Why Am I HUNGRY all the time?

I feel like I am eating pretty much the same as I was a month ago, but I'm hungry.

Is it sleepiness? Am I not eating enough salad? Not drinking enough water?

This is something that had not been plaguing me before.  I can't seem to sleep past 4 AM and that might have something to do with it- I'm  slightly tired which often leads to hunger. Trying to take a nap this afternoon, but of course, the phone rings just as I am dozing off.  My thyroid tests came back borderline, and my doctor said she wouldn't adjust my dosage if I was feeling okay.. I thought I was, poor sleep can be a symptom of low thyroid. Maybe I'll have to rethink that when I see her again.

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbsalads/a/worldsalads.htm?nl=1

Salads are really a centerpiece for low carb eating because they are VERY filling when you eat a nice big one with lots of lettuce.. A big salad at lunch time can be a great way to eat less calories but still feel satisfied.  The link, above, is a great list of a links to a ton of salad recipes from around the orld--courtesy of  About.cm's low carb site.

The other day, I had a great simple salad with my chicken and mole sauce -- just some iceberg lettuce with a few thin slices of avocado, drizzeled with some sour cream--a mexican variety that is thinned out and tastes good enough to substitute for dressing all by itself.

Two days ago I made a really simple fresh salad with just very fresh  green leaf lettuce, cucumbers, mushrooms, and a basil olive oil with red wine vinegar. I ate it with a low carb tortilla pizza spread with homemade pesto that I made with pumpkin seed,  topped with  black olives, artichoke hearts and mozzarella. The tortilla got pretty crunchy and it tasted great.

I seem to be gaining and losing the same 2 pounds this week. Hopefully, I'll see another one pound drop over all. But I am starting to watch my calories more again. I'd stopped writing down what I eat..which is one way to really get off track. So I'm back to making a daily "menu"  and then seeing how well I stick to it.

Sleep, I think, is an issue. My allergies have been acting up this summer, so when  wake up at 4 AM, they kick in and I am not able to stay in bed...(after sneezing and blowing my nose for 15-20 minutes, it's over (dust mites) but by then, as my granddaughter says, "I'm Awake!"

Down over a pound when you least expect it -- breaking habits

Yesterday morning I was frustrated because my weight went up 2 pounds when I least expected it. This morning I was shocked to see my weight had dropped 3 pounds when I least expected it.

Yesterday I had my 3 year old grandaughter, who, having stayed overnight -- which means only partial sleep for me- stayed with me the rest of the day. We had lots of fun doing a variety of out door things - nothing vigorous for me but I was active. I had eggs and sausage for breakfast and we snacked on nuts then I took Zoe to McDonalds as she said she'd like to have a burger and we were nearby. She had fries and a cheeseburger and I ordered a Latte on Ice with sugar free vanilla syrup and a quarter pounder. (I have Never orderd a quarter pounder before.)  THe latte was a bust because I really can't stand strong coffee...I threw it away for water.  I tossed the top of the roll and felt guilty eating real catsup and the skimpy bottom half - well - not guilty exactly -- more like concern. I snitched a few fries from Zoe before they got cold. I was still feeling really hungry. So I ordered ANOTHER quarterpounder-- tossing the top of the roll again (which is 3 times the size of the bottom half.) - For afternoon snack I had an Atkins Indulge Bar (like a baby snickers)  and after dropping Zoe off at 3:30, and going grocery shopping, I ate a Breyers Carb Smart icecream bar on the way home. I considered it a fully indulgent, Junk Food Day. Not a lick of salad, My only vegetable was the pickle on my burger.

Somehow, I got a second wind, and starting cleaning the bathrooms, vaccuming and sweeping the patio for Zoe's b-day party on Saturday. Dinner time rolled around and I wasn't hungry and my husband wasn't coming home, so I decided not to eat. Around 8 PM -- still not hungry, but a little restless, I ate half of Zoe's leftover banana with peanut butter on it. THen I drank some water and watched my son play baseball on TV. I felt like I'd taken a vacation from health eating for the day.  So what a surprise when I hopped on the scale and was down to 185.4 --A pound lower than I've been since returning to Atkins. Go figure.

But the take away from this, for me, is-- maybe eating hearty protein at morning and lunch (With a few more veggies) and not eating much dinner really is a good idea for me. Though it's rare that I don't have to cook dinner --it doesn't mean I have to eat it and I wonder how often I AM eating it out of habit and circumstance, rather than hunger.  So that will be my experiment for the next few days. Making sure I get ample protein and seeing if Dinner is extraeneous....why a meal when I small snack will do?

Walked the canal this morning -- two guys were setting up to fish with these cool, fancy sort inner tubes that looked like baby plontoons. They had seats and their legs will dangle in the river....I think I need one!!!  I"ve been thinking about exploring more seriously what I can do to enjoy the Delaware besides kayak - since that takes a lot more effort and help from at least one other person.  Going to research Skiddo's and fishing with an expert guide I know, who could show me the ropes of fly fishing...

At 6:30 AM, the canal and river were misty with fog, with bright rays of sunshine crashing through. Beautiful.  At 69 degrees. I didn't have my camera or cell phone camera-- so this picture from two days before will have to do.

Has it really been 10 days since my last post???

Well, I guess it's getting too boring -- that's the thing about regular "dieting" or lifestyle changes. The weight loss is slow and so the drama is gone. You're just slogging through and there's lots of variation in the scale- up and down, that can be deceptive.

Once again, if I haven't already said this, I've realized that fooling around with sweet recipe that try to mimic sugar laden pastries, cookies, etc are a major waste ot time, money and and ingredients.

Over the past week I have made recipes that people raved about online, and I almost barfed from.

For Example - the One Minute Muffin -- which was pure flaxseed flour, egg and agents for rising...that you cook for one minute in the microwave...uggggghhhh. That was the main barf fest.

Then I made some okay ish blueberry muffins from Almond Flour ---I think adding vital wheat flour would probably improve the density issue.

I also made some chocolate peanut butter cookies from one of the Atkins's books and blaaaaaaaaah.. The only ingredient I did not have was chocolate extract -- maybe it would have made the chocolate flavor more instense...I used stevia instead of splenda -- they were really dry and hardly sweet at alll and I found them utterly unappealing-- and my grandaugter felt the same way.

So instead of scouring cookbooks and websites for other people's ideas of delightful sweet treats without sugar, I am opting for fruit and cheeses as the only decent source to assuage a sweet tooth --and the Atkins Bars, which still really taste like snickers to me (the little indulge bar) and I don't seem to really mind the sugar alcohols.  Better to learn more about how to cook, season, marinate and sauce various sources of protein than to vainly go in search of a recipe that will never fulfill a raging sweet tooth that's trying to go into remission.  BTW, Atkins peanut butter cups are pretty good too and a nice after dinner treat.

The scale was up today but I was on the run yesterday and ate no salads and little veggies...and I put on pants I wore at my reunion, which starrted all this and they were hanging off me like I'd lost 20-25 pounds, not just 15. No kidding!

I was so proud of myself yesterday-- at a big flea market where all you saw was pretzels and the usual sugary and doughy Pa fare, I found myself very hungery but unwilling to budge on Atkins. We finally found an indoor Amish meat market and I asked for a few slices of ham and turkey and part of an end of  farmer's cheese I saw stuck in a little baggy -- and walked around eating that with my fingers rather than succumb to all the typical greasy, carbohydrate laden stuff that was being offered every 30 feet.  I rather amazed myself!!

Tuesday July 13 --An Olive Oil Adventure!

Last night, following an Atkins recipe from the 2010 book, I pureed some fresh strawberries to make strawberry vinagarette. After straining them and adding some ingredients, the final ingredient was  -extra virgin olive oil. I put that in and tasted it and YUK!! 

What had tasted fine in the pumpkin seed pesto I had just made was a disaster in the vinegarette. What were they thinking??? I Dumped it all out.

