Tag Archives: protein

December 27, 2022 · 11:15

Foosball & image

Are you a mum who plays foosball with your son and it sets off your old carpal tunnel problem again?

No?

You’re lucky, I envy you!

I unfortunately I am such a mum!

I am sulking and I want to play foosball and I want to play it now!  Well, maybe not right now as it’s like 3:30am I am writing this and my son is in bed asleep… got to be reasonable don’t I?

Unfortunately the Christmas junk food has rattled my brain and I have no idea what to write for today’s post so I thought of the first thing that came into my head!

Now for the second thing that came into my head – this high protein diet is making my hair and nails grow faster than normal, in literally only six days my nails has grown as much as they would in three weeks!  It’s so weird… I am not used to it, I am literally scratching my body to pieces as I am not used to it and typing is becoming fun and slippy…

I have gone through bouts of growing my nails before in the past, but it takes weeks, shocked they are this long and it’s been days!

I hope I don’t have a bout of anxiety, or they will go… though I am biting less and less these days since I have discovered a healthy obsession for solitaire card games and practising tarot.

Henry wants me to start painting them as they are nice and long-ish for me, but I won’t because I don’t like it.  I prefer the French manicure look, personally, unfortunately I haven’t a clue whether those cuticles should be left alone or not.  I believe they should be, as it is painful to do what my mother always taught me to, pushing them back after a soak in the bath and my skin is so sensitive the skin often splits under the pressure!

I am happy to say that my hair growth is getting better again too, the alopecia is almost growing out, unfortunately it makes me look a bit untamed in one area, but there is no bald patch anymore or fuzz, in fact there is now four inches of growth there – but as the rest of my hair is past shoulder length, it is noticeable a little and can stick up like an aerial or something if I don’t wax it down.

Today I wanted to post a pic of myself on Instagram but I refrained because I forgot how swollen I am because I was gifted chocolate that contained soy as a Christmas present and that means I am a whole dress size bigger with the swelling it causes.  I am half thinking about either suffering it till it’s all gone as I love that chocolate, or just be grown up and give it to my son instead, so the swelling goes down again in three days?

My face swells making me look about fifty pounds heavier than I actually am whenever I eat soy or mustard, as well as my spleen and abdomen, it’s weird how it can happen in such a short space of time.  There are times I absent-mindedly eat soy and the effects work within ten minutes and by thirty minutes I have to change out of my clothes because it all cuts into me and sometimes actually makes me bleed if I ignore it too long!

It’s like I’ve turned into a hulk woman or something… only less green…. Though saying that, sometimes I physically become sick over it all!

I have strict and painful rules from January, if I know there is soy or mustard in something I am not going to have it anymore, not even as a one off and that’s going to be so hard for me!

I love Heinz salad cream, I love Dijon mustard with sausages, I love Chinese food, I love nutty chocolates like Peanut M+Ms and Ferrero Roche and Nutella, oh my goodness do I have an absolute passion for Nutella!

I want a food scientist to make Dijon mustard without mustard…

I want Nutella without soy and Heinz Salad cream without mustard but taste authentically the same!

I feel a near Verruca Salt type tantrum coming on in fact…

“Don’t care how, I want it now”!

Trying to remind myself it is probably healthier this way, but it’s no comfort!

My idea of comfort is eating roast potatoes with ham, boiled egg and cheddar cheese with a hugely packed salad and doused in a tablespoon of Heinz Salad Cream, that’s comfort. 

Or eating ham salad crusty rolls with the salad cream as a favorited lunch! 

Comfort is also crispy crepes covered in Nutella and turned into a wrap with more Nutella on the top and a sprinkling of sliced almonds, icing sugar snow and whipped cream on the side.

Or trying to catch peanut M+Ms with your mouth annoying anyone sitting near you with being pelleted by the failures!

I haven’t done that in years…

It is also fudge and donuts too… yes for some weird reason they have soy in them as well!

Did I mention the washing machine broke down a few days before Christmas?  We’re having to wash the clothes by hand like old Victorian washer women for about a month, as we can’t get one delivered until around the 17th January and that’s being bought on credit.

Such fun…

Paul confused me the other day, so I spent more than we could afford on non-credited gifts for Henry as he wasn’t clear, which made us slightly overdrawn – Paul doesn’t take responsibility for that, totally blames me, but he was the one who wasn’t clear.  He was the one that made it sound like two things were already paid but in fact it was only one!  Coincidentally this has meant that for two weeks I have no personal allowance, until the overdraft is paid back – which means my business plan on WordPress is delayed in the next payment and my gym membership has to be delayed by a month too.

Something similar happened once before a few years back, just as I planned to be constructive with our finances… my mother was the same, I am wondering if it’s not at all accidental if you get me?

