So Determined!
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Thanks for all the suggestions, I will definitely look into that autoimmune protocol.
I came across an article on EVERYDAY PALEO by Jason Seib (I think that was the name) and it was called top 20 tips for fat loss. It said, basically, eat mostly "meat and fibrous vegetables", avoid using paleo ingredients to make things like breads, cookies, cakes, etc. It said (on the activity side) to work first on building "walking like a vagabond" into your life. THEN add lifting weight, and only then, short sprints. In other words, avoid steady-state cardio.
This makes humungus sense to me. In my state, I am not only recovering from an autoimmune arthritis flare, I have had Lyme Disease, and since I am a caregiver for a disabled adult child, (as well as a support to my MIL in the nursing home and my parents in independent living), I have dealt with a great deal of ongoing stress. A lot of my excess weight is in my belly. Stress-related and very unhealthy.
SO....I have a revised plan for regaining vitality. I am not going to concern myself with how fast I walk, and I am not going to push myself to walk so far as to increase pain. I am going to cultivate the art of walking shorter distances more frequently in my day, as my body permits, and to gentle myself into building a base of walking. I am going to focus on HEALING and let weight loss be a side effect of health.
So my plan for today: it's beautiful here in upstate NY
walk!
Rosey0 -
Beautiful, I think you are getting the whole deal with that plan.0
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So I walked first thing this morning....easy pace, about a 25 minute mile and I walked 2.4 miles (60 minutes) without any significant pain. The slower pace allowed for enjoyable walking.
I think I am developing the right mindset: focus on health, NOT a weight loss diet per se.
I am going to aim for a minimum of 3 fish meals a week for the anti-inflammatory properties. We have a local business that bring fresh sustainably caught wild fish in from Boston twice a week and I will try make one of those fish meals a fresh catch---the other two can be canned sardines or herrings.
I feel so hopeful for the first time in a long time! I have a plan! Walk, walk, walk...gently and consistently, eat paleo with an emphasis on meat and fish with fibrous veggies, a little bit of sweet potato, yucca or other roots for starch and variety, and when I feel better, start a low and slow weight lifting program. Got it! Add in rest and relaxation and there is a program for recovery!
Rosey0 -
You are on the right track and your positivity is shining through. :flowerforyou:0
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You are on the right track and your positivity is shining through. :flowerforyou:
Well, your history with healing is an inspiration!
Rosey0 -
You are on the right track and your positivity is shining through. :flowerforyou:
Well, your history with healing is an inspiration!
Rosey
Thank you. :smooched:
Every day I am so grateful that I finally came to realize that there was another option instead of just sick/fat. It makes me sad that so many people around me are still stuck there (even having organs cut out!) and are annoyed if I offer suggestions to improve their lives. So, I try to be a good example and keep my passion a bit under wraps in person. Of course I'm pretty vocal about it around here.0 -
Here's a copy of those "20 top fat loss tips" I was writing about earlier. I think they could as easily be called "Top 20 health-promoting tips."
25 Fat Loss Tips by Jason Seib
These tips started as a very popular series of posts on my Facebook page, and by the time all twenty were posted it was obvious that they would need to be compiled in one place for easy access. Please remember that none of these tips stands alone. They are all part of a lifestyle that will promote the sustainable fat loss you are looking for, but none are magical fat loss spells held secret from the world until now. Use these tips to get really healthy and you will find the body you have been looking for.
#1 In the beginning, eat primarily meat and fibrous vegetables. Limit starchy vegetables and fruit to once or twice per week.
#2 Walk like a vagabond! The minimum amount of walking you should do each day is as much as you can. The maximum amount of walking you should do each day is as much as you can.
#3 Be sure you are eating enough calories. If you convince your body that you are in a famine, it will place a high premium on fat, storing every little bit that it possibly can and holding onto it for dear life. Muscle mass, on the other hand, is very biochemically expensive and your body will dump it rapidly in favor of saving body fat for survival. 1800 calories is a good place to start for women, at least 2200 for men, but without knowing anything about your metabolism, these are only guesses. Some experimentation will be in order. Experimenting takes months, not days or weeks. This is no place for desperation and it is no place to make food your enemy. Be sure to see tip #1 or all bets are off.
