This week in Ketosis.

For the first time in 20+ years I am sub-200#’s. I keep listening to more and more top level athletes say “Bro! What’s wrong with you? Stop spiking your blood glucose levels!” Or some shit like that. I suddenly understand the South Park episode from 2014 where they said the food pyramid is upside down. I f^%king get it. My eyes are opened and that means (cue the late night sound track) it’s introspection time!

I had a rough introduction to religion. Catholicism is a harsh way to find out about the idea of God. It starts off all cool stories about David & Goliath, Samson & Delilah, Noah & the Ark. Bad asses, all of them.  Then they get to Jesus Christ and you want him to kick ass but he just dies and then some resurrection bullshit happens, with no Romans or Jews suffer and you’re like “NO! F*&king tear down the temples! Wipe out the legions! What happened sister Mary Catherine?” and then the tables turn. Suddenly it’s not “there once was a hero who defeated evil and you can be like him” No. Now it’s YOU are sick with the evil and the hero is dead and you are damned only the church can help you and all we have is stories about things that will never happen again. Suddenly a child is asked to understand the idea of hopelessness and accept their place as a weak link in a damned chain of sinners. They show you Christ, rip him away, and leave you with only the devil to come see you at night. It’s a bad business model for winning souls.

Luckily for me, I was a “reader” when I was a kid so when things fell apart at Sunday school I went to the library to figure out what the Hell was going on. I got some info, went back and was soon told I didn’t have to attend Sunday school anymore. Then we moved to a more protestant part of the world. The born-again types tried twice as hard to save my soul but with half the conviction or ability to defend their ludicrous beliefs. I tore their empty faith to shreds like an atheistic shark. Their blood filled the waters and fueled my feeding frenzy. Until one day I swam out of the other end of the pool of blood and realized that everything bleeds its faith. I started to see how the atheists around me were exuding the same mindless disdain that the Christians had been. Atheism is an “ism” like all the “ism”s that had treated me so badly and forced themselves upon me and forced me to fight so ruthlessly. Something bad, in the name of good, had made good be bad in the name of victory. Is that too ridiculous a statement to believe? I hope not because it plays into what I felt this week.

I found myself in public looking at the people around me thinking “Just stop with the goddamn sugar! It’s killing you. Stop! Stop with the disgusting white bread. The piles of beans on everything. Stop drinking sodas and thinking it's OK it's just ONE soda. Stop with the deep fried breaded crap. You just ruined real protein! Stop throwing pund after pou do fdough into your body and wondering why the Dr is giving you pills to make your pancreas work.” I felt EVANGELICAL. I was proselytising for low carbs. It was absolutely mind bending. I would argue that this is proof of how what we eat affects how we think. I still feel it in an unquenchable way. I feel like I’m peering through the mountain pass at the valley below and when I look behind me everyone is freezing in the snow and scratching at the rocks for food and shelter. I know the answer why doesn't everyone listen to me? (time to check myself)

In the words of Marsellus Wallace “that’s pride f&^king with you” You know it from reading it, I know it from writing it. So rather than throw some carb eating Samoan off a balcony over a snickers bar I’m gonna go back in there, chill them ketones out and wait for the Wolf who will be coming directly. I just used a Tarantino quote to settle an existential crisis! Take that Shakespeare who once wrote "things without all remedy should be with out regard"

Damn. I could have saved myself a lot of typing if I had led with that.

Trolls:

Preface: I started on the internet back in the late 90's. My fellow forum members where all stile project whores and old school telnet vets who didn't fit into their real lives. It wasn't as simple as "they played video games in their mother's basement" they were truly different people who had no place outside the matrix. This leads to my following comments.

I just watched the “hunting for trolls” documentary. At the risk of sounding like a jaded misanthropic asshat, “Welcome to the internet. Show us your tits.”

To be more realistic the lady from the documentary makes a strong emotional point and sticks to it through the course of the film. She even confronts a troll at the end with what you might call a well edited conclusion.

