Letting go

[honeybera]

[Friday]

So nice to hear from you all! ♥♥ ♥♥ <--------I feel surrounded by love!

My blanket is in the dryer right now (getting warm and cozy) and...MY MATTRESS TOPPER IS ON THE BED! HALLELUJAH! (Or at least I'm hoping "hallelujah", but a night's sleep will tell the tale.) I washed and dried my sheets and pillowcases, too, so if this doesn't work to relieve my back pain, it'll be back to the drawing board for relief.

Today is a big day for me in several ways, but tomorrow will be even bigger! We actually loaded up all the HUGE black garbage bags (36 gallons each - and there's maybe 6 of them) FULL of crushed aluminum cans PLUS our old microwave (our recycler takes "e-waste" we just found out today by calling them), so DEAREST SON OF THEM ALL loaded the whole mess up in the pickup bed! I had gotten up "early" (Noon-ish ), taken my shower, and gotten dressed. By 2:30pm, we hopped into the truck, I turned the key...and NOTHING! The battery had DIED. AARRRGGHHHH! So AAA came out and replaced it (a little over $150) - and DS and I instead went through quite a few tapes, boxed them up for donations, and put together my bed instead of doing what we had planned to do because we ran out of time. The NEW plan is for tomorrow, and we'll do the same (almost) as we had planned for today. But we have to do it by 2pm or leave it until Monday. No big whoop. BUT the Donation Center is open 7 days a week until 4:00pm! So Sat. and Sun. we can do donation runs, no problem! We just keep on truckin'!

I also got the whole shebang from Amazon that I had ordered (besides my mattress topper/down mattress pad): new smaller sized pants for DS whose old pants are falling off of him , a new backpack for his trip to TX for a convention next year (a BIG trip for him!), even his new bed skirt to hide his new under-bed storage. He really likes my new mattress topper, too, and if I don't like it after sleeping on it for some time, he gets it. If I do like it, I'll get him one for his bed, too, or whatever topper he chooses. His attitude has changed so much and I don't mind making him comfy, too. He still needs to clean his room, but he's starting on it and it's a HUGE JOB, as is his bathroom! When it's clean, he asked for and I promised him a new dresser to put his clothes in. (New concept for him. They usually just end up tossed onto the floor and forgotten.) I think something happened that I missed and he's growing up. (YAY! )

And he's working on the stacks and stacks and boxes and boxes of VHS tapes, too. What a time consuming job THAT is!!!!!!!! Some aren't even marked and we have to look at them to see what was taped on them. I was going to toss them all out, but he insisted that we go through each one, and I'm glad we did. We are watching the first 5 min or so (even shorter if it's horrible from the first or the subject written out on it is "definitely donatable"). If we wish to transfer the contents to a DVD, great, and then we'll toss the VHS into the donatables box. Most of the ones I taped were either recipes which I can no longer use (TOSS!) OR some painting shows that I can't get anymore, even on YouTube (SAVE! to put onto a DVD and THEN toss the old VHS). And so it goes.

So yeah, it's slow, but steady...and isn't that what wins the race?? The boxes of tapes should be coming out from beneath my kitchen table in the next few days. Any and all tapes are donations, so can be shuttled down there 7 days a week. Each time the Donation Center gives me a new slip of paper for my taxes. It's just a win-win situation. They get stuff to sell and I get a clean house. N's things are finally easy to let go of, but I ran across some of my old size 3Xs still in their wrappers! NEVER WORN or even taken out of the bag! But today when getting dressed, I accidentally grabbed a 3X and put it on and it BAGGED on me, sagging so badly that my bra was showing a LOT! Unacceptable! I can't wear those blouses anymore. It really kills me to let those brand new, unused blouses go, still in their packages, but it would also be embarrassing to wear them bagging like that and showing my bra! But I will try to be gentle with myself, because I KNOW that eventually the release will come and I'll be able to let go without pain or feelings of loss. I was a 3X for so long...! (Once my auto insurance is paid up for the year next month [I do it all at once so I don't have to pay the interest, however after paying that $7200 for the a/c in Aug., I'm feeling the pinch a bit], I think I'll allow myself to buy some smaller blouses, exactly the same as the other 3X ones, so letting the "too big" ones go will be easier.) I like being kind and gentle with myself these days.

