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After several hours of whining and feeling sorry for myself I finally got my butt in gear and cleaned up the kitchen and living room. Then, I fell way off the diet wagon I won't say everything that I ate but it included gluten and oil and potato chips But ohhhh was it very good lol Anyway, as punishment I will scrub the floors on hands and knees tonight.

Of course this happened because I didn't have any good meals already prepared or healthy snacks on hand! That's really the only time when I run into trouble. THankfully it happens maybe only once a month.

But I have gotten myself back on track. I started a pot of red beans and a pot of split peas. Need to run to the dollar store to get some plastic containers to make portions to freeze in 1 cup servings. Personally, I think beans are the food of Gods and if it were up to me I'd eat them 3 times a day which is what I have done always done in the past. I'm going to try to restrict to 1 cup per day as per Dr. McD's recommendations but I can't promise!

I ordered some exotic (to me) grains a few weeks ago and to this point had only tried the quinoa, which I wasn't crazy about. I made the amaranth tonight and think I'm really going to like it! The flavor is really subtle and will be a nice change from brown rice. I don't like adding rice to my beans or other soups but I think the amaranth will be less obtrusive since it's a lot smaller.

I found an interesting recipe for falafel PIE! how yummy does that sound?!
http://heatovento350.blogspot.com/2012/ ... l-pie.html I'll probably use a pesto instead of the cucumber sauce.

ughhhh junk food is the enemy I'm paying for my fall off the chuck wagon yesterday. Woke up with pain in both hands and stiffness in my shoulders. blech!

this always makes me laugh when I'm hurting:
http://batsgirl.blogspot.com/2008/04/go ... house.html

The Gorilla In Your House

With thanks to everyone over at Ouch.

Acquiring a disability is a bit like getting home to find there's a gorilla in your house. You contact the approved and official channels to get rid of infestations of wild animals (in this case, the NHS) and they umm and aah and suck air in through their teeth before saying something roughly equivalent to "what you've got 'ere, mate, is a gorilla, and there ain't really a lot what we can do about them, see..." before sending you back home to the gorilla's waiting arms.

The gorilla in your house will cause problems in every part of your life. Your spouse may decide that (s)he can't deal with the gorilla, and leave. Your boss may get upset that you've brought the gorilla to work with you and it's disrupting your colleagues, who don't know how to deal with gorillas. You're arriving for work wearing a suit the gorilla has slept on. Some days you don't turn up at all because at the last minute, the gorilla has decided to barricade you into the bathroom or sit on you so you can't get out of bed. Your friends will get cheesed off because when you see them - which isn't often, because they don't want to come to your house for fear of the gorilla and the gorilla won't always let you out - your only topic of conversation is this darn gorilla and the devastation it is causing.

There are three major approaches to the gorilla in your house.

One is to ignore it and hope it goes away. This is unlikely to work. A 300-lb gorilla will sleep where he likes, and if that's on top of you, it will have an effect on you.

Another is to try and force the gorilla out, wrestling constantly with it, spending all your time fighting it. This is often a losing battle. Some choose to give all their money to people who will come and wave crystals at the gorilla, from a safe distance of course. This also tends to be a losing battle. However, every so often, one in a hundred gorillas will get bored and wander off. The crystal-wavers and gorilla-wrestlers will claim victory, and tell the media that it's a massive breakthrough in gorilla-control, and that the 99 other gorilla-wrestlers just aren't doing it right due to sloppy thinking or lack of committment. The 99 other gorilla-wrestlers won't have the time or energy to argue.

I have known people spend the best years of their life and tens of thousands of pounds trying to force their gorillas to go away. The tragedy is that even if it does wander off for a while, they won't get their pre-gorilla lives back. They'll be older, skint, exhausted, and constantly afraid that the gorilla may well come back.

The third way to deal with the gorilla in your house is to accept it, tame it, and make it part of your life. Figure out a way to calm your gorilla down. Teach it how to sit still until you are able to take it places with you without it making a scene. Find out how to equip your home with gorilla-friendly furnishings and appliances. Negotiate with your boss about ways to accomodate, or even make use of, your gorilla. Meet other people who live with gorillas and enjoy having something in common, and share gorilla-taming tips.

