Paleo Diet - Day 51

Moderate weight loss, this time: just two pounds, down to 204 lbs. But, consider that yesterday was my office Christmas dinner, which we ate out at a BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse. This was my first adventure into eating out since beginning the Paleo Diet and I was curious as to whether I could pull it off in at least near-Paleo fashion, or if I'd have to settle for something a bit more or less Neolithic. As it turned out, I had the Sesame Chicken Salad, which was certainly filling enough. It consisted of chopped chicken breast, lettuce, carrots, red cabbage and, I think, a wee bit of tomato, all finely shredded and covered with some sort of "mystery" stuff. It looked to me like shredded deep-fried onion, but it was crispy and brown. As I couldn't determine what the stuff was, I worked around it as I ate and left it on my plate. The one ingredient that troubled me, though, was the clear oily dressing on the shredded veggies. I couldn't tell by it's sweet taste just what it was, but I'm fairly certain it must have been loaded with sugar, as, by the end of the meal, I was feeling a tingling in my feet and legs. Maybe it was just bad furniture design, but I think the effects I felt were a rise in blood sugar. I meant to check that after getting home, but forgot about it. Oh, and, no, my beverage of choice was not beer, but water.

Meanwhile, this morning, my blood sugar (pre-meal) is at 114, just one point above the normal range. This has been a trend for several days, now, with my pre-meal blood sugar being either within or just slightly above the normal range and the after-meal reading being somewhat into the low pre-diabetic range. But, the important thing is, this is now the trend or norm, at the moment, which is a good thing. So, the next downward movement should be deeper into the normal range, where it may stay entirely, even after the meal. That would be close to the ideal I'm shooting for, which is completely normal blood sugar and the end of my diabetes.

On the blood pressure front, I've bought a home monitor that works well and my reading, as of this morning is 115/89. My systolic pressure is in the normal range, while my diastolic is on the borderline between pre-hypertension and stage 1 hypertension. This is down from when I bought the monitor, a few days ago, so it does represent some positive progress, at least. I need to work on getting that diastolic pressure down a bit more. By the way, this is with the use of medication. My ultimate goal, of course, is normal blood pressure without medication. Obviously, that will take some more time, but, I've only been on the Paleo Diet for 51 days, at this writing. I've still got a long way to go and, as I progress, my blood pressure should come down, naturally.