I am looking at some changes to the way I am doing Nutritional Ketosis but .......Right now I am only just managing to keep close to my eating plan let alone make any changes no matter how small.It may not sound like a lot of gardening but today I spent about 4 hours working outside. Both John and I are weary. The rain has come. We welcome the rain. We've had a dry spring so it is needed and we will get a good rest before we get into the garden again. Mum laid out the garden and we have difficult clay soil with a thin layer of good soil. Mum was determined to develop a cottage garden with lots of colour. The local conditions meant this would be a high maintenance garden. Add into the mix the neighbours vigorous ivy which has gone rampant through the fence line and under the driveway into the rest of the garden and some awful grasses with tough underground runners. Today was spent pulling grass, getting rid of more ivy and planting a border with what we hope will be a suitable perennial. We are gradually turning it into a lower maintenance coastal garden. It would be so nice to have a couple of thousand dollars, or five, to bring in landscapers, rip everything out and start again. As it is, with the place for sale we are doing what we can to keep it presentable and low budget.My own garden is suffering from neglect. I can only manage so much at a time.An email from friends who live in Hawaii has me all excited. We might see them next week. In fact they might be staying downstairs at the Beach House for a few days. Now I'm dreaming again about our next trip to Hawaii. 
Sadly it's on hold until the beach house sells.I made an egg bake with leftovers for dinner and now John is getting me a small dish of rhubarb with my first attempt at making panna cotta. Yummy! I've had too much coffee today. Bed will be welcome but not sure how well I'll sleep.
Up-date ..... Too busy.Plus I cooked corned beef. I really like a good piece of corned silverside but it always results in a short term weight gain.Gardening has used up most of my energy the last few days. It's been very warm, and I have been working in full sun. Yesterday, at the family beach house we are selling, it got really hot. Daughter and I went for a swim. We made some good progress but there is still a lot to do. It's raining tonight so maybe the ground will be easier to dig up stuff tomorrow. Oh I mean today.I'm writing this at 3 am because I can't sleep. I fell asleep early but after waking and tossing and turning I got up to have a hot drink and here I am. Eating is OK. Not counting as too much grazing but only LCHF
I managed to stay very close to my plan.Calories 941Carbs: 15 gm: Protein 18 gm: Fat 92 gm.I seem to need a couple of prunes or similar each day. All the fat in the world makes no difference. This might be because I have no gall bladder therefore fat is not digested the same way. I am fortunate in that I appear to have no problems with fats or any other food that could be related to not having a gall bladder. I had a cholecystectomy 52 years ago just after my 21st birthday.No walk but I spent a couple of hours gardening in the warm sun. In the past I was not very tolerant of heat or cold. I am noticing that I am not nearly as bothered. My eldest child is now 48 and I remember struggling to hang washing on the line as early as 9 am if it was sunny. I'm beginning to understand how my hormones were all messed up during my child raising years. It's very possible that my intolerance to wheat had something to do with this. If only I knew then what I know now!Couldn't we all say that.Today's plan is to increase my calories to around 120020 gm Carb: 50 - 60 gm Protein: 100 gm FatA walk is on my agenda and a little more gardening too. I am really impatient to lose the next 6 pounds and I am so tired of bouncing up and down on the same 4 pounds. As yet I've not found anything that looks like an alternative to what I'm doing that I feel comfortable with either.We'll see how my stats work out tomorrow. I'll be really disappointed if I don't like them
A small drop in weight but I suspect that the salty pork crackling did me no good. There are only a few pieces left.Today I debated going for a free for all food day which would probably turn into days. Fortunately I began with a fasting ketone test. It's still only 0.6 but yesterday afternoon I had a reading of 1.8 so that must mean that generally speaking I am in nutritional ketosis. This encourages me to stay true to my general plan.The question remains. Why am I not losing significant amounts of weight?It might be because I am consuming too much fat for me. That's sad because I like the extra fat in my diet. It could be because I'm not getting regular exercise .... no excuse .... I've simply reverted to being a professional couch potato 85% of the time.It could be that I am not eating enough leafy and low carb vegetables.It could be that I am not being sufficiently consistent.I do keep to my plan most of the time. I am reasonably healthy and take no medication.Maybe today is the day I stop messing about with this and that and plan to follow my best HFLC program for 7 days without faltering.Today is Day 1 and I begin with a Fat Fast 900-1000 caloriesI'm going to aim for the following with a little wriggle room.6 gm Carb. 15 gm Protein. 90 gm FatThe other thing I will do is 30 minutes minimum on the cross trainer or a longer walk outside. And Gardening is planned.We'll see how this goes. I really want to find that sweet place where I relax into a comfortable, for me, eating protocol.