People get really upset about this and throw around accusations of "giving up" and "not even trying". They even suggest that you enjoy having a gorilla around because of the attention it gets you (while ignoring the massive pile of steaming gorilla-turds in your bedroom every morning and night, not to mention your weekly bill for bananas). The best way to deal with these people is to smile and remind yourself that one day, they too will have a gorilla in their house.

Just got back from walmart. Tried my best to stay under $25 but for$28 I was able to include a large tub of oats and enough carrots and frozen fruit for 2 weeks. This is what I bought:

1 large bunch kale
2# carrots
4 med sweet potatoes
1 atulfo mango (my favorite!)
7 apples
5 bananas
2 sm avocados
4 lemons
1 bunch celery
3# bag frozen broccoli
4# bag frozen mixed fruit (mango, pineapple, strawberry, peach)
42 oz Old Fashion oats
1/2 gal unsweetened rice milk


I already have a stock of dried beans and grains in the pantry as well as a few veggies leftover from last week.

The prices on greens at my farmers market are as good and often better than produce from the supermarket, but I tend to buy too much. I always eat everything but as I become more accustomed to this WOE my meals are becoming ore streamlined and I don't need as much variety. I'm going to limit my purchases at the FM to kale, parsley, spinach and maybe 2 other things.

Blue - Gorilla in Your House is PERFECT! Thanks for putting that up

I know all to well the payment one's body extracts for even a slight deviance from good eatin'. Sometimes well-meaning relatives or friends say "Aw, just this little bit can't hurt, lighten up!" Little do they know how much it really can hurt...those lucky bastids!

Good grocery haul!

lol Nicole, glad you enjoyed it! I always get a good laugh about the steaming piles of gorilla turds and weekly bill for bananas!!

I'm trying to emulate Katydid's $21/week challenge. I think I can do $25 to $28 per week and include a couple of treats like the in season atulfo mangos and maybe one other thing (I have a weakness for Van's GF vegan waffles!). Apple prices are a pitfall, I have a hard time finding them under a dollar a pound. If I ever get my garden started I will grow my own malabar spinach, basil, oregano, and radishes, which seem to be the only things I have luck with. I've never tried growing kale.

It's a gorgeous day so I made mesquite fire in the pit and I'm grilling the following:
sweet potato
acorn squash
split artichokes (with garlic and lemon)
portabello mushroom
tomato (for hot sauce)

Also making a greek salad with cucumber, tomato, squash, green onion, basil and parsley.

I called my chronically ill friend (lupus, IC, etc., etc, ) and had a frank talk with her. She's been subsisting on cheerios and milk. I told her she is poisoining herself and wasting her life lying in bed feeling bad!

She has committed to one week on almond milk and rice crispies and/or corn flakes.

It's a start.

After lunch I plugged everything I had eaten so far plus what I was planning for dinner into the cronometer. Turns out if I want to lose a pound a week I need to eat about 1400 calories. I probably eat that or less a few days a week but other days (like the days I have avocado or Van's GF waffles w/ honey) I am up to probably around 1700 cal. I would like to get down to about 120#, just to see what it looks like one more time!

Then I came home and did not make what I had planned for dinner, but instead a curry with cocunut milk!! We'll see how much damage I did when I punch in the numbers!

But hopefully any extra cals and fat will be offset by all my activity today! My car wouldn't start this morning so I walked 3 blocks to the bus stop, 10 min ride and then after being dropped off I had 8 minutes to walk to to work. All that and I was only 15 mins late! I really enjoyed the bus ride, nice cold A/C and good music playing, so in the afternoon rather than getting a ride home with a coworker I grabbed my bike that I keep at work and rode 10 mins to the bus stop, loaded the bike on the bike rack, 10 min ride home, unloaded bike and then road 5 blocks to my house. Plus walked the dog when I got home and a 20 min walk during my lunch break!

