Did you find yourself sweeter and kinder after Whole30 reintro?

[MeadowLily]

I actually know that I am ready to go today but I would miss the forum friends I've made. We're not propping up food disorder or secretly dieting but we've made a connection.  Some would say that's not real but I beg to differ. So I'm not announcing I'm no longer standing at the door and I do know I could walk on, walk on but the protagonist's worldview is go ahead and throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Heck-a-toot, the protagonist's point of view about the planet is that there are far too many people and if everyone disappeared it would be better for the planet.  That, Felicias, is a bunch of hooey.

I know that every person could fit within the state of Texas. Don't mess with Texas. Every person on this planet matters. Every single one of us. All creatures great and small.

And I ain't forgot one member of my original group.  No siree, they were the best. I think about them all of the time and wonder where they are today. 

I'll see them someday in another promised land. Today is not promised to any of us or tomorrow.  We only have NOW.  

So give up.  Give in.  Give it everything you've got.   

[MeadowLily]

I'm not saying Good-Bye because I don't like saying Good-Bye to anyone.  I say, So Long Now. 

I'm not saying  So Long either.  You see, like sandpaper, we rub the rough edges off of one another. We learn as we are tooling along.  

I've ordered collagen peptides because a friend of mine said after 3 years, she saw much improved quality of hair, skin and nails.  Now then, I want that, too.

I'm not a purist or so regimented that I could not possibly buy a product and lurve the results.  So I'm excited to see what those can do for me. I like to try new things, skin, hair and body products.  

 

 

[MeadowLily]

I'll be cruising by my thread as I tool along. When you reach a fork in the road, take it. 

I've reached my fork in the road. My dieting philosophy is behind me on these pages. I look back and clearly see how long it's taken to get it out of my system.  Whew.

I've always been interested in herbs and essential oils. I'm making my own combinations. It's been a long trail back to my spiritual roots. Spiritual health is turning loose of your body's hold over you.  

The only one who learns is the one doing all of the hard work.  You have to break yourself down to build yourself back UP again.  No one can do it for you.  

Spiritual connection takes the fear out and allows recovery and healing to come in.  It's the capstone.  The finishing stone on your entire structure. You innermost being and body.  Spiritual connection sets the captive free. 

[Hutlifr]

I sure will miss your inspirational posts... Thank you for being there fore me, from the beginning til now and thru done rough water... 

 

[MeadowLily]

17 hours ago, Hutlifr said:

I sure will miss your inspirational posts... Thank you for being there fore me, from the beginning til now and thru done rough water... 

 

Right back at you.  Thank you, for being here for me.  I'll cruise by now and again but dieting is a rigged game.  And it's not rigged in your favor.  

I exhausted every avenue. I blathered and foamed at the mouth until there was nothing left of dieting and the food disorder that follows directly behind it.

It's not alright to give yourself massive amounts of rope and rationalizations and clinging to old vices and crutches. Heck-a-toot, it's not alright to tell yourself it's alright. There's nothing right about living with a chronic disease of food rewards.  

Why wait until the end of your life or diabetes, a heart attack or stroke shows up on your doorstep to get it done. It's an enormous waste of a life to allow food rewards to hinder all of your hopes and dreams. It's not worth it.  Why wait until all of the binge eating takes you out for good. For real. 

You have to get mad to get it done.  Get mad at sugars and highly engineered to be craved foods.  Staying passive and fading into the woodwork, falling back into binge after binge after binge....Another binge is not a cure for a food addiction.  

But it took breaking myself down one piece at a time to build myself back Up again into a whole person.  I can share with those in my circle, don't go down those trails.  Learn to listen to your gut and trust your instincts.  All of the answers are right there.  It's going to take true grit to pull out all of the dross so you can actually hear what your body has been trying to tell you since the day you were born. The answers are there.  But if you can't hear them, you've got to find some face-to-face help.  It's pride that keeps you from doing so.  Thinking you'll figure it all out when it's apparent that you are stuck right where you've always been at ground zero. 