#4 Stop doing cardio. The only reason to do traditional steady-state cardio is to “burn” calories and the result will be a lot like the caloric restriction described in tip 3. Hunger and cravings will increase, sleep can be disrupted, and your metabolism will eventually slow down to save energy for your cardio stress events. This is a great way to break a metabolism and make fat loss a lifelong struggle.
#5 Once walking is a regular thing for you, and cardio is not, it’s time to start moving some heavy weights. Big compound movements are best (deadlifts, squats, presses), which means you will need to get some help with proper form. Never, EVER lift with anything but perfect form. In my opinion, a personal record does not count unless form was immaculate. We don’t move weights, we move our bodies through perfect ranges of motion while we happen to be loaded with weights. Build a strong, capable body and fat loss will be oh so much easier. Women, I’m sorry but this step is not optional if you really want to create the body you see in your dreams.
#6 Prioritize sleep. Broken or missed sleep will often lead to insulin resistance and increased cortisol, both of which can make fat loss very difficult and very often increase cravings. Try to get at least 8 hours of quality sleep during human sleeping hours. 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM is a good example, 12:00 AM to 8:00 AM is not. If you are serious about your fat loss goal, you won’t take this advice with a grain of salt. I have VERY rarely seen anyone with bad sleep patterns go from overweight to lean. Seriously, maybe once or twice in my entire career.
#7 If you want a body that looks great for a lifetime, not just a few days before you begin gaining back your lost weight, you are going to have to get really healthy. Healthy bodies look great by accident. This means you can put tricks and gimmicks aside. You should not be trying to get “skinny” at any cost, unless of course you don’t mind rapidly regaining fat after all your hard work. Every idea you have or are told about fat loss should fit into this statement: I want to be healthier so I have decided to ________________. Answers like “starve myself” and “work out in every waking moment of my life” and “spend my life pretending I’m running from a very slow predator” clearly don’t fit here.
#8 Stress must be managed, and you probably have more stress than you think. If you aren’t managing your stress, expect extra midsection fat. Cortisol, our primary stress hormone, can make fat loss difficult or nonexistent. Start meditating for just 10 minutes each day. Yes, we all feel stupid at first. No, you aren’t terrible at it, we all jump to that same conclusion in the beginning. Meditation is practice for managing a brain that you can’t turn off and we have mountains of hard scientific evidence demonstrating its benefits. It is not inherently spiritual in nature and it does not offend anyone’s religion, unless your religion doesn’t approve of stress management. Get an app like Calm or Headspace to help you get started. 8 Minute Meditation by Victor Davich is a fantastic book that will help you out, as well. Of the multitudes of people that I have given this advice to, I know that very few have taken it, but I have never heard of anyone, no matter how sceptical, who started meditating and regretted it. Give it a month and you will be shocked at how much of your life it touches.
#9 Once walking and lifting are in place and steady state cardio has been a thing of the past for a while, begin sprinting once or twice per week. Sprinting = maximum effort for a very short duration, like 30 seconds on a bike, rowing machine, or running on a track. 3 to 5 sprints with enough time to catch your breath in between should be adequate for anyone if intensity is maximal. Intensity is subjective to your physical capacity, which means everyone can sprint. Your 100% effort might not look like 100% effort for me, but we will both be going as hard as we can. If you are out of shape, don’t choose running sprints. Sprint on days that you lift weights rather than adding extra workout days to your week. Sprinting will help to use up stored glycogen and create more EPOC (excess post exercise oxygen consumption), both of which mean more fat loss.
#10 Don’t work out, other than walking, more than 3 or 4 times per week. You lose fat and gain muscle primarily in recovery, not in the gym. If you want to go to the gym because it’s fun and you love the people you train with, then it’s time to admit that your goals have changed. Fun is your goal now. Health and fat loss have taken the back seat. Nobody can judge you for this or say you are wrong, but call a spade a spade and don’t be hard on yourself when your secondary goals aren’t coming to fruition like you primary goals. It’s the same if you feel like exercise is your main stress reliever, if it’s your “me” time, or if you battle with exercise addiction. All these things push fat loss down in the hierarchy of your goals.
