Dry, itchy skin...ugh

Two posts ago I mentioned how my dry skin itch went away completely for the first time...ever?  Well, it's back.  I'm pretty sure I know why, though.

I mentioned that I had been slathering lotion (not just any lotion!) on my body while I was up North for the week, and when I returned home I stopped with the lotion to see if the silicea would have any effect from the inside.  I believe now, though, that the real actual root cause for my dry skin, is that I don't drink enough fluids.  At times I find it quite difficult to consume even 4 glasses of water in a day.  I'm just not that thirsty, oddly enough.

I'm not saying that the silicea isn't doing anything at all; it's just that homeopathic medicine is much more subtle than what we're used to ("Two tiny little balls?  That's it??").  It's not going to produce a miracle in my situation since I'm not keeping up my end of the most basic requirements of health.  I need to drink more fluids and I need to actually have my follow-up appointment with Helen to see what advice she has for me (other than drink more fluids, dumbass!).  THEN we have a chance of figuring out what else (if anything) I need.

In the meantime, I will go back to using the "band-aid" fix of the lotion because I can't stand being itchy all the time.  Having this rash all over me is just not acceptable. :)

In other news, I'm finding it less tedious to produce bowel movements.  That, I am VERY happy about.

After Two Weeks on the YeastBusters Program...

I'm holding steady at 147.9 lbs and although there were a couple of days where I couldn't drink as much water as I should have, I'm still regular.

Last night I started taking Greens+; one spoonful mixed in a cup of water (today I used unsweetened apple juice instead). It tastes like oddly-fruity green hell if you keep it in your mouth too long. The juice helped but made it way too sweet overall, so tomorrow I'll try it with more water than juice.

Slept like a log last night and went for a walk with my mom today. I made a huge bowl of popcorn for my hunnybun with a generous amount of melted butter drizzled over it (OMFG) and I resisted having even one kernel. Wow. One of my (now, former?) weaknesses.

I tell you, once I am finished the 8-or so weeks of this program I will be treating myself with something decadent and sinfully chocolatey! (I just hope that by that time I will be able to eat one thing as a treat and not need to eat 8 of them or every day, etc.)

Update

Thought I'd post an update since I have now been on the YeastBuster program for a week.

Day one (Monday):
- Mixed the drink together using just water. OMFG - NARSTY!! Got a few gulps down before the taste hit me. Couldn't touch any more so the rest went down the drain.

- Went to grocery store to get some unsweetened fruit juice to mix into the next one.

- Forgot to take the DDS Acidophilus pills before bed. Oops.

Day two:
- Mixed half water and half unsweetened pineapple juice in the drink. MUCH better! Downed the whole cup and then realized I was only supposed to use 2oz of juice with the rest being water. Oops.

- Remembered the damn DDS Acidophilus pills at bedtime. Yay!

Day three:
- Drink tasted just fine with the 2oz of juice. Yay! Finally doing it right.

Day four:
- Had my drink in the morning. After work I met up with my BFF to see Breaking Dawn. Picked up some dinner from Loblaw's (grocery store); salmon and sweet potato fries (sweet potatoes are on the 'reduce' list during the YB program). Had no problem walking by all the junk food in the store. I was hoping to grab a bag of plantain chips to munch on during the movie but they didn't have any. At the theatre I had nachos and cheese (hey look, another weakness!). BFF bought the nacho combo for me, which came with a gargantuan pop (that I didn't drink...the sweetie was thoughtful enough to get me Coke Zero lol).

- Experienced strange tummy grumblings after eating, unrelated to what was going on in the movie (heh).

Day five:
- Drink in the morning. Today I noticed how perfect my poops are this week. Stealth! :)

- Forgot to take one of the two DDS Acidophilus pills at bedtime. Oops.

Day six:
- Drink in the morning. Ate pork roast leftovers for breakfast. Awesome bowel movement shortly thereafter. Got on the scale for the hell of it, expecting to see ~150 again. Nope!! 147.8!!! WOOHOOO!!!


Part of this daily drink is a spoonful of psyllium powder, so I have to drink lots and lots of water...which means constantly having to pee like a racehorse, but it's important so that I don't get stopped up.

