After my Thursday debacle, I've done a lot more research and decision making. Sorry if this is TMI, but on Friday morning, I, being 6 mo post-menopause, started my period. Ohhhhhhhhh, THAT explains a lot.
Part of the reason that I am as calm, clear-headed, happy and inspired as I am is because my high levels of estrogen dropped considerably in the past year.
I did a lot more research on the diet, and was told by two people that I wasn't doing it right (which I agree). The successful people are those who follow it to the letter. However, since I spoke with my naturopath/homeopath who says that the homeopathic drops are not homeopathic in any sense that he understands or recognizes, I'm going to do even a lot more research and thinking.
I did find that the majority of the menopausal women who experienced a renewal of their cycle were on the drops. Having a period really confused me because I thought the hCG was reproducing a pregnancy-like state. I think all these drops did was elevate certain hormones (LH especially) instead of producing the desired state. After all, a homeopathic remedy is like the "hair of the dog that bit you," in that it uses a substance which is like your malady, in order to stimulate healing. Anyway, I'm not sure about all that.
What I DO know, though, is that I have been very happy with my life and who I am for the last year, and that is for the first time in my entire life. So anything that produces a surge in previously quelled hormones is not really welcome to me.
I'm not saying that it is completely out of the question for me -- I'm saying I will have to talk to the right doctors and find the right information for me to try it again. And that I'll use a different form of the hormone if I do try it again.
For now, I'm going to follow more of Dr. Mercola's suggestions. When I read his site, I realized what I was eating that was likely keeping my weight on. My protein and fat levels are good, but I still probably consume too many starches, and I do love fruit. I eat a lot of bananas for their potassium, and likely too many potatoes in soups.
I'm going to try the Miracle Noodles to replace more of the rice and potatoes in my diet.
I have increased my exercise considerably in the last 4 months, but I'm going to increase it more. Thursday night, after talking to an hCG counselor who told me it sounded like I was protein deficient, I had a bowl of black beans, brown rice, and pork. My sour mood abated within 10 minutes. The next morning I walked a couple of miles up near the top of Tombstone Canyon and back. I hadn't had that much energy in a long time.
So I'm back to discovery phase, but I've requested a phone consult with the doctor who treated an entire family with the hCG diet. I'm ordering a diet journal so I can keep track of everything, and I'll keep walking up Tombstone Canyon and researching the best diet for me.
None of this is said to discourage anyone from doing the hCG. I know people who have lost anywhere from 70 to 160 pounds on it. I know people who have lost between 20 & 40 pounds on it. It does work if you do it right; of that I'm convinced.
But having just started my own media agency, plus all the writing contracts I'm taking on, I need to be at my peak -- not fighting hormonal surges and depression for several months.
Again, I eat almost wholly organic and virtually no processed foods. I eat small meals instead of large. I have no hunger. So I'm already living a healthy lifestyle. A few more tweaks in my diet and a major increase in exercise will likely make a large :-) difference eventually.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Doin' it wrong
Okay. Only 6 days in, and I feel like I'm doing this all wrong. I can see that I really need to detox first, and detox as I go along. hCG1234 has products for that.
My head is foggy, I feel logie, and I've been spoiling for a fight all day. So, I'm going to get the products and start over.
Not sure about the advice my friend's doctor was giving his patients, "Go home, eat a gallon of ice cream and start over." Whut?
Unfortunately, I've never been a do or die person (you know that old saying, "Mine is not to wonder why; mine is just to do or die"? Yeah, that has never worked for me. So I'm going to dig for some information and call the hcg1234 support line.
More later. I'm not in the mood to write. ><
My head is foggy, I feel logie, and I've been spoiling for a fight all day. So, I'm going to get the products and start over.
Not sure about the advice my friend's doctor was giving his patients, "Go home, eat a gallon of ice cream and start over." Whut?
Unfortunately, I've never been a do or die person (you know that old saying, "Mine is not to wonder why; mine is just to do or die"? Yeah, that has never worked for me. So I'm going to dig for some information and call the hcg1234 support line.
More later. I'm not in the mood to write. ><
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Day 5 - hcG
I had a fabulous walk this morning. I tried to gauge my energy level and didn't go too far. I turned around when I just started getting tired. So I only did 20 minutes, but it was all uphill going, plus there was the huge hill up to my house and the stairs down to it. (I decided I could do hill up and stairs down more easily than stairs up -- those are my two choices.)
It is soooo lush right now. Every yard is full of flowers. One large yard was wall to wall blooming blue morning glories. So gorgeous! I am lucky to live in this little oasis in the desert.
I wanted to mention that the homeopathic drops I purchased were the hCG1234 drops. A fairly newcomer to the market. I believe. They have a 24 hour support line for questions which is very cool.
It is strange, though, that there is so much different info out there. I know the hCG1234 diet strictly prohibits Omega 3 oils or supplements, and yet another site touts Omega 3 supplements as the remedy for ridding yourself of hunger and foggy head while on hCG.