#11 Stop snacking. Consolidate all your food intake to no more than 3 meals without reducing calories. I’ll say this another way for clarity: the calories you normally consume in the form of snacks should not be eliminated from your day, they should be moved to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. More time between meals, and especially more time between carbohydrates, can help you achieve better metabolic flexibility, which is basically a measure of how easily you access body fat for energy when glucose is gone. Poor metabolic flexibility makes you think you are hungry between meals, but you are actually craving carbs. Adequate calories should be measured over whole days, not hours, and with good metabolic flexibility hunger will be a signal, not an alarm. Some willpower will be necessary for a few days, but this is an issue that should be forced if you hope to have healthy fat metabolism, even if it doesn’t feel good at first.
#12 Don’t drink your calories. Eat whole food and drink water. Liquefying your food is like external digestion. If you liquefy something like spinach that is otherwise a very low glycemic food, you make it much easier to digest and the resultant glucose enters your bloodstream much faster. This increases the insulin response which is counterproductive to fat loss goals and improving metabolic flexibility. Even shakes containing pure protein will cause an insulin response. Green smoothies, shakes, and juice should all be avoided for fat loss. Yes, this advice includes pre/post workout shakes. If you lost weight on a shake or smoothie diet, you lost weight from caloric restriction and keeping it off will be next to impossible. Coffee and tea are okay, but not if you NEED caffeine.
#13 Don’t eat “healthier” versions of the garbage you used to eat. Paleo bread, primal pancakes, caveman cake, etc. are treats and should be treated as such. These foods are not ideal alternatives to meat and vegetable and they can certainly inhibit fat loss goals. A switch from a typical standard American diet to healthy human food should mean a change in the foods you eat, not a change in the ingredients you use to make the same old junk. If you think of eating to lose fat as “dieting”, you will attempt to fit all your food into the “rules” of your diet. When you understand that sustainable fat loss happens as bodies get healthy, you will abandon your old unhealthy habits in favor of those that promote vitality.
#14 Remove carbohydrates from breakfast. We wake up in the morning in a hormonal state that is actually great for fat loss, but an insulin spike will slam the brakes on this situation in a hurry. A breakfast of bacon and eggs trumps oatmeal and toast every time. Of course, this also applies to sweetened coffee drinks. The data isn’t entirely clear, but you may even get an insulin response from artificial sweeteners, especially if you have a lot of fat to lose.
#15 Exercise with intensity. To be a minimalist (see tip # 10), you must work hard in the gym. Exercise is acute stress designed to elicit adaptation. Training too often or too long can turn acute stress into chronic stress, which will detract from health and halt fat loss goals. To avoid this, we work very hard using heavy weights for strength and muscle gain, and short duration techniques like sprints, high intensity interval training, and supersets to round out a fat loss program. If you are a CrossFitter, your average “WOD” should be less than 15 minutes, and less than 10 minutes may be even better. Obviously, the shorter the workout, the more intensity you can apply to it. Intensity is relative to your current physical capacity, so everyone at every level can train with intensity because it simply means giving it your all. Form, of course, ALWAYS takes priority. Only go as hard as good form will allow. Outside of real life emergencies, there is NEVER an acceptable time to let form slip, regardless of what you may have been told by those who think working out should be a sport.
#16 Log your food once in a while. There’s no need to weigh and measure anything. Simply write down what you eat for 3 consecutive days every now and then. Include absolutely everything you put into your mouth. This exercise can be very enlightening. You may be surprised by what you have been overlooking.
#17 After you have been eating, sleeping, and training correctly for a few months, and if your stress is well managed, you might try reducing your eating window without reducing calories. Some call this Intermittent Fasting, but I prefer to be less technical and just call it skipping breakfast. Breakfast is not the most important meal of the day, and there is plenty of great research to support this recommendation, but too many people jump in with both feet before they have the metabolic health to support it and the result is sometimes more midsection fat, erratic energy levels, broken sleep, and all the other stuff that might come with too much stress. Also, those who don’t know better often end up with calorie restriction to go along with their shorter eating window. So, be sure you don’t reduce calories, but rather move your average calories into less time each day. I like 8 hour windows that look something like 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM. Again, and I can’t stress this enough, if you aren’t already well on your way to great health, this advice isn’t for you.
