Discussion Board

Weight: 204.5

Well I spoke to soon on the weight bounces. I have been good on the food, though I am substituting lots of McDougall soups over rice instead of doing my own MWL recipes this week.

I am getting little sleep due to the pain of the temporary crown. Literally some nights none at all. Last night was the first decent sleep I've had since the thing went on. I am pretty sure that liberally coating it with ambesol, a topical anesthetic is the only reason I got any sleep.

Oddly, I didn't have this issue with the last crown, I think the material for this temporary is too porous and is allowing hot cold issues to bother me terribly. It's just another week to go so I'll hang with it - I can't bare the idea of going it to have it changed due to all the shots I'd have to suffer in the hinge of my jaw - with the fibro that is just killer!

Also I have been to tired to consider the gym the last two days. That has got to be contributing to me gaining just now. I am not going to try either. I went Sunday after no sleep and could barely get in half an hour. Plus, for some reason I couldn't get to my target heart rate up no matter what I tried. So I think my body just rebelled completely!

Just another week and then I hope things adjust back to weight loss!!!

I am right there chicklet! I am also finding that without a lot of support, I am feeling as though I can't do it. Even when I eat on plan, the weight is not really coming off. I hope that today is a better day for you!

Carolyn: We are just slumping for our various reasons, it will turn around. I am going back to the dentist today - she thinks that the crown was placed too high by the tech and she'll readjust it herself. I dread doing this but it's more proactive than taking myself out of the game for another week.

Plus, last night I succumbed to taking the really big bad pain pills left over from the gall bladder emergency. Oh jeez it's been one thing after another for so long!!! It worked the pain went right away but I didn't wake up until 11:00 AM and I am a zombie now and will be all day. I really don't like that - I do want to be able to particpate in my life to some degree

I spent over over an hour at the dentist's yesterday, while they tried to figure out what is causing all my pain. It didn't work and I am back on pain pills, not sleeping, not exercising and not eating right. Plus my dentist told me when she called today, if the nerve endings don't settle down, she won't cement on a new crown -- will this ever end???

I had my windows washed today that's an all day thing for me. I was ready for them last week, but was ahead of myself by a week, OMG - whatever happened to putting things on the calendar so I don't blow it! I barely had the energy to pull that off and I am out of everything but beans right now.

So, hopefully I'll get some sleep tonight and can pull off the energy (despite the heavy duty pain pills, that leave me groggy all the next day) to get to the grocery store tomorrow and back on the wagon of eating right. I'd also be thrilled if I could handle the gym again, but that may be pushing it.

It's been one thing after the other since January, first the gall bladder, then the CPAP and now my dental issue. I am really looking for a break soon.

I am not down though because my windows look fabulous

I am sorry you are having so much pain.

However....your house sounds AWESOME! I would love to have all of those windows!

I am back - the pain is manageable now, except for a killer headache. And though the weight has radically fluctuated - since the tooth thing- up to 5 pounds difference, it has held two days in a row, which it hasn't in weeks. Maybe a good thing?

I am still eating on plan foods, but not getting the exercise in because I still feel crappy & I am in a huge catch up mode on things let go during this period. I have caught up fairly well in the last few days and see the light at the end of the tunnel, so back to the gym or swimming Tuesday.

I was directed to Bob's site because it appears he is having fun with my dental problems and seems to have taken stuff I wrote out of context. I am not on the defensive about eating wrong - because in the big picture I haven't gone astray. The only thing I can think of that got him on the rant about --- what did I expect and what a dumb excuse the tooth issues are --- is that I mentioned when I was a child tightening my braces meant, jello, soup and ice cream.

That was then and this is now - and certainly I didn't go there AT ALL. What I have done, because I haven't felt up to cooking, is I have been eating lots of McDougall's soups over rice, which I think is pretty MWL. The thing is I am skipping meals ( on the pain killers I slept through breakfast for over a week) and until late this week I don't think I was eating anywhere near enough!

So it's been like this mostly, I have done a couple soups a day over rice, if I had breakfast it was Mcdougall oatmeal. Thing is I haven't had salads or fruit in quite awhile because crunchy isn't working for my teeth at all, with the exception of bananas or melon. Still, I doubt I have been getting in my allotment of fruit either.

I usually (and as of the last two days) eat something like this:

B: oatmeal, fruit, herbal coffee
L: huge salad - with rice (kind of a one pot meal) and sometimes a bit of beans tossed in.
D: tossed veggie salad, rice and a stir fried veggie topper for that. Typically greens like bok choy, chard or broccoli.
S: would be my second fruit.

