Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

If you are a corn syrup eater and I don't care what form or package it comes in....check yourself before you wreck yourself.

 

Corn Syrup = diabetes.   It may come sooner,  it may come later but Houston, it's on the horizon. You may be able to skate on thin ice for years on end and make huge rationalizations about it but one day the Reckoning will knock on your door.

 

Check yourself before your wreck yourself.  You do not have to go all of the way with metabolic sickness.   Break up with playfoods.   Playfoods will leave you stranded on the side of the road with your hood up.  You may be left there for years without roadside help. No one stops to help you or give you a drink of water. That all happened to me.   Find a piece of white paper or clothing to hold out the window. Surrender.    I'm doing a flyby.

 

I care. 

[MeadowLily]

Trying to out-exercise a food addiction only lasts so long.  Eventually that stubborn mule is going to lay down in the dirt and walk off without you.  You can't fool a mule.  

 

Playfoods usually come in a candy box.  Bakery food rewards only have 3 ingredients.  Fat in some processed form, sugar and flour.  

 

I've never been an over-restrictor but I've been a dieter.  I tried to out-diet thrill eating. That didn't work either.   I know the tricks of the trade for over-restricting,  taking a tiny bowl or plate and pretending it's of normal size.  Chew and Spit.  Eating one bowl of food aday. Exercising for 10 hours aday before allowing oneself that one bowl of food per day and all of the other extremes inbetween.

 

No more dieting for me, Maw. 

[MeadowLily]

[Hutlifr]

So much ice cream within reach.. Oh boy... You came a long way... So much weight loss in one month... Did he loose muscle mass? That seems so much... I am not sure what I would do with that much "I scream" in the house... Probably leave the house and get my mind on other more rewarding things...

[Hutlifr]

Yesterday I went to visit my uncle with my mom. Here are older folks who serve you plain olives, melon and prosciutto as appetizer, and then just whip up three kinds of salads such as bib lettuce, cucumber, and tomatoes, and throw a slice of meat on the grill, and the seasoning is on the table. They have no clue about whole30, but they sure made it easy for me, without even knowing what I am on... No wonder they still are able to go cross country skiing and hiking at age 80+ and walk up the stairs to their house like young goats...

[MeadowLily]

Actually,  it was over the course of almost 9 weeks, since the end of May.  Oooo, yeah.   9 weeks of field labor for me and fishing for him. He had almost 30 days of straight driving just to get to and from the fishing hole.  

 

Eating it back in a fraction of the time.  That's the consequence of quick weight loss.  The body screams louder than ever and the drive to replenish all fat cells usually wins.  Going oooo soooo slowly is the only way to stick the landing and maintain all weight releasing over the long haul.  

 

The body chemistry has to be given time to adjust or there will reverb and kick back.   Mostly just another swift kick in the hindend.  Diets don't work.  If they did,  once you've finished with it,  all of your problems and issues would be solved.  Food delivery service, personal chefs and someone to guard you like a hawk....even that doesn't work.

 

The greatest impediment to food addiction recovery is a mountain of denial that you have one. 

[MeadowLily]

The mountain of denial. 

 

The brain is the most mind blowing piece of equipment you have in the universe.  It normally weighs 3 lbs and pea brains come in weighing only 3 ounces.  The brain uses 20-30% of the food nutrition we consume, 20% of the oxygen and 25% of the blood flow.  The brain is 85% water.  Drink your water, Felicias.

 

A brain cell the size of a grain of sand has 100,000 neurons and  1  billion synapses. 

 

Love your brains, Felicias. 

 

Caring for your brain is the most important thing you can do on your road to success and recovery from any addiction.  I don't care if it's food or alcohol or golf. 

 

We have a brain reserve to deal with stress.  This is why some people handle extreme stress better than others but there's an end to how much any one person can deal.  It's cumulative.  It causes heart attacks and strokes.  Chronic stress kills cells in the memory centers of the brain.

 

Too much addiction or abuse damages the brain.   Crummy food and even negative thinking sux the brain's reserve.  Protect your brain and memory.  Take mental notes of what you love about your life rather than what you don't.   Notice what you love about other people than what you don't.

