Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

Day 1, and I am struggling to get 3 meals in...

 It's the heat.   Do the best you can.   

 

The local butcher told me it's the moon causing all of the heat.     He explained in great detail why the moon is now moving further away from earth.  Cowboys now have to put extra energy into the lassos to rope the steers or make the loops wider.   

 

He said this is causing more fires and earthquakes and tidal waves.  Maw may be onto something with her dream.    He's very interesting and hands off the packages of proteins with a big cowboy grin.  We see alot of easterners in the summertime.  They were griping about the cheese back home.  Everyone there eats american cheese and we just can't stand it.  Do you put dyes in your cheeses out here?

 

Dr. Formaggio told them we have the best in the west.  Our cheese comes from Wisconsin.       It is difficult not to be snarkalicious with the tourists.   You can tell them anything and they believe it.  I remind myself that they are hardworking families,  saving up all year long just to catch the sight of a bear, elk or a moose. 

 

 

They're road weary,  grabbing their sandwich fixin's for a lil family picnic. They've been living on drive thrus and it's raining taco chips in their family truckster.  Grandmaw's in the backseat with the kids. They'll have to drive another 6 hours to find a campground and set up the tent.

 

When they get there they will find almost every campsite has been stomped to pieces from 100 years of tourism.  It is the consistency of baby powder dirt.   

The 'squitos will be eating them alive and more dirt will stick to their faces and bodies from the repellent. All they want is a shower but only to find only luke warm running water in the sinks at the campgrounds.  You usually have to hold the faucet open with one hand or they shut immediately off. They stand in line to brush their teeth from eating dirt sandwiches. 

 

I try to keep this in mind when encountering tourists.  They want a good time and lasting memories.  Some make it here on a wing and a prayer,  alot like the Beverly Hillbillies. Oooo, the stories we could tell you.  One time, while we were trying to eat our supper,  an entire busload of foreigners stopped in front of our house and used our yard for a porta-pot.      True story.  Paw was fit to be tied but mostly because my younger sister had the binoculars out.  

 

Hutlifr,  so glad you're back on Day 1.   Do drop in and pay me a visit.  Take your shoes off and let's laugh for awhile.   

 

[MeadowLily]

There's camping and this is glamping.  Bumper to bumper.  

 

[MeadowLily]

Dr. Formaggio doesn't have delicate tastebuds.  Hutlifr,  have you found certain cheeses that agree with you these days.  Aged Parmesan and maybe some others.   I'll never forget what you've told me about cheese and it does work,  Cheese Louise. 

[Hutlifr]

Dr. Formaggio doesn't have delicate tastebuds.  Hutlifr,  have you found certain cheeses that agree with you these days.  Aged Parmesan and maybe some others.   I'll never forget what you've told me about cheese and it does work,  Cheese Louise. 

All goat cheeses agree with me, and cheeses prepared with raw milk. My consumption of any cheese prepared with treated milk has to have been aged at least 48 months... No dyes in cheeses here... Came home from B with a "Vieux de Lille" for mom, and I can't describe the smell it left in my fridge!!!!

After all this experimenting with cheeses, I recently tried a glass of raw cow milk. My first glass of cow milk since June 17, 2014... It was soooo tasty, and it did not hurt me on its way down the digestive tract, I am now convinced that all those lactose intolerant people out there damaged their guts from drinking highly processed milk. I am not returning to being a regular milk drinker, as I really prefer my goat cheeses if I feel like anything like that...

[Hutlifr]

Don't they have normal camping anymore, you know the one where you just set up a tent in the wilderness? Who needs showers !...

[MeadowLily]

Don't they have normal camping anymore, you know the one where you just set up a tent in the wilderness? Who needs showers !...

The kind of camping where everyone smells of cheetah,  a campfire and an olde goat.     I think so but they normally hike into the backcountry.  Very few actually do that.  Glamping is the norm.  Enormous motorhomes with a smaller version of everything from home.  Cars towed behind, boats, motorcycles, bikes, canoes, rafts....everything. 