#18: Try to avoid eating or drinking only for flavor. Flavor should indicate nutritional value. For example, nobody eats cake and ice cream when they’re hungry. Appeasing your taste buds is the only reason to eat these foods. This is a motivation for eating that was largely absent in all but the last blink of our 2.6 million year human history. By all means, you should enjoy your food, but nutritional value should take precedent over the yum factor in the HUGE majority of your meals. Remember “Just for the taste of it, Diet Coke”? For those of us in the healthy relationship with food that I am describing here, this message becomes “There’s no valid reason to ever drink Diet Coke!”
#19: Stop dieting. Diets don’t work. There is no such thing as a short and sweet set of fat loss “rules” that will work forever. Your body is going to change. Your plan should, too. A base concept like paleo/primal/ancestral/caveman/whatever can seem like magic in the beginning, but it will take very few people all the way to their goals. Some experimentation will be in order if YOU intend to find YOUR way to peak health. Experimentation will require a basic understanding of the scientific method. Try to change only one thing at a time (carbs, meal timing, conditioning work, etc), while controlling as many variables as possible, and then give that one change at least a month to produce some data for you to work with. Yes, a whole month. Desperation is for the unsuccessful.
#20 (This one probably should have been #1) Get an intrinsic motivation. If you follow all these tips with disdain for the process, expect to fail. To say this another way, if you hate all the things you must do in order to escape a body you hate only slightly more, your failure is all but imminent. If this describes you, you aren’t ready for the major lifestyle change required to get the body you want. First, you will look for tricks and gimmicks, thinking things like, “This supplement/workout/diet is the SECRET I’ve been missing all these years!” Then, when all the “secrets” fail, you may get on the right track, but you will see it as a cross to bear and you will fall off the wagon repeatedly, punishing yourself for being a “failure” each time. In reality, you just don’t have any internal reasons for doing this. You wouldn’t be changing your body at all if you were on a desert island with nobody around to judge you. Truly fit and healthy people (not exercise addicts) love the process. The way they feel means more to them than anything they gave up to get there. It even means more to them than the way they look, even though they look amazing. Health is the foundation on which they build everything else in their lives, not something that happens in the periphery of the things that they would rather be doing. If you really want to succeed, this healthy lifestyle must be a passion, not a burden.
There you have it. Follow these tips and your body will change for the better. If some of them sound a little unorthodox to you, try to remember how poorly we have been served by the mainstream fat loss prescription. Focus on health and let the rest happen by accident.
Go forth and be awesome.0 -
Hi Rosey,
I like your attitude. Unlike a lot of faddists who show up here, you seem grounded and tackling the paleo/primal lifestyle in a manner that's almost guaranteed to succeed!
One thing occurred to me while reading this topic. Given your autoimmune/pain issues, you may want to take a look at how many veggies you are eating from the nightshade family. Attached is an article that explains (so I don't have to retype it)...
http://www.livestrong.com/article/367949-list-of-nightshade-vegetables-fruits/
Good luck on your journey!
Norm0 -
Thanks for the link, Norm. I did check it out and I do see that I rely heavily on eggplant, tomatoes and peppers, especially this time of year as they are abundant in our farmers markets. I think I can manage to stick with leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, beets and turnips and their greens for my go-to vegetables. *sniff sniff* Eggplant is my favorite vegetable!
GREAT day today. Pain is diminished.
B: herring, avocado, sauerkraut
L: eye round beef, homemade mayo, avocado, sauerkraut, zucchini
haddock grilled in butter, green salad, steamed broccoli with butter, glass of wine (out to dinner with hubby for date night!)
Took two walks today, one for 60 minutes and one for 30 minutes. Have a great night, all!
RoseyHi Rosey,
I like your attitude. Unlike a lot of faddists who show up here, you seem grounded and tackling the paleo/primal lifestyle in a manner that's almost guaranteed to succeed!
