She-Groks Only.......... cuz it works different for us page 74

[KerryK]

^lopm- how wonderful you and your husband are dong so well living primarily. A nice post to read on a gray Monday morning! Tomi will welcome you but I'm just saying a quick 'Howdy'back, too...

[tomi]

Welcomes are "welcome" from one and all! Its always so great to see new gals joining our talks.

@ lil old paleo me: Great job on the weight loss - and staying strictly paleo. I'm wondering how the paleo is effecting your husbands MS? Have you seen any improvements? Have you seen the video of the doctor who treated her MS with paleo and is now out of her wheel chair and walking, doing speaking engagements and all? If not, let me know and I will try to find it for you.

I'm feeling bit under the weather today - seems a virus is trying to grab ahold of me! Something has been going around the office and I think its found me. So, I'm laying low today. Might have to go to the office for a short while this afternoon though.

UGH...........

[KimT]

Great progress lil old paleo me! Hope it continues to work well for you and your husband!

Tomi, hope you fell better.

[sbhikes]

Good Morning all. I found this thread and spent my weekend reading it all. I am really happy to find you guys. This is my first post and am looking forward to getting to know you all. My Story - I have fought increasing weight over the last many years. Was 112 lbs before DS was born 32 years ago. Was 125 before DD was born 30 years ago. I am 51 years old, post menopausal, 5' tall. By last summer I had gradually increased to 165 lbs. I have tried eating low fat for years. I have genetically high cholesterol and have been on statins for 20 years. A good friend of mine -- who was previously vegetarian -- introduced me to the Paleo diet last summer. She lent me Mark Sisson and Robb Wolf's books which I eagerly read and which totally made sense to me. I have never looked back.

So last August, DH and I went paleo. I didn't own a scale so I couldn't track my progress. I wasn't really in it for the weight loss, although that was a nice side effect, I was more in it for the health benefits. Long story short, I have lost 40 lbs in 10 months. I feel fantastic. I didn't lose right away, it took a couple of months before I started to notice my clothes being looser.

DH has very progressive MS and is confined to a wheelchair. He always had bowel issues -- sometimes going a week without going -- the paleo diet has completely fixed that. Not to say we don't have problems now and again but overall, he is more regular than he has been all his life.

Anyway, just wanted to pop in and say hello. Happy Monday!!!
Grok on

Great news! How is your cholesterol now? Do you still take the statins? I intend to refuse. There is no heart disease at all in my family and the women live long despite high cholesterol. So besides the fact that there has never been any evidence to show they are beneficial for any women of any age or health status, there is not a good enough reason in my opinion for me to take them anyway.

[lil old paleo me]

So -- typical day for me. Get up, get DH showered, dressed, toileted, etc. with the help of PSW for 2 hours Monday to Friday. Cook breakfast - meat (usually bacon, peameal bacon, sausage or scallops and shrimp) and two eggs. It is usually at least 9:30 when we eat breakfast, sometimes as late a 11:00. Put DH in standing frame - this is a device that allows people who are in wheelchairs to get on their feet and bear weight. Most days I work from home. I am a bookkeeper in a law office and have been in my present job for almost 30 years. When DH health deteriorated, I asked and employer agreed to let me work from home so I could balance my caregiver duties with my work. Twice a week I make the trip to the office and drop off and pick up work and do stuff I can't do from home. We very rarely eat lunch -- we just aren't hungry -- but we will snack on meat sticks and maybe a piece of fruit mid-afternoon. Dinner is meat (half the plate) and veggies or salad (other half of the plate). We have sweet potatoes maybe a couple of times a week. Happy hour daily with rum and coke zero or pepsi max. (hey we gotta have fun right We do not cheat on our paleo diet. We do not eat any bread, pasta, rice or grains at all.

Organized exercising does not happen in our house, there just isn't time. Maybe we will go for a walk/wheel together if the weather is good. I think the pushing/pulling/lifting/transferring of DH gets me a "lift heavy things" workout on a daily basis.

I guess my biggest problems are getting adequate sleep and the "play" thing. My sleep is not good -- either I can't fall asleep or I wake up in the night and can't go back to sleep. Having "play" is difficult for us cause we just can't do it. I need to be here for DH 24/7 and I am really not interested in leaving him alone while I pursue my own interests. We are "soulmates" - married 32 years.

Tomi, the person you are referring to is Terry Wahl and yes I have seen her presentation on minding your mitochondria. I am really informed and up to date on all things MS which was another reason we have gone paleo.

Thanks for the welcomes. I realize I have just written a novel -- sorry, there is just so much to say once you get going when you are a bit secluded from the world.

[lil old paleo me]

I will have my cholesterol checked at the end of June. I went off the statins in December. I had my levels checked in May, LDL's are high, HDL's are high (which is good) and triglycerides are low (also good). Dr. prescribed statins again and wants to check my levels again end of June. I did not fill the prescription -- showdown time with Dr in the future. I agree, not enough proof that they work for women. I probably know more about cholesterol than my dr. LOL. Statins are bad. Wish I knew that before blindly taking them for so many years. Oh well, just go forward.

[cmlloyd]

You've misunderstood the mindset completely. I've not seen any women complain of oppression on his site. Unless you're talking about discussion of the greater social pressures on women to make themselves unnaturally lean, but there's relatively little talk about that.

The point is that pretty much any health guidelines need to be honed for men and for women due to the biological differences, and that's what's being eeked out here. Age is another important factor, and sometimes ethnicity.

that hh22166 I think is a spammer. So I would pay too much attention to it or him or her - i reported the post because if you go to view all posts there is an address attached to almost all of them that you can't see in the forum it's invisible some kind way for him to attached a free advertising onto his/her/it's posts.
I think this thread is a great value of information Thank you

[tomi]

@lil old paleo me - I too was slave to statins for 30 years. I was diagnosed at 30 with high cholesterol, and not knowing any better followed the docs recommendation to start taking the statins. Once I found this way of eating, I went off, and even at the strong recommendation of my doctor I did not go back on them. I will be having my cholesterol checked at the end of this week, so we'll see whats up. No heart disease in my family, but no known high cholesterol either. Just me.

I sorta figured you were up on everything MS, but thought I'd throw it out just in case. Eating primal (although I think I'm closer to paleo, since I very rarely do dairy) has practically eliminated my fibromyalgia pain and fatigue. I can always tell when I have a grain product cuz the pain returns within hours of eating.

Glad you're here.

[RitaRose]

I'm constantly posting this, but it's especially applicable here in a women's thread:

Is the use of cholesterol in mortality ris... [J Eval Clin Pract. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI

It basically says that higher total cholesteral in women is inversely proportional to mortality. In other words, the lower your total cholesterol, the more likely you are to keel over. Higher total cholesterol and you might live a little longer.

In men, it's more of a U-shaped curve with a sweet spot in the middle, but for women, it's a straight line.

I told my mom about the study (she's been taking statins since they came out) and she replied "All I know is my cholesterol is good and low!"

Um... okay.

[tomi]

Thanks, RitaRose -- I think they are starting to realize this in mainstream medicine - but its likely to take many years before they stop pushing statins on when. I watched a documentary over the weekend with my son - its called Fathead. Its very good! I'm gonna try to get hubby to watch it with me. It is basically a documentary in favor of paleo/primal eating - and it also discusses the cholesterol issue with women.

I'm off statins and never going back on!