 

You are correct about the processed milk/cheeses.  This is my own observation.  Those who are heavy, heavy processed milk drinkers - several gallons a week,  men or women,  prone to rhymes with dancer and begins with a see and diabetes.  Highly addictive for some people, must be the sugars....they live on it. This is the one thing that actually gags me to watch someone drink glasses and glasses of it in one sitting.    Toity probs and binge milk drinking.         Two things I have to close my eyes for and plug my ears and say la, la, la, la.... 

 

[MeadowLily]

All goat cheeses agree with me, and cheeses prepared with raw milk. My consumption of any cheese prepared with treated milk has to have been aged at least 48 months... No dyes in cheeses here... 

Cheese, Louise....you sound like Heidi and I sound like Hansel and Gretel.   We may not live a fairytale existence but both of us live in the lands of fairytales as mountain dwellers.  jmcbn lives in the land where people do see fairies in the gardens. 

 

I have a pain list that I read every single day.  It's part of my food addiction recovery - positive food management plan.  The pain keeps me sane.  

 

My theme song is "I Haven't Got Time for the Pain".  A song I remember from my childhood days.  We didn't have television growing up, only music.  There was no reception. If the clouds were just right we could tune in the rabbit-ears and pick up Captain Kangaroo in the mornings with Mr. Green Jeans.  That's about it.  

 

Back to the Pain List.  This is where I turn around and look at my multi-crap.  I meet it head-on and Face-to-Face.   I deal.   If I don't do that,  I can easily forget why I started this in the first place.  The brain is like a sieve.  It will naturally separate the pain from the good times and shoot right on by ingrained habits used to self-medicate the pain.   

 

This is why people can start eating all back the very next day after they reach their optimum setpoint. Food addictions and others are a chronic disease of brain rewards.  As with many of us,  our lives are not fairytales but actually filled with some difficult things that we'd like to forget.   During the dieting years,  I would eat it all back and my reward brain was in the driving seat.  It just moved me to go through the motions without thinking for days and months on end until I was back at Groundhog Day.

 

I didn't have the tools to understand chronically high dopamine levels which are triggered by binge and thrill eating.  Chronic, relapsing reward-brain addiction made a mess of everything.   I review through my list in the mornings to remember the pain of what food addiction did to me.   I will sing that song.  

 

I haven't got time for the pain of food addiction any longer.   I'm not restarting anything.  No more dieting to make up for binge eating which triggers more binge eating.   We've all had our share of pain without the fairytale.    I'm much happier this way and I can tell I'm not the same person I was over 2 years ago.   Remembering the pain keeps me sane and thrill eating only brings comfort for less 5 minutes.  The side effects of thrill eating are not in any way... rewarding.   All of it...sux.  

 

[MeadowLily]

My coz took her kids to the movies.  They found all of the usual suspects.  Popcorn, gummy bears and everything in a box at the movie house is nothing but corn syrup in one form or another.  Yesterday, she asked where this family tradition started.   I reminded her that we went to the movies together,  sharing popcorn and licorice.  She's carried on that ritual. 

 

I wonder if there's anyone out there that doesn't let their children eat candy.  Has it changed everything for them then?  Did it backfire with a major relapse when they grew older.  Did they go cray cray with candy.   

[Hutlifr]

My coz took her kids to the movies.  They found all of the usual suspects.  Popcorn, gummy bears and everything in a box at the movie house is nothing but corn syrup in one form or another.  Yesterday, she asked where this family tradition started.   I reminded her that we went to the movies together,  sharing popcorn and licorice.  She's carried on that ritual. 

 

I wonder if there's anyone out there that doesn't let their children eat candy.  Has it changed everything for them then?  Did it backfire with a major relapse when they grew older.  Did they go cray cray with candy.   

I have a niece who never got any sweets nor candies, and to this day, she can't stand sweets, desserts or stuff that has sugar in it. When we returned to Europe, without changing our habits, we both shed some serious weight just from eating the same, but less processed and sweetened stuff.

[MeadowLily]

I have a niece who never got any sweets nor candies, and to this day, she can't stand sweets, desserts or stuff that has sugar in it. When we returned to Europe, without changing our habits, we both shed some serious weight just from eating the same, but less processed and sweetened stuff.

