When success isn’t a habit

They say the habit of success creates more success.

What if you don’t have a habit of success?

My weight loss has currently stalled, and it’s messing with my head.

When I was in my early 20s, I did Optifast. Very unhealthy, but I didn’t know that then. I don’t have any records, but I’m pretty sure I lost around 100 lbs. I do know I ended up as a size 18, 2 sizes smaller than I wore at my HS graduation. Unfortunately, while Optifast was great for fast weight loss, they don’t teach you anything about dealing with any emotions that might affect your eating, nor do they actually teach you much about how you actually need to eat going forward. At least, that’s how it was in 1990.

In 2005 I went on the Atkins diet and I lost 100 lbs in 9 months. Unfortunately, I didn’t do it in a really healthy way. I didn’t know I was allergic to soy, which is in absolutely everything (salad dressing in particular) and it made me throw up a lot. I was intentionally eating low carb and unintentionally also really low calorie. I got down that 100 lbs and then I was stuck. I have journals from that period. I was not cheating. I was not over eating for my weight at the time. I was diligent, obsessive, and really, really frustrated.

In 2007 I developed another hernia and the surgeon told me that if I didn’t lose more weight they couldn’t fix it and I would die. So I stuck to low carb and got a little crazy with the calories and I lost another 20 lbs. I also lost my hair, my libido, my energy, my tolerance to cold, and my menstrual cycle went insane, but my TSH was still fine, so it couldn’t possible be a thyroid problem.

In 2011 I finally paid out of pocket for a Reverse T3 test and was not even slightly shocked to see that is was really, really out of range. So then I paid out of pocket to see an Integrative medicine specialist (the doctors who have an MD, but have also studied holistics, herbals, and non standard treatments.) He finally diagnosed my very low thyroid. He diagnosed my trashed adrenals (too many years of extreme dieting, another not-surprise). He diagnosed my trashed gut biome. That was kind of a new thing in 2011.

Then we moved unexpectedly and I lost access to my great new doctor. My weight ballooned with stress and bad eating. My hormones went insane. It was a nightmare. I tried several diets and got absolutely nowhere. Not even the 20 or so lbs I should have been able to count on just from water weight.

Utterly demoralizing.

So I studied more. I fixed my food sensitivities. I lived on homemade soup for about a year trying to solve nutritional deficiencies. I got my thyroid properly propped up. I sorted out my adrenal issues and support as necessary. I spent an entire summer focusing on fixing my gut biome.

I have high hopes that I have fixed the basic non-food issues that caused my problems in the first place.

But what if I didn’t?

My early Weight Watchers results have been good, but I’m now at a set point I’ve been to at least twice in the past. This is the weight I was when low carb stopped working. This is the weight I was when I first did Optifast.

I am absolutely panicked that this is the best I’ll get.

Intellectually I know that isn’t likely. I know that plateaus and stalls are normal. I know that my body is reshaping itself because my clothes are fitting differently. I know that I’m weighing and measuring and following the program. I know there is absolutely no reason that it should stop working right now.

But what if I’m wrong?

I tried telling myself that this new place is better, much better, than where I started. That isn’t helping in the slightest.

So I’m working out my panic in a blog. Because that’s what bloggers do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Irreverence for the win!

Last week I went to see yet another new doctor. This one was a pain specialist.

This summer, before things went crazy, I went to the Orthopedist and said “my left fibula won’t stay put.” So he took some xrays and turns out I have severe osteoarthritis in both knees. Not terribly unexpected at my weight and with my other issues. My question was “Why does only the left one hurt.” He didn’t have a good answer for that, and sent me off to physical therapy.

Looking back, I seem to have failed to mention physical therapy. Oh well. It went ok. I did it in between moving. It helped me get back some basic mobility, but nothing major. I expect it would have helped more if I hadn’t had to do it around moving when I was already exhausted all the time. Anyway, it got me to the point where I could manage the pool, and that’s what I’m doing now.

Back to the orthopedist. I went back this week to ask about a brace. Someone is supposed to call me, but at my weight, and with the shape of my leg, he’s not sure what a brace can do for me. And he once again referred me to the pain specialists. Because they are in charge of non-surgical management of severe arthritis.

