Letting go

[honeybera]

Hey Fleur!

I really like my T so far, but I have a ways to go to catch her up on who I am so we can begin working on some issues.

Unfortunately, the Jason Fung Fan Club was disappointing to me. It has over 44,000 fans already...and I just can't stand Facebook; it's so intrusive! Instead of just jumping in, I felt a real sense of violation (or possible violation), so I erased everything about me on my own fb page. UGH. I need to ponder over how I'm really feeling about things now. Life feels to me like something that flows...and once it's gone by, it's gone. Lots of people that I once worked with for many years now hold no interest for me anymore. I know that that sounds awful, but I just can't relate to them anymore. I can't stand crowds or crowded places, either, and the fb Fan Club just didn't feel right. I'd never make it in NYC. But driving the bus was only done b/c I needed it to survive and make a living for my family, and not for the comradery. I was good at it, but it was just a job...only now it allows me to live well until the end of my life due to my pension. Nice. And a good way to have spent my life. A lot better than continuing on welfare and being dependent.

This attitude actually surprised even me. But there it was. All I wanted to do was quietly watch Butter Bob Briggs on his YouTube keto videos or see the guy on BeALoser on YouTube (also about keto/IF) - those give me comfort. They seem both inspirational and safe. Oh, and the first thing that I saw on that fb page today was that several of the people in this "Fan Club" also knew and were fb friends with N! Of all people! So yeah, it's not for me. I do like my T, so I guess that's a step in the right direction...for now. I have a new appointment for next Wed. Nice.

This experience has really gotten me to do some honest thinking about how I really feel about being social and being friends with people. I am rather shy, I guess. Nothing wrong with being shy. And lately I am able to go out of my house somewhat more easily, even traveling the 45 min. over to cousin R's home on Halloween or to the grocery store. As soon as the recyclers are open this morning (and DS is up - he'll go with me now that he's feeling better, but NO lifting for him yet), I'm taking the pickup over there and dropping this load off (alum. cans, our old microwave, some scrap metal + some elec. waste - all for CA$H...and DS gets it). Then I'll come home and start loading up boxes of tapes and old clothing for donations (and the tax deduction). At least one trip today. My new gas double oven stove comes on Tues. - they deliver it and hook it up and take the old one away. PERFECT! DS and I are going to pull out the old one on Monday (temporarily) so I can clean out behind it. I've not done that in nearly 18 YEARS.

We have decided to let Ms. T sleep in the garage now that it's so cold out there, but are closing the outside door, too, since she continues to get tangled in the whippy weeds until it chokes her (poor thing!) PLUS I will move the dog feeding area from my bathroom to the hobby room (next to the garage door into the house) as the prep area and ALL dog feeding will take place in the garage. The entire house is finally taking shape. YAY!! I also went to the store BY MYSELF the other day (in fact two days in a row to two different stores!!) and bought all kinds of cleaning supplies (including new brooms and a new mop). The old ones will go out to the garage to clean that mess up. I'm already working on the garage...AND the front room AND the kitchen AND the living room. I never find myself wondering if there's anything I can do to entertain myself!! I have plenty to do!! But it's really looking MUCH better now...and more improvement is on the way!

Oh, and the new a/c-heating unit is working great! Nights here have been down in the 30s, and once we tweaked the new heater to the right temp, it's working GREAT! We haven't had an actual heater in this house in several years. I used my "faux fireplace" instead, but now only have the fake flames going for show (with NO HEAT from that) and all is SO COMFORTABLE! I am also still tickled pink with my Dyson vacuum, too, now that it's up on the wall in my closet; every time I hang it up, it automatically recharges!! WOW! The electrician did that for me! SO NICE!!

I am so blessed! I think of all those people who have suddenly lost their homes in our HUGE forest fires right now and I feel so bad for all of them. One entire town was burnt to the ground...the WHOLE TOWN. And the town was called Paradise. Not any more. So I try to appreciate that which I do have, not to be smug, but to be grateful. The entire sky outside is a dull gray this morning with the acrid smoke from those fires. It reminds me of just how lucky I am.

I need to get a wiggle on. Shower and dress for the day and get out to the pickup truck. And then the donations. And then cut up some boxes. Always something to do.

You're all so dear to me! ♥♥♥

Honeybera

[Fleur]

Hello Honeybera


Really happy for your realisations of who you are, what you want, how you'll go about getting your home and garage in order

Glad your son feels much improved

Dogs will become accustomed to latest regime

Smoky skies are unpleasant but - as you mentioned - not threatening. Feel sad about whole town razed; also individual homes being burnt


Much caring

[honeybera]

G'day, Fleur!

Glad your son feels much improved

Thanks, Fleur! He just got back from his doctor and got a clean bill of health! Apparently, there was no hernia or strain or anything else and why there was pain is still a mystery. But he is feeling better and for that I am grateful. DS and I are very important to one another and that is a blessing.

BTW, his doctor warned him to "not lose too much weight"! He's lost a whopping 80 lbs. so far! YAY! He's gone from a snug size 40 sized jeans down to a loose 36 (so far), from a 3x down to a 1x shirt, and he's doing well. So so so happy for him! This WOE really works.

