Eggs and Diet

Not a newspaper I normally read but the Daily Mail has an interesting article on eggs here.  A large part of my diet is made up of eggs and it seems amazing that they've been so demonised   in the past.  It seems utterly bizarre to me that the advice we get to eat grains and the like is right.  Vegetables and meat and eggs - yes I get those but fruit - although lovely - does spike your body to produce insulin.  This article mentions milk is OK but I can't see that as it also produces an insulin reaction in the body.  I imagine it wasn't generally available to man until after he started farming although, who knows, maybe they kept a few around?

So far I'm feeling pretty good on this diet and getting ever closer to dipping under 16 stone - it's the thickness of the needle at the moment :-) but I can see progress which is also great.  Next week will be a challenge in Italy but I reckon if I stay off the Pasta and the Bread I could get through without too much damage.  I know what I can eat and although I may end up with the odd beer here and there I can stick pretty much to the low carb diet.

A Little Too Keen

Have to laugh - I was just getting ready to go when I realised that it is only 08:30 not 09:40!!!!  Nervous - not me :-)  mind you I think that anyone who would consider rushing out so you can have done what I'm going to have done may be looked at suspiciously.

So far no more signs of anything wrong with me but at least we will find out today.  It seems strange that 6 months ago I was clear in all areas but let's see what happens - I can't second judge this and the tests and scope will determine it.

Other than that - I've just found an hour to kill :-) maybe by then the weather will have settled down and this drizzle will have gone - it looks as if the sun wants to burn a hole in it so fingers crossed on that one.

Here we go again

The final lap before getting into the Hospital and having my scope.  I'm pretty much prepared for it these days, it's not a major problem for me to go on my own now - I'm sort of OK with preparation for that and as long as I make sure I'm hydrated properly and that I take my ibuprofen and paracetamol just before I have the procedure it means that any pain can be controlled.  They are using a new local anesthetic these days which seemed to make a real difference last time.  It certainly stopped the stinging I've encountered a couple of times.

I haven't seen any problems since last Sunday and so I'll just have to see what the answer is tomorrow.  I guess if it is bad news I'll have to live with that and go around the roller coaster again.  It's a bit too early to say of course - tomorrow we will know I'm sure.

I've got some water and my stress balls to take and my MP3 player will be charged up with some tunes so I'll be fine with that.  I intend to do next to nothing when I get back other than a few calls and update the blog I suppose.

No Signs

I don't know what is going on and tomorrow we should find out for sure with the results of my urine test and the scope.  I haven't seen any signs of haematuria (blood in my urine) since I thought I saw a fleck or two last week.  I'm being vigilant but the test tomorrow will sort this out.

Last thing I need at the moment would be a recurrence but I'm surprised as I actually feel very well and the gloom and depression has lifted away and I feel fine not at all like I was when I had Bladder Cancer the first time.  Anyway, I can't second guess the scope and so we will have to find out tomorrow. 

Interesting Graphic Fructose Overload

I know that the Mercola site can be a bit daunting in terms of all the information in there and recently I've only gone for the weekly digest as there was so much information coming out.  This information though I felt was worth putting up on the site as it should be frightening to us all.  Whilst it is US based information I imagine that the same holds true over here although Agave and Jell-O aren't familiar to us.

You can read the whole article here.  

Discover the fructose content of common foods, beverages, sauces, and even sugar substitutes in our infographic "Fructose Overload." Use the embed code to share it on your website.

Discover the fructose content of common foods, beverages, sauces, and even sugar substitutes in our infographic "Fructose Overload."

What's Going On?

At last - hopefully - I will get an answer on this job I've been lined up for.  We are now in month 6 (or is it 7) in the process and they have a meeting late this afternoon.  Let's hope that they arrive at a decision one way or the other and let me know.

Curiously I haven't seen anything abnormal in my urine since reporting it on Sunday, nothing and yet at the back of my mind I did think I saw something and saw it on a few occassions.  It could be nothing or it could be a recurrence.  At the moment I'm just being vigilant but it has been three days and no signs at all.  Could it have been something else - perhaps there's some explanation but of course I'll find out on Friday if there is anything.  I'd sort of be surprised if it were - I had a clean scan and had no recurrence for 5 years or so.  Oh well - let's see I can't second guess these things.

