In one of the Facebook groups I am a member of, someone claimed that they could see in their urine how the food they were eating reduced uric acid. In this case, chocolate.
Well, apart from that not being how things work, I love chocolate, so I decided to have it for a snack today. I found sugar-free chocolate in the convenience store and gobbled down a pack. Two, actually. Sugar-free, because I do not want to repeat the energy drink experience. Sugar on its own will raise your uric acid. Let us see if chocolate lowers it. I will have a small piece of something purine-rich at dinner, just to give it a chance.
​Todays weather and temperature: Coldish, just above zero during the day, several minus during the night.
Breakfast: Rice and natto or seaweed, omelets Japanese style.
Lunch: Curry and gammo.
Snack: Chocolate (sugar-free). Lit us see if it works...
Dinner: Vegetable soup, large tasting pieces of the kids char-siew (the pork fillet that goes in ramen), and half my sons menchikatsu (think a big round hamburger, breaded and fried).
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in an apple-ginger smoothie; six fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 5.1 mg/dL
Todays step count: 4778 steps, no walk today.
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 0.3 liter, orange juice 0.5 liter, tea 1.5 liter, water 1.5 liter. Total 3.8 liter, more or less a US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.4 kg.
​Waist circumference: 119 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 9 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 8 (which is great, alkaline urine makes it possible to execrete more uric acid).
Was my urine strange in any way? Not in any way.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 20 minutes, lots of desktime today.
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I got a surprise this morning: Low UA after eating meat. See more below.
​Todays weather and temperature: Sunny and windy, snow falling in the morning. Temperature 1-2 degrees above zero. Very strong winds in the evening.
Breakfast: Leftover pizza from day before yesterday.
Lunch: Vegetable hotpot with orange juice and soy sauce. It tasted so great! I will experiment more with orange juice (no added sugar) in my cooking.
Snack: Japanese rice crackers (Senbei).
Dinner: Orange vegetable soup, cheese, crackers.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a berry smoothie, 6 fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 5.2 mg/dL.What? And I had meat for dinner yesterday?
I can think of three explanations:
1. Chocolate actually lowers UA (it does contain compounds which are similar to the enzyme which is turned into uric acid).
2. Measurement error.
3. I am no longer hyperuricemic, so my body ignored the extra purines (and the chocolate).
I do not think measurement error is likely. It looked right, as I am now getting better at the measuring with the UASure. So I need to investigate whether I am no longer hyperuricemic, and whether chocolate might lower UA. Eating meat but not chocolate should tell me this: If my UA is stable, then I
am no longer hyperuricemic. If my UA goes up, chocolate keeps UA down. I will test tomorrow.
Todays step count: 9686 steps
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 1.5 liter, tea 1.5 liter, water 1 liter.
This weeks weight: 121.4 kg
​Waist circumference: 119 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 6 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? No, color and smell normal. As far as I could tell.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 20, plenty of desk time today.
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My UA went up by a lot today. I had not expected that, since I had a very low energy and purine day yesterday. With one exception (that also made me urgently pee a lot): An energy drink that I got as a free sample (rare thing though that is in these Covid-19 times). And BOOM, the uric acid goes through the roof. Conclusion: If you have them every day, energy drinks will give you gout (probably).
​Todays weather and temperature: Below zero in the morning, gradually warming to a couple of degrees plus.
Breakfast: My wife made a curry gratin for my son, which I appropriated part of.
Lunch: Vegetable curry with "gammon" tofu burger
Snack: Crackers
Dinner: I shared a "yakitori" chicken sticker with the kids, and had one oyster from the oyster hotpot we had for dinner. Plus lots of vegetables of course. And my sons leftover rice and natto with mekabu seaweed.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a banana smoothie, six fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 7.0 mg/dL. For sure, the uric acid serum level (fancy name for how much you have in your blood) goes up and down, but this is a lot.
Todays step count: 10967 steps
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 1 liter, tea 1.5 liter, water 2 liter. About 4.5 liters, 1 1/5 US gallon. And one purine-free beer.
This weeks weight: 121.8 kg
​Waist circumference: 122 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 9 times, #2 2 times
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? No, no trace of anything weird.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 20 minutes.
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I got advice to eat less in the evening, so I have been eating vegetable soup in the evening. And then I forgot to step on the scale before breakfast...
​Todays weather and temperature: Slightly cooler, cloudy and grey. Cold night.