Today, while having lunch with my son and daugther in law (I found out that Mole Sauce does not contain a lot of carbs so I suggested we go to a Mexican restaurant -- I said no rice please but ate some refried beans and was totally satsified.  I mentioned that I wished there was somewhere I could go to taste different kinds of olive oil to see what I liked and my son said, "There is an olive and vinegar tasting place right down the street!"  Who knew? It was like instant gratification... we went in to "Seasonings" and the walls were lined with cannisters of olive oil and balsamic vinegars of all types...including dark cherry and chocolate venegars and EVOO's with lemon, apple and truffle aspects..you just grab a little paper cup and taste to your heart's delight. I bought a lemony light olive oil and a blueberry balsamic which I had over a leafy salad with blueberries tonight. I just put a little in some plain yoghurt and yum!! It's awfully sweet though-- so now I need to go look it up on Atkins..I think balsamic is okay after induction.

For dinner I made hamburgers on the grilll (grassfed) and made sure mine were very rare. I found that eating them that way made me not miss the bun one iota. A slice of meunster and some avocado on the side, plus the leafy greens was just perfect along with some unsweetened passionfruit iced tea.

 This is the way hamburger tasted when I was a kid and I used to pick it out of the pan as my mom was cooking it. Since the meat is from  local, grass fed steer on small farms, I am not concerned about eating the meat rare.

futher success and the tyranny of sweet

On Thursday I tubed down the Delaware River with my daughter in law. We tied up our tubes and carried a cooler with water. And we sneaked two cheese sticks along in my pocket -- since were told we could have no snacks in our cooler...good thing. The river was VERY slow and it took us about 4 hours to get to the HOT DOG MAN where you can stand in thigh high water to get your "Free" hot dogs, soda and snack.

We had to paddle quite a bit, and current picked up near the hot dog stand so I was paddling and kicking furiously to make sure we made it into shore. I had no idea what time it was, but by the time we got out of the water, I was shaking -either from hunger, exertion or the adrenal rush of almost not making it in.

our "free" lunch consisted of 2 hot dogs in buns, a drink (mine a diet Pepsi) and I gave my snack to my daughter in law. Since the diet soda offered no calories to burn, I put my two hot dogs into one bun and ate them. My FIRST contact with white flour in over a month.  I was a little weirded out by that, but not too much. I knew I was burning fat and whatever else I ate today. In fact, the next day I dropped 2 pounds...probably some of it due to dehydration...though by Saturday I am still in the 186 realm...

When I came home I immediately made myself a nice big salad from red leaf and green leaf lettuce, spinach, shrimp, avocado, pumpkin seeds, purple cauliflower a sprinkle of blue cheese, baby portebellos and  oil and vinegar.  It was DELICIOUS.  Having everything handy and much of it cut up in pouches or containers makes it really fast. I have now found I really crave at least ONE BIG SALAD a day..so many flavors, no artificial sweeteners lingering after taste and the bulk is satisfying too. (Having a big bag of frozen peeled shrimp in the freezer is great for quick meals.)

FRIDAY-- the WORST CESAR SALAD EVER

On a trip with my son and granddaughter we stopped at a local deli for an early lunch. Instead of my usual turkey Ruben, I ordered a Caesar salad..yuck...what a disappointment.  She warned me that she only had ice berg lettuce, but she put on cut up toast instead of croutons (Maybe that was good, I wasn't the least tempted to eat them)  The chicken was out of one of those precooked bags, and the dressing was in a packet. Yuk. There was some shredded cheese on top. Makes you realize how easy it is to make your own dressing and how good it is!! I've been making blue cheese and ranch dressings--which taste so fresh and wonderful.


SATURDAY

Is usually communal breakfast day but I got up early to do some work and then decided to try and make low carb pancakes---using vital wheat gluten and ground almond  meal. It wasn't bad but after the first 3 I was still hungry (should have downed a glass or two of water first) and it was impossible to turn them after that--despite washing the pan and starting over.  It would have helped if the author had said make them silver dollar sized...but even so, my Emeril pans need the temp to be just right--or stuff seems to stick. And these did not get solid enough in the middle to turn easily.  I think a non-stick pan is essential for success. But the pancakes that I did manage to get out of the pan tasted good and had a nice texture.. The fake maple syrup tasted good at first too, but by the second batch I was noticing how fake it was...(Walden farms 0 calorie pancake syrup. I had 2 strips of bacon and some coffee with cream. But I'm vowing to stay away from any sweeteners the rest of the day. This was a pretty high carb meal- with 6 pancakes I may have eaten as many as 12 net carbs....(for comparison -- know that 1 cup of multi grain cheerios is 20 net carbs)

TYRANNY OF THE SWEET TOOTH
I'm still too attracted to sweet stuff -- though it's ALL about chocolate.. I'm having the max recommended 2 Atkins bars a day (2 net carbs and about the size of one ha;f a pack of an Almond Joy) ...one usually as a snack and one after dinner as "dessert." --I'm sure this is craving related rather than hunger oriented...and I'd like to cut back and make substitutes. For instance, a little natural  peanut butter on a celery stick tastes sweet to me now (no sugar in the pbutter) or a little brie with maybe a few berries would be more natural, satisfying and healthier than the bars..it's a worthy goal.....Slowly getting into having some cheeses around to sample and relish--in a house that's seen American slices for too long.

By the WAY -- scale dips a half pound

I think after 6 days off the minimalist diet known as BEAD --my weight has stabilized and I'm beginning to shed again. This morning I was down a half pound.  At the same time, I found an old paper with my measurements from Dec 2 years ago and compared my measurements of this morning:

Pecs (right above the breasts)  DOWN 1/2 inch

Bust  DOWN 2 inches

Ribs (right under breasts)  DOWN 1.5 inches

Waist DOWN 3 /12 inches (No wonder I can button those shorts now!)

Abdomen DOWN 2 inches

Upper Thigh -DOWN 1 1/2 inches.

And this without being able to exercise much more than walking around my yard.  I do miss my morning walks!! But there seems to be no rushing a broken ankle to heal.

Family Atkins and Miracle Noodles?

As I continue to follow the Lo-Carb way of eating, my husband seems to be figuring that maybe this isn't just a blip on my radar screen. So he has asked for some help in following a low carb plan. However, he doesn't want to read about it-- he just wants me to tell him what to do. Hmmmm.

I wrestled with the idea and then I told him I didn't think he had what it takes to do an Induction diet-- he has so many strong food habits and he eats the same things over and over again-- without thought...like having multi-grain cheerios every weekday of warm weather and switching to oatmeal once the weather cools down. This is partly because he gets up very early and needs to get out of the house by 5:30 AM, but partly--I think it's just the way he is. He doesn't like to eat many different kinds of food and if I change a single ingredient in his meals, he notices.

So, after a sleepless night of trying to figure out how to help him, I told him maybe he should do the reverse of the Atkins plan- which is to drop all but 20 grams of carbs and then add them back in, slowly, to see what your carb tolerance is (the amount you can eat without gaining weight)  I said, "Why don't you start cutting carbs here and there and see what happens? At the same time, you can start experimenting with replacement foods.

I couldn't imagine, for instance, separating him from his hamburger or hot dog buns...!!

So, for several days now, he has been trying to lessen his carb intake. One way this happens is that I now make his breakfast as well as his lunch at 5 AM!  Hmmm. All the while the dog is whining for me to feed her!

My husband loves to say that he'd rather teach someone how to fish than fish for them, or whatever that familiar phrase is...so today I went out and bought a lot of potential low carb snack items, like almonds, pumpkin seeds, whey shake powder, green peppers etc and I got out a marker and some recipe cards:

FIRST! I wrote out the recipe for a lo carb breakfast shake: 4-6 ounces of almond milk (Whoops, he didn't know that's what I was using instead of milk!)  a couple of dollops of whole milk yogurt, 1/4 cup of cream, a scoop of sweetened with stevia, vanilla whey powder plus 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries or strawberries. Mix and BLEND!  So now he can make that every other day, at least, when I'm not making him over easy eggs and bacon.

Then I made a list of 12 different snacks...like wrapping a piece of ham or cheese around a slice of green or red pepper, or peanut butter or cream cheese on celery, or cheese on a slice of Wasa crisps instead of his usual 4  pretzels...you get the idea. Wings, with blue cheese dressing. A dill pickle wrapped up in roast beef, etc. Pumpkin seeds over 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, or 10 pecans with 1/2 cup of cantaloupe. Trying to incorporate more than just the meat and cheese or eggs--and of course, the satisfying Atkins chocolate bars!