I honestly think that slowly MD's harsh and critical INNER voice inside my head is fading away and my dear grandmother's, which is more kind, gentle, and PATIENT with me, just as I am, is becoming more pronounced. That's a really GOOD thing!!

Happy that you'll be going back to your beloved doctor soon. Relationships help a lot with our care.

Speaking of a kinder, gentler self attitude, one of the things I was going to do today but had to postpone with the dead battery "excitement" will have to wait until Monday: double checking that I've successfully switched health insurance to the way my former doctor's group finds acceptable. I got a letter from my current insurance stating what I've done to switch so far. Once my former doctor's group office girls tell me, "Yes, that's what we wanted.", then I'll breathe easier. And ws, you are RIGHT about relationships helping with our care! Not only did I lose my ability to see this doctor, but my T retired at about the same time and moved 100 miles away. I had been with these two (who knew each other and were equally kind and supportive of me) for about 15 yrs. with each one. It was really difficult for me to suffer such a loss! But now at least I can see my former doctor again. YAY!! I just want to MAKE SURE that I'm doing it the way they want me to.

==========================================(Sat.)

Slept well, but woke up HOT. The problem wasn't my bed (in fact, I slept soundly for 14 hours + minimal MORNING BACKACHE! ), but it seems the a/c has gone out (THE $7200 ONE that was just installed in Aug.!). It was in the mid-to-upper 90s here today, and inside it was WAY over 80 degrees, which I felt immediately and can still feel! I tried to call the a/c company and while finding the number for them, I noticed that my computer had scrambled ALL my desktop icons...again. AARRGGHH!!!

But on the positive side (yes, there's always a bright side ), I found two new "unbelievable fluffy delicious biscuits!" recipes that are keto friendly. (To see what I found, type in "best almond flour biscuits" on Google and follow the trail...) And I can make hamburger buns with the dough for DS and sandwiches for me! YAY!! I get plenty of rich and/or fatty foods on this WOE, but what I really miss are bready things: biscuits and breads and pizza crusts which are usually made with wheat flour and "shortening" like Crisco or margarine to AVOID the (falsely-)dreaded "saturated fat" or any other fat for that matter. The incredible geniuses that are also on this journey with me back from the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) or CrAP diet (Calories as Prime) have come up with using shredded cheeses (mozzarella or cheddar) and almonds (in flour form) instead of wheat flour, soy flour, or other atrocious things that make up "normal" bread including liquid at room temperature oils (corn, canola, soybean, etc). Nearly ALL salad dressings are made with soybean oil (check your labels on your favorites), which is why I make my own mayo/dressings with the healthier olive oil. I need to do this today in fact, but it only takes a minute with my stick blender.

I just found a recipe for cheese + egg yolk PASTA! These cooks are amazing! They come up with some really terrific recipes using only what is considered keto friendly. And if these biscuits are as "unbelievably fluffy" as they are saying, then I say, "YIPPEEE!!" I have EVERYTHING already in my kitchen, so I may just try one of them today to have with my OMAD (One Meal A Day). A nice "fluffy" biscuit with butter next to whatever else I'm eating would be heaven to me. That + my new super soft bed!

I should get to doing something now. I did sleep for 14 hrs. today (while my computer desktop went crazy and my house became unbearably hot). It's 7pm ATM and it's still 85ºF outside right now! UGH! So...start on the front room? Yes, and sort tapes. DS is doing it even when I'm not in there, but I can cut up old Amazon and Chewy dot com boxes and sort the things only I can sort. Off I go, recipes in hand...!

Honeybera

[wolfspirit]

honeybera,
My mom bought the mattress topper for her back and it took a couple of nights until she noticed a difference in the pain, but now she's thrilled with it. Yours is helping right away it sounds.
Glad you were able to just rearrange your organizing plans when the battery died. Resilience!
The "bready" type recipes sound like they're going to be delicious.
Hoping the AC company responds quickly! I understand the misery of heat.

