Early thoughts on this

Okay, so I'm a week into this little experiment, and you've seen everything that went into my mouth, except from medications, vitamins, and zero-calorie drinks. I like it! I'm not finding it too hard to take my pictures (I've only missed once), and getting them posted isn't tedious, especially since this is information I want to be tracking for my own purposes whether or not I want to share it with others.

I do notice a little bit of an exposure effect -- more than once I've been a little tempted by something (hello, holiday candy!), but I've thought, "If I eat that, I'm going to have to show it on the blog," and have refrained. Not that this totally keeps me from pigging out (witness the day I ate all the pizza and then went back for more cheese), but it does help, especially for the high-carb treats. There's nothing stopping me from falsifying the blog, except for my own integrity, but it does serve as a reminder of who exactly is getting cheated here, which is very different from previous diets -- if I have a serious high-carb slip, it's not a matter of whether I hit a weight loss goal a week or two later, but a question of one more incidence of damage to my beta cells, my capillaries, my nerves, my kidneys, and my retinas. With consequences like that, every little thing that makes me stop and think is a useful tool.

One thing I've noted this week is that my protein consumption tends to run higher than I thought it did. I was a little surprised by that, but probably shouldn't have been -- I eat in restaurants quite a bit, and restaurant entrees tend to run ridiculously large. Replacing all the starchy sides with low-carb veggies like broccoli and green beans keeps my overall meal size within bounds, but I probably ought to work on limiting meat portions a little further, or having the occasional just-veggies meal.