Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

I did diet.  I was constantly on a diet until the later stages of binge eating could no longer be ignored.  I had to sit down with someone Face-to-Face and face the music and break all of these cycles of binge eating.  It didn't happen overnight but it all began with dieting.

If you're a cereal (serial) dieter,  Houston...that's the handwriting on the wall and a setup for a hookup with binge eating.  It contributes greatly and will not solve any of your problems.

[Hutlifr]

Your prom queen... I can't help but feel sorry for her... I feel so blessed having grown up in Heidiland, where I was given the opportunity to learn what was really important... Nobody was under that pressure to fit in, we just did our things... I remember being in grandma's garden, picking nice smelling flowers, and trying to use their essence to make cologne... I never succeeded, that self made cologne smelled so bad after a few days, but I  kept on trying new formulas... I have since then learned how to make rose water, grandma would be proud of me, but what stuck with me was the realization, we were never compared to others, nor were we told we were special or loved. We just fell the love, no need to be constantly told I was loved, and I am convinced that helped us grow up without having the need to binge eat, or compensate a lack of something with candy...

[MeadowLily]

Hutlifr, you've hit the nail square on the head.  Growing up with an overabundance of validation requires feeding those critters all of the days of their life.  These are the kids that are not survivors.  Bear says they move back in with mommy and daddy, unable to survive on their own...from the ages of 20 through 50.  They don't change until they have to take responsibility for their life.  That only happens when the folks are gone and they can cashin on Mom and Dad's savings, property and blow it to smithereens. It is epidemic.  Constant validation and codependency.  Funny, that used to be the buzz word but you no longer hear about codependency.  

Extremes at both ends create more extremes.  Overparenting and underparenting. And I believe those self-absorbed selfies for constant validation are part of the epidemic. Bing.  Bear and I just listened to a blurb on the radio.  Multi-generational families are at an all time high.  Economic times and from our standpoint,  way toooo much mommy and daddy intervention.

Paw grew up in the toughest of conditions.  He was working like a man at the age of 12 years old.  At the age of 18  he went into two branches of the military. Army and Marines.  Bear and Paw are like two peas in a pod.  They say that you marry one of your parents.  I married a man like my father.  I've kissed some of those overfed critters, living off the folks and playing golf for a living. (No paycheck). I know where I would be today if I followed that path.  Sitting on some curb, dazed and confused and why O why did I do that to myself.

In nature, bears swat their young when the kids become obnoxious.  Wolves are the same way.  Eagles and even robins.  Alpha wolves will drive their children away when they get so old.  That's why the males are always running loose by themselves.  Expanding the home range.  Just like people do.  It is natural and part of the healthy human condition to help a child stand on his own two feet.

When teenagers become obnoxious that's normal and healthy.  It is nature preparing the parent to give up control. Empty nest syndrome.  The greater the control, the harder it is.  We see it all of the time, folks and kids butting heads.  Nature is preparing the baby birds as eagles do...literally throwing their toys out of the nest, kicking everything out and helping those birds to soar and fly.

Hutlifr, I feel empathy for the over-validated prom queen.  Without that constant validation they don't learn how to discern true love from physical attraction.  Beauty, beauty, beauty fades.  When the attention goes away they fall apart. 

Extremes.  Obsessions.  Addiction.  Disorder.  Navigating the sharky waters of being a child, teenager, an adult ain't easy for anyone.  It's the human struggle.  And Maw is right.  I choose to forgive and set my will to forgive.  It's the only way.

[MeadowLily]

 

 

Nature vs. Nurture.  A parent's job is to help the child learn to live and stand on their own two feet.  When they've completed that, all is well. They can go living knowing that their child can make it come hail or high water. 

 

[MeadowLily]

Bear was sitting here with me, using that dental floss that fell into the toity.  OMG.  He just shaved off his beard and 'stache.  I gave him a big ole kiss and washed my mouth out with mouthwash.  Why O why, didn't I throw that floss away.  I'm reaping what I've sowed. Always.  I tell you true,  I have never ever been able to get away with one cotton pickin' thing.  Nothin'.  I've got nobody to blame but me.

Hutlifr...Bear says Hey and Howdy to you.  And jmcbn, same to you.  He asks what I'm heard lately from you two strong women.  We're all in this together.