<3
ws

[Fleur]

Hello Honeybera


Fantastic that both you and son need smaller size clothing. You have both worked hard to achieve great results - and yes, i understand there are many other benefits

Hopefully the new battery shall be long lasting. Glad it was fitted in reasonable time - I trust the loaded bags are now safely at the recyclers

Very happy to know your Grandmother's tender voice is getting inside your head

May all work out regarding insurance and your preferred Doctor

Your culinary abilities are expanding all the time. Appreciate your sharing different ideas


Much caring

[honeybera]

Hi there!!

Fantastic that both you and son need smaller size clothing. You have both worked hard to achieve great results - and yes, i understand there are many other benefits

Yes, so true! My progress is slower than DS's, even though we started at about the same weight, but as he says, "It's not a race, Mom. You'll get there." What a blessing of a DS I have! I know I need to REPLACE the brand new clothes in too large a size with ones that I currently fit in (and I will do that soon) before letting the old ones go to the donations place, so it doesn't appear to me to be a sacrifice, but rather more of a "moving on" exercise. I really hate a sense of loss by doing anything too quickly, but I don't see myself stalling, either.

The "bready" type recipes sound like they're going to be delicious.

Mmm! You are so right! In this heat, I'm "doing recipes", mainly today just trying to find a good cheesecake recipe and some keto friendly donuts. I found some chocolate ones with a chocolate glaze on them. I'm copying that recipe! :9 YUM!! I'll let you know on the biscuits. They look too good not to make!...and freeze.

Your culinary abilities are expanding all the time. Appreciate your sharing different ideas

Fleur, have you ever heard of natvia? It's an artificial sweetener in Australia that's made of erythritol and stevia, but if I get some sent here, it's over $25 USD for a one pound bag through Amazon when I can get the same thing here for about half that or less. Just choosing an artificial sweetener can be daunting. I just went through 5 lengthy pages of them just to see if Netrition carried natvia. BTW, they don't.

My mom bought the mattress topper for her back and it took a couple of nights until she noticed a difference in the pain, but now she's thrilled with it. Yours is helping right away it sounds.

Oh, that gives me hope. I've been up and awake for a long time with painful flares in my right upper back and deep lung area, but then I'm fine. If I move a certain way...OUCH! I've been up for so long because I wanted to get ahold of the a/c guy and thought they opened at 8am. I didn't want to get sound asleep only to have them return my call and wake me up, so I decided to just stay awake. BUT I was wrong. They aren't even open on Sunday at all, and it's 91 here today! At about 2pm I was fading, so I had a cuppa coffee and now it's nearly 5:30pm and I'm about to put the fan in the window and let my room cool down after sunset. This is so miserable! I thought I was past this, but I'm sitting here in front of the big fan I'd put away, believing that it was a useless thing of the past. And my house is HOT inside! AGAIN.

Hoping the AC company responds quickly! I understand the misery of heat.

Well, he did. I finally got a call from him at about 2pm that he'll be coming back out TOMORROW between 2-4pm. He's out of town today. He was very reassuring that he'll make it work again, that he's either sending another employee to fix it or himself, but that he's FOR SURE going to do a walk-though before the week is up. Fine by me! Just get that sweet cool air going again for me, that's all I care!

Glad you were able to just rearrange your organizing plans when the battery died. Resilience!

Well, resilience or perhaps just plain old "retirement" and no big rush or push for what can be done tomorrow...or Monday or Tues. or whatever. What a treat!

Hopefully the new battery shall be long lasting. Glad it was fitted in reasonable time - I trust the loaded bags are now safely at the recyclers

Well...no. The NEW battery has a 3 yr. replacement warranty on it. Hopefully I'll never have to use it. That OLD battery was OLD. It was the timing that was so frustrating, but all is well now, and all our chores will get done eventually. We have errands galore tomorrow. I need to get some serious sleep tonight. I may have to do them by myself, at least some of them, but they're easy to do and I'm up to it. Today (mainly to kill time) I figured out how to replace my air filter in the french door fridge - and even ordered the parts to do so! The light's been on all week to change it, but neither DS nor I knew how to do that. It's pretty easy, and the filters will be here at the end of the month. YAY ME!! I do need DS to go to the recyclers with me though. And the bank.