So, I don't know why my weight is going up and down radically. I just guess at things - but I am not making excuses to cover up bad eating practices. I do know it's water retention because my hands are swelling greatly and then are not when the weight goes down.

I certainly have had bad eating practices since going MWL; specifically, when it comes to eating with family on Holidays, and I have been frank when I go off McDougall. That is a most valuable aspect of what I feel my journal is about and it sure works because, for the most part, here people have great suggestions about how to avoid going astray in future.

Speaking of helpful people, I got some great info on what might help me through this and for that - thatnks dlee and Jan. Also to Carolyn who checked in by PM even when I wasn't posting - I can't say how much I have appreciated that - IT"S A REALLY BIG AMOUNT THOUGH!!!

hello Michelle

Sorry to hear about your tooth pain. That has to be the worst! And who is this Bob who is having fun at your expense? I hope he is just sharing a laugh with you and not causing you any harm?!

I'm having a very hard time sticking to plan myself--haven't been at home much and when I am I am just too tired to cook. Luckily since I'm on my feet so much at work right now my weight is staying down. Things should calm down at work at the end of July so then I can focus a lot more on eating right. I have been eating bags and bags of cherries they are down to under $3 a pound finally and soooo good this year.

I thought about you yesterday when I was swimming at a local pool. What a treat for those aching muscles! I can see now why you make that a priority.

Hope you start to feeling better! B

Hey blue:

So good to hear from you! I am taking a lunch break from garden and house chores. Those have been on the back burner for weeks and on my break I am on the catch up with everyone's journals! Well that would take way more than a lunch break for sure, but I'll get a start.

Hmm," who is Bob" - he is a Star McDougaller. He used to post here a bunch and he had lots of good information to share on this site, but, he can also ruffle feathers. Eventually, he had a talk with his wife and decided not to post here any longer. In my thinking that's too bad because he often brought a thoughtful perspective to issues that came up here, but you had to accept that he was pretty rigid, very serious and often judgmental.

He and his wife have their own blog site but I understand they are no longer MacDougaller's. There maybe some interesting stuff on there good stuff there, but I was directed to find the his commentary on my tooth issues. From what I understood and from what I saw he is cherry picking ( not like yours, lol) this site and still making his commentaries over there. Before when he was still here one of the issues people had with him is he does this there, but there is no ability to post a reply to his commentary. Not that it would be worth engaging him on this issue, but I wanted to set it straight in my journal that he has misinterpreted what was going on with me.

I so get the too tired to cook Blue, that's been part of my problem too. But I got to say I like the MacDougall cups and I could always get rice on in the cooker. You might want to have those on hand. Oddly, I used to just use them for camping, I took them last year with friends and luckily I had lots because they were a huge hit! I love the varieties of breakfast oat meal too. I am going to order them and the big soup cartons on line, I think it's a big savings over the store. I use the carton soup as a base for other meals and that works well for me - kind of Jeff Novick's style of cooking - everything in the pot and done in 10 minutes. But recently opening more than one package was beyond my means. I was so pathetic, lol!

I so missed swimming during this time but will get back to it this Tuesday! Fingers crossed, that the pain stays down. I am glad you've got in a pool, yay, that's what summer is all about and cherries. Oh I love cherries, yum!!

One of the last times I had them was so funny. At friends house and they had a ton of fruit for snacks - and a cherrie pitter that was passed around. That was a novelty for most folks there, so my friend Martha went back to her kitchen and brought out all these other kitchen gadgets for us to see. These gadgets were in the house when they bought it along with the pitter, most were German made and apparently used for things we had no clue about. So since we couldn't figure them out - we played Liar's club. It was hilarous - I always think about that when it's cherry season. I've got to get some!!

As for you being some off for now -- hey, you're really not in dire need of lossing the weight like most of us -- but like me our main thing is the pain reduction. To me every day with less pain is a good day and it sounds like you are still doing really well that way. Keep it up!!!

I love your cherry story - too funny! I am glad you are back and posting again. You have such a great sense of humor, and are so encouraging to everyone. We missed you!

Hey Carolyn - Missed you too!!!

Well, I am officially back. The pain is gone, as are the pain pills, sleepless nights and all the coddling I had to do to get through a day of naps! Unfortunately or fortunately - I won't know until it's over - I get my permanent crown next week.

I still don't really know what put me over the edge with this, but I am going to blame the fibro and be done with it.

I have been eating solid food for some days and back to the level I was before this - so I know I am getting enough in. Even crunchy foods - boy, did I miss my raw salads. Especially, when it hit 102 here last week.

