Got another chance to go up at Broken City, and combined my Druid opening (with a few tweaks) with my original Comedy Monday Night closer (again, slightly tweaked). I was waaaay less over-excited, and it was a great crowd.
Apologies in advance for the quality of the recording--for some reason my iPhone picked up a lot of static and stray noise. The interesting thing is that I tried to fix the quality in GarageBand, and in doing so, noticed (by looking at the waveforms) where all the quiet parts of the set were. Quiet = not funny. It was really helpful in deciding which parts I will cut/condense for my next set. I also noticed that I still need to work on my mic technique to stop popping my consonants.
Breakfast was rosti and bacon, a belgian waffle with ice cream and maple syrup, fresh squeezed OJ and an americano at Manuel Latruwe downtown. Lunch was the Keith's burger with poutine, Dr. Pepper and a mint chocolate milkshake at Boogie's Burgers in Bridgeland. Dinner was gyoza, sushi rolls and sashimi from Sushi Kai in Kensington. My midnight snack was a pint of Ben & Jerry's, an Aero mint bar, a bag of chips and a root beer. Not sure exactly how much I ate this Saturday, but just the midnight snack was almost 2000 calories.
(photo courtesy of nowyou33)
So while I did not notice any fat loss or health improvements by giving up sugar for the first 7 months of 2011, I recently got my blood test back and the results are interesting.
Almost all of the basic measurements were unchanged from the beginning of January to the end of July. I also compared my final July results to a test I had done in July of 2009, and even those numbers were very similar. In the seven months I gave up sugar, my thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) dropped by almost 50% (1.29 to 0.66), but I have no idea what this means. My triglycerides dropped by 54% (0.85 to 0.39), and this indicates a lack of carbohydrates, which is typical in low sugar or low carb diets. The 0.39 was flagged as "low" but my doctor didn't point it out as a problem. I'll be curious to know what my new "cheat day" will do to this number when I do new blood tests later this year.However, the most amazing result is that my "good" cholesterol (HDL) went up by 14% (1.38 to 1.58), and my "bad" cholesterol went down by 20% (2.62 to 2.09). Not sure if these things can be correlated, but my doctor said these cholesterol results were "incredibly good" for somebody in my age group, and considering how much meat, butter, bacon, and other salt and fat laden foods I consumed, I can only conclude that low carbs must have played some role.Today I had my first cheat day on the 4-Hour Body diet. It was also the first time I had sugar since last New Year's Eve, over 7 months ago.
Started with a coffee with cream and sugar. For breakfast: a waffle sandwich with caramel chocolate crackle ice cream in the middle, bacon and eggs. For lunch, Five Guys double burger with bacon, cheese and jalapenos, and a large Coke. Next, a large popcorn with extra butter and a root beer while watching Cowboys and Aliens (that's right, junk food for my body AND my brain). Then a medium dark chocolate and Skor dipped waffle cone with dark double chocolate and mint chocolate ice cream and extra Skor bits from Marble Slab Creamery. Then a small box of Castelyn Belgian chocolates, and finally a triple glass of Whyte & Mackay scotch as a night cap.
Absolutely. Bloody. Marvelous.
(Remember: there are no rules on cheat day.)
This morning I weighed 182 lbs, and at this moment I weigh 189 lbs.
This could end very badly.
On the last day of the week (probably Saturday), I will be following rule 5:
"Go nuts."This means I can eat whatever--and as much of whatever--as I want. Look out internal organs! Yo-yo-ing your calorie intake like this is supposed to be good to maintain a high overall metabolic rate--that is, if you keep a low-calorie diet, your body learns to burn fewer calories at rest (or something like that, I think). To see what effect this has, I had a BodPod analysis done here in Calgary, and the results are in the photograph above. I have also taken body measurements (circumference in inches) as suggested in Tim's book: Left arm, mid-bicep: 14.5I did another set last Sunday at the Druid in Edmonton, and it was lots of fun. Thanks to Phil for video taping me--it helped me find a lot about my body positioning and gesturing that I need to work on. Got a couple of laughs, but still keeping my day job (unless any parents see the part where I pretend to threaten ESL students with doggy-style sex).
If you missed me at Broken City last night, I've got a recording of my open-mic stand-up bit for your listening pleasure. It was great fun, though my first joke bombed and needs some work, the rest of it was pretty well-received. Enjoy, and if you are ever free on a Monday night in Calgary, come down to Broken City for a wicked, hilarious show!
