lunch

Keto bacon cheeseburger (with aged English cheddar—very nice):

Keto chili dog:

One thing is definitely settled: Joe Duff's (modified) recipe works well for burger buns. The buns look weird, but they work, and they don't dominate the burger. For hot dogs, though, I need a dough that's way lighter and fluffier. I have one last modification I can try before I run out of ingredients: I'm going to use yeast as the rising agent, and I plan to add vital wheat gluten into the recipe for structure. I hope this leads to a poofier rise (I'm not a baker, so I don't know all the technical terms) and a lighter bread. That might be a project for this weekend, seeing as I have several hot dogs left.

I was a bit disappointed that the hot dogs didn't sell so well; I was kind of proud of the chili I'd made to go with them. The burgers were a hit, but people compraised (or praiseplained) that the burgers were huge, so they had little room for the dogs. (Keep in mind that the troops ate normal bread.) My American coworker did have a chili dog along with his burger; my Korean coworker had only half a burger and half a hot dog. My boss, meanwhile, ate only a cheeseburger and declared defeat.

I loaded my burger up with Shack Sauce, BBQ sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles (all sauces homemade and keto... well, as keto as was possible). I had originally intended to take a photo of the burger with the top bun off, but I forgot and slammed on the top bun without thinking, so I took the only shot that was possible.

The hot-dog bread was so heavy that getting through the chili dog was a slog. So I'm stuffed and have doubtless regained I-don't-know-how-many pounds. My coworker had gotten a "two plus one" deal on Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and he gave me a packet a few days ago. I relented and ate it today, so my blood sugar is all sorts of ruined. 

The day essentially turned into a true cheat day, so tomorrow, I will have my morning shake, then have nothing else despite the fact that I'll be doing the 18K Bundang walk. I'll treat it like a Jason Fung-style 24-hour fasting day. Dr. Sten Ekberg says you need about 16-18 hours of fasting to induce autophagy (essentially, the body eating itself), so between tomorrow morning and Sunday morning, I ought to start getting back on track. Today is basically Blood Sugar Spike Day, and it's now too late to do anything about that. As I said before, I built in two extra weeks in the Newcastle Diet in anticipation of just this sort of thing, so Week 4 is basically a wash. I'm not expecting good results for the Sunday weigh-in. Week 5, we start again.