I am up 2 pounds for all of this, but I did keep bouncing up and down to 208.5, like up and down every other day by 3 pounds or more. I have bounced some this week but not like that, more like .5 pound or so!

Last night I cooked my fist recipe from the "Everyday Happy Herbivore" by Lindsay Nixon and I loved it. Ginger Bok Choy Stir Fry, yum. Was super simple prep and TASTY, a complete keeper. I'll post it on my keepers list some day when I have more time.

Tonight I'll try her Rainbow Greens with chard no doubt another yum!

I haven't gotten back to exercising, which I miss terribly. But I hope I will hit the gym tomorrow. Until today the weather has been great and the fibro has been really low with HOT weather around. So I have been doing lots of gardening! In my garden that really does mean exercise, as I am on a slope and running up and down carrying cubic feet of soil is as good a workout as the gym.

My next garden chore is to wash and treat my decks. This I do with a scrub brush for washing and a brush for painting, so it's exercise too! I've had it done professionally and will never do that again, the power washing is just not good for wood decks and I like my results better. Plus it is exercise. I have to do it in small doses one deck at a time and then there is the drying and other down time, so it can take me quite a while working with the fibro stalls things too!

Today is foggy here and the fibro doesn't want to do a thing but make me miserable. I scrub brushed the kitchen floor yesterday as a warm up for the deck project and today the fibro is saying - "YOU FLIPPIN IDIOT what ever did you expect!"

Still I love to see good results and a day up and a day down is still worth it for me.

I am catching up on everyone's journals and I don't seem to be the only one who has been away or has been facing hurdles in progress. Oddly, we all seem to be getting back up on the horse (nods to Gin) and gettin' goin' again right at the same time! It must have been a moon phase or a sun spot or something effecting us all

I for one am really happy to be back to the regular food. I like the McDougall soups, but there is the sodium to contend with there too as Jan pointed out to me. Plus, I can only eat the ones that are gluten free so I don't have much selection. Still it's a good back up when life gets the best of me and I know I'll be stocking up just in case next weeks dental adventure gets the better of me again!

Now I best try to figure out If there is something constructive I can do, oh I know I'll tickle cats, hehehehe

January 01, 2012 - 212.0
January 06, 2012 - 210.5
January 13, 2012 - 209.5
January 20, 2012 - 208.0
January 27, 2012 - 210.0
February 03, 2012 - 207.0
February 10, 2012 - 207.0
February 18, 2012 - 208.0
February 24, 2012 - 207.5
March 02, 2012 - 206.0
March 09, 2012 - 205.5
March 16, 2012 - 206.0
March 22, 2012 - 204.0
March 29, 2012 - 208.0
April 05, 2012 - 203.5
April 13, 2012 - 210.5
April 14, 2012 - 208.5
April 19, 2012 - 206.5
April 26, 2012 - 205.0
May 04, 2012 - 205.5
May 11, 2012 - 204.5
May 18, 2012 - 205.0
May 24, 2012 - 203.0
June 01, 2012 - 202.0
June not precisely MWL due to soft foods diet after dental probs.
June 22, 2012 204.5

Up 2.5 pounds.

I am back after some 2 or 3 weeks of problems. Pain is gone and I am now not living on McDougall cups for B, L and D. No more radical 3 pound jumps up and down. I used to be pissy about being stable and not dropping: this week I stayed at 204.5 all week and I am thrilled - go figure, hehehehe.....

But I go back to the dentist to finish the work next week - hopefully, I won't have any problems this time!

Weight: 204.5

Well, most of this week I have been at this weight so I am sure I am stable again. And most of the week I am eating regular food again - like yay, crunchy food like carrots and celery. My big lunch salads are back, which I love. Just a huge salad of all the raw veggies in the fridge that entice me and two cups of rice or potato cubes -- what ever is left over from the prior days starch base.

But now that I am back to more or less normal - I seem to have huge sinus infection all part of the dental problem - I am going to start food logging again.

I know I haven't been eating enough and I am gaining weight despite that. Part might be the salt in the MacD cups - it is pretty high. I read thread that Kate commented on. she was saying that her weight is really coming off quickly on the elimination diet. that has given her pause to think about all the spicy little additives that go into her meals. n since I get a bunch of food ideas from her posts - I thought I best look closely at her list. One of my fav go to additives is salsa, and though I have been really good at making sure the bottled varieties I get don't have added oil (beware some have stuff you wouldn't expect), I haven't been looking at the salt content. As salsa is one of my favorite salad dressings and I have beans rice and salsa at least once or twice a week, I think I better be giving those things a better look-see on the labels!!! I'll go back through her list too and make sure I catch them all. Was glad to see that she didn't have a problem with adding cinnamon back in - OMG my oatmeal without cinnamon would be just not to par!