 

Returning to the scene of the crime and allowing all of the usual suspects and offenders back in sux more life out of the brain.  That ain't the way to go.    If you have a food addiction,  time to come down from the mountain of denial.  You have to face it head on to recover.  It's the only way...without whey and weigh.  

 

Denial and huge rationalizations and mountains of excuses.  You have to start moving to get the wheels in motion.  Sitting on the couch at the speed of zero will not change or improve the brain's ability to deal with stress.  

[MeadowLily]

Yin and Yang.   Interconnected in the natural world. 

 

Creating new pathways to opposite and contrary forces in your life.  You need motion. Don't continue sitting on the couch at the speed of zero if this is what you've always done. Doing what we've always done will get us what we've always gotten. 

 

Simply walk out your door and keep going.  Come home when you can't go any further. Wash.  Rinse. Repeat.

 

Don't wait until you get there (have all of the weight released) to start moving.  It may never happen.  Start on Day 1.   Don't quit.  Don't stop. Don't look back over your shoulder unless you are in bear country.   Keep going.   

 

Replacing more sedentary activity with more sedentary activity is more of the same.  Being seated and sitting does little to change the brain's way of thinking about food addiction. There's no such thing as the Finish Line with your mental health and well-being. 

 

The stats are not on the side of permanent weight loss, even with WLS.  We have one acquaintance who's been able to maintain a 150 lb. weight releasing without the WLS and constant dieting for almost a decade.  It takes true grit.  He chooses to make conscious and present decisions every single day.

 

He reminds me that it is possible.  You can do it but not without major changes. Moving gives you energy. 

Whatever you used to do, what brought you here in the first place,  you can't return to whatever that was if you have a food addiction.  

 

Dropping it like it's hot is the worst thing you can do for yourself.  It will come back.  That weight will return and probably with extra thrown in to make you throw the towel in and give completely up.

 

But it's not over.  You can get out of that endless loop.  Doing what you've always done will get you what you've always gotten.  No more dieting and no more sitting on the couch.  The brain loves routines but those routines have got to go.  Denial has to go.

 

Many lifelong dieters start replacing food with alcohol.  Somehow, their brain has convinced them it's a way to skate around the food/calorie issues and alcohol is a real trade-up.  It's not.  It actually will slow everything down but mostly help your brain create another SWYPO  SWIPE-O for a food addiction.  Daily tequila shooters are not a trade UP.

 

Can't wait to get back to that wine and chocolate on Day 31.  That's a flag and another huge rationalization.  Our brain is a pro at creating whopping boatloads of rationalizations and denial. The brain wants what it wants and mostly,  it doesn't give a diddlywhop what you want. Your job is to tell the brain to just shut the hail up because YOU, the real you is in charge. Your spirit is greater than the brain.  

[MeadowLily]

Daily tequila shooters and zero carbing it.  That would be the brain trying to convince you that a food reckoning with multi-crap is not looming on the horizon.  It is.   And maybe even with a bout of alcoholic pancreatitis thrown in to really throw you for a loop down the road.   The reckonings don't happen all at once, it might take years.   

 

Choices and consequences. 

 

They're going to be there until the end.  Choose wisely.   

[MeadowLily]

Prevention vs. Reactive.   That's the key.   Someone in my circle is going through this now.  It is absolutely heartbreaking.  Not even 40.  Prided himself on being fit but started drinking. Alcohol replaced the food and now,  it's alcoholic pancreatitis.  Yellow.  Blot clots in the liver and pancreas.  Can it be reversed.

Not without addiction recovery.  Alcohol is not a trade UP for food. 

 

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/706319

[Hutlifr]

I wear my teeth protector and don't put it UNDER pillow... Haha

The smell of hey... It's everywhere around here now. After two months of non stop rain, they can finally cut it and take it inside the barn...

[MeadowLily]

I don't discuss the W30 or food addiction with family members.  It's normally stepping on deeply felt principles. I walk it like I talk it.   Talking it and not walking it... worthless.  My circle won't give you the time of day if you do that.  They do have discernment.  And the look.  Especially Paw.  When he flashes those eyes your way, you know what he's thinking.  You're full of it.   They say  whoever they are...that I have his eyes.    Tee-Time said Paw scared the hail right out of him.  Tee-Time did runnoft.