I am not having the same results however (YET!), but I was MUCH more "far gone" than he was AND I'm much older, too...so I've been reading and watching my YouTube videos to figure out the WHY (including insulin resistance, T2D, insulin levels, and so on), and what I've come up with is this: I need to do MORE days (yes, DAYS!) of intermittent fasting to turn this around for myself. Plain and simple. But I've been doing the exact opposite of this, especially in the past several days. I'm EATING every 12 hours (exceptionally not good for someone like me) due to the fact that I get the munchies just before sleeping. I just watched a YouTube video from Gary Taubes in Houston (2018) which stated:

Key Points of Fat Cell Regulation
*When insulin is secreted or chronically elevated, fat accumulates in the fat tissue.
*When insulin levels drop, fat escapes from the fat tissue and the fat depots shrink.
*We secrete insulin primarily in response to the carbohydrates in our diet.
"Carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat." - George Cahill, 2005

Taubes had just finished explaining in great detail HOW we began to equate the old "calories in = calories out" theory (circa 1860 - YES! 1860!) AND said how recently the current "insulin" theory had emerged. (It was developed around about 100 yrs. ago, but has recently re-emerged and been embraced by scientists and many in the medical field.) I had tried the first Atkins diet when I lived out behind my dear grandparent's house in 1974 (and yes, in the little cottage out in the back where MD had so savagely abused me earlier in my life). I heard that ketones were hazardous to one's health and were to be feared and the Atkin's diet was from a crackpot and a quack, so I abandoned it (as did so many others)...until 2007 when at my mandatory bi-annual workplace physical, sugar was found in my urine, which threatened my job. I've been "low carb" ever since, but only on keto since Nov. of last year. KETOACIDOSIS IS TERRIBLE AND CAN BE LIFE THREATENING, but ketone bodies are NOT! But it was a new word to me, and all these doctors must know something, right?

I was also among the populace who were told (mostly funded by BIG pharma and BIG AG folks who had a lot of $$$$ to lose if I went the other way) that low fat/high carbs/high grain diets were beneficial and that FAT WAS BAD. "Salads are good. Bread is good. (Eventually they added: as long as it's Whole Wheat.) Canola/corn/soybean oil is good!" They put high fructose corn syrup (especially soda pop) and trans fat (until they were forced to stop) in all of our food, along with sugars with odd names we could not pronounce or understand. All of this is still being done. Don't believe me? Check your pancake syrup. Check your salad dressing. It's why I make my OWN mayonnaise! (And it's darned tasty, too! And easy to make!) And did you know that...never mind. I'm getting off the track here. Sorry. We who understand the TRUE physiology behind the obesity epidemic tend to get rather evangelistic about it.

So...WITH the knowledge that I have now re: the painful truth behind WHY I followed the old way of thinking (Cal IN = Cal OUT) vs low carb/keto WOE, I had to question WHY my DS is losing so nicely and regularly and I am NOT? He is doing a more Carnivore Diet (all meat + nuts + high fat, heavy whipping cream) while I am eating a STRICT ketogenic one (I include veggies). I should be losing as much weight as he is, but I'm NOT. I know the answer...for someone as close to death as I was, I am in need of longer periods of intermittent fasting (Dr. Jason Fung), but I find it more difficult when I get the "munchies" late at night. During these "late night munchies", I now realize that only a few hours before I have just had a mediocre/small meal of quite a few veggies (with a BIG salad or just some cut and steamed fresh veggies with lots of butter so they're filling or my mayo + some Walden's ZERO carb salad dressing mixed in with my avocado/tomato/onion/cheese/lettuce etc. salad = lots of carbs, but all allowed veggies) + a small piece of protein of some sort (4-6oz) or bacon and eggs. Yummy, but not too filling.

My conclusion: NOT ENOUGH FAT + MORE Fasting. So let's see where I go with this. I know that my Bulletproof coffee is just really a Fat Bomb (which is highly encouraged on this high fat WOE). It's made up of the following (and is absolutely delicious!): 1 scant T. Folger's instant coffee, 1 dropper Chocolate Hazelnut LorAnn oil (for flavoring only, no sugar/sweetener in it), 2 droppers Cream Cheese Icing LorAnn oil (SF, flavoring only), 1 good shake Vietnamese Cinnamon, 1 T. (or more) butter, 1T. MCT oil, 2 pumps DaVinci German Chocolate Cake syrup (SF), 1 pump DaVinci Caramel, ½ c. HWC (only 400 calories in a ½ c.!), a bit of filtered water, and then into the microwave with it for 2 min. Simply the aroma coming from this heated cuppa is just wonderful! And we have all of the ingredients handily staged for the making of it. PLUS IT'S ALL ZERO CARBS! NOT CALORIE FREE (by any stretch of the imagination!!), but it is HIGH FAT and ZERO CARB - AS WELL AS FILLING. I know that many folks use a method of fasting called Bulletproof Coffee fasting. And I know that this witch's brew of a Bulletproof Coffee is so delicious that I could literally only "eat" this for quite a while. It will NOT raise my insulin (in fact, it should lower it instead), hence I should begin to lose weight. My goal is a 3 day fast to begin. Fingers crossed that this works!! It would be a GREAT way to take off the pounds and save my life.

(BTW, one fellow lost over 200 lbs. this way, that is, by fasting for several days at a time. So did Butter Bob Briggs (154 lbs). So it's worth a shot - and I KNOW that I can do this just by keeping busy and having a cuppa whenever I "feel REALLY hungry".)

Dogs will become accustomed to latest regime

I sure hope so! Last night ancient old Ms. T went missing - on a night that was in the mid 30s! SO COLD for here and all my dogs have a very short and light coat! I took a flashlight and searched the entire backyard and found NOTHING! I looked everywhere for her, including the garage (which stays in the 50s). No T. DS was working and I was here all alone. (DS usually does the "hunt for T" trick, but that task was in my lap last night.) In tears, I had finally given up after 3 trips through the yard calling out her name and several times out in the garage. She's so old and addled that she no longer will come to my call - she also no longer barks or anything and barely seems to acknowledge our existence, but she is our old girl, always has been and always will be. Best dog in the world and I love her so!

I sat down guiltily in my nice warm room and suddenly heard the familiar thump against my bedroom wall. It was T stumbling up against it. Where she had been I know not, but she could not stand and I had to get a broom and sort of push her towards me so I could bend down and rescue her. Her poor feet were like ICE! I carried her inside and placed those cold feet in my hand and let her lay on my lap until she warmed up as I watched TV. It took about an hour before she was no longer shivering. Then I warmed her dog food (her favorite one) and placed her back into her bed in the garage. We may need to do this scenario all over again tonight, but at least DS is home this time! She's been such a good dog to us. We owe her this much. ♥♥

Smoky skies are unpleasant but - as you mentioned - not threatening. Feel sad about whole town razed; also individual homes being burnt

I wonder if the news of our fires have reached Australia yet. It's the worst fire (lives and properties lost) in our state's history. But the smoky skies from it are a health threat to many, too. I can smell the smoke in the air as can the entire center part of the state. Just a horrible loss! Plus at this time of year it's normally foggy, too, so when you combine smoke and fog, you get smog, HEAVY smog, smog that you can't see through, and it lingers at ground level! So I am very glad to be retired, I can assure you! Staying inside in my room is making perfect sense at the moment!

