I am Half a Man, But At Least I'm Sober!

Howdy all. I hope the Ides of January treated you all well. I think the Ides relates to the patron saint of malt liquor.  And yes - the 13th of January was the Ides, not the 15th. The internet says so. Get off my back. 

The wife and I are spending this extended home confinement period staring at things we don't like in our house. We are in the house A LOT. We had a COVID scare right after Xmas, and then again earlier this week. So we'll remain confined until Spring. No indoor dining or indoor parties for us. Yippee. 

We decided to make a list of issues we saw and find a contractor willing to tackle the jobs. Some are tiny (damaged shingles, shower water pressure issues, funky door knob, etc) and some are bigger (paint house exterior, fix leak causing water build-up in dining room, etc). 

Our contractor is great - honest and reasonable. We showed him our list when he came by. My competency in repairing things is limited. I'm all about tackling yard jobs, but I'm no handyman. He agreed to a plan to fix things.

And then he really did it. He made me feel like half a man. He fixed several of our issues ON THE SPOT. WITH ONLY A SCREWDRIVER. IN LESS THAN TWO MINUTES EACH. Wall-mounted hook for a curtain with its plastic screw base stuck behind plaster? He said it was a butterfly screw and fixed it in 15 seconds. Sticky door knob? He adjusted the tension on the knob in 10 seconds and fixed that. Two showers with water pressure issues? He quickly unscrewed the heads, took them apart, found blockages and re-screwed them in. Badda bing. Badda boom. To make things worse, my wife saw all of this. I felt like a eunuch. I take solace in the fact that I am surely not the only man who would struggle with these issues. And after all, I did paint one kid's bedroom a couple months ago. And I felled a mid-size tree all by myself with a chainsaw and some brute force last fall. Memories of this should ease my emotional impotence over time. Hopefully.

In other news, I am pursuing dry January again this year. I have done it many times. I started before it became cool. I am also using this as a reset for my low-carb diet. I am on an extreme reduction diet I hope to continue all month. By reduction, I mean the number of foods, not the amount. I am doing a strict carnivore diet to see how I feel. Since Monday 1/4, all I have eaten is meat, eggs, cheese and butter. all I drink is coffee (with cream), water. and the occasional mug of beef bone broth And I put lots of Himalayan sea salt on my food. Basically it's just red meat and water. No meat marinades, no Stevia for coffee, no snacks, no sauces, no side dishes, no low-sugar drinks, no fruits, no veggies. I eat a big lunch around 1 PM (Example: big omelet with side of sausage or two 8-oz grass-fed beef burgers), and then have dinner b/w 6-7 PM. That's it. An 18/6 intermittent fasting period. 

The good news is I feel good and I have lost seven pounds in less than two weeks. Most of that was the de-bloating from going back to ketosis. Future weight loss will be tough. The bad news is it's BORING. I can only dress up burger patties so much: add bacon and/or cheese. I miss the sriracha. And before you worry, I do take a statin for cholesterol. 

While doing this diet, I have been tracking my blood glucose and ketone level. The ratio of the two indicates if you are in ketosis, and how deep in it you are. I have a set-up where I prick my finger 1-2x per day and use strips to measure. The wife thinks I'm nuts. She may be right, but it turns out that the strict diet is effective. I am in deep ketosis, burning fat for fuel. I don't really have food cravings, but urges for scotch are creeping back. I was going through $30 bottles of Johnny Black every three days, so there is a wallet benefit to all of this as well. 

What's the purpose of this bio-hacking, you may ask? My goal is to get below 200 lbs. The last time I remember weighing less than two bills was the spring of 1993, when I did a weigh-in at Unit M for the intramural wrestling tournament. At a weight of 198, I was barely eligible for the heavyweight division. I had to wrestle a kid 30+ pounds bigger in the first round. It did not go well. So Team TR is trying to get back there, almost 28 years later. I'm adding running back to the workout mix to help, powering through my typical whining about running outside in cold weather. 

Wish me, my sober carcass and my pricked and bloody index finger well. A picture of me, with my on-line pseudonym, is below.