So for lunch I had 100 g of red sockeye salmon and 2 rye crisp. I noticed I am eating my full quota of protein/fat earlier and earlier every day. The first day I ate my last protein at 5:30, yesterday is was 3:30, and today, I've already had the last before 2 p.m. That leaves 2 veggies and 1 fruit for my dinner and snack. (I had an orange for breakfast.) Hmmmm...as soon as I said that, I realized that I'm having 3 fruits a day instead of two. The first day I had two apples and then strawberries in my smoothie. Yesterday I had 1/2 grapefruit, an apple, and then strawberries/frozen peaches in my smoothie. This morning I had an orange, and the fruit in my smoothie, and I'm planning on an apple for my evening snack.
I think I'll do alright as long as I stay under 800 calories/day. My friend Wendy told me that her friends who exercised daily while on the hCG did 800 calories/day in order to have more energy. It did not seem to impede their weightloss.
The first day I had 730 calories, and yesterday I had 610. I've already had 512 calories today, but my salad and apple for later shouldn't be more that 130 calories, so I should be fine for a total of 642 calories.
I find I CAN live with no cream in my coffee since we buy a great organic, free-trade Dark Sumatran from Amazon. It's really tasty black, and I've NEVER said that about any coffee before.
Lots of good, brewed iced tea made with PG Tips -- England's most popular brand. I can drink that with or without my Stevia. I use liquid Stevia from Sweet Leaf. I've not really experimented with others because I'm quite satisfied with the Sweet Leaf. As little aftertaste as possible. And less is more. I've found I'm better using 4 drops instead of 6 in 8 - 12 oz drinks. And the stuff can be used to sweeten anything. I also use it in my smoothies.
I still haven't measured myself, and I must, or it will be a bit tough to gauge my loss without a scale.
So all-in-all, at this point I'm not craving, not starving, not tempted, not regretting. Everything is going pretty well. I feel happy and upbeat. But now I have to get to work -- I mean paid work. LOL. More soon.
Jade
It is soooo lush right now. Every yard is full of flowers. One large yard was wall to wall blooming blue morning glories. So gorgeous! I am lucky to live in this little oasis in the desert.
I wanted to mention that the homeopathic drops I purchased were the hCG1234 drops. A fairly newcomer to the market. I believe. They have a 24 hour support line for questions which is very cool.
It is strange, though, that there is so much different info out there. I know the hCG1234 diet strictly prohibits Omega 3 oils or supplements, and yet another site touts Omega 3 supplements as the remedy for ridding yourself of hunger and foggy head while on hCG.
So for lunch I had 100 g of red sockeye salmon and 2 rye crisp. I noticed I am eating my full quota of protein/fat earlier and earlier every day. The first day I ate my last protein at 5:30, yesterday is was 3:30, and today, I've already had the last before 2 p.m. That leaves 2 veggies and 1 fruit for my dinner and snack. (I had an orange for breakfast.) Hmmmm...as soon as I said that, I realized that I'm having 3 fruits a day instead of two. The first day I had two apples and then strawberries in my smoothie. Yesterday I had 1/2 grapefruit, an apple, and then strawberries/frozen peaches in my smoothie. This morning I had an orange, and the fruit in my smoothie, and I'm planning on an apple for my evening snack.
I think I'll do alright as long as I stay under 800 calories/day. My friend Wendy told me that her friends who exercised daily while on the hCG did 800 calories/day in order to have more energy. It did not seem to impede their weightloss.
The first day I had 730 calories, and yesterday I had 610. I've already had 512 calories today, but my salad and apple for later shouldn't be more that 130 calories, so I should be fine for a total of 642 calories.
I find I CAN live with no cream in my coffee since we buy a great organic, free-trade Dark Sumatran from Amazon. It's really tasty black, and I've NEVER said that about any coffee before.
Lots of good, brewed iced tea made with PG Tips -- England's most popular brand. I can drink that with or without my Stevia. I use liquid Stevia from Sweet Leaf. I've not really experimented with others because I'm quite satisfied with the Sweet Leaf. As little aftertaste as possible. And less is more. I've found I'm better using 4 drops instead of 6 in 8 - 12 oz drinks. And the stuff can be used to sweeten anything. I also use it in my smoothies.
I still haven't measured myself, and I must, or it will be a bit tough to gauge my loss without a scale.
So all-in-all, at this point I'm not craving, not starving, not tempted, not regretting. Everything is going pretty well. I feel happy and upbeat. But now I have to get to work -- I mean paid work. LOL. More soon.
Jade
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
So many things resolved
So many things are resolved in my life. I can attribute it to several factors -- my health and well-being is greater than I've ever experienced in my life.
One of my final hurdles to optimum health is my weight. Despite drastically changing my diet, and beginning an exercise program 4 months ago, I don't seem to have lost a pound nor an inch.
I know that I'm insulin resistant, and I have at last been able to equate my insulin resistance with my ever spiking blood pressure, and got that under control with exercise and cinnamon capsules (recommended by my wonderful, crunchy daughter-in-law!). So now that I have both presence of mind and time to implement, I began looking for the perfect diet plan.