I'll weigh myself again next Saturday to see how things are going, and then I'll also begin taking Greens+ as directed.

I'm also poo-free again, using only ACV as a rinse in every shower. While it's in my hair I use my scalp massager brush to loosen up any dandruff. Next week I finally have a hair appointment and am going back to short and flippy hair. Can't wait!!

Thennnnnnn, right after my haircut, we're off to see The Tea Party in Toronto!! I hope they play this song....it's my favourite:

Update: Deodorant / Armpit Rash

Awhile back I had made my own deodorant, which was fantastic at keeping my pits smelling divine. However, because I already had a rash from my previous store-bought stick when I switched, the baking soda in the homemade stick irritated the rash enough that it wouldn't go away. It took me awhile to figure out what to do about it, aside from using nothing and stinking. Eventually I decided to try putting a dusting of corn starch on them, and nothing else for awhile.

It worked! The rash is just about gone, and once it's completely healed I'll try the homemade stick again. Should only be another week or so to be sure.

*Happy Dance*

This morning when I got on the scale (twice, to be sure) it read:

147.7!!!!!!!!!!

That bring my total weight loss to just over 18 pounds! YES!!!!!!!!! Last October I had reached 148.2 but then with xmas and all that I had gone up just a couple pounds, always hovering between 149-151. This is the lowest I've weighed in YEARS. Seeing as I'm not really working out a whole lot at this point, I'm not building muscle weight so the weigh scale does matter to me. Just for now.

Wheeeee Fresh Food!

We got our first Wanigan delivery today! Lots of fresh fruit and veggies to consume. We got the small Wanigan box, which was $34 plus we added a bag of Gala apples to last us the two week period (the bag of apples is not in this pic).


A nice-sized pot roast has been relaxing in the crock pot all day and it smells delicious.

Edit:


Regarding my blood tests, the verdict (so far) is just that I'm low on vitamin D, which is no surprise, based on what I've read on the MDA Forum. The results haven't yet come in from the uptake and scan. I learned that there's a 5mm something-or-other cyst on my thyroid, too, which they said was "insignificant". The uptake and scan should tell us more detail about that cyst.

TGIF!!!

I don't want to put too much onus on weight, but...

...this morning after a BM my scale read 148.7. YES!!!!

Been working on the wall push-ups and squats, so I expect to gain a bit of muscle weight...I should look into how to measure BF% someday.

For now, I'm happy with my progress so far. Since I've been recording my weigh-ins, the trend shows a loss of approx. 10 lbs over a 6-month period, so I hope to have lost 20 lbs by the end of the year. That would be sweet.

WOOT!

Weighed myself this morning after (finally) a BM and my weight was....................................149.9!!!!!!!!!!! YEEHAWWW!

I worked from home today, so while on conference calls I put my gloves on and did some swinging of the sledgehammer. I completed two sets, three exercises of eight reps per arm. I can feel it!

For dinner tonight I used the last of the boneless, skinless chicken pieces and made a chicken soup that fuckin' ROCKED. My mom came over and we went for a 45-minute walk while the soup was simmering. When we got back and caught whiff of the soup we had to drop everything and start devouring it. She even said that never in a million years did she think I'd ever cook something that good. Hah! Take that!

The ingredients were as follows:

- 1 can chicken broth (using up the misc. stuff in the cupboard to get rid of it)
- 1 can cream of chicken soup (same as above - getting rid of it)
- several pieces of boneless, skinless chicken, cut up into approx. square inch bits
- 1 can of coconut milk (the magic ingredient!)
- carrot chunks
- vidalia onions (unfortunately, the last of what we had in the freezer), quartered or smaller
- dash of Montreal steak spice
- dash of roasted garlic and peppers spice

Yeehaw!!

- I'm now taking two fish oil soft gels a day; one with lunch and one with dinner. However, they don't seem to help me with BMs at all because prior to this evening's BM I hadn't had one since Monday. :S

- Had a crap day at work today and an even crappier drive home.