I've been doing some stocking up, but also noticing the grocery bills-- it's expensive to eat lo carb!!  SO once I see what it is we really like to eat, I'll start looking for some cheaper ways to buy them. Like where can I buy Atkins bars wholesale!!?? Today I bought a bunch of chicken legs and thighs to cook up and have for snacks or salad components...they're cheap. And good.

As for MIRACLE NOODLES?  I finally got around to trying the angel hair variety I bought via the Internet. I combine them with an Indian Chicken dish--tandoori chicken and sauce. And the only miracle I thought of is why people every buy this stuff AGAIN!  It is very rubbery and tasteless (made of shirataki mushrooms) and I've been off pasta long enough that I just don't care anymore. Anyone that eats this stuff has not broken their "addiction" to spaghetti. This does NOT taste like food. Fa gedda boud it!!

Next, I want to tackle some Atkins type cookies for Zoe- using stevia instead of splenda. I also ordered some Lo Han-- which is a Mercola approved sweetener from China. I think Mercola is a bit of a nut case, after reading his book (And sending it back) when I saw that he tends to jump from one mode of eating to the next- each time with the fervor of a religious zealot that feels no one else can possibly be "saved" any other way.  But when it comes to sugar substitutes, I'm willing to use him as a guide. Though I DO occasional drink stuff with aspartame!

Pumpkin Shortage

Who knew? I went to three grocery stores yesterday before I was told that because of a poor crop of pumpkins last season, people started hoarding the  canned pumpkin several weeks ago (?) for this Thanksgiving?
 The canned pumpkin shelves were bare. So, I had to leave it out--I put the cheesecake into my really nice stoneware, fluted edge pie plate instead of my springform pan, which was going to be too big, and it turned out great. The pecan crust was almost as good as graham cracker--just different really. And the filling was not overly sweet -- just right in fact.

I stayed at the first picnic till the burgers and hot dogs were served. I was surprised that there wasn't any kind of green salad or veggies really, so my meal was a bald burger and a really overcooked hotdog-- but I did take a couple of slices of mozzarella from between the tomatoes to make the burger slide down easier. It was also really well done. (Tip to self, bring your lo-carb ketchup with you barbecues!)

We went on to the next party- it was dark by the time we got there and little outdoor lighting so I really couldn't see what was available  to eat except lots of brownies. I did finally find the roast pork and had a little bit, but then just went for my own Atkin's safe cheesecake and a diet coke.

It was nice, actually, not to be too concerned with the food fare and just focus on talking with the many people I hadn't seen since leaving Rodale. Made some great Jim Thorpe connections for future tours, in fact.

We were way out in the country and the skies were chock full of stars. Kids were playing with sparklers and someone put a dayglo ring on my dog's collar so we wouldn't lose each other.  I didn't even look at the brownies twice-- a former very favorite food of mine. Pretty soon Ill have to make up the Atkin's version and see what that's like....but today I tried to stay away from sweeteners and just eat sensible snacks like peanut butter on celery.

I think I have been reasurring myself that I CAN have access to lots of sweet, chocolately and dessert like things.. now that I know I can, it's good tor realize that I need to focus on the savory as well as the sweet and keep my eye on getting the requisite salads and veggies in every day.

We're going to a ball game tonight, so in honor of that, I'm having a hot dog and cheese in a low carb wrap-- "sauteed" in a little olive oil spray....with some sauerkraut on the side. --

As far as I can tell, I'm staying within a 25 gram-30 gram limit- which is well within Ongoing Weight-Loss standards. And my appetite was really low today. I chucked the last few bites of my cheesecake breakfast!

The Cook's Nook and Eating Out

Soooooo. I was so busy I didn't blog for a couple of days! 

Well, here's the lastest scoop

1. I found my watch buried deep in my new little purse. Sorry for all the bad thoughts I thought about the people at the pool. I can hear my sister laughing all the way across the ocean, in Greece-- I did also find that dress, Paula, in a plastic bin in the basement. What was I thinking when I put it in there??

2. My pounds are up by 3, but given that I'm eating a much greater quantity of food that's also sticking to my insides some, not surprising. I learned that I need to take in more salt to be more "regular" - the Newest Atkin's book says drink 2 cups of broth a day to make sure you get enough. I'm measuring now bust, waist, abdomen and hips now and the inches are lookin good! At least two inches off  or more everwhere I Place the tape measurer. And Clothes continue to loosen up. Awesome.

3. I WENT OUT TO DINNER LAST NIGHT!! Now, I didn't share his with my husband but that almost brought me to tears. After all, I've been workin really hard in the kitchen for the past couple of weeks, and I was counting on staying away from restaurants till the end of July-- so an evening at the Marblehead, which always makes me feel like I"m "down the shore" as we Jersey Girls like to say, was a real treat - not to mention the FOOD!  Here's what I had- strict Atkins style: Crab and fliet mignon tips, zuchinni and broccoli in butter, and a nice big wedge of iceberg with blue cheese and bacon crumbles. And a diet coke with lemon. I couldn't eat but half of the crab and steak, (Eat till your satisfied but not stuffed, is the mantra and it's not like pushing aside piece of chocolate cake, at all - its much easier to say no to heavy duty protein.)  SO I'm having the leftovers for lunch today. I also snagged the butter and the sour cream my husband didn't use. -- after all - those are valuable ingredients now. (Isn't this a crazy, upside down world?!!)

I'm graduating to OWL (ongoing weight loss)  because I did induction a while back and I think I've got the carb cravings pretty well under control and am probably burning fat - since I haven't had any bread, pasta, potatoes etc in a month -- but the BEAD diet was actually mostly carbs and milk sugar -with the fruits and the whole milk and veggies like butternut squash -- which you can't have till Pre-maintenance in Atkins. Imagine that, no WISE FRIES?

So that basically means I can have tiny portions of berries and some nuts..

It's a little nutty counting carbs, which I've never really done in a detailed way because I've never done much more than the induction phase...I bought the newest Atkins book -- 2010--which is co-written by 3 top docs and is VERY detailed.  It's interesting reading and also a litle overwhelming. I have Veronica Atkin's nice, colorful, lots of pictures, cookbook which seems great- and you can tell at a glance whether a recipe is good for your phase. I'm making a pumkin pecan cheesecake for a 4th of July Picnic -- and some vanilla custard icecream for another one....but staying aware of portion control-- you really can't sit down and eat a big bowl of icecream--you have to have enough fat and protein and yet not go overboard. -- and that seems to be pretty easy. You need to eat salad greens twice a day and some veggies too --so it's healthy and makes sense.  Its not, as some people think, eggs, steak and bacon all day, every day.

I have found that it's best not to wait TOO long to eat --but for me that means don't wait till 12 when you ate at 5:30 AM-- that's almost 7 hours and when I got home at 11:30 the second day-- I was so ravenous I did eat my max in cheese -- 3 slices of provolone which was 3 ounces --- before I could get my shrimp salad on the table.

I've not tackled any fancy dressing yet - to add fat to the salads. But red wine vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper taste terrific to me right now.And since it's permissable to have 2 Atkins bars a day (though its' advised not to rely on them too heavily)  that little indulgence is truly a wonderful thing....

I've been ruminating how to get my husband's diet turned around, little by little, but he has so many ingrained habits and distinct food preference (don't we all)  it will really have to come from him -- today I made his yoghurt from whole milk and blueberries instead of giving him the diet stuff. It wasn't much, but he might not like it!  I had to put xanthum gum it it to thicken it up after I ran it and the blueberries through the mini blender. If I change one little item in his favorite recipes--he'll always say-- What did you do???!

Well, as I keep this up, he'll automatically get some of the beneft and as I keep losing --he will probably get jealous...Time to go shop for the Makin Bakin doodad. We had one but I must have dumped a couple of the t-bars in the trash. They now sell it at K-mart. Their homepage still has a picture of the little girl who came up with the idea when she was 8, but guess what-- she's now 34!!!

Day 1 on Transition-- 183.2!

A pleasant surprise this morning!   I knew when I went to bed last night (I weigh myself then, too) that my weight would be down...But given the stubbornness of the scale in the past four days, and the fact that I ate more than 2 times the calories yesterday, I wasn't expecting to be down  1. 6 pounds! 

