OK, there is now no doubt in my mind that what’s happening to my toe is gout. Last night, the pain was bad enough to wake me up, so I took more advil and went back to sleep. Today I took some alleve, which really did work for about 12 hours, and is now starting to wear off so I took another. I’m going in to the doctor tomorrow morning at 9:45 (yes, saturday) so we’ll see what he has to say. He will probably say to keep taking the alleve and change my diet. Apparently, burning fat on the low-carb diet also contributes to uric acid in the blood, so that compounds the effect of eating more meats. I have been making sure to drink lots of water. ...

Good news… I have lost about 8 or 9 pounds, after being on the low-carb diet for a little over 3 weeks. Bad news… I developed some excruciating pain in my big toe. I can’t think what I might have done to bruise or strain it. What does a painful toe have to do with my diet? Hopefully nothing, but it could be gout. According to wikipedia: Gout is a form of arthritis caused by the accumulation of uric acid crystals in joints. It is an immensely painful disease, which in most cases affects only one joint, most commonly the big toe. ...

Taxes are finally done. I am getting a huge refund, mostly because 1. working for two employers, I overpaid social security tax, and 2. getting a lump sum from the Y! and having it taxed like a single period’s paycheck meant that the deductions for the lump sum were set on “insane!!!”. Anyway, the returns are done and sent electronically. 12 days ahead of schedule too! The only things I was moderately confused by were 1. why I didn’t get a mortgage interest statement from the finance company that held my loan for 1 month before selling it to a bank, and 2. how much that check for car tax refund was, that I got in Feb. because I deducted the whole amount last year, so the refund reduces the amount I can claim this year. ...

Tonight we had esmerel, merlinofchaos, and da_zhuang around for dinner. Everything turned out well, I think. And, I think just about everything was low-carb, which was good for my diet. I probably had more food than I planned to, but I think I’ve done reasonably well the last week or so, so I’m not going to feel guilty. Salad with arugulla, butter lettuce, radicchio, cucumbers, tomato, avocado, green onion. Two salad dressings (soy-mayo and honey mustard) made with the homemade mayo. Merlin made the honey mustard… turned out good Artichokes, a little tiny bit overdone but I don’t think anyone noticed. Dipping sauce, about 3 parts mayo to 1 part vietnamese “chili garlic sauce” - this was a hit I think. Meat, which I thought was filet mignon, but was probably some other loin cut. Salt, garlic, pepper. Broiled 5 min each side. (Supermarkets don’t seem to sell filet much anymore.) Broccoli, steamed, which was probably overkill but I wanted something else in case the ‘chokes didn’t work. ...

Exercise log for April Fri 4/1: (Still on low-carb diet) Sat 4/2: Sun 4/3: Mon 4/4: Tue 4/5: Wed 4/6: Pain in my toe started. BP around 130/80. Thu 4/7: Pain in toe was worse. Stayed home. Stopped taking thiazide. Took advil. Fri 4/8: Pain in toe was very bad. Took naproxen. Sat 4/9: Pain in toe was better, about the same as Thursday. Weight: 243.8 (bare) 248.8 (clothes but no shoes). Doctor visit. Started Colchicine, NSAID, and doubled Lotensin. Sun 4/10: Mon 4/11: Tue 4/12: Wed 4/13: Thu 4/14: Fri 4/15: Sat 4/16: Sun 4/17: Mon 4/18: Tue 4/19: Wed 4/20: Thu 4/21: Fri 4/22: Sat 4/23: Sun 4/24: Mon 4/25: Tue 4/26: Wed 4/27: Thu 4/28: Fri 4/29: Sat 4/30:

You know what? I think the only one who cares less than I do about The Terry Schiavo Case is Terry Schiavo. Was that crude? I don’t mean to be offensive, but the point is 1. I don’t care about the case and I’m glad it’s over, and 2. I’m pretty sure Terry vacated and went on to greener pastures some 15 years ago.

[oops, this was supposed to go to good eats, but I’ll leave it in here too :] Thanks for all the advice. I wanted to share my latest mayo experience… My last attempt at mayo was reasonably successful. It was a stable emulsion, but it was syrup-consistency and didn’t stand up. Someone suggested adding more oil, and that did the trick. It was very nearly mayo-like. This time, I ended up with “broken goo” but I was able to save it. The first whip attempt never really got to the “frothy” stage, so I started with an empty bowl and 1 whole egg, whipped until frothy (or at least foamy) and then poured in the broken goo :) It seems like once you get to the foamy stage, it’s smooth sailing from there out.

I believe I have lost roughly 3 pounds over the last 2 weeks. According to the medical-style scale downstairs, I currently weigh 255 with shoes on, 252 with shoes off. The same scale put me at 258 two weeks ago, and still at 258 one week ago. So, three pounds lighter or so. On advice from a friend, I decided to “make the food boring and get it over with”. So, for the next couple weeks I will be on the “lunchmeat and salad” diet. ...

I decided I need more friends… doesn’t everybody? 1. Go to your own User Info page. 2. Find your first friend in the list, and click to go to their info page. 3. Look at that person’s friends. Click on the first friend of that user who is not also on your own friends list. 4. When you get to someone who has no friends in common with you (no bold entries), stop. Add this person to your friends list. If the person you clicked on has any friends in common with you, repeat step 3. Don’t click on anyone you already clicked on once, just choose the next person. 5. (Optional) Post a note to your journal saying who you added and how they are connected to you. ...

I wrote down my foods but I won’t copy them all here. The short version is that I have been sticking to the low-carb diet (as described in Atkins “Induction phase”). It’s been a lot easier than I thought. I haven’t really been missing my bread, pasta or sugar. The real difficulty for me is finding interesting things to eat, but that is an intellectual and logistical problem for me, and not one that causes me much distress. ...