Really happy for your realisations of who you are, what you want, how you'll go about getting your home and garage in order

I am, too, and thank you for that comment. It's taken my many years to even get this far. I (WITHOUT GUILT!) postponed my deliver date for the stove by one more week (next Tues - they only deliver on Tues/Thurs - and this Thurs. I have a doctor's appt.). We just aren't quite ready yet...YET! But no worries for next week. No matter what! Tonight was the night to pull out the stove and clean behind it. Today was when I was to take all the recyclables to the recyclers, but that did not happen since I slept through the entire daylight hours and now they're closed.

TOMORROW (when the stove was to be delivered) is now out of the question BECAUSE there is no space to bring it through the front room. It's full of donatable items, boxes of old VHS tapes that DS wanted to "go through" and make sure that we wouldn't be throwing out something valuable. I was in favor of just counting them (tax purposes), re-boxing them, and hauling them away. Sorting through them so lovingly just piques my old sentimentality and urge to keep more of them than I actually need. DS is a MAJOR hoarder and I am a recovering one, truth be told. BUT they are my tapes and if son does not begin to help sort them out again (and SOON!), all are going out the door! I also have many BIG boxes of sorted clothing ready to go to the donation center, too! But my pickup is full of recyclables and I need them to take it out of my truck bed first so that I can reload my truck and THEN go to the donation center with a full load of donations. And THEN my front room will HAVE more room to maneuver in to sort and get rid of even MORE junk...AND AND AND get my new stove delivered!!

...breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on THE FIRST ONE!

Bless you, Mark Twain!!! It is NOW 8:45PM. At midnight, I am taking a Sleep Aid and going back to sleep. I've only been up for 4 hours, but I REALLY need to get back to sleep so I can begin to DO these tasks that I have already staged for myself first thing in the morning...so I can get my gorgeous BRAND NEW STOVE with the double ovens (that even matches my new microwave) installed in my home! I've been piddling around with this for 5 months now! Enough is enough!

Right now, before bed, I have several cases of dog food to set up and move.

===================================================(Tuesday evening)

Got to sleep around 1am. Not bad for me. But was awakened by INTENSE pain from a parotid gland (salivary) that has swollen up to the size of a large walnut. OW! It's right below my left ear and hits right where the pillow does, causing terrible pain. I just called the doctor and he's prescribed some antibiotic for me...thank heavens! DS will go pick it up at the Walgreens for me. I've been fasting for about 36 hours now, am still not hungry, but I may eat before this is over.

One REALLY good thing though: we made the trip to the recycler as planned! Tomorrow I can reload the pickup with donations and drive over there. It's really close to my house. I also got some chicken legs AND feet (no kidding!) so I can make some nice rich chicken broth in my Instant Pot to eat with meals. The chicken feet not only add that wonderful gelatinous texture to the broth, but for a mere 38¢/lb. for the chicken leg quarters, it's cheaper than dog food and better for my little ladies to boot. I have a feeling they'll be eating very well and loving it, especially Ms. T!

As I watched my videos today I realized that I may have been eating too many carbs lately. Perhaps that's why I've stalled. I can still have meats, fish, poultry, and eggs, but I "should" only have 2 cups of raw veggies and 1 cup of cooked. I've been eating WAY more than that. This guy even says to "reduce the fat intake", but when my macros (the percentage of fat, protein, and carbs I ingest) is at a 70% ratio of pure fat, how can I cut out mayo, avocado, cheese, and butter?? I am trying to increase my intermittent fasting to DAYS rather than hours, at least for a little while. I was amazed at how easy it was to do, especially since without cooking I have NO CLEANUP or mess! I also save on food costs. I do think I'll "break my fast" at 8pm tonight. Monday @6am-Tuesday @8pm. Wow! That's 38 hr. fast! YAY for me! And once I eat, I'll begin a new fast. Outside of this painful "walnut" on the side of my head, I feel great! And according to the doctor, this too shall pass.

Tonight I'll have a couple of chicken thighs baked with lemon-pepper and garlic seasonings, a dish of a half a zucchini (approx. 1 cup, buttered naturally) rather than a whole one, and an avocado/marinated artichoke hearts/tomato/lettuce/cheese/mayo salad (a quickie - and no more than 2 cups) and a muffin (almond flavored with nuts and SF choc. chunks for "dessert"), take my meds, and get plenty of rest tonight. That actually sounds pleasant!

DS is here with my meds and dinner's ready!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I saw my new T tonight. She asked me if I liked to write... Uh...yeah. I do.

I told her that I have 95 pages on this thread alone already. Wow. Do I like to write? Yep. Definitely!

I also explained that venting and describing my abuse on isurvive.org puts the once-secret on plain display in a permanent website and that somehow that feels satisfying and assuages some of the lingering anger and hurt that that abusive treatment caused me. It really does help me to write it out and at least attempt to let it go. She gave me some good ideas re: that pesky little Inner Critic and how that contributes to my resistance to "letting go" of the mess that is my home. MD was a meticulous housekeeper and it gave her pride in herself and self worth...in fact, to the point of making others feel uncomfortable. Even my father! If he set down his coffee on the table to read the paper and then reached for his coffee to take a drink, he found his cuppa gone, dumped, cleaned, dried, and put away in the cupboard already!! And shoes were to be removed at the front door...ALWAYS! I, however, have a saying:

I like my house to be clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy.

That really makes sense to me, and I'd like to work with my new T on this in the coming weeks.