I do know how to help pull my loved ones feet from the sugary sharky waters and their feet from the fire.  I don't want the younger ones growing up thinking that someday....waaaaay down the road they'll take care of food addiction or disorder.  I've been around long enough to see that someday seldom happens.  

It's NOW.  Don't wait for another streetcar named desire, filled with all of your favorite binge foods to keep coming around the corner for you.  One day, you may not make it out there to meet the streetcar.  

It's as if the food addict and food disordered doesn't think they deserve it. To live their best quality of life.  But they do.  They deserve it and should want it.  Find help.  You don't have to walk that lonesome road all by yourself.

Don't make me come over there and find you all sad, lonely and binge eating with your pet.  I will come over there and help you face yourself and pain. 

Then we're going to go for a hike and blow the stink off.  All of it.  For good. I'm going to help you get mad.  Stomp your feet and cry if you want to. Let it all out.  Wash Rinse Repeat until there's nothing left but the shoes on your feet.

I'll walk a mile in your shoes. That way, I'll be a mile down the road and have your shoes, too. 

 

Much love.  Felicias.  

[Laurie]

Meadow - I will also miss all of your wonderful words.  Thank you for all your support and contributions to this forum.

[MeadowLily]

Bear wants everyone to remember...When a pine needle falls in the forest the eagle sees it.  The deer hears it.  The grizzly smells it.  

There's been a grizzly coming down from the mountains. He's leaving his tracks on the trails I hike. I'm no longer going alone until winter hits for good. I keep one eye behind me and one before me. Grizzlies can detect if you're sick or have a disease. Their sense of smell is so great, they know immediately if you're male or female. Dog or cattle, elk or deer, antelope or human. The Silvertip can detect you from 18 miles away. Talked to a young man who was recently charged in my neck of the woods.  I don't take risky chances with my life.  They can be up ahead and circle right back behind you and you wouldn't even know it.  

Sweet, sweet, Laurie...I'll keep one eye open for you. I care. 

 

[Stegner]

Meadowlily, I've been away for some time, but I have been inspired by your writing for going on 2 years now.  I say that I've been away, but I just turned 60 and stopped checking in on the forum.  I too eat more fruit and less fat than I did during and immediately after my 30 days - and I have been thinking about cutting back on coffee.  So - here's what I wanted to say.... think about writing a book about your journey.  You have a lot of material right here and a good editor could help you pull something wonderful out of it.  I'd buy that book.   

 

[MeadowLily]

Umm, that was about the sweetest and kindest thing anyone has said to me, Stegner. Let's Dance, now. You and me.

 

 

[MeadowLily]

Deja Brew. The feeling you're still drinking coffee but you realize it's only your body's natural energy breaking through.  It's better latte than never.  

Espresso yourself.  Coffee was temporary fun with lasting consequences. Coffee kicked in before the reality did. There are many wonderful things that happen to your body when you quit drinking coffee.  The greatest benefit of  quitting coffee is to know that you are very much alive and you can test for yourself  to see if quitting is really beneficial.  It's not the caffeine but the coffee bean itself that's hard on your digestive tract.  

It may be tough and rough but getting rid of insulin resistance was enough...to make it all so worth it. 

[MeadowLily]

 "It's called wisdom.  It comes to us suddenly.  We realize the difference between what's real and deep and lasting versus the superficial payoff of the moment." 

The superficial payoff of the moment is temporary fun with lasting consequences. I haven't got time for that kind of pain.  It takes months and months to remedy every single superficial payoff of the moment.

Payoff or pain.  Or both.  What will it be.  Today and always.

There were months and months of hiking 5 or 6.5 or 7 miles aday with a 20 lb pack on my back before I moved that UP to a 50 lb pack.  Searing and acute knee pain. I taped my feet like a mummy to overcome plantar fasciitis, heel spurs.  My "barking dogs" would never shut-up for one minute.  

When I think about the superficial payoff now and the remedy that follows,  I can look at those yellow-bellied lily-livered sneaky snakes directly in the eye, throw my hands in the air and walk away.