I have never been much into "fad diets," and especially nothing that required outside intervention such as pharmaceuticals or surgery. I had lost 30 pounds on a low-fat diet, but gained it all right back after I stopped journaling everything. I had lost 30 pounds on the Atkins diet. I managed to keep that off for several years, until I abandoned the whole high protein/low carb scheme in a prolonged ice cream indulgence with my new partner.
I knew what to do this time, and taking a test on Dr. Mercola's site had identified me as a "Protein type." That went well with everything I knew about my eating habits. So eliminating certain foods, and upping the protein again, completely quelled my hunger. I got into a good regimen, and then started exercising. So imagine that I was very disappointed with no weight loss after nearly 4 months.
I had heard about the hCG diet initially from one of my students, and thought the concept interesting, but dismissed it when she told me she kept it off for about a year but then put it right back on when she got under stress.
I did, though, recall immediately when she told me about it, that when I was pregnant with my first child -- I lost like 30 pounds in the first 6 weeks of my pregancy, and desired to eat nothing but vegetables. I was a little alarmed at the time because I didn't know about hCG or how it works. But putting two and two together upon hearing about the diet, I knew that it could work.
I didn't consider it for a while because it seemed so expensive. But then family members got into it, and it worked for them. I got a writing gig that required me to research it and write about it, so then I was actually informed. The key thing for me was that I had already made serious lifestyle modifications, so doing the hCG diet was simply a matter of rearranging things and making a few different food choices instead of trying to drastically diet from a lifetime of bad habits. So I knew it was doable.
I intended to have a doctor's help, but when I called the VA, they wouldn't touch it, even when I told them diet and exercise wasn't enough for me. I had already made up my mind fully to do it, when, during a shopping trip to Sunflower last week, I spied the hCG drops at the checkout counter. Radically lower priced than anything else I'd seen, I decided on the spot that I would try it. If it didn't work, no great loss -- I would only be out $40 instead of hundreds.
I came home and read the brochures. So these were homeopathic drops. I ignored the many online criticisms I had read of the drops whose complaint was that the drops contained none of the actual hormone. I knew what homeopathy was all about, and those critics missed the point completely. Homeopathy is an energy medicine. The original batch of the remedy has the hormone in it, then it's diluted and succussed over and over to produce various strengths. In the end, it's about the energy of the hormone which is left in the remedy and that its effect is actually anywhere from 10 to a 1000 times stronger than the original substance. Remember Masaru Emoto and the fact that water remembers? Same principle exactly.
So I had great confidence in the drops. I stopped by my local co-op and bought the extra foods that I needed for the diet that I hadn't purchased as a matter of course at Sunflower. I was armed and ready.
So now, I'm halfway into day 4. The first two days don't really "count" in my book, because those are the fat-loading days when you eat all you can of certain fats in order to create extra energy stores for yourself as you begin.
Yesterday was Day 3 on the drops, but Day 1 of the actuall 500 calorie diet. NOW -- THIS is why I'm writing this blog. I want to be support to any of you who remain skeptical about this diet, and I want to encourage you that it can be flexible and not rigid.
People ask, "Can I just eat ANY 500 calories I want?" No. HOWEVER, having said that, this is where I am departing from the rigidity. I know my body and what it will and will not tolerate. Hunger is not my problem, nor is bad food. I eat 90% organic, ovo-lacto vegetarian. I have developed an aversion for most meat as an entree. I keep my protein high and my carb intake lower, and eat enough fat to be satisfied.
That, combined with the fact that there seem to be almost as many hCG food lists as there are doctors who prescribe it (although they all have similarities), and I realized that if I am to be successful at this, I have to do what I know works for my body. Although I haven't been able to lose weight, I know why now, having read Dr. Mercola's diet plan. And I know what kinds of things will sabotage a diet for me every time.
The lucky thing is that often fatties like me are experts in nutrition. We know all about food and how and why it affects us like it does because we've spent YEARS working with it, reading and researching it, and trying just about everything.
All that to say, NO, you can't eat just any 500 calories for it to work. BUT, I am going to work what I KNOW will work for me within the boundaries of true common sense.
I know that the reason I failed at my second attempt at Adkins was because of my meat aversion. I just couldn't eat all that was required. So I knew this would be the same way. My plan? My protein will be primarily milk, fresh farmer's cheese (feta, in my case), occasionally a chicken thigh, occasionally shrimp, and maybe a little more often, nuts.
So, after the fat loading stage, by Day 3 the hCG was kicking in. My breasts were tender (like they are when they get the signal to start building the lactation network).
Because a friend of mine had told me that she fainted one day after walking when she was on it, armed with that knowledge, I decided to make some modifications. No way was I going to give up my daily walks (in fact, I plan to increase them now). And I know low-blood sugar all too well and the effect it has on me. So, between knowing what I have to do to keep from having low blood-sugar as well as my meat aversion, I made some changes in the diet.
