Letting go

[honeybera]

Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday. BIG DEAL! I am finding that I'm WAY better off without her in my life. She's like an old and very negative memory. I no longer have the fear that she'll sneak up on me and attempt to negate any positive feelings that I'm having at the moment, so she's not even welcome in my thoughts anymore.

I think that I can safely say that I am finally comfortable in my own skin and without the constant undermining by MD!!! Last night I watched a video of Dr. Les Carter's on THERE'S NARCISSISM, THEN THERE'S MALIGNANT NARCISSISM (a really good and informative one!) and now I know that MD was/is a malignant narcissist! IN SPADES!! I am grateful and lucky to be rid of her!! I can have a creative thought and not have her scheming how she'll dash that dream or thought I might have and shame me horribly in the process.

When I went to see the doctor on the first of this month I told him about how my hands are getting painful to move certain fingers. He said it's:

Dupuytren's (du-pwe-TRANZ) contracture, a hand deformity that usually develops over years.

Hey! I just realized that my doctor didn't send me to physical therapy! I'll give him a call tomorrow for a referral. This is fairly rare to have, effects men more than women (lucky me), and can end up quite debilitating, but I'm in stage 1 (so far) and am determined to NOT allow this to get worse! I'm calling my doctor again tomorrow to get a slip to see the PT guys. They have splints for DP, too, to sleep in, and hot and cold feel nothing but good, so I have that. But I use my hands all the time. What would I do if my fingers just keep bending and getting more painful? Horrible thought!!

I did find out that there is a thing called a "Garden Auger bit" that fits onto my cordless power drill so I can dig up my garden by myself (think: FINALLY plant several of my trees AND easily refresh my containers! All by myself!! NO SPADE WORK!!). I was doing my crossword puzzles on my cell phone and the garden auger came up as an ad. YAY! What a great idea!! They've got them at Home Depot, so tomorrow I'm going over there and pick one up, refresh my containers, throw in some fertilizer and micronutrients, and plant my squash seeds. I'm taking my pickup and getting more potting soil and more straw for the yard (weed control). All 8 of my current peppers are planted over in Raised Bed #1; more are coming up under the grow lights inside, including some lovely cucumbers (Spacemaster and Sweeter Yet) that popped up 2 days ago. There are already little green tomatoes on both the Sungold and White Cherry tomatoes (both plants overwintered outside, so I trimmed them up and they are looking strong - AMAZING!) and there must be 25 lemons waiting to be picked on my tree! I've been a busy girl out there!

Time for bed now. I have a lot to do tomorrow!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

OMG! Dr. Phil today is helping a woman with agoraphobia. He defines agoraphobia as:

Extreme or irrational fear of panic or anxiety when entering open or crowded places, of leaving one's own home, or of being in places from which escape is difficult.

O-M-G!!!! Some of that describes ME! I even began to cry as he was showing what she was going through and is now discussing the WHY of it (this woman's abusive alcoholic mother leaving her alone too much as a child) because it was so similar to my own experiences. Not the exact same initial issues for me, and this poor woman can barely function at all, but I have some of these problems big time! I too have withdrawn to my bedroom where it feels more "safe" for me. It "feels like a prison" to me, too, and I know I have mentioned that feeling on here several times. (That feeling is getting better for me, BTW, but I still don't want to leave my room much. ) This lady does go outside to retrieve the mail, something that I never do, even when DS who usually does that duty is off to one of his conventions for a week or so twice yearly. The mail just builds up until he gets back.

But my agoraphobia isn't as pronounced as this woman's was/is, except for the crowded places or especially the "being in places from which escape is difficult" part. I would go freaking MAD if that happened to me!!!!!!