DS went along with me and I was glad that he did. Although he came home and did not do one lick of work more, but rather sat at his computer playing his videogames, he did admit (and quite freely) that my room was clean and that I was working hard to clean up the rest of the house and that he really needed to clean up his room, too. At least he is paying attention...I guess. He also saw the need to make his own appt. with his own T that just happens to work with mine. So good thoughts that he'll act on both issues.

I came home and did some straightening and organizing work in both the kitchen, front room, and hobby room. FIRST THING TOMORROW (or maybe just stay up the hour and a half until dawn and then get to it ): TIME TO TAKE IN THE DONATIONS! (First trip anyway.) All current recyclables have been turned in and the pickup bed is empty!! Now it's time to be clearing out the front room of box after box of old VHS tapes (and also two huge boxes of donatable clothing). Today I spoke with DS about either going through those VHS tapes (a tax write-off if given to the donation center - and there are HUNDREDS of them!) or just donating ALL OF THEM without "going through them" one by one...which takes TIME. I only want a few (maybe! ) of old cooking shows that I can't get on YouTube. Most I could probably make into keto recipes (almond flour instead of wheat flour, etc.), but if I never saw them again (considering that I haven't seen them in like 18 or so YEARS!!), I could live with that.

I have lots of EMPTY cardboard boxes piled high and suitable for putting all these VHS tapes into, count them, and tote them to the donation center! I don't know which tapes DS wants and which hold no meaning for either of us...but my patience is running thin lately. We can't keep procrastinating! But tomorrow (today really - it's almost 5am!), if I have to, I CAN LOAD THAT PICKUP using my hand truck to tote the boxes out to the truck, load them up, and take them away! Heck, I used to do that for a living!! (Once upon a time....before the bus driving.)

AND last night, I fetched my 5 gallon bucket out of the garage and put it in my DEEP "laundry sink" in the hobby room and moved a bunch of junk (old grocery store bags, gallons of fish emulsion, etc.) out from by the side of the french door fridge. Now the floor needs mopping (I just bought a new mop for just that purpose) and then I'm making that my new station from which to prepare my dog's meals (instead of my bathroom). I have my new can opener the hobby room (for the cans of dog food) and a garbage can, too. The stacked cases of dog food will finally have a proper home (the dog's meds are there already) and the hobby room is right next to the garage, so I can feed T easily. The entire hobby room is about 20' long and 6' wide with a long Formica sideboard and kitchen style cabinets and drawers the length of the room and that wonderful deep sink. So once I get it all organized (and I'm getting close to doing that), that room will serve as my dog feeding area, laundry room (washer and dryer and upright freezer + the french door fridge are there as well), and my garden seed planting area (all my seeds are already organized into the two drawers by the sink - and I have a lovely ½-day sunny window over the sink so I can start some plants as needed). I love that room!

But you should have seen it in Feb. '14 when I retired! WHAT A MESS!! I literally could not even walk into that area! It was boxes and boxes of "stuff" piled high and wide and all over the sideboard! I could not see the floor or the sideboard. The sink had never been used! I could not get to it! The room had not been cleaned since I had purchased the house, and the garage was just as bad. Both were used as "storage rooms" or just plain junk piles! What a shame! It was the first room that I cleaned once I started on this cleanup. Now it has a lovely fridge and freezer that fit just right and ALL of the junkiness is GONE! I still have some cabinets that are still filled with garage stuff, like tools, etc. (that N put in there and left them), but once I offload those into more proper homes (THE GARAGE!), I can use that area for storage of my other things. I also have some broken shelves in the cabinets (just the little clips that hold them in place are broken, but I have a bagful of replacement parts already - we just need to plug them in and I'm shaky on a ladder). Then I can clear the sideboard (for the first time EVER!) except for the Excalibur food dehydrator and the Flavor Saver.

But the mopping comes first, and then the loading up of the pickup! YAY!!! MORE ROOM FOR MOMMY!! (Me!) And then I can dig in to front room, slicing up boxes for the Friday morning garbage pickup! AND take my hot sudsy bucket out to the garage and with an OLD MOP mop down that nasty garage floor where T has been (she's incontinent ATM)...plus the dog's indoor pen. I sincerely hope that DS will help me out with some of this. He might...and then again, maybe not. We'll see.

I just thought of a way to keep that mess in check more. I have a large dog pen that we could house T in (in the warmer garage: 60º) during the cold (30-35ºF) weather lows that are here and will last until about Feb. Then once the garage floor is cleaned up, she can stay in the pen during the cold freezing nights and I can feed her and the other dogs outside in the daytime. THAT WORKS! And if she messes up, I can just clean out the pen: MUCH simpler! Both she and the garage will stay cleaner! AND the old pen is being stored in the family room off the kitchen (needs a GOOD CLEANING) and will give me more room in the family room (where the [cool-in-the-summer, warm-and-cozy-in-the-winter] current dog's pen is, but T has forgotten how to use the doggy door; she can go out [sometimes], but forgets how to get back in and could die in the cold out there, lost in her own yard!)

It's nearly time to start my indoor seedlings for next Spring, too, and my grow lights are in the currently filled family room (adjacent to the kitchen through a large arch) and with the pen gone to the garage, it should give me a bit more wiggle room in there. It's all coming together! It's 6am now. The donations center opens at 9am I just found out. And it's a "crisp" 37º outside right now. (BRRRRR!!!) I'll test the waters, so to speak, and see how far I can get loading the pickup at 7am and mop out the hobby room now until then. Maybe this is the time for the indoor dog pen, too. I believe I'll need a coat outside... {{{{{♥♥ALL OF YOU!!♥♥}}}}}

This cleanup is so important to me! It's like healing up from MD and discovering and living my own way.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

I wish I could say that I've done more, but at least I've done something. That antibiotic that the doctor has me on for this swollen parotid (salivary) gland is taking its toll on me, especially my energy levels. Days and nights are irrelevant to me, and it has me sort of forgetting things (VERY unlike me). But this old parotid tumor has been around for about 10 years now and is suddenly SO PAINFUL. Just under my left ear. The doctor will be "busy until Dec. 20th" and cannot see me until then. In fact, he never even examined me before prescribing this antibiotic medication! Too busy. Can't be bothered with my excruciating pain. I just want to live until Jan. 2 when I can go back to my FORMER doctor and his group! They would be appalled by this behavior by this "oh-so-busy" group. I have never felt so discounted in all my life. Not even Kaiser was this bad, and they were indeed BAD.

