Hello everyone. I have not stopped in lately because I have been super busy. But the weight loss is an ongoing goal. I recently had a huge flare with my rheumatoid arthritis, which has been diet controlled for several years now. That caused me to COMPLETELY revise my diet and go back on Paleo AIP (Paleo Autoimmune Protocol) combined with OMAD (one meal a day). As frequently happens in life, the agony of the problem (and oh my did I whine and cry about being back to step one of my problems after all this time!) was a way of opening the door to new progress. I had actually been stalled on a weight loss plateau for six months (after a year and a half of intermittent fasting) and getting back on AIP has caused me to drop nearly ten pounds of inflammation and made me feel better than I have in I did not realize how long. Of course, I was not really back at the beginning - I have lost 75 lbs at the point and I have a collection of AIP cookbooks and recipes to fall back on - I just did not want to go back to the deprivation of AIP cooking! So I am back in the swing, my weight is trending down at last, I am practicing reiki daily and I am learning QiGong! Getting back on track has also given me one more thrill - I have been saying forever that the arthritis in my knees would not really get better until I lost the remainder of this weight. Well, I was wrong. Just getting rid of the inflammation had done wonders for my osteoarthritis as well as my RA! Now, I just have that last pesky 50 lbs to go!!! I hope everyone is doing well and progressing towards your goals.

Ah, you do QiGong too? That's great! We don't have a class here. I bought a book by Ken Cohen and have been watching his videos on Youtube. Will probably watch a lot more videos on YouTube, but am not through with the book yet! Learning a lot of the energy part has been easy because of my years of Reiki, but of course the physical part is what I need right now. I have been doing a private duty nursing case one shift a week with a two year old who was 18 oz when he was born. Well, he is up to 23 lbs now and I have a feeling that by Thanksgiving I will have to give up the case. Two shoulder surgeries plus this age make me think nothing over 30 lbs will be possible. Anyway, that led me to put up my exercise pulley on the back of the closet door (the one I used after my rotator cuff surgery) and every time I pass it I stop and do a quick 40 pulls! It's amazing how much that little tool does for keeping the shoulders flexible. I need to get some 3 lb hand weights though and I keep forgetting when I am in Walmart!

I am getting back into the no dairy cooking again and that is quite a challenge! I have a few vegan cheese recipes and they are good, but they are sure not cheese! I will stay strictly AIP for 60 days and then see if my body is going to allow me to eat dairy again. If not, I have a feeling I will be able to do goat cheese. It's much less irritating to the digestive tract than cow's milk.

Next weekend I am going to my 50th high school class reunion. I can honestly say that at this point I weigh less than I did when I graduated from high school! Of course that is not saying much because I had a weight problem then because of polycystic ovarian disease. Of course back then we had no clue that is also an autoimmune disease! I found out about autoimmune so late in life, but I am so glad I finally have the answers to so many lifelong health problems! That knowledge is certainly changing the quality of this part of my life!

Just taking a very quick moment to say that this alternate day fasting is AWESOME! I eat whatever I want one day (you are supposed to eat 125 percent of what your body needs) and 500 calories the next day and I am breaking through plateaus I have had for years! As of this morning I have lost 82! Check out the every other day diet. I have found a lot of people who have stalled on OMAD are on it.