Feeling a little jaded today after my friend's funeral yesterday it wasn't as somber an affair as I thought it might be and so that was good and we had some interesting anecdotes to tell because strangely my friends knew him but through his association with Rugby and I knew him from his Freemasonry and work at the old people's home where the Easter Egg hunt is held each year - he arranged the Spring Fair for many years.

I'm planning our activities in Italy and hope that we can go to Herculaneum and Pompeii and if the weather is good to go to Mount Vesuvius too.  Having printed off all the details and downloaded a few apps it all looks to be readily accessible and nice and easy from our base in Sorrento.

A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts

And so I offer you my late night thoughts.....  Having attended a friend's funeral today and having been eating and drinking since then I have perhaps attained that position where what I say might actually reflect what I mean :-)

Having spent a day mourning the loss of a friend who was only 6 years older than I although in family terms much different with married children and grandchildren, I found myself in a strange predicament this evening discussing the ups and downs of having a cancer prognosis.  My friend had a very very very bad prognosis and within weeks died.  That in itself should give you a clue to my issue.  You see, I had a pretty bad prognosis and no one in my immediate family seemed (to me) to be that concerned about it and I, for my part, never ever gave the appearance that it was any worse than I perceived it was. 

Today I want to do everything and anything.  I want to celebrate life and enjoy myself.  Life is, to me, very short indeed.  This Friday, perhaps, I may get some bad news, I know not but life goes on, people argue over trivia, over a seat on a train, over borders drafted by cartographers, over a recipe or some other trivial matter.  People die to protect these ideals and boundaries and for what?

?

That's right - for nothing.  Why can't we just live together without all these niggles and problems?

I hope I may plumb those questions in the next few weeks - I really do.  So far I haven't found any relinquishing features in humankind to pull us back from the abyss.

Slow Monday

Things got better during the day - I was able to eat a little at lunchtime and a fair amount in the evening.  I am back to normal this morning.  I drank plenty of water yesterday and consequently went to the bathroom frequently but there was nothing to see and no repetition of what I'd thought were flecks in my urine.  I'll keep a watching brief but Friday will be the day when we see if it is just me being paranoid or that I didn't imagine it.  Either way I'll just have to live with it and you know things could be worse.  I'm going to a funeral of someone who was only 6 years older than me later today.  Sobering stuff.  I don't suppose I've ever felt "old" even at 55 it doesn't feel much different to being 40, perhaps I'm not as physically fit though as I used to be.

A friend who can only be 3 or 4 years older than me was telling me that he's just been diagnosed with emphysema that on top of his existing colitis and suddenly you start to be thankful that you've only had Bladder Cancer - which isn't to trivialise it!  Add to that my other friend who has just been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and suddenly it looks like we are all in the firing line.  I'm pretty pleased that all I've really had is the Bladder Cancer.

Things are back to "normal" this morning, a nice hearty breakfast, on my 2nd pint of cold water and a black coffee and at the PC.  I'm doing some more research on my holiday which I am looking forward to.

Monday Blues

The day after cheat day is always a bad one for me.  With yesterday's scare with something in my urine I drank quite a bit of beer and water all day and noticed nothing which is a tiny bit reassuring.  Luckily I have my scope on Friday and so that will determine what (if anything) is going on.  I knew I was a bit cranky during the morning but by the afternoon I was performing for the crowd and I felt OK albeit I didn't mention it to anyone not even Mrs. F.  I think if I had seen any more then I would.

This morning I feel like poo, cheat day really does mess with my system and I suffer reflux overnight and that's not nice.  So it starts to reinforce some of what I've been reading about food and I don't suffer from indigestion or gas or heartburn at all during the week.

I daren't even tell you what going to the lavatory is like the day after a cheat day other than - you seriously get an idea of the rubbish you throw down your throat that you think is good :-) 

I have to say that I feel so bad this morning that I don't even want to force myself to eat breakfast.  Now it's one of the golden rules to eat within one hour of waking but I just feel that if I eat I will probably just feel worse than I do at the moment.  My stomach is churning away and all I'm doing is keeping hydrated with cold water.  