What confuses me about this is how I managed to drive a transit bus for all those years! Between my autism and this agoraphobia (now that it has a name I recognize), how did I survive that??? I had to deal with some pretty outrageous and nonsensical people out there (the Public) day in and day out! After my first 15-20 yrs. on the job I began to realize that to get by I just had to smile and nod. Occasionally someone would snap my head off for just saying, "Good morning." They would fire back to my greeting in a LOUD and very angry voice: "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME??!!" I would respond with a kind smile and a slight nod, "Good morning." If that didn't do it for them, I would just "shut up and drive the bus" which was often a suggestion by them next anyway. I would think in my head: they'll be off the bus in 15 min!! Let it go!! Oftentimes the 99% of passengers who were nice would say, "Hey! Leave her alone! She's a nice driver!", and the mean passenger would quiet right down, usually grumbling. I'll guess that was training for letting go of MD in my retirement. (?) Only for her, I'll just stay away from her.

According to Dr. Les Carter, the narcissist will never ever change. Granted! I hoped for years on end that MD would stop disliking me and even hating me and would suddenly see the error of her ways and become the loving, cookie-baking, caring mother that I dreamed of. But now I can assure you that that will never happen. She's 90 and I'm 72. Not going to happen!! I still love her (NOT LIKE HER, but love her), but I gave up "changing" her long ago. Dr. Carter reinforced that notion, too. Not going to happen EVER! My best bet is to love her gently (which she patently does NOT deserve!) from afar, keep my peace with myself (also gently), and try to minimize that Inner Critic in my head that loves to defeat me similar to what MD has done all my life. I need to silence those old echoes. SERIOUSLY! There is nothing that I can do to change her mind about me (since the narcissist is always right, don't ya' know!) nor is that my responsibility to do so. I can, however, change my own mind about ME, which IS my responsibility, and I am so glad that I'm taking the time and effort to do that. It's not easy, but it's necessary.

One last thing before I get back to cleaning and sorting the garage. (SO PROUD OF MYSELF: IT'S ALREADY 1/3 DONE!! You should have seen the amount of garbage we put out last night! TWO FULL CANS + a SPECIAL pickup of assorted junk + a PICKUP FULL of donatables to go tomorrow!! YAY!!!) I got a new auger (it's in the mail) so I can dig in my garden more easily with my rapidly disabling hands. I didn't know about augers until I saw them demonstrated on my cell phone while I was playing my crossword puzzle (it was an ad), so I found one made in the USA and bought it from a small mom-and-pop company. More on how it works once it gets here. Garage first though!

===============================(midnight )

Ok, I'm up late again, but DS and I were doing a lot of work in the front room! The empty cardboard boxes are mostly gone (just saved a few for odds and ends and donations) AND we moved my daughter's old sofa and coffee table from its dusty and piled up on spot to its final place in the room and vacuumed a LOT with the "indoor" shop vac. (We have one out in the garage, too, for more gross things.) There is only ONE stack of boxes (a two box square and two box high) right in the middle of everything, but that is my focus for tomorrow. DS has taken all the old VCR tapes (except for Disney tapes which I will transfer to DVDs if possible...we'll see) to donations and the pickup is filled up with more to go there. We need to get the HUGE old rolltop desk out of the Computer Room and sell it along with the little desk in the garage. It breaks into two pieces for easier moving. I used to drive (and load) for a moving company. Yes, I have done everything!

I'm also considering getting a Leg Press for the garage (once it's finished out there) along with DS's body bag that we already have and that he's just itching to put up. We just need to finish up and set it up. I think I'll just see if physical therapy has a Leg Press machine and try it out OR go to a gym and see if they do, too, and see if I like it as much as I think I will. I am appalled at what bad shape I'm in, and I really need to begin that sort of exercise. Build my strength again, and my stamina as well. I used to be very athletic when I was younger. I'd like to do all I can to improve my health again, especially as I'm now losing weight! Lots of movement...LOTS!

Lots to do tomorrow! I'd better hit the hay!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Wow! I did some cleaning out of the garage today. Now I've cleared about a good half of the floor already. But as I was tossing a ton of spidery old stuff out, in my old desk I found my old engraved cigarette lighter from high school and that I carried daily throughout my young adulthood! You can barely see my nickname etched onto it. I guess everything fades. It brought back a lot of memories for me, especially holding that lighter in my hand at my age and looking back. I quit smoking 32 yrs. ago at age 40, but I started at the tender age of 12. I thought it made me look like I was somehow "in control" or "tough". What a lie that was!! But I can really see now WHY I desired that image way back then.

