Primal Challenge Journal (MamaGrok) page 125

[MamaGrok]

I still have lots of trial and error going on, for sure! I may end up trying 5HTP yet, we'll see. As for now, I've been cravings-free for two weeks, even noting how I'm dreaming about passing up sweets & not caring, pigging out on brisket, etc., lol. But last night I had a sweets dream, just a small one, so knew I had to be on guard today. And yes, I found myself craving just a tiny bit.

But anyway, yesterday was another great day with energy & cheerfulness. No crawl-in-a-corner moments, no big headaches, no anger jags. Today was slightly worse, and several times I felt right on the cusp of a big headache, but avoided it mostly. I'm having dh turn on and off the router, but not tell me when he does, so after a week I'll know which nights I slept with it on and which off. I'm wondering if that being off at night the last week has anything to do with the headaches going away.

Still chugging the different kinds of Mg 3x/day, but getting eye twitches. Grr. Don't understand that. Well, I didn't have them yesterday and only one today, but had them 3-4x/day the 4 days before that. O was only 1 day early this month, pleasant surprise after lots of months of 3 days early.

I decided to eat a sweet potato tonight. I'm deflating, yes, slowly - was down just under 24" on thigh yesterday after going from 23 to 24.25 in just over a week, adn stayin gthere for several weeks. Was down 3lb from the measured high (I'm sure it was higher than that before I reined it all in). But I can't keep waiting forever on a fish/meat/fat diet. So sweet potatoes it is for now, then in a few weeks, berries, then maybe I'll try well-cooked greens/squash again.

I still can't figure out why all the weight gain in the last month. Oh, well. I know it is 90% bloat & water; I just don't know why it happened, why it was so much, why it stuck around so long.

[MamaGrok]

Today is Sunday Mar 10.

Friday - mental stamina & mood - 8 or 8.5 out of 10
physical stamina - 6

Saturday - mental - felt fine, but for some reason could only focus on negative things about others for the first hour or two, then great the rest of the day
- physical - 5.5 or 6. Very sleepy from about 1-4.

Today - out of NDT. Eeks. None 2hrs before waking today. Woke sluggish with a headache. OTOH, dh also woke with a headache, which never happens. We ate out last night, but had different things. I had a dish that was guaranteed gluten-free, adn it was a very nice restaurant. Pork chop w/ collards. The collards had some kind of vinegar in them ... probably "white" (=corn). I skipped the sauce (probably corn starch). I had a few small bites of fruit leather before leaving. I ate a LOT of food (mostly meat) yesterday. I've needed an afternoon meal several days this week.

Was up 3lb the day after eating the sweet potato. Sheesh! Heavy sweet potato, lol.

Still at 142ish. Unbelievable. I have no idea what is causing all this bloating & water retention. Every other time this has happened, I could point to something I ate, and it always, ALWAYS went away in a week. It has been nearly a month!!

[MamaGrok]

I felt extreme leg soreness & tiredness this morning, along with sleepiness, all the way through taking a 45m nap this afternoon. Then I felt fine.

Poisoning while eating out last night?

I had a bunch (20gm?) of d-ribose tonight to test if I was right about it making me dizzy (plus I couldn't put it down; despite what "they" say, my body treats the taste like any other sweet taste and obsesses for more of it). Yep, it made me dizzy just like too much sugar or fruit, AND the dizziness an hour later is to the point that I'm shaky, have to work hard to function mentally, and lol my blood sugar is 55. That's not too atypical for me, but I was expecting too high, not too low.

[wthiswrongwithme]

MamaGrok, I've been following you for over a year. Just saw your video recently and it was such a huge inspiration for me!! We used to chat on the Jack Kruse forums sometimes. My username there was diffstory.

We've always had similar problems which is one reason I sought you out.

I've noticed you seem to be doing soooo much better now that you are taking thyroid meds. I also started taking thyroid meds and have had similar progress. I am waaaay better now. No more of the zombie fatigue. Still have some issues though.

Anyways, just wanted to post because I discovered something recently and wanted to share...
I have always been a sugar-addict. I didn't realize I was though. I thought I was just always choosing to eat "bad". But after trying to go Paleo, I realized the sugar had an obsessive control over me that had made dieting impossible for years.