I am allowed two vegetables, two fruits, and two entrees (meat or protein), plus a piece of melba toast or grissini. So, I added a third high protein snack and eliminated the bread. I have some rye-crisp on hand if I need more fiber occasionally.
I started my day with a cup of tea and an apple. I took my usual walk. I had 2 cups of salad for lunch. You are not supposed to mix your veggies, but I had read too many comments by doctors who said they couldn't figure out the logic of that, so I ignored it. I had a cup of lettuce with some mushrooms, onion, and balsamic vinegar. My big meal of the day was 8 oz of milk with a handful of strawberries, plus 1 egg yolk and 4 egg whites all mixed into a giant smoothie. That was cheating, too, because I ate 2 protein portions at once. But I had already determined to add an extra protein portion because I knew that was what would keep my blood sugar stable.
Later in the day I had a cup of black coffee, and a handful of nuts (definitely not on the list, but consistent with my own protein/fat needs).
I was very pleased that when I fixed pork tacos and corn-on-the-cob later in the day for Gayle, I was not even tempted to sneak anything, nor did I feel deprived.
And as we watched X-Files in the evening, he had his buttery, cheesy popcorn, and I had a nice Pink Lady apple -- so fragrant and tasty! Again, I had no regrets nor even a twinge of feeling deprived. It was all good.
I did crash for a nap in the afternoon, but that may have been because I had been up till midnight and gotten up at 6.
This morning, I felt refreshed after 7 hours sleep, and eager to continue. I had 2 cups of coffee and 1/2 grapefruit for breakfast. Lunch was a salad of one small cucumber, 7 grape tomatoes - halved, a few slices of onion and 5 rings of a tiny orange bell pepper and topped it with 100 grams of feta. Again, I combined my veggies (bell peppers are NOT on the food list. Nor were yesterday's mushrooms, but at 15 calories per 1/2 cup, I wasn't worried about it since I only had 2 mushrooms. Only cottage cheese is allowed on the list, but I figured it wasn't much different from the feta nutritionally, and the feta was certainly more flavorful.
I'm now sipping a glass of home-brewed tea. Dr. Mercola said you don't want to chug your water/liquids, sipping is best. I always knew the formula was 8 eight-ounce glasses per day (to start), but I never knew why it was framed that way. He said if you drink more than 8 ounces per hour, it just goes right through you into the toilet, where if you sip all day, it will do it's job and flush out all the fat and toxins. Oh-hhhhhhhhhhhh. Makes sense.
I need to measure myself today and write it down. I don't have a scale (what? how can I diet without a scale?), but I know that if the losses are as significant as I expect them to be, I'll be able to tell quickly, and measuring weekly will be a good way to tell as well. (Probably better.) I know you're supposed to watch for 2 pound gains during the rest and maintenance periods, so I'll likely invest in a scale by then. But you know what? I was tired of being fat, and I knew if I put it off until I had all the right equipment and the right this and the right that, that I would put it off indefinitely.
So please -- this could be a great forum of support for the final hold-outs who think it might be a good idea, but are just not sure. Comment, and I'll respond.
How much do I have to lose? My goal is 90 pounds. My naturopathic doctor told me 100 pounds. You know what -- in the 14 years that I've been going to the women's clinic at the VA, they've never once told me I needed to lose weight. Why? Because all my allopathic doctors have been as overweight as I am. It seems they would rather cost the government thousands in invasive tests to find out what's "wrong" with me rather than say, "Hey, honey -- you could stand to lose a few pounds. Like about 100."
I won't write about this every day, I'll do other things in between, because I know not all my readers out there are dieting. But this is in conjunction with my latest adventure, so I thought it belonged here.
Have a FABULOUS day!
One of my final hurdles to optimum health is my weight. Despite drastically changing my diet, and beginning an exercise program 4 months ago, I don't seem to have lost a pound nor an inch.
I know that I'm insulin resistant, and I have at last been able to equate my insulin resistance with my ever spiking blood pressure, and got that under control with exercise and cinnamon capsules (recommended by my wonderful, crunchy daughter-in-law!). So now that I have both presence of mind and time to implement, I began looking for the perfect diet plan.
I have never been much into "fad diets," and especially nothing that required outside intervention such as pharmaceuticals or surgery. I had lost 30 pounds on a low-fat diet, but gained it all right back after I stopped journaling everything. I had lost 30 pounds on the Atkins diet. I managed to keep that off for several years, until I abandoned the whole high protein/low carb scheme in a prolonged ice cream indulgence with my new partner.
I knew what to do this time, and taking a test on Dr. Mercola's site had identified me as a "Protein type." That went well with everything I knew about my eating habits. So eliminating certain foods, and upping the protein again, completely quelled my hunger. I got into a good regimen, and then started exercising. So imagine that I was very disappointed with no weight loss after nearly 4 months.
I had heard about the hCG diet initially from one of my students, and thought the concept interesting, but dismissed it when she told me she kept it off for about a year but then put it right back on when she got under stress.
