CHEESESLAVE

I’ve got exciting news.

I weighed myself this morning and guess what – I’ve lost a total of 9 pounds. I’m down to 145 now. This is a new low. Still 15-20 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, but still! I’m happy! I had been stuck at 149 for months. I’ve lost 4 pounds just in the past two weeks.

The other good news is my temperature is steadily going up. Seth’s is, too. I didn’t get to take my temperature all last week since I was out of town, but for the past four days it has been over 98. Today I had a record high: 98.3!

Seth has also lost weight — he has lost 5 pounds in the past three weeks.

I’m sure it helps that we are taking the Iodoral and our temperatures are raising (hence, our metabolism is speeding up). But I think the bigger thing is that I’ve been eating less and he’s been doing an exercise boot camp five times a week. I’m so excited now, and I have so much more energy, that I’m ready to start getting back to exercising. I just couldn’t hack it before — I had no energy. But I’m ready now!

What’s my secret for eating less? I only eat when I’m hungry. I’m eating nutrient dense foods — just less of them.

I’ve used this technique before and it is the only thing that has ever worked for me. I’m normally naturally slim and never gain weight — but twice in my life (now three times) I gained extra weight and this was the only thing that worked.

What you do is you go by a scale in your mind of 0-5. Zero is not hungry at all and five is so famished you could faint.

You are only allowed to eat when you are a 3 or 4.

If you’re a 0 or 1, you don’t eat.

You don’t let yourself get to a 5 (because that’s when you binge).

The only other rule is to eat as slowly as possible and enjoy and savor your food. You are only allowed to eat when you are hungry. This means, you have to eat slowly and not let yourself get full. If you think you’re starting to get full, stop and take a break. 90% of the time, you don’t go back and take another bite.

You are allowed (even encouraged) to eat whatever you want. The idea is not to deprive yourself — so you don’t feel the need to obsess about food or binge.

It really works. And you know — I’ve noticed that I’m almost never hungry in the morning. So I’ll have a little Dandy Blend with raw milk and that keeps me going until lunchtime.

The last time I did this, it was just after my divorce. I had gained 25 extra pounds. I used this method and I dropped the weight effortlessly in about three months — with no exercise.

I think the reason I was overeating was twofold: (1) I had gotten used to eating more when I was pregnant and nursing and (2) I was trying to rebuild my nutritional stores for the next baby.

I’ve decided to just try to eat more organ meats (liver, heart, kidney, etc.), as well as butter and cream. And lots of seafood! That should help to rebuild my nutritional stores — and I don’t have to eat as much. You’re going to see a lot more recipes for offal on this blog!

I’ll keep you posted on our progress.

The day before yesterday, I started charting our temperatures using the new Lumiscope thermometer.

You take your temperature every three hours — around 9, 12 and 3. Then you take the average of those 3 numbers.

Me
Wednesday: 97.7
Thursday: 97.9

Seth
Wednesday: 96.5
Thursday: 96.7

Then you chart it on an Excel spreadsheet I downloaded from Dr. Rind’s website. He explains it all on the site.

It’s not difficult. And this is really the only way you can accurately check your metabolic/endocrine function.

Obviously Seth and I are both still chronically low (hypothyroid). No wonder we can’t lose weight! And no wonder I had trouble making enough breast milk.

I do want to restart breastfeeding but it may be a while before I am capable. From what I understand, this process takes months. I will ask Dr. Flechas about it on Tuesday.

I’ve been trying to cut back on coffee. No, not trying. I have been cutting back. I’m pretty proud of myself!

Sally Fallon said that cutting out coffee was the hardest thing she ever did. I’m not trying to cut it out completely (yet) but I am trying to cut back. For the sake of my adrenal glands. Drinking a lot of coffee and eating a lot of sugar is really bad for your adrenal glands. Most people have adrenal exhaustion due to constant stress, and too much coffee and sugar.

You can heal your adrenal glands. I just listened to a lecture about it from the WAPF 2007 seminar. The guy said that it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years. He said to take a multiglandular (like the ones Standard Process sells), vitamin B complex (I’m taking nutritional yeast, blackstrap molasses, and lots of fermented foods for my Bs), and a few others… I’ll have to look at the list I wrote down. He said it can take anywhere from a few months to a couple of years to heal your adrenal exhaustion — depending on how severe it is.

Adrenal exhuastion is part of the thyroid puzzle. You can’t really heal your thyroid unless you fix the adrenal too.

So anyway, I used to drink 2-3 cups per day. Now I’m drinking just 1 cup a day. With raw milk and blackstrap molasses. I have heard that blackstrap molasses helps with grey hair. (I’m starting to get some — and I’ve stopped highlighting my hair.) This was from Donna Wild of Standard Process, the nutritional supplements company (not just something I read on the internet!).

It hasn’t been that hard, cutting back on the coffee. I think, instead of cutting it out all the way, I’ll just keep cutting back to less and less. Go to half a cup a day, then a quarter cup.

It will be nice not to have to drink coffee. Drinking it here and there is one thing — but when you have to drink it that is an addiction, and that’s something I’d like not to have.

Meanwhile, Yensi has been making homemade lemonade for us. It’s delicious! And you would never know that it does not have any sugar!

Here’s her recipe for homemade lemonade:

Juice of one lemon
Raw honey to taste (she said she only uses about a tablespoon)
Pinch of sea salt
Fill pitcher with filtered water

It’s so wonderful to be able to drink homemade lemonade with nutritious raw honey — instead of Diet Coke or other soft drinks like we used to do. The lemons come from our tree in the backyard!