Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

A binge eating relapse is waking up in a blur. 

The vicious cycle may have been going on for a month, a year or two years but you're left with the evidence.  Rebound weight gain and/or wrappers all over the place.

All the while this cycle was going on, eating in the unconscious mode, the brain did absolutely nothing to help you snap out of it.  It didn't want to. It was enjoying the relapse cycle.  The half has not been told. 

Relapse wants you back. 

Metabolic derangement wants you back. 

Fat wants you back. 

The unhealthiest kind of fat around all of your internal organs wants you back.

Wild swings UP and down want you back. 

The body is hail bent on seeing to it that you fall back into every unhealthy behavior.  The body is in cahoots with the brain and relapse is the name of the game.

While you're eating in the unconscious mode, the body went along for the thrill eating ride.  It didn't let you stop and take a breath until your breathing is labored and you can't bend over without feeling some misery.

When you mean business with yourself and your spirit knocks on your door and says....Hey, I want to live.... you tell the body and brain just shut the hail up....it gets really, really quiet Up in there.

You won't hear another word out of those two because your spirit is Large and in Charge.  Body.  Mind.  Spirit.

The spirit is greater than the sum total of the other two. Those yayhoos will lead you down the road to destructive patterns.

The fat and relapse wants you back.  It's chemical, it's addictive,  it's emotional, it's physical, it's stress and it's anxiety. It can be depression, or genetic, but all of it is a fight for your life. 

Relapse is silent.  Sneaky snake. Seeking whom it may devour. 

When you wake UP from relapse, you have no idea what happened over the past 30, 300 or 3000 days.  It's a blur.

It's a stealth bomber for you, baby. So stealthy and unhealthy. 

Stay wide, wide awake.   Don't let relapse pull the wool over your eyes.  

You may not awaken out of that deep slumber until Spring. You don't want that. You're waaaay ahead of that crapshoot. 

Stay connected.  We are better together with a community. Showing UP every day keeps us accountable.  Seeing friendly faces makes all of the difference in the world.

You're somewhere in the future and you want to keep feeling your best. There's no such thing as the Finish Line with your well-being. 

 

[MeadowLily]

So what is this.

I'm milling around and shooting the breeze with the Universe.

I enjoy reverb and social contact.  This is my Happy Place.  I decorate it and sing to all y'all.

I learn something new every day. It Starts with Food and ends with food.

It starts with a diet and ends with food addiction. That's it.  In a nutshell and not the whole bushel. 

You have to own it.  I ruined my relationship with food when I started a diet. It was the road to ruin but I've bounced back. 

I'm here because of the Felicias out there like me.  The Universe throws me a bone here and there and I make bone broth with it.

I think about you. For real.   Laurie, Hutlifr, the gaggle of geese and the ducks.  Who can ever forget the ducks and his flock.  Not me. 

They say,  Oooo, who cares what they say,  what say you.  Stop by the hitching post once in awhile and pay me a visit. Show me your eyes.

I'm holding the fort down because it keeps me strong. Our families become worn out with food talk. They're wonderful just the way they are but I'm a work in progress. If it sounds like Ima Mrs. Preachy Pants, not so.  I'm shooting the breeze with the Universe.

It's good, strong medicine. 

 

    

 

[MeadowLily]

The Carrot   =   Promise of a quick fix.

No one can do this for you and I wouldn't drag any of my family members along for the ride.  A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.

You can lead a horse to water but they might resent you for dragging them there.  Maybe they have a real hankering for lasagna, garlic bread and spaghetti.  It's best to leave them alone. That dog won't hunt.  

They're leaverites.  Leave 'em right there.

Recovery is a good gift. It's best served as a main course. Other side dishes will distract you. Recovery is a road you have to walk.  Many days you will be alone.  It's alright.  You have to break yourself down to build yourself back UP again. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Do you have plexi-glass fingernails. Paw's home healthcare nurse just told us that plexi-glass false fingernails have more germs under them than a toilet seat.

She also said they harbor things like hepatitis and other things that no one wants to pass along.Even if you think you're scrubbing under there, you can't get rid of what grows under plexi-glass nails. She said during the cold and flu season, they pass the flu right along, too.  If you or someone in your circle has a compromised immune system think about ditching those claws. Maw and I keep our nails very short.

I do enjoy painting my toenails. I have a little trick. Just go outside and slap that polish on.  You don't have to worry about small, perfect brushstrokes.  No, siree.  Slap it all over the place and let it dry. Do it as a serenade to Jackson Pollock.  It will turn out beautiful.

  

I always offer to paint everyone's nails but they won't let me. They prefer the perfect route.  Not me and it still looks great. I like to paint my short fingernails. Slap it on and go. 