She is fantastic. We chatted and I gave her my history so we were building a rapport while someone tracked down the files I’d had sent over from the orthopedist. And when she finally saw my pictures she said “Holy crap, your knees look like shit.” Which made me laugh and laugh. And I knew then that we’d have a long and healthy relationship. Because they are really terrible.

And then we talked briefly about options and I got a cortisone shot in my left knee. Right now it’s sort of numb. We’ll see how it goes.

What do you get out of it?

Your food, I mean.

We’ve been told over and over that if we eat a healthy diet, then we’ll be healthy. I think most of the people who read this know it’s completely untrue, but it persists as a lie. Of course the average person doesn’t do it anyway, so does it really matter?

One idea is that we don’t need to take vitamins if we eat a healthy diet. Hence the war on vitamins and supplements. I’m not sure I really understand the government’s constant attempts to over regulate them. Someone is making money off them right?

Despite my new-found soup way of life I still came down with some severe low iron symptoms. I went through a period where I ate red meat twice a day because I craved it. How much of that was me not absorbing the iron present in the food? Thyroid can cause low stomach acid, as can age, and that would interfere with absorbing the nutrients.

It’s a little gross to discuss, but many people don’t chew nearly enough. Part of that is because our food is more highly processed. It’s also because we rush everything in the US so we’re eating in a hurry. It’s a problem. A friend who had bypass surgery told me that chewing was the number one instruction her doctor gave her as she recovered to make sure she didn’t have problems with regain. I constantly have to remind myself to slow down.

Then of course, there’s the idea that there is no food in our food. That the soils in the US are very depleted by modern farming methods so the trace minerals that we should be getting out of our healthy eating aren’t there to begin with and no amount of chewing and stomach acid will pry them out of food they aren’t in.

Even though I eat mostly organic, with healthy choices, my kitchen table is still covered with various supplements and I can tell you that I notice if I miss even one for more than a day.  Some times I wonder if buying the good stuff in the first place even matters, but then I remember the chemical taste of commercial fruit and remember that it might not be what I do get out of it, it might be what I don’t.

Getting some perspective

I recently had a great visit with one of my dearest and oldest friends. She’s recently been having fun and excitement with her own health and we’ve been sharing stories and resources. With her encouragement, I’m doing a few new things.

One that I really should have thought of is a new approach to veggies. See, I don’t like them. I’ve never liked them, and I promise you I have tried whole websites full of different ideas on how to make them fun and interesting. Sorry, still don’t like them. I tried requiring myself to just eat them along with the rest of my meal. Nope, I’d rather skip eating than eat them. Not a good solution. My new approach is called soup. Very innovative, I know. Bone broth is an amazing food and I’ve certainly made my fair share. But I don’t care for brothy soup. There are only so many flavors that meld well with coconut milk for a creamy soup, and thickening with flour isn’t really the best for me. My friend’s solution? The food processor.

Oh. How obvious. I’ve never thought to put the meat from soup into the food processor, but why not? It works beautifully. Cauliflower bacon soup in a chicken base was excellent and on the menu for tomorrow probably. Home made duck stock with leftover duck, zucchini, spaghetti squash and a few potatoes was legendary and required a sincere discussion about the inadvisability of a 3rd bowl in the first seating. Ground beef and broccoli has been less successful, but still fine. So now I’m aggressively buying my favorite Kitchen Basics stock in a box, and saving my rotisserie chicken bones, and I found my beef bone options at the market last visit for future reference. So as long as the cool weather holds out, I can go forward with more veggies.

My friend also found a traditional Chinese Medicine doctor when her western doctor couldn’t help her. I’ve shied away from this simply because of the expense, but in her experience it isn’t as expensive as I thought, and well, I’ve certainly tried everything else. I’ve put out some feelers locally to see if I know anyone with a personal recommendation. Their approach is all about balance after all, and I already know my body is horribly out of balance. It can’t hurt.

I think the most important thing was to have some reinforcement. She does not find me lazy, or less determined, or any other thing. She believes I have attempted to work my behind off, but it is just stuck. And that might be the most important thing from the whole visit. Someone who knows me well. Someone who has watched my endless struggle, and finds me admirable, instead of lacking. That is truly hard to find.

So, a nice soppy song in honor of the people who really know us.

It just takes one thing

I was incredibly inspired by this video I found this morning:

 

 

It’s absolutely fascinating how removing one ‘dangerous’ element for the ‘benefit of everyone’ completely changed everything and started a downward spiral of issues that no one even knew were caused by a completely unlikely catalyst (or lack of.)