Very happy to know your Grandmother's tender voice is getting inside your head

So am I!!! MD can be very grating to the soul. It's funny, too, that I don't picture her as she is now, but rather the monster that hurt me all my life...for that is how she presented herself to me: all powerful, cruel, merciless, dominant. And I complain about her with her unrealistic movie-related fantasies! I do it myself with my own inner critic, picturing her still as a mean 17 yr. old bully with absolute power over me. In reality, she is a withered and miserably unhappy cripple in a wheelchair longing for a crumb of affection to be thrown to her by my brother, and the crumbs are few and far between. I would have been happy to give her some attention, but I dare not go near her. I know that someday she will be gone...and I mean GONE! I'll no longer have the ability to hash over our troubled history anymore with her, not even the good parts of it, because I KNOW that if I tried to bury the hatchet with her that I'd find that hatchet planted directly in my forehead. It's just her way...so sadly.

But I hear her less and less, even as she nears her end. And I hear my grandmother's voice in my noggin instead, bringing me love and peace and all the support she could give. Even she tried to give it to MD, too, in her youth as she grew up, but they didn't get MD until she was 5 or 6 and only had her for 10 yrs. after her adoption before she married my father at 16 (right after WWII) and began to strive to be the PERFECT 1940s HOUSEWIFE and had me the next year, one of the first baby boomers! I was DOOMED to a dysfunctional life from the first! Thank God for my grandmother!!! I hope that my grandmother knew how much I loved her and how much of an influence she had on me. I miss her and my dear grandfather so much. He was a fine man, and he protected me to the best of his ability. And that is the role of a true and good man: to protect and to love. Such great people! How lucky I was to have had them as my grandparents.

May all work out regarding insurance and your preferred Doctor

I'm going to take that letter in tomorrow...or Tues. I'd hate to miss the a/c guy! But I'll get it in there eventually. And thank you for all the positive thoughts. They really help!

I'm so tired right now that I'm having a hard time typing. I'm going to turn in now. I think that once my body hits that nice soft bed, I'm OUT! ZZzzz!! Oh yeah, DS helped me put my OLD sheet on the new and now higher bed and it only goes half way down and allows the new memory foam pad to slip around, so I ordered a new dark navy flannel sheet (24" deep pockets!) today. I'm looking forward to it coming at the end of the month!

Oh...BIG YAWN there!! Ok...

TTFN

Honeybera

[wolfspirit]

Has your pain gotten any better, honeybera?

[Ashia]

Hi honeybera

I hope the pain you've been feeling continues to subside. Have you managed to get more sleep? In my experience, being tired seems to increase pain levels.

With caring
Ashia

[honeybera]

Written on Tuesday...

Has your pain gotten any better, honeybera?

You must be psychic! I had the worst attack ever just last night at about 5pm or so. Woke me up out of a sound sleep screaming (and I don't scream) due to stabbing back pain. Then my foot hit the floor to get out of bed and I realized that my gout was back, too, making it so I could not walk either. But DS got me my heating pad and it really helped my back, and I took. Even aspirin would not touch the intensity of my pain and it hurt to even breathe a deep breath. I don't know what this is in my right lung or why it's hurting, but I was finally able to get back into bed (the pain was less sitting in my computer chair) and get comfy (enough to go to sleep anyway by taking some melatonin and laying on my heating pad which seems to help) and by 3am the pain was beginning to subside. I would really like to KNOW what this is, but my current doctor "diagnosed" it this month as a simple sprain in my latissimus dorsi muscle (back) from gardening, even after I told him that that could not be. I don't get rowdy enough out there to injure myself. Also, a few days after my last visit, my gout flared up again (as you guys know) and I called the office and asked for a walker to use due to the overwhelming mobility-compromising pain in my foot. They never even called back, much less ordered the walker. I'm pretty much through with these folks. I have to continue going there until the last day of this year, but that's it!

