​     Last week I said that I would report what I discovered about how to look less witchlike, but instead of researching that, I decided to delve into my slow metabolism and find out what I can do, if anything, to speed it up. I was talking about it with my son, explaining that I was dramatically reducing calories while doubling my daily cardio, and still, my weight loss is crawling along in ounces.  Given these facts, I should lose much more quickly, so we discussed boosting my metabolic rate. I was astonished when he suggested introducing nicotinamide, which might be similar to my physical response to nicotine long ago.  I know that it sped up my metabolism.  When I stopped smoking, my weight increased rapidly.  After I made that observation to my son, he started looking at the chemical structure of nicotine and compared it to nicotinamide and showed me that the two are very similar chemically. He further explained that epilepsy links to metabolism as well.  I'll explain more about that next week. I've introduced other things that might help boost my metabolism, including matcha green tea powder, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and advanced iron. In addition, I've ordered the nicotinamide and will get it soon.  I hope it will help speed up my metabolic rate significantly along with these additional items, which I will add to my statin smoothie. So, my morning smoothie becomes both plaque-busting and metabolic-boosting. I'm hoping it all works to help me with cholesterol and metabolism.  We've had another fantastic week. The weather is absolutely gorgeous, and we've been enjoying ourselves. We play golf every week, and I do some trotting between holes during our game.  I get all of my day's cardio trotting, so that's working out very well for me. We're excited because we're having dinner with our Canadian friends, so we plan to head out to White Rock later this evening.  We'll go to Vancouver for a lovely meal and look forward to it. It's always fun to get with Aline and Troy. I'm also excited because Stef will be showing up for the 4th.  I'm anxious to take her to White Rock and other places in Vancouver to see things like the suspension bridge, Stanley Park, and other places we haven't taken her to yet. I'm still losing weight slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, and getting pretty tired of the "slowly" part. That's why I decided to start working on my metabolism. However, no matter what happens when I finish my weight loss deadline, I will continue with keto because it has helped me in many other ways.  Also, I've discovered an excellent exercise place up the street. Washington Parks started Zumba classes every day in my area, and it's so inexpensive and convenient that I feel compelled to participate. I quickly realized that one 40-minute workout in the Zumba class equals my bay trot and a little bit more. It also gives me more varied exercise, including a range of other movements, which helps, especially since I've been doing the same things for so long.  I'll report back next time on the metabolic issues related to my seizure disorder.  In the meantime, I hope my weight goes down a little faster.  We'll see.

     ​I'm doing very well this week. I don't know if it's because I've started focusing on calories and religiously counting them or simply because I've broken through a plateau. However, I'm not going to question it. I'm delighted that I've dropped several pounds and hope to drop more. I explained last time that I need to drop about five pounds each week to get to my ideal goal weight, so I will keep working at that and hope to meet my end-of-September goal. In the meantime, Steve and I are having great days. We went and played golf on Thursday and had a great time doing so. I've gotten much better. Even though I can't hit the ball as far down the fairway as Steve can, I have an easier time keeping up with him so that he doesn't have to languish while he waits for me to get down the fairway. We're also really enjoying our days in Birch Bay. We're both continuing to write and having some success. I've been contemplating writing about several things, but I'm currently working on books for middle schoolers or anyone who might enjoy working on kindness. I've been thinking a lot about kindness now that I'm aging, and I wish I had paid greater attention to it earlier in life. Also, Steve and I continue to have our statin smoothie every day, and I'm hoping it's helping with our cholesterol levels so that when we go back for blood tests, we show a significant improvement. Steve went fishing for sockeye on Friday at the Skagit River but didn't catch anything.  He still has hope, seeing a young man with a 30-inch fish that morning.  The season will be open for a while, and he has a lot of fun even when he catches nothing.  Being out and engaged in fishing is most of the fun for him.  It's the same in Hawaii.  He gives it to his fishing friends at the marina if he catches anything.  For Father's Day, I got him some rain gear so that when he's on his boat, he's protected and doesn't get so cold.  He liked everything I bought.  I also treated him to a slice of his favorite cake, which is German chocolate.  He really enjoyed that!  On Sunday, we went to have dim sum, which he always loves.  In the meantime, I'm pressing ahead, doing what seems to be working. By the time I'm through, I will hopefully have a comprehensive overview of everything that worked and didn't work and what to do and what not to do in the future.  My next phase is researching what might help me look less witchlike. I don't know if anything will help at this point, but I will do some exploring anyway and report back next week.