I did, though, recall immediately when she told me about it, that when I was pregnant with my first child -- I lost like 30 pounds in the first 6 weeks of my pregancy, and desired to eat nothing but vegetables. I was a little alarmed at the time because I didn't know about hCG or how it works. But putting two and two together upon hearing about the diet, I knew that it could work.
I didn't consider it for a while because it seemed so expensive. But then family members got into it, and it worked for them. I got a writing gig that required me to research it and write about it, so then I was actually informed. The key thing for me was that I had already made serious lifestyle modifications, so doing the hCG diet was simply a matter of rearranging things and making a few different food choices instead of trying to drastically diet from a lifetime of bad habits. So I knew it was doable.
I intended to have a doctor's help, but when I called the VA, they wouldn't touch it, even when I told them diet and exercise wasn't enough for me. I had already made up my mind fully to do it, when, during a shopping trip to Sunflower last week, I spied the hCG drops at the checkout counter. Radically lower priced than anything else I'd seen, I decided on the spot that I would try it. If it didn't work, no great loss -- I would only be out $40 instead of hundreds.
I came home and read the brochures. So these were homeopathic drops. I ignored the many online criticisms I had read of the drops whose complaint was that the drops contained none of the actual hormone. I knew what homeopathy was all about, and those critics missed the point completely. Homeopathy is an energy medicine. The original batch of the remedy has the hormone in it, then it's diluted and succussed over and over to produce various strengths. In the end, it's about the energy of the hormone which is left in the remedy and that its effect is actually anywhere from 10 to a 1000 times stronger than the original substance. Remember Masaru Emoto and the fact that water remembers? Same principle exactly.
So I had great confidence in the drops. I stopped by my local co-op and bought the extra foods that I needed for the diet that I hadn't purchased as a matter of course at Sunflower. I was armed and ready.
So now, I'm halfway into day 4. The first two days don't really "count" in my book, because those are the fat-loading days when you eat all you can of certain fats in order to create extra energy stores for yourself as you begin.
Yesterday was Day 3 on the drops, but Day 1 of the actuall 500 calorie diet. NOW -- THIS is why I'm writing this blog. I want to be support to any of you who remain skeptical about this diet, and I want to encourage you that it can be flexible and not rigid.
People ask, "Can I just eat ANY 500 calories I want?" No. HOWEVER, having said that, this is where I am departing from the rigidity. I know my body and what it will and will not tolerate. Hunger is not my problem, nor is bad food. I eat 90% organic, ovo-lacto vegetarian. I have developed an aversion for most meat as an entree. I keep my protein high and my carb intake lower, and eat enough fat to be satisfied.
That, combined with the fact that there seem to be almost as many hCG food lists as there are doctors who prescribe it (although they all have similarities), and I realized that if I am to be successful at this, I have to do what I know works for my body. Although I haven't been able to lose weight, I know why now, having read Dr. Mercola's diet plan. And I know what kinds of things will sabotage a diet for me every time.
The lucky thing is that often fatties like me are experts in nutrition. We know all about food and how and why it affects us like it does because we've spent YEARS working with it, reading and researching it, and trying just about everything.
All that to say, NO, you can't eat just any 500 calories for it to work. BUT, I am going to work what I KNOW will work for me within the boundaries of true common sense.
I know that the reason I failed at my second attempt at Adkins was because of my meat aversion. I just couldn't eat all that was required. So I knew this would be the same way. My plan? My protein will be primarily milk, fresh farmer's cheese (feta, in my case), occasionally a chicken thigh, occasionally shrimp, and maybe a little more often, nuts.
So, after the fat loading stage, by Day 3 the hCG was kicking in. My breasts were tender (like they are when they get the signal to start building the lactation network).
Because a friend of mine had told me that she fainted one day after walking when she was on it, armed with that knowledge, I decided to make some modifications. No way was I going to give up my daily walks (in fact, I plan to increase them now). And I know low-blood sugar all too well and the effect it has on me. So, between knowing what I have to do to keep from having low blood-sugar as well as my meat aversion, I made some changes in the diet.
I am allowed two vegetables, two fruits, and two entrees (meat or protein), plus a piece of melba toast or grissini. So, I added a third high protein snack and eliminated the bread. I have some rye-crisp on hand if I need more fiber occasionally.
I started my day with a cup of tea and an apple. I took my usual walk. I had 2 cups of salad for lunch. You are not supposed to mix your veggies, but I had read too many comments by doctors who said they couldn't figure out the logic of that, so I ignored it. I had a cup of lettuce with some mushrooms, onion, and balsamic vinegar. My big meal of the day was 8 oz of milk with a handful of strawberries, plus 1 egg yolk and 4 egg whites all mixed into a giant smoothie. That was cheating, too, because I ate 2 protein portions at once. But I had already determined to add an extra protein portion because I knew that was what would keep my blood sugar stable.
Later in the day I had a cup of black coffee, and a handful of nuts (definitely not on the list, but consistent with my own protein/fat needs).