So my big addictions in my past were those nasty cigarettes and food. I'm still battling the food, but I feel like I'm finally winning that battle. It should just take time. But holding that old Zippo lighter whisked me right back to where I was emotionally when I was a kid, many, many moons ago! Wow! I'm being flooded with memories, mostly tragic ones viewed from my current prospective. So here I sit telling you all about it. These thoughts would be just too uncomfortable to relive without you. Thanks for being there and having my back when moments like this pop up. ♥♥♥

Honeybera

[dancingfish]

Glad you feel you can stop by, share and process what you're feeling honeybera. It's an important part of healing, I think.

Good luck with your ongoing clear-out, it sounds like you're doing what you can and keeping yourself motivated as well. Great news that you've adjusted your WOE so it better meets your needs too! That can always be a tricky thing.

Not a lot of words here, but still reading along and thinking about you honeybera. Admittedly in part the other day when I was tackling some garden weeds, and thinking "at least they're not those goathead whippy weed things honeybera has to contend with".

Take care honeybera, wishing you lots of care and mild sunny days for your garden!

[honeybera]

Oh dancingfish! You don't know how welcome your post was just now!!!!!!!!! It was getting quite lonely to be writing without answer from anyone. I don't know quite how these things work. I see that most people just jot down this or that line as they post, but I seem completely unable to do that, not on this subject or any other. Perhaps I just have too much to say or perhaps it's the autism. Who knows?

Glad you feel you can stop by, share and process what you're feeling honeybera. It's an important part of healing, I think.

I wholeheartedly agree! I know it is part (a BIG part!!) of my own healing. I'm glad to know that you are still here with me. DS is off at one of his conventions ATM and today it hit me: even when he is here in the same house with me, just a few steps down the hallway, his door is closed most of the time and I am absolutely ALONE. It comforts me knowing that he's just a holler away, albeit behind a closed door, and although I am quite comfortable just being by myself and doing my own thing, I live a very isolated life. DS (also a high functioning autistic - it runs in families) is also off by himself a lot. He shared with me the other day that although he longs for a more brisk social life and friends, he also enjoys his alone time. Me, too!

So part of my healing is being spent trying to decide how social do I wish to be? I have still not called back my cousin(s) who have now called me and nor have I called my old coworker, now retired, who lives within 30 min. of me and also deliberately called me a couple of weeks ago. I know that to have a friend I need to be a friend. So where is my balance? How much absolute prison-like isolation can I tolerate before I timidly peek out the unlocked self-imposed cage door and seek friendship? Helluva question for me! I believe that it's the basis for the learned helplessness that I've lived with for so long now. Granted, it was caused by MD and the P-A-S-T, but now I have the controls in my hands. The prison/cage is unlocked and has been open for some time. I guess the choice is mine, but the healing up enough to walk outside the cage and avoid the pain (while I'm still avoiding the release) is somehow confusing. I am making headway, though.

Progress, not perfection [?]

Perhaps enough.

I had to LOL at your comment about those "goathead whippy weed things honeybera has to contend with". I'm glad you don't have them in your yard, that's for sure. Dreadful things! Already the whippy weed vines are swarming over my poor little Santa Rosa plum tree, suffocating it from over the fence from the neighbor's yard. I really need to get out there with my reciprocal saw and prune that tree up good. Also the neighbor's grapes are actually coming through the fence so badly that it's ripping my fence apart. And his acai berries are coming uninvited and unwelcomed over the top of the fence as they do each year. He also has peach tree limbs FULL of peach tree curl (peach disease) drooping over the fence and infecting my own trees. But they are renters and do nothing to stop it from happening. UGH. My handheld reciprocal saw (which I've never used before) should take care of many problems that are overwhelming my poor trees out there!! Cut the branches and whippys off right at the fence line, shorten the plum, and then go have a heart-to-heart with my neighbor re: the acai and the grape vines. Let's hope that works. It should.