​     As I mentioned last week, I've been thinking a lot about calories and precisely how many I can ingest and still lose weight. It appears that if I consume more than 1200 calories daily, I start gaining weight.  With a diet of 1200 calories, fats should constitute about 240 to 400 calories. One gram of fat is usually equivalent to 9 calories of fat. With that in mind, a person o a 1200-calorie diet should consume about 27 to 47 grams of fat.  A single tablespoon of butter contains twelve grams of fat, while a tablespoon of sour cream has two and a half grams.  Fat calories add up quickly but are an essential component of the keto diet. Therefore, while monitoring the calories, I must also include the correct amount of fat for keto. The deeper I'm into this diet, the more I learn.  When I finally figure it all out, my time will be up! I still have about fifteen pounds to lose and only a few months to accomplish that. I want to be fit and fancy by the end of September, but my chances of achieving my goal are slim. I might have to take some extreme measures. For example, I might move into fasting several days each week, and if I can manage that, I may lose weight more quickly and still meet my goal. In the meantime, I have not suffered while maintaining the keto diet. In fact, I've eaten delicious meals throughout this time. I've learned to create recipes that exclude refined carbohydrates, and I've been feeling very healthy for the past year and a half. I intend to make the keto diet part of my life, primarily because it controls the seizures and auras that have plagued me most of my life.  So even if I don't lose all the weight I wanted, I am fitter and healthier, and the seizures are no longer part of my life.  Therefore, I don't always feel as vulnerable as I once did. Since our visit to the doctor, Steve and I began drinking a statin smoothie daily instead of going on chemical statins, which can impact the liver negatively. Neither of us wants to take a chance like that, having seen what a damaged liver does to one's health.  I got the nutritional facts for each smoothie component before touting it as a keto-friendly addition. I make it with 2 cup spinach, 1 cup almond milk, 1 tbsp chia seeds, 1 tbsp hemp hearts, and 1 tbsp psyllium powder.  Feel free to add matcha green tea and a chunk of avocado if desired.  Bend the ingredients for several minutes.  Steve and I split the 200-calorie smoothie.  Hopefully, it will reduce our cholesterol which is on the brink of bad.  Also, I've decided I'd like to look less witch-like, so during the following weeks, I will begin researching how short of surgery, I might improve my looks.  It might not work out well at my age, but we'll see!

     I've been thinking about caloric intake for a while, and that's very important, especially with keto, because the foods are calorie laden. Of course, weight loss with keto occurs because the foods are very filling, so less is consumed. I enjoyed creating a lot of fabulous recipes that were delicious and made my keto diet enjoyable. However, the calories per serving are high for things like chicken tetrazzini, beef stroganoff, broccoli cheese soup, and other items I enjoy. So I need to be very careful about portions and choices because overdoing calories defeats the purpose, which is losing weight.  I figured out how to reduce the calories in several of my recipes. Instead of using heavy cream, I'm using sour cream or a combination of sour cream and almond milk. The substitutes don't change the recipes because they continue to taste good. Also, I have figured out how to make a delicious broccoli soup without adding all the cheese and cream. I have the recipe posted along with the modifications to the other recipes, like tetrazzini and beef stroganoff.  So far, my weight is holding steady, but I've got to lose more pounds if I want to meet my goal in September. Therefore, this week and for the foreseeable future, I plan to monitor my calories carefully and focus on managing my cholesterol while I continue the keto diet. I've created this wonderful statin smoothie using spinach, almond milk, chia seeds, hemp hearts, and psyllium powder. It's delicious and carries me through until evening because it's highly nutritious. I'm happy because Steve decided to go fishing on Sunday and preempted a visit to our favorite dim sum restaurant in White Rock. That meant I didn't have to figure out how to avoid foods I love to eat.  So here's to my health and continued weight loss. I'll check in next week and report my progress!