I was very pleased that when I fixed pork tacos and corn-on-the-cob later in the day for Gayle, I was not even tempted to sneak anything, nor did I feel deprived.
And as we watched X-Files in the evening, he had his buttery, cheesy popcorn, and I had a nice Pink Lady apple -- so fragrant and tasty! Again, I had no regrets nor even a twinge of feeling deprived. It was all good.
I did crash for a nap in the afternoon, but that may have been because I had been up till midnight and gotten up at 6.
This morning, I felt refreshed after 7 hours sleep, and eager to continue. I had 2 cups of coffee and 1/2 grapefruit for breakfast. Lunch was a salad of one small cucumber, 7 grape tomatoes - halved, a few slices of onion and 5 rings of a tiny orange bell pepper and topped it with 100 grams of feta. Again, I combined my veggies (bell peppers are NOT on the food list. Nor were yesterday's mushrooms, but at 15 calories per 1/2 cup, I wasn't worried about it since I only had 2 mushrooms. Only cottage cheese is allowed on the list, but I figured it wasn't much different from the feta nutritionally, and the feta was certainly more flavorful.
I'm now sipping a glass of home-brewed tea. Dr. Mercola said you don't want to chug your water/liquids, sipping is best. I always knew the formula was 8 eight-ounce glasses per day (to start), but I never knew why it was framed that way. He said if you drink more than 8 ounces per hour, it just goes right through you into the toilet, where if you sip all day, it will do it's job and flush out all the fat and toxins. Oh-hhhhhhhhhhhh. Makes sense.
I need to measure myself today and write it down. I don't have a scale (what? how can I diet without a scale?), but I know that if the losses are as significant as I expect them to be, I'll be able to tell quickly, and measuring weekly will be a good way to tell as well. (Probably better.) I know you're supposed to watch for 2 pound gains during the rest and maintenance periods, so I'll likely invest in a scale by then. But you know what? I was tired of being fat, and I knew if I put it off until I had all the right equipment and the right this and the right that, that I would put it off indefinitely.
So please -- this could be a great forum of support for the final hold-outs who think it might be a good idea, but are just not sure. Comment, and I'll respond.
How much do I have to lose? My goal is 90 pounds. My naturopathic doctor told me 100 pounds. You know what -- in the 14 years that I've been going to the women's clinic at the VA, they've never once told me I needed to lose weight. Why? Because all my allopathic doctors have been as overweight as I am. It seems they would rather cost the government thousands in invasive tests to find out what's "wrong" with me rather than say, "Hey, honey -- you could stand to lose a few pounds. Like about 100."
I won't write about this every day, I'll do other things in between, because I know not all my readers out there are dieting. But this is in conjunction with my latest adventure, so I thought it belonged here.
Have a FABULOUS day!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Breathing words + healing
I am a writer. I am filled with philosophies and tales and wondrous descriptions, deep thoughts and fabulous ideas. But why do so few of my inspirations reach the written page? I realize that I bog myself down by writing everything in the same self-conscious way. When I'm writing an informative article, I must, of course, consider my audience. If I am marketing a piece, I must consider many things. But when I just want to breathe words, I realize quite a different strategy must be employed.
I realized today that the problem with writing is the same problem we have with living and thinking -- we are narrating the past -- something we envisioned or heard from our muse a moment ago.
When I was a literature student, I never really got into reading "stream-of-consciousness" literature, but I think now that I should employ a semblance of that.
My thoughts of late are carried by the breeze in the instant. This is when I am the most lucid.
I have had several catalysts over the past two years, all of which have carried me aloft and taught me so much. I want to share these things with you in the hope that something here will inspire YOU to new heights, new dimensions, something that will help engender greater freedom for you as it has for me.
For the first 45 years or so of my learning, everything was very orderly and built on previous lessons, but they also carried the heaviness of the baggage I drew along behind me moment by moment, year after year.
I had a huge paradigm shift about 10 years ago that began to open new dimensions for me, but each subsequent catalyst has increased that exponentially.
For 45 years, I mostly only allowed thoughts from one paradigm to influence me. My only saving grace was my diehard desperation to understand why I thought like I did which seemed so vastly different from others ensconced in the same worldview.
It was the discovery of the mystics in Seminary that led me to understand why my thinking was so different from those of my contemporaries. And when at last I understood that there were, "...more things in this world, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..." my world began to expand. It wasn't that I didn't know about those "more things" before; it was that I didn't realize that everyone didn't incorporate them into their thinking, and that's where the separation began.
One of the first things a new lover taught me in 2005 and then proceeded to reinforce with every exposure is that, "Everything you know is wrong," the mantra of the Firesign Theatre album of the same name. That same year I read Dr. Christopher Hyatt & Antero Alli's Modern Shaman's Guide to a Pregnant Universe and it catapulted my thinking.
The Modern Shaman's Guide told me I had to find and eradicate my "hideous corpuscle" which I came to understand in time as my Ego.