In this case, the wolves change the behavior of the deer, which changed the grass, which changed the health and behavior of pretty much all the other animals.

To me, it points out how very little we know about how Mother Nature’s systems really work.

Now let’s apply that to things like GMO food, and artificial sweeteners, and chemical flavor enhancers.

I already know one. Soy. Traditional soy foods are made by slow fermentation. Natto, soy sauce, miso, and tofu. Edamame is the one exception that I know of. The slow processing breaks down the potentially damaging phytochemicals in soy, makes it more digestible and the nutrition more accessible. The way soy is processed in the US is, as with everything, the fastest, cheapest possible processing to achieve a food-like substance.

How about grain? We’ve gone from cultivating many different types of grains (because they each require slightly different growing conditions so some were bound to make it even in a too hot or too wet year) to being extremely wheat focused. Then we take that wheat and process it until it is unrecognizable. How about the fact that we’ve reduced the variety of foods that we eat to only a few dozen out of the many hundreds humans used to eat.

What would we find about our health and well being if we went back to eating wide varieties of plants and animals that haven’t been so  heavily modified?

There’s no chance to find out really. Everything has been changed and there are entirely too many humans to be fed for everyone to forage.

But it is a question I think about.

When they get it.

In my years of pursuing health and trying to learn about my body I’ve tried an awful lot of things. Some work, some don’t, and some only work for a while, and then stop. And it took me years to figure out when it was time to buckle down harder, and when it was time to back up and choose another direction. I wrote about the difficulty in fighting dogma a while back.

When you’re out on the fringe (of anything, health and nutrition for this discussion) it is such a relief when you get to share ideas and options (and new recipes) with someone who gets you. Understands your perspective on health, understands your need to find your own way no matter what the mainstream says, understands that people are not interchangeable machined parts. Unfortunately, sometimes (often really) you get caught up with someone who feels that they own the One Truth, and there is no discussing with you, they just talk at you. So frustrating. They put so much energy into finding a great alternative solution for themselves, and yet they can’t believe that their perfect solution probably isn’t perfect for everyone. Because if solutions were one-size-fits, said practitioner would have followed the instructions their doctor handed out and wouldn’t have made doing something different their life’s work. They get so caught up in their own dogma that they forget that they started out helping people.

I bring this up because last week I went to a ladies business lunch where I have made a number of good friends and I got to sit and brain storm with an amazing food educator.

 My friend Elaine teaches people about raw food and alkaline diets. She doesn’t start with a major overhaul. She starts with a list of foods that would be spectacular for you and helps you find a few that you could add to your diet. Starting small and practical. But if you say “yeah, I know flax can have all these benefits, but I happen to be horribly allergic” she doesn’t say “are you really sure you’re allergic” and she doesn’t say “it’s really really good for you”, she says “oh, how about chia seeds?” or other options.

Elaine understands that I am healing multiple health problems, and I’m not ready (and who knows, may never be) for her program. That doesn’t stop us being friends, or helping and supporting each other. She never makes me feel bad for not jumping on her bandwagon, because what she really really wants is for me to be as healthy as possible. Whatever it takes for me. She had to find her own solution, and she did a fine job, since she’s a 2 time, no chemo cancer survivor. (I’m impressed. How’s that for some qualifications?)

My point here is, if you get the opportunity to work with people who really get that you are a unique individual, make the most of it. They’re rare these days. But don’t let anyone tie you to their bandwagon if it doesn’t fit.

This one is Just Right

As I mentioned, I had a pretty awful fall. It was going badly, and then my chiropractor disappeared. There was a message on his phone that mentioned ‘trying time’ and offered another phone number that went to another chiropractors office.

Through them I discovered that his wife died, suddenly and unexpectedly.

I still didn’t feel well, but things could have been much worse.

But physically I was a mess and I did need chiropractic support, so I visited the referred doctor.

Who was terrible. Completely cookie-cutter approach, including manipulations that are really inappropriate on someone my size and shape. She actually hurt me.

So I got a referral. The next guy had a bunch of alternative methods. And I understand why they work really well with the athletes that are most of his patients. They helped me some, but it wasn’t at all what I needed. Once my knees were working better I searched for someone else.

The new guy was pretty good. Much more what I needed, friendly and gregarious, great energy. His approach was a little more aggressive than my body likes, but it was the best so far.

