Day 139 - Q & A

Today I thought I would answer Lilla's questions in my post since they were some really good ones that I kind of wanted to talk about at some point anyway.

I'm curious about stronglifts - when you start, you don't chose weights for failure on each set 5 x 5?

When I started stronglifts, there were a few exercises that I hadn't done ever or in a while. Mainly, the deadlift and barbell squats, which are also ones in which you can injure yourself more easily if you have poor form and lift heavy. I started out with an empty bar and worked my way up in weight while concentrating on form. Since you squat 3x a week on this program, if you add 10 lbs each session, it doesn't take long to build up to a decent weight. If you're comfortable in the exercises, you would go to a slightly different program and use weights closer to your maximum. Most programs of this type recommend a basic 2-3 week strengthening phase using sub-maximal loads before you hit a maximal workload.

How did you up your calories %wise per macro? Do you eat differently on workout days vs. non-workout days?

My calories pecentage wise changed a little bit. Before, when I was on my initial fat loss stage, I aimed for about a 30/15/55 protein/fat/carb split. In order to get enough calories in for a bulking plan, the main thing that I did was allow myself more fats, since it is a good way to get the calories in. Also, some saturated fat is good because it stimulates your testosterone levels, which is anabolic. I also didn't increase my carb intake as much as the others. I think that my ratios are somewhere around 30/25/45, but it's hard to say exactly as I no longer log my food or count calories. I just try to eat a lot! If I overeat on anything, it's meat. I figure I need all the protein I can get.

I eat slightly differently on workout days to account for my workout nutrition. On non-workout days, I eat 6 meals, and incorporate meal tapering. My last meal is more of a bed-time snack which is a casein protein shake with a serving of fat, which has lately been either Udo's mixed in the shake or almond butter on celery sticks. I try to have minimal carbs in this snack. My pre and post-workout nutrition on workout days is strictly protein and carbs. I try to have as little fat as possible in these, and they are smaller. There might be 2-4 grams that sneak in, but I don't conciously add a fat source. These are usually meals 4 and 5 for me, then I'll have meal 6 about an hour or so later, and then finish with my bedtime snack (meal 7). Because of this, my workout days might be lower in fat content and might be more like a 35/15/50 split. The total calories per day probably don't vary much because I feel it is just as important to feed the muscle the day after a workout.

There is a good chance that I'm not making the leanest gains possible, but I am now fully accepting that some fat is going to be put on. What I'm doing is giving me results that I am happy with, so until I see large fat gains and little muscle gains, I'll continue on.

Thanks Lilla for the great questions!

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 21

Day 135 - Sweetness

Yesterday I picked up some stevia from the local health food store. Following Lilla's advice, I added a bit of it to the BFFM pancakes this morning. I think that was the secret missing ingredient. It made them much more enjoyable. Now I think the BFFM pancakes can be a real regular on my menu.

Today's workout was great. I was a little sore from Monday's workout earlier in the day, but the pain subsided once I got into the gym. My squats felt a lot stronger and I know I can keep pushing the weight up each session. Snuck in some push up work at the end of my workout, but my bench press and tricep dip had already taxed me. But it made for a great workout! By the end of it, I could barely move.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 17

Day 134 - Udo's Oil

Today I ran out of flax seed capsules. Luckily though on the weekend I picked up a bottle of Udo's Oil to meet my EFA needs. Well, I just had a taste of it in my bedtime casein protein shake, and I must say...I think it might take a bit of getting used to. The capsules are great because you can't taste it, but they aren't the most cost efficient way of getting enough of your EFA's.

A serving of Udo's oil in a protein shake seems to be a pretty standard thing in the health circle, but I guess it's one of those things where you sacrifice your taste buds a little for the sake of your health. In time, I'm sure I'll get used to it though. I thought celery would be one of those healthy foods that I just wouldn't give in to, but I've just gone through a few bunches of them lately. They go great with natural peanut butter, or my latest indulgence, almond butter! I did the same thing with oatmeal. I thought it was one of those healthy meals that I just wouldn't sacrifice my taste buds for, but now I've been eating steel cut oats almost every day.

