Sunday Trip to Golden Corral

English: Golden Corral restaurant at 3800 North Roxboro Street in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, we decided that we were going to go out to visit my son at his school.  Now that he is eating a much wider variety of foods, he is doing so much better and putting some weight back on.  With his improved diet, one of his favorite places to go eat is the Golden Corral for their buffet.  We can count on him eating a couple of big plates of foods.  Today was no exception.

I have long suspected that there are certain people who work in my son's dorm that have a lot more difficulty in dealing with some of his behavioral issues than others.  I have felt that rather than alleviate some of his difficulties, they tend to exacerbate the situation.  I do believe that it is important that he learn to behave properly with all of those he comes in contact with, however, I also think that they should learn the best ways of helping him get through difficult times.

My suspicions were somewhat confirmed when I called to check up on him a few days ago.  The lady I happened to speak with was one of those that my son really responds well to.  She was telling me that she almost never has any difficulty getting my son to behave and have a good day.  We did have a discussion about one of the other ladies that I have suspected has a little more of a difficult time with my son.  Turns out, she thinks the other lady has a bit of a personality conflict with my son.  Often when I have spoken with this second person, she has reported that my son has had a difficult time.

The day when my son usually has his most difficult days is on Sundays.  Frequently, the person who he gets along with (lady #1) is off that day.  The one he doesn't get along with (lady #2) is usually one of the ones that work on Sunday.  Often, we have shown up on a Sunday and my son has been having a difficult time.  He has been non-compliant and often is crying. Today, however, he was in a pretty good mood and participating in activities when we walked in.  I think primarily because lady #1 was working, and he knew we were coming.

In my conversation with lady #1 earlier in the week, she probably revealed a little more than she should have regarding lady #2.  She had me that she has tried to tell #2 ways that she could get my son to respond better.  For example, my son loves to listen to his music.  Lady #1 lets him have it as long as he behaves.  Lady #2, on the other hand, takes his music away and tries to force compliance first before allowing him to have music.  Method #1 is far more effective.  Lady #1 did tell me that she had heard that lady #2 will be dealing less regularly with my son.  

Today, lady #2 was around the building but not in the area that my son was in.  I do not know if that will be a permanent change, but if it helps him to do better then I am all for the change.  We will be going back out for another visit in two weeks when it is time for the annual Chrome City Ride at the school.  Hopefully, between now and then my son will have some better days.  The past week has been a difficult one for him at school and in the dorm.  We have told lady #1 that she needs to work with him 24/7 with no days off.  After all, we only want what is best for our son.

Tracking My Carbs

Image via CrunchBaseOne week ago, I had posted about using The Carbohydrate Curve as outlined in "The Primal Blueprint" as a guide for losing weight.  At the time, I had come to the realization that some food products that I thought would be better for me in my weight lost quest, actually were hindering my progress.  I immediately cut those products out of my eating and began concentrating more on the number of carbs in the foods that I was eating.

I switched from drinking my 100% juice drink that contained 52gr of carbohydrates to drinking Vitamin Water Zero or other drinks that contained little or no carbohydrate.   Over the next few days, my stalled weight loss had started up again.  In the week since I made that switch, I have already lost another 3 pounds.  I have now become a true believer in the idea of limiting my carb intake in order to lose weight. 

In the past, I have never been one to read nutritional labels, but it is now becoming an obsession with me.  After discovering that the juice I was drinking contained 52 grams of carbs, I decided to see if there were other things that I was eating that would add unnecessary carbs.  There have been a couple other products that I had been using that I have found that I can change and further reduce my carb intake each day.

One of the things that I have been eating consistently at work has been a salad with a little bit of baked chicken in it.  In my new zealousness of reading labels, I found that the light versions of the salad dressings that I had been using contained more carbs than the regular variety.  For instance a serving of regular bleu cheese dressing has 1gr of carbs while the light has 6gr.  One of the light salad dressings that I was using had 8gr of carbs per serving.  It is no longer on my shopping list.

Right now, I am becoming more dedicated to keeping my carbs in the 50-100gr per day as recommended in The Carbohydrate Curve.  I downloaded a cool app for my android operated phone from myfitnesspal.com.  It has a pretty cool feature where I can scan a UPC bar on a product and it will pull in all of the nutritional information and add it to my daily food diary.  You can also search thousands of products to easily track and add foods to my daily food diary.

Currently, I am down to about 210lbs.  I have lost between 15-20 pounds since I started to change my eating habits.  According to a lot of the weight charts, my ideal body weight should be around 170 pounds.  I am not sure I want to lose that much weight, but I would like to get down to 180 pounds eventually.  I have a formal affair to attend for my son's school.  I had hoped to hit 200 pounds before it, but since it is just two weeks away, I don't think that will happen.  However, I think I can definitely get there by Memorial Day.