I even had an Atkins bar right before bed, which pushed my total calories for the day up by 170 calories. (still well below my usual count though)  Go figure. Dave always says it takes 2 days to see on the scale what you eat, but I've never found that to be true.  Is this the hypothalamus kicking in with a new set point?

Who knows. Again, the vagaries of weight-loss. I'm not ready to set a new set point yet.

Rereading Atkins, the important thing here is to keep your carbs low enough to keep the body burning fat rather than available sugar. This is the famed ketosis (not to be confused with ketoacidosis, which is a dangerous condition requiring medical attention)  Ketosis simply means using a natural body process to access stored fat for energy, something our primitive ancestors did naturally --before hot dog rolls and Twinkies arrived to give us so much instant accessible fuel.

I woke up feeling steady and refreshed from my 7 hours of sleep. Just knowing that I can eat fulfilling food eases my anxiety level.

I'm still rubbing my BEADS -- can't see why I shouldn't-- they help with appetite suppression, though on Atkins Induction and On Going Weight loss phases, your appetite should be suppressed simply by the lack of carbs spiking your insulin. The rules of this game are: count carbs and stay with in 20 grams for Induction-- 25 for on going weight loss -- you can add a few carbs a week if you continue to lose weight --Atkins suggests you lose very slowly on PreMaintenance-- so that you become fully adjusted to what your carb tolerance is before you put back the foods like corn, beans, potatoes etc that will be part of your complete, healthy diet for life.

But in the meantime, there are yummy Atkins chocolate snacks, Atkins bread recipes, ice cream made with heavy cream and the like. And it's really not a free for all with the protein and fats -- though it may feel like it to a former low fat dieter. The recipes in Atkins books are controlled --For instance, my dinner last night, satisfying as it was after two weeks of fat and protein sparing meals, was just 365 calories.

My plan is to keep the same mindset as the BEAD diet required-- planning, organization, accountability and focus --to keep losing weight. At 183.2, I'm 20 pounds from my goal weight-- though size will be more important that pounds. On this diet, I feel I can work out harder and maybe build some muscle at the gym. I need to look into those actual requirements --

So glad the weight did not go up this morning  ---

PS-- someone stole my Solar Wrist Watch at the pool. Yuck. Second time that has happened to me in my life. I also lost my GRUVE -- a little device that I clip to my belt that reminds me to move when my metabolism goes to sleep (If you sit for more than 45 minutes, that's what happens)  that's $400 worth of losses in a weeks time.Is that they psychic equivalent of 18 pounds of fat? LOL.

The Saga Continues-- in a new direction

Dinner yesterday  was spaghetti squash again..and I fixed Dave sausage and mashed potatoes. I was mentally getting ready for another milk day-- my weight had pretty much been the same-- and I had started taking psillium husks--- for obvious reasons.

I went shopping-- a not too frequent pastime of mine ---at Boscovs. Tried on a size 14 dress and it was too small. Got a ways to go!  Bought towels and rugs for the bathroom and a giant globe fountain spray for Zoe. And some purses that were on sale that would make nicL gifts.

Came home and watched TV and Before I knew it, it was 11 oclock -past the witching hour for my diet.  I went to bed, and lay there. My legs were shooting pain from physical therapy. By about 1 PM my stomach was growling  fiercly and I was feeling the blood sugar drain from my brain -- my last meal had been 8 hours earlier.  I started worrying about what my milk day would be like on zero sleep. I decided to get up and have a cup of tea with honey, the legal rememdy for LBS, hoping that would put me to sleep. I was surprised how woosy I felt. No luck with sleep. By 3 I had worked myself up into a panic--it's not smart to think when your blood sugar is really low- nothing good ever comes of it. I didn't know what to do but lying there didn't seem like an option. Feeling like I was breaking THE LAW, I got up and had a glass of milk and a xanax, a last resort to fall asleep for at least two hours and to put a stop to my pounding heart and racing thoughts. I think I mananged to get one hour before 5 AM, when I get up.

I'd already decided somewhere in that stretch of a long night that this was not the way I wanted to spend my summer. WIth each day, my appetite for the narrow variety of veggies I eat became a little more dulled. I can only eat so much spaghetti squash and butter nut squash fries. The milk days were pretty grueling, still. And making 2 different meals for dinner wasn't much fun either. Dave was expressing interest in Atkins and remembering that I had lost 7 pounds doing that diet before this one, I made up my mind that that was more realistic for me. And with 2 weeks of the accudiet under my belt, literally, I felt ever so prepared to take that on and with due dilligence. It would seem like feasting compared to famine.

I wrote a note to my BEAD counselor right away, asking for help to transition and she sent me the protocol.
Today I ate about 900 calories, as opposed to about 400 for a milk day ---naturally I felt much better. It was all healthy, lo-carb food and even though I had zero sleep, I cleaned the house and went for a swim.

For dinner- I had an Atkins recipe -- low carb toriilla filled with spinach, mushroom, egg and 2 ounces of ham strips. Little bit of oil and red wine vinegar for dressing. My God, did it taste good!  Didn't mind the sugarfree orange jello much after a meal like that. Ordered 2 new Atkins books online and am hoping and I can keep the pounds at bay that I just lost, and keep subtracting-- though albeit at a slower pace.

I honor all those who try the BEAD diet and win. It's a heck of a challenge. My 2 week- 10 pound weight loss was certainly a success as far as it went, and I learned  plenty about myself and about food, shopping and being organized and committed. I still feel committed, just to a slower pace with more leeway, variety and control over options. The important thing will be not to get discouraged if a few pounds creep back on but hopefully, the BEADS have done some resetting of my set point and my labors in the kitchen and my detox from sugar and white flour willl stand me in good stead in the coming weeks.

Sunday -- down a pound- 184.8

After a milk day's hunger pangs, you really feel like the scale OWES you one.

Well, it came through. Down exactly a pound this morning.  Phew!

Technically I should be having another milk day but due to some tickets to a garden party/tour booked before I even knew this diet existed, I decided to skip to a veggie day with the possiblity that the two meals being served might offer me something to eat and I could feel like a participant. A friend purchased the tickets ($30 each) and I felt like it would be kind of rude to pass up everything being offered and just sip on my milkshake in a thermos.

I spent the morning making up two salads, spaghetti squash, my fruit stash and some crystal light lemonade just in case I found out there was nothing edible for me -- which was a good thing, because there wasn't.

My one new item was cabbage/carrots slaw with fresh pineapple. I also scraped the seeds out of the spaghetti squash and roasted them -- a new dispensation says we can eat them as long as we have them on the same day as the squash --and weigh them. That seemed too exotic a treat to pass up.

The day turned very hot and cool water was offered at every  stop, but no bathrooms. We bailed before the last property and didn't go back for the post tour reception and prize drawing, being fairly disappointed to find out that, rather than homey backyard gardens, we were touring McMansions with massive garden stone-scaping...and outdoor kitchens, etc. Not the kind of tour you can get excited about on a limited budget.

I didn't actually eat my lunch salad until 3 PM...having staved off hunger with some cherries. Maybe all the walking down those long, exclusive driveways in 89 degree weather will have helped burn off another pound for tomorrow. Somehow, I'm not expecting it.....so I'd be happily surprised, even with a few ounces.

I'm still hanging in there ...and feeling pretty good-- but I may need to set my cell phone to ring every odd hour, when I'm out because I kept forgetting to rub the beads...

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

I almost lost it around 5 PM today....meaning I almost broke the code of NO CHEATING.

Having my grandaugther all day, though delightful, meant less time and space to care for myself. I didn't take the time to make a thick shake with xanthum powder. My "dinner' was a 1/2 cup of hot chocolate (zero calorie syrup) and 1/2  cup of yoghurt mixed with orange jello.  Neither was particularly satisfying, so when I put a platter of crispy fis sticks and a chopped up hot dog out for my grandaughter, I could almost taste every bite she took. 

WHen she was done there were about 5 pieces of hot dog left on the plate and they smelled great and I REALLY wanted to pop them in my mouth-- so I quickly dumped them into the dog's dish. She likes hotdogs even more than I do.  I could feel myself give a slight inner gasp as she gulped them down.

