Horsewoman stays the distance with primal! page 36

[Horsewoman]

I bought a body brush, it has sisal bristles on one side and wooden massage things on the other. Worth a try.

Food etc- going really well. It's been great to take the emphasis off sugar and focus on 3 meals instead. I have stuck to it every day since I said I was starting0 eating 3 times a day, a proper primal meal with sugar after if I want (I want lol), aiming for no exposure to gluten or corn so being careful with my choice of sugar items. Plus putting exercise back in place properly- have made a new weekly schedule and stuck to it, well an adjusted version this week as I started on Tues). Next week I'm going to try a very short sprint on a steep grassy uphill that I found on the moors.

I think I am doing really well, especially as things are very bad with my sister, and dh has been kicking off as well. Go me!

And according to the Leptin Diet I am already moving towards healing if I am eating 3 times a day. And yes no blood sugar issues between meals no matter how much sugar I eat with them. Even though I crash if I have half a sweet potato. It is weird!

Made the PB recipe for turkey kebabs last night (doubled the spices and wil double them again next tme lol). Had them with greek salad. Kids all loved them and even said they'd eat them cold in their packed lunches . I just had 3 cold with my breakfast and yes they're good. Need to go now and eat a bar of chocolate before it's too late to call it part of the meal lol.

[Horsewoman]

Aaargh spoke too soon. Rowed with dh yesterday and crashed and burned. I was also freaked out as my mum called and said she might need me to come over this morning to help me sister with getting up. She's told me all about how awful it is when she wakes up, her eyesight is at it's worst so she basically can't see and she often feels really sick and is distressed. Ended up eating chocolate at 2am until I felt sick. Horrid.

Ate ice cream today and then had a nap, woke up and looked in the mirror and actually was shocked by how swollen my face is. It changes radically depending on whether I am on sugar or not, but right now it is scary. I look like the guy in my kids' Nursery Rhyme video and this is not a good thing, believe me! YouTube - ‪Nursery Rhyme Time - BBC - Part One‬‏ !!!

Good thing is I stuck to my plan to do something active with the kids at the weekend (part of my new exercise schedule) and we took the kids swimming and played with them in the pool for an hour.

AF is due in the next couple of days, so hopefully I can get back on track after that.

[Horsewoman]

So I have to add carbs, because my serotonin level is just not robust enough to handle low carb (google it if you don't know about this issue). I've spent half the day today researching and have come to the conclusion that a grain and legume free Radiant Recovery diet is the best option. Basically primal with 3 meals and 3 snacks a day of protein, veggies and carbs, possibly an evening carb to raise serotonin if my blood sugar can handle it one day.

So back to non-stop hunger. I am hating it already. And I know to get steady enough to beat cravings I have to keep my blood sugar really steady, and I have no belief whatsoever I can do that with my body in the state it is clearly in. If I could, I would never have come here, I'd still be a happy RRer.

And for the first time in 10 years I feel like I don't have a community to be part of to support me in this. MDA is great but it's hard hanging out with a load of people who're all slim and thriving on low carb when I am fat, sick and having to eat carbs and dealing with constant blood sugar issues. I'm not sure that's going to work for me. I can't go back to RR, I have to do it on my own this time, and I don't know if I can.

[Horsewoman]

Right, day one of paleo RR successfully completed! I felt really hungry all day yesterday no matter what I ate but after tea it got worse and I realised it was gripiness, I found an article on PHD saying that happens when reintroducing starches due to the gut immune system being downreguated when on a vlc diet, the bacteria reproduce very quickly and it takes a few days for things to settle.

I am amazed and delighted to say that I ate some roast potato 3 hrs after dinner last night a la RR to raise serotonin, went to bed and slept until 8.45am without needing a snack!

I'm going to try some white rice today, I need some alternative starches, I can't eat potato and sweet potato at every meal forever! I was thinking I could get white rice flakes and soak them overnight and then use them for breakfast.

I think gut health is the key here, I need to focus on that and on minimising inflammation. That's where it starts to make sense that half a lifetime of undiagnosed celiac/ gluten intolerance is at the root of this. Gut flora, leaky gut, inflammation.

I did the candida spit test again this morning and there were none of those gross long stringy bits! I know the test isn't scientifically proven but it's still encouraging. I'm up to 17 billion CFU a day with my probiotics (BioKult and Holland and Barrett ones) and currently taking oil of oregano and have just started olive leaf extrac (have cycled out the caprylic acid). I ordered some new probiotics yesterday, Healthy Origins brand- no corn and 30 billion CFU per capsule, a much more economical way to do it, and they have 8 strains, not as much as the 12 in BK but still a good option for me.

[JKC]

I eat rice and potatoes too - I can't handle the VLC thing myself, and I snack during the day if I feel like it. Often I don't, but I don't have any rules against it. I think you just have to find out what works for you, and if this RR works for you, that is great.