There you goooo.

 

My brekkie includes fruit.  At the end.  In reasonable amounts.  

 

Hutlifr,  I've never had an issue with fruit in my entire lifetime and I never will.   I can't recall a time when it's ever been rolling around in my brain as a food reward.  My brain rewards were all centered around corn syrup.  

 

Eating fruit in reasonable amounts at the end of a meal....whew.....is not my corn syrup replacement.  I'm Fruit Loose because it moves me in a positive mental way.    It's whole.  It's real and there are elements about/in berries that seriously agree with me.  

 

Apples can sit on my shelf for weeks.   Bananas don't even get an honorable mention.   Watermelon and 'lopes.  Meh.   Bags of nuts don't entice me and I haven't had a single jar of nut butter in my house for years.  My Big Kahuna trigger is corn syrup.  After I had a bad allergic reaction with major hives after eating fiber 1 bars loaded with chicory....went to the allergist and found out I'm allergic to corn syrup and chicory. 

 

That allergy has been there since day one.  Maw put karo syrup in my baby formula.   Then she let me have chocolate syrup in milk.  I lived on that for years.   I personally believe the foods we let ourselves swim in until our body gets all pruny are the foods we are allergic to.  The foods you can't let go of and crave morning, noon and night.  In the middle of the night and those that are laying by your head when you wake up.  

 

I've never crawled out of bed with blueberries stuck to my head and in my hair but corn syrup gila monsters....ahhhh, hail yes.   Gila monsters bite and they are serious predators. 

 

My positive food management plan includes fruit.   I used to eliminate all fruits while dieting and then get all jacked up and excited about returning to the scene of the crime.  Eating it all back with corn syrup gila monsters.  I'm through with dieting.   I'm through with eliminating whole foods in favor of brain rewards that include corn syrup candy,  baked goods and highly engineered to be craved everything.

 

So for me....I will eat fruit.   I'm standing firm on my fruit box.  Fruit will never do to me what all of the processed foods did.   Never ever.   Not mentally.   Not physically.  

 

Today, I ate fruit at the end of brekkie.   I'm loud and fruit proud.   I'm still standing.  Fruit has made all of the difference for me.   I'm not deprived or dieting.   I can use all of my nuts for a decoration and fruit as a condiment.  

 

They don't contain excite-o-toxins.  Those are the tastes that make a mess out of everything.  Those are the ones that overstimulate neuron receptors.  

 

I started eating fruit at the end over two years ago.   It's never given me one day of a noticeable uptick in blood sugar.  I've finally found my way without weigh and whey.   Don't shout me down when I'm preaching good.  Heard that one on the TV.   

 

I've made it over into the 'Promised' Land. 

 

When I signed up for this rodeo,  I was promised that I could actually change my relationship with food. I'm doing that.   It took longer than 30 days.   No one other than fellow members may understand the struggles with food addictions.   Our loved ones and friends are not left in suspense with what we're having for dinner.

 

They're too busy trying to keep their heads above water.  But we can throw them a  life raft.  Which reminds me, there was always room for two on that raft.

 

What was she thinking.   Move it on over. Jack did not have to go down with the ship and neither do we.   We can make it and survive.   Hop on the raft, all of us Unsinkable Molly Browns.

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Move It On Over!

 

 

 

 

Just be careful with newbies and tender sprouts.   I do have a gummy bear ministry.  It gives me a serious pinch when I see people eating corn syrup candies in any form.  I don't give a rat's @$$ what they're called,  they're going to ruin your pancreas and blood sugar. There's a tipping point.  A reckoning.

 

I don't want anyone to go through it.  It's called diabetes.  It shouldn't hurt my feelings but it does when I see the lost making their way directly to the candy aisle in the grocery store. They're loading their carts with multi-crap.   I see myself through their eyes and it does make me cry.  All of the lost years,  trying to eat my way through so many states.  Driving down the road, throwing gummy bears out the window after the thrill was gone.   

