Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

All I've ever wanted to be was a normal person. Normal people don't take progress pics of their bellies.  They have no need of that because they look the same, year in and year out.  

If you take progress pics of your belly has it changed everything for you then?

Normal people don't plaster photos of celebrities all over the house for motivation. Inside and outside of closets and the fridge.  Normal people take no thought of tomorrow and what's on the menu.  No, Felicias,  they may have a hankering for something different and change it all UP on a whim. 

Normal people have the world by the tail.  I'm just a hound dog yakkin' on a bone out here. 

Have you ever let someone talk you into a radiator flush for your car.  Don't do that because it can ruin your radiator(over-flushed and starts leaking like a sieve) and break your gauges.  Same thing with letting your car run of gas, it can ruin the fuel pump and gauge.  When you do out-of-the-norm things to your vehicle, all of the gauges may have to be replaced and that is quite costly.  Your speedometer is broken and you have no idea how fast you're flying down the highway.  

As a binge eater, your shut-off valve is broken.  The billy goat doesn't care if he eats thin toilet paper or grade A cardboard, he will eat the crates and apples.  He will eat all the things. You just can't seem to tamp enough food down the gullet to get it full.  The gauges don't register full.  So you just keep planning for food explosions and nonstop thrill eating.

It could be genetic and everything your mother did while she's carrying you. There are so many whys.  But the abby normal relationship with food is patently unfair. 

The appetite control center is in the brain and removing stomachs doesn't fix that. 

I can't tell you that my gauges will register like a normal person.  Thanks.  Maw. 

Remaining consistent with structure and support is working for me.  When my brain gauge says enough food hasn't been tamped down in there,  I can feel something has gone off-kilter now. I'm no longer on an even keel and that brain wants me to start going through the center aisles of the grocery store like a rototiller.  

I have strategies and I start urge surfing.  There are barriers in the brain.  Maybe blood (DNA)-brain barriers.  The why, why, whys are nice to know but staying present and alert is more important.

Normal?  Boy, I'd like to ask you a million questions and you'd be secretly praying I'd pass out. You would think there'd be nothing left to talk about but it ain't so. 

Much love.  Bye Felicias.

 

[MeadowLily]

My dog is sitting on her haunches watching Cesar the Dog Whisperer.  That's part of her Saturday routine and she enjoys bright colors like I do.  I promised her a hike, ears standing up and she knows exactly what I'm talking about.  Let's hit the road, toad. 

Snow is in the forecast. I've yet to see a Labor Day weekend when it didn't snow, somewhere close.  I mourn summer's passing.  I went out early and picked some weeds in memorial.  We have two seasons.  Winter and road construction.  I'm already counting the days for next summer.  I would gladly El Paso on another winter.  I live for the days getting longer and absolutely get SAD sad over daylight savings time.

This is 2016 and it's high time to get rid of it.  It messes with our circadian rhythms and stats say there are more vehicle accidents and heart attacks because of it.

Cicadas and circadian.  Huh.  Connection there somewhere.  I lurve the sound of cicadas.  When they get together, it's quite an earful.  They actually play an important role in ushering in the fall. They sound the alarm.  Oooo, shut the hail up about it.  But cicadas sing shorter in the warm temps because they can get through all of their songs faster.   In the colder temps, they're singing their lil pea pickin' lungs out.  Bless their lil hearts. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Be Present.  If I'm eating, I'm eating.  Not making a grocery list in my head.

Not wondering what athletes eat.  Not rushing, not worrying.  Not reviewing last year's events.

Comparison is the thief of joy.  Let's not compare ourselves to anyone here or there. I threw all of those celebrity photos away and took them out of my closets. 

They say that nothing ever goes away until it teaches us what we need to know. I think that goes for people, too.  We have to release our teachers and tool along on our own way.

I've been watching G.R. . Oooo, he's been teaching me some things. I really admire how he instills confidence into others.  He pulls them right out of a tailspin and tells them to focus on the here and now.  Forget that failure 5 minutes ago,  get your head immediately back into the game and refocus all of your energy on the next task.   

I've been learning alot about life from the cooking channel.  Sure, there's hollaring and carrying on but sometimes you need that to snap out of it.  Fear is contagious. I would like to go to G.R's school for awhile.  There would be a few hard knocks but I would definitely become a better cook with a thicker hide.

G.R. is great with kids and those struggling with low self-esteem. Ahhh, he's all heart and passion.  He cooks with wild and reckless abandon and precision and excellence. The whole package.  

