Pink Ladies-2008 I'm No April Fool Challenge

[sungoddess]

I thought this would be a good one to start the new month. Kick me hard! Let's really be supportive and help each other out this month. Summer is upon us. For some of you that means swim suits and shorts. Great motivation to stay on track.

[joflora]

Ugh, swimsuit season.

"Lets get started ladies!"

[sungoddess]

Originally Posted by joflora

Have you ever tried a fat burner to see if that could help boost your system?
There is one at wal-mart for 40. I want to try.
Its a take off drink that you take at night, and it burns your body fat.

Actually, yes Jo I am doing that now. First, I have been drinking a chocolate protein drink in the morning and I load it with L-glutamine and L carnitine which usually helps.

Then I am taking a fat burner that increases thermogenesis to boost the metabolism. I have been reading up on how to repair a metabolism damaged by years of dieting and starvation and I guess it just takes a long time to work.

I know I shouldn't be eating less than 1500 to 1800 calories on Atkins and even at 1200 I am not losing so it shows the problem I have created. I wish I hadn't spent so many years eating so low in calories!

Atkins said it can take a few months to repair. I am working at it but it is hard to be patient. At least I can exercise again, so that is a very good thing.

And I am trying to follow my leptin rules which are very hard for me. Like no food 3 hours before bed and then not until morning as well as no snacking between meals. This helps control the hormone levels. I did this plan awhile back and dropped about 10 pounds in a month which was a miracle for me, so I know that it works. It is just hard!!

[joflora]

Just try to be patient sun, sounds like you know what to it will work out for you.
" You and bridget dont really look like you need to lose weight."
Can I say that?
hmmmm........

~I know we all have this image~

I'll let ya know how that one works out for me. Everyone is different, my friend liked it so I thought to give it a try.

[Rebecca130]

Hello, I'm still at 183.6, didn't lose any last week, but I didn't do so good either so I'm appreciative that I stayed the same. Got to get back with it!!! Our belated Easter breakfast and egg hunt was with Kim and Alyssa yesterday so now I don't have anything standing in my way. Time to buckle down and start losing!!! If I do low carb, it usually works, but you know what??? I have to DO it.

[Ophelia]

Hi all,

Glad to see everyone here and persevering.

I FitDay'ed again today. Whoopee!

Here are my food stats:

Total: 1541
Fat: 109 983 65%
Sat: 34 308 20%
Poly: 24 217 14%
Mono: 26 233 15%
Carbs: 46 106 7%
Fiber: 19 0 0%
NC: 27
Protein: 106 423 28%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

I ran 40 minutes (3 miles) on the treadmill and did an hour of yoga as well.

This is right where I want to be. I usually aim for 1400-1600 calories and 20-50 NC/day (since I've been doing this for so many years; I don't recommend going that high on carbs when you're new).

My percentages are lovely at 65% / 7% / 28%. That's totally in range. Yippee!

See, I know exactly what to do, if I can just make myself type or write things down. It's so dumb that that's the only way I can stay on track, but it does seem to work.

I was out last night and I had entered my foods in FitDay before leaving, so I knew I could only have one or two drinks and still be in range...and it worked! I had one drink and went home, skipping the after-party that everyone else went to (free food and drinks there...yikes...too dangerously tempting!).

Got up early and did extra exercise today instead. Yeah, baby!

Countdown to that wedding I'm attending in April: 19 days!

Oh, it would be nice to drop a few pounds and wear a dress I can actually zip up!

[joflora]

Rebecca- is that you in the avi????

Ophelia you are so wonderful about exercizing, I couldnt imagine you having a hard time zipping up a dress.....Girl you have to be in some good shape!

[sungoddess]

Hey cool you didn't gain Rebecca!!

WTG Ophelia- you know how to do it, that's for sure. I am sure you will get into that dress!!

I tried to do the leptin rules today because I am a FIRM believer in them, but found it very hard. I guess I have to work up to it again like last time. It means I have an out-of-shape metabolism. It worked before, it can work again. 5:00 is my hard time!!