 

The one who got away,  left me stranded on the side of the road with my hood up because Tee-Time was calling. That really teed off my Paw. 

 

Talking it and not walking it.   Who are you when no one else is looking.    

 

[MeadowLily]

Don't fall victim to your own  B.S.  

 

Don't talk the talk unless you can walk the walk. 

 

In short.  Put UP or shut up.   Action and not conversation.   Endorse enthusiastically but don't exaggerate the truth.   The truth will always find you out. 

 

Prevention vs. Reactive.  That's the key.   Don't wait until poor health is knocking on your door to figure things out like I did.  Don't go there.   Good intentions won't get you there.  Make a promise to yourself and having character means keeping that promise.  Come hail or high water. 

 

Prevention is the way.   

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I'm not the same person I was over 2 years ago.   I've stopped saying I'm sorry for every cotton pickin' thing.  

 

I'm sorry but you can't have that.   Tough love doesn't constantly say  "I'm sorry."  Women tend to always say they're sorry.  Forget that.    Tough loves speaks truth UP in here.  No need to mush-mouth it or have someone come behind truth and try to soften it. What so and so really meant to say. Don't do that.   Let it stand.  Loud and Proud.  Truth for the big WIN. 

 

I like the early version of tough love.   That's the window into my soul that changed me.  When all is said and done,  the only things that really stick are the tough love truths.  

 

I'm not sorry that there are rules vs. recommendations.   I used to fly by the seat of my pants and look where that got me.  Nowhere good.  

 

Nitwittery may abound from time to time but I'm not blowing smoke.   I still have all of my snark-plugs. The Crap0Meter is working fine.   Talk it.  Walk it.   

[MeadowLily]

Rules vs. Recommendations.   No apologies required.

 

They can stand on their own two feet.  Don't be sorry.  Tough love means never having to say you're sorry.

 

Don't muddy up the waters with 'sorry'. Especially for changing your life in unexpected ways. Let's not be sorry.  Let's be happy.   And resolute,  determined, unwavering and steadfast. Tenacious and strong-willed.   Spirited, brave and courageous.

 

It takes true grit.  Let's give them grit,  unfaltering, unhesitating, unswerving true grit.

[MeadowLily]

I come from a long line of barracudas.  Strong women known for their fearsome behavior.  I don't remember any of them apologizing to each other.  They speak their mind without saying "I'm sorry".  After they get into it,  they still love one another.   There may be pouting, huffing and puffing like a blowfish but in the end,  they get on with it.   Maw has never told me she's sorry for anything.  

 

She blows and crows.  Paw says she's always ruled the roost.  That's true.  

 

I once worked with a strong man who told me he could not stand to hear people say...'they love this, and they love that'...silly things.  He couldn't stand to hear people say they were constantly sorry.  Sorry that your coffee has cooled off.....  He said those words should be saved for the most important times in our live.  Loving everything makes it trivial and unimportant.  Being sorry for everything, makes it worthless. 

 

We don't need to be sorry about anything that's authentic and livechanging.  Michelangelo...if he was sorry for way David turned out,  I don't remember it.  I only remember what it was like to see him in all of his splendor.  He might be marble but he still made me blush.  I could've stood there for hours.

 

David isn't wearing a stitch of clothes.  He probably does get cold in the wintertime but no one is sorry. The artist releases his masterpiece.  The author, too.   No one ever need be sorry for the original.  Nuh huh.  Let it stand.  Loud and proud.  A work of art. 

 

Defend it if you must but don't ever be sorry. 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I've told you what Paw says about showing off.  It's not a matter of IF but a matter of When.

 

My friend dumped her 4 wheeler on top of herself over the weekend.  She didn't have enough muscle mass to pull it off.  Thank goodness, others were around to help her.  She was showing off for her guests. She sidehilled it instead of staying on the dirt road.   

 

She's weighed 100 lbs @ 5'4" since junior high.  She really, really likes that.  But muscle mass is non-existent.  There's barely enough skin to cover her bones but she's my buddy. I could pick her up and carry her around in my backpack or probably carry her around in my arms like a small child.  