I made hot dogs (protein) and sauerkraut (in the group of pickled/fermented things) with mustard for dinner because it was easiest and still keto. Then I rewrote my favorite KETO biscuit recipe (SO GOOD, and tastes like Red Lobster biscuits!) to include the amounts for A DOUBLE recipe, printed it out, placed it into my Favorite Recipes binder, and (in several trips to the kitchen due to overwhelming fatigue!!) MADE those biscuits and some Cream of Broccoli-Cauliflower-Bacon Soup to go with them. I wish we were allowed to share pics on here. Those biscuits are GOLDEN! I'll eat one with the soup and freeze the rest for later. These are one of DS's favs, too.

I found the store where we can dump the old used florescent bulbs...FOR $1.50 PER FOOT! And we have 6 four footers! That's a cool $36.00!!! Dang! I could put them into a doubled black garbage bag and take a hammer to them, mercury and all...but DS said no. I must admit that when I saw how much it cost to environmentally dispose of them, I was tempted to do so, but I won't. But once those long bulbs are disposed of (PROPERLY ), I will start on moving the already filled boxes out of my living room...FINALLY. There is much more to go through yet, but I'm slowly getting there. So tomorrow morning it is. And if that's the only chore that gets done, so be it. It's less challenging to meet their business hours than the recyclers, and even easier at the donations center since I can donate there from 9am-4pm 7 days a week. That I can do. Much easier!

I hope I'm not boring anyone, but you all are my "group" and I tell you everything and it helps me to HEAL.

================================

Had my soup. (SO good!) And a couple of biscuits. (Also awesome!) Now I'm finally full (about a 4.9 on a scale of one to ten). Now I can relax and sleep a bit after some more aspirins. I still have a bit of a low grade fever and it feels hot to the touch where the swelling is, but it's the PAIN that I'm having a hard time with. (I sleep on that side - OUCH!) Plus I'm really lethargic and a bit confused. I don't even feel really comfortable to drive! But hopefully this too shall pass...and SOON!

Honeybera

====================================

Forgive me. I have no one else to tell. I found a lovely KETO sugar free recipe for cranberry sauce, cranberry juice (for those occasional UTIs), and (drum roll please) CRAISINS!! Come to find out the cranberries are all prepped with lots of sugar, but the fresh cranberries are not bad carb-wise and the recipe is really EASY...hence, the fresh cranberries can be used for all these yummy things that I thought were out of the question for me to eat. But that's not the case, as long as I'm willing to take the time to make it myself. AND this gives me the perfect excuse to use my Excalibur Food Dehydrator!! I am positively thrilled and am going out as soon as I wake up (with DS driving perhaps) to turn in those dumb florescent bulbs (and pay my $36 blood money ) and go to our local store for a turkey breast to bake this year AND pick up some cranberries, too...FRESH ones to make some cranberry sauce for the turkey! I may even make a keto pumpkin cheesecake with a crushed nut crust to go with the dinner for dessert...oh! and some mashed cauliflower and turkey gravy...AND of course whipped cream on the top of the cheesecake! We're eating good in the neighborhood! YUM! I AM HAPPY ABOUT THIS!

[Fleur]

Hello Honeybera


Your son's Dr is giving good advice to not lose too much weight too fast. I've met a few men who required major surgery - gallbladder, spleen, appendix amongst others - due to quickly becoming more slender

Plateaux are our body's way to readjust

Really good news that his pain has subsided

May your parotid gland soon heal. About six weeks until you return to former medical centre

Would a "juice fast" be an alternative to assist your insulin levels plus weight loss? Merely an idea - neighbour here has been on keto diet for about 18 months. Then she did a 40 day juice fast - water and juice replaced meals. Now she has returned to keto, she says it has been a return to weight loss. Her blood tests whilst on juice (mostly veg with some lemon, ginger, pineapple) resulted in improved functioning

Perhaps something to research?

You have been and continue to be as active as possible


Much caring

[honeybera]

Oh Fleur, thank you for answering my notoriously long posts. It always perks me up to see that you've answered me.

Thanks for the comments re: DS. He is indeed doing well.

I came here tonight specifically due to my highly successful diet (WOE). I have tried and tried to find a more appropriate venue for all my comments regarding it, but can find nowhere as safe to share as here. My childhood abuse and trauma is where the problem began, with MD's vicious verbal barbs about my "weight problem" (which was patently untrue, but her overwhelming tenacity eventually drove them home and became a self-fulfilling prophecy).

I slept most of the day today and went to sleep at about noon after nursing a very sick Dot overnight. (She's better now...I hope.) I determined to sleep until about midnight and stay awake for the rest of "Monday". I turned on looping videos of Butter Bob Briggs on YouTube on my TV and allowed myself to drift off to sleep listening to his soft Southern drawl explaining the LCHF/Keto/IF WOE once again. I watch my videos when my faith in my WOE begins to fade (as it has been lately).

I awoke at midnight...precisely when he was explaining about how it's all about the INTERMITTENT FASTING. "It's not the low carb food! It is all about the timing of eating and keeping insulin levels LOW!" This is especially important for a person like me who has been creating this unhealthy dilemma of T2D, arthritis (which is now GONE!), MORBID obesity, and so on over decades of time. It's all about the FASTING! For some reason, I keep forgetting about this. THANK YOU, ♥BUTTER BOB BRIGGS♥!!

So towards that end, I am going to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) my meals when I have them (I'm trying for OMAD or better - like 36 hrs. or more if possible) and will have very simple and very high fat meals (chicken thighs or pork chops fried in lard/butter with greens of some sort [collards, spinach, avocado, green beans, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and so on] and a Bulletproof coffee with a Keto muffin for dessert) until I'm full. Not stuffed, but FULL. And then don't eat until I'm hungry again. PERIOD! (Just as Butter Bob says...) And I KNOW that I can DO that! I've done it before and had good success with it!

