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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

Sliced pudding. I had to look up that one. Looks like salami?!

The thyroid part is super interesting because people like to say to my face that keto causes hypothyroidism. I'm actually slightly hyperthyroid by TSH, and my T3 and T4 are fine.

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

If TSH is low, then that means that your brain thinks your hormone levels are too high for some reason and is telling your thyroid gland to back off a bit, which is interesting. It's trying to reduce your resting metabolic rate.

It doesn't necessarily mean either hyperthyroidism or thyrotoxicity. That's confusing the measurement with the disease, which is a common problem that has confounded almost all the thyroid literature. Only thoughtful doctors even realise there's a difference these days.

Do you have unusually high energy / unusually high temperature / unusually high levels of well-being? Are you in calorie deficit/starvation?

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I'd say that right now I have pretty normal levels of energy/well-being. I did have long phases of unusually high on ex150, when I couldn't sit still and had to go outside for a walk. But currently it's just "normal."

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

So it could just be that ex150 has improved your metabolism to the point where it's running too fast, and your brain is saying 'whoo, slow down', and lowering your metabolic rate to make up?

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I don't know if the rate has slowed down. My measured RMR is just as high or higher as it should be at my height/age/weight.

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

Hmmm, as high as it should be if you're a modern American, or as high as it would have been in 1910?

Broda Barnes' test for hypothyroidism was to take waking temperature before you even get out of bed, using a mercury thermometer in the armpit and giving it ten minutes to come into equilibrium. He thought this was a better way of measuring resting metabolic rate than anything else they had at the time.

For a man that should be 36.7 C +/- 0.1 or 98F +/- 0.2

I trust him on this matter at least! He was clever and careful and tested thousands of people. That was waking temperature in the US in the 1940s.

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I haven't tried a mercury thermometer in bed before getting out for 10 minutes, but my infrared thermometer usually gives me 98.xF. Just now 98.5F on the forehead (post lunch, comfortably into nearly a pint of cream so far today).

It is usually a little lower in the morning, typically low 98s or sometimes 97.9F.

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

Black Pudding, not sliced pudding. It's a kind of pig's blood and beef fat and cereal sausage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding

Usually these days it's very bland and full of filth, and as a result has rather gone out of fashion, but when it's made right it's the best bit of an English Breakfast.

Waitrose's own brand (https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/products/waitrose-black-pudding-slices/575519-512794-512795) for some reason is pure and is absolutely delicious. Fry gently in butter.

Also Waitrose seem fairly fanatical about animal rights, so I will eat their pigs, which I will not do usually. Still probably a bit PUFA-laden, but I don't eat much pork or bacon anyway because of the nitrites that some twerp decided were better than salt.

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

Hm interesting that they put oats and barley in it. If not, it would be the perfect keto food. But even so, 4.5g of carbs per 100g isn't that bad. Cream has around 3g.

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

Totally recommended if you can get hold of the good stuff.

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I gotta get my hands on one of these "Full English" breakfasts one day. British expats won't stop talking about it anywhere in the world you meet them. The first flag Brits plant in a foreign country is a pub w/ a Full English, terrible beer, and a big TV to watch eleven men kick a ball around.

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John Lawrence Aspden's avatar

Actually the best one I've ever had (that I didn't make myself) was in Ireland, and the second best in Antigua. They keep the old ways there. In England they're very out of fashion (too much saturated fat), and the ones you do find tend to be pathetic excuses for the real thing.

But you do know that you can just make one?

Fried eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, toast with butter, and I like to add chips (fat french fries). Season with salt, pepper, HP sauce, and some kind of hot chili sauce for that 'appallingly hot colony in the caribbean' touch. I like Susie's.

It's actually surprisingly easy to knock one up, takes a few minutes. And the crucial thing is to spend money on good quality ingredients, e.g. sourdough or soda bread for the toast, because none of that stuff has anywhere to hide, and it all benefits from having as little to do with modern farming methods as possible.

You should have tea with it of course, but I've never met a foreigner who could make good tea, so maybe coffee would be better.

You'll probably have trouble finding nice black puddings. I can't imagine Waitrose deliver to the US, so forget that bit and substitute something suitably American yet old fashioned, e.g. meatloaf baked in gasoline with bullets or something like that.

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

Yea those bullets add a nice crunch.

I've tried tea, it was fine but coffee is just MOAR BETTER STRONGER. And you can't put cream in tea cause it's already pretty watery.

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