- To get myself out of that post-work funk I called up the college that I'm taking a distance learning course through, and finally got my login information to begin the course (it officially started on the 10th but due to waiting for approvals at work I could only register on the 13th). I logged in and started looking around to get situated with the format and such. Ended up spending a few hours on it, also started the first lesson. Woot!

- After I ended up engrossed in the course stuff, Hubby graciously offered to cook dinner, which was delicious baked/steamed salmon with chopped spinach as a side. YUM!!

- Hubby wanted to go browse for a couple things at Home Depot so we walked over together. I wasn't planning on shopping for anything myself, but somehow we ended up in the sledgehammer section and ended up picking out a NICE 6lb one. Now I need to look up that sledgehammer workout video...

Insert Post Title Here

I don't know what it is, but sometimes I just can't come up with a suitable title for posts. Realistically, every post could be named 'update' or something just as boring. Enh.

Anyway, yesterday I had worked from home so in between scheduled appointments (phone calls) I had some time to make some almond milk from Nat's recipe. First time ever, and it turned out just fine. I put some in my coffee to see what it tasted like and it was very 'woody'.

Last night's dinner consisted of delicious BBQ'd steak and previously-frozen broccoli. After dinner Rabbit and I went for a nice walk and did some sprints here and there. Boy, did that feel great! I haven't run that fast in YEARS! We also stopped at the playground to see how our pull-ups would go at the monkey bars. Pffft...weaklings! Both of us! Well that will soon change...

Once we got home I started working on Nat's 'pseudo banana bread' recipe (same link above). The recipe HAD said to put the ingredients into a blender to combine them, but the stuff was so thick and dry it wouldn't blend. I damned-near burnt out the motor of the blender (and broke something else by throwing the damned thing) when hubby came down to diffuse the situation. I had added a bit of water to the concoction in hopes of getting it to blend, but it didn't work. I figured by that point that there was probably an error in the instructions (yeah, they meant to say 'food processor' instead of 'blender'), so we transferred everything to the processor and were on our merry way.

Things went a little better in the processor, but since I'd added water the stuff was way wetter than it should have been. Hubby to the rescue again: add more almonds and coconut to it. It helped, but not quite enough. My last attempt at saving it was to grab the bread baking pan and get it into the oven for a bit.

The end result, while edible, wasn't great, but it was alright. The consistency was screwed, of course, but even my co-workers tried it and said it was alright. Next time will be better.

Tonight dinner was pork chops with a tiny bit of honey and cinnamon on them. YUM! The side was previously frozen cauliflower. Unfortunately the apple sauce that was in the fridge had somehow carbonated itself (tasted like champagne lol) so we ditched it instead of slopping it over the pork. Dammit.

After dinner we went for our walk again, with a few sprints. Stopped at the playground again with some gloves to use the monkey bars for (pathetic, failed) pull-ups and stretches.

The recipe to try tonight was batty's blueberry butter balls. These turned out alright (would've been easier if I'd had an ice cream scoop with the little ejection scraper inside it). I guess this snack is something one needs to get accustomed to, since the buttery smooth texture is entirely new to us. One each was enough for now.

Blueberry Butter Balls...mmm.

Sept. 10-11, 2010

Had my 8-year old nephew over last night and that meant a lot of running around with him (tag, etc.). For dinner I cooked up some lamb shoulder chops in bacon fat (yum) along with some onions and mushrooms. It was tasty but I over-cooked the chops a bit. I found that I don't care much for the smell of lamb...oh well, we ate it anyway.

After my nephew went home today I hunkered down to do my burpees. I completed 12 of them in 1:30 (!!) but had to stop because...well...

Warning: not for the squeamish!

DAMMIT! That effin' hurt! Not to mention messy! Immediately ran some peroxide over it and picked the carpet/cat fluff out of it, then showered and had to wait for it to dry up some before I could clip the shredded skin off. Owie. :( Once it was dry I slapped some "new skin" on it and a band-aid. We were getting ready to go to a birthday party so this was crappy timing. The good news is that once I had my shoes on I forgot about it. :)

Busted.