A Whole 30 requires some cooking and there's no such thing as the Finish Line for that. Our kitchen is the center of the universe. 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

I have a big Wake UP call today. My BFF was in the hospital for a week and I didn't know it. Everyone close, after hearing about her experience is changing things right now.  Today.

She is the glue that holds her family together.  There's one in every family.  All the days of her life she's been the epitome of health.  The poster child for eating right, naturopath visits and that whole ball of wax. Taking supplements in a prescribed manner/suited for her.

She ordered some offbeat detox powder that promised everything but the moon. The main ingredient was silica.  Huge mistake. She was at death's door, flatlined twice in the hospital. There are many other details that I will keep to myself but my heart fell to the floor and I dropped to my knees.  You gotta know her to understand that there's few who are sweeter and kinder than this person. 

I told her I would not cry and she appreciates that.  It's contagious, just like fear and brings things on that are not positive. There's a time for crying but not when someone is in a very fragile condition.

We talked about eating whole foods and to hail with detox's and protein powders and suped up energy drinks.  I told her I was through with all of that.  We have no idea if there's more plastic in those pills or maybe it's just fine dirt, old tennis shoes and grass clippings.  Only the Shadow knows.  We do so many off-beat things to ourselves and take bottles of multi-crap on nothing but blind faith.

She said she was eating real eggs now instead of a supplement. Remember when everyone was taking those HCG shots for weight loss.  Why would a man need to take a pregnancy hormone to lose weight. Hellooooooo.  Women and men were eating 500 cal aday and taking those shots. Some of it was synthetic and some was taken from where....where did that supposed hormone come from and who was donating it.

I researched it.  I found out.  But people were lining up to get their shot.  Everyone I knew who starved themselves on 500 cal aday regained every single pound and then some.  It was mostly another setback for health.   They took one for the team but it was a losing game.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a quack,  Houston...we're gonna have more problems than we can deal with.  So I'm shook down to my core.   She knew she was near death and experienced some startling things.  Yes,  I asked.  Did you go to the light. 

Today,  I'm making changes.  I am contemplating the Big Picture.  Whole foods in whole form. Far, far better than taking some suped up detox powder.  Now she has to detox from the detox.

 "Eventual heart attacks are hardly a desirable effect of any supplement. We do not know the effect of supplementing with silica over an extended period of time. No one knows. All we know with certainty is that silica supplementation has never been proven to have any benefits for humans whatsoever, and we also know that it so thoroughly destroys the kidneys of laboratory animals that they become prone to having heart attacks."

Studies suggest that  silica supplements may change the activity of the kidneys, causing abnormal control of the amount of water and potassium release. Low potassium can have negative effects on the heart." 

National Institutes of Health

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I was up bright... with the early birds this morning.  I made a grocery run.  My fridge is filled with fresh vege and fruit, extra special good things. If there was ever a kick in the hiney needed to keep going, this was it.  I don't want to take one for the losing team.  I want to release endorphins waaaay into my future.   To hail with powders and smoothies.  

Today,  I continue on.  I will eat some beautiful blackberries after my dinner.  There will be all kinds of vege throughout this day with some gf beef and eggs and fish and real proteins.  Nuts for decorations and fruit for condiments.   

These consistent things have kept me from coming undone.  We don't need a silica supplement and eat those 2 shredded carrots today. Carrots and all foods with a gorgeous orange pigment will do your body good.  Let's keep going.  Put your pedal to the metal and don't look back.  But do read the labels and think about what you're actually ingesting. 

What happened to my BFF will not be in vain.  I will keep this change going forward. 

[MeadowLily]

 

Never settle.  Never give up. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

What is your passion.  What lights you UP?

It's time to go off the reservation.  I can say that.  

Progress belly pics are not the connective tissue holding us together.  We are held together by unconscious common family values. These are passed down from generation to generation.

Many of them may be holding you back from what really lights you UP. 

Unconscious motivational values and we've always done it this way in our family is the glue that keeps you thinking in the same old ways and may leave you stuck there for the rest of your life.   

It's time to go off the rez. 

Who are you when no one else is looking. FB and all of these other sites anyone may do are creating more more unconscious common culture values. 

Progress belly pics and other common reflections of body sections have now become the connective tissue holding people together but that is imaginary and fleeting and temporary.