So you never know what healthy foods you're going to end up enjoying. They say that babies have to try a food up to 20 times before they realize they like it. I don't think it'll take me that long to learn to love the Udo's oil. So, I pledge to try it everyday for the next 20 days. If I can't stand it by then, I guess I'll go back to swallowing capsules.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 16

Day 129 - What's in your grocery cart?

Today while I was at the grocery store I ran into an old buddy who just happened to be in town for a bit. I saw him a little over the Christmas break, but we didn't really get a chance to talk. The first thing he said to me was, "you're eating healthy!" I think the giant stalk of celery sticking out of my baasket gave it away. He then jokingly pointed at someone else's cart and said, "they're healthy too, eh? Look at all those Pizza Pops!" That person had about 6 cartons of them in their cart along with an assortment of other garbage food. For those that aren't familiar with Pizza Pops, they are the epitome of North American convenience food. Pepperoni and cheese mixed with a preservative filled tomato sauce inside a white flour pocket that is microwaveable and ready in minutes.

He then went on to say how good it was to see me all slimmed down and eating healthy. This meant a lot more to me coming from him. I've known him longer than I can remember and he's a good honest person. He's also the one from our town who was known as the big gym rat and we spent a lot of time at our gym together. He was always the stereotypical ectomorph growing up. Skin and bones. But he made a big transformation after his final year in high school and packed on a lot of muscle. He did his research and made a big commitment to his workouts and his nutrition and he made great gains. If you didn't know him when he was younger, you wouldn't believe that he was as skinny as he was growing up. But he made a plan, stuck to it, and got great results.

But it all starts with the grocery cart. You really can tell a lot about a person by what's in their grocery cart. Now, I know that when embarking on fitness missions such as these, that your best measuring stick is yourself. But I always like to play the "am I the healthiest person in this line?" game at the grocery store. It's a fun little game to play when you're right beside all those impulse sweets right by the register. I know they say that you shouldn't feel good at other people's expense, but I enjoy the victory of putting my fresh organic veggies on the converyer belt behind someone with their bags of potato chips and (soda) pop. Does that make me judegemental? Elitist? Snobbish? Possibly, but it does make me feel good about making healthy eating choices.

So here's what was in my cart today when my friend complimented me on my healthy eating:
skim milk, Low fat Triscuits (whole wheat crackers), organic steel cut oats, egg whites, whole wheat hamburger buns, organic baby spinach, low fat (4% MF) probiotic cheese, strawberries, herring, celery, green pepper, blueberries, cucumber, fresh Atlantic salmon, and a box of clementines.

How does this compare with your lists? Are you the healthiest person in your grocery line?

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 11

Day 122 - Feedings

Well, today is once again a muscle building rest day, so I didn't have much else to concentrate on other than my "feedings". I only managed 5.5 meals today rather than a full 6. I was just a little bit late with each of my first 4 meals which added up to me not having enough time fit the last 2 in without really stuffing myself. I decided against this as eating 2 regular meals only 1 hour apart is just like having a big feast since your body doesn't have enough time to digest the first one.

I'll have to work on my meal timings a bit more on my rest days since before I just had the 1 rest day and that was used as a "free" day where I wasn't so rigid with my meal times or plans.

Although I didn't quite get my 6 meals in, what I did eat was good quality clean food. I'm hoping it has me nice and fueled up for tomorrow's workout/strength test.

I'm excited to see how I do tomorrow!

So until then,
Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 4

Day 92 - Raiden's Chocolate Granola Bars

I mentioned yesterday that I spent some time Sunday making my power/protein granola bars. This time they turned out better than the batch before as I made a few changes. I think that the recipe might be ready for sharing.

Granola:
4 cups oats
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup almonds (chopped)
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup natural honey (heated)
1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened)

Batter:
8 scoops chocolate protein powder
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup cranberries (dried)
3/4 cup egg whites (approx 5)
1 tbsp natural peanut butter (heated)

1. Mix dry ingredients for granola in a large bowl.
2. Mix heated honey and applesauce together
3. Drizzle honey and applesauce mixture over dry granola mixture and mix well to evenly coat
4. Spread granola mixture on a cookie tray lined with parchment paper (or waxed paper)
5. Bake at 325F for 30 min or more (until nice and toasty), mixing and stirring around at intervals of 10 min. to prevent outside portions from burning

While granola is baking:
6. In a separate mixing bowl, add water to protein powder and wheat bran mixture until it's close to a cake batter mixture consistency (hand stir with wooden spoon)
7. Add egg whites, cranberries, and raisins and mix well
8. Slowly add heated peanut butter and mix well.