The poop-fest the other night was not caused by the fish oil supplements. I have been taking one soft gel per day (usually with lunch) and have not had a bowel movement in two days. Crap! (lol)

Burpees - Minding My Form

Yesterday ended up being a write-off for both exercise and healthy eating, so today is make-up day. I've never been one to bother writing down what I eat because I just don't need to keep track. I know what I've eaten and whether it's keeping me on track or not.

So, I'll write about what exercises I've done. The other day I mentioned doing 22 burpees in 2 minutes, and my form was admittedly bad. I promised myself today that when I do my burpees they will be in proper form. My DH set the 2-minute timer on his cell and I began. I managed to complete 10 in proper form before needing to stop and catch my breath. He encouraged me to complete one more, which I did, but then he mentioned 11 is an uneven number and surely I could do just one more to round it off. Hah! I managed to finish the 12th burpee just before the timer went off. *pant*

Now I'm hungry so off I go to the kitchen to heat up some delicious BBQ'd ribs. Mmmm.

After 8 Full Months...

...my weight is still hovering between 150 and 152 (has been since early July) and this must be because I've been lazy (lack of exercise) and it's birthday season and I just can't resist a piece of homemade birthday cake made from scratch by my step-mom. There are more birthdays to come (mine as well), so we'll have to see what happens.

This week I decided to join the Mark's Daily Apple forum since there is so much support on there from other people who are on the same journey to health as I. Reading everyone's success stories and especially seeing their progress photos really gets me motivated. So much so that I attempted a burpee blitz the other night. Silly me, I thought I'd see how long it took me to complete 50 burpees. L.O.L. I managed 22 of them before having to stop. This was at the 2-minute mark.

Shame on me, my form wasn't perfect, either, but I did what I could without throwing my back out. There was minimal pain the next day and I could feel the presence of some muscles I'd never felt before. which felt really good. On the second day, however, my stomach and back muscles reminded me that I'd worked them a little too hard. They'll get over it. ;)

I meant to try a few more burpees today before my MIL came over for dinner, but the timing just wasn't right. I don't think my muscles were ready for another go at it, either, so I'll do it tomorrow.

I'm really not one to post pictures of myself on the net, but here are the first photos showing my progress so far (click the pic for a higher-resolution version):



I tried to recreate the scene/pose as close as possible because I couldn't find a better pic where a) my chunkiness was visible and b) I could find the same clothing to wear. Next time there will be progress pics of me wearing my for-private-home-use-only bikini. Now aren't you excited about that! HAHAHAHA!

Another improvement I noticed, which is likely from being soap-free, is that I no longer get a nasty rash after shaving my bikini area. It was a guaranteed annoyance prior to this summer, and now it just doesn't happen. Nice. :)

Oh-So-Close! 150.5!!!

Last night we entertained an old high school friend for dinner (the delicious fare included bbq'd steaks, pork kebabs, and zucchini strips along with butter-steamed potatoes and onions I cooked in the oven). I had a few rum and cokes (Coke Zero) and was happy to see 150.5 on the scale this morning! And this is before any bowel movement (TMI, but relevant lol)!

I really need to get some new clothes now because the shorts and pants I bought before our trip in March are now falling off me. I have a belt that I can wear with them but I really hate belts and I get a nasty rash on my stomach from any metal bits that touch.

Odour-Free Pits! It works!

Instead of using deodorant after a shower, I've been trying a smidgen of coconut oil followed by a very light dusting of baking soda. After a full day at work with wet pits, NO SMELL. Yeehaw! :D

13 Pounds and Counting

After all the "diet cheating" I'd been doing over the past few weeks (a small piece of cake here, some homemade bread there), I was pleasantly surprised yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale. 152.8! Holy crap, I'm almost into the 140s again! I don't remember the last time I was in the 140s, it was so long ago! Yeehaw!

Just over a week ago I started doing small amounts of crunches and lady push-ups during my evening stretch session on the bedroom floor. I did 5 of each for a couple days, then raised it to 10, and then 20 each. I can now do all 20 of each straight without needing any rest time.

Today is Canada Day so I have the day off and I slept til 10am. The stupid cat woke me up at that point - how annoying. I hope she isn't one of those ones that will live til 28 years old...she's already at 19 and I love her but I need a break from cats for awhile.