So there's a little extra around the edges, it washes off in a few days and you're left with sheer beauty.  No fuss, no muss. I enjoy doing for others but they won't let me. 

   

[MeadowLily]

See the similarities there and we're back! We've segued right back on topic. A smooth transition. 

Smoothie Operators. 

Smoothies are out for the most part. They really won't help your satiety cues. 

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Come to find out, the ground is shaking. They're on the lower side, 3.2's and 3.4's but with all of this snow and total silence, I can hear the plates banging beneath my feet. Boom! The dome of pressure is like the center of a tipi.  There's that initial jolt and then a transference of movement spreading out like the outer edges of the tipi. We've been feeling the craton plates shifting since I was a kid. No anxiety. Folkaronies and I are staying put.  Maw and I really notice it while we're sitting on the ground floor. 

We have another 2 feet of new snow since last night.  This winter is unbelievable. We've plowed the snow and have 7-8 feet icebergs along the edges of the road. So if the earth moves beneath your feet, it's just the edges of the tipi spreading out. Smoke signals from my house to yours.

 

[MeadowLily]

Blink your eyes.

Blinking your eyes helps you focus.  

While you're taking the big test, blink your eyes to help your brain focus. 

Don't be scared.  Be prepared.

[MeadowLily]

Any response from the dieting relationship = Keep trying.

No response = No point in continuing this.

When you want true freedom from any controlling and manipulative dieting relationship - you may  find yourself in the midst of a positive reaction.

There are no negatives when you stop dieting.

None. Zero. Nadda. Zip.

 

[MeadowLily]

There are lifestyle changes and there are diets. It takes wisdom to know the difference.

Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon and everyone is now calling their diet a lifestyle change.  That's a bunch of hooey.

I hear it everywhere I go.  Don't shout me down while I'm preachin' good (from the TV). 

If you're living on mail order food that arrives in cardboard boxes, Houston....that ain't a lifestyle change. That would be a fig newton of the imagination.

Have you looked at the ingredients in those boxes. Don't pull the wool over your eyes.  Turn around and take a good hard look at it.  Read the fine print.

Who can afford mail order food for the rest of their life. Those chemicals and additives and preservatives will make you act nuttier than a fruitcake. Hopped up on artificial flavors, colors, sweetners, high fructose corn syrup and sugar sugars.

That ain't the way to go and you don't want to go out like that.

 

[MeadowLily]

Every part of the puzzle doesn't have to fit perfectly. We don't have to be perfect. 

If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me.  

No, Felicias.  That's not so. 

One cardboard box dinner does not fit all.

I eat fish, fish, fish.  Morning, noon and night.

Fresh fish from Blue Ribbon Trout Streams.  That may not work for you. Money can't buy everything.

I like fish.  It's life sustaining and it keeps you sweeter and kinder...more than a diet filled with  HFCS and artificial additives ever could.

Answer the call of the wild and get yourself free.  Food freedom is more than counting calories, micros, macros and mackerels. 

Body.  Mind.  Spirit.

How in the world can boxed dinners get you in touch with your spirit.  All of the lifeforce is gone by the time it reaches your doorstep. 

I've tooled along the backroads of this forum. I've read all of the Whole 9 threads.  

Ima Post Whole Digger and a Soul Miner's Daughter. 

I try very hard to contain myself but my freedom busts out all over the place.  I stay in my own lane but I am a wild child. This is my Happy Place. 

  

[MeadowLily]

While I make every attempt to stay tangentially on topic my fish brain likes to take a few detours. I rein it in and kick my hiney. Secretly, I'm tooling along the road...singing, dancing and decorating.  Fences make good neighbors but don't fence yourself in or paint yourself into any corners.  

I'm somewhere in the future and I'm probably wilder than I am right now. Do your really think boxed dinners can blow your mind like TNT.

Stick with fresh cut hayfields, rugged mountains, wildflowers and trout streams. 

Shawshank it.  

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Paw always says....If one of my thoughts went through your head it would blow like TNT.

Grandpaw was proud of his large family. So proud. He constructed a really large picnic table and let the kids/grandkids paint it. He took us down to the paint store, let us pick out the wildest colors and gave us a brush. We painted it like a watermelon. 

The table was in the front yard. When the pesky tourists would drive by, he would say....See kids, they want what we have. Really, Grandpaw. How so. We have this big family and we have each other. Never forget that.  

He was proud of his circle. The silverware didn't match and quite often the house was a tee-total wreck but there was fun and support and connection. That house was filled with so much love. Grandpaw built the house, too.  It's still stands today. 

I often give it a drive-by fruiting and think about our great times together. Grandmaw loved to gad around town while Grandpaw was working. She took us to the dairy queen and gas station for soda pops and candy. We were always jacked UP on multi-crap.