9. Once granola is nice and toasty, mix it with the protein "batter" to coat the granola.
10. Lighty spread this mixture into either a 8x13 pan (thick bars) or two 9x9in pans (thinner) lined with parchment paper (or waxed paper). Spread it just so it reaches the edges of the pans and DON'T press it, just make it so it has a general uniform height. There needs to be spaces in the mixture to get a nice even texture
11. Bake at 325 for another 25-30 min.
12. Let stand to cool and then remove from pans
13. Cut into bars of desired size
14. Store in airtight container and enjoy!

According to fitday, the total batch is approx:
3746 calories, 31/51/18 protein/carbs/fat 287g protein, 564g carbs, 73g fat

I cut mine into 12 bars which yields 312 cal/bar, 23.9g protein, 47g carbs (7.8g fiber), 6g fat, <1g saturated

15 bars would give you 250 cals/bar, 16 would give you 234 cals/bar.

The protein content will of course depend on your protein powder (fitday uses 25g/ scoop). The carbs are split about 50/50 complex (oats, bran, and nuts)/simple (applesauce, honey, raisins, cranberries).

Some changes you can make to this are fairly simple.

Up the protein with an extra scoop of protein powder and egg whites.
Lower the fat: drop the peanut butter (I didn't find it added much taste)
Raise the fat: add 1/4 cup of walnuts or pecans
Lower the sugar: swap out some applesauce for the honey
Chewier and more complex carbs: more oats

Anyway, if you do make them, let me know and if you have any suggestions for improving them, let me know as well! I like the taste, but that's me. I'd like to know what others think.

Today's pics:

Day 92

Day 91 - The True Confessions of Raiden Matsuo

Yesterday I made a short but to the point post. I had done wrong over the weekend and the guilt was getting to me. The accountability factor of having to report back to this blog did help control it however.

It was kind of one of those deals where a cheat meal turned into a cheat day, which turned into a cheat weekend. It all started with the work Christmas party, which was a buffet style dinner. Luckily though, as a result of eating smaller, more frequent meals, I'm unable to overeat as much as I used to be able to in one sitting. But then there was the beer, and then there was the desert table, and then there was the drunken late night ordering of pizza, and then there was the hangover breakfast, and then there was the samosas for lunch (which is my normal cheat meal), and then there was the beer at the matinee music gig that I caught, and then there was the leftover pizza from the night before.

My body basically had a conniption from all the garbage I was suddenly feeding it. I felt awful by the end of this trek. I was back to my senses by Sunday, but there was definitely some damage done. Oh, and what do I see? A couple of comments from Sammy and Adam advising caution when trying to put on some muscle to not overeat, and to continue eating good clean foods. Oh, the guilt was really setting in there.

But, as I look back, it may not have been as bad as I've made it out to be. As I said, I only managed one plate at the buffet, and a good third of it was filled with salad and grilled tomatoes and peppers. I filled up mostly on the meat, which was a seafood mixture of mussels, clams, and fish (seafood is always good lean protein) and half of a chicken breast, and I had just a bit of pasta and potatoe salad. Ok, well, I won't talk about the beer and the cake, but I did get some watermelon in to slow me down from the cake. The pizza we ordered was topped with chicken, ham, mushroom, peppers, and onion, so I managed to stay away from the sausage, ground beef and bacon. My hangover breakfaast was half of a waffle covered in lots of good fruit (and whipped cream) with a side of ham and some baked beans. So not great, but not terrible.

I did miss my workout yesterday, but once again, I really needed the rest, especially after I spent most of the day on my feet doing chores as well as making up another batch of my protein fortified granola bars. I was exhausted by the end of the day.

Today was much better as the order of the work week definitely makes it easier for me to stick to my planned nutrition. I was back in the gym today and got in a good workout and banged out some great sets. I left the gym completely exhausted. The difference between the strength building exercises and all the isolation exercises I was doing before is dramatic. Before, when I was just focusing on 2 or 3 body parts per workout, that body part would get tired, but I'd still have plenty of energy left, or at least that's what it seemed like. Doing whole body compound strength exercises leaves me just wiped, but I still feel good. It's more like the feeling after playing a game of hockey or doing some rock climbing.