That’s the thing with me, you talk in numbers I am easily muddled so you have to be clear with me, if you give me several numbers I get confused so it’s easy to mess with my head and make me feel like a fool and give me any old gibberish you like to be in the clear of any faults – it’s easy to take advantage of someone who isn’t very smart!

I think the delay is part of Paul being worried I am trying to knock weight off and find my inner vanity again, because I’d like to start dating around Easter time, maybe sooner if someone asks.  Because I was told that I could potentially achieve my weight loss goal a month earlier than I thought with gymophobics if I maintained my protein diet as well. 

I am joining the gym because I need support learning how to slim and tone down my upper arms because they are stubborn and I tend to bulk too much there, so I want to know what I am doing wrong!  I don’t want 15 inch biceps, you know? No matter how tones they are!  Well mine aren’t just saying…

I tried non weighted exercises at home with videos from YouTube, but still I am bulking – I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope I am not genetically made to look like a female boxer! To be honest, though I haven’t exercised since the end of the first week of December because of a chest infection, but I am getting better!

I already have what my grandmother referred to as hockey legs; don’t want boxer arms to go with that!

Though to be fair I’d rather be a muscular healthy woman than a big lardy one like I am now!

Because if I wear my scruffs, a thick woolly sweater and jeans and someone calls me fat in McDonalds I can do what I used to do in my early twenties, take the sweater off and fold it up looking at them in the eye, in my camisole and see them go white with how toned I am.  They soon apologise and try to explain themselves usually self detrimentally!

I used to do weight lifting in my early twenties – but as I said, I don’t want to be bulky now.  Back then I wanted to be like the pro-wrestler Chyna!  She was my pin up idol, amongst Diana Dors, Kathleen Turner, Glen Close and Reggie Bennett… in fact my body is a little like the latter at the moment lol!

Just a little less toned and my waist is actually narrower or as Paul would say, more defined!   

https://img.comc.com/i/Wrestling/1995/BBM-Pro-Wrestling—Base/158/Reggie-Bennett.jpg?id=1d6ae783-4344-4d36-a407-f3563edd3b9f&size=original

Seriously it’s just eight months of hard work that’s all I need for my idea of a perfect body!

Shame about my face and remember, the dentist hasn’t got back to me about those braces I wanted, because I have a tooth missing and there is a half gap, because it was a sticky out tooth that got damaged to its root.  The braces will just close the gap after six months and my teeth are pretty much ok then.

I need to professionally dye my hair too as I am going white lol, it’s a trait in my family; we tend to be pure white by fifty!

Or do I embrace the natural change and pretend to be natural platinum eventually?  Lol Because it really looks like I am going to be snow white all over, not the horrible grey some people go.

I used to have snow white platinum hair from baby to around six of seven years old, then for some reason I became brunette!

I was nicknamed The Angel of Burnt Oak and won local pageants and things.

I have a bit of a Barbiecore leaning, so perhaps I should wear it with pride?  Don’t know!

With what I regard my waist being my best feature as well as my eyes and lips, I think I could eventually tone myself to be a nice Barbie doll, alright forget the age thing… I am sure I could manage it… lol… I am going to try!

Stupid probably… but… I’ll try!

Probably over optimistic, but I won’t know unless I try!

I have green eyes which makes me more special than Barbie as they are rarer! 

So there!

Thanks for reading!

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December 22, 2022 · 00:10

Remission, weight loss and dreams

It may have been a long remission between Easter and last week, because for the past few days I have been sleeping a lot and finding things a little difficult again.

My immune system has taken a massive hit and I feel like I have influenza but there is no temperature and not much else of the normal flu like symptoms.  The brain fog is coming back, the depression is hitting hard again and then the washing machine breaks down two days ago and it needs replacing.

The asthma has got a bit worse too, but it’s the feeling that I am turning into stone or lead I can’t get over – every limb feels weighted. 

Very sleepy is not a good description really – I kind of feel like I am going into a hibernation period, if you get my drift?  But what is weird about that is the fact that I can’t seem to sleep at night.

My appetite has stayed much the same, not eating much at all, so the idea of gaining weight over Christmas is silly as I seem to be losing up to two pounds a week still or not moving on the scales at all.

I found a local gym for £8.75 a week membership, I can afford that with my personal allowance and I will be signing up for the membership around the end of January, to help me tone up – my upper arms in particular as they are the only things which don’t seem to be doing what the rest of my body is doing… losing inches and toning up.  They are a good gym to go to because they specialise in helping people who have long-term health problems or are morbidly obese, which I need because I have asthma and a couple of auto-immune problems, one of which is rheumatic arthritis.