 

She did hurt herself and started feeling all of the pain when the shock was wearing off.  I'm convincing her to go get those bones checked out.  Out here, everyone jumps right up from falling off their horse, bike, snowmobile, 4 wheeler,  motorcycle.  Oooo,  I'm fine.  Just a few scratches.  Later on, they find out there's broken hips and pelvis bones, arms, fingers, wrists, shoulders.   True locals are  tough cookies to a fault.  

 

She's exactly like Maw, you can't tell her anything.  After telling me, she ended the convo by relating that she still weighs 100 lbs.    I said,  You really like that, don't you.   

 

Muscle mass trumps skinny fat any day of the year.  Muscle mass may save your life and help you pick your motorized piece of equipment off of your body when no one else is around.  Muscle mass is where it's at.

 

Body dysmorphia plays tricks with the mind. She's always telling me how much she eats.  I eat lots and lots.   I know she's full of horsesheet.   I could tell her that and she would still like me. There are not enough words to convince her that 100 lbs  are not enough to carry her bones around. 

 

I know what she used to think about me.  Sometimes, she was watching me eat and by proxy she became full.   I know.  I know.  

 

Muscle mass trumps everything.  Dieting, over-restriction and self-imposed starving.  Someday, I'll just carry her around because she's constantly tired.  Those are her favorite words.   I'm so tired.  I have to lay down and take a nap.   

 

One day, we'll all take a dirt nap but let's not go out that way....without our muscles on.  Just dying with your cowboy boots and spurs on doesn't mean anything without your muscles.  

[MeadowLily]

Whacking weeds is becoming therapeutic.  Pulling them by hand makes your wrists and tendons ache but it gets better.  Kinda.  It gives you time to clear your head or think things through.

 

The process of surrendering or admitting you have a food addiction/disorder is difficult for most people. I am totally committed to the recovery process.  I see myself here through the eyes of newbies. Breaking through the denial of food addiction was the first part of the journey. 

 

Prior to W30 and sitting down with someone Face-to-Face, my life was about food and the process of avoiding it or finding it. 

 

Developing a passion for living life to the fullest keeps me going. 

[MeadowLily]

The long line of barracudas in my family suffer with food addictions. Not one barracuda drinks alcohol. Men or women. In the younger generation, there are those who are completely consumed with alcohol.  It ain't pretty.  There's abby normal everywhere you look.  

 

They didn't see their folks drinking but they are.  One has already died at the age of 38 from alcoholic pancreatitis and another young one has it, too.  They quit eating and started drinking from sunrise to sunset.   The most bizarre part of losing the young buck was that he was always on the chunky side and non-stop drinking turned him into a beanpole.  

 

The barracudas were all thrilled when he dropped it like it was hot.  Ooooo, you look so good. You haven't look this good in years.  It wasn't long after that and he was dead.  But dang, he was thin and that was held in high esteem.  

 

It's all rather fruitcake nutty.  My friend values weighing in at 100 lbs. more than anything else.  It consumes her thoughts.  As long as she can register that on the scale, her world is bright. Broken bones or a broken neck, wild horses can't deter that drive to stand on the scale and make sure all is well at 100 lbs.   

 

We can't fix anyone else.  I don't try.  

 

Being completely honest with myself gives me the motivation to keep myself from returning to that gopher hole.  I don't look at my family and cluck my tongue.   I don't express disapproval. If you express concern, it turns them off.    I'm not a bystander but part of the clan. 

 

Women equate their worth and value by looks and weight.  If they can control that,  their world is right.

 

Chickens cluck their tongues and lions roar.  

[MeadowLily]

There's no such thing as the Finish Line for overall health and well being.  There's no such thing as the miracle cure for food disorders/addictions that works for everyone.  

 

Genetic and environmental factors, addictions in response to depression or anxiety, hormonal biomarkers...leptin, ghrelin  -  all of these come together to identify how long food addiction recovery will take.

 

Someone who's been at there optimum setpoint almost all of the days of their life have their own unique body chemistry.  Those of us who've made great leaps and wild swings UP and down with genetic biomarkers that are out of sync will  have to fight like hail to find weight stability.   

 

Until we live in someone else's body we don't know what they're going through.  Binge eating is often all or nothing.  Off or on.  It is a chronic disease of food rewards.  If you feel you deserve food rewards for being "extra good" or if you have a really  "bad day",  then throw the towel in and let one slip turn into a major binge that might last for weeks.  