I have been on this WOE for the last YEAR now! It was right around the end of Nov. when I began. I had been on low carb (Atkin's) since 2007 (also Nov.), but was NOT in good shape at all! Since I've been doing this current and much stricter WOE, although I've been complaining about not being as successful as DS, I've actually done ok for such an old girl with so many MANY things wrong with me! I've lost one complete top size already! I believe that my once HUGE belly has shrunk considerably, I can fit into my office chair comfortably now, and my face doesn't even look like the person that is on my driver's license. AND THAT IS PROGRESS!!

Am I rail thin? By no means! But am I "better"? Oh YES. YES INDEED! On occasion I just need to turn on old Butter Bob or BeALoser videos and binge watch to remind myself of what a blessing this WOE is...and the videos are FREE.

All of this programming of me since I was a tiny little girl, the shaming, the ridicule, the familial ostracizing of me for the sole purpose of elevating MD's vision of the perfect life (as seen in movies and TV) has caused me to fight the battle of morbid obesity and related diseases. What a crying shame!!!! It never had to be like this for me!! NEVER!

But the REALITY is that it has. The ball is now in MY COURT, and is OUT OF THE HANDS of MD and the ANSWER is in MY hands!! Thanks to all of my "diet gurus" (Butter Bob, Dr. Jason Fung, diet doctor dot com, all FREE and as close as I wish them to be) for helping me to at least START this over the last year. And thanks to all of you who have read this thread and made your comments. ♥I love you all for that!♥

I'm back in it to WIN IT! (Weekly illnesses and plagues notwithstanding. ) I'm honestly better today, both weight-wise and health-wise. I'm going to make HUGE attempts to let go of MD and all her "fat" comments over the long span of years which have been insidious and cruel, but successful in their own way. I am now "fat", but don't intend to stay that way, no matter how long this takes!! If my weight loss isn't rapid, it's at least happening...in its own slow time. So be it! I'm just getting better and better at it as time goes by. It's like when I quit smoking in 1990: it's all falling into place for me. I just need to let it go at its own pace. I used to have DREAMS of smoking even years after having quit; now I have NO desire for smoking at all. The addiction is GONE. I am encouraged that this will be the same thing. It just can't work for all of these others, but elude me. And all my gurus are saying the same thing over and over: intermittent fasting will do the trick.

Whew. I've been at this computer for nearly two hours now. But I feel better. When he picked up our turkey for Thanksgiving, I had DS pick up a pork loin roast ($1.38/lb!) that I plan to slice up into pork chops - and I already have my Cream of Veggie soup with bacon in the fridge. So 2 pork chops fried in lard/butter and fry some spinach in the pan drippings...plus the Bulletproof coffee and a muffin...whenever I get hungry again. Lots of other chores to do in the meantime (mop the kitchen floor, clean out the fridge to put the turkey in, dog's pen cleanup...the list goes on!), so I won't eat due to boredom. Fasting is really easy, I know that. And I can always sleep.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

This post is all about keto, keto, and more keto - which is saving my life...

I binge watched BeALoser videos on YouTube today, the series they have on there regarding fasting, all 19 of them. If I google "Be A Loser video", the top one listed is the introduction video to the one I LOVE. It has a happy face on the actual videos. He talks about EVERYTHING KETO AND INTERMITTENT FASTING over several series of FREE videos (approx. 15 min. each). When I begin to take my eyes from the prize (of weight loss and reversal of my diabetes and crippling arthritis), I can also always count on Butter Bob Briggs (aka Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off - who has lost 150+ lbs. three years ago and kept it off by truly understanding this WOE), BeALoser, dietdoctor, and Dr. Jason Fung to set me right again. I am SO THANKFUL for them!!!! And they all do it for free...in gratitude.

I have been fasting since noon on Sunday. I'm not even having my very rich Bulletproof coffee (plenty of fat in it via butter and heavy whipping cream!!) during this fast. Instead I'm having something that Be A Loser recommended: a cuppa broth. OMG, SO SATISFYING!! I'm using just one can of Swanson's broth (1 net carb) + 2 T. HWC (0 NC) + a seasoning of some sort = OMG YUMMMMMY!!! I have an EXTENSIVE amount of various and delicious savory spice blends from the Spice House (dot com). If these spice blends did not have ANY sugar in it (and many do), I bought them. But a dash of a flavorful spice blend in my cuppa along with the cream is delightful and the cream in it makes it completely satisfying and tasty, too. I may add some butter to it as well and maybe some MCT oil - but all those things are pure fat, does not spike my insulin levels in the slightest, and keeps me on my fast, too. I had one of these broths about 12 hours ago and am just about ready for another one.

The whole reason for fasting right now is to lower my insulin levels. I needed my videos to remind me of how this works and why I'm doing it. IT DOES WORK! And by this time (the end of the first 48 hrs or 2 days fasting), I find that indeed they were right: there is NO hunger at all! AND my blood sugars are down to 125 this morning!!!!! Unprecedented!!! I'm over the moon because of that alone - but this is how someone like me, diabetic, depressed, and unable to lose more easily like other people find, has to do it. For how long? I do not know. But I have my FREE videos at hand (as I reel at how much $$$$$ I have spent on "diets" that have a 99% failure rate!! ) to support me through this. What a rebellious thing I am attempting to do right now!

Oh, I should have checked my ketones this morning. I forgot, but that blood sugar reading is astounding! I wish Thanksgiving was next week instead of this one. But we do have that HUGE turkey that DS got for us (22 LBS OF IT!! For only 2 people!) He did his best. I'm going to bake it with lots of butter, make a keto gravy and mashed cauliflower "faux-tatoes", make some keto cranberry sauce with artificial sweetener (super easy!), and a small bowl of my Cream of Veggie soup that's in the fridge. Oh, and Keto Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with HWC on top for dessert! I can't pass that meal up!

