Primal journal : Coll page 45

[Judg]

Sorry you're having a rough time of it. Sometimes we just have to recalibrate. Keeping track sounds like a great way to start. Recalibrating spiritually usually helps me too.

[Coll]

I agree Judg, I find the recalibration needs to happen spiritually before the rest will fall into line.... Going to make some meaty tomato sauce to eat on spaghetti squash for dinner. I ate a whole bar of chocolate today - again. Got to get on top of why I am craving chocolate at the moment. I don't physically feel like chocolate - but I keep on eating it. Deep breath, ok, try and try again. I know a good sleep will help and I just spent about 40 minutes trying my hand at whittling. I think this could become a fun hobby ... we'll see. My hands are going to have to get a lot stronger and I am going to have to learn how to sharpen my knife better too! All a learning process, but fun. Good stress relief - I know I am really stressed. Just not all that clued up what about - I tend to shut it all down and eat instead of looking at what is bugging me and dealing with it. Not helpful I know.

[Judg]

There is one diet guru out there who says that when you're craving something, you should just eat it as much as you want, day in, day out, until you're so sick of it, it's no longer a problem. It might work for some people sometimes. I've never tried it, it seems so excessive.

Just looked at your numbers again. You've lost almost 40 pounds in 8 months? Wow. That's nothing to sneeze at. Sometimes we just need to step back to gain a little perspective. When we realize how well we're going, the frustrations over temporary road blocks ease off, and everything falls back into place again.

[Candy in Wonderland]

If you crave chocolate, you might be low on magnesium! Maybe try supplementing that for a while?

[lopisheep]

You could eat a lot of greens, halibut, beef, pumpkin seeds too. They contain magnesium.

I worry about heavy intakes of nightshades -- peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, etc. Garret Smith in an article on the Weston A. Price site gives an excellent summary of problems from nightshades for all kinds of issues.

Might be fun to check out. It seems like everyone having illnesses on this site -- a huge majority of the people here -- are eating a lot of nightshades. Like, almost without fail, they're eating heavy nightshades -- foods which definitely contribute to inflammation of joints, etc. Garret Smith believes nightshades are almost as bad as glutens! Food for thought.

[Candy in Wonderland]

Pam, I've done the auto-immune protocol last month, so no nightshades, nuts or eggs and didn't notice any difference

[lopisheep]

Pam, I've done the auto-immune protocol last month, so no nightshades, nuts or eggs and didn't notice any difference

Super. I can easily eat nuts -- I like to soak them overnight and then dehydrate them. Eggs fine unless there are too many; then it's just too many eggs -- too rich. I'm not sure about nightshades, but I figure I don't want arthritis when I'm 80 or 90, so I'm not taking any chances. We are all so different. Guess Coll will have to do the same kind of check we did. And it's not like people even react to all nightshades. One individual might have reactions to one nightshade and not another. Same with nuts and dairy, etc. Like cream is fine and yogurt is fine and even some cheeses, but put an aged cheese in there and wow! Yep, it is a scientific experiment.

[Judg]

Almonds are also a good source of magnesium.

[Sabine]

If you crave chocolate, you might be low on magnesium! Maybe try supplementing that for a while?

Or...you might be low on chocolate!

[Coll]

Okay folks - thanks for hanging with me there. Yesterday it was as if a light went on and the horrid feeling disappeared... I had been feeling so bloated and tired and down etc .... then yesterday afternoon it lifted all of a sudden. I had some dark chocolate since I had finished all the other chocolate and that certainly hit the chocolate craving right on the head. Suddenly I had had enough chocolate and the thought of more was not tempting. I have been putting some magnesium gel on my legs too for the last few days and I don't know if that suddenly kicked in or what. I do think there was some kind of a hormonal issue going on too. Whatever, I am glad it is over. I gained about 5 lbs this last week or two, but since I started feeling better yesterday afternoon I dropped 2 lbs of water! Whew, I do feel much better. Today I was at 190.5lbs so I have to regain the ground I lost now. But, I hope that won't be too much of an issue.

Sabine, if you ask my taste buds they always think I am low on chocolate! Pam, I don't actually eat a lot of nightshades usually ... I haven't noticed anything obvious as far as reactions to them at this point. But I haven't tried eliminating them totally either. I will give that a try sometime and will be interested in seeing if there is any change. It is interesting how different we are. I find yoghurt just doesn't agree with me, but kefir is fine, cream is fine, cheeses are fine, raw milk is fine! I like yoghurt sometimes, but eat it very seldom now, because I don't like how I feel after eating it!