The Perils of Periwinkle Pitstop page 3

[Betorq]

Day 3 no dairy.

Dark chocolate is a given and today was no exception.

For brunch we went to La Madelaine and I had chicken cesear salad with dressing on the side and just dipped my fork in the dressing for just a bit of a taste with each bite. I did totally forget about the parmesian cheese...so technically I had about 1 tablespoon of dairy today. I did drink tea with a bit of sweet n low...

I had chocolate and some cashews during the day and then dinner was roasted chicken with mashed sweet potatoes with butter and cinnamon. I got to eat all of the skin, which is my favorite part of a chicken. I threw the bones into a pot with some chicken ...I added the sweet potato water for a bit of flavor and vitamins. I'll add carrots and onions and garlic later and may or may not add the dark meat to the chicken to make soup. I might just drink it as bone broth.

My plan for the month of no dairy is to just eat primal, 95% instead of 80/20 and just focus on not drinking milk. If after 1 month of no milk and no weight loss...i'll start looking at calorie restriction.

Hi Periwinkle,

Glad you got some good sleep, even if only 1 night. So you want to really go 95% to lose weight, cool. Cashews, Sweet Potatoes are fine food for maintenance or comfort food when needed. Chocolate seems to be your regular go-to comfort food, so might I recommend you temporarily ease off from an emphasis on nuts & tubers for a bit, & eat more green leafy veggies, salads, fermented veggies & whatever nutrient dense veggies you favor or have in season. I'd suggest fat, protein & initially carb restriction to jump start things for weight loss. Then once you're cruisin' with your weight loss, incrementally add more of those favorite carbs that you cut out & missed.

These are just suggestions. Personally, I eat a LOT of food, I definitely do NOT ration or calorie count. But you do what you gotta do, everyone is different.

Btw, The Eagles quote in your sig: for sure 1 of my favorite bands, since I was a kid, buying their vinyl.

Good luck.

I remember the crying baby, middle of the night, early morning wakey wakey thing.

[Periwinkle]

Thanks Betorq. Next Saturday the kids and I are moving into an apartment because I am getting a divorce. At the moment, 85% dark chocolate and I are an inseperable team. Once things are "settled" and I am no longer exposed to certain stressors on a daily basis, I plan to give up the chocolate and tubers/starchy veggies. To be honest, I didnt plan to give up raw milk until then either, but I got motivated after my eat wheat and rice day. I am reading The Diet Cure by Julia Ross and have started taking L Tyrosine, DL Phenylalanine as well as some GABA and then melatonin and 5-HTP for sleeping since I am kind of addicted to benadryl after years of dependence on it while working 12 hour over night shifts.

But I totally agree that what I SHOULD be eating is meat, green leafy veggies, fruit, healthy oils, and going easy on the nuts/seeds. On August 7, the kids will be staying with their dad for a last before school starts visit. I expect them to be gone 6 days. If I havent cut out starchy veggies and chocolate by then, then I plan to do it then. That should be a nice stretch of good sleep and low stress. I think I am also hoping that giving up milk is all I need to do and I can lose weight and still eat carrots and sweet potatoes. By then, it should be apparent if that is working for me or not. I expect that I will have to give up the starchy goodness, though. I'd be willing to give up sweet potatoes and carrots if it meant I could eat cheese, though.

[Betorq]

Sounds like you got your eyes on the target. Is the divorce amicable? That makes a huge difference...
Like a different group says, "Easy does it, but do it!"

[Periwinkle]

He is an addict (not drugs or anything that makes him unsafe around the kids.) We have been going round and round for years and he was supposed to see a therapist, work his steps, etc... and even back in February I told him if he could go balls to the wall on recovery, we might could stay married. He said he would but he "forgot" to find a therapist. I told him in May that I just refused to be married to an addict. He would prefer to stay married while continuing on with his addictions. Considering that I work and pay all the bills, I am sure he feels like he has a great deal. I am ready to get a refund and move on. But it is still sad, and awkward and not where or how I wanted it to end.

It causes me a lot of anxiety, and at the moment, since I stopped taking Lexapro about 10 months ago and gave up all my OTHER comfort food (bread and rice and now milk)...all I have left is the 85% dark chocolate. I am really interested in The Diet Cure and hope her suggestions can help me give up my milk and chocolate addictions.