Well, before I ramble on too much longer, here are my weekly measurement stats:
Week 13: 2007-12-03 to 2007-12-10
Weight: 134.99 (-0.28, -18.4 total)
BF: 20.96 (-0.07, -5.6 total)
Suprailiac: 10 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/14/12 (9.74%)

Not much changes this week, but the PhysicsDiet data is still playing catch up. I expect to see it go up next week. Even with my weekend binge though, the fat levels stayed the same as far as the pinches go. So, I guess the answer to my transformer hard-gainer in disguise question was that the buffet meal (and subsequent binge) didn't do a whole lot for either muscle or fat, but it did make me feel like crap. My stomach is starting to feel not quite as tight as it was a couple weeks ago. Although, some of my pinches felt like I could have recorded them as the next notch down, but it wasn't quite enough for me to record them as being different from last weeks numbers.

Well, here's today's pics:

Day 91

Day 88 - Transformer: Hard Gainer in Disguise

I hit a new milestone today, but not necessarily one I was looking for. Today I hit a new low on the scale, 133.4 lbs. Of course, I thought I was now on a strengthening and muscle gain program. I guess I've just fallen into the classic "but I don't want to get fat again" mode. Even though I was trying to eat more, I just haven't been able to get myself to really put myself in a surplus. I mean, I kind of pigged out a bit last weekend. After doing so, I sort of had that fat bloated and gross feeling, and backed off a bit. Maybe that is what I'm going to have to do to gain some muscle back? I mean, I did see my weight go up a bit this week only to have it rocket back down the past couple days.

Maybe, even after those years of packing on the fat, I'm a hard-gainer in disguise? Back when I was lifting heavy before, I don't think I was ever really able to put muscle on before. I might get a bit more definition, but my weight would go down. Well, at least I know a bit more about this stuff now. I only had my bf tested once before up until this past year (I was about 16% back when I was 18). I've done some reading that puts reasonable muscle gains in the range of 0.25-0.5 lbs a week (I'm not a genetic freak so I'm going to aim for the average). That's lean muscle tissue. With that muscle tissue comes about an extra 0.25-0.5 lbs of glycogen and water. So a gain of about 0.5-1 lb of lean mass should be possible in a week with little fat gain.

Ok, well, I know I'm really good at pigging out, but can I pig out on good clean food? Maybe. We'll see. Maybe I just need a good binge fest to spike my muscle growth to go with my weight training. Hmmm, I'm just about to head out to my gf's Christmas work party w/ plenty of free food provided. Will I live to tell the tale? Tune in tomorrow and find out if Raiden managed to gain muscle, or gain fat, or through the miracle of the Hard-Gainer in Disguise, actually lose muscle and fat after pigging out!

Until next time, Transformers, transform and roll out! (apologies to Optimus Prime and Hasbro)

Day 88

Day 79 - Another change up

Hey, I like doing things a bit different, so starting today I'm going to make my daily post before my workout. That way I might have some more interesting things to talk about other than my workout, and I won't waste away the wee hours of the morning finishing up my posts.

Today I thought I would share a little bit of data that I've collected.
For the budget conscious shredder, eating healthy may not come cheap. Some healthy food is cheaper, but others not so much. I think the biggest change that I noticed was that I was actually eating more food than before, and a lot more meat, since I tried having a source of lean protein at every meal.

Sources of lean protein are probably the largest part of my grocery bill, so I've kept a few tabs on the following staples, the stuff that I pretty much always have on hand, and end up buying even when it isn't on sale.

