Trivial Gains

I wasn't planning on doing a follow-up about foregoing chocolate for a week, but I've noticed two trivial gains, one of which is kinda cool.  Firstly, I had trouble replacing the calorie hole left by leaving the chocolate out.  I added some Buffalo jerky after lunch the first few days, but that didn't cut it as I was drained merely going for a walk after work mid-week.  A couple of banana's with the jerky remedied the situation nicely though.  Okay here's the two things:

1. I leaned out a little in my lower ab area.  No surprise.  Also no big deal.  I'm quite lean already and I've no desire to step onto a bodybuilding stage at any point.    
2. My visual acuity increased.  This one is cool.  I have high myopia and have required corrective lenses or contacts since I was 12.  Although my eyes stabilized years ago, I guess I've gotten used to vision that is not, well, really sharp all of the time.  It's spot on all day now, and I'm loving it.  So much so that I don't plan bringing chocolate back on a regular basis (WOW)!  We'll see though.

So the thing with the eyes piqued my curiosity.  Was sugar causing or perhaps inhibiting crystal clear vision?  Was it something in the chocolate other than sugar?  I went hunting around the Internet Machine for answers and came up a little empty handed.  There's information on diabetic retinopathy, but that's different.  Some people going Paleo notice a difference in their eyesight, but it appears the majority don't.  You figure if it was sugar, then we would have a myopic epidemic.  Oh wait, we do.  We also spend much more time in front of television and computer screens and under artificial lighting.

Alright, my deal here is not to figure out all possible causes of poor eyesight or if we can better it (I've no illusions of lowering my prescription), rather I was just intrigued by the increase of my visual clarity and how it was brought on by eliminating a substance from my diet.  Is chocolate acting in other ways throughout my body that I just can't notice?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I love how there's so much to figure out.  Life really wouldn't be nearly as interesting if we had all of the answers now would it?

It was supposed to snow here today but turned out fine (bad, bad year for our local weatherman) so I decided to put my new found X Ray Vision to good use and went for a Nature Walk:

As you can see on the left, some busy Beavers are starting to make a lodge in the river (click the pictures to enlarge).  I think they were inspired by the 'house' going up on the ridge above.  House my behind, that thing has it's own gravitation pull!

Hmm, looks like I caught the Beavers during a lunch break.  Maybe the hole is where they're staying until they finish the Lodge.

120 years apart.  In the pics here you see the same area spanned by over a century (down in the valley is where the Beavers are working).  The new bridge was completed in the fall of '08.  They had to construct another one because the old one was originally made for trains and was constantly failing the State's inspection for bridges (yikes).  Anyway, the old one is still there because at 120 years young you're considered historic.

Not much about Paleo in this post, but life isn't all about fretting over diet and exercise.  Once you get pretty darn healthy you chomp at the bit to do things like this Nature Walk.