As for the rest, I don't have much appetite because of the sinus thing. So, it's going to be kind of a force feed for a while until I get that out of the way too.

Then there is exercise and I just haven't been doing it at all. The next two days are iffy, I have long meetings both Saturday and Sunday to attend. The Saturday one - I usually do a half hour walk with my friend Kay at lunchtime - so I'll get that in but Sunday is iffy altogether.

Food Log for the day so far....

B: oatmeal, cinnamon, frozen mixed fruit, 1/4 cup of almond milk, stevia. 3 cups of herbal coffee and abt 30 cals of coconut creamer
L: mixed spring greens, celery, carrots, onion, mushrooms, 2 tomatoes, 2 cups rice - lime juice and balsamic dressing
D: Cauliflower- Pumpkin Curry from Everyday Happy Herbivore Head of cauliflower steamed, 3/4 cup each of canned pumpkin & veg broth w/ cumin, ginger, curry and pinch paprika over can of chickpeas and 2 c. rice. Really simple and really good another keeper from Lindsay Nixon

I am really liking this cook book because the recipes are so tasty, fast and simple.

Except for the lack of exercise today was a pretty good day. Fog is back in my area, which means my fibro is way up, but last year in the same scenario pre Macdougall I was really low energy and seriously not able to do a thing. Today I accomplished quite a few house chores and a bunch of paperwork - both would have been out of the question before. So, despite the crummy sinus infection, which I think is all part of the tooth debacle - I am doing really fine.

I have enough of tonight's dinner to have it for a leftovers lunch with a salad for tomorrow's meeting. As usual, there will be a huge spread of brunch food, but I'll have a good oatmeal breakfast and take a banana and a thermos of my herbal coffe and I'll do just fine.



I feel better actually having looked up her advice again!!! I am not using hardly any of her listed extras; with the exception of the salsa. But I have just recently lost the "fat free dressings" because I find I like to just shake some Mrs. Dash on my salads, juice a lime or a lemon over top and sometimes add a splash of some type of vinegar.

As a matter of fact, I am going to ask friends and family if they would just get me exotic vinegars for Christmas presents this year - I am so into the diferent sorts now

Glad you can eat food again. HUGS!!!.

Weight: 204.5
walk 30 mins

B: oatmeal, cinnamon, frozen mixed fruit, 1/4 cup of almond milk, stevia. 3 cups of herbal coffee and abt 30 cals of coconut creamer

L: Cauliflower- Pumpkin Curry from Everyday Happy Herbivore Head of cauliflower steamed, 3/4 cup each of canned pumpkin & veg broth w/ cumin, ginger, curry and pinch paprika over can of chickpeas and 2 c. rice. Really simple and really good another keeper from Lindsay Nixon & small salad

D: mixed spring greens, celery, carrots, onion, mushrooms, 2 tomatoes, 2 cups rice - lime juice and balsamic dressing.

Busy day arghhh. Leftovers - I love 'em.

Weight: 206

Yesterday was a really weird day for me. For some reason, I had bad insomnia Saturday night and didn't get to sleep until 5 am, but was awake at 7 am and couldn't sleep another wink after that.

I was beyond exhausted all day, cancelled out of my meeting, which made me feel bad because its the planning of a big event, ouch. And I cod do nothing at home here at all.

And I was just starving all day, which is what happens when I don't get atleast 7 hours of good sleep. I didn't do well with that. I was too tired to make the recipes I picked out of Every Day Herbivore and relied on salads to get me through the day. I had:

L: Greens/rice/chopped chile and artichoke hearts
S: banana
D: 1 can garbanzos/chopped chiles/ artichoke hearts
S: banana
S: sweet potato/pumpkin puree/pumpkin pie spice

I really don't remember if I had breakfast - I vaguely think I may have had oatmeal but it's not really for sure.

Anyway, I know I had too much banana both were whole ones. I usually just do a half at a time. Also I have been doing a can of beans daily which for me is just so wrong! Dr. McD says you can do that every other day or one cup of beans a day but I gain big if I do them daily.

Also, it occurred to me that I had 3 fruit snacks on Saturday that I never credited and I have to watch that. I am a sweet tooth person - and I tend to grab fruit mindlessly at meetings and forget about it. TG it's there but I have to remember I ate it!

Anyway, I jumped up 1.5 for these indiscretions. I had a good night's sleep last night and hopefully I am back on track today!

B: oatmeal,fruit & etc.