Eighth monthly roundup of measured data and analysis.

Data

Since blogger is annoying in how it handles images, I’m going to upload an Excel (2003) spreadsheet. Here’s a link:

http://www.forefrontpb.com/phildiet/Diet%20Records.xls

The "Weekly Graphs" worksheet shows the weekly average of weight and the weekly average combined BM score and quantity. Also added average frequency.

The "Weight Chart Daily Graph" worksheet shows the daily morning weight.

The "BM Score Daily Graph" worksheet shows the daily combined BM score and quantity.

I'm keeping a food log and notes in a written notebook, which for the sake of putting off an annoying task, I will scan and upload when I'm done rather than every month.

Analysis

March was insane.

I spent two weeks in India eating nothing but the continental breakfast (cheese/egg omelet, dry bacon, dry sausage) and then gorging at a Brazilian BBQ in the evening. At first, I felt somewhat self-conscious about eating tons of meat while people literally an 1/8^th of a mile away were starving in abject poverty, but that went away on the second night when one of the BBQ chefs mocked me for not being able to eat enough meat. Game on after that.

By the third night they recognized my face and I barely had to order. I just walked in, they sat me down where I normally sat, and food started to appear. Wonderful!

Anyway, while there I managed to lose about 7 pounds. I was dizzy half the time, probably from the malaria medication, and slept poorly. I literally fell asleep while typing an email and woke up 20 minutes later with giant red mark on my forehead where it was resting on the desk. Incredible to experience real jet lag like that.

Ironically, after all the warnings about not drinking the water and intestinal parasites and whatnot, I think I may have actually gotten diarrhea from Continental. As soon as I landed in India, I had to go to the bathroom. After a few days of this, I took some antibiotics and it cleared up immediately. I was fine for the rest of the trip. Then, immediately on landing in Newark, I had to take a crap. I only waited a day before taking the remainder of my antibiotics, and it cleared right up. New hypothesis for traveler’s diarrhea: it’s actually the airline food.

The second half of March saw me falling ill for the first time since I went on the diet. It was a run of the mill cold with a touch of fever. I can’t report feeling any real difference in the cold compared to what colds were like prior to the diet – alas, eating like this is not magic.

I have not restarted my weightlifting program, though I want to. I’ve been playing a lot more paintball in preparation for the tournament in June and so I tend to be tired and sore from that for half the week. We’ll see how that goes.

Hard to believe it, but I’m ¾ of the way there. Eight down, four to go!