And that is enough of the history lesson. I just want to thank my teacher's in these past few years: first, the big three -- Thom Cooper, Gayle Colopy and Eckhart Tolle. Thom was my group therapist when I hit bottom, Gayle is my life partner and my inspiration, and Eckhart Tolle is the man who wrote in one sentence the words that healed my past. Not that there weren't a thousand other catalysts to that healing, but his words put all of it together, pierced me to the heart, divided bone and marrow, and put the ointment on the wound that allowed the festering to stop so that it could heal, once and for all.
I realized today that the problem with writing is the same problem we have with living and thinking -- we are narrating the past -- something we envisioned or heard from our muse a moment ago.
When I was a literature student, I never really got into reading "stream-of-consciousness" literature, but I think now that I should employ a semblance of that.
My thoughts of late are carried by the breeze in the instant. This is when I am the most lucid.
I have had several catalysts over the past two years, all of which have carried me aloft and taught me so much. I want to share these things with you in the hope that something here will inspire YOU to new heights, new dimensions, something that will help engender greater freedom for you as it has for me.
For the first 45 years or so of my learning, everything was very orderly and built on previous lessons, but they also carried the heaviness of the baggage I drew along behind me moment by moment, year after year.
I had a huge paradigm shift about 10 years ago that began to open new dimensions for me, but each subsequent catalyst has increased that exponentially.
For 45 years, I mostly only allowed thoughts from one paradigm to influence me. My only saving grace was my diehard desperation to understand why I thought like I did which seemed so vastly different from others ensconced in the same worldview.
It was the discovery of the mystics in Seminary that led me to understand why my thinking was so different from those of my contemporaries. And when at last I understood that there were, "...more things in this world, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy..." my world began to expand. It wasn't that I didn't know about those "more things" before; it was that I didn't realize that everyone didn't incorporate them into their thinking, and that's where the separation began.
One of the first things a new lover taught me in 2005 and then proceeded to reinforce with every exposure is that, "Everything you know is wrong," the mantra of the Firesign Theatre album of the same name. That same year I read Dr. Christopher Hyatt & Antero Alli's Modern Shaman's Guide to a Pregnant Universe and it catapulted my thinking.
The Modern Shaman's Guide told me I had to find and eradicate my "hideous corpuscle" which I came to understand in time as my Ego.
And that is enough of the history lesson. I just want to thank my teacher's in these past few years: first, the big three -- Thom Cooper, Gayle Colopy and Eckhart Tolle. Thom was my group therapist when I hit bottom, Gayle is my life partner and my inspiration, and Eckhart Tolle is the man who wrote in one sentence the words that healed my past. Not that there weren't a thousand other catalysts to that healing, but his words put all of it together, pierced me to the heart, divided bone and marrow, and put the ointment on the wound that allowed the festering to stop so that it could heal, once and for all.
"How absurd men are!"
The philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard writes, "How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have..."
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Perception, Ego, and the Now
It's been nearly 8 weeks since I posted. Life has definitely been in the fast lane for those weeks -- mostly in the cerebral realms!
Yes, we've moved -- we're trying out Show Low for the summer. Even considering staying for the year. I can't imagine, though, what mountain winter is like after 16 years in California and Arizona.
And, of course, I've spent those 16 years reluctantly giving away all my mountain clothes. ><
But on the subject of "my life since EquiSync," I can barely keep up with what's going on. www.eocinstitute.org
No lie. It has drastically decreased my usual irritability, and it significantly lowers my blood pressure.
But the beauty of it goes far beyond that. I am experiencing a serious increase in creativity, motivation, peace, and best yet, the Law of Attraction at work.
I have been using the Law of Attraction for several years now, and it works well for me, but the meditation has really ramped it up.
And now, for the first time, I understand a concept in a way I have never understood it before: why meditation works; no, I mean why it REALLY works.
And I found that information in a very unexpected place.
I knew it worked, but I hadn't gotten it to work for me. Then I read and heard enough that I knew I would "grow" no further until I was able to meditate.
Believe me, I'm not attributing everything to the EquiSync. EquiSync was what worked to get me into the silence. I will be glad when my brain is trained and I no longer have to rely on the recordings, when I can get into the space by myself.
I have long heard the importance of meditation to assist one to "live in the now." But I really only had a vague idea of what that meant. Until I experienced it. But the experience was inarticulable for me (is that a word?) until I read something.
The last time I was in the library, I was led to pick up a Carlos Castaneda book. Now, I've had the opportunity to read Castaneda for years, but was never interested. I had A Yaqui Way of Knowledge on my own bookshelf for years and never even opened it. You see, I was stupidly swayed by the opinions of academics who went out of their way to try to discredit his work. All I can say is, they completely miss the point.
Anyway, I picked up Tales of Power because I have been extremely interested in storytelling as magic for the last couple of years. (Yeah, so interested that I have several books about it on my bookshelf -- that I've never read.) But I had found my own magical power(s) through storytelling, and I do mean to read what others have to say about it.