I did call my former doctor's office one last time and asked them if my NEW insurance would be sufficient for me to come back to them. They assured me that it was the exact one that they accept. I AM THRILLED!!!!!!!! So my next doctor's appt. with my former doctor (God willing!) is set for Jan. 3rd unless I have some sort of emergency in the meantime. I doubt that I will. I'm sure going to try to make that wellness until then happen. If I didn't run to the emergency room last night with that wrenching pain and instead opted for staying in my own home where I am SO much more in my own element/comfort, I'm sure not going in on a whim.

The A/C guy came out on Monday. He spent 3 FULL hours correcting the mistakes of the guys who installed my new a/c in Aug., but the a/c is back on at least. I'm very grateful since it's 96ºF today and supposed to be even hotter tomorrow due to an Indian Summer heat wave. I just brought old Ms. T into my room where it's a comfortable 76ºF. She was panting outside, but is now snoozing happily on the rug in my room, nice and cool.

====================================(Wed. night/Thursday early am)

Ohhh, I am SO glad to have you guys to write to! I am realizing just how much MD scarred me - in my self image, in my belief in myself, and in my ability to make simple decisions without the nagging self doubt!!! She not only did a LOT of physical abuse to me (like a big sister only 17 yrs. my senior and without ANY supervision or guidance for her), but her mean and vicious ways of mentally sabotaging a baby, a toddler, a school girl, a teenager, and then an emotionally savaged adult really did some long term damage to me and my psyche. I was just trying to buy some blouses (on SUPER sale right now!) and some shorts on clearance. Now the decision: what to buy, what size to buy them in, even what colors to buy, like what would match with what? THESE PIECES OF CLOTHING ARE MY "UNIFORM" that I wear constantly whenever I leave my house to go somewhere: the same exact top, but in all different colors (and now sizes due to my successful and ongoing weight loss) and shorts (like Bermuda shorts to match whatever top)...and they're all on sale now. OY!!. I wear Crocs on my feet and underwear and that is me. Muumuus at home, but I can still wear those baggy things, but my old 3Xs just fall off my shoulders and show my bra!

BUT before I "donate" my old "uniforms" that I need to throw out and LET GO OF (for they are acceptable tops and no one screams and points at me as if I am a freak, so they represent "safety" in dress), I felt that I needed a COUPLE of tops in my current size and one size smaller, and there they were in this month's catalog that they send me ALL THE TIME - ON SALE! So I thought to myself, "What an opportunity! Get a couple of blouses in each size, different colors, and there you go!"...except when I went to purchase them, I could NOT "decide"! And I began to realize just how much that bitch has gotten into my head AND how desperately I NEED to REALLY LET HER GO, TOO!!

She will be dead soon(ish). She is 89 ATM. Her bio-mom lived to be 93. I REALLY want to outlive her! I find that I still can't even pick out a friggin' blouse and a pair of shorts without hearing her harping voice and feeling showers of slaps and slugs pelting me, enough to put bruises all over my body, and screaming at me just how lame, stupid, and ugly I am and how no choice that I make will be the right one!!! I KNOW that it's my Inner Critic (aka MD!) still berating me, shaming me, and expecting nothing less than PERFECTION in every way!

I am so grateful that I have this place to go to and VENT. To EXPLAIN myself without fear of ridicule! And to HEAL! It's 5am now. I've already taken my shower and slipped on a muumuu. In an hour or so, I think I'll get dressed and run to the store for more cauliflower and more avocados and some pork cutlets @ $1.28/lb. (my FAV!) AND some nice fresh apples for any possible liver or gallbladder trouble. This diet is really simple.

===============================(Friday early)

Hi again! NO PAIN TODAY!!! I mean NONE! So lots of things to do today!! I've already cut up, bagged, and put away all the 5 cauliflowers DS bought for me on sale yesterday - I riced some and left others as the flowerettes (like for Faux-tato Salad or mashed cauliflower or even cream soup). So much easier to grab in case the pain comes back. I also made some YUMMY Cream of Broccoli soup yesterday AND some almond flour biscuits (3 net carbs each) and did they ever turn out GOOD! And there's only ONE Peanut Butter cookie left, so I'm making more cookies today except that I'm making Almond-Ricotta cookies. We'll see how they turn out.