I also suspected I was having thyroid problems but didn't realize they were related. I've tried several different thyroid meds to help in the past 6 months and, recently, when I got really frustrated trying to lose weight, I decided to try HCG...don't worry, this isn't a post where I try and convince you to take HCG. )

Right after starting, I started seeing some AMAZING changes. I wasn't "sick" anymore! Almost every last problem I had was gone - COMPLETELY. And when I stopped the round (after 50-ish days), I had COMPLETE control over what I ate. It was AMAZING. I have always been really addicted to Coca Cola and just seeing a red aluminum can or a McDonald's sign (where I would buy a large Coke) would make me drool. But after HCG, that all went away. I couldn't believe it. I could walk past sugar and not think twice. After my round, I also stopped taking my thyroid meds after the round because I was feeling so good.

About a month after HCG, all of my "sick" symptoms started returning and, most importantly, the cravings started coming back and I found myself without willpower again. That was when I first started putting it altogether. Sure enough, after a lot of Googling, I found lots of other women with the same problem.

I've emailed Colleen several times about the HCG as she seems to be an expert with it (I had previously thought it might be all hormone related). Her thought was that it's ALL thyroid-related. She believes that HCG "boosts" your thyroid and that's why I felt so good. (Interestingly enough, I remember feeling like this when I was pregnant too and actually got down to my lowest weight ever when pregnant which makes sense since, at that time, I was producing my own HCG.)

So, even though I know you're taking NDT, I'm wondering if it's not enough for you? I'm no expert in fixing my thyroid. I have the same sleepiness and the same cravings and it's been hard to keep it under control. I have NDT, Naturethoid, and T3. I've been playing around with all of them for a few months and can't get the symptoms to disappear altogether, but am going to keep trying. Oddly, if I take too much of the T3, I get drowsy. I never get the hyper/over-medicated feeling from the T3.

Just wanted to post as I think your cravings are thyroid-related (but maybe you already knew that and I didn't read your journal back far enough!).

If I figure anything else out, I'll definitely be sure to share.

-Kelly

[momofredheads]

HGH can be increased in your sleep. I was reading it in a book and I was surprised because I thought it only occurred when pregnant. I forget where and how I have to look through it, it's a book about firing up your metabolism and it has to do with taking GABA. I can't copy/paste from the cloud reader but basically taking GABA before bed your HGH levels rise 90 minutes after you are asleep and this helps you sleep better at night and more soundly, it also increases fat burning while you sleep too, if you still have weight to lose. The book is called Secrets to Controlling your Weight, Cravings and Mood: Understand the biochemistry of neurotransmitters and how they determine our weight and mood: Maria Emmerich: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

I don't know, I don't have a T issue, that I am aware of. I have found tremendous improvement in quality of sleep since I started taking 5HTP with GABA and Magnesium before bed and my cravings are gone, literally gone and it's going on a month on the supplements now. 100mg 5HTP 500mg Mg and I don't remember the dosage of the GABA. I feel cool as cucumber, before taking it I was feeling irritable and moody and I just couldn't figure out why. I wasn't sleeping well, the cravings ramped up, probably from not getting sound sleep. I think it would be worth the shot as long as it doesn't interfere with current meds you are taking. It worked the first night and I remember telling my friend that if it really takes 2-4 weeks to see significant improvement, I am going to be a rockstar in a month because I immediately felt better that first night. I had to play around with the 5HTP to see where my dose was. I took 100mg for a week then upped it to 200mg and I was having too many nightmares, so I brought it back down to 100mg and that is my sweet spot. I wake up refreshed, not hungover like you do on sleep aids. I have energy for my workouts, I don't feel like I want to stall in the middle of the day. OK, now I am rambling.

[MamaGrok]

I'm so glad for the successes y'all are having!

Me, last night I proved I can still eat a whole jar of (100% fruit) jam in one sitting. :headdesk:

Starting a Bulletproof Exec "rapid fat loss" protocol today, mostly b/c it eliminates the meats I'm eating as a possible source of bloating, so I can see if I can at least get this water/bloat weight off. Day one halfway down.

Results of my EMF experiment:

I had no idea each day whether dh had left the wifi on or off at night. DH ended up turning it off every night last week, with the idea that after a week of letting any old effect wear off, he'd start playing with it being on or off each night. However, we decided to end the experiment now that I'm doing the butter fast, b/c there are likely to be confounding effects from that.

I ended up with 2 of my first 4 days having episodes that I had tied to possibly being wifi-related. Headaches, unable to cope with the smallest daily stresses, wanting to curl up and hide when stresses came. The next 4 days had no episodes at all.

I can't say whether it's b/c I had had a chance for the wifi effects to wear off, but I can say that was the longest stretch I've had in the last two months without any episodes. The last time was the 2nd, 3rd, & 4th day of our trip to Snowshoe, WV, where we had wifi while we slept, but nothing at all on the mountain during the day, not even cellular signals.