 

I would fill UP my tank until I bursting with corn syrup.   There was never enough.  The thrill eater is not after quality.  It's the quantity of food they want.  That full to the gills and overstuffed feeling. There's never enough multi-crap that will ever complete you.   You can try to top the tank off.  Years and years of trying to fill UP the deep holes in your stomach and heart.

 

One day,  you draw a line in the sand and the Duck Stops Here.   You pull yourself together with help. You're going to cry and bawl your head off.   But the pain will make you sane.   You are no longer shoving all of your emotions down with food.    

[MeadowLily]

Yesterday,  I completed 16 hours of field work and irrigating in my hip waders.  Someone stopped by and asked me why was I wearing them.   I said,   Because my clown outfit is at the cleaners.    Bye Felicias.         

 

 

[MeadowLily]

There was an announcement on the radio that mosquitos are attracted to those who've been drinking.   It turns out that they want to get their buzz on in more ways than one.  I don't want to be a buzz kill but they are a handful of cases of zika in people who did not travel outside of the U.S.   The local buggers are biting people who have been traveling and rebiting the locals. I'm in the midst of people who've traveled from all over the world.  So there's another reason to drink Booch and not Hooch Booch.  We gotta keep our immune systems finely tuned. 

 

They were also telling people not to feed the bears.  Again.  Grizzlies are like humans in many ways.  All they need is one bite of human food and their appetite control center latches onto it like mustard on a hotdog.  Their brain/food reward  system is strong.  One taste of people food and they'll come looking for you.  Remember,  a Silvertip Grizzly's strong sense can smell you from 18 miles away.  

 

Don't feed the bears,  wear your bug 'pellent and drink Booch.  Much Love. 

[MeadowLily]

 

Do you think a woman is like a tea bag.  I don't.   How many tea bags do you know that can are strong enough to bear the children and get right back to business.  Women are diamonds.

 

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I'll tell you what else is strong.  Weeds.  Ob-noxious weeds.  They are kicking my hiney. I don't want to use round-up because of the critters so I have been pulling them with my entire body. There's got to be an easier way.  These creepy weeds are so strong that I have to use all of my weight and they still buck me off.  I fall right to the ground on my rearend as my legs slide out from under me.

 

I use my leather gloves and pull for all I'm worth.  I take full responsibility for letting them get out of hand.  All of the bones and joints in my hands are aching,  my arms, knees,  you name it.  I spend one entire day and night doing fieldwork and it takes one day to rest everything. This is the gym I never asked for.   In 2 months,  I'm in the best physical condition I've been in for years.

 

I don't want to coast on my laurels.  When Bear comes home,  I think I'll continue on and give the man a break.  It's doubtful that I'm doing everything correctly but I'm hoping we won't butt heads like a couple of mountain goats when he gets here.   Mind over matter.  If he doesn't mind, it won't matter.

 

Hah!  I didn't think I could do this.  I dreaded it for an entire year.   I knew it was coming and I doubted my strength.   I literally say to myself before facing every mountain....She believed she could. So she did.   It moves me and I'm moving my hiney and toting that barge and lifting that bale.

 

Paw used to manage 4 X this much when he was able.  I ask him how in the world did one man get it all done.  He worked his head off.  I haven't cried about it one single time but I'm telling you...cowgirls can cry if they want to.   I haven't cried about the summer job but I've cried over my folkaronies. I will always be the kid and they will always be my folks.  I like that pecking order. 

 

Through everything that's happened this summer...they made me promise I would not sully Bear's fishing trip.  I didn't.  I kept my mouth shut.  Cowgirl UP and let it buck.   I can't say I'm enjoying the Weed Rodeo but those ugly things are helping me. 

 

Why are weeds so strong.  What are they good for.   I don't water them and yet, they stand firm and resilient and super strong.  Whopping boatloads of ugly.   There's a lesson here. Tender sprouts and plants don't survive the harsh climate and heat but the weeds do.  The Good.  The Bad.  The Actual Ugly. 

 

Weeds make you take a closer look at the ego and the super ego.  All of the ugly dark corners.  They say that the unconscious remains unconscious out of the fear of the super ego.  We are the things we tell ourselves.   Good, bad, big, small, ugly, smart, stupid, lovely, strong and punchdrunk from being so tired and worn out. 