It’s exciting to note that I have lost ninety six pounds over a year now without much effort, now let’s take it up a huge notch!  I am not that far off from my goal weight and with this gym membership I should reach my goal weight before July with any luck – at least I haven’t been on the morbidly obese scale for a while now- In fact I remember a time where I was a horrifying 56 on the BMI scale that was nearly two years ago!  No, this wasn’t the reason I was bedbound either, the bedbound came first and this kind of obesity was caused by that!

How did I manage that?

Simple!

I was a highly active person who walked an average of nine miles a day amongst lots of other exercises and physical activities, needing to eat an average of four thousand calories a day just to sustain myself or collapse – to becoming a severely ill and bedbound person literally overnight, but never readjusted my diet, until three years later when it dawned on me what the heck I was doing!

I had such spleen pain and constant chest infections for nearly eight years solid, the amount of times I was diagnosed with pneumonia too, I couldn’t move because the spleen was too swollen and I was literally advised to do nothing in case it ruptured!  NHS overstretched before covid even existed and so operating wasn’t an option given to me! 

Especially as I was eating my feelings when the depression stepped in, meaning I was over doing food on a massive scale for someone who was extremely sedentary!

It wasn’t until around three years ago that I realised when I am having an angry or a depressing day, I go to food again for comfort, I realised this is a base instinct we all have; why?  Because as animals we would take our anger and frustrations out on other animals and bite them and attack them, but as humans have learned to civilise ourselves somewhat we suppress our anger and food is the substitute for the primordial release for biting!

So when you feel depressed, sad or angry get yourself chewing gum – believe me, it works – only I find it hard to have gum these days because most of it contains soy and soy is really bad for my spleen issue.

Around four years ago was the time I had a completely free from diet, no eggs, no gluten, no lactose, no soy and a mostly paleo diet.  This helped a lot with the breathing problems and the swollen spleen, eventually I learned that I could eat almost anything without pain but there was something still off – occasionally my spleen would swell again and it took until earlier this year to find out what was doing it… mustard and soy. 

Now I am not on a free from diet anymore, but I have to avoid soy and mustard, or the spleen swells up again and my asthma has a bad day – unfortunately most of my favourite foods contain them, as I especially love mustard!  So suffering is a choice now – which I don’t choose often! 

Not a lot of people who are recently acquainted with me take me seriously about how much I understand nutrition and exercise since they’ve always known me to be this size.  But in actuality, I am really switched on, because I used to be very athletic and I can name in approximation the calorie worth and nutritional value of most foods.

But for some people they can’t understand that if you know all of this, then why did you allow yourself to get so fat?

Because if you live a certain lifestyle for too long, then you become ill where the physical aspect changes but not the food – you can see how this is easily done.  But people will be people and some people are morons and don’t use their head on this kind of stuff!

I remember a time where my doctor suggested my diet was too healthy, too low on salt, too low on fats and too low on calories, that I was blacking out three times a week on average and going into severe full bodied cramps.  Because of lack of electrolytes as I didn’t add salt to anything and I had a low fat diet which was mostly vegetable based.   I remember having to keep a food diary constantly and keep every nutrient in mind and I remember having to rush out to McDonalds at random times throughout the week to get the high fat, high salt and calorific food I needed because I didn’t have time or the wherewithal to eat a large meal, so I had to opt for big macs as a dietary supplement.  A weird contrast to my life now!

No, I do not miss it, because I didn’t enjoy having to do those things – what I do miss is the health and fitness I used to have and the energy I had as well as the body.

In the future, I am hoping to get all that back again, only this time I am going to be smarter, no big mac supplements anymore – I have a weight lifting professional friend who had the same problem, only she supplements the low salt problem not with crisps and salted fries or peanuts, like I did – but as adding rehydration salts to every bottle of water she drinks!

At the time I knew I was a protein type metabolism but I didn’t fully understand it as much as I do now and I never knew you could get really nice protein drinks to get what you need in per day.  I was literally trying to stuff down copious amounts of chicken and fish every day into my system – another thing which will change in the future.

You see, back in the good old days of when I was active, I was active alone and without a fitness network, so I was literally clueless and often had stomach ache and a bulimic reaction to the food I needed to eat.

You live, you learn.

Paul and I are still living together but we are separated, still he is trying to support me the best he can with the diet I need.  He has told me that our finances are better than we used to have as we are now being supplemented now he is retired, which means I can see the doctor more often and the diet can improve slightly.

In March my own personal finances will have doubled for me, which means I could also supplement myself too – so I should be losing the weight much faster soon.  I will get back on it all after Christmas, properly.  

Calorie, protein and nutritional monitoring that is, as well as signing up for the local gym classes!

My self-employment should be kicking off around March too, so hopefully I will earn enough to consider moving out of Paul’s by the end of summer, maybe – who know?  I can’t see me living alone to be honest, but there you go!

I don’t do New Years resolutions, so please don’t take all of this as that!