For some reason there's a lot of blank space here:

Food	Unit Size	#Servings	Protein/ Serving	Cost/ Unit	Cost/ 25g protein	Cost/ serving
Whole Eggs	dozen	12	6.3	2.25	0.74	0.19
Extra Lean Ground Beef	1 lb	4	21.1	2.99	0.89	0.75
Top Sirloin	1 lb	4	34.4	5.99	1.09	1.50
Chicken Breast (can)	1 tin	2	15	1.33	1.11	0.67
Egg Whites	dozen	2	21	2.25	1.34	1.13
Liquid Egg White	500 g	10	5	2.69	1.35	0.27
Protein Powder	1 kg	32	21	36.48	1.36	1.14
Cottage Cheese	500 g	4	15	3.29	1.37	0.82
Canned Tuna	1 tin	2	15	1.99	1.66	1.00
Chicken Breast	1 bag	10	22	19.99	2.27	2.00
Canned Salmon	1 tin	2	19	3.79	2.49	1.90
Salmon	1 portion	1	28.8	2.99	2.60	2.99

All prices are in Canadian Dollars and are listed as the lowest price I've paid for them that I could find or knew of off the top of my head. If was a real nut, I'd keep running tallies and use an average price, but that's probably a little extreme. I use the cost/25g of protein metric because that is about what I aim for in my protein intake per meal. For others, this might be higher or lower, depending on your needs.

Some notes:
The cheapest on this list, whole eggs, doesn't really count as a lean protein since it includes the fatty yolk. I eat mostly whites, so the average price for my egg protein intake is somewhere in between the price for whites and whole eggs. The next lowest, extra lean ground beef, isn't as clean as the other lean proteins since it still has a higher fat content than the others, most of which is saturated. Surprisingly, protein powder, even with all the marketing jazz and supplement company markup, comes in fairly reasonable. But if you use it too much, you're missing out on the other good stuff that comes from eating real food as well as the thermic effect since you're usually taking it in liquid form.

I guess it doesn't really change my grocery shopping or eating habits too much, except I'm going to try and make more use of egg (whites) and not to completely avoid the ground beef. Top Sirloin actually looks like a decent source as well, it's just a matter of limiting the size of the steaks that is the trouble. It's easy to take a nice big piece of meat which is probably closer to two servings. I think my salmon consumption will go down a bit as well and just make sure I keep up with my flax oil. I could get cheaper tuna as well, but for some reason I trust the little bit more expensive stuff more.

Well, there you have it, a short, but not too scientific insight on my grocery shopping habits. If anyone else has some tips on getting cheap sources of quality lean protein, let me know!

...and now for today's pics:

Day 79

Day 78 - Change of plans

If you've been following me the last couple days, I was starting to incorporate carb cycling into my program to shed those last few pounds of fat. Today, I made a decision to alter those plans and add a new goal to my current milestone. In addition I'll be extending my milestone deadline to correspond with the date of the event for my new goal.

I've talked a bit about hockey in my past posts, and it was a very important part of my life when I was younger, especially back in high school. The ultimate goal of my quest is to get in the best shape of my life. This should also mean that I should be playing hockey. I haven't hit the ice for over 3 years now, but I am now making it part of my mission to get back on the ice and strap those pads on again.

Today, I got an invitation to play in an organized pick-up game (yeah, organized pickup sounds like an oxymoron) on Boxing day with all my old high school teammates and others from town, who will all be home for the holidays. For most people, I think this will be just some time to fool around and just have some fun. But for me, it symbolizes a lot more. I mean, if any of them knew it was my goal to train for this one single pick up game, they'd think I was crazy. But I've had a lot of setbacks since high school (my speedbumps!) and this game is going to mean a lot to me.

So, what does this mean? Well, today I weighed in at 133.8 lbs, and 20.4% BF (I post my PhysicsDiet numbers in my weekly stats, which are running averages, so they lag my daily numbers) on my scale. Before I made this blog, my goal was to get under 22% BF on my scale by Dec 15th. On my charts, I had only set the axis for my weight loss to go from 155 down to 135 (I made it fixed so I had something to shoot for). I since had to adjust the axis, and I also set 21% BF as a goal when I started blogging. To be honest, I never thought I was going to get below 135 lbs. Ever. So, I've essentially hit my BF% and total fat loss goals already. But, for me to play hockey, strength and stamina will be bigger factors now that I've lost most of the excess fat that was slowing me down.

Right now, losing fat won't really help me, as there's the possibility that I'll lose a bit of strength in the process and it probably won't make me that much faster. So, there's really only one way for me to go, and that's to now try and put on some lean muscle (especially back and legs), and at the same time also get my cardiovascular fitness up. Both of those new goals means I'm going to need a lot more calories, so carb cycling is now out the window. I'll return to that after the New Year to shed any bit of fat that I put on during this short muscle gain phase (and the holiday meals!).