 

Old folklore says don't go looking in all of the dark corners but you have to if you're going to pull the weeds out.  I've been working on the railroad and pulling all of the weeds out of my head for over 2 years now. My head was full of weeds and they were fueled and fed by corn syrup.   That gives me a really big pinch when I think about it.

 

But I'm owning it.  All of it.   

 

I'm still pulling out the weeds.  And I know,  when I'm not looking that they will try and get a toehold on me again.  We can't coast on our laurels.  Like a watchman on the wall,  remain at your sentry posts and sound out the warning when you see those old Big Kahunas and the wily coyotes, lily livered yellow-bellied sapsuckers trying to get back in.   Remain as always, alert.  Aware.   

 

Keep dancing.  No more rope-a-dope for you and me.  No Felicias.  We are strong.  We are kind and somedays we are sweeter but we are not tea bags.   Tea bags can be torn to shreds and fall apart at the seams.  

 

However, I may be in some hot water when the Bear sees how I've been driving the tractor. I've messed up a few things.    

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I have a microwave egg poacher and it's fab.  I use a teaspoon of clarified butter on each side (actually, it's real KerryGold Butter and I don't have to clarify it now), pierce each egg, add one teaspoon of great white wine vinegar on top, salt and pepper.  I micro for 1 min and 5 extra secs.  Perfecto.  

 

I've been using it almost every day.  Eggs for my BABrekkie, added to my BASalad or on top of my vege. It's easy to clean.  So much easier than doing the boiled water way.  Tastier.  The tart vinegar really kicks eggs up a notch.  

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

Oooooo, Felicias.   Bear started driving on Fri/Sat, straight through and will be here in about 6 hours.  He just called me.  He said he wouldn't drive straight through but he did.  I won't have time to fix the things I've run over and the house is a tee-total wreck from spending all of my time outside and over at Maw's.  I'm hanging by a thread.  I look like Pippi-Longstockings and I feel like I'm in a dream where I need to scream but can't.  I must prioritize.  The kitchen first.  Alrighty then,  so much happy horsesheet for one cowgirl...in 6 hours.  I must gooooo.  If you could see my face, I look like Casper.  Who ya gonna call.  Dust Busters would be a good one.   Bye Felicias.   Oooo, multi-crap. 

[MeadowLily]

I'm making my BAB,  the uzhe.   I find that poster^^^ hilarious today.   If I knew yesterday that I only had 24 hours to get everything done,  I still would've passed out.  But now, less that 6 hours.  My feet feel stuck to the floor.  

 

 

 

Focus on the few hours ahead of you and do what you can to get closer to where you want to be. That would be running down the road or hiding in the trees.  I'm getting ahold of myself. The Duck Stops Here.

 

She Believed She Could.  So She Did.   Get UP.  Get GOING.  

 

 

 

[Hutlifr]

Oooooo, Felicias.   Bear started driving on Fri/Sat, straight through and will be here in about 6 hours.  He just called me.  He said he wouldn't drive straight through but he did.  I won't have time to fix the things I've run over and the house is a tee-total wreck from spending all of my time outside and over at Maw's.  I'm hanging by a thread.  I look like Pippi-Longstockings and I feel like I'm in a dream where I need to scream but can't.  I must prioritize.  The kitchen first.  Alrighty then,  so much happy horsesheet for one cowgirl...in 6 hours.  I must gooooo.  If you could see my face, I look like Casper.  Who ya gonna call.  Dust Busters would be a good one.   Bye Felicias.   Oooo, multi-crap. 

And... Did you manage to get it all done super woman?

[MeadowLily]

He blew through the door like TNT.   I had the kitchen cleaned, the living room vacuumed and dusted.  I threw everything else into big plastic lawn bags and stuffed them in the closets.  Everything is on the bias. Anyone opens the door, it will all fall out on their head.  A girl's gotta deal.  