My second biggest dream right now is to rediscover my inner pride and vanity! 

When I was healthy and fit, there were a lot of people who said all I needed to do was dye my hair blond and get a Chihuahua and I’d be like Paris Hilton in my style!  I was offended, because what’s wrong with a brunette?  Though I like the idea of platinum hair! 

Though maybe they were just on about how much I love pink and fluffies? 

My first biggest ever dream I’ve had forever now, is to find someone who genuinely loves me and wants to keep me, build a family with me, push me to be the best that I can be and we motivate each other like live in life coaches!  Along with this the person has to tolerate that I can be suffocating with how I love them and hands on with them, because I am just like that!  I am like Elmira from Looney Tunes – but they also have to tolerate eccentricities, daydreams and creative pursuits as it’s all a huge part of who I am!  Please also, the person must understand I am very childish – I am overly playful and I am not too responsible really.  I am such a hedonist to be honest!

My third ever dream is not what you think it is either… nope… no, it’s not really anything to do with my stories or art – it’s having a great home and social life. 

The stories becoming movies is really a fourth dream… shock horror… I know!

I kind of kept that a secret as I kind of wore this with shame for a while – but I am starting to release the true me and I have to be honest with you as much as myself now, don’t I?

I feel bad admitting that actually.

I am still writing, don’t fret!  I am just not all that bothered in giving boring details about word count anymore, because nobody really cares enough to comment unless they are a troll who moans about how often I update word counts!

But meh – I always lacked structure anyway, I say I intend to write one novel but I end up writing a little towards twenty and so…. I am learning to become at peace with me and the way I am… so should you!

But project AD and the Easter project are the main focuses for me right now, even if I only write about twice a week on both of them – at least its progress!  You have to remember I have lots of other projects on the go too!

I know lots of people are eager to get their hands on project AD and this is why I am writing this as fast as I can, because I know there are a lot of people in waiting over it. 

I just got to get it out there anyway, because it’s a great story and I am very excited for it.  I am seeing merchandise in my head already; it will be a great new toy brand in my opinion as it is a dystopian comedy for kids.

But the Easter project is also gripping me a lot too with so many amazing ideas I am literally bursting to share them with someone but scared I’d shoot myself in the foot if I did!

So that’s what’s happening in my life right now.

Thanks for reading!

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December 10, 2022 · 11:15

Personal events of 2022

I had taken up a new protein diet and exercise regime, which worked well.

I have lost 93 pounds of weight since last year and hoping to lose another 50 pounds to reach the goal ideal weight for me by July 2023.

I have unfortunately lost three relatives this year, two due to Covid, as well as a family friend.

I have made some good close online friendships with other creative people.

I have broken up from a long-term relationship and I am now single.

My son has been officially diagnosed with autism on a mild spectrum.

I am no longer on a free from diet, because we have learned I had problems with mustard and soya.

One of the debts I had has now been paid off, that debt was due to paying things off from Christmas 2017, when the government cut our money unexpectantly by £200 just 3 weeks before Christmas!

Thanks for reading and being with me throughout the year!

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October 28, 2022 · 11:15

Food sustainability

My relationship with food is awkward, because although I am a fat woman, I actually don’t eat all that much.

I like the idea of sustainability and eating locally grown produce etc. and I even like the idea of a predominantly plant based diet, though not entirely a plant based one.  But I can’t ever go full vegan even if I wanted to because of my health issues and that’s not a cop out!  I have a protein metabolism and I have intolerances to soy and mustard as it makes my spleen swell and become painful. I also cannot stomach a high fat or sugar diet.

I have heard this puts me potentially into the “Flexitarian” bracket if I could afford the diet change, but I really don’t know! I know right now, my finances could not support my body on a flexitarian diet as we’re struggling to eat full-stop right now.

My health has improved vastly since I have started to eat a minimum of 75g of protein per day, any less than this and the following day I have problems with pain and lethargy.

I understand that other than vitamin B12 there are many foods out there for vegans which will give me a high protein diet, I am very aware of what is available.  However, my other problem is, I am a person who cannot eat big meals and I cannot eat too frequently.  

What I am saying is, I struggle to eat in quantities, I can’t eat more than a sandwich in one sitting and I need to stay immobile twenty minutes after eating, so the idea of having seven meals per day to make up for it is not ideal – because I will spend half my day on my bum!

What is frustrating is, I love a lot of veg and salads – really I love it a lot!  But, if I eat that, I won’t be getting enough protein.  Because I can’t make it up with the soy, especially on my budget!

Because I love sustainability etc. and I have been working hard for the past ten years to get abundant knowledge about how to have a sustainable life, I have learned a lot.  Some people really believe veganism will save the world, I am not going to say anything against that other than this one thing…

The thing that is killing the world is a farming system known as “monoculture.”