I had designated yesterday to be a Fat Fast but it didn't quite go according to plan.I had my usual keto coffee in the morning. Lunch was a stick of celery stuffed with a smallish piece of blue vein cheese.I didn't eat again until after 6 pm ...... except for the huge amount of pork crackling. Much to my surprise I did get to the point where I wasn't interested in eating more. That never happened when I was eating fresh bread or toast with butter and whatever filling or topping I felt like.We had creamy omelets filled with a mixture of salami, bacon, tomato, asparagus and cheese plus salad. I was hungry but it was very satisfying. I topped off the day with a few nuts and prunes. My weight is up again. It's still within the acceptable 5 pounds of maintenance, but only just 
I'm going back to look over some of Diane Sanfilippo wisdom and also a look in Dave Asprey's blog after listening to their podcasts and here. They both mentioned something about what to do when you need to make a change because what you are doing has stopped working effectively. I could stay where I am and be content to see if I drop the odd pound now and then. I know most of my general health markers are acceptable or even excellent for my age .... But I could be better. My energy runs out. I'm not quite where I want to be.I am searching for success and that includes waist reduction, weight reduction and increasing energy. I so wish I were 20 or 30 years younger. I would have breezed through this period of stalemate my body is giving me. Now it's much harder to keep the motivation going. My brain would really be quite happy if I gave up but then I'd get into that vicious cycle of poor choices, brain fog and fatigue for no good reason. I will just keep on reading and learning until I hit the right balance for me
I've missed a couple of days. Things going on which impact weight loss although not related.
Stress. We are selling my mother's house. Mum died 22 months ago. Four families have shares in the house which is absolute beach front. You walk out of your bedroom, if downstairs, across the lawn onto the beach. 50 yards and you are swimming in the Pacific Ocean, which admittedly is somewhat cold for me. We are in the process of re-listing with a different agent and I am the one who has to keep all families up to speed and collect necessary signatures. Until this week a niece was doing this but not any more apparently. I'm more than happy to do it but as most people know there is nothing like jointly owned property to expose any difficult relationships. It's going to be an interesting week or more.
Added to this is the need to spruce up the house and garden when there is very little cash available. We did most of the work 12 months ago but we need to keep things up and make sure the property is attractive. The property market in New Zealand is improving but suddenly a whole lot of properties in our price range have been listed so we have competition. The question in, 'Will it be an advantage?' We can only hope.
About my food.... it has remained good without logging every detail but my weight is fluctuating up and own over 2 kg.
Yesterday our SuperMarket had pork crackling in the meat section. I cut it into bite sized pieces and salted it before putting in the fridge overnight. This morning I baked it in a moderate over and have been snacking ever since it cooled just enough not to burn my tongue.
This has to be treated as a once a month, or better still less frequent, treat. For me, it's worse than potato crisps, chocolate, salted, roasted nuts. I cannot get enough and once I start it's really hard to stop nibbling even though it has a natural fat content. Freshly baked crackling is so tasty and crunchy. I think it's the crunch that has me returning for another bite all the time.
Today I have a whole lot of scanning and printing then posting out to see to. It is also designated a day of gardening so it's time I started on my important jobs
STATS for Monday November 18thHeight:- 155 cms/5 ft 1 in.Weight:- 81.5 kg/179 lbs 10 ozWaist:- 91.5/36 insHips, at belly button :- 106.5 cms/42 insYesterday's food included Keto coffee, coconut, berry smoothie, savoury, (stuffed) eggs, garden salad, balsamic dressing, camembert, almonds and prunes.Calories:- 1280Carbs:- 28 gm/8.6% Protein:- 51 gm /15.7% Fat:- 110 gm/ 75.7%Fasting Ketones:- 0.6I also went for a walk:- 4.5 km/2.8 milesIt was a good day.
