It's not a 'diet' and I'm not 'skinny' ...

So people keep commenting on my ‘weight loss’ or how well I’m ‘sticking to my diet’.  It bugs me more as time goes on, so I’m gonna lay it out. 

I reversed my diseases and healed my body with targeted nutrition; hyper vigilance about what goes into/onto my body. If it doesn’t add a quantifiable positive to my body, I don’t ingest/use it. 

Along with wellness came an amazing sense of well-being and an excess of energy.  I wake each morning, happy, eager, and almost impatient to get to the gym.  I love the ability to stretch, move, push and strengthen my body more each day.  After five years of pain, sickness and very limited mobility I’m unwilling to ever go back! 

This is my life.  I genuinely love my body now more than ever before.  Not so much how it looks (although not hating the emerging 6 pack) but the functionality!  Runs like a freaking machine these days!  Eating good food and being able to feel the results, sleeping well and waking refreshed.  This is better than any drug I’ve ever done – and believe me, there've been some good ones!  I’ve leaned into this new reality and am fully addicted to feeling this good. 

At this point, I don’t see it as ‘giving up’ anything: either various foods or personal products.  Do you ever even have to think about if you will drink radiator fluid or anti-freeze?  Not even a consideration, right?  Yep, that’s (mostly) where I’m at.  Real, organic and nutritious food is the only consideration.  I still crave sugar once in a while but personal experience has shown me that it’s worse than heroin for me.  Think about how shitty and sick you’re willing to feel because you can’t give up ingesting crap that you know is horrible for you? 

People look down on the addicts out there, trippin & tweaking themselves into walking skeletons because they just can’t or wont give up their drug of choice..... 

Please contemplate how ingesting sugar/crap food is any different?  At least addicts get the 'high'.  Ahhhh, because sugar is legal?  Fuck that, answer the question at least to yourself!  In my mind there is no difference, but that's just me.  If you're angry at my words and mentally already forming a rebuttal, feeling emotional and all worked up?  LOL  Addicted!!!

So, I smile nod, accept the well wishes; I grit my teeth and say “Its muscle” to the “Hey Skinny’ greetings and try hard to keep my big (albeit super healthy) mouth shut.  Especially to those of you who enthusiastically inquire as to ‘How I did it?’ only to have your eyes glaze over at the first mention of dietary change.  I can see you mentally move on, ready to physically leave the convo!   It's cool, I get it, food is emotional, health and fitness isn't for everyone.

You are born alone into your body.  You die alone in your body.  Years pass, people come and go, events take place….. the only constant is you,  living alone in your body.  How you choose to live, how you choose to treat that one body is all on you.  No one feels your pain or your pleasure.  It’s all on you.

Well, I may have sidetracked a bit but the intent remains .... take health into your own hands, no one else can do it for you... and for the love of fuck please quit calling me skinny, I'm well and healthy now, I sweat hard for these muscles. :-)

Peace Out!

How I got well and healthy – ‘The List!’

Here is the list I wished for the entire time I was sick and promised to post once I got well. Although I know nutrition is the primary cure, getting off the prescription meds was a big part of it.  I have a huge hate-on for big pharma and western medicine but that's another blog.

It’s not an easy change, food is very emotional for most people plus a lot of the chemicals put into our food are habit forming.  We physically and mentally crave more and that’s some fucked up shit. 

Do some research, look past network news, major corporation propaganda and social media, just remember you can’t un-know what you learn.   

Diet:

Gluten free * (Don’t get sucked into all the GF, but nutritionally void shit) 

Dairy free 

Caffeine free

Sugar free   *(This one blows your minds huh?  I did this after I was well.  I was feeling so great but sugar made me hung-over so I quit it in August.)  

Organic fruit & veggies only

Grass fed organic animal protein only

Organic Beans, legumes, nuts

Lots and Lots of bone broth soup – (super food for your immune system, gut and skin)

Fluoride free bottled water *(It’s a fucking neurotoxin!   Research it, you’ll be mortified!)

What the hell is there left to eat?  Please believe me when I say now I'm completely satisfied food-wise.  When I taste some food I think I've been craving.... it sucks and on every level.  

Processed Foods:

There are some decent processed food products out there but quite frankly I’m too lazy to read every freaking tiny-ass label and look up any weird ingredient I don’t recognize.  For me it’s easier to just eat real, whole foods most of the time.  And just to keep it real here is the list of the processed foods I do eat:

The Hummus Guy Organic Hummus (Jalapeño/Cilantro is my fav)

Organic Tortilla chips – lots of good brands though this is the Safeway brand I think.

Mission GF tortillas – (Nutritionally void but so damn yummy for quesadillas)

Some brand I can’t remember Cashew dairy-free cheese slices - (Nutritionally void but quesadillas again)

Barilla GF Pasta *(yeah, like I’d make my own pasta!)

Canyon GF Hamburger buns* (Nutritionally void but it tastes like a real diner burger!)

Supplements:

D3 10,000 with K3

Selenium 200 msg

Magnesium 400 msg

**Initially I was taking a multi vitamin and 1000 mgs of C but don't need them anymore.  

Misc other weird shit I've changed:  *(Get sick and desperate you grasp at anything!)

No plastic food containers or Teflon pans

Plant based personal products (without the fucking disgusting animal renderings or scary chemicals); tooth paste, soap, shampoo, tampons, make-up, lotion etc  Our skin is our largest organ and absorbs everything!  I still have my hair colored every four weeks though… so go figure? 

Hope this helps.  I’m happy to share all of this… it may just take a while.

Peace Out.

Gratitude, Explanations and Status Update...