[Rebecca130]

Jo, the avi is of my DD Kim and DGD Alyssa. Kim will be 26 in April and Alyssa will be 2 in June. I put that one up because one of the other threads wanted to see a pic of my daughter and I don't know how to put a picture up as a post, so I put it up as the avi for a few days.

Having rotissary (sp) chicken and salads tonight. Waiting for DH to get home, going to go eat if he doesn't hurry. Also am watching Biggest Loser, is anyone else watching it? Have any of you seen "I Can Make You Thin?" on TLC??? After tonight there's only 1 show til the finale on BL.

[Ophelia]

Hi all!

I don't want to jinx it, but I FitDay'ed again today. Day 3!

TUE, APRIL 1, 2008

Total: 1553
Fat: 100 898 61%
Sat: 14 126 9%
Poly: 17 152 10%
Mono: 31 275 19%
Carbs: 90 202 14%
Fiber: 40 0 0%
NC: 50
Protein: 95 380 26%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

Exercise: 45 min yoga

Carbs are a little higher today, but still in range for me. I ate some beans to try and slow down the yeast die-off that is making my scalp itch like crazy.

Am going to hit the sack, so that I'll get up and exercise in the AM.

Mmm, Rebecca, rotisserie chicken sounds so good!

Sunny, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that you can ease back onto your leptin plan. You were feeling so great when you were doing it before! One day at a time, sister.

Jo, I probably am in pretty good shape under my layer of fluff! I am lucky that I've managed to keep exercising over the past year, even though I have NOT been very successful at sticking to a food plan.

The last time I got close to goal, I was surprised to find out that I had muscles underneath all that jelly, LOL! The previous times I had been at that same weight, I did not look fit.

I don't look fit now at all, unfortunately, with my belly hanging out and dimples on my thighs , but it cheers me up to know that if I can just restrict my carbs and calories enough to get back to goal weight, the other work has already been done. That is one gift I have gotten from this WOL, thank goodness.

In January, I celebrated 5 years of LC and 5 years of yoga (plus a little bit of jogging and other stuff). I just remember how much back pain I used to have before this WOL and how I couldn't run a half a block without having to stop and gasp for air. Not to mention my horrible hypoglycemia symptoms, high blood pressure, candida and related health problems.

I seem to be perpetually 10-15 pounds from goal, BUT I am much healthier than I was five years ago and for that I'm grateful.

O.

[joflora]

Building muscle is a good way to up the metabolism, keep up the good work Ophelia!

Rebecca your DD is beutiful!!! I'll bet you are too, she prob looks alot like you.

Sun you cant eat after five??
I would chug alot of water to keep full, I usually have dinner at six.


Today I am having a protein shake for breakfast.

Tuna melt for lunch, with side of cauliflower and cheese.

Not so sure about dinner yet, prob some type of eggs cooked up.

Ketosis is keeping me content, and not very hungry.

[sungoddess]

Rebecca, your DD is cute! I don't watch the Biggest Loser, but I have watched I Can Make You Thin. The tapping thing doesn't seem to do any thing for me. Does it for you?

Ophelia- congrats on 5 years!! My 5th year is coming up in May! Remember the old LCL days? You are doing great. The secret for you seems to be entering your food into Fitday. Even if you aren't at goal, all the health you have achieved is incredible!! How is the love life?

Jo- yes I can eat after 5:00. I was just saying that is the hardest time for me to avoid scarfing in everything I see. When I get home from work, I am so hungry and I just want to eat! So I need to be very careful. I ruined my metabolism by the way I ate most of my life. I would go between eating a lot to hardly eating anything at all. I let my calorie levels get way too low and I really re-set my set point so I can't eat many calories. The best thing I found was about handling my leptin and that is the only way I think I can repair the damage I have done from years of going into starvation mode. The "rules" make absolute sense to me and explain so much about why I am fat and have a hard time losing. I have much greater understanding about the role hormones play in keeping me fat- hormones like leptin, insulin, and cortisol. When I followed the rules last time, it took awhile for it to kick in, but then I started to burn fat. I am so ticked I didn't stick with it, but being strict isn't always easy for me. I am trying again! You are doing two of the rules already by having a protein breakfast. That is a rule. And to cur back on carbs. So you are doing two of them yourself!

