Primal journal : Coll page 47

[Siobhan]

We are experiencing that heavenly time of mild sunny days and chilly nights - perfect for hiking in the day and woodstoves at night. Hope it lasts for awhile! We are supposed to get Sandy in some way, shape, or form. We will see. I have a new load of firewood stacked up and ready to go -

[Coll]

Autumn has always been a favourite time of the year for me - in South Africa too. I would suddenly feel as though I had energy again and there is nothing like snuggling under the covers when it is nippy outside And inside too,actually

It has been a busy day what with school and catching up with e-mail etc.

Breakfast was 3 fried eggs and 4 breakfast sausages, cup of tea with cream, and one square of 85% chocolate. Lunch was 2 hotdogs, a carrot, a handful of macadamias and an egg, cauliflower, onion, Parmesan concoction that was yummy but filling and another cup of tea with cream. Then this afternoon I slipped and had some macadamias and pecans - emotional eating I know! I certainly wasn't hungry! But stressed because I am looking around for a home for us and there is not much out there that we could afford or would want to live in. On one hand it is fun to look but tough too. I want to try and familiarize myself with what is out there and where to look, but I can only do it in small doses and I think I may have overdosed this afternoon! Dinner was cauliflower rice with ground beef stew on top. Tasty and filling. Now I have to exercise my self discipline (I think that sometimes I am retarded in that area!!!) and not eat anything else before bedtime. I am actually thirsty this evening so I think I will just down a bottle of water. Of course that means I will probably be getting up in the night but I am thirsty enough to not care. Oh, I also had about 2 tablespoons of butter (Kerrygold - yum) before dinner. I couldn't quite bring myself to have CO today - didn't want to feel nasty and try to do school! I will take a 1/4 teaspoon with breakfast again tomorrow and see if I still feel yuck. I am going to take it really slow with that as I have no intention of ever feeling that horrible, scary reaction that I had before! Easy does it - I tend to go gung ho with stuff like that, not this time :O

So grateful that DH's work keeps on coming in! SO wonderful to start paying off some of the debt we accumulated over a few years on half time of a carpenters pay!!! Just keep praying that the calls will keep coming ... we feel so blessed and grateful. Trusting that others will also be blessed in their work and finances. It can be SOOOOO stressful.

[Coll]

Day off today - DH was home this morning so we took a drive to look at a place that sounded intriguing in my searches yesterday. It is a pretty fun looking place, it would be a lovely spot to live... loads of trees, an orchard out back, 10 acres and a decent size manufactured home (not that I want to live in one again but it is better than nothing, and better than renting) I could imagine us having a great time there! Not going to get excited though, as it is about 3 months before we will be able to get a loan and it could be gone next week. However, it was nice to see something in our price range that would be pleasant to live in! And if it is meant to be it will still be there when we are able to buy it.

I slept 10 hours last night! HEAVEN!! I couldn't believe it when I woke up and looked at the clock - I did the math twice and it was true! I can't remember when I last slept that well. Must be the low carb and all that lovely fat and protein kicking in - plus it is divine sleeping weather now! It is below freezing a lot of nights and we sleep with our windows open a crack. Unfortunately in this house if the heat is on the lowest it will go is 50 F. When we are sitting around during the day we get sort of chilly and then I will put the heat up to about 58F to 60F. It would be so nice to live in a place with a wood stove and be able to have a nice cozy spot and then have the bedrooms nice and chilly.

Breakfast was leftover ground beef stew on cauliflower rice. Black tea with cream. Lunch was the other half of my egg and cauliflower concoction from yesterday and another two hotdogs (grass fed, organic and uncured) about an ounce of raw cheddar and another couple cups of tea with cream. Also had 4 prunes due to plumbing issues ... I am stuffed. Close to 1200 calories already ... I am not sure what I should do about dinner .... should read up about the leptin reset again, am feeling as though I should IF for that meal but maybe not.

Went looking for winter pj's as the nightgown thing just is not working for me! I get tangled in it every night -grrr. So tried on some of the women's flannel pj's - pretty cute, but I am afraid they are very uncomfortable for me! So I went to the men's section and found some very comfy pj's! Flannel and fit amazingly well - at least my arms don't feel like they just went through a sausage machine! And there is a decent rise on the pants instead of sitting halfway down my hips. I don't like low rise pants in the day so that definitely will not work at night

[Coll]

Well, after looking at my macros I decided to do a light dinner, mostly kale chips with half a sausage that DS couldn't finish. I shouldn't have done the half a sausage but it was so tempting!

[Judg]

Sleeping well makes such a lovely difference, doesn't it? And it must have been so encouraging to see that there are good places that you might be able to afford. And that your kids are determined to eat clean.

I'm looking forward to a quiet time, when I can just eat clean too. Starting now...