So after all that, I think I earned a few extra calories at dinner! I'm pooped lol

I will put my car in the shop this week but I so enjoyed the public transportation I think I will continue to do that 3 or 4 days a week, get some exercise and save on gas And our public transportation is free!

Old familiar stiffness and aching in my shoulders and upper arms this morning. Only new food I had yesterday was coconut milk and I'm still experimenting with regular oatmeal, but probably most of pain is due to all the walking, bike riding, and bike lifting. Plus I haven't slept well the past two nights. I'm super tired very early and try to go to sleep at 8:30 but toss and turn til after midnite when I finally fall asleep. That, plus this lingering sinus congestion, plus the time change, and I am really dragging butt when the alarm goes off at 6:45.
So frustrating that anything out of my normal routine still throws my body for a loop. Doesn't help that I have been too sick to go to yoga for over three weeks now
blahhhhhhhhh.........

My pain was screaming today. I swear if I didn't know I have arhtritis I would think I have the flu.

I didn't leave work early only because I don't have ANY sick or vacation days saved, having used them all up over the past year for my pain and more recently the upper resp. infection. A vacation will be impossible this year if I keep missing days at this rate. Anyway, I stuck it out but was not at all productive.

haha I have my first public transportation story! I walked to my busstop after work today and was accosted by a street person! As soon as I walked up to the stop he started asking me a bunch of questions and got up and followed me as I was trying to put some space between us and then got angry when I did this, calling me names and such. I turned around and basically told him to back off or I would call the constable. He freaked and started spewing nonsense, that's when I realized he wasn't all there! I live in a resort area and we have lots of retirees during the winter months, I had just assumed he was one of those. Anyway, it was funny b/c we ended being on the same two buses, sat across from eachother as those were the only seats, and got off at the same stop. Hopefully we won't cross paths again!

Well my muscle relaxer and pain med are kickng in so I better get off here before I start spewing nonsense myself!

Take care, everyone! blue

Something went terribly terribly wrong tonight! I don't know what is going on?!?! Maybe this bad pain flare has something to do with it, I don't know. Walking home from work I was dead on my feet so incredibly fatigued. And along with that a feeling of NEED, not a craving, but a NEED for animal protein, yes MEAT. the likes of which I haven't felt since I began this WOE 6 months ago.

I looked in the fridge and decided even beans wouldn't do, so pulled out the only meat in the house, a tuna steak I have had in the freezer for many months and made myself tuna salad (with veganaise-blech, nasty stuff, tastes like Miracle Whip) and scarfed it down. And felt completely satisfied. For a few hours.

Then just a bit ago another NEED set in for something sugary sweet and crunchy and other than fruit the only thing sweet in the house that I have is honey. Tried a tablespoon of that, but nope that wasn't what I needed. Dug in the freezer and found some Mexican chocolate for making hot cocoa, and scarfed THAT down and felt completely satisfied.

What the heck is going on here????!!!! Hormones???? I almost never want chocolate, don't even like it very much, nor do I care much for other sweets. I've never kept candy or cookies or cake in the house.
Do I need B12???? I haven't started taking a supplement yet and I've been on this WOE for 6 months. Should I start? Could that have anything to do with my feeling of NEED for animal protein?

I ate plenty today and nothing different than any other day, just my usual lunch, breakfast, and a couple of snacks. However, I ate my lunch before noon because I was SOOO hungry, usually I don't eat til 1pm.

OK well, like I said these didn't seem to be cravings. I hope it was a one time deal lol but wow, I'm just shocked and confused

Blue, I had a few of those NEED moments about 4-6 months into this WOE.

Twice they happened after I was exhausted beyond my capacities, which it very much sounds like you are at the moment.

Three times they happened and I could not determine why - but I have come to believe, just my opinion, of course - that they were in some way related to my cells finally being up to ridding my body of some of the accumulated junk.

For example, did you already know that prednisone withdrawal can cause joint pains? What if you have some small reserves of pred in your system, and it just started to come out now?