Then my REAL chiropractor called. He’s back at work. So I went to see him and

aahhhhh….

I remembered why I liked him so much in the first place.

I feel better than I have in literally months.

I used to really limit how often I went because of the expense. Having been to a number of significantly less talented and more expensive practitioners, I’m going to focus a lot more on what my body needs to function properly and less on the cost.

Because without the physical health, money for vacations is kind of pointless.

No, that’s not it.

Back in July I posted about what has come to be known as the Cornstarch Debacle. I switched from an OTC product to support my adrenals to a prescription that proceeded to make me fairly sick. I was achy and my muscles were weak and sore and my gut was  very unhappy. I eventually discovered that the prescription was made with cornstarch and attributed all the symptoms to my food allergy. I went back on my OTC and was back to normal.

It was all very reasonable and logical, and apparently, that wasn’t the issue, or not the whole issue.

Recently said OTC supplement was discontinued. Rather suddenly. I had to switch to another support, and the most commonly used is hydrocortisone cream, dosed with a syringe to be sure you’re getting the right amounts. So I switched.

At first I thought the body aches and shaking muscles was a side effect of the change. Even though I always seem to have bizarre reactions to common things, I still get tripped up when I have a completely unusual reaction to something that works just fine for most people. Most people who use hydrocortisone cream as adrenal support do just fine. I felt as though I’d been beaten and left for dead. I swelled up like a balloon with fluid. I haven’t slept well in weeks.

Apparently the Cornstarch Debacle wasn’t about the cornstarch after all. Or, not entirely, I will admit that the digestive side effects were missing this time. No, my body doesn’t much like processed hyrdocortisone. I’m so weird.

I am now experimenting with adrenal cortex supplements. That’s why my former beloved OTC was based on. I’m not restablized yet. I’m still having a lot of trouble. My legs are absurdly swollen and my muscles are still fairly useless. I am very frustrated.

I did go see my doctor. She offered a diuretic and some potassium and sympathy. I didn’t expect much else. How much can they do with 15 minutes (if you’re lucky) on a topic that is very outside the box. She’s supportive and cooperative and pleasant. I don’t expect her to be the foremost expert on everything.

I’ve found myself a non-mainstream practitioner who I really like, recommended by my veterinarian of all people. I’m hoping for good things there.

You’d think with all these issues over and over I’d at least be patient about how long things take to resolve. You’d be wrong.

What a tangled web.

I recently wrote about Estrogen Dominance. You probably guessed that I had a personal reason to research it. Of course I did.

What brought this up? Recently my wonderful new doctor put me on a dhea supplement because my blood levels are so low as to be almost off the scale. Adding some certainly seems to be a reasonable approach. Right up until my hair starts falling out by the handful. Always a bad sign. So I go to one of my favorite patient based sites and start asking questions about dhea. There I find that dhea is know, in people with severe adrenal fatigue, to convert directly to estrogen, causing estrogen dominance in many people. I don’t know why it does that, but now at least I know it does.

Let me be clear, I’m not blaming my doctor. She is not an endocrinologist (because they have decided that adrenal fatigue isn’t really a problem they treat) nor is she a specialist of any kind. She’s a wonderful nurse practitioner with an open mind. I’m pretty sure when I take her a print out of some research, she’ll read it and be better informed for the next person.

It’s all SO COMPLICATED. I could wish I could find an expert in all this stuff, but I don’t think it’s sexy enough to be a specialty. Here’s how I think it went. First you have a food sensitivity that causes inflammation and damages your gut. The inflammation causes your adrenals to work overtime keeping things in balance. The first signs of adrenal fatigue should be hypoglycemia, but everyone ignores that and puts you on a low fat diet, guaranteed to make you worse. Meanwhile the damage to your gut is letting all kinds of proteins and things into your blood stream, where they definitely don’t belong. After a while your adrenals can’t keep up. Your body is so busy fighting inflammation that it can’t also get you the right amount of cortisol to uptake the T3 your body is making. Since you have a lot of random T3 running around loose in your blood, your body decides that you have too much and starts making higher and higher percentages of Reverse T3. So your metabolism slows down, you gain weight, your body temperature drops. But your thyroid is actually doing the job it is supposed to be doing, so the TSH test says you’re fine and they put you back on a diet.

