A Little Bit of Paris

Yesterday was an little milestone. The SLD was so easy and fun that I did it too much. I couldn’t eat my one meal of the day. Part of my brain said: You really should eat something, if anything you’re too thin. Like a parent to a child. But I didn’t. (And woke up this morning not hungry at all.) Was I testing the power of the SLD and went a little too far? No: it was an accident. Which is why it is interesting.

This has never happened before. I discovered the basic idea of the SLD and got down to my current weight six years ago. Since then I have eaten one meal per day, including any number of meals I could have easily skipped. The thing is: I didn’t skip them. The part of my brain that said eat even when I wasn’t hungry was powerful enough to overcome my lack of hunger. Yesterday, for the first time, it wasn’t. It reminded me of being unable to eat in Paris, which led to my discovery of the SLD.

After six years, why now? Because of the SLD forums. In two months they have injected enough new ideas into the diet (e.g., take oil with water, oil improves sleep, crazy spicing is worth pursuing) to make it too much fun. (For me.) Hard to believe, I agree. Here is what I ate yesterday:

1. Early in the morning, a cup of tea (unfamiliar flavor) with one sugar cube. I’ve done this a thousand times. 15 calories.

2. A few sticks of gum. I’ve done this thousands of time. 0 calories.

3. Around 11 am I drank some walnut oil (Spectrum). I bought it a few days ago because of a forum post about its benefits. I drank 2 tablespoons of it with water — testing my friend Carl Willat’s suggestion that he drew from the forums. I don’t have trouble drinking oil but the oil/water mixture is even easier, a curious texture. This was slightly different than usual: I have been drinking 1-2 tablespoons oil/day for the last 3 years but (a) I have always drunk 1 T in the morning and 1 T later in the day, sometimes forgetting the second dose and (b) I have tried many different oils but not walnut oil because it has some flavor. The water seems to eliminate or greatly reduce the flavor. 240 calories. So far: 255 calories.

4. More gum. Thousands of times. 0 calories.

5. A few small pieces of excellent dark chocolate. Thousands of times. 50 calories? So far: 305 calories.

6. Small amounts of several cheeses. Thousands of times. 100 calories? So far: 405 calories.

7. Half a bottle (8 oz., whole bottle is 16 oz.) of Healing Springs Raw Watermelon Kambucha. An associated website (www.honeysweetdrinks.com) is non-functional. I almost never drink strange soft drinks because I’m afraid they will ruin my appetite, as they did in Paris six years ago. But in Paris I drank about two per day. This time I drank half a bottle — surely too little to matter, I thought. Such an interesting flavor, honey-sweetened. No indication of how many calories. 60 calories? So far: 465 calories.

8. Protein drink. Curious about tasteless protein drinks, I tried to follow a recipe from Sean Curley. My drink contained 1 tablespoon each of 3 different protein powders. To improve the taste I added one sugar cube, a package of Splenda, and some random spice blends. 75 calories. So far: 540 calories

9. 10 flax-oil capsules. A week or so ago I slept unusually well and somewhere around that time I had taken about 6 flax-oil capsules. Forum discussion led me to think the flax oil might be responsible. I took 10 capsules to see if I could repeat the experience. 100 calories. So far: 640 calories

10. Chai ice blend. To make swallowing the flax-oil capsules enjoyable I made a chai drink to wash them down. I blended together sugar-free chai mix, 4 oz. half-and-half, water, and ice. I’d had about 10 cups of this mix before. To make the flavor more interesting, I added a couple shakes of two random spice blends. 212 calories. So far: 852 calories.

At this point I decided I didn’t want dinner and took a long walk instead.

11. Two sugar-free chocolate-chip cookies. New-product sample left at my house. 100 calories. So far: 952 calories.

12. Two Emer’gen-C (vitamin) packets mixed with 3 tablespoons half-and-half. Makes a lovely mousse-like concoction. Vaguely-familiar flavor. 90 calories. So far: 1042 calories.

Total flavorless calories: 340. Total unfamiliar-flavor calories: 347. Whereas normal values would be roughly 240 flavorless calories and <100 unfamiliar-flavor calories. So I had at least doubled my usual intake of these hunger-suppressing foods. Not because I was trying to lose weight, though, but because of forum discussions, because I found combinations of random spice blends intriguing, and because I wondered if flax oil caused better sleep. Not a long-term healthy diet but v v filling and v v easy.

I woke up the next day having slept unusually well. For me, it was an unusual form of good sleep. Many times I have slept ingextremely well after standing 9 or 10 hours but in these cases I woke up feeling scrubbed clean of tiredness. In this case, however, I didn’t feel scrubbed clean of tiredness (and I hadn’t stood 9 or 10 hours) but my brain felt very clear when I awoke. I’d been drinking oil for years — this wasn’t produced by my usual oil intake. If it was cause and effect (oil caused better sleep), something found more in walnut oil and/or flax oil than in canola oil or ELOO or safflower oil or grapeseed oil (oils I had had many times in the past) was responsible.