Also - did you know that high-protein, high-fat and heavy foods (like meat) can slow down the rate of cellular metabolism?

That is why a big hearty breakfast is so good when folks have a hangover. It mitigates the symptoms of ridding the body of alcohol and its by-products.

So perhaps - just perhaps - your body feels the rate of ridding the body of junk is going a wee bit too fast for comfort right now, and is setting up those cravings.

I have heard that it is preferable to eat nuts, which accomplish the same slowing-down of waste removal, with less of the bad. A lesser evil, so to speak.

I hope you feel better and the cravings don't torture you further.

Oh yes - your hormones may be going through some diet-related changes, too, and that can take a while to even out. A year or more.

I have learned this information from many sources, all of which I came to the conclusion are reputable, but take my opinion for the price you paid for it

Nicole, what a great response. Thanks for that! I really appreciate your taking the time to detail that out.

I was never on prednisone longterm, but I'm aware of the wd syndrome associated with it, and have myself experienced serious withdrawal from another medication which caused me to have terrible withdrawal effects for over a year past my last dose (long story!). So we can apply the same situation to food?...like gluten, dairy, or other food or toxin detox.

I felt like a nut posting what I did last night, but it has helped to get input here. With my withdrawal from that medication, it was critical that I understand all that was happening to me, esp since it went on for so long, otherwise I would've gone insane. Doctors were of no help,said I couldn't possibly be experiencing withdrawal effects for 15 months, I had to find others who had gone thru the same to shed light on what was going on!

It's also important for me to understand what is going on with my body as it undergoes changes and improvements and setbacks with this way of eating. Due to that drug withdrawal, and all of the neurological and physical disturbances that went with it, I have had a very strong awareness of my body for several years now and that has continued in relation to my pain, and now this new WOE. I can see you have that same awareness yourself, particularly from your recent post on what past habits may have contributed to your PA. (awesome post, btw!).

So you can see for me this runs a lot deeper than just having an off plan food in the house!

Thank you! I'm so glad you are here to bounce ideas and experiences off of. A real blessing.

Blue

Hi blue:

I have been so incapacitated recently I haven't been keeping up with my posts or anyone else's. I caught up on yours just now and I have to say the grilling you did a while back made my mouth water something fierce and I JUST finished a late lunch!

I also just finished posting about pain flares and cravings, but now that I read your post I realize that it really is more in the need category. I was practically on the verge of a tiny anxiety attack thinking I needed ice cream, which is my sweet of choice --always. I have not had a meat protein need though - but I know of what you speak! When you say that nothing else would do or satisfy!

I have not broken down and eaten off plan because of this in a long while - I probably would of yesterday though, if I had felt like getting out of the house, but I haven't been well enough for that this last week. I did post a whiny to the Star McDougaller's on pain and craving. Nichol sent me a PM immediately on it sending me here to see what she wrote to you! I think we are eventually going to be the Star McDougaller's on this subject because we kind of are in a category by ourselves here.

Funny that this thing is hitting us at the same time??? I have now read Nicole's post to you and I know for certain that extreme fatigue and this NEED issue is right on target. I know both of us have been complaining of not getting back on track with our sleeping since the time change.

For me there really is something with the barometric pressure going on as well. I now have internet access to a weather station chart that is here in my neighborhood. I look at it the second things get better or worse for and sure enough - your going to have to laugh -- when my hands start felling better and I start peeing every 10 minutes that barometric pressure is zooming upward! I hope that wasn't too much information, lol.

I have been on this less than 6 months - so I really want to believe that there are toxins still exiting and giving us problems on the way out as Nicole also points out from her research. So, I am going to latch on to that as my mantra - when the ice cream calls again and say its just the toxins doing their siren song.

One last thing neither of us has been up to our usual exercise - me the swimming and you the yoga. Hopefully, when we get normalized with that aspect again the sleep will kick in as well.

Meanwhile, I just wish the friggin' gorilla would roll off my tummy and let me get some sleep at night!! I am not letting any bananas in this house til the dang thing skeedaddles!!!

Take care - Michelle