My plan now is to shoot for maintenance calories all this week (2700), and then next week go into an approximately 10% calorie surplus (an even 3000). During this time, I'm not so much changing my workout schedule, but I am going to push myself even harder. Since I'll be eating more calories, I plan on having more energy so I can lift even more weight, and go even faster and longer on my cardio sessions. I'm not going to worry too much about whether the energy for my workouts is coming from the food I just ate or the fat stores in my body. I just want to give my heart the best workout it can get.

I'm not quite sure what kind of muscle gains I can make in this short time, but I'll take anything I can get.

Wish me luck!

Here's today's pics:

Day 78

Day 77 - Something doesn't add up! It's not Day 76!

Well, I realized today that I'm one off on my day count. I missed counting a day somewhere back around day 35 when I was taking pictures. You'd think with my obsession with numbers that I would have caught onto this earlier. I should have realized my weekly stat posts weren't a multiple of 7. I guess I just thought it was an off by one error, which happens in computer programming, especially when your index starts with 0. Anyway, enough geek talk.

Today was my first high carb day, and I was aiming for eating maintenance calories, which according to my own calculations I have worked out to be around 2700, since I've been mostly aiming for 2200 a day and losing an average of 1 lb a week lately. To be honest, it seemed like a lot of food for me today, but hopefully I'll have a nice store of glycogen in my muscles now. I gave my legs a good workout, and they felt much better since I didn't do my HIIT on the bike like last week. I did however hit the bike for some post weight steady state cardio.

Tonight for supper I had a new food. My girlfriend and I tried making quinoa for the first time. In my healthy food searching I stumbled upon it and thought I'd give it a try. I picked up just a sampling from our local bulk food store and made it in my rice cooker. It's supposedly a real super food as it's a seed that is used like a grain, with a higher protein content than wheat or rice, with a well-rounded amino acid profile. It tasted pretty pretty good and was a nice change from rice or potatoes. It's a bit expensive though for a starchy staple, coming in at about $10/kg, especially compared to my big bags of rice. It's worth a try though. I think I'll get some more and try it in some mixed dishes instead of just eating it on its own.

Without further adieu, here's my weekly stats:

Week 11: 2007-11-19 to 2007-11-26
Weight: 136.36 (-1.23)
BF: 21.43 (-0.50)
Suprailiac: 11 mm (11.6%)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 8/16/14 (10.96%)

and my daily pics:

Day 77

Day 72 - Getting Ready for Carb Cycling!

Workout today was chest and triceps. Warmed up on the bike and then cooled down on the elliptical after the weights.

I'm going to make this a short one since it's getting late for me and one of my new goals is to try and get to bed earlier and get more quality sleep. My biological clock wakes me up at the same time every day pretty much, whether I go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, or at 11pm. The difference between the two is the quality of sleep and how I feel later in the day. When I wake up I'm generally refreshed, but I feel the effects by the evening if I didn't get enough the night before.

I spent some time today planning my attack for the final 4 weeks before I hit my milestone 1 deadline. I'm pretty sure I'm going to reach my goal before that, but there's no harm in me going for exceeding it! I plan on finally incorporating some moderate carb cycling into my program for 4 weeks. I don't think I'm particularly carb sensitive and have always thrived on high carb diets before given my previous high activity levels. Anyway, my plan is as follows:

Sunday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Monday - High Carb w/ weights, ss* cardio
Tuesday - Low Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Wednesday - Low Carb w/ HIIT, abs
Thursday - High Carb w/ weights, ss cardio
Friday - Low Carb w/ weights, HIIT
Saturday - Free, Rest

*Steady State

The idea is that I'll be hitting the HIIT workouts at my low points, since the HIIT workouts are the ones that burn the most fat as long as I'm not drained. This is a more moderate carb cycling, but I really do thrive on carbs (currently 55-60% of my cals), so I think it would be tough for me to go more than 2 days on low carb and I'd probably end up binging real bad on whole packages of rice cakes, triscuits, and baked tostitos.

Wow, not so short anymore...

Ok, here's today's pics:

Day 72