Mean while all that stuff that is getting through the leaky walls of your gut are clogging up your liver as it tries to keep your blood supply clean. So now your liver is getting over worked. Fortunately your liver is a complete workaholic and it also regenerates. But since it is very busy, it isn’t clearing out all the excess estrogen in your blood. Your gut normally clears a bunch of it out, but it’s damaged from the original food sensitivity so it doesn’t move things along promptly and your system has too much time to scavenge for useful things, so it grabs out all that extra estrogen that you don’t need. In case that wasn’t enough, your fat cells now also make extra estrogen. I don’t know why, I think it has to do with nature protecting post-menopausal women but I haven’t really researched it.

So now you’re trapped in this endless cycle of low thyroid, adrenal fatigue, leaky gut, high estrogen, low everything else. And you’re fat, fatigued, and malnourished. Welcome to my world.

But it isn’t only my world. There are a lot of women (and men) who are trapped in this endless cycle that western medicine isn’t helping us with.

I’ve been wondering a lot lately what is causing so very many people to fall into this trap in the first place. Why the incredible increase in food sensitivities and thyroid issues and adrenal fatigue.

I’m pretty sure it’s the food we’re eating, but that’s a conspiracy theory for another day.

How did you know that?

If you have a non-standard health problem, you really need to refine your research skills. There is an endless supply of information out there, but you have to a) know how to find it, and b) learn to sort good information from bad information. It’s not easy. I was very lucky that in college I found a hobby that encouraged me to learn good research skills for a completely unrelated field (medieval history, if you’re curious) and that has helped me immeasurably in my health research.

The internet is a great and wonderful thing. You probably already knew that. To me, the ability to share and compile information quickly and easily is one of the best things we’ve gotten from it. When I was learning to research it was books and paper card catalogs and microfiche. Google has changed everything about how we treat information and it puts a lot more power into the hands of people who learn to find and use that information.

If you have an under diagnosed/treated disease like celiac or PCOS or thyroid or anything else, another thing you can do is find the patient run information sites. These are sites run by people who have the very problem you do and they have absolutely devoted themselves to learning everything they can about their particular problem, because they found that western medicine either couldn’t or wouldn’t help them. Stop The Thyroid Madness is the one for thyroid issues, whether you are untreated or under treated. They have links to research, for doctors, for blood tests, and for everything they’ve been able to identify as a related issue, like adrenal fatigue.

That’s just the one for thyroid.  No matter what your personal health issue is, I’m sure there is a patient based site where you can find really great information that your doctor may or may not even know. Many of these sites will also have blogs you  can follow, and groups on Facebook where you can ask questions of others who have your issues to see how they dealt with them, or to share your experience with someone newly diagnosed. I’m finding these resources to be invaluable, not only for knowledge, but for emotional support. It feels good to know there are other people who share your frustration, your excitement at a new treatment, or who just know what your daily life looks like through the stress of whatever your issue is.

Of course, the available research isn’t always what it should be, and the results don’t always look at the real problem.

I recently had a discussion with a good friend. She has a very scientific and analytical mind, both by nature and by training. We were discussing health research. She is inclined to always believe the scientific findings. I don’t have a problem with that, I like research and empirical results myself. But I did take some time to put forth the idea that for some food and health issues, they’re doing the research wrong. She seemed very surprised that you couldn’t count on a group of people to display the same results in the same time frame with regards to a single stimulus. Western research methods depend on this. My sensitivity reaction to strawberries, for example. I’m almost always going to present some kind of hayfever reaction to a stimulus. In the case of strawberries, in 6-12 hours I’m going to have watery eyes and start sneezing a lot. A friend of mine will come down with a fever and joint aches in 3-4 hours. Someone else will break out in hives in 30 minutes. Our science doesn’t really know what to do with this.

Another major issue is that many of the subtle issues have similar presentations, so it can be very difficult to track down which particular issue a patient is having. Chinese and traditional medical approaches do better with these things because they focus on whole body wellness and related systems model, rather than an ‘attack the symptom’ approach.

I think what I learned is that it’s no surprise that western medicine has so much trouble with these subtle issues. Western medicine, and US society in general, isn’t really set up for the level of subtlety that you need to trace some of these problems.

Which is another benefit to the patient based sites. If enough people come together with a similar presentation, maybe we can start driving the research, instead of being silent victims of it.