[Horsewoman]

I eat rice and potatoes too - I can't handle the VLC thing myself, and I snack during the day if I feel like it. Often I don't, but I don't have any rules against it. I think you just have to find out what works for you, and if this RR works for you, that is great.

Thanks, that's interesting and helpful to know. Good to not feel like I'm the only one eating carbs and not going hours and hours without eating all the time.

It's going well, digestion settled fine the second day (which according the the PHD article is a good sign my gut flora is healthy). I am hoping that going low starch for 9 months and taking all the probiotics and stuff has helped in that department, be nice to think I got some benefit out of it.

I'm going to try rice tomorrow, am going to soak it as WAP recommends, even though it's white, to minimise any toxins. Had yummy butternut squash soup for lunch, I'm hoping I can get enough carbs without doing things like potato and rice at every meal, be more variety if I can use less starchy things like squash, celeriac and so on, some of the time.

I didn't do an evening carb last night, didn't eat after tea at 6pm and was fine through to breakfast again. Am going to try a carb 3 hours after tea again tonight and will see what happens. Might not need to keep doing that but it's a good way to get my serotonin back up as quickly as possible.

Needing snacks again is annoying, but ah well.

[Horsewoman]

Well I am still rocking and rolling. Adding more carbs has definately helped with the mood and fatigue issues. Though PMS is still kicking my arse, I haven't been as careful with making sure I have carbs as I could have been. Hopefully next month will be easier.

I'm trying an experiment at the moment. Using the diet of a UK slimming club as my basis, I've worked out a plan to restrict my food intake whilst still allowing for all the good nutritious stuff I need and a small amount of off plan food like chocolate and wine. I hope to stick to it for 30 days and then if I don't lose weight I will go back to the doctor with proper evidence that there really is something wrong. I'm still using RR principles as well like keeping sugar to meals and so on, as I know that helps me.

I kind of wish I hadn't thrown my scales out now lol, but I weighed myself at my mum's yesterday and can probably arrange to do that once a week, which is good as I can't be tempted to start weighing every day and getting obsessive again. Yesterday, in the afternoon after a Twirl fest and clothed I was 248lbs. I was about 240 in the morning before I threw my scales out on 1st Apr, so it wasn't as bad a gain as I expected! I know I had a 5 day stomach bug but it was mild one and I ate lots of boiled sweets and rice cereal while I was ill so I doubt I lost much weight.

[MamaGrok]

I can't wait to hear how the experiment goes for you! I'm glad you're seeing an improvement with mood & fatigue. I'm looking to up my carbs a bit, too. Where are you at, gram-wise, right now? ish?

[Horsewoman]

Checking in here to say I'm going to be backing off from MDA at least for now. I knew it would be a challenge for me not to get drawn into the whole super low body fat and six pack thing, and it's proving too much for me. I'll never be a gymbody type, it's just not me at all, lifestyle or looks-wise. I just don't want to hang around somewhere where people are telling me I need to be less than 117lbs to be healthy. Even with not that much muscle (for me) I looked scrawny at 130. I just need to focus on health, feeling bad about my body only leads to poor choices anyway. I can't eat low carb, I can't do intense workouts and I don't want to be thin. (Yeah Dr Kruse really pissed me off lol, and his RR-like way of ignoring valid queries and info if it's not what he wants to hear, bugs me too, but I'm not spitting the dummy because of that, it's just given me the push I needed to say "This isn't healthy for me").

Only problem is I really could do with contact with others in a similar position to me, but I don't know where to find that.

I can't wait to hear how the experiment goes for you! I'm glad you're seeing an improvement with mood & fatigue. I'm looking to up my carbs a bit, too. Where are you at, gram-wise, right now? ish?

I actually have no idea lol. Aiming for around 1/2 a cup of rice or equiv per meal. Still having some sugar but not counting that as my carbs as it seems I need starch, not any old carbs.

I was feeling really discouraged this morning, realising that the "feeling better" I am celebrating is basically going back to how I was when I came here, hoping to.. feel better than that <sigh>. However, if nothing else, I have learned that something, either potatoes, grains, whatever, causes the lingering joint pains which were the primary reason I came to primal. I can experiment and work out what carbs work for *my body*. Plus I got away from the RR advice of ever larger portions of carb to try to keep hunger at bay. That doesn't work! I am going to stick to small portions like I was doing pre-gluten illness, and then eat a bit more fat than I was doing before. Add in the Diet Cure stuff I haven't tried yet (I bought the multi, biotin, thiamin and am upping chr). See how it goes.

The slimming club thing was useful but I need more fat at meals than it could allow I think.

[IndigoBanshee]

I'm with you. Maybe we could start a group on here, on Sparkpeople, or some sort of discussion blog?