1. Work/Home
Last week I saw a rat on my front porch. I was sitting in my office, minding my own business (at work in fact) in the middle of a video conference call when I spotted something on my deck. I jumped to my feet and danced around like a loon trying to get a better look at whatever it was (luckily I wasn’t actually talking or running the meeting). It ran off before I got a good look at it and later (after my meeting) I told Fearghus I thought we had a rat under our front porch. Fearghus said it was more likely that it was an opossum. I know what an opossum looks like. This was not an opossum. It looked like a giant cute little mouse (only giant). It was a wood rat.. kind of cute in a “not a warehouse rat” kind of way.. kind of annoying in a “OMG! THERE’S A RAT AT MY HOUSE” kind of way.
The next day I saw the rat again and was able to take a picture of it on my phone. I then grabbed Fearghus out of the garage to show him the rat.. but the rat ran off before Fearghus got there. I was able to show him the photos. Later that night, Fearghus and a few friends were hanging out in our front yard practicing when they started hearing the rat gnawing on the posts of the porch. Fearghus threatened to pull out the bushes in front of the porch to get to the rat but I dissuaded him.
The next day Fearghus went out an bought a rat snap trap and baited it with peanut butter. Our friend Dennis, who works for a pest company also put a trap under our deck. Then, of course, I didn’t see hide or hair of our unwelcomed visitor for a week.
Today I finally saw him again. He investigated the trap.. then ran away. Then about a half hour later he investigated the trap to death. Hopefully that’s the last ratty friend we’ll have visit for a good long while.
2. Erik
We completed our IEP(Individualized Education Plan) with the school district. They agree that Erik would benefit from speech therapy. Unfortunately the school district no longer offers free preschool to speech delayed kids (that was discontinued two years ago). We have been approved for 30 minutes per week with the school speech therapist in addition to the speech therapy we’re also receiving from Kaiser. We now have an appointment for him to meet with the school speech therapist for the 12th. She will work with him a few time individually and then possibly look to include him in a group therapy session.
We are also following up on the possibility of preschool (or the like). Our income is too much to qualify for a fee waiver. Without that it looks like preschool will be around $450/month. We’re looking into the possibility of qualifying for HeadStart program since we have an IEP. At the very minimum we will be getting our ducks in a row to get Erik into the lottery for a place in the Transitional Kindergarten(TK) which will open up in February.
The state of California establish TK for students who turn 5 slight after the kindergarten cutoff (between Sept 2 and Dec 2). Erik falls exactly in the middle of that. So starting next year he should be able to start TK which essentially means he’d end up with two years of Kindergarten. This seems like a splendid plan to me.
3. Health
Today I finally met with the Kaiser nutritionist. I set this appointment up almost 2 months ago when I had several incidents of hypoglycemia (I’m very glad it wasn’t any more life threatening, sheesh). In the meantime while waiting for the appointment I’ve been doing some on-my-own research to see if I could figure out what was going on.
I recently stumbled on a book by Lyle McDonald, “The Ketogenic Diet” 1998. It’s been very handy for digging into the science behind #keto. I still have some open questions but I’m only about half way through the book.
Regardless, the book mentioned that “coming off the ketogenic diet” (or in my case cheating with carbs) or caffeine can trigger incidents of hypoglycemia. Well there you go.
I ended up not cancelling today’s appointment because I wanted to chat with a nutritionist about my electrolytes. A lot of the keto groups advise supplementing your sodium, potassium and magnesium. I’m hesitant to do this based solely on some random Facebook advise.
The nutritionist spent a lot of time edging around the part where she really wanted to say “all of my schooling tells me [keto] is not healthy for you but if I say that to you you’ll rush out of here in a huff.” I don’t think I’d huff.. but I also realized that having her be like that made me feel like a loon when I tried to explain what I was doing and how I arrived here.
Ok.. the outcome is:
– She thinks I should eat more carbs
– We agree that even if I’m not hungry, 1k calories per day is not enough and I will strive to hit at least 1.2k. I’m actually aiming for closer to 1.4k-1.6k currently.
– We agree that I should discontinue my D3 supplement since 100% of my D3 is already covered by my daily vitamin.
– We agree that I should add some calcium citrate supplement as my calcium per week seems low.
– We agree that I should add more artichoke, avacado, green leafy veggies and fish to my meals as my potassium and magnesium are borderline to low. She also suggested that I might consider supplementing this.
– We suspect that the hypoglycemia is reactive hypoglycemia either from a carb cheat on that day or from caffeine as both things have been identified as causes for hypoglycemia when following a ketogenic diet.
– She suggested I should cut back on caffeine.. I agreed to limit it to one caffeinated and one decaf per day (unless I continue to have incidents of hypoglycemia in which case I will eliminate caffeine).
The past few weeks I’ve been allowing my hunger to dictate my food intake. I was under the impression that I would be hungry if my body needed more calories. So I had allowed my meals to diminish to the point where I was barely breaking 1k calories per day. I simply wasn’t hungry. I suspect that this low calorie amount may have contributed to the hypoglycemia.
Based on the calculator at ketogains.com, my maintenance calories should be 1780/day. I haven’t been getting anywhere near that.. and I’m not even a little bit hungry.
So my lesson this week is “Don’t trust the hunger”. I should have learned that years ago when I was hungry all the time and piled on the weight.. but it’s never occurred to me that the hunger was a lie. So, ok, when you cut our carbs you curb quite a bit of the hunger reflex. This has led to me eating below maintenance level.
So this week I’ve been trying to keep my calories up at maintenance level. I’m stuffed and not hungry.. but my weight has been stable-ish (gained 1lb.. but I think I had my “maintenance level” set too high early in the week.. and it’s also almost shark week.. so that’s a wash).
I’d like to try next week to stick with maintenance.. but I’m off to GWW for a week.. so I’ll be satisfied with saying keto and not over-indulding. After next week I’ll figure out what to do next.
I’m still not 100% convinced that being in ketosis is critical to my losing weight. Frankly eating high protein/high fat meals has diminished my appetite.. and a diminished appetite has made it easy to eat at a calorie deficit.
4. SCA/Projects
GWW is here.. and I’m utterly unprepared. I”m sure I should be working on something but I’m just not.
5.
I don’t normally go to GWW. It’s not my favorite war. I’m going this year because we have friends visiting from Sweden. But I’m still kind of blah about the event. I guess I’ll have to re-assess after the war.
Future:
Oct 2-9 Great Western War, Taft CA
Oct 13-15 October Crown, Rancho Seco CA
Oct 27-29 Cynaguan Fall Coronet, Oroville CA
Nov 10-12 PPF-Burgundy Fairfax CA