On another note, an update on the poo-free life! The skin on my face has never been smoother and I haven't had a huge monthly zit in a couple of months (I think I've had one since returning from our vacation). My scalp was a bit smelly (at least to me) last weekend so I did a good cleaning with diluted baking soda with the ACV rinse. Aaaaaah, much better.

Otherwise, it's going pretty well. Mark Sisson at Mark's Daily Apple posted about this "way of life" and his post has a ka-jillion comments on it (it's a fascinating topic for the masses!). Someone mentioned making a deodorant from coconut oil and baking soda so I'm trying that sporadically for now. Once my deodorant stick is finished I'll re-fill it with this new mixture.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I haven't felt much like blogging but I'll try to post more often now that I'm getting some positive results!

Itchy Update

I didn't bother to update this past Saturday because my weight was exactly the same as the previous Saturday. Boohoo.

To update on the soap/poo-free "lifestyle", I must say the condition of my skin (all over) is not one bit different -- still fucking itchy as all hell! The heat rash from our trip is still visible and is itchy again for some reason. For the past two days I've been scratching my forearms too much and now have some bigger bumps and such. I'd just trimmed my fingernails, too, so I have to scratch harder to get relief.

Dammit.

I haven't been rubbing coconut oil on myself, other than on my face, which has gone back to acne breakouts in the usual areas. Is it my pillow?? Is it because I don't sweat through my pores on a daily basis that the zits just keep re-occurring in the same damned spots?? UGH!!!

My hair, on the other hand, feels very nice and it's getting long. I haven't used shampoo since our trip (had to a couple times, to get the sea smell out) and have been brushing thoroughly with the boar bristle brush every other night or so. I barely need any aloe vera as gel, and I'm not rinsing it every day anymore, either.

It's going okay. I'd wished for better by this point. Oh well.

Back from the mini hiatus...

It's been awhile since I last posted, and although we were away for a two-week vacation, I was also considering throwing in the towel on this blog. Nobody except my beau reads it, anyway (hi, honey lol).

Before leaving for our holiday I was a bit "backed up" and knew I had gained a pound or two. We had stopped cooking a couple of days before leaving so we wouldn't have a huge mess in the kitchen, so that means that we ate out (restaurants use so much sodium and unknown ingredients and I actually don't like eating out anymore). I quickly weighed myself the morning of our flight and wasn't surprised to see that I was "up". I didn't bother recording the reading, of course.

Two weeks in sunny Barbados was a fantastic treat for us. It was my first real vacation and we had a great time. The food was amazing and so was the rum...ok, and the pina coladas. I had a few of those within the first few days and then cut them out, however, I indulged in rum and cokes the rest of the time.

We returned home on April 9th, a Friday night (Saturday morning, really, since our flight was delayed), so after my bowel movement the next morning I weighed in. Ugh...six pounds up from the pre-vacation weigh-in, so 162. Oi. Well, I guess that wasn't too bad overall, considering the food and drink I'd consumed, but hey, I was on holiday, dammit!

Again, I didn't bother recording the numbers because I knew I'd work hard to get back into the swing of things.

Fast forward to one week later and ...!

Date	Weight	BF Weight	BF %	Body Water %	Bone Mass %
04/17/2010	155.8	46.8	30.1	51.0	6.4

Almost a pound and a half BETTER than my last recorded pre-vacation weight! WOOO!! I was a good little girl that week! I even enjoyed a couple of rum and cokes, but with Coke Zero (I know - that's not Paleo, either, but it sure tastes good!!).

I've just gotten back into sleeping well at night again but I'm feeling a bit lazy this week. We've fallen into a bit of a rut when it comes to cooking and need to get creative/motivated again. We're cooking up some king fish steaks tomorrow and I'm wondering what we'll have with them. I wish I was a natural at this cooking thing.

This Stinks!

After the diet changes we've made, I was hoping that our underarm scents would kind of, you know, GO AWAY. Well, that didn't happen, so after trying coconut oil as a deodorant, we've gone back to using our previous favourites (mine is "Sweet Bliss" by Soft & Dri Pulse).

Maybe I'll try again later once I've been off the sugar for awhile (not counting maple syrup here). We'll see.