Mid-month update!

I got on the scale this morning: 198

Whee-oo! It's be a good while since I've seen this side of 200.

NEVER TO GO BACK AGAIN.

\o/

Thanks Warren!

I think that the various pulled muscles and what not are me feeling good enough to do a lot more, and my body still working on getting strong enough to do it. I've got the name of a personal trainer at our YMCA and I'm going to call and get both me and my daughter in to work on that.

In terms of your friend, if she's doing well, she really should examine her options so she STAYS that way. Every one of us is personally responsible for our own health care and choices. I've worked very hard to keep on top of research and other things that would help. It used to be that doctors didn't like to give the MS DX because there was no treatment and it could hurt your ability to get health insurance later.

Now that thought has changed with the various immunity suppressant drugs they have available. Thought is, the sooner you start on these meds, the better your long term prognosis is.

I can't help but thing that diet would fall into that category. I am currently not on drugs. My neurologist and I are going round and round on that now. But the point of them is that you take them whether you have symptoms or not. In fact, they use the "they are working" if you have no symptoms.

The sooner one starts to eat better and stop battering the immune system with problematic food, the better off any MS patient is going to be.

Today is August 14, I completed six months Eating Paleo on August 6.

On August 6:
Weight: 197.6
Migraines THIS month: 0
Average pain index on 1-10: 4
Number of boils I have at the moment: 1
Number of times I wake in the night: down to a couple times a week rather than every day.

Apologies first, cause this entry is CRAZY long, but I have a lot of thoughts to share.

July was really insane for me. The first part of the month I played project manager while mine was on vacation. That meant a week in Chicago, living in an extended stay with the kid and dogs. We adapted, found grass fed beef at TARGET of all things, and were generally pretty busy. I did PM’s job while trying to keep up with my own work load. I think I slept for fifteen hours straight after we got home that first Saturday back.

Then we had a week at a cottage up north. There’s always special food challenges when it comes to vacation. I packed a fair amount. I was supposed to have a number of out of state friends come, but due to varying circumstances, none made it. One friend was able to come for the weekend with her two pre-tweenie girls for the weekend, so that was fun. Only issue there is that particular friend believes there is nothing wrong with sugar being a strong staple of their diets. She brought enough hand made baked goodies that even MY daughter went “good god!” She’s also been mortally offended that I will not eat her home made poison of love.

This brings me to; food is an emotional issue. When you reject something that a person made, they take it personally. You are rejecting a part of them if you say, “no thanks” to the cookie, or apple butter. It is perceived you are making a harsh judgment against them if you don’t eat what they eat. And I suppose that’s true in a way. We have made a judgment that the Standard American Diet is crap. I either get “that’s too strict for me” or “it’s all in your head anyway.”

And that brings back the point, even if it IS all in your head, it doesn’t negate the benefit. I feel better, I can tell when I eat crap, and I KNOW this is what is best for me. Do I think this is all psychosomatic? No, but it doesn’t matter if it IS. I feel good, it’s healthy, and there is NO GOOD REASON not to keep eating this way.

My immediate family has been very supportive. My daughter, even though she’s not given up her sugar, dairy or grains, happily eats what I cook. She doesn’t even ask for the original add in of rice, potatoes or noodles anymore. My mom is working hard to find things she can cook for me. She’ll call and say “can you have such and such.” And my brother, who suffers from bi-polar disorder, arthritis from injuries doing stupid shit, and of course alcoholism to cope with these other conditions, actually asked to learn more about my diet because I’m doing so much phenomenally better. I loaned him a copy of Robb Wolf’s book because I think that would “speak” more to him than some of the others. If he could change his diet and manage his conditions better, it would be a gods blessing and intervention at work.

After vacation, my project manager promptly added 1/3rd more sites to my already insane workload. After the first week I was either going to medicate myself or figure out something to manage the stress this added. I’d been trying to figure out a way to get back tot he gym, but still find it emotionally impossible to go to the YMCA. I did that with dad and I just can’t face it yet. My old trainer there had left and started a Crossfit gym. I know that Crossfit is dogged heavily on this forum by a number of members so I was hesitant. I respect the more experiences and smarter folks than me. The only reason why I decided to give it a try was because my old trainer was always pretty careful with me before knowing the full extent of all of my health issues.

Daughter agreed to try it for one month, and we started going 7 am Mon-Wed-Fri. This was our second full week of that.