Related articles

• Never in a Million Years Did I Think... (marksdailyapple.com)
• Avoid Eating Protein Bars For Weight Loss! (fitnesstroop.com)
• Four Fabulous Real Life Low-Carb Health Stories To Encourage You (liberationwellnessblog.com)
• Ediets vs. MyFitnessPal: Weight Loss and Technology (jerseyveganchick.wordpress.com)

The Carbohydrate Curve

For the past few weeks, I have talked a bit about my weight loss goals and eating according to The Primal Blueprint.  For the first three weeks of following the blueprint, I was doing pretty well, losing about 15 pounds.  However, over the last few weeks I have hit a plateau and have been pretty stagnant.

The sudden plateau has been a bit perplexing for me.  I have really not changed the way that I have been eating since I started the program.  In fact, I actually thought that I had been eating better than when I first started.  About the main thing that I have been doing differently is that I had pretty much given up diet sodas because they really don't have any nutritional value.

Today, I think I finally figured out what has been causing the slow down in my weight loss, but first I want to talk about the Carbohydrate Curve as outlined in The Primal Blueprint.  According to the Carbohydrate Curve, to maintain your weight, you would need to consume an average of 100-150 grams of carbohydrates per day.  Anything more than that would put you at risk for gaining weight.

To lose weight, the Primal Blueprint recommends that you consume on average 50-100 grams of carbohydrates per day.  Eating within that range on a consistent basis puts you in the "sweet spot" for weight loss.  Eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day would put your body into ketosis.  This would be the carb goal on diets such as the Atkins Diet, but then you would not be able to enjoy the variety of fruits and vegetables that are a big part of eating primaly.

Now with this background of the Carbohydrate Curve, I can address my "eureka" moment as to why I believe my weight loss has stalled.  As I said, I had given up drinking diet sodas at lunch.  Instead, I was drinking small bottles of 100% juice thinking that it would have better nutritional value than the soda.  Unfortunately I had not read the nutritional labels on the juice.  That is, until today.

Today at lunch, I happened to turn the bottle of juice that I had in my lunch around and read the label.  While the juice had no added sugar, it still contained 52 grams of carbohydrates, more than half of the daily limit of carbohydrates if I want to remain in the weight loss zone of the carbohydrate curve.  Needless to say, the juice stayed in the lunch bag.  I am going to see if cutting out the juice and switching to something lower in carbs to see if it helps kick start the weight loss again. 

Going Primal

Cover via AmazonI just finished reading The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.  About a month ago, I made the decision to start eating better.  Then when I got my Kindle I was browsing Amazon.com for some books when I came The Primal Blueprint.  Since I was in the mindset for weight loss, and it looked interesting, I decided to download the book.

The Primal Blueprint is more than just a "diet" book.  It is a lifestyle guide.  We live in a world where we supposedly know so much more than our ancestors in regards to health and fitness, yet we are fatter than we have ever been.  Mark takes a look at the Conventional Wisdom on diet and nutrition and shows how it is mistaken.  He compares the lifestyles of modern society with those of pre-agricultural society and shows how our predecessors were stronger and healthier.

When I made the decision to start eating better and to try to lose some weight, I decided that I was going to stop eating junk food and eat more fruits and vegetables.  The Primal Blueprint espouses doing just that, but also stresses cutting out grains.  It could be considered a low carb diet, but unlike Atkins, encourages you to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.  Sisson also gives you the leeway to "fail" once in a while in your eating.  He stresses that you try to eat primal at least 80% of the time.

On the subject of exercise, Sisson also takes shots at conventional wisdom.  He says that the current recommendations for cardio, which he calls chronic cardio, and long weight lifting exercises are actually counterproductive to health.  He says that these workouts actually stimulate you to end up eating more food and inhibits your fat burning.  I have never been a cardio guy, but have done a lot of weight training programs.  I usually found that when on those programs, I was a lot more hungry after than if I wasn't exercising.

There are so many other things that Mark writes about that seem to just make sense intuitively.  He wrote in the book how excessive digital entertainment, ie computers and television, late in the evening interrupts and makes it difficult to get the proper rest.  Shortly after reading that, a news story came out that said that people who watch TV late at night tend to be more prone to insomnia.  I have been wanting to cut down some on the amount of time I spend on the laptop and in front of the tube.  Now maybe I have a reason to actually try to cut back.

The Primal Blueprint basically has 10 Primal Blueprint Laws to use as a guideline for living.  Maybe we could even call them the new 10 commandments for nutrition and exercise.  They are listed below.

1. Eat lots of plants and animals
2. Avoid poisonous things
3. Move frequently at a slow pace
4. Lift heavy things
5. Sprint once in a while
6. Get adequate sleep
7. Play
8. Get adequate sunlight
9. Avoid stupid mistakes
10. Use your brain

My goal is to try to implement these laws in my life on a daily basis.  Some I know will be easier than others.  One of the things that Mark espouses is the idea of intermittent fasting.  It is OK to skip meals or go without food. Yesterday, I was traveling, and had nothing to eat until I met an old friend for dinner last night.  I did not feel stressed the whole day by not eating.  The other thing that I have noticed as a bit of a benefit to my new eating routine is that the arthritis that I have been suffering in my hands is much less noticeable.  I won't say it is completely gone, or will go away forever, but it is a lot better than it was.