There's no app for happiness and creating fond memories. I wouldn't change a thing and I cannot contain my love for family. Telling you about them makes me happy. Heckatoot, I wish all y'all could've been there with us. 

I always think about NYC. How you're getting along in the big ole city. I hope life treats you well.

We were the arrows in Grandpaw's quiver. Follow your own arrow.

Dig deeper. Pull out all of the dross and hang on tight to the good things. Draw in closer to your family. Hugs and kisses all around.

Much Love. Felicias. 

[MeadowLily]

 

A patron comes into an outdoor sporting store with their kids and buys a can of bear spray. As they're walking out the door, they ask if they're supposed to spray the kids from head to toe with it. 

[MeadowLily]

Own it.

Own all of it.  

Take full reponsibility for everything.

Until you do that you'll be held captive between completely overreaching and totally underachieving.

New Year's optimism is fleeting.  

Today is I can't fool myself realism.

Between gung-ho and ho-hum you will find your balance. We shouldn't wait all year to be filled with joy and optimism that comes with the new year.

The number one reason any particular diet fails is that it's implemented so brutally strict right out of the chute. 

The Shock and Awe approach sets up vicious cycles for the binge eater.  Edge your way down slowly.

You'll have a better shot at getting there and staying there without the pain of withdrawal.

When we lessen the mental and emotional struggle with food, there is better retention of how new healthy foods work with new habits. 

[MeadowLily]

Create a plan to deal with the mind warp the scale throws at you.

Plan your meals to get back in the groove. 

Review your plan first thing in the morning.  Don't wait until the end of the day.  Avoid any chance of putting it off as the day or weekend lazies begin to build.

You can pull yourself back from the brink every day. 

Falling back into much bread and pasta may be life but climbing out is transcendent.  

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Don't start none.  Won't be none.

If you don't start any drama-rama around food, won't be none. 

Maw and I have made peace with food and each other. She doesn't say a cotton pickin' word to me about food.  I lurve her for it. 

Mothers, the smartest thing you can do is stop pushing your daughters or sons. Don't obsess over all of their bites and micro-manage their relationship with food.  It's like too much handwashing.  It can lead to disorder. 

Food Freedom begins at home.  Culture is just another word for your Maw's homecooking. 

What happens to us in the formative years is stored as a memory. 

They say (Sig. F. said) it's called infantile amnesia.  That most of us can't remember much before the age of seven.  Bologna.

They say these memories simply disappear.  Hooey.

Memories are highly selective about what stays and what falls away. 

We are the things we tell ourselves.  We all have the ability to change.

Everything that's ever happened to us leaves an imprint. It's all right there.

You can try and change the constructs but the fact remains that we've all had to eat a few dirt sandwiches to get where we are today.

No one lives the fairytale.  When we put our heads together, there ain't nothin' we can't do.    

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Want to hear something funny. You would think that I couldn't possibly go on blathering and foaming at the mouth.  I know.   I know.

Folkaronies ask me.  Why do you do that. 

The minute I try and write something about food outside of this Happy Place,  I can't.  

I'm drawn here like a magnet. This is the house that built me.

Oooo, there are those who go beyond this door after 30 days. They launch themselves out into the deep, never to be heard from again.   

I use my imagination and think about paleo-peoples and the Felicias like me. Some have to sit at a desk for 9-10 hours aday. They're taking care of their families. Others may be under alot of pressure and sick with stress. Some are speaking in a foreign language...southern fried.

I stay in my own lane but I'm avoiding the shark in the shallows. 

That is all.   

[MeadowLily]

Take your home with you wherever you go.

[MeadowLily]

When you have a thought, let it goooo.

What do you think about the new movement, revenge body.

You work out in beast mode, get your revenge body and then go tell all of the mission creeps off.  Let 'em really have it.

I say, if they just weren't that into you in the first place, telling them off with your revenge body will result in more...meh. 

A revenge body. What happens when you've told all of them off. What then.

Go back to the pre-revenge body.  The feeling lower than a dime body.  If you sat on a dime, you'd still have enough room left over to swing your feet body.  

Why do you have to use your body as a weapon. 

To everything there is a season.  A time to tell the mission creeps off and a time to really move on. When that window of opportunity closes, it's over.

Bitterness and anger is a dirt sandwich. It's really, really sad when anyone feels the need to keep drudging up someone else's perceived faults.

After all, we see everything through our own bias and flaws. If you're leaving a trail of mission creeps behind you...there's only one common denominator in that picture. You.

Turn around and take a good hard look at your own multi-crap.

A revenge body won't fix it.  Respect yourself and others. Forgiving others is always better than revenge.  

They're going on with their best life and you're still stuck in a deep, deep rut.  Spinning your wheels.  Whenever we point one finger at someone there are four fingers pointing back at ourselves.  