 

All of his gear is wet from the rain - so there are tents and fishing waders all over outside.  It's a mess. I showed him my handywork and every weed I've pulled by hand.  He's taking a long, hot shower because he's been taking baths in the creeks and rivers.   He's dropped it like it's hot, around 30 lbs.  I showed him my new snarkalicious muscles.  I'm dreading showing him all of the tiddlywinks I've run over and other mistakes.  

 

We'll load the photos UP shortly.  Then we're running over to the folkaronies.  I'm soooo tired I could lay back in the weeds.  That man drove over 3000 miles since Sat morning and it gives me a big pinch. He promised he wouldn't but he did.   Wisdom. Wisdom. Wisdom.

[MeadowLily]

I call that avatar,  "hair and weed pull".   I've been doing that for a year.  I've been loaded to the gills with stressballs due to the adventure of a lifetime that Bear was going on all alone.  He had one near death experience and I wish he wouldn't have told me.  I can't unhear it or unsee it.   Stressballs are not amazeballs.  They sux. 

 

If I had not been loaded for Bear and following my positive food management plan,  I cringe to think where I would be.   We all have stress and families and jobs that may sux.  You may be an adrenalin junkie but I'm not.   Like Paw always says....Show me anyone who starts showing off and it's not a matter of IF.....it's a matter of WHEN.  

 

It doesn't matter if it's your horse, your boat or canoe, snowmobile or bike, don't go showing off. Mules are smarter than most critters.  A mule will lay down in the dirt and let you walk off his back before the mule will let you show off.  The mule will saunter on back to the barn and leave you there on the ground. They're so smart.  Wisdom.  Wisdom.  Wisdom.  The mule and the Universe doesn't like it when you show off. There's reverb. 

 

When anyone says they're scared to death of not losing weight or gaining weight in 30 days,  I have to bite myself.  Face death and you'll know you've been somewhere.  Fearing foods and calories,  let's talk amongst ourselves.  

 

I didn't discover the W30.   It found me.   I've changed my life in unexpected ways. 

 

I'm not showing off.  I know that it can all come undone in a heartbeat.  The pain keeps me sane. The pain of remembering what it was like to live daily with a food addiction.  I've been around, you know. I've traveled across Canada and Europe.  I did that.  I've had a few near misses myself.   If you live, you will.  But still,  do not show off.  

 

I have a heart for those with food addictions.   I know how much they hurt inside.  Their lives may be loaded to the gills with stressballs.   I will never shout you down when you're preaching good.  In the midst of everything that's going on in this world,  there are choices and consequences.  

 

Choose wisely.  Your life may depend on it. 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I'm in food addiction relapse prevention and recovery.  Even those who've got your back cannot be with you 24 hours aday.   For the alcoholic, ice in a clear glass can be enough to cause a relapse. 

 

Big Kahuna trigger foods can be brought back to life by going through high stress. The grapes will be squeezed.   You have to find someone you trust when you sit down Face-to-Face.   You share the good, the bad, and the actual ugly.   You learn resilient coping skills. 

 

Repeated and chronic stress trigger the primal brain - our responses to stress and others. Quick to respond or snap at others, moody,  snarkalicious.....Houston,  time to step back and take a look at your own multi-crap once again.   Our reactions, outbursts,  words spoken in haste....cannot be taken back.   

 

If everything gives you a big pinch,  and your fave phrase is ...that really pizz's me off.... it's not about them,  it's you.  Our words and responses reveal alot about our Wholeness.   Neuroflexibility.  The ability to deal when the grape is squeezed. 

 

The Duck Stops Here.    The primitive area of the brain regulates our emotions.   I've got my eye on you, primitive paleo brain.  I'm on hyper alert not to fall back into bowls of pasta and bread and corn syrup. In the midnight hours,  when you're alone with your thoughts...who are you when no one else is watching.  

 

These are times when you absolutely have to care about yourself.  You stand alone.  A food log won't help you.  You may have all of your ducks in a row,  points and calories counted...they won't help you.   

 

You go down deep inside and pull on your spirit.  Your spirit reigns far and above the primitive paleo brain.  You cry and pray.  Everything looks brighter in the morning.  Mercies are renewed and you can face the day.   Intact.   Body.  Mind.  Spirit.