What is that?

It is where farms only grow one to three crops on several acres of land without including anything beneficial to the local environment and its wildlife, whilst stripping the land bare at the end of the year.

Veganism will work in regards to the fact that there will be less pasture for the meat industry, but it doesn’t solve the fact of monoculture being used to grow vegetables and fruits, does it?      

Now, I am supporting you guys, believe me!

But a lot of people have a huge oversight on this matter.

What people need to do is make more farming suggestions along the lines of polyculture farming or most ideally, food forest farming – where at least you can still have meat in your diet if you are so inclined.  Because chickens and other poultry, like ducks, geese, and turkeys can live in a food forest and will help with pest control whilst maintaining natural biodiversity.

We were never meant to create monoculture farming, it is not natural and as you can see, it is very damaging to our environment. 

What we need are food forests. 

Because vitamin B12 is virtually impossible to get in a vegan diet outside of fortified cereals and without it can cause a lot of damage to people’s health in the long run – the idea of having a food forest where you have poultry is ideal.  You can just eat the free range eggs and don’t need to worry about the meat factor if you really are anti-meat.

Orchards can have certain other creatures in them; in fact in ancient farming we always did, it has only really been since the Victorian period that people moved further and further into monocultural design.

Polyculture is where you have a multitude of different plants and flowers in the area; only thing is you need to get rid of the social mind-set of perfect food.  Food is food; it doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to conform to a standard, just be edible!

It’s not our diets that have to change its our mind-set and our food industry that has to change, it has to be designed better, going back to basics, going back to polyculture and food forestry and becoming organic. 

Biodiversity is key to our survival and you are not going to do that with modern monocultural farming.

Another thing that is destroying our world is the idea of digging – I am a no dig gardener and that means I am a gentle gardener who understands that it’s not just what grows above the soil we need to care for, but what happens beneath it too!

The microorganisms that are in the ground are key to our soils health and the health of our soil will also improve the fertility of our land and our crops, making our food industry produce on average 10% more yields than those farms and gardens that dig.  Sometimes as much as 20% has been recorded!

I have learned all of this with the years of research I have been doing and through books written by various people, but most notably Charles Dowding. 

Another factor to our climate crisis is the trade industry – though it’s great for our economy it is not environmentally sustainable.  Though our diets need to be very diverse, it is nonetheless killing our planet.  You need to eat locally grown foods and I know I don’t practise what I preach here, because I am a huge lover of exotic fruits, vegetables and spices.  I eat a banana a day and they certainly don’t grow in the UK.

So with that being said – I can cope with a largely plant based diet as long as I can still eat in small quantities and still maintain a minimal protein intake of 75g per day – but I can’t go full on vegan.  I believe chickens can actually save the world!

Thanks for reading!

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October 16, 2022 · 11:15

Starving fat girl

What did I mean in the former post about “problems starting up again”?

Ok, well I have an undiagnosed digestive problem, IBS and IBD of unknown causes, where sometimes my body swells and shrinks day to day.  Sometimes it mostly affects my spleen, where my spleen will swell and become painful and pushes against the stomach a lot, so I can’t keep food down even if I push myself to eat that day.

Consequently I have been having issues with malnutrition, because I have days like this at least three times a week on average!

Just because I am fat, doesn’t mean I am actually eating anything!

It can be quite bad, like yesterday where I wake up and the first thing that happened immediately after I drank a small sip of water was to bring that up with bile.  I know it sounds disgusting and it is!  But this is what I have been living with for years and there are two reasons why it’s been left undiagnosed.

One major reason is we can’t afford the taxi fare to go to appointments about it and secondly the hospital we go to is in so much debt that they are reluctant to help anybody unless its life or death and we can’t afford to go further afield.

I take omeprazole since I was pregnant with Henry, because for some reason or another, after I gave birth to Henry my body didn’t rebalance itself again like it should have. So I am prone to heart burn.

Whenever I do manage to eat, I can’t move around or go for a walk for around twenty minutes, just to make sure it says down.  Any physical movement after a meal can make me purge.  Which makes quick lunches in town, near impossible!

My doctor knows I want to lose weight and he is a little anxious I am trying to exercise when I have these nutritional problems right now.  He told me that I probably wouldn’t be so big if my body wasn’t constantly in starvation mode; my body is storing anything it can get its hands on and I have a lot of water retention too which is affecting circulation.  I am constantly cold.

My doctor has urged me to go private if I can, but we just can’t do that.

He has sometimes wondered if it is an imbalance of friendly gut bacteria, because he learned once that my mother was known to be so OCD in cleaning, that sometimes she would add a tiny dash of bleach to our vegetables when she washed them!

I did find a marked improvement in keeping food down after several weeks of adding fermented foods to my diet, but because our benefits got cut we could no longer afford to maintain that diet for me. 