When you think about it, there's really not one woman here who isn't tough as an army boot and strong.  Ayup.  Birds of a feather fly together.  

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Duality.  The Yin to our Yang.  

[MeadowLily]

Have you ever suffered the slings of bullies.  Bear and I did in our youth.  He didn't shoot up or fill out until he was in his early 20's.  He was wiry and smaller in high school.  His brother used to let his friends beat Bear up just for the fun of it.  His brother never ever came to his aid because being part of the boy club was more important.   These brothers seldom talk and Bear doesn't initiate the calls.  He rarely visits now that his folks are both gone.  It's difficult to bury our wounded hearts.

Eventually, Bear became a mountain of a man.  Frickity frick frick awesome in stature and spirit. Things do not always come full circle in our lifetime but thankfully for him, it did. Do you like class reunions.  We don't.  Everyone is so busy putting on the dog and tooting their own horn that we leave before it really gets kicked off.  We don't bother anymore.   Bear's brother is always calling and inviting him every summer to their family and class reunions,  "So and so really wants to see you".  Ooooo, you mean the ones you let beat the hail outta me. You can tell them to blow it out their arse. 

When I was a kid, my Grandpaw used to always load us up on Sundays and take us to church.  Kids and the grandkids. Some of group looked like raggamuffins.  There was a cubby hole under the stairs where the shoes were thrown.  It didn't matter if they matched, you just grabbed two shoes that fit and wore them.  Maw used old ribbons from boxes of candy that were thrown in the trash for her hair.  Things were lean y'all when my mother was growing up.  There was never enough food to go around. They went to bed hungry all of the time.

On Sundays,  Grandpaw would spruce everyone up best he could and take us to church. There was a hoity toity lady and she is still alive to this very day...that would stick her nose in the hair and trot by all of us without giving us the time of day.  What's the matter with her, Grandpaw?   Ooooo, kids.  She smells the stink.  That's why her nose is stuck in the air. 

I've since found out that this old saying comes from the days when the upper class literally smelled the stink of the earthy smells of the lower class.   I remember to this day, sitting on the pew (phew) and feeling like nothing. There are things that stick with all of us like that, making deep lasting impressions.

Hoity Toity Lady is still driving around in her fancy car and wearing nothing but the best money can buy. Grandpaw would be amazed and I'm gobsmacked by it.  She's an ancient hazard on the road.  Her husband is buried next to my Grandpaw in the cemetery.   Whenever I go out there to pay my respects, I can't help but look over and see that.   I know Grandpaw would laugh.  I'm sure she thinks the same thing when she puts those enormous fresh flower arrangements out there.   I make homemade things and he loved wildflowers. 

When we would be sitting at stoplights with Grandpaw or even Grandmaw,  people would pull along side and give us war-whoops.  Whoop it up and carry on in their best Paleoamerican imitation. Pretendians. 

There are many layers and elements that cause a spirit of rejection.  Binge eating is ultimately rejecting yourself for all kinds of reasons.  Suffering the slings of bullies is one of them.  

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I only share my experiences and observations in hopes that they will help someone else with similar quirks like me.  

I wish I had the answers for breaking all of the cycles of binge eating. They are unique for each one of us. I just know that binge eating doesn't solve the problems that are making you anxious, fearful or sad or happy while out on  a thrill eating bender.  It only adds to them.

It is worth it to keep breaking these cycles so we can heal.  Fasting or dieting after a binge only digs a deeper hole. It's important to keep righting your ship.

They say the unexamined life is not worth living but the examined life is not much of a bargain either. You're going to feel some pain and feelings that you shoved down with food.

Making plans for the food explosion that is going to happen on Day 31.   It does not have to rain taco chips or potato chips sweeping you off your feet. 

Fat is not a feeling.  Yo-Yo diets are cycles of hail. Swing the mountain of momentum the other way. Trying to get skinny will keep you "fat" or the overfed head.  

We have to address the head games we play with ourself.  Find activities you love and do all of them on your own terms. All movement at some speed above couch mode helps blow the stink off.  Stinkin' Thinkin'.

If you've been a 'cereal' dieter and keep gaining all of it back,  over and over and over again.  This tells you that you were doing things you didn't want to do just in the name of weight loss.  