We had our huge Health and Wellness Expo today and made the news! My staff did an incredible job and some of the big shots showed up, so that is good for me!

Bridget, Paws, Sophie and Blanche, check in you April Fools!!

[Ophelia]

Hi gang,

I always know when I'm getting back on track, because my scalp starts itching like crazy! Arrgh! It's driving me bananas.

I FitDay'ed again! My percentages are a bit wacky (too much fiber and protein today, so fat is low), but I'm fine with it. I'm happy I'm recording my stats.

WED APRIL 2, 2008

Total: 1585
Fat: 74 667 44%
Sat: 26 234 15%
Poly: 7 67 4%
Mono: 9 77 5%
Carbs: 103 258 17%
Fiber: 38 0 0%
NC: 65
Protein: 150 601 39%
Alcohol: 0 0 0%

Exercise: 45 min yoga & 10 min run to PO, 20 min walk back

Thanks for the congrats, Sunny! We'll be celebrating your 5 years soon! I do remember those days. My, what we've been through together since then!! The good, the bad and the ugly!

The long-distance love life is still going well. I'll be visiting BF in a couple weeks and joining him at a wedding, where he's going to introduce me to a lot of his friends. Good motivation to fit into my dress.

Jo, your menu looks great! Mmmm...tuna melt...cauli and cheese.... I love that ketosis bliss! It makes me feel so zen!

Hope everyone else is doing great. I'm happy to be back. I hope my motivation continues!!! (Just staaaaay in ketosis, Pretzel!!)

O.

[joflora]

sun Like you I prob tore up my metabolism as well.
Plus it dont help getting older
I know what to do to loose the weight, but I want to do it right and healthy this go around.
There was a time I could go a week without eating anything, and just live on coffee or a sf pop. "Sure, I lost a ton of weight but it all crept back on."

I was working, and being buissy was the only way I could do it.
( As a chef.....imagine that with all the food around me.)
So I have done a good number on myself as well, for sure.

[Rebecca130]

I went to Kohl's yesterday and bought new Levi's. They're the stretch boot cut (couldn't find the kind that I like) and I tried on the 16's like I usually wear and they were too big. So, I tried on the 14's and they were just a tad snug but they're comfortable. I haven't worn 14's for over 10 years. Kim (DD) was so happy today when I went to work (we work at the same daycare, she's in Medical Massage school and we're hoping that she'll graduate in November, if she passes the next 2 semesters. She's in the 3rd one now and they say that's the hardest one) and she said she was proud of me for getting with the times. haha. She kept saying, "wow mom, 14's AND boot cut??? What did you do with my Mom, I know she's in there somewhere." The girls were getting such a kick out of her. Kim works opposite schedules from me but the same room, Nursery 2. I work Monday thru Thursday 1-6 and Friday 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. That way I get a long weekend. Since I keep Alyssa when she and Brad are working that is my perk, getting off early on Fridays.

[sungoddess]

Originally Posted by Ophelia

Hi gang,

I always know when I'm getting back on track, because my scalp starts itching like crazy! Arrgh! It's driving me bananas.


O.

Okay I am SO wanting to understand why the scalp itches. It happens to me! I tried to research it but not finding much. My scalp and EYELIDS/Lashes itch like bloody H#!!!! What causes that and how do you get rid of it? My hairdresser looked but doesn't see any rash or anything. And my eyelids too. HELP!!

[sungoddess]

Originally Posted by joflora

sun Like you I prob tore up my metabolism as well.
Plus it dont help getting older
I know what to do to loose the weight, but I want to do it right and healthy this go around.
There was a time I could go a week without eating anything, and just live on coffee or a sf pop. "Sure, I lost a ton of weight but it all crept back on."

I was working, and being buissy was the only way I could do it.
( As a chef.....imagine that with all the food around me.)
So I have done a good number on myself as well, for sure.