I also have an auger (24"H x 3" drill bit) coming that will allow me to drill holes in the dirt so I can finally plant my own trees (pear, apple, and apple-pear) in the ground and refresh my many pots for this next summer with ease. DS is good, in fact very good, but planting or moving things in the garden is not his strong point. I'm even trying to find this sling thing for my WORX wheelbarrow so I can move things (like pots) around the yard myself easily without bothering him with it. But finding it out in the garage mess is challenging to say the least. That will make a huge difference to me, though, once I find that sling again. For me, independence is a very good thing!!! I'm moving the trees in the tubs over to the much cleaner dog's yard. Shade for my dogs + not nearly so much tree disease over there. Plus I have some new save-your-tree fertilizer to put on all my trees but especially Pedro, my dwarf walnut, and my new Century apple-pear that is struggling mightily to survive in a pot ATM. If it works on them, it'll work on anything!

My 10 lbs. of worm "castings" just came to the door. I have been really busy out there in the garden lately. Yesterday I planted 6 pots of different summer squashes. I love summer squash, love to cook it and love to eat it! YUM! I already have two plants up already; both are zucchini varieties. One is a Romanesco Costata (a striped and ribbed Italian zucchini) and the other is the maniacal and wildly vining Zucchino Rampicante!! I'm ready for it this year! The trellis is tied to my back fence by brackets and additional supports are already in the SmartPot. That plant gets CRAZY! (Google it!) I also have two Scallops planted last evening, one white and one golden, plus a standard looking Fordhook zucchini, a yellow straightneck, and a Golden zucchini. We'll see how it goes with so many zucchini varieties, but they all look very different from one another. I can also eat them on keto! I can't wait to have me some Zoodles (zucchini "noodles" with whatever sauce on them). :9

Great news that you've adjusted your WOE so it better meets your needs too! That can always be a tricky thing.

It seems to be that I just needed to do more activity. Not exactly "exercise", but finding something to do out in the garden/family room/front room/etc. and doing it, which serves a couple of purposes: to give me a sense of accomplishment and a lift of my spirits AND to get my mind off food until it's time to eat that One Meal A Day (OMAD). I'm rarely actually hungry; that's the beauty of keto! But I had to realize that my poor body was in seriously bad shape and that I had to repair it first. No quicky diet was going to do that and I found that I needed more patience with myself than most have to muster. But I do watch TV and am appalled at what I call "the revolving hamburger" ads for fast foods and other high carb foods. Not one block of ads shows up on the screen without at least ONE of them airing the revolving burger and/or fries and/or a Coke!! SO IRRITATING! And then right on queue: Marie Osmond (or some other skinny girl) recommending to us how to lose weight! If it gets too bad, I just turn off the regular TV stations with those terrible ads that deliberately tempt and then either turn on a good keto friendly YouTube video or sit down and read a book. OR I just slip on my shoes and go outside. I always spot a task to do out there (or in the front room or somewhere or notice that we're out of "muffins" or SOMETHING). OMAD + IF + a bit of movement, and that seems to do the trick. It works for me!

I plan to do this forever!! I can make anything I want (even a LOADED pizza, rich pan gravy, bread, pie, cake, biscuits [to go with sausage gravy], or the aforementioned Zoodles - thanks to the internet and keto recipes)!! I have been having a few cravings lately for "sweets", so tonight I made Keto Puppy Chow, a scrumptious dessert and had some after dinner. It's really a clever "fat bomb" (so it has to be frozen to be really well) and it tastes just like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, only crunchy. OMG GOOD, too! It's sort of made like Magic Shell (the coconut oil turns solid when cold), but it's homemade "Magic Shell" coating made with peanut (or almond) butter, butter, coconut oil, powdered Swerve (sweetener), and Hershey's (unsweetened!) cocoa powder, and it's a snap to make (melt it in the microwave). Pour that mixture over a gallon sized Ziploc full of pork rinds and there you have it! Seal and shake it, immediately freeze it for 30+ min., and YUMMY! I've added Maraschino Cherry extract to the choc./nut butter/coconut oil mixture, or maple extract, or raspberry or orange or whatever to change it up a little. The results are great! I usually use the almond butter if I intend to add extracts. We found a market that has a machine that grinds the nuts into "butters" for us (that means no sugar is included!!), but it can easily be done in a food processor at home. The multitude of recipe(s) for Keto Puppy Chow are online (Google). The same goes for the rest of the items listed. There are some real culinary geniuses out there!!