My friend Flocky Bicep has just called to say he is ill and cannot go to a meeting this afternoon and as my car is showing an engine warning light it is doubtful that I can go either as it is a fair distance and I need my car checked over before I drive any distance.

The Piano, despite being booked to be taken away on Saturday didn't happen so that needs to be attended to.  At the moment - my thoughts are on Friday's scope followed by our trip to Italy.

I'm wondering whether to just calm down cheat day somewhat to try and minimise the sick feeling I get overnight and the next morning.  I need to do enough to spike the body's insulin but not so much as to make me feel so horrible the next morning that I don't want to eat at all as I do now.

Oh Dear :-(

I know I can be a bit paranoid but that's the third or fourth fleck of something in my urine in a week.  It isn't noticeable in terms of feeling it but I've just caught these tiny flecks out of the corner of my eye and can see them in the pan - only individually too.

OK it isn't conclusive but it does make me feel as if there may be a recurrence.  So I'm not feeling quite as chirpy as I should be on cheat day.  I'm just going to monitor the situation and see how we go from there.  It is a little concerning but I have my scope on Friday and that will determine if there is anything there or not.

At the moment it is infrequent - perhaps 4 or maybe 5 times in the last week or more.  

Can't even begin to tell you quite how this makes me feel.  Fear is high on the list :-(

At least today we have people over and I can let what's left of my hair down :-)

Worst possible meal choice

Was out with good old Flocky Bicep - thank goodness he was able to take me as my car is showing an engine light :-(  The food was a nightmare as it was completely full of stuff I can't eat.    I just didn't eat it - that simple and just had some more when I got home.  It's cheat day later and so I'll make up for it then.  I certainly find the sorts of meals that you get put in front of you aren't as healthy as you'd like to believe.

It's a friend's funeral on Tuesday as well as lad's night out - not sure if I will want to be in the Church as it will be absolutely rammed full.  I may perhaps arrive for the interment and then wander over to the club where his wake will be.  It's one of those deaths that were quite sudden and yet perhaps not unexpected in some ways.  

We have the family around later tomorrow - the piano didn't get moved and when I fired off a text - they were pretty mortified that they hadn't sorted it out.  The trouble is that this has gone on for about a year now and so it needs to happen fast.  Let's hope they sort it out soon.

This time next week we will be almost ready to fly off to Italy which I am looking forward to now.   There's lots to do in and around Sorrento and I just watched a programme on Herculaneum which was very interesting indeed and Pompeii and Vesuvius are of course nearby.

I'm hoping to relax and chill out a bit later - it's cheat day and I can have a beer too as well as get stuck in to some chocolate cake I see they've made.  The opposite side of me though has started to view any food as suspicious these days and so I'm wary of what may be in the food I eat and I'm also noticing that even though I can cheat - I only do so a bit and don't go mad and eat say 6 or 7 roast potatoes - I may have 2 which is far less than I used to eat.  Perhaps you change your attitude to the food that is likely to mess up your system?

The wonders of ghee

Well it arrived whilst we were out - very quick delivery and was left with a neighbour which was great.  I did my first cooking with the ghee tonight and yes indeed it tasted very nice but tomorrow will be the breakfast test - they say that scrambled or fried eggs will taste double yummy using ghee.  My Indian friend also told me how to use my leftover cottage cheese and I made a sort of fried paneer with some onions and tomatoes and it really tasted quite pleasant with added spinach.  

I'm still carefully reading articles and books about this low glycemic index way of eating and I am drawn towards the Tim Ferris diet as that appears to be working quite well but I might take some of the Protein Power, Atikins and Insulin Factor recommendations too, especially the potential use of hard cheeses that have next to no lactose in them.  I'm only thinking about for flavouring meals to make them interesting as they have very low GI and are mainly fat, it's the lactose element that needs to be cautious.

I did remarkably well today as there were chips on my plate and I didn't need them not even "just one" as to me that would defeat the object of the exercise.  Cheat day is going to be Sunday as there are cakes and puddings galore for A's birthday party.  Looking forward to that.

So much to do so little time

Had two calls today that took over 2 1/2 hours of my time.  Then heard that a guy I worked with a few years ago had died of a Cerebral Haemorrhage.  Life's a bit cruel and he was thousands of miles from home too.  I can't say that we had a good working relationship but he was pleasant enough company and bright as a button and as sharp as a razor.