Her argument is a purely emotional one. She continually says “I can’t believe anyone thinks it’s OK to say something like this.”

The revelation is in her hand the whole time she’s staring at her phone. Yes, some people think it’s OK. Most of them are just confused or temporarily trolling. They will wake up soon and say “Damn! I didn’t mean that. I feel bad for saying that.” But others mean it as much as they can mean anything.  A handful of these people are truly that warped, twisted and unhealthy.

I’m the wrong person to give a pep-talk with a “people are inherently good” message but I’m the right guy to point out that all of us have our low moments and our bad ideas. We are all trolls at some point. I don't think she touched on this idea enough. (feel free to chide me for this)  Yes, I just made an argument for redemption.

While people like this famous youtube lady from the documentary have taken the moralistic view that we should be heading for some ethical homogeny because we are one species capable of learning a common language I would argue that  any successful species requires non-detrimental variation in all genetics and behaviors.  Based on how successful the human race is, the worst among us are, by definition, non-detrimental. Serial killers, narcissists, religious zealots, rapists and bigots are all non-detrimental to the total evolution of the species. The same argument could be made for people with a different sexuality, radical religious leaning or favorite sports team. It's not moralistic behavior that wins out at the end of the day it's life or death. You can struggle to achieve your goals and I can damn you for your efforts. This is reality and the internet portrays it perfectly in cold binary.

I don’t want to drag this out too long, because admittedly I’ll dig myself a hole. No one wants to be trolled. But life is hard, people are mean and we’re all alone unless we’re a little bit stupid. Nothing you will ever do is good enough youtube lady, but please keep trying. You seem to care.

What kind of tea pot are you?

The other day I was puttering about in the kitchen doing what it is I do in there when I knocked my tea pot off the stove and onto the floor.  I wasn’t heating water at the time but it had just enough water in it that the mass was sufficient to dent the crap out of it. It didn’t burst and it didn’t spill, because I only buy good quality teapots, but the dent makes it quite unusable.

Some of you are thinking “Norris, fill it with water and put it in the freezer! The expanding ice will push out the dent! You have to do it several times but you can have your teapot back. And if it does crack and leak, you know how to TIG weld and can seam it right back up!” But you may not know that I have recently been wrestling with my own frugal, self-reliant nature. A few weeks ago I had a come-to-Jesus moment where I was about to spend a lot of money on something I would use every now and then but refused to spend a much smaller sum of money on something that brings me great joy and I use almost weekly. A friend of mine called me on it and I "did the right thing" (so to speak)

I’ve gotten off the point. The point is, I messed up my old, well worn, tea pot and it was time to buy another. The question is “What kind of tea pot would you have bought?”

STOP! I know the literalists who read my blog will be saying “I only use fair trade, free range, organically grown, grass fed tea pots from small, independently owned, wind powered tea pot farms in Northern California, because they don’t use slave labor, pay women less, leave a carbon footprint, or culturally appropriate designs onto their cold, soulless, steel, post-industrial revolution, phallic products that glorify the rape of the western European colonial world for the sake of a caffeinated beverage that prevents us from achieving oneness with mother Gaia.” But those people are missing the point, too.

I want to know, based on what tea pot you would buy, what kind of person you are.

What kind of person am I? What kind of teapot did I buy?

I bought the same teapot again (or as close as I could get). I even looked at other tea pots made by fine tea pot manufacturers and I just felt like any one of them was a mistake. I drove the 30 miles to town to stand in a store and look at multiple tea pots that are bought and used all the time by lots of happy tea drinkers and realized that the teapot I wanted wasn’t among them. I wanted what I already knew and what already made me happy. Now, you can read a lot into that. Why wasn’t I excited by change? Why didn’t I try 3 different tea pots and see which one suited me best? I’ve got the money; it's no big deal for a freaking tea pot. Why did I bother to look when I knew what I wanted? Why didn’t I just fix the one I had? It wasn’t hard work or strenuous effort. Why did I make the decision I made and what does it say about the other decisions I make? (Am I being too introspective?)