BTW, my cravings are all gone now.

Bedtime now...and thanks for writing back, dancingfish! I really needed that. The walls were beginning to close in on me.

Honeybera, Queen of the Whippy Weeds!

[honeybera]

WOWEE~~~~!!!!!!!!!!!

I am watching this YouTube video on my computer (because my TV won't turn on and DS is at his convention) and WOWEE!!! It's called Narcissistic Victim Syndrome 20 Signs You Have This and holy smokes!!! It is so triggering BUT also in bringing up some long forgotten memories of just how "conniving" MD was in her vicious attacks of me were!! I believe that in bringing them out of hiding in my brain and facing them as an adult, I can see them for what they were and the purpose behind them and let them go!!!!!!!!!

She just spoke of something that triggered a memory of me and my (1st) husband staying over at the ranch on a visit (100 miles from my home at the time). MD had come into the room and saw that I'd put the tiny white pre-walking shoes on my then crawling son (maybe 10 months old) without socks on. She gasped dramatically and began to shriek at me, "OMG!!!! OKIE, OKIE, OKIE!!!!!!!!!" over and over again. Well, that was a very rude and inappropriate thing to bellow out since my husband was from Oklahoma and calling someone an Okie is a punishing and undermining term from WAY back in the 1930s for those escaping the mid-USA Dust Bowl. MD comes from that escape from poverty and disease, and the sting and shame of those words were NOT unfamiliar to her. She was trying to humiliate me for the lack of socks on my diapered and T-shirted son on that hot day in the nastiest way she could, but my husband heard her from outside shrieking those words of shame at me and he BLEW UP at her. He said to me, "GET EVERYTHING! LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!!", to which I immediately agreed and grabbed up all our things and put them into the suitcase on the bed. She was saying "sorry" to him as we were tearing out of there since he was not supposed to hear that "Okie!" crack, but their relationship was never the same after that.

MD can be a real sh_t stirrer when she wants to be. She alienated both my brother and my father from me by constantly shaming me to them behind my back. I moved out of my family's house at age 18 (when I married) and never went back to live there. She, on the other hand, moved right in with her family (my beloved grandparents) right after getting married and stayed either in their house or on their property for the next 6½ yrs!! She plays by a different rule book than she expects me to, but I don't mind. It's made me as strong as I am. A bit neurotic as well but tougher than nails, thank you very much! I am happy with who I've become and who I'm becoming. So there!

=================================================

I watched a bit more of the YouTube video. Man! I can't watch it without it triggering me badly! (which is actually good). I am remembering when I was around 16 yrs. old and MD would totally and relentlessly instigate some issue with me, saying horrific things about my family or maybe just calling me filthy names that I didn't deserve, or just cursing profanities at me, until she had me REALLY upset, and so I'd eventually yell something back at her and she'd slap my face (which was the whole reason for her doing whatever to instigate this "fight" with her) to the point where felt "justified" enough so she "got to" hit me and I could do nothing in return or else she'd "tell my father" and I'd get punished from him - "We're a UNITED FRONT!", she'd gloat. She'd insult me in any way she could and I'd finally snap and scream something back at her and WHACK, right across my face. It was the end result that she was looking for all along. And then I'd say to her, "Is that how you get your jollies? HIT ME AGAIN!!" and I'd stand there defiantly, and she'd hit me again across the face. "HIT ME AGAIN!!!" and we'd do this for a long time, her smacking me, front-hand and back-hand across the face as hard as she could and me standing there in defiance, taking it without a tear. She'd finally stop eventually, and I'd turn and rock-jawed go to my room...and once in there with the door closed, I'd dissolve into heartbroken tears.