This is the recipe for gaining all of the weight back and rebounding with every pound and relapsing into the sharky waters of more binge eating. Cross-addiction is common amongst binge eaters. Trying to out-exercise a binge only works short term. 

The biggest problem I see contributing to more food addiction and disorder is the modern diet.  It's much softer than it was 100 years ago.  Baby foods, shakes, bars and chia pudding...yuck, I need a bucket...contribute very little to satiety.

I know someone who drinks shakes and bars for breakfast and lunch.  For supper they're eating a baked potato.  That's it.  They've been hardwired for dieting so long that they cannot turn that thinking off.  We can't turn our genes off and on. We have years of environmental messages weaved and hardwired into our brains.  Mind warp.

The soft diet.  Melt in your mouth breads and pasta and ice cream.  People like soft calorically dense food. Foods are deliberately engineered to be highly craved.  Cool whip. A topping to top real cream.

Carefully tuned snack foods keep perping the obesity and diabetes epidemic. They are created to lead to a lack of control that inevitably leads to making a mess out of your health.   Paw doesn't understand adults eating baby food or smacking on a bottle (protein drinks).   What are soft foods actually doing for the hardwiring in your brain.  

They don't contribute to satiety.  Baby foods are formulated for babies without teeth.  I've never seen a 240 lb baby. We need all kinds of textures from whole foods.  

 

[MeadowLily]

Mamas don't let your cowboys grow up to be babies.   You want them to leave the nest someday. 

[MeadowLily]

In the room the women come and go 

Talking of Michelangelo

And would it have been worth it, after all

To  bitten off the matter with a smile

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

Do I dare disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions

Which a minute will reverse

T.S. Eliot

We linger upon the human voices that wake us UP. The body is bent on survival. Hunger for food is built into our genes. Without it we would all be long gone.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Here's the dealio.  I can't write anything longer than 15 minutes or I time out. I can't revise font size if I try to edit.  So if I linger long and ponder anything for a few minutes, my post will not post and I have to keep resigning back in. 

There is barely a minute for decisions and revisions. I'm working with it but this nephew version doesn't have very many colors or shades.  There's no smoky purples or dusky hues.  I miss those colors.  The fonts are gone.  Sigh and alas. Variety is the spice of life.  I'm not a black or white person.  All or nothing. UP or down.  On or off.  We need some nitwittery and fruitcake nuttiness every now and again. Snarkology.  

 

[MeadowLily]

I made a tea party for my lil Maw.  She's all down in the dumps.  Can't go anywhere, too much smoke and she will not leave Paw. Tomorrow,  Bear will run her around and I'll stay home. Caregivers have to get out and take care of themselves.  It is mandatory. 

We made a wonderful fresh salmon dip that I made into tea squares for the family.  Used cucumber, radishes, tiny multi-colored peppers, fresh dill, homemade mayo with different flavors and berries. I've enjoyed the heck out of my cold-brew tea maker.  Everyday I make something new.  It's less acidic and seems to settle well with the folkaronies.  

I can't stand to see my Maw cry. She seldom does because she's strong and carries the world on her shoulders.  Bear gave her a deep tissue shoulder and back massage.  Those ham bone arms and hands are like 4 Swedish massage therapists.  He has to be careful because she is petite.  Maw has weighed the same weight all of the days of her life.

She doesn't binge.  But then again, her Maw did not eat cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk.  There was no sugar back in Grandmaw's childbearing years.  Nuh huh.  There was barely anything to eat at all.  Maw was fed goatmilk and she raised goats all through her youth.  The family had to because there was nothing else for those 12 babies.  Grandmaw had a green thumb and spent every summer day in the garden.  

All of the kids and grandkids were driving her straight to the nut hut. When she covered her head with a newspaper that meant you could not bother her.  She was trying to take a nap. That poor, poor woman.  I miss her so darned much.  Maw is just like her.  Sweet.  Far, far sweeter than I am.  

I'm not sweet and I know it.    Bear always says, why can't you be more like your mother. He tells everyone that my mother is the mother he always wanted to have.  You see, Bear's mother was not sweet either.  They say we marry one of our parents and I guess he married his mother.  Me.