When we leave this place, all we're taking with us is our spirit and who we really are when no one else was looking.  Did you give someone a hand up or buy them a cup of tea and soup.  Did you talk to someone who was having a really bad day and help pull them out of a tailspin. All that matters.

I've been willing to go down into the depths of my soul and pull out the dross. There were moments of being caught between completely overreaching and totally underachieving but I carried on.  Consistent.

Laughing entirely too much helps me and is a coping strategy when the pain is too great. I've embraced the healthy and really reached for happiness every day.

I like not fooling yourself realism and getting stuck between gung-ho and ho-hum. 

Cabbaging onto other peoples unconscious common values may no longer serve you. When you leave this rez, you're not taking anything with you but you really are. 

Think through the eons of time when entire people groups lost themselves by blindly accepting someone else's opinions of who they should be. Continuing to pass those things down to the 2nd and 3rd generations and it didn't work the first time around.

Oooo paleopeoples of every variety.  They say the unexamined life is not worth living but the examined life is not much of a bargain either....some days, it's going to really hurt.  You'll feel the pain.

I'm no longer shoving all of my emotions down with food.  One day,  I may be free of identifying myself as a binge eater.  But I had to go there and turn around and look that snake right in the eye.

You have to do that to rid yourself of the snake's bond and stronghold and mesmerizing charm.  I don't want that connective tissue or unconscious common values. 

When you clear out the dross, you can see and think for yourself.  

You no longer need to quote other people's words.  Remember, overquoting other people is the handwriting on the wall....for covering depression.  Dr. Lupine Flour says this and Dr. Periwinkle Paleopoop says that.  

What do you say.   Who are you when no one else is looking.  Time to go off the reservation and find your way.   A way without weigh and whey.

 

Much love.  Bye Felicias.

(I'm not ready to go yet,  I lurve you too much).

 

[MeadowLily]

Over-researching.  Over-thinking. Over-quoting. Over-spending. Over-eating. Over-drinking. More benchmarks and handwriting on the wall for anxiety and depression.

Time to turn around and take a look at what's really going on in your life.  Go back to the well and pull out all of the dross. 

Keeping a hypercritical eye on everyone else's problems when you cannot solve your own...or trying to be the answers when you cannot fix what's going on in your own backyard....that's not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing. 

It all turns into multi-crap and more piles of paleopoops.  Bear has a relative who fancies himself to be an entrepreneur.  And Bear says, "There are entrepreneurs and piles of manure".  It takes wisdom to know the difference. 

 

[MeadowLily]

My friend is making an enormous impact on those who know her. Her experience has touched us in ways I cannot explain.  It was not her time to go.

She is a messenger and I'm getting the message. I've cried while doing the dishes and laundry and in my car.  The half has not been told but it's hers to tell. She had no idea how much she really means to all of us.  The more you know. 

Good food fixes everything.  Especially when you don't know what else to give someone. Take someone a wonderful dinner.  Let them sit back in their easy chair while you pull the plates out of the cupboard and set the table.  Get their favorite drinks, napkins, silverware together.  Open the dishes up and serve them.  Hugs and kisses all around.  These things matter. 

[MeadowLily]

Think about the golfer who gets the yips out on the course. Few are the same after getting a case of the yips.  That record is stuck on a scratch. Yip. Yip.  Yip.

The messages between the brain and muscles go haywire.  Yippers don't usually win tournaments or the big money. Yip is a word you don't ever want to say outloud on the course or even let your mind think silently about.  Golf is a mental game.

Binge and thrill eating...much the same.  Your heart says yes and your brain says no, the stomach goes along for the ride.  The Yipper might eventually admit that they're in denial and go in for some sports therapy. The Yipper might secretly believe that they don't deserve the Big WIN and keep unconsciously sabotaging themselves.  Unconscious common core cultural values.

Even those at the top of their game can get the yips and not make it back there for the rest of their golfing life. There's a monkey on their back, a hitch in their gitch and a horsefly in their ointment.

Think about your life as you were tooling along before you got a case of the Dieting Yips. Life was so much easier then.  You did not worry how to maintain your optimum setpoint.  It was always there, baby.   You were running on jet fuel and your brain and muscles were working in tandem. 

I am completely fascinated by normal people.  I observe how they've stayed exactly the same for decades at their optimum setpoints.  Life seems so easy for them. 

Whether we unconsciously know it or not....what we do with our weight is the connective tissue that reveals what's going on in your brain.  You have some spark plugs in their that are not firing on all cylinders and it's going to show up externally. 