 

Binge eating is a chronic trap of thinking and eating extremes.   Low risk can turn into high risk. Constant dieting turns into more binge eating and eventually you reach the point of a full blown eating disorder.

 

Find someone, seek help and sit down Face-to-Face.  They can pull you out of thinking traps and give you skills for self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy is the powerful predictor of future behavior and finding recovery.

[MeadowLily]

Self-efficacy.  That's where the spiritual component comes in that's pulled me out and through and over and continues to tool me along the highway.   Believing in yourself and something greater.  

 

Spirit = greater

Mind = lesser

Body = along for the ride.  It may kick against the goads or kick you in the hiney but eventually, the body has to settle in and start enjoying the ride.

 

Believing in yourself matters.  In the midnight hours or when you're all alone,  believing in yourself may be the only thread left when all is said and done.  But believing in yourself is never done.   It only matters that you believe.  

 

You may be a brilliant scientist but without self-efficacy you may not believe you can find the cure for pancreatic cancer or paralysis or MS or Parkinson's or AIP or FODMAP's or Lymes or Zika or anything.   Believing is what separates those who recover from those who give completely up. Believers find their pathway to healing...come hail or high water. 

 

She believed she could.  So she did. 

[MeadowLily]

High stress levels mess with self-efficacy.   High self-efficacy often likes to fly by the seat of their pants.  Low self-efficacy results in so much task planning and over-thinking and over-learning that it never really gets off the ground.  There's over-planning and over-stressing and then they're sooo over it. Throw the towel in.  Tear up all of the planning papers into a million pieces and just walk off.

 

People do this on the job, too.   It's not just food addiction recovery.  These behaviors affect every area of your life.   The handwriting is on the wall.   It did not just happen. Genetic and environmental factors have us at Helloooo.

 

High self-efficacy looks at the big picture, the broad view.    Low self-efficacy tells themself that they were never really good at math and that may not be true,  at all.  We are the things we tell ourselves. That may only be other people's think so's about us.   It could all be horsesheet and it takes wisdom to know the difference.   Someone else can reach back and give us a helping hand.  They can pull you out of a tailspin.  They can speak life and survival and faith and encouragement into your spirit.

 

You don't want to go backwards and neither do I.   

 

Weight stability is a major achievement even if it might seem shallow.  But it's not because these behaviors that brought us here in the first place.....they affect every single area of your life.

 

This is not all about weight and food addiction and food disorder.  It's about pulling yourself free from stress that messes with everything and mostly your head.  

 

Somedays,  I hang by this thread.   I swing on it.   Finding weight stability is a  part of the puzzle that makes you tick.  It's the outer showing what's going on in the inner man. We are more than a coat hanger for our clothes.   Your house and closets are a reflection of what's going on in your head, too. 

 

I wouldn't consider that a good thing.   I'd consider it a Great, Fantastic, Wondrous, Terrific thing and everything a person could ask for from themselves when it comes to taking care of themselves and listening to their spirit and helping the body.  We are using our good senses to make sense out of nonsense.

 

We've been sold down the river with highly engineered to be craved foods.  Congratulations if you're still here.   You're doing it even on the really hard and difficult days.  We are staying out of the popcorn and corn syrup.  Those sugars that marsh ever mellow.

 

We are UPPing our focus without overthinking and overlearning and overplanning and overstressing and overdoing it.   We are in this thing called life together.   There are so many choices to make today. Choose wisely.

 

Forget about all of the data points.  Go outside and blow the stink off.  Stinkin' Thinkin'.   

 

Get UP.  Get Going.  Move it.  Move the energy around and let it kick out all of the ugly dark corners of the ego and super ego.  Fly by the seat of your pants and hang by a thread but remember that you are more than beast mode, manmakers and burpees.

 

I hope for all of your moving efforts you get a euphoria bump when the energy movement is done.  You deserve it.   I'll be checking in now and again, keeping you company, hanging by a thread and swinging on a star. 

[MeadowLily]

Spent all afternoon watching the fire.  Wildfire and evacs.  Where there's smoke, there's definitely fire.   I'm going to be busy...praying for rain.