 

[MeadowLily]

I don't take a bite of the hair of the dog that bit me.  That doesn't come with a single benefit.  Not one.   All of those bites would add up quickly and bring T2 right back to my doorstep. And it would happen quicker and faster. There are medical conditions that are relentless no matter what you do.   I can't go for that and I'm not going to.  

Superficial payoffs of the moment.  

[Stegner]

On November 9, 2016 at 8:52 AM, MeadowLily said:

Umm, that was about the sweetest and kindest thing anyone has said to me, Stegner. Let's Dance, now. You and me.

 

 

That was invigorating!  You've gotten to the core truth of many aspects of this physical and psychological food fight so many of us have wasted way too much time and energy on.  At the end of the road is freedom.  Go, Meadowlily!  I'm taking my dog out for a long walk now - Go Stegner!  Such a weird and completely arbitrary name I gave myself - he's the author of a book I was reading at the time.  I did like that book, but have never felt like a Stegner. 

[MeadowLily]

I was just thinking about you, Sunny.  Right NOW!  

Here's another song for TODAY that we need. 

 

 

[MeadowLily]

 Less fat, fruit and no coffee....Stegner.

Thanks for throwing me a bone to hack on.  You know that's all it takes and I'm off to the races and blathering, foaming at the mouth again. 

I've observed those that travel onto their pathway to healing do not consume fat, fat, fat...STAT in the manner they did for 30 days. I don't see it in the food pics either. 

There are women who struggle with tanked thyroids and broken fat metabolisms that cannot continue on with jars of coconut oil or cubes of butter in their coffee cups.  I am one of them.

After years of dieting, I tanked out everything.  The further you're away from any real quality of health before you start a Whole 30 is the handwriting on the wall where you will end UP.

I did experience Tiger Blood.  Not bragging if it's true.  It is not imaginary and you're in for a real treat if it happens for you.  But my health was in the toity.   It's all UP from the bottom of the barrel. 

Tiger Blood is not something you can work UP with your mind or force it. It is not psychosomatic or something that rubs off on you because you want to feel it so badly. I surmise that those who do not experience it have been eating Paleo for quite some time or dialed down into 20% protein and 80% fat. The variables are of every color and shade and hue. Snacking every two hours won't make it happen it either.  The pancreas is taking hit after hit after hit trying to keep up with a constant barrage of foods. 

I'd never felt anything like that before in my lifetime.  One day, I was hiking on a dirt road and my knees buckled.  I wasn't running.  My body was becoming fat adapted.  I had no idea what that even meant back then.

Then it hit me like a tidal wave. Tiger Blood. I rolled around on the floor and laughed and giggled.  I was silly and it felt soooo goood. Towards the evening and dark thirty, it was intense.  I had a smile plastered on my face and it was so much fun.

I'd have to look back to see how long that continued. But don't let anyone shout you down when you're feeling good. Just spread the joy and carry on health- bound- Felicias. Westward The Wagons. We all need those healthy boundaries. 

There are now programs helping people coming off of HFLC that are tanking out their thyroids.  Oooooo, yes.  I've read their testimonies.  They've went too far out the other direction. Everything came to a screeching halt. Their health tanked once again.

I'm not talking about being in couch mode but professional athletes. They felt good for a few months but then it was hypoglycemia, dizzy and faint bending over and standing up too fast, blurry vision and a myriad of other problems. 

I can't do maximum amounts of saturated fats. One of the biggest causes of rebound weight I've noted is combining HF with refined carbs.  Yes, you can develop a fat tooth. But trying to bounce in and out of HFLC with UP days, down days and refined carb nites.....oooooo, Felicias, that's the recipe for tanking out the thyroid, messing up the pancreas, rebounding with every single pound on top of highest weights plus another 10 or 20.  

It's going to be a hard fought battle edging your way back down from that kind of approach. It's a thyroid formula for failure.  When we do things we really don't want to do just in the name of weight loss...it is the recipe for gaining all of the weight back plus another 10 or 20 as the topper. The topping that clashes with fitness goals and causes many to throw the towel in and walk away for good. 