That's the second death I've heard about this week and another funeral is next week of someone else I know.  

On a positive note my Ghee has arrived and I'm looking forward to getting used to using it.  My Indian friend told me where to find that at my local supermarket and also suggested I try the Indian Cottage Cheese which is superior in all ways!  So he says :-)

We went out to lunch today but we all smell of smoke as the fire which was raging away was also blowing back down the chimney and so we all smell like a barbeque :-)  I had a superb mixed grill and gave away my chips (fries) to everyone else.  It was all in all a very reasonable meal and I also managed two nice glasses of Rioja - most civilised.

Now I need to sort out my calendar and arrangements as we are away in just over a week and I have calls on my time all over the place.  I need to seriously DIARISE - ohhh that shows off my days working for a US Corporate.  I learnt some incredible hair raising phrases there.   Shudders!

Anyway - the dining room is finished much to my surprise - Mrs. F. managed to sort it all out so we can have the party here on Sunday.  Great

As it is late Friday afternoon I now fancy wandering downstairs and perhaps popping open a bottle of red (not just for me I hasten to add).  

More on MP3 Music

So having put thousands of tracks on my server and have my Sonos setup I decided that I should experiment with random tracks and so set my Sonos to shuffle.  Now all was well and good if you find Pearl Jam followed by Bach an interesting combo :-)  The problem though was that my music is all recorded at different volumes and I've used a host of different ripping programmes and bought online and so the volumes are all over the place which is a bit distracting.  Luckily a wee open source programme called MP3Gain has come to the rescue - mind you it is doing batches at the moment which is taking a while but hopefully this will be almost the last piece of work I need to do in the library.  All future MP3s will be checked, tagged, associated with album art volume checked and then entered into the system.

This morning my accounts were audited and flew through scrutiny - not too difficult as I had a professional accountant review them in the first place.  I've one more set of accounts to do this year.

It is a bad month already.  Yesterday heard about Jim Tuffin's death.  A friend known affectionately as Yogi died in March and his funeral is next Tuesday and another friend died on Monday - he had been ill for a while but there you go - it was a great shame and his funeral is when I'm away in Italy.  Another friend has been diagnosed with Bowel Cancer and he is undergoing Chemo.  He though isn't in a great frame of mind about it.

It's hard to believe but we've had flurries of snow again today and it's April for goodness sake!   

Calm - Everyone in Bed

Got back from Jazz, a most interesting evening with a lot of old songs I recognised but didn't know the title to.  I won a bottle of Red Wine which is great and kept to drinking red wine even though they had three guest ales in.  The hardest thing about the diet is beer - I really like beer in all its forms and the real ale they serve is second to none.  They have great names and my friend had a half a pint of Ginger Tosser?  

So the house is quiet and everyone is asleep which is great - I've left a note as I have my audit team over in the morning and as the Dining room looks like North Korea has invaded it I have to use the kitchen table to do the accounts on.  With any luck I can get that done, then sort the car out and then whatever else needs to be attended to.

I've researched the various routes between the airport and our hotel and know the prices and times so we can make a decision based on what we find when we arrive.  There is a direct bus, a bus to the main station and a train ride or a bus to the ferry terminal and a hydrofoil ride across the bay.  Whatever way we travel I'm sure we will be bowled over by the area given the photographs I've seen today.

I also watched a documentary on Herculaneum and I am really looking forward to seeing that, Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.  We might go to Capri and perhaps take the Amalfi Coast road although I'm not sure about driving in Italy after last years sojourn in Bologna :-)  

Mrs. F. suggested that we ought to take a few days rest which is most unlike her - she's the one with the round arse who never keeps still for a moment so it will be interesting to see if she does actually take a day or two to rest.   It would suit me just to take it easy and have leisurely breakfast, lunch and dinner and just do next to nothing all day :-)

Goodbye

Another Cancer Blogger says goodbye.  I've been following Jim Tuffin's fight for a while and heard today that he died on the 24th March 2013.  There are some useful lessons in his blog (I hope it stays up) which should  humble us all.  Dealing with a terminal prognosis and keeping on going and letting us know about it too.  It's sobering stuff for me.  I suggest that those of us who have lived through this and lived to tell the tale relate to and feel every word of this stuff.