ANYway, I was absolutely blown away by the concepts in Tales of Power. It is so pithy in a psychological, philosophical, and practical way that I can only read a few pages, then I have to stop to digest and visualize what I have read. I have found it amazing, to say the least. More proof to me that the ancients took as given the things that our society is just now beginning to understand/explain through quantum concepts.
But most of all, I loved the concept Castaneda put forth about man's inner monologue -- I'm sure many philosophers have said the same thing, but most philosophy books are intellectually inaccessible to me. Most of what I know about philosophy, I've either intuited myself or had it distilled for me by someone else. (An interesting insight into that particular phenomenon is had by watching the movie "Leaves of Grass."
According to Castaneda, our monologue that is so difficult to quash, is our moment by moment processing and perception of the world. The problem is that it's always in the PAST! Maybe only by a millisecond or so, but still in the past. We are just iterating what we just perceived. Combining what Ekhart Tolle says with what Castaneda says, it must be the ego that does the narrating because it's the toughest bugger to kill that I have ever encountered. It fights!
Having that realization also led me to understand that when someone is talking about the Warrior, he or she is talking about one engaged in the battle to quell the Ego.
So, the upshot of all this is that it is imperative to stop that internal monologue long enough to experience the NOW. Before Castaneda, I understood that everyone said it was important, but not having experienced it, I didn't truly understand it. The NOW is the only way to be a Shaman, to walk between the worlds. To truly understand other dimensions and spirits. I have worked with spirits since before I was an adult. But I see now that it was always past perception rather than a knowing in the NOW. Only in the NOW can I progress.
Yes, we've moved -- we're trying out Show Low for the summer. Even considering staying for the year. I can't imagine, though, what mountain winter is like after 16 years in California and Arizona.
And, of course, I've spent those 16 years reluctantly giving away all my mountain clothes. ><
But on the subject of "my life since EquiSync," I can barely keep up with what's going on. www.eocinstitute.org
No lie. It has drastically decreased my usual irritability, and it significantly lowers my blood pressure.
But the beauty of it goes far beyond that. I am experiencing a serious increase in creativity, motivation, peace, and best yet, the Law of Attraction at work.
I have been using the Law of Attraction for several years now, and it works well for me, but the meditation has really ramped it up.
And now, for the first time, I understand a concept in a way I have never understood it before: why meditation works; no, I mean why it REALLY works.
And I found that information in a very unexpected place.
I knew it worked, but I hadn't gotten it to work for me. Then I read and heard enough that I knew I would "grow" no further until I was able to meditate.
Believe me, I'm not attributing everything to the EquiSync. EquiSync was what worked to get me into the silence. I will be glad when my brain is trained and I no longer have to rely on the recordings, when I can get into the space by myself.
I have long heard the importance of meditation to assist one to "live in the now." But I really only had a vague idea of what that meant. Until I experienced it. But the experience was inarticulable for me (is that a word?) until I read something.
The last time I was in the library, I was led to pick up a Carlos Castaneda book. Now, I've had the opportunity to read Castaneda for years, but was never interested. I had A Yaqui Way of Knowledge on my own bookshelf for years and never even opened it. You see, I was stupidly swayed by the opinions of academics who went out of their way to try to discredit his work. All I can say is, they completely miss the point.
Anyway, I picked up Tales of Power because I have been extremely interested in storytelling as magic for the last couple of years. (Yeah, so interested that I have several books about it on my bookshelf -- that I've never read.) But I had found my own magical power(s) through storytelling, and I do mean to read what others have to say about it.
ANYway, I was absolutely blown away by the concepts in Tales of Power. It is so pithy in a psychological, philosophical, and practical way that I can only read a few pages, then I have to stop to digest and visualize what I have read. I have found it amazing, to say the least. More proof to me that the ancients took as given the things that our society is just now beginning to understand/explain through quantum concepts.
But most of all, I loved the concept Castaneda put forth about man's inner monologue -- I'm sure many philosophers have said the same thing, but most philosophy books are intellectually inaccessible to me. Most of what I know about philosophy, I've either intuited myself or had it distilled for me by someone else. (An interesting insight into that particular phenomenon is had by watching the movie "Leaves of Grass."
According to Castaneda, our monologue that is so difficult to quash, is our moment by moment processing and perception of the world. The problem is that it's always in the PAST! Maybe only by a millisecond or so, but still in the past. We are just iterating what we just perceived. Combining what Ekhart Tolle says with what Castaneda says, it must be the ego that does the narrating because it's the toughest bugger to kill that I have ever encountered. It fights!
Having that realization also led me to understand that when someone is talking about the Warrior, he or she is talking about one engaged in the battle to quell the Ego.
So, the upshot of all this is that it is imperative to stop that internal monologue long enough to experience the NOW. Before Castaneda, I understood that everyone said it was important, but not having experienced it, I didn't truly understand it. The NOW is the only way to be a Shaman, to walk between the worlds. To truly understand other dimensions and spirits. I have worked with spirits since before I was an adult. But I see now that it was always past perception rather than a knowing in the NOW. Only in the NOW can I progress.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)