Slow Carbing it Up

Food has been a daily, almost hourly concern since we got here. Getting it is no problem; the grocery store is just a walk up the highway, about thirty minutes by foot. And most of the stuff you'd find in an American grocery store can be got here. The problem is making sure we eat the right stuff and enough of it.

You see, we're all giving the Slow-Carb Diet a try so we can get our body-fat down. It's described in Tim Ferris' book The 4-Hour Body, and it basically means cutting out every kind of carb that will get into your body fast and spike your blood sugar, which happens to be pretty much all carbs we tend to think of. Rice, flour, pasta, and anything with sugar are all out. Even fruit and dairy products are not allowed. It's kind of a variation of the Atkins diet, or so I'm told.

We had varying degrees of ease getting accustomed to it the first couple weeks. While we can eat pretty much however much we want of non-carb foods (beans, eggs, meats, and vegetables constitute most of our diet), we still get hit with cravings for all the other stuff, at least George and I do (Nick is not mortal and does not really count). That and apparently Nick and George need about half again as much food as I do. I tend to undercook, making however much fits into the pan, and in response they claim the meals just make them more hungry! So lately I've been trying to compensate for their voracious appetites. And we have to make sure we eat enough beans with their relatively high amount of carbs, or we get tired and cranky from low blood sugar.

George would like some more carbs now.

Cooking this stuff has been an exercise in improvisation. We basically buy all the foods that we like and are allowed to have. Whenever it's time to cook I tend to take a meat or two, a veggie or two, and maybe a handful of beans, then cook it all in butter or olive oil on the stove and season it with spices or (sugarless) sauces before serving. One of the more successful meals was pan-fried beets, pepperoni, and Canadian bacon with a bit of kalameta olive/feta sauce. Breakfasts have all involved eggs, to make sure we get our protein in the morning.

My first time grilling. Didn't go very well, but the setting was nice.

Now this diet has a twist: you get one day a week to go all out and eat whatever junk you want to put into your body. In fact you're encouraged to. Essentially it's controlled binging. It helps keep your metabolic rate up, and lets you satisfy your cravings every so often so you're not as likely to cheat on the other days. My first "Cheat Day" (also known as "Reverse Lent") I ate three eggs, a couple sausages, a Snickers bar, a banana muffin, garlic cheese bread, three slices of pizza, a bottle of pepsi, M&Ms, some chocolate cookies, a few chips, and a delicious banana milkshake. And that was before dinner! One of the ideas behind the day is you get so sick of this carb stuff that you don't want to even look at it for the next few days.

Conquered two large delicious pizzas on our first cheat day. It was GLORIOUS.

Oh and George hates Tim Ferris, the diet's author, with a "burning, fiery passion". Having read some of his book, I have to admit he's kind of an egomaniac. But we all agreed to judge man and method separately, so we're seeing if his various body hacks will actually work. Still, George appears aggravated most times we talk about him and his writings, which is pretty regularly now. At this rate we'll be talking about Tim and his body hacks more than about Tynan and his minimalist, nomadish ways.

What happens when you mention Tim in earshot of George