Good morning, afternoon or evening to you all. My name is Emily. I am 47, premenopausal, pre-diabetic and have high blood pressure. I have about 40lbs to lose. I am married to my soul mate and have 2 teenage girls (13 and 14). My oldest daughter has suffered tremendously for the last year and a half. She has not been able to attend school. The psychologists say she has Conversion Disorder . She loses consciousness for up to an hour at a time and has non-epileptic seizures any where from 10 times a day to once a week. I have spent the last year in deep worry, having to work and leave my daughter at home, alone during school hours, but able to dash home for her at the drop of a needle. So much stress for my family. The nearest Children's Hospital is a 4.5 hour drive, and we just do not have the specialists here (Grande Prairie, AB, Canada) as we need and it takes months to get to see a qualified Dr. We have been seeing a neurologist, and epilepsy specialist and now a sleep specialist, to rule out any organic causes of her condition. In February my Father passed away adding to my already shriveled spirit. I have looked at conventional and unconventional ways to help my girl, she is slowly starting to become more "normal" but does not seem to be able to recognize her triggers. I am ready to get off the self pity boat. I have spent the last month reading this thread and wow! what a wonderfully warm group of women! On Monday I started my journey back to health. I have always thrived on a low carb WOE finding it resulted in feeling and looking my best. I am currently following the Keto Menu plans from "I Breath...I'm Hungry..." and what a terrific web site it is. Here is the link if anyone has not heard of it: http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/ . Hope you don't mind me tagging along for encouragement. So many of you have or are going through exceptionally difficult times. My hope is we can all be strong together.

Hi Emily, and welcome! I'm so sorry about your daughter's health and the difficulties of finding good medical care for her! I hope the doctors are able to able to determine the cause and help her! It's wise of you to attend to your own health, too, and we on this forum believe this WOE is the best way to do that. Yes, the IBIH website is a great one for recipes and tips; so good that you found it already. All the best for you and your family!

@Kate, so good that your labs are good and your doc isn't giving you grief about this WOE!

@Karla, it's nice to hear from you more often again! We missed you! Glad you're hanging in there and getting those numbers back down. It sure has been a crazy time for you...

@May--speaking of missing somebody....where are you? Hope all is well and it's just busyness that is keeping you away. Jump in and say hello when you get a chance!

I've been doing IF every day this week and it's going well. The scale was up .6 this morning, but I kind of thought it would be, since I'd lost 2 days in a row. Can't have that kind of success going on for too long!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Hello Ladies. Welcome Emily, you'll find lots of support here. And so glad to hear that your IF is working well Ellen!

I have been a little stressed, trying to finish up mountains of work at work, make 2 more batches of pickles, one last night and one this morning, do laundry, errands etc, and I am now packing my suitcases getting ready to leave on my train trip tomorrow. Whew! I'm really in kind of in a daze, can't believe the time has come already. I'm finding I don't have a heck of a lot of clothes to take with me that fit me right now. Some of my work stuff is too dressy, other stuff is either too big or too small yet. Weird to think that all my casual clothes fit into one very small case. I'm trying desperately to figure out what I might need....never done this kind of thing before. I don't travel really.

For those who don't know, tomorrow, my mother, sister and I are taking a train trip to Churchill Manitoba to see the friendly beluga whales and hopefully some polar bears. At least it will be cooler there, as we're having a heat wave here right now. Now I was excited about the trip months ago, but now I'm kind of nervous. We 3 women don't spend much time together and don't really get along, but for the next week we will be sharing a cabin for 3 on the train ( I'll be on the top bunk.) then spending every waking moment together. I am hoping for a wonderful bonding experience, but know from experience that tempers could fly. I'll be biting my tongue a lot I am predicting. I've always been the peacemaker in the family, but it takes a lot of work. My knight in shining armour at work has been giving me pep talks to prepare my strategy for dealing with my mother. ( I secretly think this was the purpose for our meeting, to help me with some of my anxiety issues, so far, so good.)

I'm also nervous about possibly getting motion sickness. I've never slept on a train before, hoping I'll be OK, not only on the train, but also on the boat etc when we get there. I'm going prepared with 2 kinds of Gravol just in case. Also a little worried about the food, but after doing keto for so long now, I should be OK just by picking out the eggs and meat from the meals they serve us. I could also fast as well.

Not sure what kind of weather to expect, look like we may have rain the whole time we are there. Sure hope that changes. No wait a minute, just checked the weather in Churchill....lows of 8-11 C, and daily highs of 12-19 C. Can you believe it ? It's 33 here right now and extremely muggy. Looks like one sunny day after all. We'll see. I've got pants, capri pants, T-shirts , hooded sweatshirt and a lined rain jacket with hood, runners, socks, and a mesh hat for the bugs. I should be OK. Oh....and vodka and club soda ! I will be going over in carbs for sure when we drink the Dubonnet my mother is bringing. Oh well, I'll be on holiday and actually travelling somewhere special....so I plan to enjoy it once I relax....sure hope the booze will help !

It doesn't look like I will have cell service for most of my journey, so not sure if I'll be able to log in, but I'll be thinking of you. Take care !

