Sunday, March 04, 2007

Saturday, and gallstones & a low-fat diet

Calories eaten Friday: 1631
Fat: 35g (20%)
Carbs: 41g (10%)
Protein: 107g (26%)

Calories burned in exercise Saturday: 280
Calories burned in exercise today: 275

Weight Sunday morning (starting weight for NutriSystem): 154

Ok, the last post took you through Friday night. Now on to Saturday. I had a frozen South Beach pizza for breakfast. Pretty good. Then I went to church. During the break I was thirsty so I went over to the 7-11 across the parking lot for a diet soda. I spotted the donuts while I was there, and knowing I would be starting NutriSystem today and won't be having another one for a long time, I bought one and ate it. Yummy. I ate way too much of the sweet and salty mix at church - M&M's, raisins, peanuts, almonds, and a few cashews. I also ate pretty horribly during lunch - mostly high carb AND high fat things, but I did have some of the cauliflower potatoes I made, and some of Jane's salad.

At home I had a small glass of wine and separated the NutriSystem food I can eat into four boxes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack/dessert.

Then Brad came over and we walked around the lake twice (roughly 6 miles). I'm getting bored walking the lake, and with Daylight Saving starting next week, Brad hopes to soon take me out to Lafayette Reservoir to walk. It closes at dusk and has no lighting, and with Brad not getting off work until 3 and the long drive out there, we had to wait until the time change to give us an extra hour of light. So...very soon!

After our walk we went to Quinn's Lighthouse for dinner and I was a very bad girl. :) I got the "Arnold Burger" with cheese and bacon. The Arnold Burger is a huge 20 oz. burger on half of a gigantic sourdough roll. I got fries on the side and asked for mayonnaise to dip them in. They bought me a fairly large amount of mayo, which I thought would be way to much, but - sad to say - I ate it all. I dipped my fries in it and spread it on my burger. (I've never been a huge fan of ketchup.)

I also had dry white wine, a pina colada (I haven't had a real one in over a year and a half), and an Irish coffee. I took some pictures with my cell phone, but they came out really bad. I'll clean them up as best I can and post them at some point.

At home Brad and I went through the box of stuff I can't eat and tallied it up. He said he might buy it from his next paycheck. We'll see. If worse comes to worse I'll eat it. As long as I can keep carbs under 120g a day I should be okay. 120g is the amount of glucose the body needs each day. On a low-carb diet the body makes glucose from ingested protein (gluconeogenesis), so anything over 120g a day and you are doing nothing but burning carbs all day. Dr. Michael Eades recommend less than 100g a day, which is a good goal for me to shoot for.

Additionally, NutriSystem is very low-fat and I don't believe a low-fat diet is healthy in the long run. For example, it is a major cause of gallstones. The bile isn't used, so it just sits around in the gallbladder and forms stones:

The liver makes bile continuously and stores it in the gall bladder until such time as it is needed. However, if a low-fat diet is eaten, that bile remains in the gall bladder. Gallstones are formed when the gall bladder is not emptied on a regular basis. In people who continually resort to low-fat diets, bile is stored for long periods in the gall bladder – and it stagnates. In time – and it is really quite a short time – a 'sludge' begins to form. This then coagulates to form small stones which then become bigger.

To avoid this on NutriSystem I will eat more fat on Saturday - probably peanuts on the snack table at church since that is one of my favorite things.

I'll put Sunday in a new post since this is so long already.

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1 comment:

Amy Dungan said...

I'm not sure how I missed this post, but it's a great one. I am one of those people who unknowingly killed my own gallbladder. I ate fat free everything for several years. While in the last couple of months of my first pregnancy I started having these uncomfortable pains behind my ribs. I attributed it to the baby's feet (or hands, elbows.. whatever) and tried to get by. After my son was born the pain worsened. I would literally lie on the floor holding my chest and cry. I frequently felt I would throw up. 3 months later I was diagnosed with gallstones - approx. 40 of the little buggers. I had to have emergency surgery to remove not only the stones, but my gallbladder as well. It was beyond repair. To think I could have prevented it all had I known about low-carb 11 years ago.

What I really find interesting is my doctor told me afterwards, off the record, that he believed the gallbladder was meant to be used, and when it's not, it quits working. He believed low-fat diets were the cause.