One thing occurred to me while reading this topic. Given your autoimmune/pain issues, you may want to take a look at how many veggies you are eating from the nightshade family. Attached is an article that explains (so I don't have to retype it)...
http://www.livestrong.com/article/367949-list-of-nightshade-vegetables-fruits/
Good luck on your journey!
Norm0 -
I rely heavily on eggplant, tomatoes and peppers, especially this time of year as they are abundant in our farmers markets.
I can relate. I need to minimize my use of them, and this time of year they all show up weekly in my CSA box.
What I wind up doing is - rather than using peppers or tomatoes every day, I use them all in one fell swoop, like in a pot of chili. I just understand that the next day or so I'm gonna hurt a bit.
But my Gold Rush Chili is worth it!
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I hope nobody minds if I continue to use this thread as a sort of personal account of my journey back to health. If it isn't appropriate, I will cease and desist...:)
Each day gets a little better. I feel utterly liberated by the article I found with the top 20 fat loss tips. Clearly, they should be my top 20 recovery tips. I am focusing solely on walking, on getting comfortable in my body again. At that point, I will begin working with weights. They won't be very heavy: with my spine issues, I have to be VERY careful. That's for later----I still have foundation work to do. And such a pleasure it is! This is a great time of year to walk in the mornings and later evenings. It is cooler and the air is fresh and it's nice to feel like you have the world to yourself. (Such as my little corner of it is.)
Food today is fine-
B: leftover chicken stew, 2 TB. coconut butter
L: chicken stock with beet greens and 2 eggs halibut cooked in butter, broccoli, salad with oil and vinegar, glass of wine (The out to dinner dinner I though I was going to have yesterday but am having today instead.)
If I am hungry, I will have some kale cooked in coconut oil, perhaps leftover beef.
Rosey0 -
I rely heavily on eggplant, tomatoes and peppers, especially this time of year as they are abundant in our farmers markets.
I can relate. I need to minimize my use of them, and this time of year they all show up weekly in my CSA box.
What I wind up doing is - rather than using peppers or tomatoes every day, I use them all in one fell swoop, like in a pot of chili. I just understand that the next day or so I'm gonna hurt a bit.
But my Gold Rush Chili is worth it!
Yup, watch those nightshades. I mentioned them in my first post here. Anyone with joint problems should consider eliminating them for a time and then try a careful reintroduction. I only had to eliminate them for a short time and now just have to monitor how much of them I eat. Yup, I love nightshades too but I love being pain-free even more.
I'm not a huge anti-alcohol person and I love my wine, but have you considered giving it up just for awhile to maximize healing?0 -
^ what she said.
When I was desperate to deal with joint pain, I did the Whole 30 for a month and went one further, incorporating AI protocol. I especially remember eliminating nightshades, eggs, and nuts -- that was hard! I'm thankful for the amazing variety I learned through the Whole 30 process. I didn't really realize how limited my preferred food choices had been before embarking on this journey.
Thanks, Rosey, for posting that article. Good stuff, and a reminder that I have gotten sloppy lately. I know I am not getting enough calories because I'm never hungry anymore. I need to do a little more planning and deliberately eating to get more than 1000 calories a day. When I'm logging I aim for 1500. 1800, like the article recommends, sounds like I'd feel full-to-bursting all the time. What a problem to contemplate, after spending my whole life (up to about 18 months ago) dieting.
p.s. I can now eat eggs and most nuts without a problem. Still can't do nightshades. Sad, because fresh home grown tomatoes were my favorite summer food, and potatoes are (were) a favorite winter staple.0 -
I have tried to do a whole30 and the mental approach isn't good for me. What I mean is "one bite of something off the list and you have to start from the beginning." That mindset can be detrimental, as it is for me. Far better for me to feel good about the day even if I ate a bite of eggplant or even some dark chocolate amongst the otherwise "perfect" day than to feel like I 'blew it' and have to start over.
Good enough is better than not at all----at least for me, at this time.
So this morning I am heading off for my annual appointment with my primary care doc. I am going to ask for a panel of labs to include inflammatory markers and I want to come back every 2 or 3 months to be reevaluated on this program. She's open-minded and flexible, and I like her.