The internal regulates the external.  The appetite control center is in the brain. Removing the stomach will not fix that.  The brain is in charge.  

You start messing with your control panel and everything goes to hail in a handbasket.  Dieting messes with your head and your WINNING game.  Dieting is the YIPS.  It will shortcircuit your wiring and burn out your spark plugs.

Lifelong dieters have a case of the Yips.  You know what that does to the golfer at the top of their game.  Never to be heard from again.

You may try to pull the wool over your own eyes but the proof is your weight stability.  It's connected to the brain and the brain regulates all of your connective tissue and unconscious culture common values. 

Wild swings UP and down are indicative of the Yips.  I see someone who's the same from year to year and I want that.  Normal people have always been my heroes. They fascinate me to no end. I would wear them out with questions.  They would secrely wish I would pass out but I would like to go through their brains with a fine toothbrush.  Just like the archaeologist working on a site in ancient Egypt,  I want to pull out the why, why, whys out and secret keys.  

The study of human activity through the recovery of culture.  Culture is also just another fancy name for your Maw's homecooking. 

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

What do you call a bear with no teeth?

A gummy bear. 

[MeadowLily]

So maybe your genetics and food environment were abby normal.  Structure and support can make up the difference. There's always hope. 

Brain health can be improved with exercise.  Find exercise you enjoy and do all of your on your own terms. 

Don't bring the Big Kahuna trigger foods home.  You are the master of your domain. Don't bring the food offenders into your space. 

The alcoholic can be triggered by a clear glass of ice cubes.  The binge eater can be triggered by aromas and passing through the bakery that is now at the front of every grocery store.  These things are deliberately engineered to be craved.  Trickery triggers and finely tuned snacks.

We do not have to be a champion of the binge followed by make up for binge eating by stripping meals which is really self-induced starving plus doing a bunch of super intense cardio followed by oops - yet another binge cycle. 

And long term, this approach will get you nowhere good.

The number one reason all diets fail is that they are implemented so brutally strict right out of the chute.  Shock and Awe approach. 

Edge your way down slowly.  Remain consistent.  

Let the left hand always know what the right hand is doing.  Not fooling yourself realism.

Houston, if you're skipping meals and drinking paleo-friendly agave booze at night....cough, cough, just keep telling yourself that's working.  Paleo is mostly confusing. It can be 80/20. 80% paleo treats and 20% booze. Setting up more vicious binge eating cycles.

Consistency. Structure and support. Preventative vs. Reactive.   A WINNING game.

[MeadowLily]

I can roll the dice and nuts across the table and not end up with snake eyes.

Snake eyes in the game of multi-craps is the lowest possible roll and will be a loser in many dice games. In ancient Rome it was called the "dog throw". 

I don't have to pump the brakes for nuts or fruit. These are two foods that I always avoided because of the Dieting Yips in my past.  

I went back to the well and pulled out all of the dieting dross.  I regrouped and reread ISWF.  I did not take away from or add to.  No more.  No less.

I stay in my own lane and if it's in ISWF, I stick with that.  I swear it made all of the difference for me.  No dialed down version or subset rules.  

My own positive food management plan includes nuts and fruits.  I haven't come up with snake eyes one time because of it.  Fruit, mostly berries hasn't made any noticeable uptick in my blood sugar.   

Giving myself permission to eat fruit and nuts and vege and every extra special whole food has kept me from coming undone.  Any more dialing down would ruin me.  I would rebel and throw the towel in, feeling like a dog throw.   

I've stared that snake right in the eye and that dieting snake can eat my dirt and keep those snake eyes. I'm not a gambling woman and I'm not going to gamble with my health.  I'll stick with a WINNING game. 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

"The next time you look into the mirror I want you to realize that you are looking at your BEST friend. You might think that someone else is your best friend...but they aren't! Nobody supports you or wants you to succeed more than the person staring back at you. The person staring back is the one that you have said horrible things to, thought horrible things about, treated terribly.......things you would have never done to the person you think is your best friend.......if you had, your "best friend" would have left you. But the BEST friend in the mirror is still there. That friend is already at the weight you want to be.....but has been kind enough to carry YOU ....and not complain. That friend is more than ready to assist you, encourage you, and smile back at you as you move through this program and get healthier. Realize your BEST friend and watch your life and health change!"

dcducks

 

[MeadowLily]

Stats say 80% rebound with weight regained within one year.  Why?

Hormones. 