We still are clueless about it all and only time will tell, what it is.  Soon Paul retires and so our money will improve a little, but as we’re separating soon, who knows what is going to happen with all this!

All I know is, I rarely eat breakfast, I have lunch occasionally, I always eat a dinner and I have a snack a couple of hours before bed.  I struggle most days to eat more than a whole “normal” sandwich in one sitting.

So get the idea out of your head that all fat people constantly eat, because in my case it’s simply not true!

I think the biggest meal I can regularly eat at the moment is a 3 egg scramble with a single toasted bagel and a banana right after it!  That to me is a huge meal!

I practically live on that every two days; because it’s something I can keep down.  I also drink a large glass of cranberry juice for the vitamin C.  Because my doctor said that three eggs in one day is all the vitamins and minerals your body needs except for vitamin C, which you can’t get from eggs.  So I do this, because its really high in protein and it’s got everything I need in it!

Occasionally my late night snack, which is around 9pm are usually two or three roasted chicken legs, a tuna bagel or a fruit salad.

Yesterday all I managed to eat was vegetable soup, three slices of bread, a banana and 2 oat biscuits in the whole day. Very low in protein unfortunately, because I had too much pain and struggled to keep things down.

Thanks for reading!

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October 8, 2022 · 11:15

New energy

This high protein diet is doing wonders for my health and body, I am getting more good days than bad.  Despite currently having a throat infection with a mild chest infection, everything else is improving a lot!

I believe the throat and chest infection has come about because of my birthday weekend splurge of sweet treats and refined sugars, something I am not known for usually, but I wanted a change this weekend.

I don’t normally have a sweet tooth more than three or four times a month and that’s because of hormones and then I usually opt for fruit.  But this past weekend I have splurged on cream cakes, chocolate, jelly babies and a lot of honey and maple syrup – shock and horror!

It’s my birthday weekend, let me live a little.  My weight is stable, I am managing to exercise more often and I am feeling happy for it, but I still have a lot of fat to lose and toning up to do.

Since I started a few months ago to do just squats and standing from a seated position several times a day, I have noticed a positive increase in my mental health. 

I knew from the past that I loved exercise and being active, but when I got sick, I just lacked all motivation to try again.  It is especially hard when you have a lot of people tell you “take it easy, don’t rush things” all the while.

Paul was always stressed out by the idea that I may be rushing back into exercise after poor health and would often moan me into submission about it, so I found it hard to get back into the swing of it all.

I have had some harsh and strong words with Paul about this recently, when he noticed I was doing exercise. 

“Well I got news for you” I said defiantly; “I have been doing these things in secret for the past few months to get back into the flow of it and now I am ready for harder tasks”.  He almost went white.

I am not satisfied staying fat and lazy, I love exercise, I love doing things – I am not content in sitting on my ass all day whining about how poor we are and what we don’t have… if there is something about me that I can say in a positive and confident light is that I am a go-getter.  But like the water dog I am; I flow with the energy that is around me the most and at the moment I am in stagnant waters and I am trying to make some currents.

In my youth my mother encouraged a peacock attitude, but as long as I kept to her lame fashion advice and her fashion advice really was lame!  I have always been a lover of fashion and I strongly believe that your clothes can show the world your personality. 

Unfortunately that is really hard to do when you are obese and you have virtually no budget to play with! 

People do judge you for the clothes you wear as well as your general looks and I am not happy by the kinds of reactions I get when I wear the clothes I do currently, I get very little respect and I am treated like an ignoramus.

I want to be a peacock again, well, you know what I mean right?

I have too much work to do, it’s scary!

I also have to be cautious because in the past I had severe issues with anorexia, bulimia but also another condition where I was addicted to exercise to the point of exhaustion and collapse!

Paul knows this and thinks that any exercise outside of walking everywhere and twenty minute boring aerobics is too much, he is very cautious.

My ideas are very different.  The only lengthy work out I like is forty five minutes long and it is Billy Blank’s Tae-Bo workout, gosh I miss that – this is one of the things I am working towards, being fit enough to do the whole workout again.  It’s fun!

I am also working out to try and get back the flexibility I used to have when I was a contortionist – yes, that’s right; I used to be a contortionist.  Not professionally, just for fun!  Don’t sideways glance at me like that, it was fun!

A friend recently suggested I take up yoga and I laughed, because, I wish… But my body needs a lot of work before I can cock my leg up over my head again!

When I am writing in a calm and peaceful environment I have noticed I work better creatively when I am doing stupid things like this; Fifteen to twenty minutes writing, getting up and doing three minutes of HIIT exercises, followed by jumping jacks and jump rope exercises, then getting back to the desk. 

Not only am I happy doing this, but my brain works better for it!