I AM NOT HUNGRY THIS MORNING! THIS IS A MIRACLE! I usually wake up feeling like I'm starving. But in general, I can actually feel my blood sugar stabilizing. Yippee! And my 1.67 mile walk this morning was a piece of cake, you should excuse the expression!
Rosey0 -
I have tried to do a whole30 and the mental approach isn't good for me. What I mean is "one bite of something off the list and you have to start from the beginning." That mindset can be detrimental, as it is for me. Far better for me to feel good about the day even if I ate a bite of eggplant or even some dark chocolate amongst the otherwise "perfect" day than to feel like I 'blew it' and have to start over.
Good enough is better than not at all----at least for me, at this time.
So this morning I am heading off for my annual appointment with my primary care doc. I am going to ask for a panel of labs to include inflammatory markers and I want to come back every 2 or 3 months to be reevaluated on this program. She's open-minded and flexible, and I like her.
I AM NOT HUNGRY THIS MORNING! THIS IS A MIRACLE! I usually wake up feeling like I'm starving. But in general, I can actually feel my blood sugar stabilizing. Yippee! And my 1.67 mile walk this morning was a piece of cake, you should excuse the expression!
Rosey
I'm no big fan of Whole30. However, the benefits from this lifestyle, especially when there are serious health issues to resolve, DOES rely on a full commitment. Stop focusing on what you CAN'T have and focus on trying all the new wonderful foods that you CAN have. Try new foods and new recipes.
Sometimes one bite of something is a big deal. For me that one bite that I refuse to ever have is anything containing wheat.
No don't throw in the towel over a bite of something (for me one bite usually becomes a binge), but shift focus to the positives of this lifestyle and everything will be much easier. Later on, when you are pain free and feeling awesome is the time to see what can be re-introduced and how much. Get well first. No food is worth being sick or in pain over imo.0 -
Rosey I have been post stalking this for a number of days and I finally have to chime in, I LOVE your attitude. Hopefully, one day I will fine the courage and determination to embrace this lifestyle with the same attitude as you! Kudos!0
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If a small portion of dark chocolate doesn't cause you issues or to binge then there is nothing wrong with eating it. I decided a long time ago that quality chocolate was not going away from my life. I can regulate how much I eat so it is okay. If it is "junk" chocolate like Dove or Hershey's I'll eat the entire bag, but something like Lindt or Green & Blacks I can eat one square and feel satisfied.0
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If a small portion of dark chocolate doesn't cause you issues or to binge then there is nothing wrong with eating it. I decided a long time ago that quality chocolate was not going away from my life. I can regulate how much I eat so it is okay. If it is "junk" chocolate like Dove or Hershey's I'll eat the entire bag, but something like Lindt or Green & Blacks I can eat one square and feel satisfied.
The above is true for me as well. If I stick to VERY dark high quality chocolate (which has barely any sugar) a square or two is all I want, and not very often. I love the cocoa camino but the darkest they have is 80% (which is ok since I rarely have it). Lindt has a 90% one but I have trouble finding Lindt without soy lecithin. Endangered species has some really dark ones but they use something I didn't like (probably soy, again).
If I eat any other of the cheap commercial milk chocolate products, I will eat and eat and eat and have no brakes.0 -
I find with the Dark Chocolate. I get full fast.... I buy the 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Chips .. and 16 of them have like 8 carbs and 60 Calories... and literally you CANT really eat more then that... dark chocolate makes me full faster.. HOWEVER if i ate a snickers.. i could have 2 of those.. lol!!!0
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I love how impassioned we can get about chocolate! I just came home with some organic, 90% dark chocolate that has no soy lecithin in the ingredients, and I know I will be ok with it in the house.
Spoke to my doc today who referred me to a staff nutritionist. I explained the diet to my doc, who says it sounds very healthful and she reassured me that the nutritionist will be able to work with me on this. She did a HgB A1c and a C-reactive protein along with fasting blood sugar and the usual battery of labs, and I will see her again in 3 months' time to reevaluate my condition. I am going to stay focused on food quality, and "walking like a vagabond" for now.
All is well. My mood is uplifted just from having gotten started.
Rosey0