Now I look back on this deplorable treatment of me by MD and I see things very differently. Was she a MONSTER? Sure. But she was also a true narcissist. She wasn't egging me on (although I was the one there and the target of her rage). She hated herself, never felt "good enough", and in some twisted way, in her own mind, she hated the "OTHER FEMALE" in the home, but it was really herself that she hated so much. She felt she could not "compete" with me. She always tried to "win" the competition, but felt like she was lacking. And she lived in a "movie star" world where everything was perfect, or at least should have been, and she fought her demons to achieve that. She was a poor man's Joan Crawford and is a very sick woman!!

When DS worked for her (a short time helping first with my father and a couple of months years later after her stroke), she tried the same darned thing to draw me into a fight with her by picking on DS and accusing him of dreadful things (like reading her will when he didn't even know where it was). But this time it did NOT work, even when she tried to cause a divide between my own daughter and her little brother, both of whom worked there for her. My DS had long hair at the time and she had DD buy him bobby pins to "put it up" while shaming his masculinity while wearing them. (She's like that.) She said he smelled bad (a total lie) and gave his wages to his sister who has a spending problem. It went on and on until he finally asked me if he could quit and I said sure! That was the day I quit working myself. I was due to retire in Feb. and this was early Sept., so I just came home and never went back. It worked out better that way. MD did cause some problems, and she never did pay my son (I did instead - screw her, mean old thing!!!), and it all worked out.

It's very healthy for me to look back on what happened to me as the daughter of MD. I can, as we say in the bus driving business, "see the entire traffic picture" now. Both what she did to me and WHY she did it. The what and why neither one had anything to do with ME. I was just THERE, and someone to take the blows that she could not give to others for reasons she could not admit to herself.

Another thing that I'm hearing in all these "narcissistic YouTube videos" is just how little could be served to go talk to her. NOTHING, not one bloody thing, would ever change her mind or temperament. So why bother? But the more I UNDERSTAND the why's and wherefore's, the better I feel!!! I guess anyone can conceive a child and give birth. You can be 17 and have a heart filled with anger and a mind full of confusion about what matters in life. I am sorry that I did not fulfill the "plot line" that she fantasized her life would take (caused by my "original sin" due to my sex when born). But then she was stuck with me, and her disappointment turned into bitter resentment and overwhelming shame, and I became her target for all that pent-up R-A-G-E from her own childhood!!! I do understand that. Doesn't mean I'm going to go see her (sadly), but someone has to protect me from her, and that someone is ME!

I got 10 thirty gallon pots today (for green beans and other things), which made me THRILLED, but it's raining out there. I also need to go get the already ordered potting soil for them (½ the size of the HUGE 3cu. ft. bags that I can barely lift!!) plus go pick up some bales of straw (mulch) for weed control, some steer manure blend, azomite, all kinds of micronutrients, and fill, fill, fill those pots!! I also got my new 2 3/4" x 24"auger to refresh my old pots and help me dig and plant some trees. DS will be home soon to help me (can't wait!!). Also my TV is dead (?). I need him to look at that, too, before I replace it. I really miss my TV.

Yikes! 2am again! I need to get out there tomorrow if possible (if it's not raining) and in the garage (if it is).

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Sunday 5/19/19
DS will be home tomorrow...THANK GOD! I really have missed him! I need his final say in whether or not my TV is dead. If he says it is, then it really is. I'll have him bring the old 42" "NOT SMART" TV in (at least I can watch my DVR'd shows) from the front room and order a new TV (definitely a SMART one so I can watch YouTube and Netflix on it). It never fails that when DS leaves for a convention, all hell breaks loose in his absence! I did not realize just how much I'd miss my TV, but DS? Oh yeah! I knew that him I'd miss.

