first attempt at a real walk tonight

Tonight (Wednesday night), I walked the long way home. The major takeaway is that my heart and lungs had no problems at all during the walk: there was no sensation of a skeletal hand squeezing my heart, nor was there any shortness of breath. It was still a tiring walk (I did feel something in my chest after I got home), but I wasn't over-tired at all. 

I'm going to build on this good news by walking every day if possible, and I'll begin rebuilding my heart's strength by restarting the stairs, possibly as soon as this weekend. Walking, combined with the Newcastle diet, will have me losing some weight, I think, if for no other reason than simple calories in, calories out. There's a limit to how effective this will be, but if this is like three years ago, it'll be weeks before I really start to plateau.

Lunch earlier today was breakfast bagels, but they were keto bagels (well, "bagels," really). Being made with a bread that's much heavier than the regular stuff, the resulting sandwiches were hard to choke down. I had to nibble at them. I'll also need to remember, in the future, to make my sandwiches open-faced. There's simply no need for that much bread. 

Here are some pics of what the keto "bagels" are like:

March 30, 2024—keto "bagels" made from keto "baguette" dough... heavy but delicious.

The dough for my keto "baguettes" seemed much more suited for "bagels."

The "bagel" bottoms are smooth...

...but the tops are fairly rough.

Fast-forward to April 17. I ambitiously lay out material for three sandwiches, but I end up eating only two.

Sausage patties... but I used a bit too much xanthan gum in making a keto version of maple syrup (maple extract + erythritol + water + xanthan gum)—the non-keto version of these patties uses brown sugar. The xanthan gum left a slick and gooey texture. Next time, no xanthan gum at all.

"bagels," halved

two eggs over easy

before microwaving

after 'waving (and with a cheat: my boss's blueberry jam)

The blueberry jam turned out not to be so great. I should have brought my own strawberry jam, or I could have made some keto strawberry jam of my own.

I also learned a thing: if you're trying to use a metal cookie cutter as a mold to cook perfectly round eggs, you need to spray the cookie cutter with Pam or coat it with oil first—otherwise the eggs will bind with the hot metal, and when you try to lift the ring off the skillet, the egg will come with it. Double plus ungood. And a rookie mistake.