The stress, sweating like a pig, and hormones provided the perfect storm for the WORST boil I’ve had since starting Paleo. I don’t count in it the month tally, because it started the day after my “six months.” It started last Sunday, and by Monday was the size of a golf ball under my arm. It was incredibly painful, causing secondary nerve pain down my arm. Went to a ready care because my regular doctor couldn't get me in. The doctor there said he wasn’t a boil but another skin disease. Something called Hidradenitis Suppurativa. After reading on the disease, it became pretty clear that was it. They gave me Keflex but by Wednesday, the abscess had grown twice as big. I got into a dermatologist, who took one look at it and said, “Why haven’t they ever diagnosed this before?”

He drained some of the fluid off, put me on four months of Doxycycline, and said to see him in a month. And “we’re going to get to know each other.” Great. Just fabulous.

Diet, cutting sugar and refined carbs are huge in helping to control the disease according to Wikipedia and a number of online resources. I find is amusing that I kinda figured that part out on my own. I’ve also switched to some pretty strong anti-bacterial soaps for the hot spot areas, and I’m looking into adding tumeric in as it’s one of the natural things you can do, and it seems to have a pretty good success rate.

Bottom line right now, getting my stress level under control. I am working hard not to internalize the external pressures. I do thing the exercise is helping, I’m sore, but can tell I’m getting stronger already. I lost about an inch in the last two weeks while keeping the same weight, so I’m putting on muscle. I’m also trying to get more strict with my sleep habits. I am in bed by nine, period.

Originally my plan was to give Paleo an honest six month shot to see if I had improvement. I did. And I think I can continue to make progress if I stick to it.

Today is October 22, 2011.

On October 22:
Weight: 197.8
Migraines THIS month: 0
Average pain index on 1-10: 3
Number of boils I have at the moment: 1
Number of times I wake in the night: I rarely wake in the night anymore.

First, hello everyone! I did not fall of the edge of the earth, nor did I abandon the ways of Paleo eating. I’ve just been incredibly busy. Honestly, I don’t think I could keep up on the work load if I ate SAD.

My weight loss is stalled a bit. But this does not discourage me because I track my measurements too. I’ve lost an inch on my bust, 2 inches off my waist and half an inch off my hips. When I look down, but belly is not larger than my breasts. We have been sticking to the three days work out (mostly – unless I’m out of town) at our local crossfit affiliate. We’ve been tracking how much weight I can move and my times. I’m getting stronger, more stable, and am sleeping a lot better.

My knee does not like some of what I am doing to it. Our trainer is looking at that and is scaling a lot of stuff for it. He’s been researching on his own for exercises that will work the muscles around it to take on part of the weight and work. I think it’s very important to stress that folks should look for a trainer that is going to customize things for the individual based on their bodies. We’re not all put together the same way, so we all need to work our bodies a little different.

When I started, I couldn't do a push up and a certainly couldn’t run 200 meters. Now I can do about 20 push ups in a row and ran 400 meters. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but for me, it’s HUGE. I can deadlift 160 and clean 85.

Friends have said, “I can’t do that.” I figure if I can, anyone can. You just have to start slow. It’s not a matter of can or can’t, it’s what your willing to do. I’m willing to do just about anything in order to get healthier and stronger. Maybe because of my own health issues I have a different perspective on that than others.

We’ve also observed that when I “cheat” with a piece of bread, that I will have a migraine for two days. My daughter put that together for me and gave me enough incentive to say “Not going to do that again.” It’s funny, it’s gotten to the point where she watches what I eat closer than I do because it affects my health and mood so closely.

Next month is the one year anniversary of my Dad’s death. It still hurts, I still cry, but I know he’d be 1000 x supportive of everything that I’m doing to make my life better.

Next month I also have a MRI scheduled. I had one a year ago in November and since I’m being stubborn and not going on drugs, Doc says I need to do one yearly to check on the progression of the MS. I’ve been eating Paleo for all but three of the months in the past year. It’ll be interesting to see what the results will be.

I’ll keep checking in. I do read the board about once or twice a week when I’ve got five minutes. I love all the new stories and people that have joined. I read the food journals to get ideas (I really need to start posting mine again, I don’t think I’m eating enough to be honest – I need to track that better).

And Warren- I agree with what you said about the boils. Likely it is bad fats and nasties in the tissues that will slowly go away as I continue to drop weight. And it will like take two to three years before I’m at the “ideal” weight and size. I’m not discouraged by that at all. It took 40+ years for me to get this size, shape, and health. If it takes me five to get to where I should be, that’s still pretty awesome.