Sardines

For the last three days, Marshal and I have been doing a sardine fast. It's not really a fast, because that means that you don't eat any food, but it's a sort of fast in that you don't eat any food other than sardines for three days.

I have no idea why I agreed to do this...in fact, it was basically my idea. Sardines are really healthy, but I hate the taste, I hate the smell, and I hate the very idea of eating them. So why would I think that doing a fast that forces me to eat sardines and only sardines?

Well, I've been watching a fair amount of Dr. Boz lately on YouTube, and this sardine thing is her recommendation. She's talked about it several times in her livestreams recently, and even gave it its own standalone video.

So, that's what we decided to do, and let me tell you, it was a huge struggle for me. The first day, when I cracked open that first can and looked at those little fish...

It was a real struggle to get myself to put the fork in and take the first bite. Funny thing is that I don't really hate the taste that much. I don't like it, but I don't hate it either. It's just kind of blah. Chewing my way through all of those little fishies was kind of drudgery.

I ate two cans of sardines for my first meal. I did it out on the back patio instead of inside, because I didn't want to submit anyone else to that gross fishy smell. When I was done, I made sure to throw the cans away in the outside garbage as well for the same reason.

I ate two more cans later in the day when I was at work. I was really hungry when I finally ate them, not because I didn't have time to eat or anything, I just didn't really want to eat them. After a while, it started to feel like maybe I was doing a regular fast after all, since I didn't want to eat even though I was hungry.

Dr. Boz says that one of the good things about sardines is that it's hard to overeat with them, and that is super true in my case.

At work, I took the cans out to my car and ate them there to avoid submitting my coworkers to that smell. I'd hate to be the reason people were complaining that the break room stank of fish. I always hate it when I go in the break room right after somebody else has just finished microwaving fish, so I didn't want to make others deal with the same thing.

That was kind of an issue, because a car isn't really a good place to eat. Sardines come packed in water, and it's really easy to wind up spilling that water on yourself. Then you smell like fish for the rest of the day. On the second day, I realized that I just needed to dump the water before trying to eat. I just drained it into the bushes before sitting in my car and shoveling in those little fishes.

Over the next 72 hours, I followed that same pattern: two cans for breakfast and two cans for dinner. I ate twelve cans of sardines in all. 

Halfway through day two, I got curious as to whether it was doing me any measurable good. I jumped on the scale, and found that I was no longer at the weight that I've been stuck at for months. Instead, I'd come back down a few pounds. I checked my blood sugar and found similar improvement. It was down by a lot, after being stuck in a high position for months.

With that good news under my belt, the last bit of the fast wasn't so bad. I was kind of excited, to be honest, in a good mood at least. It was still drudgery to eat the sardines, but I felt like I was turning a corner and heading in the right direction, so I wasn't so bummed about my food option.

On the last day, I was feeling good enough to change my habits a bit. I went out for a walk on the greenbelt trails. The wildflowers were still there, and I got these pictures of a new bunch by the bridge over the canal.

I also soaked in a bath full of epsom salt. That's supposed to be a really good way to get magnesium, a mineral that we tend to be lacking in our diet these days, but important to many of our body's functions.

And now, I'm about to go and eat a final can of sardines. Dr. Boz says that your fast starts when you eat your first can and ends after 72 hours when you eat your last can. After that, I'm going to make me a big batch of bacon and some eggs.

What did I accomplish with this whole thing? Exactly what I set out to accomplish. I have been eating the Carnivore Diet with Marshal for almost two full months already, but up until the last two weeks, I never made it more than a few days without failing in one way or another. My failures weren't too bad, because I managed to get back on again the next day or at least within a few days, but I wasn't making any progress that way. It was the classic two steps forward and one step back.

I still have that problem of thinking of food as entertainment instead of simply using it as fuel. It should taste good, sure, but when I get bored, going to the fridge should not be my idea of how to liven things up a bit. That's the kind of habit that I need to break. A snack is always an emotional event, and I need to eliminate them. I've been going to the fridge and grabbing a piece of cheese to eat way too often recently, and I need to end that.

From here on out, I'm going back the the BBBE thing that Marshal and I did for 90 days last year. That's beef, butter, bacon, and eggs. I'm going to stick with that for a long while (though I may throw in a can of sardines once a week or so to get some extra nutrients and not consider that to be cheating). Most of all, I'm going to avoid cheese. Those dairy products are the easiest way to get way too many calories in a small package. BBBE doesn't include cheese. I don't think my body deals with dairy products well anyway, so it will only make things better to cut them out.