Hope it's a marvelous time from beginning to end! Sounds like a great adventure. Choose to enjoy the time with your mom and sister and try not to let the little things affect your fun! Enjoy that cooler weather too! I would love some of that right now!

Hi Emily, So sorry to hear of your daughter's health concerns. I really hope you get some answers soon. Good for you for looking after yourself during this time. It is very difficult to do but so important. This group is great for support. You will be glad you join in here.

Kitnthecat: You will have a great time! Vodka helps most situations, in moderation. Enjoy!

marney

Hey all. Very long and busy weekend at work. Just sharing... I have a job interview Wensday for a Hemodialysis position I randomly applied for. This would be an excellent opportunity for me. So if you pray say one for me please. Gibbs and I just got back from a shortened walk, it started to rain on us. Still stuck at 175 and have been really craving sugar badly. I'll chalk it up to stress. Hope everyone is well and staying strong. I will try my best not to get that darn chocolate milkshake I'm craving. Water is my friend, right? Talk at ya later.

Hello ladies, I'm here in Churchill after a 45 hour train trip. The train experience wasuch better than I had imagined it would be. The meals were OK with bacon and eggs or omelet for breakfast and beef, chicken , burger or fish options for lunch and supper. The cabin was fine and it was good to have our own real bed and our own bathroom in our room. Meals in the dining car, hot showers down the hall and the dome car was really cool, two levels and spectator views. There were only 12 or so of us on the sleepers so we got to know each other and had many great conversations. The folks in coach could not access this car. It was so cool to see all of nature around us at any time of day. I'm not sure if we will have this car on our way back, so I made sure to really enjoy it on the way here. We watched the tall dense forest sprinkled with lakes dwindle down to very short sparse trees, some of which are hundreds of years old. It was very helpful to have a local resident of Churchill on our train as he provided much background knowledge to every situation that arose. Also impressed that the Americans were very knowledgable about the location and history and all of us have such a keen interest in seeing the North.

We've walked through town so far, saw the Eskimo museum, talked to super friendly locals. Had some great conversation with the grocery store manager about availability of food and how he takes care of the residents and promotes the community. He even drove us to the museum, amazing friendliness. I bought a pair of elk skin mitts with sculpted caribou whale designs, made in town at the place where I bought them. Beautiful arctic fox and wolf pelts for sale. all ethically killed, wish I could afford to buy more, just gorgeous. Also wish I could buy a real Inuit parka but that won't happen.

Supper tonight will be out at the best restaurant in town, and I'll order either elk, bison or Arctic char. Tomorrow we will be out on the tundra buggy for 6 hours, hoping to see polar bears and other wildlife. Thursday will be out on the water with the beluga whales.

I'll try to give updates. Having a great time !

@Kitnthecat: I doubt you will see polar bears as it's 2 months early for them to be congregating waiting for the ice - usually happens in late October. But the Belugas are awesome, do you get to don a drysuit and swim with them? We have done a fair bit in the Western Arctic flying in to remote places like the hamlet of Aklavik (that's what they call it on their website, lol... hamlet, smaller than a village) and Tuk. The Arctic is fascinating, and the fact that you can access from a train that far south because of the Canadian Shield is great! I love train travel, but it's so expensive in Canada. Much easier in Europe, lol.

Been busy with work y'all. But at least it's fun Security at Roots & Blues Festival, and this weekend at a beer garden at a Bluegrass Festival. Good to catch-up read, and welcome to the new gals.

Saying hello to everyone! The return to pre artificial sweetener state on the scale has been hard to overcome. It's been over a month without any and the scale is still up seven pounds from my lowest point. Definitely a hard lesson learned from that! I'm still eating VLCHF, with salad a couple times a week and some mushrooms sauteed in butter once a week. Otherwise I am all animal kingdom. Intake is right at 1600 calories a day with carbs always under 20/day. I still feel so much better that I won't be changing that anytime soon. I am happy with how I look, but want to be comfortably under 200. I think 180 would be nice. I know it will happen, so that's enough for me.

I have enjoyed the trip to Churchill! It's been so neat seeing it through your descriptions! Love it! I truly hope GrannyMayOz is on a well deserved break! I miss a lot of the time spent here with you all too! Enjoy catching up when I can! Much love, and big hugs to you all!

@suzie642, sounds like you are doing very well with the successes of this woe! Also glad you found mfp too! I have learned so much about the foods I eat (and used to eat) from using mfp that I am fully comfortable with my food choices now and don't feel it's a priority at this point. Welcome!

@ea101367. I found I was a bit over reactive the first few weeks too. The menopausal mood swings seemed to be really exacerbated. Now 129 days in they seemed to have levelled out. I still get that weird angry over nothing (basic housework can set me off sometimes), but doesn't last too long. The mood swings are fewer & farther apart too. Hang in there, it will get better.

Oh, there's a picture of me in the middle between my sister and mother. I am now the smallest one, but seeing the pictures, know I have a ways to go yet before I am happy with my picture.

Such wonderful pictures! Especially the ones of you---you look great, and so happy! Your trip looks fantastic; thank you so much for sharing it with us!