Candida Cleanse Day 3: Exercise.

Thanks to persistent migraine symptoms, today was the first day that I did real exercise since I started my austerity measures. (I did walk to and from the library yesterday, but not at any great pace.)

Yow.

Granted, I was off last week because of Christmas, and most of the week before that because of bad migraine attacks, but I did go for walks with my father most days while we were visiting, and I did have a pleasant swim (2300y) on Monday. Besides, it is not as though I was doing anything that strenuous today, and my distance was 2000y over a little over 40 mins. (A typical coached swim practice clocks in at 3000-4000, and 85-90 mins.).

And to be clear, I am not talking about the uptick in migraine symptoms that I often feel during practice, since exercise is a sure-fire migraine trigger: weakness in my right arm and leg, distorted sensation (cold patches, numbness, tingling) in those limbs, some head and face pain in various places.

I think my muscles were feeling the lack of carbohydrates.

To be clear, it is not as though I have had no carbs, but I have had quite a bit less, and they are all in the form of whole grains and vegetables.

My legs felt very heavy very fast--as though I had had a big kick workout yesterday. And now that it's over, I feel like I really pushed myself--as though I swam really long or really hard or both.

And I am craving fatty meat like crazy. The trick, of course, is that most readily available examples of same (bacon, pork sausage, pepperoni, salami) have some form of sugar in them, and so are off limits. I did have a post-swim snack of carrots and almond butter, and now I can look at the cats without thinking of them as meat.

The good news is that turkey bratwurst are on the menu for tonight, but damn, couldn't they be pork? Or how about pork belly?

I am curious to see whether I will adapt to this, or whether the lack of carbs will be a hindrance to my workouts.

By the way, I did a weigh-in when I began, and I weighed myself again this morning under the same conditions: I had lost 4.4 pounds. I figure at least some of that has to be the result of the usual day-to-day fluctuations, but still: I find so quick a drop a little scary. Perhaps that amount of weight loss is also contributing to my difficulty working out--and to the fatty meat cravings.

BREAKFAST:
Turkey sausage with sun-dried tomatoes, grits (the real kind) cooked in chicken broth, salt & pepper
2 cups of rooibos tea

SNACK BEFORE SWIMMING:
5 Triscuits with almond butter

SNACK AFTER SWIMMING:
Carrots with almond butter