Even DS is getting interested in all this cooking, and he had me get him some nori, mirin, and Spam so he could make some Spam musubi, a Hawaiian specialty that we can convert to keto. We'll use a cauliflower rice-cream cheese combo for the base, and for the basting sauce for the Spam the mirin is sugar free and we can sweeten it with our favorite sugar free sweetener. We can have anything! DS has lost another 10+ lbs. He was 275 and is now down to 209! I'm so proud of him.

====================================(Sat. night)

ashia: I hope the pain you've been feeling continues to subside. Have you managed to get more sleep? In my experience, being tired seems to increase pain levels.

Went to sleep at 9pm last night and woke up at 12:30pm today! Got up at about 3am, took a shower, and then back to bed for the most comfortable, peaceful sleep I've had in the longest time! Now it's around 10pm and I'm ready for bed again. I just hope I'm not getting depressed.

DS is working tonight. Dogs are in the house with me, but I'll toss them out shortly to guard the yard. I'm just really relaxed and tired. No pain again, even sleeping on my left side (which is normal for me but that I could not do when the pain was bad). I am grateful for the relief!!

{{{{{{{{ALL OF YOU!!}}}}}}}

Honeybera

[Fleur]

Hello Honeybera


Reading your latest post, I felt my heart contract as tears came - she really did a magnificent job of robbing you of the opportunity to make decisions, be a responsible adult who knows exactly what you want, didn't she?

Oh my. So ... I hope you can "talk" with your Grandma to choose most suitable colours, styles

Really wonderful to know your air conditioner has been repaired and I trust will now give you many years of service

I am bothered with pains that come and go - very annoying, to say least. I am relieved you were in no pain when you added to your writing. Your son seems to have a good sense around knowing what might help - and a willingness to assist

Well done for all your food preparation. May the new batch of biscuits/cookies be just as delicious as other recipes

Wishing you all pleasant evenings/days as the Indian Summer returns


Much caring

[wolfspirit]

honeybera,
I'm so happy to read that your pain was gone on Friday! Kudos for using that time to do the food prep and keep yourself doing what you want to. Also very relieved that you are getting better sleep. It's soooo important.
It is becoming cooler up here but still hits the high 80s during the day. My doggies stay in my office/sun room area though. They like to be outside in the sun for a little while.
And finally! The wildfire smoke is gone (for now).

I understand the incessant inner critic formed from our abusing parents. Always there! Some days its louder and some days its only briefly there for me.

Did you ever make it to the donation place? I think the battery died and then you were in too much pain...
Just thinking about your cleaning and organizing projects.

take care <3

ws

[honeybera]

I am so grateful for all of you and this healing site!! Grateful beyond belief! I'd like to answer each thing you have written to me. It may take me a while...you know how I do.

Today is Tuesday 10/2. I have arranged for an electrician to come out today and install our RING doorbell and floodlights/cameras security system. It will alert me on my iPhone IF anyone is outside at my front door or by my car/pickup. YAY! (Thieves even stole my trailer hitch recently and they've broken into my car and garage multiple times!!) Those floodlights and camera and alarm should chase them away! And if not, the video should help the police and/or make it less attractive to the thieves - all that light on their nastiness.

I'm also getting ALL the outlets either repaired (half the kitchen, my bathroom, and all of the outlets outdoors) or the ones that are in my room and bathroom expanded. This will enable me to mount my new Dyson cordless right in my closet where it can charge and be ready for a quick vacuum. I LOVE that vacuum!! It's helping me to clean up my home. All carpeted floors have been happily and quickly vacuumed ATM. It's easy to use even now and super easy to empty, but once in its home in my walk-in closet (along with all attachments already on an adjacent shelf), it will be all charged up and ready to go all the time, helping me keep clean what I've made clean. Plus it makes my closet a sort of "hidden room" once I get a dead bolt put on there.

==========================(Friday late evening)

The electrician never came nor did he give me a call. I finally called him and he said he was "tied up" ATM on a job and could he instead come out the next morning? Well, DS would be sleeping then (since he had to work graveyard that night), so I asked the fellow if he would come over either today or Sat. or even next week. He never called or texted me back. Good grief!!