I don't know what's up with this milk thing-- it just doesn't seem like enough. I don't have hunger pangs like this on veggies days. Everytime I open my fridge. all those leftover fruits and veggies are calling out to me..and I open it a lot since I am feeing others and also getting cold water regularly.

My tongue feels swollen from too many artificial sweeteners. And the milk leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

I'm going to bed early--and looking forward to my 1/2 and egg in the morning.

I spent time this morning in a farmer's market, picking up fresh meat and poultry from my husband. You can imagine the surroundings -- all food in your face, all the time. I had my grandaughter with me and fed her samples of cheese cubes and crackers. Got her a ride on a mechanical horse and then we got out of there. I felt good about not really eyeballing anything in particular. But the strawberries did look mighty tempting.

Saturday Morning...Milk Day --No weight Loss

Okay, two days with no drop in weight.  BUT, I tried on a pair of pink shorts that I couldn't get close to buttoning 3 days ago and they cinched up nicely. They are my smallest pair of 16's...I think they might be a regular 16 as opposed to a "misses" 16 and the waist band is very unforgiving. They look great!

I don't think I have any size 14's around, so I may have to buy or borrow a pair to continue motivating myself. The scale is not always reliable in that way.

Went for a walk around my park and stopped at all the life fit machines to do the easy exercises. My ankle is loosening up but it still starts to hurt and swell a bit after 1/3 of a mile.

I was going to skip my 1/3 egg and tea this morning but since I'm picking up my granddaughter at 10 and keeping her till 7 pm...I'll need the stamina. We may go swimming but at the very least, I'll be up and down the basement stairs many times, picking her up, and following her around the jungle gym across the street.

Gotta go get the lactaid tablets before I pick her up.
Am going to try the orange jello in the milkshake suggestions today.

I feel good .....da na da na da na... I knew that I would,,,,.da.na.da na da na---get it? James Brown

The weirdest dinner yet

I have to admit...the thought of dinner tonight did not entice me.

I set about making something a little different and doing some prep so that I wasn't scrambling with two menus at once. I  cooked up some cauliflower and broccoli in homemade veggie broth and whirred it  in my blender into a soup. I also cut up the remaining butternut squash with my krinkle cutter, for wise fries. But that all seemed too familiar to my taste buds and I wanted something else

I had some barrel-fermented sauerkraut (no vinegar is allowed on the diet) but eating that plain, by itself seemed too sour. So I cut up some apple, covered it with kraut and poured some Walden Farms maple syrup over it, the closest I figured I could get to brown sugar. Put it in an oven safe bowl and stuck it in the oven with my Wise Fries.  It was great! The perfect combination of sour and sweet --with enough tang to be really satisfying and different.

For dessert I had prepared pineapple and mandarin orange in my magice bullet, added a little truvia because the pineapple wasn't very ripe, and made 3 popsicles. Since I put apple into my meal, I just had one. Delicious!  While watching the 2 hour Amelia movie, my treat was a sugarless butterscotch which tasted as good as  Dove chocolate to my reformed palate.

I drank tons of water today, and a Zevia Root beer with WF Chocolate sauce added. I didn't miss a single massage of the beads, and I did some video exercise. My ankles are still pretty sore, but I practiced standing on one foot a lot to strengthen them.

Curious as to what tomorrow's scale will bring. Two days at the same weight would would not seem good, but if that's what happens, I 'll talk to my counselor.  Kind of looking forward to a milk day. I think its set up that way. Just when you think you can't eat another veggie meal, you don't have to.

Weigh In - 185.8

 The scale didn't budget this morning-- I wasn't too surprised. The pound plus of veggies haven't moved "through" yet. I also know I didn't drink quite as much-- no diet sodas and not quite as much water. Just a little iced tea. That's something to be sure to be more vigilant about.  I wasn't as active either, so not as thirsty. The  90 degree heat is keeping me inside. Time to go back to that Dirty Dancing DVD and maybe out for a swim. And I need to get a board for tap practice.

 I tried last summer's bathing suit on today and I now won't feel embarressed to wear it in public. (though truth be told, I don't embarress that easily, except perhaps at 10-year reunions. Besides at certain age, you realize, people have stopped noticing you!  Especially when you fall into the past-middle-aged frumpy category!

Reward Time, Veggies in the garden, and my last walking book

At first, it didn't occur to me to reward myself for completing my first 9 days on the program- and graduating to the second set of beads.
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Losing 8.8 pounds in 9 days is a pretty significant reward, right? Still, when I stopped at my local garden center to pick up some composting accelerator, it occured to me that buying myself a present for a week of hard work, some anxiety and a lot of organization, planning and stamina was not a bad idea.

I stood in front of 2 salespeople feeling like a live blip from a Lewis Black bit.

"I'm looking for a hanging basket with a pink flower, you know, it droops down and its pink and it has these white thingys hanging down from it. And then I think there's a dark purple thing hanging from that.  Butterflies love it. Did I say butterflies? No , I meant hummingbirds, they come and feed at it. It's really pretty. Pink..and something white hanging out of the bloom?"  How articulate.

They were looking at me with blank stares and then one them said, "@#)#(S" --and I sighed, "Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Only I can't think of it again!! Geez.

I found one in the greenhouse. It didn't have any blooms on it, which is why I couldn't find it, but at closer inspection it was loaded with buds, so I bought it - I think it was half price - about $10 but they didn't give me an itemized reciept, so I'm not sure. I also bought netting for my blackberries, which are ripening fast and tempting the birds, composting acclerator for my new composter that seems to making muck rather than dirt (probably need to balance grass clippings with all these veggie and fruit waste) and a tomato "cage."

That was pretty funny. I never bought one before. They were sitting on the porch...a cone shape with long metal tines sticking up in the air. They looked like something that could poke my granddaughter's eye out...I tried to pick something else less threatening but it came with a pot. My tomato plant is about 18 inches tall already and has a nice little tomato on it. So I took the threatening bugger in to pay for it and said, "What are these things sticking up like this for? they look dangerous?"  And a guy standing by the register said, "You stick those in the ground"

LOL! Ooops. Talking about feeling dumb. The cone gets inverted. I had to finesse my plant into it. but I mananged to do that without breaking off any limbs.  I only grow one plant, stuck in my flower bed, for fun, for my husband. I usually get  pretty many tomatoes-- of course they all come at once and I make him BLT's every day for a couple of weeks. I don't eat fresh tomato!

I also grow strawberries in four pots, mostly for my granddaughter to pick, and I put in a 3 green bean plants this year (she;ll be 3 in July)  thinking she might actually eat a vegetable if she could pick it herself. It took me till the age of 13, working at a farm stand, to find out that green beans are actually delicious. My mother served a lot of canned stuff (the 50's--the new age of TV dinners and yucky, processed food) and I still think canned green beans are disgusting. The green beans were looking pretty sickly until I realized I better start watering them every morning. (Breaking my ankle made paying attention to my garden difficult for several weeks) Two of the 3 are perking up nicely and have about 6 beans on them. Zoe didn't notice them yet. They're not red.

I've had bigger gardens in the past, but they need to be far away from the house (where the good topsoil is)  and it is too hard to water them. Plus, by early August I've usually lost interest, am too hot to keep weeding them let the zuchini grow giant sized --my sons thought they were great weapons, clobbering each other with them. There are two very industrious organic farmers with stands and money boxes within a mile from my house, really cheap produce, so I let them toil away and I reap the benefit.

Quick Veggie Feasts

Hey, I'm getting good at this:

Keeping the fridge full of fruits and veggies without letting everything rot!
Making a meal for two people -- one that is vegan and one that is not!

Roasted cauliflower, wise fries, avocado
Fish for my husband and his baked potaaaahto
Fruit in cup with peaches and grapes
Pineapple, melon and ......hmmmmm. can't rhyme it..

But there is something about the meal that leaves my palate aching still. I wonder if you ever get over that? Is that detox talking? Or a legitmate need for something else, like protein or fat. I figure it's still the attraction for former foods that the palate is gunning for, and coming up short.

I got a fasting blood test done today -- the woman only had to stick me once - HALLELUJAH.
My veins are very hard to see, despite drinking lots of water, lifting weights etc. I've been stuck as many as 8 times in the arms and hands by people trying to draw my blood. But some people really know how to do it. This woman did. And she talked about turtles while she did it...we shared St. John V.I snorkeling stories.