I wished I had an office which could also be a gym and library all rolled into one, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon by itself, so I have to work for it!

At the moment I am really trying to develop a positive mind-set and a healthy body and a handful of online friends have DM and told me that they really believe, in their hearts of hearts I should avoid sending my work to an agent in October so I can focus on all this other stuff first. 

My friends think I should send it out around February, as the agents will be more prepared as I am sending the work out at the start of the busiest time of the year.  I don’t know what to do to be honest, but I am wondering if I am dumb if I ignore their advice?

I believe the high protein diet is really fixing my body.  As much as I love fruit and vegetables, I know I could never be a vegan because you can’t get Vitamin B12 as a vegan; with my digestive and bowel disease I already struggle to get enough B vitamins my diet as I don’t absorb them very well; not only this but I have allergies to soy and mustard, which can cause my spleen to swell.

According to google;” Vitamin B12 deficiencies can lead to megaloblastic anaemia, a condition where the bone marrow produces large abnormally shaped red blood cells that do not function properly. Dementia, paranoia, depression, and behavioural changes can result from a vitamin B12 deficiency. Neurological damage sometimes cannot be reversed”.

I have pernicious anaemia and rheumatic arthritis, but I am stabilising that the best I can with supplements and a healthy diet where I have to be mindful about what I eat and can’t get stuck into food ruts.  My body really struggles absorbing vitamin B because of those conditions.

My arthritis is the first noticeable change since starting a high protein diet.  Since starting this diet, my pain is getting less and I am starting to get some muscle mass back again, because around Easter time I loss a lot of muscle mass where it started to become very scary for Paul, my doctors and I.

I have a protein metabolism and I am an hourglass shape, I know what I am doing with my body because when I was younger I brainwashed myself to try to be the best that I can be, but Paul encouraged me to get lazy about things, because he was scared I was pushing my body too far and I had such a long term illness after pneumonia due to mono, that I flaked out, literally for years.

Slowly gaining back the fifty pounds I had lost after moving out of my mother’s house, but that’s changing now!

I noticed the worse parts of my ill health came back after three days of slipping up with my protein intake; Paul has noticed it too and has said that losing the high protein diet is unnegotiable now!

I forgot the high I get when I exercise and it’s great!

When I am sad or stressed I eat a lot, it’s a compulsive habit. When I am happy I forget to eat, so I have to watch that too! When I was twenty four my mother took a bigger control of my life and took a lot of things away from me that made me happy, I gained thirty pounds a year in depression and would have got fatter if it weren’t for Paul coming into my life and saving me when he did! I have always struggled with body dysmorphia one way or another. The thinner I get the fatter I think I see myself in the mirror and weirdly enough vice versa.

I have been using Mel Robbin’s technique recently whenever I look in the mirror, don’t see me as myself; I see myself as another person who I am deeply in love with and care about and weird enough it is helping my body dysmorphia a lot! I know it can lead to another problem of disassociation, but if it makes me happy in my own skin then I am all for that!

So look in the mirror, see another person in the room, don’t associate it with yourself, and high five that girl or boy you love!

So that’s what’s happening in my life right now.

Thanks for reading!

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September 11, 2022 · 11:15

Baby steps to fitness

The high protein diet seems to be helping me a lot in my health, though I have had a couple of bad days this week I have noticed my asthmas is improving, whether that is coincidental or not I don’t know.

I am trying to get three minute exercises in about three times a day, because I am doing this from being housebound and bedbound sick for the past eight or nine years, so baby steps!

I started around two months ago squatting for fifteen seconds as that was the most I could do before I got shaky and felt pain, but I have now progressed to being able to squat for up to three and sometimes four minutes now. 

This progressed to me getting up from a chair and sitting down again twenty times in a row twice a day as well, to now being able to do that around eighty times before I need to rest.

Five days ago I added a new exercise to the three times a day thing, that is the weight shake, I can’t do more than twenty five seconds per arm at the moment and I am getting shakiness in my arms again, because they are not used to being used – but I am trying my best to strengthen myself up a bit.

Though Paul is concerned that I have complained of shock pains in my right arm, meaning that my carpal tunnel syndrome could show up again soon, if I don’t slow down a bit.

I haven’t started going out for walks yet, but that’s next on the agenda, perhaps in a week or two.

I have been trying to force my body to use to the idea that I want to be athletic again, even though in reality I am still quite sick, I am trying to force my body to get better. 

I am also working hard in cosmic ordering on all areas of my life, so with my new found positive approach to life, I should get there!  I won’t say hope, because that sends signals to the universe that I want to feel like being hopeful about things and so things won’t change and they must change!

Happy reading!

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August 29, 2022 · 11:15

Body whispering

My diet is reverting and it’s great!  It’s not a diet for weight loss, it is a diet based on my old principles. 