That's why there are now food addiction recovery programs that are helping people come off of HFLC back into the land of the living and peace. 

[MeadowLily]

Espresso yourself.  I am fruit loose and proud of it. It makes absolutely no horse sense to me to be scared to death of a piece of fruit but totally on board with refined paleo treats loaded to the gills with alternative flours and sugars that jack your blood sugar UP higher than a kite. 

I need the digestive enzymes as well as the fiber in fruits and vege. Both of them.  Eating fruit for 2.5 years has not caused an uptick in my blood sugar.  I would tell you if it did.  It. Did. Not.

I eat carrots. I eat apples. I even eat nuts.  Oooo, yeah. I don't have digestive issues with nuts or fruits. Those foods did not cause the condition I was in.  

It was refined foods and sugars. Those were the culprits.  So to avoid whole foods in favor of  returning to the hair of the dogs that bit me and chewed my toes off,  I can't  go for that.

Telling myself that peanut m&m's are really just a fat source. Oooo, that's a bunch of malarkey and hooey. Paleo poop... if I've heard one.  

Eating baby food. How many 200 lb babies have you ever seen. It's formulated for babies and not adults, mostly pureed fruits. 

Eat real fruit. Berries are fab for your health. Don't eat them inbetween meals but as the Topper.  The capstone on top of your food pyramid.  

Being fruit loose keeps me sane.  It's not a little thing but my Secret Place.  A refuge and fortress in the midst of food madness and the over-restriction wilderness desert.  I've roamed around like a nomad in the desert food regions.  I'm done with it.

I was laid bare, stripped  of  a secure place to lay my head down. I was dwelling like a refugee with the epidemic of food fear.  

Fear not, Felicias.  You shall be delivered with confidence from food fear.  Have confidence in your horse sense before you are met with calamity on every side from being sooo heart, mind and body hungry.   

[MeadowLily]

Fruit is a hinge.  It keeps me hinged.  It is not a gateway food back into the sharky sugary waters for me.  I think it's a secret weapon against it.  I really, really do.  I avoided fruit for years because of all that dieting. No fruit while on a diet.  When I threw that out with all of those dieting books, I found stability with foods. It has made all of the difference for me. Allowing myself freedom to eat fruit.

If avoiding fruit for 30 days helps you stop binge eating, I'm happy.  If it does not, reassess and give yourself the test.  Test fruit at the end of the meal.  See if it doesn't help you from returning to thrill eating.  

[MeadowLily]

l'm UP and I'm looking at that bright moon.  Come Monday,

 

we're going to see a sight that we haven't seen in our lifetime and won't see again until 2034. I can't wait for the extra special super moon. I'm wide, wide awake.  That moon is a sign.  Looney tunes are on the way.

 

[Laurie]

I guess you are not leaving us.  That's great.  You have many fans!

[MeadowLily]

6 hours ago, Laurie said:

I guess you are not leaving us.  That's great.  You have many fans!

Hi-larious.  I wish you could hear me snort through my nose and I am laughing like a......

[MeadowLily]

My husband says,  you on that thing again?  I thought you told me....blah, blah, and more blah. Lovable lug. 

Yes...but I won't be here very long today because I made a big production out of leaving. Cough. More snorting.

So what is this. Stegner paid me a visit and one of my sisters is visiting with the folkaronies. We've been having a great time while hiking together. She's been here for a couple of weeks and the sun has been shining brightly every single day. It's another Christmas miracle. 

Now the grizzly is still around.  That very one.  He's about a 3-5 year old. We took pics of his tracks in the mud.  He's hanging around during the day over by some cliffs and comes out for dinner in the dusky hours.  They've set a trap to take him back over to yonder regions but a grizzly's home range can easily cover anywhere between a 1000 to 1500 miles. They can hook it on UP in a few day's time and come right back where they've been finding food. 