Humming along today. My counselor suggested I get lactose intolerance capsules to use with my raw milk because it seems that may be part of my problem.  I may not be able to access the protein in the milk---so that's something I'll pick up tomorrow at the health food store.

Sunday I am going on an almost all day garden tour that starts with a reception and ends with one-- covering both my meal times. It was supposed to be a milk day-- but someone bought me these tickets and to refuse to eat anything there would seem quite a let down I think. There should be veggie sushi and crudite and fruit, so my counselor didn't like it, but she told me to just do two veggie days (skipping the milk day) and then back to two milk days. In the first two weeks, she says, they prefer you don't mess around like this. But by then, I've been on the program for 12 days, and very successfully so I'm not too concerned about it. I don't plan to eat any of the other tempting treats, nor will I drink the champagne based fruit punch...my friend can use my ticket. Hopefully she'll still be able to drive!

Photo is of pineapples growing at the Dole Plantation in Hawaii -- couldn't seem to get it rotated!

Sobering Thought of the DAY/WEEK

I have lost 8.8 pounds in 9 days. If you're following this blog - feel free to congratulate me!!! LOL.

On the average diet plan -the kind that we promoted in the magazine I wrote for for 17 years, that would have taken me at least 9 weeks. It would be the end of August and I would be a week or two from an annual event that I am run, and I would have been 10 pounds lighter-- if I'd managed to stick with it.

Instead, hopefully I will be leading that event 30 pounds lighter and be somewhere in the scheme of the transition diet- eating more normally by that time. That is a very motivating picture in my mind.

Awesome thought. :-) 

Posture and Pot Belly -- psoas power

So...Another pair of pants conquered. These were unbuttonable two days ago. Now they button pretty easily. Though clearly I'm not falling out of them-- but they're still a great reference point- better than tape measures which never tell the whole story.

I bought these last summer when I had dropped a few pounds that were teetering me into the size 18 range.  I wore them at my granddaughter's 2nd birthday party with a pinked checked (did we call that gingham?) shirt- all by Liz Claiborne. When I saw the photos later, I put them away, because my belly was so evident. I was about 2 pounds heavier at the time, but part of the problem is postural. 

We often look in the mirror with our abs pulled in, our best posture. But in real life, we look like the the 3rd picture --abs relaxed --- and are shocked when we/re caught in a photo that that is the way we really look. As you can see, I'm  hyperlordotic (I think I made that word up) My pelvis tips forward, protruding the belly and putting pressure on the low back--perhaps part of the reason I suffered disk injury there, long before I got heavy. I've taught people how to walk tall, through a process called "Dynamic Walking" developed by Suki Munsell, PhD. It takes a lot of concentration and though you can focus and walk tall for extended amounts of time, it wasn't enough to make standing tall second nature. That requires far more abdominal work, plus body balance, stretching out the deep psoas muscle that attaches from spine to hip bones and keeping the hamstrings stretched out. That's something I could clearly put more time into!LOL.  Just losing the flab will help - at one time I was so thin that I showed little belly when standing this way. But theoretically, having a stronger core and and  being properly stretched out in other areas could make that tilt disappear so that it is natural to stand straighter without having to 'effort it.  You know that look when you see it, particularly in very fit guys who have balanced muscle development. ..when they're standing around, their torso's look impossible straight. Some gym rats though, get unbalanced their posture is way out of whack.

Traditional  Yogi's, by the way, don't go for the flat belly so much. They like the abdomen soft and supply enough for deep belly breathing....  But those in the US that come from a fitness or dance discipline, like Rodney Ye, are as taunt as a drum.

One exercise that is particular good for working on posture is to go onto all fours, with a flat back (holding the belly firmly) and extending one arm and the opposite leg. This is not easy to do while you are keeping those abs firm! The tendency is to drop the belly down. Try it!  That's what I'm going to do right now...

Looking forward to a delectable veggie day-- I've got butternut squash, blueberries, raspberries, avocado, spinach, cucumber, cauliflower and broccoli, zucchini, romaine, peaches and portobellos  waiting patiently in the fridge.

Maintenance, The Power Of Raw Milk -- Check in: 185.8

My friend, who's been on maintenance for 8 months after losing about 40 pounds in 2 --says this about her eating habits now:

"I am mindful of what I eat, but have anything I want. Many times I'll ask a friend, "Is it worth it?" I also find that normally a taste of something is enough. Many times I do prefer healthy food over junk. Old habits are easy to have come back!  I need the 2 milk days to keep control - many people don't, but I do".

This person did Weight Watchers for many years, in fact she was a leader for a while,  so I know that she has a keen awareness of food, its impact and on the need to be fairly conscious about eating on a daily basis. I know that her question "Is it worth it?" means -- "does that tempting food taste as good as it looks?"
How often have you succumbed to eating a piece of yummy looking something or other, only to find that it didn't live up to its eye appeal, and said, "boy, why did I waste 100  (or 400) calories on that?

I'm not expecting to go back to former eating habits. I'm expecting that it will be easier to make better choices due to being on this regimen.

Why do I expect that?
1. I'm learning a powerful lesson about how few calories I can eat and still feel good.
2. I'm experimenting with far more fruit and veggie dishes --a repetoire of healthy foods.
3. I know that I can do 2 milk days (partial fasting) In the midst of more normal calorie days --if I can do it now while under a constant low calorie regimen.
4. I know my taste buds are adjusting to cleaner food --meaning that highly processed foods are going to taste too sweet or too salty or too fake. Though I normally eat pretty much whole, organic foods, there are definite exceptions! Much of it fast food-- like my fav- Taco Bell.

At this point, I'm thinking of keeping my evening meal vegetarian -- though not necessarily vegan. A bit of cheese or butter would be welcome!  As I have been doing this past 9 days, I can easily cut the meat out the meal and be satisfied with more veggies and fruit. I can see that having the protein at noon is far more helpful as a sustainer than having it in the early evening, when my day slows down.
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I am driving to a dairy about 20 minutes from my home to buy raw milk for this diet.

If you've never read anything about why some people want to make raw milk legal around the country, here's fascinating except from the Weston Price organization's Campaing for Raw milk pages: (Note" Italics are mine to emphasize points)

RAW MILK: It's White Blood

Real Milk Cures Many Diseases


by J. R. Crewe, MD

The following is an edited version of an article by Dr. J. R. Crewe, of the Mayo Foundation, forerunner of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, published in Certified Milk Magazine, January 1929. We are grateful to Dr. Ron Schmid, ND of Middlebury, CT for unearthing this fascinating piece. The "Milk Cure" was the subject of at least two books by other authors, written subsequently to Dr. Crewe's work. The milk used was, in all cases, the only kind of milk available in those days—raw milk from pasture-fed cows, rich in butterfat. The treatment is a combination of detoxifying fast and nutrient-dense feeding. Note that Crewe quotes William Osler, author of a standard medical textbook of the day. Thus, this protocol was an orthodox, accepted therapy in the early 1900s. Today the Mayo Clinic provides surgery and drug treatments, but nothing as efficacious and elegant as the Milk Cure.

"For fifteen years the writer has employed the certified milk treatment in various diseases and during the past ten he had a small sanitarium devoted principally to this treatment. The results obtained in various types of disease have been so uniformly excellent that one's conception of disease and its alleviation is necessarily changed. The method itself is so simple that it does not greatly interest most doctors and the main stimulus for its use is from the patients themselves.


To cure disease we should seek to improve elimination, to make better blood and more blood, to build up the body resistance. The method used tends to accomplish these things. Blood conditions rapidly improve and the general condition and resistance is built up and recovery follows.

In several instances, Osler (Principles and Practices of Medicine, by William Osler, MD eighth edition) speaks of milk as being nothing more than white blood. Milk resembles blood closely and is a useful agent for improving and making new and better blood. Blood is the chief agent of metabolism. Milk is recognized in medical literature almost exclusively as a useful food and is admitted to be a complete food.

The therapy is simple. The patients are put at rest in bed and are given at half hour intervals small quantities of milk, totalling from five to ten quarts of milk a day. Most patients are started on three or four quarts of milk a day and this is usually increased by a pint a day. Diaphoresis [copious perspiration] is stimulated by hot baths and hot packs and heat in other forms. A daily enema is given.