I was contacted by Jim perhaps 10 years ago and only ever knew him electronically in business.   His last entry was on 12th March and comments on the 18th March, he was hoping to live until 18th April, his birthday.   Just 12 days later he passed away.

Another cancer victim but what is interesting is his desire and drive to make sure his family were catered for and if nothing else, reading his blog will give you a sense of the way it messes with your emotions around your loved ones and your own mortality. 

Just One Of THOSE Days

Mrs. F. does this occasionally - she has a week off this week, we have a family party on Sunday coming, she decides to decorate the Dining room......

I don't get asked it just happens and the place if a tip.  I had to assist yesterday and then today I am asked with 30 seconds notice to take the radiator off the wall - in doing so I spring the leak from hell and was lucky to recover the situation but trying to get Mrs. F. to understand that I wanted a screwdriver to shut a valve off - was she just being obstreperous returning with one of my jewellers (watch and spectacle repairs) screwdrivers which of course is as much use as a chocolate wrench.  Of course I sort of shouted at her, she's not unintelligent after all said and done.  Anyway, despite her best efforts to test my patience I managed to sort it out pretty quickly and stop the leak which was threatening to call for a lifeboat.  

This project that I had no knowledge of and have washed my hands of is just crazy but there you go if that's what she wants to do in her week off then so be it.  If there ever was something likely to p1ss me right off then this would be it.  Luckily I'm out tonight to the Jazz night and so I can just let her get on with it.  So far we've also had 5 or is it 6 shorts on the electrics requiring me to repair the fuse and taking out the downstairs lighting, this despite the fact that I asked her to tape the damn thing up.  No tape she said but after the event I found the tape about 3 foot from the switch!  Crazy.

Anyway - tomorrow I have people around for my audit so I just hope that I'm not going to be asked to put the radiator back when they are here.

A chat with my friend and he confirms that he has T2 diabetes and is now on drugs for that and further tests including a scan to make sure all is what it seems.  He's lost another Kilo and his BP is coming down so let's hope things are OK for him.  In some ways it isn't surprising given his lifestyle and he does enjoy his food.

I've been busy sorting out the holiday and the car.  So far I've managed to book us in on-line and the seats they've allocated us are fine - we could have paid a little extra to choose our seats but the selection we have is fine as we have window and adjacent there and back again.  I've been looking at transfers from the airport to the resort and that looks straightforward and may even work out nicely with our arrival time too.  Let's hope so but there are a number of alternatives which allow us to choose various routes involving sea, rail and road so that's OK.

Sample - Safely Deposited

I worked on the car this morning as I disturbingly got an engine warning light - the oil was low but all the oil I had only brought the level up to just above minimum :-(  So perhaps we will buy some more tomorrow and see if we can fill it up and then if the light doesn't go off I'll run it up to the garage now our other car is back.  

I normally get more than two weeks notice to have my scope and so I would normally have the urine sample in at least 2 weeks ahead but getting it in today is, I hope, the next best thing.  Hopefully they will have the results ready for when I get scoped.  It was a nice walk to the Hospital and back via Sainsburys.  I did a little basic shopping but couldn't find any Ghee (Indian clarified butter) - I looked in the butters / margarine fridges and the Oils and those sorts of areas but to no avail.  I have purchased some through Amazon and let's see what it is like.  Someone suggested that I should have looked at the indian cooking area - not sure if I actually saw one but perhaps that is where it will be.  It doesn't need to be refrigerated and I may just ask my mate where he gets his from.  For the moment, I've got some on its way and will report on how I find it when it arrives.

I've also got some little waxed containers (like you see at Fast Food Restaurants for ketchup).  I'm going to use them to put the fat in from my George Foreman griddle as I don't like to put it down the waste disposer and I'm running out of jam jar lids to put the fat in before throwing it away - let's see if this sorts the problem out for me :-)

I've got the dates set for auditing my accounts which is great too.  Now just one more set of accounts to sort out...

Back on Track

It takes me a little while to get back to normal following the wobble that is cheat day.  I feel much better this morning and it is interesting to note how lean or slim I actually feel - to me it is more noticeable now especially as my trousers now fit around my waist and not under it!  It's a major improvement but on top of that I feel fit and I feel healthy too.  Which is great.