Well I really think the leptin management thing is a GREAT way to heal the metabolism. I know it works as I have done it and seen others do it. There is no point in not doing this in a healthy way. So tell me about you being a chef! Where? What kind of foods? Do you love to cook? That's cool!


*********************************************
Rules 1-5 done yesterday. Yippee!!!

[LoraJR72]

Itchy scalp? Sounds like an allergic reaction or could be caused by too many vitamins. I once had a Niacin "flush".

What kind of supplements are you taking, SunGoddess?

[sungoddess]

Lora, it is candida related. I just am trying to find out why it impacts my scalp and eyelids! It is a die-off reaction I think. But why the heck is it always my scalp and eyes!! I did find something on it.

Explanation

The diet for Candida problems consists of removing fermented foods from the diet. The worst offenders are alcoholic beverages and non-alcoholic beer, vinegar, barley malt, chocolate, pickles, and aged cheese. I

To understand how the yeast Candida albicans causes skin problems such as eczema and psoriasis, first a brief overview of the body's immune system and its interaction with Candida will be presented.

The best way to look at the immune system is to understand that the immune system has both defensive and offensive weapons. The main defensive weapon is inflammation. Inflammation is like putting up a wall, a hot wall, which makes it difficult for invading foreign microorganisms to get through. Inflammation will occur anytime the immune system contacts a foreign invader. But as you know the inflammation is painful. Along with the inflammation, should come the offensive weapons which kill the foreign invader. The problem is that Candida has many tricks to evade the offensive weapons of the body's immune system.

Candida is a very difficult organism for the body's immune system to clear.

Why?

Candida has a number of tricks to evade the body's immune system. One of these tricks is to change its outside. The immune system recognizes the outside receptors of the invading organism and then sends out signals to start an immune response. Some of the immune responders then look for cells with those receptors. Candida albicans can change the receptors which it is displaying, making it difficult for the body's immune cells to react appropriately. In essence, Candida albicans is a moving target, which changes its form.

The most important thing to know about Candida is that Candida albicans can make factors which suppress the immune response to itself. These factors can be found in the circulation of people with significant Candida infections. When these factors are purified and placed in cultures of immune cells, these immune cells do not develop the responses to Candida which they are supposed to develop. In other words, Candida can make factors, which prevent the body from reacting to and killing the Candida. These factors prevent the total eradication of Candida from the body.

The Candida can suppress the offensive weapons of the body's immune system. But the inflammation will still be generated because when the immune system detects a foreign invader, there will always be inflammation. The problem is that the foreign invader, the Candida, is not going away, because the immune system's offensive weapons are suppressed. The inflammation will remain and inflammation is painful and on the skin is not attractive.

Let us look at some research on Candida and skin.

Candida and disorders of the skin

Out of all the Candida related disorders, research on psoriasis has come the closest to showing that Candida causes psoriasis. Researchers have actually shown that Candida causes all the changes in the skin characteristic of psoriasis (1). When Candida is injected into the skin of an experimental animal, the skin lesions of psoriasis, including scaling and thickening, develop. The authors of this study suggest that the scaling is a defense against the Candida (1). For some complicated reasons of experimental design, the authors stop short of saying Candida is the cause of psoriasis.


You might legitimately ask why researchers could have this major finding that Candida can cause psoriasis and yet ignore this result and subject psoriasis sufferers to coal tar, steroids and methotrexate. I actually do not know for sure why researchers would not wish to follow up their finding. One reason I would imagine is that the relationship between the Candida on the skin and the Candida in the gut is not generally appreciated. Cells which are fighting Candida in the gut can circulate and start fighting yeast wherever these cells find yeast. One place these cells might find yeast is on the skin. If one takes a narrow view and only looks at skin, one will miss this relationship. The other main problem is that researchers do not know how to clear the Candida from the gut for any length of time, so even if they did appreciate the relationship between the Candida in the gut and the Candida on the skin, they would not know how to clear the gut of yeast. Unfortunately as long as there are immune cells fighting yeast in the gut, there will be immune cells looking for yeast on the skin.