A revenge body.  A revenge mind.  A revenge spirit. 

Our original factory settings weren't set up that way. 

 

[MeadowLily]

 

Binge eating primes the pump for leptin resistance.  Carbs, sodas,all highly engineered to be craved foods.  Until the weight releasing is done, there's an internal battle with leptin resistance and abby normal hunger.

Fat cells release leptin but for those with leptin resistance/diabetes - excess fat storage releases too many leptin receptors, more than the cells can handle.  When cells are overloaded, they shut down their leptin receptors.

Leptin no longer goes to the cells to tell the stomach it is time to stop eating....even after eating enormous portions of food.

The leptin resistant are always hungry.  Eating any sugar, corn syrups make the brain even more resistant to leptin.   

 

Don't give up hope.  Eat healthy fats and fish, fish, fish. 

   

 

[MeadowLily]

You don't know what it feels like until  you've been there. You can eat large plates of food and still be hungry immediately after eating.  Leptin resistance is going to fight you tooth and toenail and it's true.....

The fat wants you back.  If you've been fighting with leptin resistance for years,  the fat cells/storage have a memory.

 

It's going to take months and months before your body finds its own level and balance. If you go back to the refined foods and sugars, leptin resistance will return and help you eat it all back within a very short period of time.

Hungry all of the time no matter what you do.   Fight. Fight. Fight.  

 

Hang in there with your healthy fats.   They're the ticket out of Leptin Resistance hail on earth.  Let your healthy fats literally scare the hail out of leptin resistance.  You can do it but you cannot go back to your old ways.

All of the metabolic derangement will return with refined foods.   Budgeting the weekends for refined food thrill eating..no can do.   When leptin resistance knocks on your door, that wily coyote, fox in the henhouse, wolf at the door, sneaky snake in the grass has to be dealt with.

There's no going back.  Not when that old goat has taken up residence in your body at any particular time.  It takes true grit but the battle can be won. 

Don't get on the scale.  Remember what T.D. says. Scale hopping scares the fat and leptin resistance. He fights even harder to hang on. You have to have your game face on and battle strategy.   Outsmart that wily coyote, old goat, fox in the henhouse, wolf at the door, snake in the grass mentality. 

Leptin resistance is metabolic derangement.  Constant hunger no matter what you do - stay the course.  It will take longer than 30 days to deal with it. 

[MeadowLily]

Fish, fish, fish.  The hostess with the mostess.  The protein food with nature's healthy fats. Ahhhh, you can't go wrong with fish.  

I start my day with deluxe proteins.  There's a recent study about those who eat the BAB.  They found those who ate the BAB  maintained a large weight releasing far and above those who do not eat the BAB (Big @** Breakfast). 

Seeing Leptin Resistance in the rearview mirror is the greatest reward for all of this hard work. Maintaining a sharp edge against the struggle and angst that it brings into your life is everything.

[MeadowLily]

BAB study.  Big &$$ Breakfast - 8 month study.

 

BAB group.  Ate plenty of protein, real food carbs and fats.

 

Zero carb group.  

 

Bottomline.

 

ZeroC - released 28 lbs in 4 months.

BAB - released 23 lbs

 

After 8 months:  

 

ZeroC   - regained 18 lbs

BAB -  released an additional 16.5 lbs

 

BAB  - released a total of 21.5 % body fat

ZeroC    - 4.5% body fat  total and rebound weight gain

 

BABreakfast  - ate protein to thwart hunger, right kind of carbs to keep insulin in check and were consistent.

Endocrine Study,  San Francisco. 

 

Nothing new here.  It's what we've known all along. When you overrestrict for long periods of time there is an appetite reckoning.  Especially if you have constant hunger with leptin resistance.  Until that metabolic derangement is healed, the appetite reckoning can cause rebound. Then you're starting over again and further in the hole with your metabolism. 

 

Going slow is the way to give Leptin Resistance a TKO.

Technical Knockout.  Without rebound.

 

Stick that landing!  Boom.

 

[MeadowLily]

Rationalization.  Huge rationalizations about everything.  Those have got to go.

 

Multi-CrapOmeter.  That stays.

 

Regular Multi-CrapOmeter Status Reports keep you honest and true.

[MeadowLily]

 

Ruthlessly prune all excuses from your databank.   They no longer serve you.  Slap yourself silly if you hear yourself dragging them back up from the archives.  You cannot blame your babies, kids, family members, holidays or celebrations.  

 

So prune everything and get straight to the plot. Don't whine and ballyhoo about micro food minutiae. There's something here at Whole 30 for everyone.  

 

Showing rather than telling is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal.  Show others what you've got. You've got to have verve to hook others,  whining won't get anyone there. 

 

Don't let yourself get buried under too much backstory and set up.

Get past the prep work and let's see some ACTION.