Breakfast: Vegetable curry cheese bake, and a leftover waffle from my son (no cream and berries for me).
Lunch: Home-made pizza (you make a dough, then bake it out, assemble some toppings, and then let your kids make their own pizzas). And you make your own purine-free pizza. Recipe at the gout-friendly recipes page.
Snack: Too full to have a snack.
Dinner: Korean style kimchi soup. Well, not a regular sundubu but vegetables and tofu with kimchi in vegetable broth leftover from Friday.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a banana-ginger smoothie
Todays UA reading: 6.7 mg/dL
Todays step count: 6166 steps.
How much did I drink today?: Water 1.5 liter, coffee 1 liter, non-alcoholic beer (or more correctly "beer-like drinks") 1.5 liters. Total 4 liters, 1 1/9 US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.2 kg, I forgot to weigh myself this morning.
​Waist circumference: 119 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 9 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? None whatsoever
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? None, no desk time today. But plenty of ferengi.
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It is so simple, really. Gout is a symptom of a condition that can kill you if you do not fix it. So that is what I am doing. That I will not get gout anymore is a nice benefit of not being dead. And my children would probably thank me.
​Todays weather and temperature: Sunny and warm, actual spring weather. But only for today.
Breakfast: Blue cheese rice. You take a piece of blue cheese, mash it up, whisk in an egg, and turn in rice hot from the cooker. You have to have at least five times as much rice as cheese, otherwise the cheese will dominate completely. That makes it a fairly large dish.
Lunch: Inari-zushi, lotus root (renkon) unfortunately filled with shrimp, and an onigiri (rice ball - and in Sendai, they are really balls).
Snack: Cheese kamaboku.
Dinner: Vegetable soup and fried mushrooms, and a small piece of hamburger.
Todays supplements and dosage: No supplements today, we had a very late breakfast.
Todays UA reading: 6.5 mg/dL, so eating an oyster has less effect on your UA than drinking an energy drink. Hmmmm.
Todays step count: 4371 steps
How much did I drink today?: Water 3 liter, coffee 0.5 liter, no-purine beer 0.9 liter, more or less one US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.2 kg
​Waist circumference: 119 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 7 times, #2 2 times
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 7
Was my urine strange in any way? No
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? No desktime today, so no Sixpad time. Although a foot massage would have been nice.
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My uric acid level has been consistently low over the past few days, so I decided to have some beans. Just to test. Beans are the vegetable which has the highest level of purines, the amino acid combination which is the raw material for uric acid. But recently, there has been dietary advice cropping up saying vegetable purines do not affect humans. Well, let us see. Because these were not just any beans. They are fermented by special bacteria (giving them an especially icky consistency). Accordimg to the Japanese purine table, they have a lot of purines - on the level of rabbit meat. But will it raise my uric acid level? We will see tomorrow.
​Todays weather and temperature: Below zero in the shade, above in the sun. The snow is melting quickly. But nights are still cold.
Breakfast: Natto rice with egg.
Lunch: Vegetable curry with natto and an omelet.
Snack: Japanese rice cracker
Dinner: Corn soup, miso soup, and curry soup with natto. It tasted worse than my own cooking until I put in the beans.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a banana smoothie, six fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 5.3 mg/dL. Did feel that blood taste again which I am guessing means my glucose is down too.
Todays step count: 13378
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 1 liter, tea 1.5 liter, water 1.5 liter.
This weeks weight: 121.2 kg
​Waist circumference: 122 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 7 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 8
Was my urine strange in any way? No.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 10 minutes.
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So natto did mot affect my UA much. I think I will stop the "aojiru" for a while to see what happens. If the values stay the same, I may or may not go back to it. In the banana smoothie it is quite good.
​Todays weather and temperature: Very warm and sunny, all the snow melting away.
Breakfast: Cereal and milk. And coffee.
Lunch: Vegetable curry with cheese and egg.
Snack: Senbei (rice crackers)
Dinner: Small bowl of rice with pickled konbu seaweed.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a banana smoothie, 6 fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 5.6 mg/dL, so beans should be safe to eat. Even when fermented.
Todays step count: 17389 steps
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 1 liter, water 2 liter, tea 1 liter. Energy drink 0.3 liter. 4.3 liter, that is 1 1/5 US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.8 kg
​Waist circumference: 122 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 10 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? No, but on my way home from a rare visit to the office, I got an energy drink sample, and that made me want to pee so urgently that I almost wet my pants.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 20 minutes today, feet needed relaxing.