When the immune cells come into contact with Candida on the skin, the same observations of the immune system being unable to clear Candida completely all apply. The Candida suppresses the immune system's offensive weapons on the skin as it does elsewhere in the body, so inflammation can be prolonged on the skin as it is elsewhere. If the inflammation occurs in the hair follicles, itching can result. If the inflammation is spread more generally, we can see eczema. When the inflammation becomes even worse, we see psoriasis. Psoriasis is the body's immune system fighting Candida on the skin and the immune system is unable to win so the inflammation, a defensive weapon persists.

Itching is a painful sensation that something must be removed from the skin and if there is no other way, one scratches. Your body would love to remove the Candida. Candida is one of the main causes of persistent itching.

Treatment

The way to reverse these skin problems is to clear the yeast from the intestinal tract. Then the yeast is no longer a target for the body's immune system. Once the immune system's cells are no longer fighting yeast in the intestinal tract, they no longer circulate to find yeast on the skin. Once the yeast is gone from the intestinal tract, the yeast induced inflammations on the skin clear up.

The way to clear intestinal yeast is to change food choices to exclude foods which help intestinal yeast grow. The diet contains many foods which help yeast. To treat yeast these foods must be removed from the diet. For example, malt contains growth factors for yeast. Vinegar contains chemicals which kill bacteria and at the same time, leave the yeast alone.

[LoraJR72]

I have noticed taking Eden's Apple Cider Vinegar twice daily and drinking lots of filtered water has helped me flush out the UTI.

[Ophelia]

That's an interesting article, Sunny. I, too, believe the itchy scalp is candida related. Whenever I start eating strict LC, the scalp rash and the yeast die-off kick in. It's like clockwork. Ugh.

Here's what I've learned from my experience:

The first year I did LC, I stayed on Induction forever, so I only had the scalp rash once, right after I first started. After that, my NC levels were so low all the time that the yeasties couldn't grow back and I was fine.

In later years, when I went off plan a few times, every time I cleaned up my act, the scalp rashes would return and they were worse depending on how bad I'd fallen off the wagon. Big sugar and flour binge in Paris? One big, itchy, greasy scalp about a week after getting back on LC, with painfully swollen scalp glands that made the back of my head feel bumpy.

Now that I average out more often than not at Maintenance levels, whenever I dip down into Induction levels, I get the itchy-scratchies again.

So, unless I want to stay permanently on Induction (which I kinda don't, after five years of LCing!), the only other option is to allow myself just enough safe carbs (like a serving of legumes or quinoa) to keep the yeasties from dying off en masse.

This seems to slow down the die-off process enough that the itching becomes manageable, rather than maddening. I can only allow myself these kinds of foods, however, when I'm keeping tabs on my fat/NC/protein percentages. For example, I put a half a can of butter beans in a salad the other day, but I also added lots of tuna in olive oil to counterbalance the carbs. Result: No blood sugar crash and less itching the next day.

Whenever I ponder this phenomenon, it gets me thinking about that LC "potato-a-day" diet again.

I think there may be something to having a small amount of carbohydrate each day; not enough to trigger an insulin dump, but enough to battle extreme die-off symptoms and to raise seratonin levels.

When I eat carbs at the end of the day, right before bed, it does not trigger binges later that night or the next day, but I do feel satisfied and have WILD dreams, as they mention on the site!

They suggest that diabetics replace the potato with complex carbs, such as sweet potatoes, brown or wild rice, oatmeal, whole wheat toast or an unpeeled apple.

Something to think about.

[LoraJR72]

When I was a little girl, my mother told me eating a banana before bed helps sleepy time, too. Not just potatoes. (I'm not a fan of white potatoes...give me sweet potatoes instead!!)

[joflora]

rebecca Congrad's on the new jean size!

sun I have cooked so much for so many people, that I have burned myself out over the years.

ophelia I have never really noticed my scalp being itchy during induction, but now that you mention it.
I usually go and buy head and shoulders shampoo to help out with the scaly scalp.( That clears it right up-for me.)

lora