Some days we've hiked 7 miles, straight UP to a mountaintop.  Why, we don't know but we felt the pull and urge to do so. She's made me promise that I will not go alone. My better judgment says, hail noooo, don't you go alone.  The urge or temptation to keep going higher lures me back out there.  But I know she's correct.

So I've found a steep hillside closer to home that I can go straight UP, down and around like I'm on a race track.  It will be boring but safer.  We've been encouraging each other to really listen to the still voice of our innermost being. When we don't, there's usually kicking our own hindends that follows.

We went shopping together and there's always tourists coming through from all over the world.  I enjoy watching and listening to them. I do check their shopping carts out. I recently visited with a man from Iceland.  We were eyeballing the tuna fish. He asked me why there was soy in everything and all of that multi-crap in our foods. He shared that they don't live like that and I appreciated his angst.  Then I elaborated and my sister was rolling her eyes.  Why can't you just let it go at that and walk away? 

So I blathered on about the dunghills of multi-crap as far as the eyes could see. Aisles and aisles of diabetes stocking stuffers. He smiled at us later and waved. I can't help myself or rein it in.  My husband won't go shopping with me... not if you're going to spend all day reading labels.

We've always visited with tourists.  What we've been asking ourselves...where in the world was Maw when we were doing that as kids.  She didn't seem to be worried about us and my siblings and I did alot of whacky jacky things. Ooooo brother. It curls my hair just thinking about it.  No one can turn their kids loose like that now. People have to keep a watchful eye and close rein all of the time. 

The trail lures me but I won't go alone. We personally know victims of grizzly bear maulings.  It ain't pretty. It's gruesome. I'll keep my promise to my sister.  The superficial payoff of the moment is temporary fun with lasting consequences. I haven't got time for that kind of pain.

I'm wide awake and alert these days. I haven't hiked this much since I was a kid. We would head out in the morning and come home for supper.  Roaming around for 8 hours aday in the summer. Maw.  What in the world were you thinking.  It's divine intervention that we're still here. Intact.  

I'm still here. Shooting the breeze with the Universe. Bouncing my thoughts off of Felicia who left the building a long, long time ago.  I remember my Paw doing the same thing. Talking with the guys at the car lot or garage while we waited in the car. His coworkers travel long distances to still pay him a yearly visit.  I sure think alot of them, too.  

Paw knows things. He hears things.  He sees things.  Eagle Eyes don't miss a lick. My sister and I take our last hike of the season today. I'll miss her. I lurve all of my sisters including the ones that are still here. 

[MeadowLily]

Fruit Loose and fancy free. 

While others are bellying up to the dessert table or swilling craft brewskies, I don't feel deprived. 

Yesterday, while shopping...they were handing out free pieces of cake for Veteran's Day with that sedimentary layer of crisco and powdered sugar. Brightly colored, it was turning everyone's lips and tongues navy blue.  

Seester and I bought a booch for the way home. Refreshing.  

I observe shopping carts because I see everyone from all walks of life. Celebrities, mountain and hillbillies, athletes, bikers,  hoity toity folks and those with the working man blues.  Every one. 

The common denominator amongst the fit people are vege and fruits. They pick over the fresh berries like they are the crown jewels.  Discriminating shoppers.  Some bring their own environmentally prudent reusable bags but for some reason it gives me a pinch.  Those reusable bags can be so dirty on the bottom and they throw them on top of the belt where I'm putting my food. I have no idea where those bags have been. It's really not a copasinki clean preference.  It can be another way of giving yourself a smug pat on the back while throwing an old sweaty gym bag up there with norovirus potential. 

Wash those things, Felicias, or throw those perfect breeding grounds for nasty bacterias in the trash.

Back to the shopping carts.  The strong, fit people eat fruit.  They do. Their muscles ripple under the biking and yoga pants. Walking billboards of health. I don't see loaves of fluffy white bread or boxed macaroni noodles in their carts. But I do see the poorer folks with those foods. My heart goes out to them, always, always. I say a quiet prayer for them just under my breath or on the way home.  They move me.