To those of you who never gave up on me…. Endless calls, texts, emails, snail mail, surprise packages and contacting Amber to check I was still kickin’ and able to wipe my own drool… Thank you so much!  Even though I couldn’t reply, I sent my appreciation and love out to you as hard as I could!

I love you guys!  My heart is full of love and gratitude for having such amazing people in my life!  Hope to be telling you personally at some point soon.

I am doing much better now.  Physically, I’ve never felt better in my life, I’m off all meds except thyroid replacement, have cut that dose in half and hope to be in complete remission by this time next year.  I went back to the gym July 19^th, and already I’m stronger with greater flexibility.  Also, my old sparring partner BC (remember my broken ankle, leg reap gone wrong; my dumb-ass fault) is training me from a variety of disciplines.  He kicks my ass around the mat once a week.  I still have a few issues I’m working on but things are looking up.

I’m working hard to regain some confidence.  Don’t laugh, I was a big fat (literally) wuss for a while there.  I’ve been going to the range again and after five years off can still shoot (my) fist size groupings with my Glock19.  With the Mossberg I can consistently blow away the targets' solar plexus across to the right shoulder.... but practice is really so more fun than I remembered!  

Quick caveat here: I actively avoid the ‘reformed’… you know the people who quit smoking/drinking/find religion, Tony Robins or Amway and feel that burning desire to share their joy and tell everyone?  Ugh, nothing worse, right?  Yeah, I'm kind of one of them now.

To regain my health I researched and adjusted everything I put into and onto my body.  It was drastic but worth it to regain my health.  Consequently, I’m a fucking freak but have no desire to change!  I have knowledge that I can’t UN-know but I’m trying hard to want to shut the hell up about it.  Don’t get me wrong…I’m happy and even feel a tiny bit superior but I am still working on all of it.

If you’re still here, thanks for reading.  I hope to find my ‘voice’ again and the pleasure I used to find in writing, because as you can imagine….. I’ve got five years of words built up.   There will most certainly be more in depth postings about all this but for now I’m going to post whatever occurs to me and  hope it doesn’t read like the ramblings of some crazy old chick trying sort out her own shit.

Peace Out.

That time I lost my shit…. (Why I disappeared for so long)

So last January 2016, I finally switched doctors and was able to have my pain med dosage reduced.  A month later (for financial reasons) I went cold turkey and discovered new realms of extreme physical and mental discomfort.  I went on temporary disability from work and settled in for the mental and emotional repercussions.  

 

OK I think many of you know that mental issues have always been one of my greatest fears.  Seriously, genetics alone has me screwed royally from both sides; consider my less than traditional childhood and face it I’ve always been just one trauma away from the jacket that fastens in the back.  This is the most scared I’ve ever been in my life.  It was grim.

From February until mid July I woke up daily between 1and 2 AM with my heart racing, gasping for breath, in the grip of a severe anxiety attack.  My whole body would tremble and nausea would wash over me in waves.  I’d lay there shaking, gagging and dry heaving for hours.  It was usually over by around lunch time but would hit again randomly throughout the day.  

I also experienced anxiety leaving the house, checking the mail, interaction with anyone not immediate family, answering the phone, opening my computer…. anxiety and a weird fear/avoidance/physical aversion to those mundane chores of life.   

Some of you may be finding this hard to picture, right?  Especially those of you whom I ‘picked up’, ‘stalked’ ‘adopted’…. from various locations around the world.  Suddenly and inexplicitly you were somehow in my heart, my family and have been stuck with me ever since; OZ, UK, COZ you all know who you are!  

You guys wouldn’t have recognized me, I didn’t recognize myself.  I was a trembling, anxious, apologetic shell of who I used to be.  It felt like I’d lost every single thing that made me who I was.  I had become so timid, I felt undeserving of … well basically everything.   Those four long years of illness I forced cheerfulness, obsessively remained positive… guess I drained all my reserves and suddenly there was nothing left.

This is why I went hermit.  I felt I had no other option.   I went offline, off the grid and I’m (for the most part) blissfully ignorant of events outside my daily routine, my kids and grand-kids.  I’m doing much better now and will ramble on about that another time.

Peace Out.

So I was sick for four years....

So most of you know I got sick almost five years ago.  I struggled for over 4 years and my existence became quite bleak.  The original default diagnosis was Fibromyalgia but 2.5 years in I was diagnosed via blood test to ‘also’ have Hashimotos Disease.  I saw multiple doctors, quacks and specialists.  I tried everything I could think of; acupuncture, Reki, tapping, massage, essential oils, grounding, meditating, visualization, supplements, juicing, fasting and a few more that I’ve managed to block out.  Nothing worked and I continued to get sicker.

I was gaining weight,  in constant pain, exhausted, swollen, sweaty, crumbling nails, hair falling out, eyebrows almost gone and just hanging on, barely existing.  The doctors had me on a assortment of pain medications in a variety of combinations; Norco, Vicodin, Morphine, Percocet and Oxycontin.  I begged and pleaded for alternatives but in the end I was willing to do anything to ease the pain so I took what they gave me and went back for more.  The dosage was adjusted often and always up.  I was advised by several medical professionals to begin applying for permanent disability as most people in my situation ended up there and it takes up to two years to be approved! 

Look, I’m 52 years old with two (as of this posting) granddaughters.  I’m not a kid anymore but WTH?  Seriously, you guys know me….. I’m way too immature to be an old lady already.  Amber, my sweet daughter, researcher, healer, rock, confidant and ass-kicker when I needed it is the reason I took and continued to take those initial steps towards wellness. 

I changed everything about my diet/lifestyle and began to get better.  Once I got off the prescription pain medications and through the associated withdrawal symptoms, physically I was healing rapidly.  Unfortunately, at this point I kind of lost my shit a little bit but that’s a story for another time.

Peace Out.