[Coll]

Glad to have you back Judg It is so nice to be home where you can make what you want - when you want, or not! We went to look at a place that has been really intriguing the last few days. It was unoccupied and we decided to pull in and have a look around ... then decided to get out and peek around back ... and then took a walk around the orchard ... DH was just taking a turn in the trees when a vehicle pulled up behind us and parked us in and three guys got out! I really thought we were in for some trouble - but turned out to be one of those moments that I believe are co-ordinated in heaven! It was the owner and his partner, they pulled the keys out and showed us around quite happily. We were the first to look at the place and they said that they would be happy for us to have first dibs. We were pretty pleased as it all seemed to be great - until the tour of the future property line, the oil well next door and the mineral rights are reserved by the owner, and they are only selling a small portion of the land we wanted (with the possibility of fracking messing with the well!!!) and also possibly have another oil well even closer. We would have probably jumped in with both feet if the talk hadn't turned to that stuff - and if we had come at another time, or with a different realtor, we would probably never have learned about the oil wells until they were being put in :0 Felt like a narrow escape and I am so grateful to God for watching our backs for us!

Today, did not sleep well at all last night... not sure if it is the low carb getting to me but it was a very disjointed night and I never felt as though I really got deeper than the beginning stages of sleep. Weird. I took a melatonin, then at 1:30 am I took another. Sort of slept after that... kids are having a sleep over tonight so that should mean no wakeup calls for me in the night. (DS sleeps on a camping mattress in DD's room) He really struggles with being afraid of the dark and of being on his own. He is always scared that someone is going to kidnap him - poor kid.

Food today - more than I should have had now that I have added it all up on fitday.com. Oh well, it is what it is. My carbs were a bit over 50 today - 65ish I think. THat apple I ate pushed it way over - but it was scrumptious with a piece of parrano cheese! A worthwhile splurge once in a while. Breakfast was some left over kebab, and sausage. Tea with cream - 3 cups today! I had more sausage at lunch with an apple and cheese. On our way home it was late and I was getting rather hungry and there were pistachios leftover from everyone else's snack earlier - I scoffed them down - ony about 16 of them, but enough to push my macros ever further off today. Dinner was chicken thighs done in the crockpot until they were falling apart and sauteed cabbage with onion and garlic. Then a bowl of berries and cream (more cream!) My fat macros for today were very 'healthy' - 108 grams!! Protein 75 gms! Definitely more of a feast day than I had anticipated, but I don't feel stuffed or bad. Just tighten the belt tomorrow again. Got to head for bed now. Hopefully this is a better night!

[Sabine]

Autumn is my favorite season, too. You'd think that spring would be the energizing time, but, nope, autumn all the way. And everything is so lovely to look at. Even here in Texas, we get trees turning gold. And there's nothing lovelier than walking down the streets with leaves drifting through the air, and swirling up from under your feet.

[Judg]

Nah, we get all sluggish from the summer heat and the cool weather revives us. It always feels like new beginnings to me too.

Picked myself a wildflower bouquet on my walk today: purple clover, three colours of asters, a sprig of goldenrod, and three different coloured leaves. Free happiness.

Hope you slept better last night, Coll.

[Coll]

Sounds lovely Judg. Yes I slept reasonably well last night. Nothing fantastic but MUCH better than the previous night.

Today was not what I would call a good day though... I had way too much to eat. I really think I need to go back to IFasting breakfast. It just works well for me - I am not usually very hungry in the morning and a cup of tea with cream does me just fine to lunch time. Eating 3 times a day I am ending up eating too much. My macros today were up over 2000 calories and I did nothing as far as exercise either! Don't feel so great this evening! No veggies today either - just fat and protein (and of course there were plenty of nuts which meant my carbs got to go up a bit - still below 50 g for the day though) I think tomorrow needs to be a light eating day. No breakfast and then a decent lunch and then maybe a big shot of veggies for dinner. We'll see. Got school done, though it was like pulling teeth with DS again. I am just not feeling creative at the moment and it is all I can do just to do the basics, never mind try to make it fun! School was not fun when I went, so I am pretty clueless as to how to pep things up a bit. They did get to watch a bunch of a movie called 'Life' from the BBC and another on light optics. They don't even realise that it is school because they love watching all the fascinating stuff about incredible little creatures and animals. And I think they know more about light optics at the moment than I do. Guess I better watch the movie with them before I have to take it back

We may go to the aquarium tomorrow with DH. Another day of school and I don't have to think for it! I have increased the amount of CO that I am taking - took 1/2 teaspoon without obvious side effects today. That was positive - but I wonder if part of my tiredness is related. I was reading up a bunch of stuff about CO and the herxheimer's reaction. A lot of pieces of puzzle kind of fell into place the last few days. I was reading somewhere how auto-immune diseases can make your whole system vulnerable to other bacteria and viruses etc taking over. You may not even know that there is stuff going on until you start taking something that kills a bunch of them off and then your body suddenly has to cope with a large amount of 'debris' from the organisms. I really think that is why I had the reaction I did. That may be why I am not feeling quite myself at the moment - but am going to persist and keep gradually increasing the 'dosage' of CO until I can take a bunch without a problem. I really think that may be the turning point for a lot of my skin issues. I don't know if I will be able to get rid of the DSAP - but there is a lot of other skin stuff that would be lovely to be done with! So here's hoping that this is all part of me getting healthier (and slimmer too!)

[Judg]

As in, it has to get worse before it can get better?