OK, now I made myself hungry! I'm wanting that cuppa broth ATM. I cannot believe how satisfying it is. I wonder if I can go to 72 hrs. fasting this time? If I was a sugar/glucose burner right now, I know that I couldn't. But this has been relatively easy for me. I keep myself well hydrated with ice water and cups of broth and stay as busy as possible. The time just flies by. IF I feel a "hunger urge" (because it's not hunger pangs or pains), as BeALoser says, "It comes in waves." If I simply delay satisfying the "urge", it simply goes away!

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Well, I had a nice meal at noon. Scrambled eggs and a biscuit with pats of butter in both and a cuppa Bulletproof and some broth. I may make some pork chops later, but maybe not, and then back to fasting. I MADE 48 HOURS this time! I'm very proud of myself. That's my longest yet. I may go back to the Warrior Diet (4 hr. eating:20 hr. fasting) or OMAD again (one meal a day) as I have done for the last year, but first I'd like to try some longer fasts. It seems to be working so far! It's not dangerous for my health at all. In fact, it's a very positive way to go in many aspects of health (diabetes, cancer, arthritis [mine is GONE already!!], fatty liver disease and fatty pancreas disease, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, and even Alzheimer's and Parkinson's). It has made an extreme difference in my blood sugars already (they dropped a full 30-40 points with this morning's reading!) and I'm losing weight, too (because I can see it and feel it already), but I have to take the fasting a little more aggressively right now, at least to start. It's how the others did it who had a lot to lose, hundreds of pounds, and started when their health was beginning to seriously fail, and it's also the advice that all the scientists and doctors give on their videos when keto itself just doesn't work right away for some. Fasting is always their answer (+ strict LCHF), and for a T2D like me, long term fasts are often needed to succeed.

BeALoser said that the LCHF low carb food is not magic, and he's right. Once I've lost another 30-40 lbs. and my blood sugars are around 85-100 fasting, then I'll stop the long term fasting and go back to the Warrior or OMAD WOE. I'll be able to stop my Metformin, too, just like I did when N was here when I was in my 60s and doing Atkin's. I stopped my Metformin with my doctor's approval. I had to take some sort of CT scan with contrast and I couldn't take my Metformin for some time due to the contrast. I got busy driving the buses and just never went back to taking it. Dr. said I need not take them anymore. I'd lost 93 lbs in 10 months and that did the trick. But now so much time has gone by, nearly another decade, Atkins no longer worked, and my problems had worsened. I am SO LUCKY that the answer has been given to me.

Official ADA recommendation for someone with diabetes 80–130 mg/dl (4.4–7.2 mmol/L)

...and mine was 125. I am so excited about that! It's getting better (and the actual answer more clear) day by day. My weight problem is both a physical and a psychological one. I'm giving it my all to successfully get over both.

The rain is coming tomorrow (BIG TIME!), the first rain of the year here. We are parched here, to say the least. Even though we got rid of those florescent bulbs (properly! ), the rain seemed to hurt our plans to get rid of the donations in the back of the pickup, but then I had the grand idea of just using my car instead. DS can lift the boxes and put them into the car and the men at the donations place can offload them for me. And while Swanson's broth is cheap at this time of year (58¢/can! instead of $1.49 later on), I can go buy a few cases of it, have the clerks put it into my car, DS said he'd offload it and put it into my kitchen pantry for when I'm fasting. This WOE is truly a lifestyle change.

DS is bathing Ms. T tomorrow and I'm cleaning out both the dog pen in the family room, but also the BIG carrier pen for Ms. T for when it's dark and COLD outside. She can go outside in the mornings as it warms up. Having her in the garage at night is becoming a nightmare for both sanitary and safety reasons; the yard is a much better place for her until it gets too cold out, and then we'll just put her into the pen with the other dogs and overnight in the carrier. She's so old and frail, but she has the heart and determination of a lion!

It's time for bed now. I've got to get to sleep right after I find my umbrella for tomorrow's rain!
Honeybera

[Fleur]

Hello Honeybera


Very happy positive posts to read

May all your dogs as well as yourself and son be in very good health over Thanksgiving weekend



Much caring

[honeybera]

I have begun the unenviable task of cleaning the filthy, feces strewn dog pen. I'm just going to throw everything out, including a $100 dog bed that I purchased when N was here in 2014. I'm permanently replacing all dog's beds with throw rugs once it's clean enough to do so that can be laundered or tossed as needs be. UGH!! Right now it's just a big pile of old bones and dried feces and lots of dirt from outside and spider webs everywhere. And the garage is even worse! But it is my understanding that the pressure washer can clean that right up...once I get out there and get going on it. We are to have the next 3 days with rain, but after that there is quite a break until the next storm in another week or so. I have an appt. with my T on Monday. This will be a major point of conversation! "Clean enough to be healthy..." And the dogs are included in that.

I went to get my plastic cleaning gloves out of the drawer in the hobby room to address this task and the drawer was blocked by a four foot high stack of DS's dirty clothes, which is ok since he is cleaning his room...sort of. Actually, that stack of clothing has been there for about 3 weeks and DS is playing videogames in the meantime. He did work last night about 6 hours or so, so he is sleeping ATM, but I cannot move the hoppers of dog's food and water. I am beginning to realize that I'm not 25 yrs. old anymore and need his help, but if I ask him to help lift things, he gets upset with me...or maybe I should say irksome. Like I'm bothering him. We'll see how it goes when he finds that I've moved many of his dirty clothes about 3 ft. to rest in the hallway just outside of his door. I moved just enough so I can access the glove drawer.

Break is over. I need to get the mess still in there in a big pile into the garbage cans. I went out to the backyard both yesterday and today to prep for the "first winter storm" coming down from Alaska, but by the time it gets here it's just rain. Still, I had to move many of the things that could get damaged in the rain into the ill-equipped garage. I plan to not give T access to the garage anymore since she's very incontinent and I feel the back yard (whenever possible) is more appropriate for that.

