primal4fifty... and beyond! page 21

[Siobhan]

Hello, just stopped by - love your journal! I am really new here but there are so many great and interesting people here - I need more hours in the day to sit on my rear and read their journals! Hey, I am learning so much about both success and failure and how to deal with both - thanks -

[Urban Forager]

Thanks, I had a hard time deciding between a fox and the raccoon. I'd love to see your owl mask. I've made a couple of owl masks, but haven't been entirely pleased with my designs.

I think your approach to the diet is very sensible. When you have as much responsibility as you do it's important to not make the food part too difficult.

[primal4fifty]

Welcome siobhan! (that's one of my all time favorite names, btw!)

We have a nice little group of people who visit around here. you will fit right in...

yeah, constructively dealing with the small, discrete failures is probably one of the hugest components of long-term overarching success! at least in my humble opinion. because unless you are the boy in the proverbial bubble, sooner or later life will rear its ugly head. and really all any of us can do is dust ourselves off and keep moving forward with an eye toward recognizing the next curveball earlier and more proactively.

Marianne was just at primalcon and I cant wait to see what else she heard/learned/observed...

and thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kind words forager! yes, sometimes life is just hard enough...

trying this whole30 (and not being terribly successful!) has made regular primal life feel pretty easy I must say. I really really really like a day bracketed by a cup of excellent coffee with heavy cream first thing in the morning and a small square of the very best quality dark chocolate money can buy last thing at night! For me, that trumps rapid weight loss or perfect skin or totally visible abs... but I really didnt know that about myself until I tried life without them!

and the other thing I learned is that I cannot bear being that orthexic person who wants to know if there's butter in there, etc. etc. when I'm out in public! heh! although I have a lot of compassion for those who must ask because of health challenges. I get it. I really do. I just don't feel I need to go there myself.

my big insight of the day yesterday was realizing that because everything is so fucking hard right now and I feel so incredibly alone, sharing a meal within my extended family is a small way I get to sit back and be sort of taken care of... and because of the whole30 I've been pushing that away! leaving me feeling even more isolated and alone and uncared for! thats got to be a big part of why i found it so upsetting. i'm usually pretty stoic...

I always cycle thru a little bluesiness this time of year. My mother and I had birthdays 4 days apart... her's is coming up on April 28. Mine follows in early may; then mother's day caps off the trifecta! Its not a bad thing, just something I do each year to revisit all that we had and all that we lost and all that I miss about her. Short version: I was an only child with a teenage single mum. She was as lovely and fun as the day is long, but had a terrible problem insofar as she could never find a way inside of herself to stop being the 24-hour caregiver to my mentally ill grandmother. she just never was able to extract herself from that terrible obligation. we would daydream about a future in which this was no longer her responsibility (she had me as a teenager mind you!) but all of a sudden around her 59th birthday she developed pancreatic cancer and died in a matter of weeks. she died here, in my front bedroom where im writing this, in my arms no less! it was lovely in its own way. but i really miss her. we grew up together in this wacky household with a schizophrenic and we shared more i think than maybe mothers and daughters share in conventional nuclear families... so this time of the year is when I revisit all the private little stations of my small personal cross... It is not a bad thing to have a time of reflection. But i'll probably never try another whole30 at this particular point in the calendar again! hahahaha

take care everyone... xoL

[ragwort]

Dear P4F ,

This is so not the moment to angst over exactly what you are eating. Just try your best and do what feels instinctively right. It is always easier as summer looms...... (hopefully - not that you'd know it here as I had to de-ice the car yesterday but this morning I nearly was washed away trying to get into my car!)

I lost my father two years ago - he died v v peacefully at home and now I spend a lot of time with my mum and my chaotic IL's - soon to move here! My heart goes out to you. I feel you and I are similar in that we have busy households to run plus relatives and other commitments which means we give of ourselves very much with precious little time for our own renewal and repair.

I am sending you a massive virtual hug and will toast you in a single glass of wine tonight (yes .... I know it's a school night but ... going back this week was arduous - especially today with 'wet play'). You may feel alone but you have your family and all the support from this thread to help you get through...

Lots of love

S x

[Siobhan]

Hello and thanks for stopping by my journal. I realized today I probably wouldn't have stuck with this even with the really positive results if I didn't have this place to get all my questions answered. I hope today has been way, way, way better than you could ever have imagined when you got up this morning. I am really moved by your experience with your mother - I faced a kinda sorta situation with my own mom, which I won't get into here. Of course no one can ever really know how someone else feels, but I can relate. Take care -

[winencandy]

So what im doing is going whole30 M-Th... I adapt my recipes at my leisure, I spend a lot of time alone anyway during the school and workweek, and there are very few social obligations. Then on Thu night I break that "fast" with a glass of red wine and from F-Sun evening I am just primal, but it is 80/20 primal so I am pretty careful still... Its all I can do right now.

I really like this approach.

I really really really like a day bracketed by a cup of excellent coffee with heavy cream first thing in the morning and a small square of the very best quality dark chocolate money can buy last thing at night! For me, that trumps rapid weight loss or perfect skin or totally visible abs... but I really didnt know that about myself until I tried life without them!

yup (except substitute Chai for coffee)

and the other thing I learned is that I cannot bear being that orthexic person who wants to know if there's butter in there, etc. etc. when I'm out in public! heh! although I have a lot of compassion for those who must ask because of health challenges. I get it. I really do. I just don't feel I need to go there myself.

That is the one really valuable thing I got from my Whole 30 too.



{{{{{hugs}}}}

[Marianne]

Hi -- I'm back home from PrimalCon and a lazy few extra days on the California coast. What a great trip! I've posted a longer report in my own journal so as not to take up too much real estate on P4F's space. But, ladies, I gotta' say--it was an awesome experience. Start saving your pennies NOW, and we can all meet up there this time next year!

[ragwort]

Marianne

Actually this sounds like a brilliant idea! I'm so glad you had a good time and learnt lots. I hope you will post some good tips for us all as you remember them to keep us all motivated!

Thanks