I try to be sweet but I can't stand seeing my folks walked on.  You know I would walk through hot coals before I'd let anyone be mean to them.  Life made me this way.  I'm really trying to be sweeter and kinder.  

We can hurt tender sprouts and newbies and family members with our words. So I measure my words and bite my tongue.  They liked my tea party and that's all that counts.   After all, tomorrow is another day.  

 

 

Much love,  Bye Felicias

[MeadowLily]

Over the years, I have had many messages about Paleoamericans.  You might find this interesting.  I have my DNA results.  It's really the only way to find out what your roots are.  Otherwise, you're surmising and there's so much family folklore that it becomes difficult to see the forest for the family trees. 

DNA tests create a bombshell

There are currently no DNA tests that can accurate label someone a descendant of a particular Indian tribe in eastern North America. The people, calling themselves full-blooded Native Americans, from the eastern United States, are not the same people, genetically, who greeted early European explorers. A few reputable laboratories are now attempting to create reliable DNA markers for individual tribes, but the obstacles are monumental.

Perceiving a vast potential market from the millions of Americans, who proudly claim that their great-grandmother was a Cherokee Princess, DNA Consultants, Inc. initiated comprehensive DNA testing of the Cherokees living on the Qualla Reservation in western North Carolina. The North Carolina Cherokees were chosen because after 180 years in the west, Oklahoma Cherokees are so thoroughly mixed with other ethnic groups, that any DNA test marker obtained would be meaningless.

 The laboratory immediately stumbled into a scientific hornet’s nest. That Cherokee princess in

someone’s genealogy was most likely a Jewish or North African princess. Its scientists have labeled the Cherokees not as Native Americans, but as a Middle Eastern-North African population. Cherokees have high levels of test markers associated with the Berbers, native Egyptians, Turks, Lebanese, Hebrews and Mesopotamians. Genetically, they are more Jewish than the typical American Jew of European ancestry. So-called “full-blooded” Cherokees have high levels of European DNA and a trace of Asiatic (Native American) DNA. Their skin color and facial features are primarily Semitic in origin, not Native American.

There is a major inaccuracy in most articles about this controversy. Both DNA Consultants and journalists are stating that the research results from the Qualla Reservation apply to all Cherokees. Genetic research associated with the filming of the History Channel’s “America Unearthed” found separate populations of Cherokees outside the reservation with very different genetic profiles. In several counties, the “Cherokees” had profiles identical to Georgia Creeks, and often carried Maya DNA like the Georgia Creeks. In one county, the “Cherokees” were predominantly Quechua from South America, or else mixed Quechua, Maya and Creek. Many of the residents of the Snowbird Cherokee Reservation in Graham County, NC look like the Zoque of Mexico, who created the Olmec Civilization. They are called “Moon Faces” by the Cherokees on the main reservation.

At present, the researchers at DNA Consultants seem unaware that throughout the 1600s Iberian Sephardic Jews and Moorish Conversos colonized the North Carolina and Georgia Mountains, where they mined and worked gold and silver. All European maps show western North Carolina occupied by Apalache, Creek, Shawnee and Yuchi Indians until 1718. Most of these indigenous tribal groups were forced out in the early 1700s. Anglo-American settlers moving into northeastern Tennessee and extreme southwestern Virginia mentioned seeing Jewish speaking villages in that region until around 1800.

How the occupants of the North Carolina Mountains became a mixed Semitic, North African, European and Native American population, known as the Cherokees, remains a mystery. Slave raids may have been a factor. The 18th century Cherokees were the “biggest players” in the Native Americans slave trade. Perhaps young Sephardic females were captured by slave raiders to be concubines and wives.

 

It is also known that around 1693, the British put together an alliance between eight small Native towns with Creek names in northwestern South Carolina and the powerful Rickohockens of southwestern Virginia to thwart the expansion of French colonies. The modern Cherokee language seems to be a mixture of Rickohocken, Shawnee and Creek. There is obviously much that anthropologists and historians do not know about the early history of the Southern Highlands.

[MeadowLily]

Someone brought back the pinks.  Ha!  Now then,  smoky purples and more dusky hues and we will back in biz.