Constant dieting and skipping meals (self-induced starving) alter the hormones.  Hormones are disrupted for at least one year after releasing weight. 

Hormones found in the pancreas, fatty tissues, stomach.  

After any kind of weight releasing..a major 50 or 100 or 150, hunger levels remain elevated causing 80% to eat it all back.

T1 and T2 diabetics can take insulin to keep blood glucose on an even keel. But it's difficult for the constant dieter and meal skipper to maintain weight releasing and restore the hormones.

Reducing calories only works short-term.  Sure, there will be the initial blast of pounds going away but a poor outcome long-term.  

People who try to maintain a major weight releasing after reducing calories and skipping meals have lower setpoints. They may jack up their exercise, working out for hours every day to maintain or stay at their optimum setpoints.  That will take true grit and consistency and you won't be able to coast on your laurels or let your guard down.

Releasing 10, 15, or even a whopping 20 pounds in a month's time - and rebounding with every single pound in the next month will get you nowhere good.

It comes back as fat.  Not muscle mass.

Wash, rinse, and repeat these cycles several times in a year and over many years results in more fat, less muscle mass, lower setpoints and climbing mountains and doing ironmans, running marathons in every state and two on a Sunday...gritting it out every single day.

Molecular metabolism and unchanged habits are not a WINNING combination. 

A continuous gerbil wheel cycling of "losing" and rebounding with the same 10 lbs, over and over...that's no prize either. 

Constant weight cycling changes your entire physiology.

The more diets you've been on the more difficult it's going to be. Constant weight cycling causes high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and other conditions. 

Constant dieting = more binge eating and rebound weight gain. Binge eating is a chronic disease of food rewards.

Another binge is not a cure for a food addiction.  

Extreme dieting, skipping meals (self-induced starving), and fast, fast weight loss =

Loss of muscle mass

An altered metabolism and lowered setpoint. And emotionally, it all sux.  I consider weight stability the true measure of success.  Where will you be 2 or 3 years down the road.  That matters. 

Temporary anything is just temporary.  It's fleeting and slips right of your hands. Hormone levels remain altered for an entire year after a fast, fast weight releasing.  

It  does not have to end up in a total loss. You'd better go slow and forget about dropping it like it's hot.  Those treat seeking missiles are out there...coming for you, if you don't gooooo Oooooo sooooo slooowwww. 

[MeadowLily]

 

I am a Dog Soldier, part of an elite military response. I can sniff out paleo-treat seeking missiles a mile away. A Dog Soldier was the last line of defense for the paleopeoples. They maintained ferocious traditions and were fearless that way.

Sweet Medicine had a strategy and you will have to create strategies for paleo-treat seeking missiles waaaay into your future. The body is bent on survival but you can live without them. 

I believed I could.  So I did.  

 

[MeadowLily]

This is just a journey

Drop your worries

You are gonna turn out fine

But you gotta keep your head UP

And you can let your hair down

Only rainbows after rain

The sun will always come again

It's a circle, circling

Around again, it comes around

I know it's hard, know its hard

To remember sometimes

But you gotta keep your head UP

And you can let your hair down

 

Andy Grammar

 

 

 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I don't budget the weekends for "cheat" meals.  

If you combine high fat with highly refined carbs on a regular basis, you can eat back all of your weight releasing in less than half the time it took to reach your optimum setpoint.

Oil and sugar don't mix.  Oil and refined alternative flours and regular flours and sugars of every kind don't result in maintenance of your optimum setpoint.  Truth.

Weight stability is something you will have to consciously work on for many, many months after a substantial weight releasing. There's no such thing as the Finish Line.

Hormones.  Molecular metabolism.  Unchanged habits thrown into the mix with oil and sugars and flours....thyroid and blood sugar and genetics will result in rebound faster than you can say all of that sux. 

Binge eating is a chronic disease of food rewards.  Rewarding myself with food and "cheat" meals and oils/sugars/flour combos,  eating in response to negative emotions and stress, disinhibited eating, weight cycling and all of the things I used to do would result in second verse same as the first.

Who succeeds in weight stability and maintaining.  

You have to develop an active lifestyle with a regular rhythm that includes a BREAKFAST.

Developing self-monitoring behaviors may require the help and support of a team of pros.  Actually sitting down with someone.  Face-to-Face.  

Most importantly, there has to be that internal motivation to maintain weight stability. No one can give that to you.  No one can do it for you. 