It's been a frustrating week, but DS and I are getting along better than ever, so that's a plus. I found a new "keto guru" online while digging for new recipes. She calls herself Dr. Boz and she's wonderful! She's new to the keto scene, but she makes this WOE understandable in short 5-10 min. YouTube videos. After the last 10 months of this WOE, I'm not getting the results I had been and am even slowly gaining again. What frustrates me is that I'm NOT CHEATING at all...except...my fasting is sort of sloppy lately. I had to be honest with myself. I was more on a daily 14-20 hr. fast, more 14 than 20 often. I believe that for me, at my age and health status, I am going to have to do MUCH better than that to turn this boat around, like one meal a day (OMAD)! I really was circling the drain, so to speak, with heart failure, diabetes, arthritis (including the gouty arthritis), the whole shebang, and now I was getting fairly loosey-goosey with my fasting. That's not a good combination. It's especially hard b/c DS has already lost 70+ lbs. since last January. I am proud as punch for him, but I'm even more strict on our WOE than he is. I'm going to have to just fast a bit longer than him to get comparable results.

The frustrating part is that if I'm past all hope and there's nothing that will give me back my health like it does for everybody else, what else can I do?? There is nowhere to go from here. I look at my poor Baby Boomer body, ravaged by years of dieting, losing and gaining back just a bit more, over and over with low fat/fat free foods and whole grains, fighting a losing battle (no pun intended) where the average success rate is 2% or less, and if this WOE doesn't work anymore for me, I am in serious trouble. I know that fasting is not starving. In fact, it's rather easy to do on keto. I pray that I begin to lose again.

Dr. Boz gave a dandy tip for extending fasting without hunger: I take a bit of Himalayan Pink Salt on my fingertip and put it on the tip of my tongue whenever I feel like eating something and then wait 10 min. It actually WORKS! She's pulling all the science of this WOE together for me in simple terms, like how autophagy works and why. This is really new stuff! A Japanese scientist won the Nobel prize for this understanding in only 2016!

But then I have to ask myself: WHY can't I get my blood sugars (glucose) down to something manageable?? I'm still up at 140-160+!! I even began taking metformin again twice a day instead of once a day. The result? When I woke up it was 147. One hour AFTER TAKING THE METFORMIN, it was 167. Good grief!! And I eat NO SUGAR and I was fasting both times. So where is the blood glucose coming from? Gluconeogenisis??? Is my liver functioning again? Is that why the side/back pain?

My current doctor says I have pleurisy. I have no infection. At least he said he heard nothing. But he gave me a prescription for antibiotics anyway. What a pill pusher he is. Last time I saw him he asked me if I wanted a cortisol shot. I declined, and then he said, "Good. You didn't need one anyway." WHAT????!! I'll be glad to be shed of him and his staff! They have no clue as to how to even take a proper blood pressure reading with a wrist cuff. My reading was 190/120!! I came home, relaxed, and took it again with my own cuff: 120/59. MUCH BETTER! His nurse irks me to no end. But after the first of the year, I'll be back to my former doctor (and friend). Such a relief!

Also a big kerfuffle in Washington DC. I've been watching closely, and tomorrow morning the Senate is going to vote on a candidate judge for the Supreme Court. It's been very dirty politics all around. Should be interesting how it comes out. I know it will be super close.

My wrist has been bothering me since last night. More gout possibly, but in my wrist this time? Who knows? I hope it will be gone by tomorrow so I can get more work done. I put in my order for spices - second order for me. Nice fresh spices for my cooking should a really nice thing. I got new chili powder and cinnamon, in fact, I got TWO kinds of cinnamon. I got all kinds of exotic spices. I can't wait until they get here. I just need to make sure that I have something to eat for my OMAD. Needs to be all at once, not piddling around over hours and hours of time, a meat dish here, a salad there, some cooked veggies a couple of hours after that...I think that's why this is slowing for me and then reversing. And I need to move more. We'll see how it goes. I may get a wrist brace if this pain doesn't stop.

Off to bed now. Gotta get my beauty rest!

Honeybera