I have known for several years that I have a protein metabolism; something that Paul never took too seriously.  This is based on a book I read around seventeen years ago called “The metabolic typing diet” by William L. Wolcott and Trish Fahey; because Paul didn’t want to cater towards the foods I was used to for whatever reason, I as I always do, compromise what I want for being easy on others, so this meant that I increasingly ate a high carb diet.

This did not affect my weight at all, but I believe it did affect my health.  I became really sick regarding eating and digesting food for quite a while to the extent I got out of the habit of eating food at regular intervals primarily because of digestive pain and the inability to keep things down!

Recently I was told by a doctor that I have no allergies or intolerances whatsoever like Paul believed I had – it is likely the big bouts of pain I have are due to IBD flare ups, because it would seem I would still have days like that, no matter what I was avoiding.

So, I have gone back into a normal for a human type diet – but I wanted to empathise to Paul about my dietary past, before I moved in with him and how I believe that I am not getting the right fuel for my metabolic type.

Just because he is worried about the lack of food I am in taking for the past couple of years and how sick I have been over the years, he has decided to cave into what he believes is this fad idea and he has been surprised at how my appetite is increasing and it has only been six days into the diet.  This post was written on the 24th August, after some friends are still concerned online that I am not eating enough.

You see this change of diet I am undergoing was actually exactly what I ate before I moved in with him, thirteen years ago!

Since going onto a high protein diet, my appetite is coming back and I am regaining energy and I have already noticed a significant change in my skin, despite this, the caloric intake is not as high as you’d expect, I am now averaging 1900 a day, which is a vast improvement from an average of 1000 and not keeping it down! 

Since my energy levels are improving, I have noticed that I am starting to get more energy to help around the house again and I am not shaky when I do physical activities anymore.

I knew my body very well, I used to be athletic, I used to go on nine mile walks a day, I would do weight training in the evenings, walk a dog, practise the swing ball, do my tae bo exercises twice a day and was always begging people to play netball, ping pong, darts or rounder’s with me.  I had a mostly lethargic social group, but I motivated some of them!

Oh and I loved swimming, a true water baby – I can’t sit on the side of the pool, that’s not me, I love to dive right in there and get bratty like a kid if I am asked to get out of the pool!  I think it’s because my inner child likes to think herself as a mermaid when she is in there!

I learned to know my metabolic type; I felt it is vital for everyone to learn that – because one man’s food is another man’s poison.  You might very well love munching down on crudités, but if you were built for protein, you need to make sure that the vegetables you are consuming are high in protein; there are more than you think!

I poisoned myself for the sake of convenience and I believe it’s what nearly killed me!

I don’t do well on high carbs or high fat and lots of people have the misconception that high protein means high fat, not at all, it depends on the type of protein you are putting into your body!

I have seen such a vast improvement lately that I believe this time next week; I’ll be able to do some kind of light exercise again.

But at the moment my body is going through a healing process, where I feel that whilst I am getting the building blocks into my system, I need a bit of rest.  I can sense my body asking me to slow down and take it easy – don’t leap into anything just yet and I am not going to ignore that!

One habit I never got out of when my diet became high carb was that I never got lulled into the habit by Paul of drinking mostly coffee or tea; I still stuck to three pints of water a day with a green tea, even though for years I did lose my daily cranberry juice, but I’ve got that back too!  Yay!

Most people sneer at someone like me as they see a fat sick person and don’t realise that they are actually more switched on about nutrients, metabolism, dieting and exercise than the average Joe.  Looks are very deceiving my dears, I wasn’t like this in my past!  I got fat due to illness; I actually have a natural propensity for building muscle quite quickly – I don’t need to exercise as much as the average person as I bulk quite quickly.  I suppose I am fortunate for that.

I think the one main thing that bought Paul around to my way of thinking was the fact that I told him, he doesn’t have to change his diet for me, but now I am turning forty in October I really need to ramp up the protein as I will start losing muscle mass at a quicker rate and really it could happen faster for me, because of my rheumatic arthritis. 

In fact, eating a high protein diet could stop my muscle wasting so fast because of it too; this is something a friend told me online.  She is an over fifties body builder and she’s been helping me get back on track with how I used to be!

I am also a natural hourglass shape, my waist has always been unusually small, and my bone frame is considered petit by the doctors, which has always worried them when I gained weight. 

I am also planning to get back into exercising for my shape, with “escape your shape” by Edward Jackowski, which I loved twenty years ago and really helped me sculpt my body the way I like it!  I am also 5ft 8.

So, these are the changes happening in my life right now.

My digestive health is certainly starting to feel like it is stabilising and I was told by my friend that my immune health should right itself in a few weeks’ time too!

I hope so!

It’s challenging with our budget, but I hope we can manage it!

Happy reading!

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