Guess what.  There's brain eating amoebas in our swimming holes.  Ayup.  On the radio again today. Go swimming at your own risk.  I have not had time to go swimming all summer and it was divine providence.

https://weather.com/news/news/brain-eating-amoeba-discovered-grand-teton-national-park

[MeadowLily]

Body.  Mind.  Spirit.

Reintegrate your body, mind and spirit.  The easiest way is to start moving. Simply walking out your front door at some speed above zero gets your body moving which keeps your brain moving.  Spend time with your thoughts and you can pull the weeds out of your garden.

Your mind is a garden. Your thoughts are the seeds.  You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds. 

[MeadowLily]

I can't or I won't do gyms. Sweaty everything in my face.  I've let so many gym memberships lapse in my lifetime.  I had to stop blowing money that way.  The exercise equipment in my basement was used for winter coats and wooly clothes hangers.  It was ridic.  Gave all of that away.  I will not buy anymore of those contraptions either.

When I pulled everything out by the roots and decided to find exercise that I liked and do it on my own terms, the wheels began to shake, rattle and roll.  I had to go back to the well.  I'm a wild thing. Don't fence me in.  

If what you're doing now is being done all in the name of weight loss and you can't stand it, Houston...it won't last.  Diets don't work and exercise routines that you loathe are not sustainable.

If you're a champion of the binge, followed by make-up for binge eating by stripping meals and fasting...which is really self-induced starving plus doing a bunch of super intense cardio followed by oops - yet another binge cycle...long term, that approach will get you nowhere good.

Find "movement" that you enjoy.  My positive food management plan includes "movement" and I believe momentum is a gift.  I always have.  Without momentum,  you don't have a wave to ride.  

Think long term success.  Try gentle changes for the permanent WIN.

[MeadowLily]

The WD30 was the beginning and root of my momentum.  I was riding the wave and it was huge, enormous. Others made their way into the shoreline but I had to keep going. There's no such thing as Whole 365.  It was not designed that way.  We all know that.

I started at the bottom of a deep, dark hole.  The number of times I've fallen back into bowls of corn bread, pan bread, bread bread and other people's bread and stale bread that I was supposed to feed to the ducks but I ate it myself because it reminded me of croutons.  Well, Felicias, we just don't have the time.

The WD30 group pulled me from the brink.  I was able to rejoin humans without running and hiding from everyone. I deleted all of my posts in the beginning.  You can still see that because I lost my voice and I felt like nothin'.   No one can do this for you.  No one. 

Falling into much bread was my life and climbing out is transcendent.  I've had momentum and it is a gift. Food addiction recovery is rough.  Don't shout me down while I'm preaching good (heard that one on the TV).    

The mind warp the scales throw at us and being hyper aware of the bread sitting over there on the counter looking all sweet and adorable....it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Planning and prepping always helps when you've been used to flying by the seat of your pants. Movement, first thing in the morning is a way to avoid any chance of putting it off as day wears on.

Get dressed and walk at some speed above completely still.  Do not put the word "just" in front of your accomplishments as in I "just" walked down the road for an hour and I wasn't even walking fast.

Let me tell you, Felicias....one day you're going to be so chill you could freeze ice on your arse. Find your momentum and whatever you do, don't throw it away. It's a gift that's been sent your way.  Let it carry you as you tool along on your pathway to healing.

There is no such thing as the Finish Line when it comes to your overall health and well being.  Movement reintegrates your body, mind and spirit.

[MeadowLily]

In my spirit is a deep faith that keeps me going.

We are no longer dieters.  This is not a temporary diet of 30 days. Using those words flies in the face of what a W30 is all about.  It's a Food Reset but I call it a returning back to your original factory settings.

I have faith.  I believed I could.  So I did. 

Get UP.  Get Going.  Movement.

[MeadowLily]

There are days I wish my group was still around.  They are long gone.  No one can do this for you. In many ways, the friends I have here are better for me than others who don't understand what we've been through together.

Your friends and family can get worn out.  Their eyes glaze over and frankly, Felicias, they're not left in suspense with what our meals look like or what we've been UP to all of this time.  They say that social media is not worth two hoots.   I say,  without y'all,  I don't know where I would be today.   I've poured my heart out.  I cry and sob and ROFLMAO.  But I am no longer shoving my emotions down with food.