The treatment is used in many chronic conditions but chiefly in tuberculosis, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular and renal conditions, hypertension, and in patients who are underweight, run-down, etc. Striking results are seen in diseases of the heart and kidneys and high blood pressure. In cases in which there is marked edema, the results obtained are surprisingly marked. This is especially striking because so-called dropsy has never been treated with large quantities of fluid. With all medication withdrawn, one case lost twenty-six pounds in six days, huge edema disappearing from the abdomen and legs, with great relief to the patient. No cathartics or diuretics were given. This property of milk in edema has been noted in both cardiac and renal cases.

Patients with cardiac disease respond splendidly without medication. In patients who have been taking digitalis and other stimulants, the drugs are withdrawn. High blood pressure patients respond splendidly and the results in most instances are quite lasting. The treatment has been used successfully in obesity without other alimentation. One patient reduced from 325 pounds to 284 in two weeks, on four quarts of milk a day, while her blood pressure was reduced from 220 to 170. Some extremely satisfying results have been obtained in a few cases of diabetics.

When sick people are limited to a diet containing an excess of vitamins and all the elements necessary to growth and maintenance, which are available in milk, they recover rapidly without the use of drugs and without bringing to bear all the complicated weapons of modern medicine.

There's more on this fascinating subject at http://www.realmilk.com/milkcure.html

BTW, after reading this after so many years, I'm more motivated to leave any goop out of my milk products.

The Weston A Price organization, where this excerpt resides, is based on the work of Weston Price DDS, a dentist who traveled the world  in the 40's (I think) to research the teeth, health and eating habits of cultures who had yet to be contaminated by modern eating habits. He found that those cultures who ate their traditional diets, without things like processed sugars and flours, were without tooth decay, had broader faces, larger jaws, beautiful teeth and smiles and stronger, healtheir bodies. His research is quite fascinating and provides many photographs. I attended a talk and slide  several years ago by Sally Fallon, the pres of WAP and author of the cookbook: Nourishning Traditions.  Price felt there was an ingredient in butterfat, an X factor, that had healing qualities that are not present after pasteurization. Pasteurized milk also destroys enzymes and CLA --conjugated linoleic acid --which is known to support muscle growth, which in turn, supports weight control.

Cheats and Taste Buds

People who are on this diet say "NO BLT's" which means "No bites, licks or tastes."  And on the listserv it is against the rules to mention any food that you cheated with, the feeling being that you're just setting up other dieters by triggering cravings for something. I did taste chili I was making for my husband, but it was only a lick to see if my sauce changes were Okay. Since I don't like the chili he likes, this didn't feel like much of a risk! LOL

  But this morning, he asked for an extra sandwich, PBJ, to tide him over at dinner time when he goes straight from work to golf league. THAT was the hardest thing I've made for him-- peanut butter was my main staple through out my childhood. The smell is extremely appealing and my gut jumped when I first opened the jar and that peanut buttery  scent wafted straight into my nose. I had a flash that if that jar stayed open for another minute, I might lose it. I closed it pronto after spreading and put it out of sight.   I did not taste it. I wiped the knife on the second piece of bread, lest I be tempted to lick THAT. I tell myself it would have tasted way too sweet. I prefer natural peanut butter, my husband likes Skippy.

Other than the tiniest taste of chili sauce,I  have not tasted, licked or bitten into anything other that the foods recommended on the diet. However, yesterday - I did "cheat" by drinking more milk than allotted. I'm guessing I had about 3 cups of milk/yogurt, rather than the allotted 2  1/2 cups. Since some of it was homemade ice milk, I wasn't quite sure, but I also decided I didn't need to be fanatic about it - I'd be losing so much. Could that actually make a difference? Possibly.

Today my weight was down only 4 ounces. When I originally weighed myself, I thought I was down another pound but something made me go back and double check. My scale is situated in front of a towel bar and if I so much as lay a finger on the towel bar, it can alter the reading. I had seen 186.6-- a pound loss. But when I rechecked (after eating my 1/2 egg)  I was only 187.2. 

Could  4 ounces of milk And half an egg)  really make a difference???

The weight loss game is a cagey one. There are so many factors, known and unknown involved. I noticed that yesterday I was forgetting to massage my acupressure beads....probably skipped 2 of the times. I didn't drink quite as many cups of water, and the mantra is, the more water you drink the more you lose.
It may have been the affect of having salt on my french fries the night before. Or some kind of internal adjustment I have no knowledge of. At any rate, it's another milk day today -- and it is said that you lose more after your 2 milk days --(and Dr. Schwartz, who runs the program our of West Orange, NJ,  suggests you only weigh in every other day anyway.) We'll see if I dump more in one day, tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my last day on this set of herbal acupressure beads. I have to say, they seem to work. I have very little trouble with appetite. And now that my blood sugar is controlled, don't have many qualms, except perhaps about boredom with the diet, to keeping with the plan.

I'm also not really disappointed with not losing a whole pound overnight. I expected that the rate of loss would slow down and I'm okay with that --7 pounds in 7 days is nothing to sniff at!

My thoughts are going to "transition" lately-- now that I have the diet plan more or less mastered, I'm starting to wonder what transition really means and how it is accomplished. My friend says she eats "anything she wants" -- so I sent her  message asking if that is code for "And due to this diet, I don't want what I used to eat."  or if she truly doesn't think too much about what she eats, and has pizza, french fries o ice cream when the spirit moves her. I"m waiting for her reply.

In the meantime, I'm starting to feel like I can think about something else other than the diet and what I'm going to eat -- a good sign and step in the right direction.

Last night I went to an adult tap class at my Alma Mater. Even though today is the day I have a return visit to my orthopedist, and I'm still supposed to be wearing an air cast on my ankle, I felt I was healed enough and that tap would provide just the right kind of challenge for both may ankles, which are tight and somewhat weakened from the break and sprain suffered 6 weeks ago.

The teacher was great- dynamic and clear. There were only two of us and we seemed equally able, so we did a lot of steps, along with stretching. I was fine until she added a spin -- and suddenly found a spot in my ankle that was seemingly not ready for that move. I stopped doing it when I felt the pain, but I also couldn't completely pivot my self around in one motion. I felt a kind of burning tear -- and iced when I got home. This morning it's fine. I think I was basically breaking up some adhesions-- Other than some brief burning pain when I got up, the ankle seems as good as it's been. Phew!

I've got a date with a woman from Canada who does tap competitions and works with teens who do tap, to meet in in the spring at one of my tours, having collaborated long distance, to perform an easy routine together. This is my first step towards that goal. Fun!

Taste buds are definitely changing. I used to balk at eating plain yogurt, but I have found that the Walden Farms O calorie foods have become a turn off. Yesterday I ate my Stonyfield Plain yogurt completely plain, and savored the lack of sweetness and the tart tang - no small change. Since I did want to bulk up my milk with ice, rather than add a store bought syrup with Splenda, I added vanilla and orange extract and two bags of stevia. The result was mild but satisfying.  What, no chocolate???  That's right. I am surprised, to say the least.

I measured today...2 inches off my "waist". (I really don't have a waist, never had - I've got a boyish build--  but I try to find the narrowest place between my breasts and my navel and put the tape there!

Tomorrw night I change my BEADS.

EUREKA!!!! Hypoglycemia solved and I try WISE FRIES! YUM!

Sooooooo. I finally emailed my counselor and asked for the hypoglycemia protocol.  I took a glucose tolerance test in my 20's that suggested I was hypoglycemic...but over the years I felt like it went away-- like it was a temporary thing. But apparently it's activated by this diet. Not surprising, I suppose. Hypoglycemia was one of those conditions that was very popular to  confer on people in the 70's, but many doctors did not take it seriously. During test, I thought, "Who wouldn't react to having thick, orange, sugar gulped down in one dose and then sit around for 5 hours having blood tests. My sugar went up to 180 and then plunged. I was considered pre-diabetic at 25.  I started eating more protein and more whole grains, which seemed to help my panic attacks a little. But there were far more urgent issues in my personal life at the time, that needed to be addressed. And once they were, it didn't seem to matter too much what I ate.