I encourage you to try The Primal Blueprint.  You can find more info at Mark's Daily Apple. Go Primal!

Related articles

• Top 10 Reasons to Pre-Order Primal Blueprint Quick & Easy Meals (marksdailyapple.com)
• The REAL Food Pyramid (haynesherway.wordpress.com)
• Living Primally! (tjrouill.wordpress.com)

Home for a Long Weekend

Yesterday we picked our son up from school for a scheduled long weekend home.  It had been a little more than three weeks since we had dropped him off.  Originally, he was supposed to be at school for a little more than five weeks, but after week one we had to bring him home due to an ear infection.  After he recovered and went back to school, the three weeks he was there have been the longest he had been away from home.

For the most part, he has done better during the week when he has class.  He has struggled most on the weekends when he has spent most of his time in the dorms.  His weekend struggles have been particularly tough on my wife and I.  So much so that we have almost dreaded calling to check up on him on the weekends.  This past weekend, we got one of the better weekend reports that he had been eating better, interacting with peers, and cooperating in general.

When we picked him up yesterday and spoke to his teacher, she said that as of last Wednesday, my son seemed like a different child.  He had been performing his tasks without resistance and had been eating three meals a day.  Prior to that he would only eat lunch in school and occasionally a little breakfast.  This was a major relief to us because we had been particularly concerned about how little he had been eating, especially on the weekend and evenings.

He was pretty excited to be coming home.  The whole way home he was yapping away a mile a minute.  It was kind of funny because he would go into some of his rote conversations.  We would start to do our role in the conversation, but he had so much to say that he would quickly move from one topic to another.  He has been keeping me pretty busy doing things when I am home from work at night.  I will be burning him at least one or two DVDs over the weekend.

I have had a couple major concerns with him adjusting to living away from home.  A couple of them I have chronicled here previously.  His eating and drinking have been a major concern.  Another was that he would not comprehend or understand us taking him to school.  My fear was that he would think that we were abandoning him.

Yesterday, my wife asked him a question.  I can only hope that he didn't fully understand what she was asking him.  She asked him if he thought that mommy and daddy had forgotten about him.  His answer was "yes."  If he understood her correctly, then another of my biggest fears has been realized.  We have told him without equivocation that we would never forget about him.  My prayer is that he will know we will always love him and be there for us.  

 

Back at School

My son has been back at school since last Monday after coming home for a long weekend over Thanksgiving.  On my last update, which I wrote the night before we were to take him home.  I was concerned at the time that it would be a challenge to get him to return back to school.  Let me tell you, it was more than difficult. 

Whenever my son thinks we are taking him someplace he doesn't want to go, he will drop to the ground and refuse to move.  We found out that they were able weigh him at school and that he weighs in at 186lbs.  Needless to say, if he drops to the ground, my wife and I can not move him.

We decide that on the day we were to return him to school, that we would take him someplace he liked to go.  He had been asking to go to IHOP over the Thanksgiving break, so we decided to head out to IHOP that morning.  As soon as he got out the door, he dropped to the ground.  After about half an hour, we finally got him to the car and headed to breakfast.

We finished breakfast, and we headed out the door, he dropped to the floor in the restaurant.  Once we got him out of the restaurant, we had at least three more incident of his dropping to the ground.  Two of them were in the parking lot between two cars.  After several minutes, I walked to a nearby fire station and enlisted the help of some firemen to help get him in the car.

Once we got out to school and went in for the Christmas party.  We had a pretty good time while we were there.  I got to meet a few of the other people at the school who work with our son.  At the party, Santa Claus was there.  My son usually doesn't want to see Santa, but he sat on his lap and told Santa something he wanted for Christmas.  Still, our son wanted to go home, and at one point asked me to stay with him.

I call daily to check on his status.  The good news his first week back was that he was attending school daily, and was eating lunch.  Unfortunately, at the dorms he was not eating dinner.  The weekends for him at school have been the most trying.  Those are the days that he usually doesn't eat anything.  I had almost gotten to the point where I dreaded calling to check on him because I was concerned he wasn't eating.

On Sunday night, I called and he was down at a social.  He loves going to those so he can dance.  The best thing was that they reported that he ate well that day and had an overall excellent day, watching football and decorating the Christmas tree.  Then yesterday, he refused to go to class and spent the day in the dorm.

There have been several good reports, but for every good report there has been some negative.  It is a major adjustment period for him and for us.  On the positive, he is starting to interact more with the other kids in the dorms.  One day I could hear him in the background laughing and playing with the others.  Then the next, he spends it in his room.  Only two more weeks until Christmas break.

Related articles

• Update on School and My Son (dickstersrandomthoughts.com)