I have a lot of time to think and lately I’ve spent some of it trying to be more aware of my personal paradigms, the delusions I use to make decisions without really thinking. My teapot just caught me off guard. I do see how my teapot decision parallels other choices I make in my life. There are times I go to a metaphorical store and look at things I could have and even want in my life, but then leave with nothing because I don't see the thing I already know. This paradigm applies to my career, my home, my friends, my relationships, even my future.  I guess I should get some new teapots.

So, the question stands, what kind of teapot are you?

My bed.

Like most of my fellow Americans I was raised sleeping in a bed. I grew up, got married, had a child, bought a house and the whole time my trusty bed was right there to greet me for almost 1/3 of every day. Then I got divorced and started to realize how much of my lifestyle was dictated to me by other people so I started to look into what things I actually wanted in my life and that included furniture.  Doing away with my bed was a big part of this experience.

The argument against traditional American beds goes like this:

#1 They are motherf$$king expen$ive. A cheap bed frame (of any style) is hundreds of dollars a nice one is tens of thousands. A cheap mattress/box spring set is well over a grand (unless you are OK with those thrifty shop previously-used mattresses that smell of despair. A top tier mattress & bow spring of any size one is many, many thousands of dollars.

#2 It’s not easy being clean. You lay in this thing 8 hours every day 365 days per year. If you are one of those people who refuse to wear the same cloths day after day without washing then wtf are doing with your bed?  Oh? What’s that, dear reader? You use sheets and wash them weekly, and also wear pajamas to bed which you change out daily? Good for you, you oily headed, person with their feet in their bed who now has to air condition and heat their house even further to accommodate their sleeping comfort. (I know that’s a convoluted argument and rather than drag it out I’ll end with 5 words “mites, we all have them”. You are probably not cleaning your bed as much as you think.

#3 Comfort. It’s the most important part of rest and I already pointed out how much time you spend in bed. Lack of sleep can literally kill you (although you’d sleep on a pile of rocks before that happened. I’m just being dramatic) . How do you pick a bed to give you enough support but not too much? We’ll there are these super expensive beds that let you adjust firmness by inflating or deflating air chambers. Or you can now change out one of the many awesome toppers made of various materials, in different thicknesses, and different firmnesses. Aren’t you glad we live in the future?

Almost 15 years ago I got divorced, threw out my old worn-out, second-hand bed frame, mattress and box spring, and bought a $25 air mattress at Walmart. For the last decade and a half I’ve averaged <$75/year in air mattresses, always had the firmness I liked and have come out money ahead over having bought one new. Recently I bought a thin firm topper, piled a few quilts on it and I just sleep on a pad on the floor.It’s exactly the comfort I need for sleeping in all positions. If it’s not I can add or subtract a layer of padding or quilts and make it what I want. My back feels great. I can throw everything in the washing machine weekly; roll up the topper and mop the floor.  I can empty my bed room/man cave in just a few minutes if I need that room back for some reason. I’m sure this sounds weird to many of you but it’s so freaking practical for me in my tiny 700ft^2 house.

Caveat Emptor:

I will admit, this is a super cheap move on my part and it’s not how you impress the ladies but let’s be honest, attracting women is not my strong suit. In the decade and a half I’ve been divorced I’ve only managed to round up a couple of girlfriends anyway and my lack of traditional furniture was the least important metric in my relationship failures.

So, if you’re a self-reliant, contrarian like me, and you haven’t been satisfied with your sleep I would very much like to recommend a Policy of Regressive Accoutrements for Planned Unconsciousness until you find something that makes you happy.

Post Script:

I purposefully skipped a discussion about crack-addicts with mattresses right on the floor out of consideration of the differently addicted. I have also avoided spreading urban myths about what percentage of a pillow’s weights is skin flakes and dust mites. They are your skin flakes and mites if they’re dangerous to anyone it’s the OTHER person in your bed.