While some hoity toity folks are so busy putting on the dog while smelling the stink with their noses perpetually in the air.... You can tell they are shopping with an audience in mind.  Look at me,  I'm pristine and perfect. I'm using my reusable shopping bag with nasty bacterias and norovirus. 

I'd like to tell them it really is a deal breaker but they might clock me. So I'll just take the plastic ones and use them as garbage can liners. Back to the fruit. 

When I eat beautiful fruit at the end of the meal, I'm like the strong, fit people.  We are the things we tell ourselves.  

I wish all of the kids in the inner cities had vege and fruit and good proteins to live on. I want them to be in good health and have a fighting chance at enjoying their adulthood.  I pray that in every way they may succeed and prosper.  The kids are so important. 

Fruit keeps me from feeling sorry for myself.  It's not a little thing. Others may be lining up for the free cake but for me, it ain't worth two hoots. Let's hand out small flats of berries and jerky for the kids. A really good pairing.

Much love.  Felicias. 

[MeadowLily]

Deprivation is the mother of failure. 

[MeadowLily]

[MeadowLily]

There is no glory in rapid weight loss.  Rounds of intermittent fasting which is usually interpreted to mean every day fasting = simply skipping meals each and every day then tanking up during the eating window...round after round of misery for temporary results.

Diets and fasting offer forcing your will by sheer deprivation. You will regain the ones you've "lost" plus add more than a few, rebounding and eating it all back. Deprivation is the mother of failure. 

The key is to make it a pleasant transition and not a sentence at Shawshank. You will end up Shawshanking it to escape your misery. 

Consistency is everything because there is no such thing as the Finish Line. 

The French, Italian, Swiss, Irish, Greeks....are far ahead of us when it comes to figuring food out.  They do not have the obesity rates that the american  Joe and JoJo's do. They don't obsess over micros, macros, mackerels and calories.

They have a natural instinct about energy balance. They know how much to walk or trek every day before they head for the barn to put the feed bag on. Day in and day out, they are consistent.  I've met these peoples.  

Slow and steady for the big WIN.   

When you go through a food addiction recovery program, you learn how to recalibrate yourself.  Dieting cues the brain in a nuttier-than-a-fruitcake fashion. The data is all skewed.

There is lingo that wants to linger long but you have to get rid of it.  All of it.  It's going to take at least a month for every year that you've messed up your cues. That would be dieting for food addiction compensation and failed attempts trying to correct broken metabolisms along with the fruitcake nutty behaviors. 

It took months and now years to recalibrate. That doesn't mean starting over.  I won't do that.  You give steel a different form by melting it down and reshaping it. You have to break yourself down to build yourself back UP again. 

Following through is a badge of honor.  Constant restarting would have turned me into a nutty fruitcake.   

Lightning strikes.  Maybe once.  Maybe twice. 

There are windows of time that happen only once in a lifetime. You have to grab those opportunities and follow through. If you do not, they may never come your way again.

Trying to recapture lost loves or opportunities that slip right through your fingers..there's not a cotton pickin' thing you can do to get them back. All of the looking backwards won't bring them back.

There's ruminating vs. reflecting.  Ruminating can turn into obsession, depression and more suppression.  Reflecting is like Chevy Chase at the Grand Canyon....okay, kids, back in the car and let's goooooo.

 

Ruminating leaves you stuck in the muck and the mire. Frozen in time.

Ruminating is dwelling on your mistakes...over and over and over.  So much so that you can't make a move one way or another. The brain becomes like an underground tunnel system of prairie dogs.   Ruminating keeps you from making a move towards success. All of the talking, over-thinking, over-analyzing and over-researching won't fix it either. 

You have to hit the ground running.  Quit looking backwards over your shoulder before you turn into a pillar of sea salt. 

What you do with food carries over into every area of your life. It is a reflection of what's going on in the brain.  Indecision, too much over-thinking and obsession and fruitcake nuttiness.  Unable to make one move without second guessing yourself until one day, that's all folks.  It's over. Don't wait until the end of your life to get it done.  

She believed she could.  So she did.