There must be coping strategies for stress and taking complete responsibility for every area of your life. It can be complex but overthinking, overlearning, over-researching are benchmarks for anxiety and depression. 

If you can't get off the dieting gerbil wheel for your overall health, including psychological strength and stability....reach out for help.  The biggest deterrent for weight stability is living with denial that you can actually pull all of it together with another diet or miracle cure. 

Another binge is not a cure for a food addiction.  

You have to be self-determined and it's going to take True Grit to maintain weight stability for the rest of your life.  

My so worth it moments don't include food rewards.  Truth. 

I have a pain list that I read every day.  The pain of binge eating and the side effects of binge eating are not worth it.  

Plans for the Food Explosion on Day 31 or any other day, would get me nowhere good. There will always be another streetcar named desire coming around the corner.  

Who succeeds in longterm weight stability.  Those who craft coping strategies, self-monitoring behaviors, regular meal rhythms and positive support.  Initial weight releasing is just a speck in the cosmos.  A grain of sand on the beach.  A snowflake in a blizzard.  A guppie in the ocean. 

[MeadowLily]

The handwriting is on the wall.  When I see the first plans are for the "cheat meals" and food explosions and incorporating all of the Big Kahuna trigger foods on a somewhat limited basis,  I know it's just a matter of time before sneaky snake is back sleeping on the couch, throwing beer cans at the TV and eating everything out of the cupboards. Checking the pantry out for packages of chocolate chips, old graham crackers and everything that will end up marshing mellows.

 

Finding a new relationship with food does not mean eating all of the same foods in the same ways and believing something magical has happened to your metabolism after 30 days.  That is the imaginary thrill for the binge eater.

 

Hormones.  Altered body chemistry for at least one year and maybe 3 years down the road after a major weight releasing.  

 

I know. I'm living it. 

 

No one is left in suspense with what you're eating on a daily basis.  Your family and friends will be worn out with too much food talk.  

 

dcducks said it.  You're going to find that YOU are your best friend and the one who must care the most.  There are days  I absolutely wish my group was here to visit with. They're long gone now.   They were the best group and we laughed entirely too much but it was the first part of the journey.

 

I'm not the same person I used to be.  I'm just a hound dog yakkin' on a bone and shootin' the breeze with the universe. When I'm inches from a clean getaway and I think I'm going out the door for the very last time....it makes me cry.  

 

I would miss the compadres I've met.  Sometimes, I think I catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye.  

[MeadowLily]

The modern diet is softer than it was 100 years ago. Melt in your mouth pastas and breads.  People like soft calorically dense foods like ice cream.  

Salt, sugar and flours are the trifecta of the obesity epidemic.  Diabetes and Bingo are the new war cry of the paleoamerican. These foods are deliberately engineered to be craved. 

Cool whip. A topping to top real cream. These faux foes invitably lead to making a mess out of everything and a lack of reasonable restriction or self-control. 

Kids eat PB & J, fruit roll-ups....which are sugar rolls with fruit juice binders. All of the wrong kinds of cravings come roaring back when we fuel our bodies with this multi-crap.  

Much love.  Bye Felicias.  

 

[Laurie]

One of your group members - me - is back to visit with you.  Today, Sept. 10, I am starting another Whole 30.  Going through a very difficult time and trying to use W30 as a way to gain some control over life.  This time last year, Steve entered the hospital for the last journey of his life.  All the pain and memories are destroying me.  So I am back and hope to stay for awhile.  My food has been pretty bad for the last few months. I don't know if I ever told you but I was in the hospital towards the end of June for a week - pretty bad intestinal problem.  Doctors had me on clear liquid diet for about 5 days - ices, jello, broth.  Never could get back to healthy eating and have developed some bad habits.  Still have problems with intestines; therefore,  I can't follow all the recommendations but I will follow all the rules.  Food doesn't move through me so doctor has me on lots of laxatives.  I am sure that will mess with my system but for now I have to follow doctors orders.  I have an appointment with a GI motility specialist at the beginning of October at Cleveland Clinic so hopefully he can help me.

Hope you and your family are doing well.  I have missed you! 

[MeadowLily]

Laurie, glad you're back.  I'm briefly checking in while I'm waiting.  I've been in the ER since midnight with a folkaronie. Ambulance.  Okay, I would like your prayers for my family, jmcbn, Laurie, Hutlifr, anyone.  Gotta run. Thanks for listening if you're out there.

[Laurie]

Sending lots of prayers, love and support!