Hey - at least its not September!

     So apparently that whole "see you in September" thing was basically serious.  Topology was a rough ride - I had to learn LaTeX in order to do my homework assignments.  LaTeX really isn't that bad, but I have no coding experience so I had to learn on the fly.  It is, according to Wikipedia, a "document markup language."  Since I don't really know precisely what that means, I will describe it for you as best I can:  It's a coding language for use with maths and sciences that lets you, for example, plug an equation directly into a text document.  It's probably the language that was used to code any math test you took in the last... say 10 years (probably more).  I did well though, thanks to the professor, which was nice after my experience in analysis...  But it was still a lot of work.  There's a spot in my bedroom where all my work from all my homework assignments is scattered on the floor.  I'll clean it up eventually.  I am now going to try to plug as many math puns as possible into the rest of this post, and you will get bonus points for spotting them.

I was talking with an old friend of mine last night about a couple of blogs he reads.  Apparently, they at least include mine and those of a vegan work associate of his.  This brought to mind something which I think I have stated on my blog before, which is that I think it is entirely possible to be a healthy vegetarian, though I am skeptical of the healthful qualities of a vegan diet (and, of course, I can't understand for the life of me why anyone wouldn't want to eat meat!).  Of course, vegans can take supplements and take care of any serious issues that I think they may otherwise potentially face, and as my friend pointed out, otherwise just eat a ton of avocados, so that resolves that problem.  If you haven't realized by now, I essentially believe that a diet can only be healthy if it is largely based on fat, protein  is mostly unimportant and carbs are mostly harmful.  Thinking more on this issue reminded me of something that I really ought to mention before there are any misunderstandings (it's only been a year and a half, but please bear with me).

Much of what I say is a joke.  I don't actually hate hipsters, for instance.  I do find their culture to be extremely immature, but I derive a great deal of pleasure from people-watching hipsters, and without them I wouldn't have that enjoyment.  I don't actually think less of (non-militant) vegetarians and vegans.  They aren't the only ones who have been deceived into thinking eating animals is a health hazard.  At least they took it to its (not-so) bloody conclusion and cut out meat altogether - or found another reason not to eat anything that comes from an animal.  I mean, honestly, if you think something is unhealthy or immoral, then I congratulate your self-control in avoiding eating it altogether - I know that I occasionally indulge in things that I know very well are extremely unhealthy due entirely to a lapse in self-control.

But I am dead serious about what I've been eating: meat, dairy (no milk!), and eggs have indeed made up the bulk of my diet, with a smattering of leaves, non-starchy stems, fatty vegetables (olives and avocados come to mind), and aromatics... and cheat days...  I also have been, as of late, actively trying to eat more fat - and I am becoming more and more interested in documenting this as accurately as is feasible.  So, here's the plan:

I want to bring back the input part of input/output.  But rather than just say "I ate this," I want to say, for example, "For breakfast I had 2 egg whites, 4 egg yolks, a quarter cup each of cream, butter, and cream cheese, totaling X calories, Y grams of fat, Z grams of protein, W grams of carbohydrates; this day I consumed enough of these vitamins, and not enough of these ones..." and so on.

This will be a lot more work than I've been putting into this in quite some time, but I think it will be worth it.  One of the theories I'm working with is that the consumption of less carbohydrate/protein will lead to fat loss, and one simple way to achieve that is to eat more fat.  I want to find out if this is true.  Over the past year and a half, I can't honestly be sure if I've lost much.  I didn't accurately state my starting point, or even know where it was, and until recently I haven't been getting detailed information about my weight and body fat, nor have I been keeping track of it.  Basically all I know is that from my minimum of 150 pounds last summer, I am up about 20 pounds, and based on appearances I am assuming that it is primarily not fat, which is a good thing lol.  So I'm going to try to be better about that by starting with today:  This morning I weighed in at 170 pounds on the dot, with a body fat of 17% (pre-breakfast, post output). For those keeping score, this is a vast improvement over my freshman year of high-school, in which I weighed 170 pounds with a 30% body fat!  Of course, I would submit that growing up over 10 years had more to do with it than eating meat over 1.5 years, but who knows?


Another note:  Even if I do not post daily with updates, I do intend to at least write down things like weight and body fat and input so that there will be a record.  Also, that blood test may become a reality... We shall see...