I am really looking forward to living in the new apartment. First floor, which is always nice when you have a 2 year old and a 4 year old. It has a splash pad with a 1 foot kiddie pool which will get lots of use here in Houston if it will stop raining. It has a large playscape that the kids will love and 10 acres of hike and bike trails. I plan to pull the kids around in a wagon and/or get the 4 year old on her little plastic trike. I really think the stress and anxiety will decrease. I certainly didnt eat this much chocolate before I gave up grains, processed food and milk. Actually, I almost never ate it. But I can easily go through 2 gallons of raw milk in 1 week.

I am a school nurse and school registration and staff stuff will start back up on August 13, so I hope to get some healthy habits going right from the start. Being off this summer, I have too much time to brood and too much access to chocolate. :P and too many hard decisions to make and then firmly, but gently, stick with.

[Periwinkle]

Hey! I bumped up from junior member to member! WOOT!

[Periwinkle]

So the stress has been too much the last two days I have kind of fallen apart. My only goals for the summer (at the beginning of the summer) were to maintain my weight and my sanity. Then I discovered primal/paleo and decided to go hog wild. This week has been lots of packing, throwing stuff out, and facing the end of dreams and just over all anxiety and great sadness. The last two days I have just eaten SAD crap and Starbucks Breve Mochas. Today I had 2 mochas. This evening, even though I have eaten a vast number of calories, I was feeling undernourished and knew why. I had 2 mugs of homemade broth.

I decided to go back to primal with raw dairy until after the move and seperation. The week that the kids are with their dad, I will re-evaluate how I want to eat and exercise. But for now, my new lifestyle wasnt entrenched enough to handle this kind of stress. I didnt have any coping mechanisms taking the place of the old "eat to comfort" coping mechanisms. I can handle primal + raw dairy without falling apart.

I did end up buying some 90% cocoa chocolate b/c they didnt have 85% at my local grocery store. Just 70% and 90%. The 90% is...robust. I dont think I CAN over eat that stuff. One square tonight did not leave me wanting more. (It did however demand milk in a loud voice...all I had was commercial organic and it tasted...not like milk).

So still marching ever on and I will be glad when the seperation is done and I can begin to rebuild instead of focusing on dismantling.

I plan to eat bacon and eggs in the morning. I always have a steady morning when I eat that and dont need lunch till late. I have a beef roast in the crock pot that will be ready in the AM with onions and herbs. (I left out carrots). I plan to eat roast and salad and asparagus or artichokes with raw butter.

I feel more annoyed than "bad" that I fell off the wagon...b/c part of me is glad that I got back up on the wagon or that I didnt burn the wagon to roast marshmellows to make smores during this "trying time." :P

[honeybuns]

Purely Primal has a great beef and bacon fritatta. I make it up the night before so I can just reheat some of it in the morning. I imagine that it should also freeze well. You'd have something on hand for a quick grab and go that way. Oh, I did not follow their method of cooking but cooked it all together, added egg and stirred it in before baking.

I feel the same way about 90% chocolate. A little too dark and really hard to eat too much of.

[Periwinkle]

Thanks for the link honeybuns. The fritata looks tasty. I think i'll give it a try after I get settled in the new apartment. (Sadly, with an electric stove and not gas).

Today went ok. Had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Roast, asparagus and salad with EVOO and ACV for lunch. I did drink a 4 oz bottle of chocolate milk made by my local dairy farm. It was raw milk/cream/cocoa/cane sugar/madagascar vanilla bean. For dinner i made beef hash with organic white potatoes, using salt, pepper, and some home made chicken broth. I'll probably drink the rest of that broth so I can wash and pack the pot.

I decided that if primal allows it, I am going to eat it. For now.

I prefer the 85% but I feel that I'll keep the 90% on hand so that if I simply must eat it, I know I wont eat a whole bar b/c it is just too strong for me. (I mean...of course I dont eat whole bars of chocolate...*cough. Look! Fish tracks!)

Emotionally I am feeling very sad today. My family thinks I am very strong...but I dont feel strong today. I just feel sad. I feel that I am making the right choice. But I feel very sad that THIS is the right choice, if that makes sense.

