads of info about it if you become a member1. Starting with how this diet could have plausibly saved my father if I had just known about it.

Current treatment of diabetes goes like this: lower or eliminate the sugar, eliminate the fats, give insulin, and load up on the carbs.

Which is mental, because carbohydrates metabolise directly into sugar.

This leads directly to a fatty liver, a fatty pancreas, fatty eyes,

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New meds... hooray?

Since the Serotonin was making me constantly semi-drowsy, my doctor switched me out to Zoloft. Or, in this case, the generic, no-brand equivalent of Zoloft because the Australian medical system is not the price-gouging hell-hole that the US has got.

I'm on half a pill, taken in the evening, to scale up to a whole pill later on. And right now, because I dropped the Serotonin and took up the Zoloft, I feel pretty damn awful.

There's the post-swimming heaviness, the difficulty

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Firkin Anxiety

Yesterday was quite a bit more adventure than I was prepared to deal with. I was following the busses to Brisbane to visit the Kelvin Grove campus of QUT so I could keep an eye out on Miss Chaos whilst she had a fun day of learning.

Which would have been fine except I misplaced the busses at the very last turn and got the first parking space I could achieve.

As I predicted, I got frelling lost. I got absolutely, hopelessly,

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Another special day

Miss Chaos is having an adventure, and everything is revolving around her, today.

Which is why you won't be getting a fresh story until sometime this afternoon. Doing my bloggy stuff is quick and easy, but doing a story takes daydreaming time.

I will be taking Beauties and the Beastly with me via the lappy, but it's anyone's guess as to whether I'll be able to write anything in it before the day is over.

I'm pretty good at squeezing sentences out

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What another fine day for politics...

...ze said whilst oozing sarcasm until hir audience drowned in it.

There's an old law that the POTUS can't have any kind of business earnings whilst also in power, lest conflict of interest rear its ugly head and corruption eat the government alive. And since the Muppet has shown no signs of surrendering his holdings to anyone else, it looks like the grand old new rule of "It's okay if Republicans are doing it" seems to be coming to the fore.

If

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Unriddling

New med schedules are kicking my arse. Sure, I get a good night's sleep, but afterwards is the buttnugget.

I've figured out that light levels are linked to the amount of awareness I have during the day. Too much or too little, and the groggy, foggy feeling returns in abundance. Just the right amount, and I'm 'clear' while that light lasts.

And I'm currently writing this with a light in my face. Care of the same light I used to illuminate myself

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Dialling it down

Working out the right time in the evening to take my Serotonin is currently the problem. Juggling that and getting ready for the morning with a foggy, sleepy brain is still a problem.

But, through a process of trial and error, and error, and more error, I will eventually hit the solution by pure accident. The key, I'm sure, is taking the Serotonin at the correct hour.

And while I'm getting the hour correct, I have to deal with brain fog for

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Lo Batt

So I've swapped my medication to taking it at night. And I kind'a revelled in being AWAKE for a change and wound up staying up until eleven. Whoops.

Also taking a midday estivation until night time probably didn't help there.

So this morning, I'm still foggy, but able to function. For limited definitions of 'function'. I'm still easily distractible and I'm having small troubles maintaining focus.

And I haven't watered my garden yet... hangon...

There. Plants are still alive, yay.

I have

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Plus la change...

Three stitches are gone, but the wound is still fragile. For those who dont follow my tumblr, the blip was a cyst, likely fatty, and entirely benign.

I have a new bandage over the site and a desperate need to scratch it because the damn thing is driving me bonkers. New bandage has to stay for a week. Bluh.

BUT I can shower as long as I pat it dry. Huzzah.

The good news about the Muppet is that some nice folks

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Thrice-special day

Today's the day!

Today's the day my Beloved celebrates another trip around the sun.

Today's the day I get my wound seen to and possibly the results of what the blip actually was.

Today's the fourteenth day on Serotonin and the day when all the effects have evened out.

Thanks to birthday cards with gift cards in them, Beloved has $100 to fritter in JB's. Half of that is thanks to MeMum and the other half is me. Huzzah.

I've no doubt

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