I read a lot of the book "Protein Power" over the weekend and that together with Gary Taubes, Dr. Atkins, The Insulin Factor and Tim Ferriss; all point out the benefits of a low Insulin diet. Of course I found some detractors from this view too but have a think about it for a while.  The majority of diets limit calories and fat and yet whilst you can point to a number of people who have lost weight from them, unless they continue to diet, as soon as they revert to normal food, they start to put weight on again.  If these diets did what they said there wouldn't be so many cases of obesity and diabetes out there?  These books all make a compelling argument for the balance of our diet to shift away from a carbohydrate based one to a more natural one adopted by our ancestors for well over 2 and a half million years.  Man has been growing his own food for less than 12,000 years and they never featured in the diet until then, we switched to a different lifestyle eating food we weren't genetically designed to eat and much of the problem appears to be that we aren't evolved sufficiently enough to handle such a diet.

In our known existence to date for 0.48% of that time we've been eating diets increasingly high in carbohydrates and rather than eating them when seasonal we've been eating them all years around.  Add to that the increasingly high levels of sugar in our diet and you start to see what is going on.   It isn't just the obvious diabetes and obesity that appear to come from this diet but other chronic diseases too including heart and cancers.  The books make for troubling reading especially when you consider what advice we are given.  I'm very suspect now of anything that is in a package and justifiably so.  I used to consider soup as a healthy option - it makes you satiated quickly and so that has to be good especially in diet situations.  Have a read on any can of soup you care to pick up - I bet that within the first 6 or 8 ingredients you will find sugar.  You'll find some sort of wheat in there too.  Stuff like Fructose in drinks is incredibly common and you find sugars and carbs in just about everything and as soon as you eat or drink these - wallop, up goes your insulin levels to cope with this highly concentrated tsunami of sugar in your blood and the body goes in to overdrive to move it out of the blood into the cells or convert it.  

There are some great analogies in the books.  The one I like is that it like going to an ATM and drawing out money - your wallet acts like a diode - money goes into your wallet but you can't spend it and so you draw out more and your wallet gets fatter but you can't spend it so you draw out even more and so on......  All the time you are easting sugar and carbs you can't release what you have already stored you just add to it.  This is an oversimplification, of course it is, I'm no scientists but the arguments make sense more so in the face that the other stuff we've been told for the last 30 years doesn't seem to have made any difference whatsoever.  You'd have thought that all that healthy eating would have helped many more people?

Of course all this looks too simple, too straightforward and too much like common sense to be true surely we can't have got it that wrong?  They know what Insulin does and the Glycemic Index of foods they've done all the experiments and the maths.  It's just that where 1+1=2 reading this stuff - someone really hasn't added it all together and come up with anything that makes sense.  Surely our grandparents knew all along?  I'm sure they told me that potatoes, rice puddings and bread would put some fat on me.  It's pretty obvious. 

Anyway, to me it is becoming clear how this works and I'm feeling OK and losing weight but not feeling like I'm being starved and neither do I feel hungry at all.  Strangely enough I feel fit, fit enough to do some sprinting and running over the weekend and not find I was out of breath.

I've now got my accounts sorted too so they can be audited this week and with a bit of luck we can move on for another year on those.  I hate accounts....

Day After Cheat Day

I have to admit to being rough again the morning after cheat day - yesterday we did have a nice dinner and some drink but not excessively so.  I rarely have puddings but made an exception yesterday with a cheesecake and some fruit too and I could feel that hit my system.

I had some potatoes and some cheese and biscuits and a few other things too and I didn't have too many but waking up this morning I do feel sluggish and I rarely want to eat first thing but forced myself to.  It is almost midday and I'm almost back to normal - it is just a strange feeling and I guess it is sticking all that junk food in my system and kicking off a major insulin response to shock my body from it's low carb regimen of the week before.

I was pleased to note the I am now very close to the 2 and a half stone I wanted off to start with.  I now need another half a stone off to get me back to where I was a few years ago and a further half a stone would get me back to my pre-cancer weight.  With the trip to Italy on the horizon I may have a difficult week but at least I won't have the major upheavals of last year to contend with.