Results are still tentative given this. After seeing what, if anything, the butter fast does, I will do another week where he actually randomizes having it on and off at night. I won't have to acclimate for a week first, b/c based on these tentative results, we've agreed that it's best to keep the wifi off at night for now.

[MamaGrok]

Quick update:

- I tried a Bulletproof "Rapid Fat Loss Protocol" Fat Fast = 3 days of nothing but green tea & butter. Lost nothing. I had to have at least 1600 calories a day, though, to avoid grating hunger. I still felt starved, just not dead, at 1600.
- I decided that because my energy is increasing & mood is great, and b/c I am bouncing back and forth between no carbs & bingeing, and spring is nigh, I will just eat a normal person paleo diet. Or close, anyway. Just meat, veggies (avoiding the ones I know I don't digest well), even fruit. ONly whole fruit. No dried or jammed or juice forms of fruit, b/c I eat too much of them. Proved it again tonight - ate a whole $9 bag of "just Fruit" strawberries. 4 servings! My blood sugar was 181 close to an hour later. Yikes.

- My mood is stable at 7.5 or 8/10. Physical energy has been fabulous the last three days at 8.5 or 9/10!! It could be the increased DHEA (from 33mg to 50mg/day), lipoceutical glutathione (doubt it), or continued sleeping without wifi on & adding grounding sheet at night. Despite my doubts, it actually corresponds very closely to adding the grounding sheet. I'll do some blind testing of that later, as well as resuming my blind testing of the nighttime wifi.
- Headaches & "curl up in a corner" moments are still *gone*. Loving that.

- Bloating is the worst it's been in years. It's constant, and goes from bad to worse back to bad again. I am 146 now, still gaining, not losing. Obviously I gained water & some fat from the binges, but I did *not* eat 14lb of extra calories. Absolutely not. Perhaps the high carb days triggered insulin -> fat storage -> whatever, I don't know, but I feel horrible. My thighs are each up over 1.5", pants don't fit, muffin top back, huge huge bloat. I would love for this to go away, but I am feeling mentally & physically so well that I am not going to try to keep eliminating everything to eliminate the bloat. I know that "no carb" finally stopped working for this (oh, and I'm on ox bile, HCl, and protein enzymes), so I have to go back to a real diet some time.

I know that increasing the carbs isn't responsible for otherwise feeling better, b/c I was still no carb when the mood got so much better. I also didn't feel anything like this after bingeing, even though the binges included no wheat, straight out grains (some corn vinegar, I'm sure), or junk food.

I have no idea what to do about the weight game other than pray I have ended the cravings again. I have never, ever had unexplained weight gain before. I did not binge nearly bad enough or often enough to explain this. But here it is. Here I am.

[MamaGrok]

Also, I went to a Greek restaurant Sat night & had lamb, well-cooked green beans, potatoes, 1/8C red bell pepper hummus, & one very small bite of custard (didn't enjoy). Didn't want any of the chocolate cake (birthday) or other desserts, so that's quite nice. **Did not feel lethargic the next day** just had a small period of sleepiness, maybe an hour.

In fact, that reminds me, the three hours of mid-afternoon sleepiness hasn't happened in nearly a week! Not since the physical energy has also increased ... not since the grounding at night started? I just realized this! Great news! (knock on wood, lol)

But my knee hurts this morning, the way it used to after a long downhill hike. Weird, b/c I certainly haven't hiked, but also makes me wonder if it could be the potatoes I ate 60hrs ago? Or the whole bag of strawberries last night?

What is it about me that I can eat 96g of fruit carbs & have a blood glucose of 181 an hour later?

[Christi Lynn]

Last night, 4mo & 135.

This morning, 3mo & 132.75.

I had coconut cream each of the last two days, & curry. I have sausage with cayenne & trace sugar daily. None of these things seem to have a noticeable affect so long as I have my ox bile going

Love your journal. Had read tons of it last year but then lost track and am catching up again. Do you take a specific brand/amount of ox bile? I have bloating issues with coconut products (not oil), brussel sprouts, broccoli, etc and wonder if ox bile would help? All of these things are things I love and would like to be able to have the coconut products since I don't do dairy! Thanks for any help you can provide and keep up the amazing work you do with your health! You will so figure out this current hurdle you are facing!

Christi Lynn

[MamaGrok]

Christus Resurrexit! Alleluia, Alleluia!