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I got the big pile of bones and poo swept up and dumped into the trash, but there was still a ton of dried poo on the floor. I got a big 5 gallon bucket and filled it with hot water and Pine Sol and just swabbed the deck and kept at it, bucket after bucket. DS is helping me with the bucket toting which is appreciated. ♥ A lot of the poo has dissolved and the vinyl planking floor amazingly looks none the worse for wear. DS just informed me that he has to work today from 4pm-midnight. Those are odd hours for him. But I'll just do my best to settle the dogs in a MUCH cleaner bed for tonight. I can do more work on it once DS can assist me more. DS and Spot convinced me to keep the battered, HUGE, "Great Dane sized" dog bed that all of the dogs can (and do) sleep on all at once. He just picked it up and shook out the ickiness into the garbage can. (I could barely lift it!) Some of the other beds were so fouled, though, that I just threw them away. I will also place a nice clean throw rug on the nice clean floor. They should all be fine for tonight, nice and cozy.

They have water and dry food in there, too - if they get thirsty or really hungry because that's not their favorites, but it's there for them. I want to keep the doggy door open for Spot and Dot to use to go outside to go to the bathroom, and I'm hoping that T has forgotten how to get out since she's forgotten how to get in and she can just stay in the warmth and dryness of the house pen. If she has an accident in the night, oh well. A lot easier to clean up than the mess I cleaned up today!! If she figures out how to get out in the midst of the storm in the middle of the night, she'll just sit out there in the yard, soaking wet and silent, not understanding how to get back in. She used to howl when she did that, but no more. She's very confused. In fact, that's why we put her into the garage for so many months...and why I have such a terrible mess out there, too. One day at a time...

Back to work...

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I just realized that IF Ms. T gets out, if we just shut both gates to the dog's yard she can't hide or get tangled up in the whippy weeds. Brilliant! She keeps getting lost in our yard in areas that I can't find her in when DS is working (usually in the middle of the night), getting tangled in those strong weed's creeping vines to the point of choking her after she struggles to get free for hours on end. With the frigid temperatures we've been having, the risk of her getting caught in an impossible-to-free-herself position and then freezing to death is a real possibility. During the day when she likes to walk about, the entire yard can be opened because I can always find her, but at night, I can check to make sure that she is safe inside (she can't use the doggy door to go either in or out), but if she's gone out, it's still ok. I know that I can just get the flashlight (torch) and find her easily in the much smaller and fenced dog's yard which has NO whippy weeds. And since she's been in the inside dog's pen for the last 2 nights unable to figure out the doggy door, it's really working out! YAY! Right now I'm putting her outside (to potty) whenever the rain stops. Then I bring her back in if it starts raining. Works for me!

As her health fails and as her senility increases, our aim is to make her as comfortable as possible and mimic her old and more active life as closely to what she had in her younger days as we can. We truly love our dogs. And if that makes me weird, so be it. My kindly grandparents would approve.

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I just found a new video series! "2 keto guys" is the name of it, and it's helping to tie all of this keto stuff up for me. It's all very avant-garde thinking re: my WOE and intermittent fasting. I cannot wait until I can share all this with my former doctor on Jan. 3rd! I can now see that, because of my age and length of time since having been recognized and diagnosed with full blown T2D (diabetes) in 2001, I have a more uphill climb to lose weight than my DS has. I will need to do more intermittent fasting and for longer periods (initially) in combination with a very strict WOE than does my son. None of this discourages me, though, because this WOE is relatively easy to do and is really yummy. I plan to do this lifelong anyway. All these videos are explaining to me WHY. It's very deep sometimes on a physiological level, but I took many science courses in college and am able to follow along with these doctors and scientists from this university or that relatively easily.

I actually thought about talking to my brother and MD about this. MD, the sweets addict, told me YEARS ago that SHE wasn't diabetic, just PRE-diabetic! HA! That's just EARLY diabetes, but neither of us understood that at the time. I SURE AS HECK UNDERSTAND IT NOW!!

And all those gibes about me that began when I was around 7 yrs. old and calling me "Pot Belly Nellie with the big fat belly" I now recognize as the beginnings of INSULIN RESISTANCE IN MY CHILDHOOD! I even heard the other night about skin tags being a direct indicator of insulin resistance! I had a multitude of skin tags removed by a dermatologist when I was only 14 yrs. old!! And I had "gestational diabetes" with each of my 3 children!! I was a walking time bomb!! And I'm lucky to be alive at 72!!!

I have increased the length of time of my fasting over the last couple of weeks and I'm seeing pronounced results in the right direction already. Poundage? Well, no, because I don't weigh myself and thereby don't know the poundage results and I'm usually only dressed in a muumuu, but the muumuus are getting baggier on me and I can FEEL the weight loss in my body. And it feels GOOD!

So...nuts to MD (all chocolate covered and loaded with sugar)! She is still guzzling Ensure for her wake-up snack, I'm sure, and pigging out for many sugar- and grain-filled meals during the day. She even takes food from the cafeteria back to her room for snacking and has her beloved candies always by her side, even in the middle of the night. I recognize that each time one eats anything (meal or snack), insulin peaks, and insulin is the key to this problem. Now MD is over 200 lbs! She denies that (naturally), but I have eyes (seeing her 2 yrs. ago) and DB tells me that she's getting worse and worse. So is he. "Yeah, I try to do keto, but I keep cheating." OMG! REALLY??!! DS says that he and I are "keto-vangelists". Perhaps. But it's hard to keep mum when DS has lost 80 lbs. in 11 months and my blood sugars are at 125 and I can now FIT into my office chair without touching the sides of it uncomfortably!!! Happy Honeybera!!

Back to my videos. They are saving my life!!! And big hugs for {{{{{{{{{♥My Faithful Friends♥}}}}}}}}} who have also been instrumental in saving my life before the keto revelation! I have needed the time here to heal up my emotions first. I believe it will continue to be something I need to address for the rest of my life, but not with as much pain as it created before, and that is a blessing in and of itself.

Back to 2ketodudes dot com. Really easy to understand!

Honeybera

PS - just got your post, Fleur! Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.