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Good result from the diet today! According to the clinical definition, I am probably not hyperuricemic any more. But since I am not free from my metabolic syndrome, there is still a lot of work to do.
​Todays weather and temperature: Minus 2 deg C and heavy snowfall. Some excercise to look forward to, digging out the car again...
Breakfast: Egg and cheese bagel. Yummy!
Lunch: The last of the minestrone soup and quiche. Plus a little rice with some pickled vegetables.
Snack: Japanese senbei
Dinner: Soup (two kinds), I noticed too late there were mussels in one. There go the purines.... And crackers with guacamole.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a smoothie with lots of ginger, and six fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 4.5 mg/dL! Yay for the purine-free diet!
Todays step count: 7866 steps
How much did I drink today?: Water 2 liter, coffee 1 liter, tea 1.5 liter. Total 4.5 liter, about 1 1/7 US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.2 kg
​Waist circumference: 122 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 8 times, #2 1 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 7
Was my urine strange in any way? No,it looked and smelled the same as everyday, at least from the distance of looking down into the toilet bowl.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? 20.
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Today is a holiday here. But not from the diet, because it is working.
​Todays weather and temperature: Around zero degrees centigrade, much colder ar night. Clear, no snow. The ground was frozen on the kids soccer court when they had their first practice of the year, first time I see that in Japan.
Breakfast: Minestrone soup with leftover rice, my unsuccessful pie with flavored cream cheese. Which was good.
Lunch: Oden, stirfry, kids fried noodles, pickled vegetables - in other words, leftover buffet. A chou-cream for dessert.
Snack: No snack today.
Dinner: Leftover minestrone soup (we have enough for breakfast too) and my quiche. It is slowly growing smaller.
Todays supplements and dosage: Aojiru in a banana smoothie, six fish oil capsules.
Todays UA reading: 5.9 mg/dL
Todays step count: 10168 steps
How much did I drink today?: Water 1.5 liter, tea 1 liter, coffee 1 liter. 3.5 liter, close to a US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.2 kg
​Waist circumference: 122 kg
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 8 times , #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 6
Was my urine strange in any way? No.
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? None. No desktime today.
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So the UA went down, which means it is very unlikely the fish oil affects it. And today I will retry the sweet experiment, since I was interrupted last time by the bathroom heater failing. If nothing else, I am reminded of how much I dislike sweet food.
​Todays weather and temperature: Cold (minus 7 deg c in the morning) but beautiful.
Breakfast: Sandwich and a cinnamon roll at Starbucks. Plus hot cocoa with sugar when we got home. Discovered too late there was bacon in the sandwich. Oh well.
​Morning snack: More cocoa, added some sugar although it was already sweet.
Lunch: Take-out from our favorite Chinese restaurant, if you do nor eat the prawns in the chilli prawns or the pork in the su-buta and only eat the sauce, then it becomes reasonably low-purine. Especially if you also add the stir-fry with tofu and Chinese cabbaage I made earlier.
Drink with the meal: Kids cocoa with some instant coffee and three spoons of sugar. Ugh. Really reminded me of why I like my coffee black.
Snack: No snack in the afternoon. But milk with sugar.
Dinner: Oden - only soup, konjac, eggs, and gluten chickuwa. More than enough.
Todays supplements and dosage: Six fish oil capsules, and aojiru in orange juice.
In addition, since I wanted to check the effect of sugar without purines, I had a glass of milk or cocoa with four spoons of sugar at 8, 10, 12, 2, and 5. That should provide plenty of sugar but since my meals were almost purine-free the effect of food should be excluded.
Todays UA reading: 4.5 mg/dL. Yay for a low-purine diet! And more excercise than 10000 steps.
Todays step count: 7167 steps
How much did I drink today?: Coffee 1 liter, cocoa 1 liter, water 2 liter. Milk 0.5 liter. Total 4.5 liter, approx 1 2/7 US gallon.
This weeks weight: 121.8 kg
​Waist circumference: 120 cm
How many times did I go to the toilet today? #1 8 times, #2 2 times.
My urine pH this morning (for why this matters, read more here): 7
Was my urine strange in any way? No
How many minutes did I use the Sixpad Foot Fit Plus? None, no desktime today.
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