[Periwinkle]

So...It has been a bit over a month since I updated my journal. I was kind of hoping I could come back with tales of great primal eating and 10 pounds lost...but we all know that didnt happen.

I have eaten a diet that includes mostly primal + raw dairy and 85% dark chocholate. (Oooh...big suprise there...). I go back and forth where I have days of carb restriction and other days where I eat what ever carbs I want...but by and large...I am eating only primal foods. I did eat quinoa last night thinking that b/c it was a seed, it wouldnt do me like grains...but it did...so I'll be giving away all my quinoa to a friend at work, if she wants it. Before that...I had rice August 26 and I had a bagel on August 12. I do not keep non-primal foods in the house, so if I have a non primal meal, it is a one-time thing and I dont feel like I have to finish a bag of bagels before they go bad, or anything.

I am still working the kinks out of my morning routine of getting myself and a 2 year old and 4 year old out the door on time every morning. I have discovered that to eat primal, I better have everything, including my primal lunch, ready to grab and go before I go to bed, or I'll be eating random things. And one morning, while heating up my raw milk and 100% baker's cocoa (I still swing by Starbucks and get a shot of expresso to add to my primal hot chocholate), I disturbed a bug under a sock in my room and my daughter was freaking out yelling "kill it Mommy!" and I was trying to find a shoe...I forgot about the pan of milk and it bubbled over and burned and I was running late and I threw it in the sink and just ordered a SB Breve Latte instead. I decided not to stress over it when that happens b/c as long as we all get where we need to be when we need to be there and i didnt order a bananna nut muffin...the morning was a success.

I have also decided not to focus as much on weight loss, but on experimentation and on health. I do FEEL better eating this way. I have come to the conclusion that I must have been very mal-nourished and that my adrenals are probably exhausted after the last few stressful years. So...I plan to just eat a variety of fruits, veggies, and good meat and fat, some nuts and seeds and yes...raw dairy (including Kefir) and hope my body begins to recover. I just bought my first raw kefir yesterday...I am not sure what I think of it, but it is growing on me. And as for experiementation...I was interested to note that the quinoa made me more bloated and sicker than the bagel. Actually, the gluten free chinese food at PF Changs makes me sicker than the regular stuff...more sensitive to corn than wheat? I have no idea.

I tried coconut milk but I dont really care for it as a milk substitute. So I decided to make curry for the first time since I have about 10 cans of coconut milk in the pantry and made a simple chicken curry last night. That is why I made quinoa, b/c curry just seems to need rice, but I didnt have any wild rice so I thought quinoa would be an ok choice. I guess not. I'll just eat the chicken curry sans rice tomorrow.

So anyway...that is what is going on with me...I thought I would come back and post and regain some accountability.

Anyone have experience with exhausted adrenals? What do you reccommend?

[Periwinkle]

PS:
Forgot to say I am totally off benadryl and even 5HTP to help with sleeping. This is a huge thing for me. In 2008, I started working nights and for 3 years of night shifts, I would use benadryl to manipulate my sleep schedule, with lessening success as time went on. My body builds up a tolerance to medication pretty quickly. This may be shocking...but there were nights/days I would take 6 benadryl at once in an effort to sleep when my body didnt want to. And it didnt work...Actually, after I had my son, there was a night in the hospital where I had 50 mg benadryl, 10 of ambien, 2 vico-profen (Like vicodin but with motrin instead of tylenol) and I was wandering the hospital (I worked on this unit, so I was hanging out at the nurses station) asking my friends if they couldnt knock me out with somthing heavy, like the tape dispenser, since the drugs were clearly not doing it...)

So...falling asleep with out the aid of modern chemistry is huge for me. It is because I am now an exhausted single working mom...but hey...no drugs. My daughter still wakes me up every morning between midnight and 2 am to stand next to her while she potties and then sit on her bed for 5 min while she goes back to sleep. She is totally independent during daylight hours...but at 2 am...she needs moral support. and she might get up at 4 am b/c she figured out I wasnt sitting on her bed anymore and at that point I just let her sleep with me since Im half asleep at that point...but a lot of nights she kicks and rolls around...so sleep and I are often parted...so when I get to sleep...I fall asleep without drugs.