I am no longer binge eating.  I am not who I used to be.  

In 30 days, some may feel a sense of unfairness because they can't eat whatever they want.  I can stand on my head for 30 days. 

Your tolerance for cravings and indifference for triggers is a muscle that will grow stronger with use. I promise you.

 

[MeadowLily]

They say  survey says there's nothing worse than a reformed smoker, reformed/recovering anyone. Maybe.

When you hear people talking or writing about diets does it sound like nails on a chalkboard. I'm telling you true, I have empathy for people who are living on cardboard dinners, carefully tuned snack packs, and multi-crap everything. Do you feel sorry for them.  I really, really do.  They're stuck.

And we know it won't last.  It's chicanery. 

 

[MeadowLily]

When Maw was in grade school,  she had a small after school job smacking the erasers together.  It gave her enough money to buy a school lunch and buy a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter.  Maw and her older brother tied it to an old rope and hid it underneath a really tall bridge over the river.  OMG.  I can't even handle looking at it today. They were in grade school.  He would swing down on the rope and pull up the bread and peanut butter.  Together they would share a small sandwich and save the rest for the next day.  This is how they got by.  There wasn't much at home to eat.  Too many kids and the summer garden goods didn't last through the long, harsh winters.   

Maw got frostbitten more than once.  She didn't have gloves or a hat or snowboots.  I love my Maw and Paw. I ache for their hardships.  They're survivors.  Teach your children well.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyU0P6iqyw4

[MeadowLily]

My food addiction/binge eating recovery doc told me (not a quack, runs a big ole operation, no GPS coordinates or names)...he told me that if you are always speaking in quotes, constantly quoting this person or that, it is an indicator of being in emotional pain.  Undealt with pain.

When I first started here, I used to quote all of the W30 articles, manifestos, and so on. You know I did.  I stopped doing that.  I didn't have a voice of my own. Binge eating ate it. 

Overlearning and overthinking.  All of the science has been done. I don't need to quote this and that research paper or that paleo doctor over there or anyone. Dr. So and So says that if you eat  pinecones and dirt, old tennis shoes and grass clippings your brain will expand..... So if you ever catch yourself, quoting this and that...it's a smoke signal.  A sign that you're shoving your emotions down with alcohol or food or ciggies or something.

When you're on the road to recovery, your voice will come back.  I see it here all of the time.  Those that have been here awhile are getting stronger by the day.  I can read it in their words.  And I really, really like that about all of us.

Don't quote me on that. 

[MeadowLily]

I had a dream.  It was a treacherous place.  I was telling people why diets don't work and it was really giving them a pinch.  They were throwing things at me and I was still talking and dodging items at the same time. I was talking as fast as I could before someone came from behind the curtain and literally gave me the hook and pulled me off the stage.  

I told them that if dieting worked we would all be fit and another diet would never be needed again. One would do it.  But it doesn't.  

Remember in Romy and Michele's High School Class Reunion when they told their class they invented Post-Its and Michele had a dream about the glue.  It was like that.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Binge eating ate my voice.  I ate my way through several states and road trips leaving a trail of highly engineered to be craved foods behind me.   I ate my way from mini-mart to mini-mart.  Slurpees and gummy bears.  Have you ever been on a binge eating road trip.

We have blurbs on the radio.  Dribs and drabs and virtual fountains of useful information.  For some reason, I like to fill my head UP with these small sporadic amounts of data scattered around in small pieces.  It's better than finely tuned snacks, Felicias.   

Binge eating is a chronic disease of food rewards.  Do you throw caution out the window when you're on a road trip telling yourself that you deserve food rewards to keep yourself awake.  That's a bunch of hooey y'all.

If you're about ready to fall asleep at the wheel on the road...  PULL IT ON OVER. 

Today's radio ditty.    Find a cup of coffee.  Drink it.  Then immediately find a safe place to take a nap for 1/2 hour.   It takes that long for the coffee to kick in at its peak.   After 1/2 hour,  start driving again and you will be far more alert.    Coffee first.  1/2 hour nap.

Eating your way through several states and living for food rewards will get you nowhere good. Telling yourself that your deserve more imaginary food rewards. For driving.   It's time to smell the coffee first and then  wake UP.