Sooooo the protocol for the next couple of weeks? And I cut and paste (quote)

To address low blood sugar you will add the following to your program to allow your body to adjust to the change in diet:

Week 1:

• In the morning, have ½ a hard boiled egg

• Every 4 hours, have a spoonful of honey in a cup of hot tea or hot water

Week 2:

• In the morning, have ½ a hard boiled egg

• Every 6 hours, have a spoonful of honey in a cup of hot tea or hot water


Week 3:

• In the morning only on milk days, have ½ a hard boiled egg

• Every 8 hours, have a spoonful of honey in a cup of hot tea or hot water

Week 4:

• Eliminate use of the hard boiled egg

• As needed, have a spoonful of honey in a cup of hot tea or hot water

EUREKA!  I feel like a sailor who's been pulled at the last minute from a sinking ship. Based on what I have done over the last 5 days, this small amount of protein and glucose is like a complete fix - a morning buffet that I know will help me stay on track.

I went right to the kitchen, boiled 6 eggs, cooled them down, peeled one, cut it in half LENGTH WISE  (I'm no dummy) and ate it....with a little salt. Hmmmmmmmmm. I'd already had the tea and honey soI skipped that.

Then I went out and trimmed all the bushes around my house in the 85 degree heat. (Drinking smart water to make sure my electrolytes stayed normal.)    Later, a walk with my daughter in law, by the river, with Puppy. 

I feel saved.

It's noon- time for my first real meal of the day -- raw veggies and fruit (including that delicious "good fat" fruit, avocado.) I feel fine and I have been working outside for about 2 hours.

Combing the fruit in the salad makes salad dressing superfluous.  I tried to make several types of dresings suggested on the Listserv but they all included artificial sweeteners, which are really starting to both me as my palate becomes ultra senstive to sweetness. The peach was CAREFULLY picked. You have to sniff them to find a tasty, sweet peach. I picked two yesterday and they were spot on!  If you're not picky, you end up with something that tastes about as enticing as sawdust.

I ended the day with WISE FRIES-- from the Hungry Girl website.  These were GREAT!!!!! See how enthusiastic I am about a new food that actually tastes really familiar and satisfying?  I chopped up a butternut squash - I have to admit, my first time EVER!  Just using the top half, I got out my Pampered Chef crinkle cutter, so they would really be French Fry looking (though I am not a FF fanatic, the thought of anything potato-like was appealing.)  Preheat the oven to 45, spread the squash on a non-stick pan and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook for 40 minutes. They do blacken a bit at the edges -- I actually cooked them for about 30 minutes on convection --but the black part did not taste bad at all. It wasn't even noticable to me. I dipped the fries in my leftover spaghetti sauce  and ate them with a pile of brocoli and cauliflower sprinkled with Old Bay Seasoning. Blueberries, Rasberries and 1/2 a peach for dessert.
Very full, but still that sensation of the tongue wanting more, rather than the belly-- the belly was bloated up like a balloon!  There wasn't any fat in the meal, so I'm guessing that's what the tongue was searching for...
I'll definitely make an other batch of these on Thursday!

Struggling in the morning

It's Monday so I'm up at 5 am and weighed in -- lost another pound. 188.6. Only somehow this morning that didn't make me feel particularly good. I woke up with a dry mouth and feeling depressed at the prospect of a morning without food to boost my mood or blood sugar. Now, that's  normally not the way I wake up.  I am not a coffee drinker- I don't rely on caffeine to get my motor running. I love to get up with the sun and am normally energetic and get my best work done in the morning. By 3, I am normally tired and ready for a short nap.

So, I took a teaspoon of raw honey in tea and that did make me feel less shaky. After my husband left for work, I tried on a bunch of shorts and 3/4 length pants and jeans from last summer, when I'd dropped a few pounds for a while. They are all buttonable now.  That' helped some. But there is also something scarey about dropping weight so fast- for me it's an old association.

In the past -- I have had several instances where I lost weight very rapidly. It happened once in my early 20's, when I went through a divorce at 29 and again when I went through another big transition at 40. When slightly stressed, I tend to eat comfort foods. But when over stressed, I can't eat. It's been 18 years since something like that has happened to me -- but the association of losing pounds fast with the mental condition of depression is licking at my heels. I've got a dent in my neuronal pathways somewhere that says --Losing Weight Fast? Watch out!

This would also occur to my father, who suffered from  depression. I can remember my Mom telling me that whenever she saw my father drop weight, she knew he was going  (or had already) gone into a depression. These undercurrents in our psyche can be powerful blocks to change, but I believe if we're conscious of them, we can work with them.

I spoke to my sister about this on Sunday - saying that a part of me wondered if losing weight quickly could actually trigger a depression, biochemically or psychologically. The  body and mind are so connected --

Well, I think it's time to go outside and work in the garden. Being in sunshine and working with my plants has seemed to boost my mood everytime. I'll check in later to review how I feel about this process with food under my belt! LOL.  For now, I'm a bit glum.

One More Pound -- 189.2

I had a full house yesterday on my second "milk" day. I found that being around people was harder, I felt like I was suffering from low blood sugar and that made me feel emotionally vulnerable. Having made my husband's bacon, egg and toast breakfast with no qualms, when he asked me to cook him some hot dogs while he was in the shower --I lost it.  We had a back and forth exchange not worthy of us. I went and started the dogs on the grill and when he came out, we apologized to each other and he took over the grilling. He said I was "doing a great job" with the diet and he wanted to support me. Good!

A couple of times during the day, I felt almost drunk -- as though I was staggering slightly, in addition to feeling fuzzy headed. This is a sign of low blood sugar. I stuck to the diet and every time I had a little milk or yogurt I felt better. When I had a cup of milk in a diet root beer shake and a 1/4 cup of yogurt, I felt much better and survived the rest of the night with my kids, their wives, my sister and my granddaughter just fine. My son, who loves to cook and bake, brought over a delicious looking cherry pie. LOL!  I did not even allow myself to look at it. :-) nor did I let myself feel deprived. I thought about the shorts I had on, that I could not button until yesterday. And that my weight had dropped to 189.2 -- another pound - 5 in 4 days now.

Today when I woke up at 5 I decided to stay in bed and read. One of the books I have lying open, face down on my bed (I told my husband I need a book holder like the one Thomas Jefferson made, that holds several books, open at once on a twirling caddy)  is Sidney Poitier's letters to his great great granddaughter. Did you know that Sidney was born 2 months premature (and not in a hospital) and his father brought a shoebox home for his burial the first day? 24 hours later his Mom got up and sought out a fortune teller who predicted she need not worry about this child (her 9th) that he would survive and would travel the world, and meet kings and queens. She came home and told her husband to get the shoebox out of the house. Everything she said about Sidney came true.

Anyway, it made the time between getting out of bed and having a meal a couple of hours shorter. I still felt shaky, so I had that tsp of honey in my passion fruit tea and went off to usher at church, thinking about the fact that when I got home, I could have a cupful of cherries and a big salad. That was a glorious thought.
And I did.

For dinner I ate the second half of the spaghetti squash with tomato sauce  and an apple dipped in truvia and cinnamon, which tasted divine. Then off to the grocery store to restock the fridge with more veggies, avocado and fruit for tomorrow, plus my husband's meat for the week. Going to the grocery store on a full stomach is ALWAYS a good idea.  Picking up some chocolate ice cream for my husband was a little tough. I could taste it.

I trolled the fruit and veggie aisles for something different and decided on baby spinach, blueberries and raspberries for a salad tomorrow. And went to the salad bar for some cut up broccoli and cauliflower which I'm going to make into a soup. That sounds good til you realize I can't use any milk or cream in it. But I"ve got the veggie stock ready and I'll give it a try.

Spent the afternoon at the Car Museum, looking at fantastic muscle cars and playing songs from the 50's on a juke box. Never thought about food once while I was there. Veggie days seem much easier than milk days! I felt so distracted I forgot to massage the acupressure beads at 3. One of the rules is that you MUST do the massage and 3 pm and 7 pm -- no explanation. I ended up remembering at 4:30 and quick did a massage and several more throughout the night, whenever I thought of it, hoping that would make up for whatever mysterious qualities 3 and 7 have!