Ketosis update:

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I have a friend who decided to lose 30 pounds in 6 months safely and easily through serious carb restriction. He was super focused on insulin spikes and glycemic index.  I would try to get him to have a beer with me and he’d be “NO! I am sticking to this diet! Out with ye, Satan!” He’s a dramatic guy like that. His father died recently and I attended the funeral Friday after which he’s all, “Let’s go eat Mexican food. You can’t say no to me, my dad just died and I’m sad.” I’m all “Dude, I made a spread sheet and I’m mapping exactly what I can and can’t eat. What the hell can I eat at a….” Then he interrupted, “They have a full bar and I’m buying.”

So Friday I ate Mexican food. It was mostly chicken, veggies and sour cream so I didn’t screw anything up but I couldn’t have the dinner I had wanted. I’m still not getting my fat level to where the formula says it should be but I’m experimenting and learning about with new sources.

Oh! I tried unsweetened peanut butter! I expected it to be terrible (in the jar it separates into gritty peanut tar and liquid slime) but I stirred the jar up with a stout butter knife and slathered it on some lavash bread (go look by the deli at your local wal-mart it's mostly flax and 1/2 the a carbs of all other bread-like things). The first bite progressed like this: "Ew, that looks like baby crap", followed by "Oh! That doesn't taste right. Where's the sweet?" and then the peanut flavor hits and the sugar-programming cuts out and BANG! What awesome new thing have I just put in my body? I love peanuts. I could have eaten two or three of those. I knows it's all in my head, but so is the candy craving. You are thinking sweet and wanting sweet. It's all in your head.

This brings me to an update about my long term goals. I initially changed my diet to lose weight and to see what effect removing simple sugars from my diet had on me psychologically. With regards to the later, the psychological change has been noticeable and I’ll write more about it when I have time to consider what I want to say. With regards to the former, I have lost most of the weight I had planned on and now I am looking for a natural plateau. That’s why I thought this was a good time to try a ketogenic diet. I had heard about it but didn’t actually get any good info until I listened the Tim Ferriss podcast with Dominic D’agostino

That led me to more reading and research. It’s a fun experiment and that’s why I’m doing it. I still get to spend time in the kitchen cooking for myself and I still get to eat the foods I like. (It’s very pro-bacon)

But I don’t think a hardcore ketogenic diet is going to be right for me in the long run. Then I listened to Mark Sisson on the Joe Rogan podcast this week. He takes a very pragmatic view. He is definitely controlled-complex-carbs but he continues to say, over and over, [paraphrase]eat based on where you need to be[/paraphrase]. So, if you are healthy and happy keep on with whatever you're doing.

I will stick with the ketogenic diet for a few more weeks and try to get my fat intake levels up. Right now it’s just helping me lose weight without being hungry, without spiking my blood sugar, and while leaving me with plenty of energy for the stuff I do, but it would be interesting to be able to maintain a body with fat as pretty much the only exogenous source of energy.

It would also be interesting to make and eat a pie or lasagna.

Thursday's Notes:

A few of notes regarding the confusion some people have towards my weight loss, carb consumption, exercise, and ketosis. These are 4 distinct and different things. I know that people always say “I want to lose weight and get in shape.” But those are 2 different things. Seriously, take a deep breath, go to your quiet place and think about this while I babble on about what makes me feel self important.

#1 I have always judged my weight based on my ability to do the things I enjoy. I noticed I was having problems I’d never had before with my leg joints and I’d had a recent weight gain. So, weight loss was approved for execution. The plan to do this was to cut calories (primarily from carbohydrates) because that is how you lose weight. I’m not talking about health, I’m not talking about nutrition; I’m not talking about anything except modifying my daily caloric intake. That’s where I started to meet this goal. I could literally have eaten twinkies and lost weight.

#2 All calories aren’t the same and you have to look at how your food affects you. It goes in one hole, you do stuff while it’s in you and then it comes out of another hole. Look at these as 3 acts of the diet play and see what the characters are doing. Especially that 3rd act, it can be eye opening. I have always had strong reactions to refined sugars and terrible reaction to artificial sweeteners. I put these on the chopping block first. Since, I only had a couple daily sources for refined sugars and high fructose corn syrup, out they went. That was easy. By comparison, I had a few weekly sources intensely high simple carbs. Like pasta and rice. I LOVE pasta and rice! I was raised on it! I can make an awesome marinara sauce but what do you put it on? Pasta! Nothing makes me feel better after a long crapy day at work than a wonderfully cooked meat on a pile of long grain basmati rice! I love, love, love these things but I decided to drop them until I hit a weight where I feel comfortable. I won’t argue with the glycemic index crowd, or fight the paleo dieters, or the vegans or anyone else for that matter, I’m working with what I love to do (spend time in my kitchen) and what I have to do it with (food from my local grocery store). Simple carbs are out, complex carbs are under control.

#3 We act like “diet” means eating something special for a short period because someone told you to but your diet is actually just everything you put in your body that must be used or filtered out. Tattoos probably don’t count but everything else does. If you go to the DR and he gives you a prescription, that pill is now part of your diet. Likewise, we think of “exercise” as being something that you do at a gym that makes you sweat. Bullshit. Everything you do is part of your exercise.  Do more! Stop driving around and around the parking lot trying to get as close to the door as possible. Grab the first open spot in the back lot and walk the 100 yards to the damn auto-opening door. Stand up for a while. Pick stuff up. Don’t hurt yourself, but imagine that you are a healthy active human and behave like one. Move around, stretch, challenge yourself a little. If you really want to build your strength and endurance, you need a goal. Decide to run a marathon and spend the year to get to the point where you can suck at it.

I was raised on a farm and to me “work” meant physical activity that was hard and made me tired no matter how many times I did it. Now I have a job where “work” means sitting behind a desk and telling people what to do. But I still exercise so I can do the stuff I love. I spend a lot of time in the woods. I walk a lot. I couldn’t run a marathon, I’m not interested in that, but if I need to walk several miles through uneven terrain to get to where I’m going, I can do that, no problem. I ride my bicycle a lot. I’m not trying to win any races but if I had no other way to get to work on a windy rainy day and it was important to me, I could bike there. You get the point.

I’ve seen too many grown men hit 50+ have a heart attack and then want to get in shape.

I’ve seen too many grown women have babies and lament the body they used to have.

Pick something you physically want to do and build yourself up until you can make it happen. That’s the point of exercise.

#4 The ketogenic diet is an experiment for me. I took the time to modify my daily diet. I created new habits  and patterns for my preparing and consuming of food. Altering it for the ketogenic diet wasn’t that hard except for the fat content. I’m losing weight, so I’m already in ketosis a little bit. But by hammering down the carbs I can crank my ketogenic state  up which is only healthy if you bring up the fats and burn them for energy. This is what I want to see happen. In a few weeks I’ll alter my diet again and check to see the ketogen levels drop. I’m not even really worried about weight lose at this point (although I will be paying attention to weight gain). I want to see me burn fat for energy, be able to exercise, feel OK and establish a level weight. If I have problems I can easily alter my diet again because it’s all documented now. Maybe some people don’t think this is fun, but I do. It’s exciting and it takes time to see the results. Maybe my problem is I don’t have anyone to worry about me or support me. The handful of people I try to talk to aren’t really in my everyday life. Well , that’s my fault and the topic for another post.

PS: I have realized that there’s nothing f*&king more boring than listening to someone talk about something that, literally, only applies to them, like say, their diet or their dreams. It’s really some boring shit. This is why people talk about sports or politics or the weather when they meet. Plus we’re shallow creatures who burn too many calories empathizing with each other.

OK, enough talk about what's going in me. Next time, I'll talk about what's coming out of me.