Also wanted to share that I just caught my reflection in my sliding glass door and WOW! Have I lost weight!! I can even see it (even in my muumuu!). I've noticed it in the difference in my face already, both that I can see and feel when pinching my cheeks. I used to be able to pinch about 2", but now it's only like a ½". AND NOW I can see where my pot belly (THE #1 primary indication of Insulin Resistance) is FINALLY shrinking and my back fat rolls, too. (Nearly gone compared to before!) I LOVE THIS WOE!! Tonight I fried some chicken thighs in lard (so they'd have crispy skins because I LOVE the crispy skins AND I like cold chicken thighs in the fridge for a quickie meal), some steamed zucchini with butter+S&P, and had a freshly baked almond flour Maple-Nut (flavored) muffin and some Bulletproof coffee. Not many veggies tonight, but I'm really low on veggies ATM. I'm "full enough" though, so I'm good.

What a way to lose weight! Eat high fat and "rich" foods to lose fat...but it works, even for me! For me, it just took a little (ok, a LOT) longer than most. But with my medical history (and even a pot belly when I was just a kid, probably due to the increased cortisol [stress hormone] levels due to the constant physical and mental abuse by MD which naturally spiked insulin [fat storage hormone] and caused early stages of insulin resistance (pot belly) plus had gestational diabetes THREE times (once with each child) plus Type 2 diabetes diagnosed for the last 20 yrs. and for how long before that?), I'm only surprised and grateful that it's working at all! It's so easy to do (once I learned and studied it from all those YouTube videos I faithfully watched from dietdoctor dot com, BeALoser dot today dot com, and good old Butter Bob Briggs and many, many others). I'll never quit eating this way!!

Amazingly, it's NOT the food itself, but the time away from it that does the trick, which is easy, too, since all that fat intake I have prevents me from being hungry. That's why OMAD is so easy, too. If I was on glucose (sugar of all kinds, even eating fruit or starchy veggies), I'd be starving again in an hour or two. (Think of the joke about Chinese food: mostly veggies and rice, and the hunger is back in an hour.) That's why reducing the calories doesn't work after a while. The hunger and/or cravings get in the way. I've been doing it for years and it hasn't worked for me. You lose some and then go off the diet and eat again, but this time you gain just a little more...over and over again. But the answer is eat VERY low carb whenever you do eat, and fast all of the other time. And having studied so many doctors lecturing on the WHY of it, I understand the WHY of it, too. Dr. Jason Fung, a nephrologist from Toronto, is the best I've found on fasting. BY FAR!! I truly believe that this man (and all his videos) have saved my life!

Trust me, with about 110 more lbs. to lose AND the ability to eat anytime I want to (versus starvation, which is MUCH different due to its being mandatory, ie, NO FOOD AVAILABLE!!), I'm not afraid that I'll "go too far" or become anorexic by accident! The trick (or diet hack as they call it) is that fat floats. Toss a stick of butter in water and the darned thing FLOATS. And fat floats in the stomach, too, giving a wonderful feeling of satiety (fullness/no hunger) for a very long time. Glucose (sugar of all kinds) goes right into the bloodstream and/or liver (why I had "fatty liver" disease initially that had to heal up first), spiking the insulin off the charts, and the body has to get rid of the glucose (SUGAR burning) first! (It's the body's rule! ) Then, and only then, it uses up the ketones as fuel (fat burning), but if there's an excess of glucose, glucose gets used up first. And not because glucose is "better", but because it's worse. Glucose in the bloodstream is like tiny crystals that are sharp and can cut. It can cause heart, lung, brain, eye, kidney, liver, and all sorts of other damages. I had one eye "done" (lens replaced) due to damage from diabetes (high blood sugars/glucose), but the other eye, on keto for some time now since the surgery, has not progressed any. Only afterward did I learn that high blood sugar is often the culprit here and why I had so much lens damage in the first place. So many health benefits from this WOE!

100% of carbs eaten are turned into glucose and spikes insulin immediately; 45% of protein spikes insulin, but fats are about a 0% spike. Now the terms Insulin Resistance/hyperinsulinemia and Type 2 diabetes (or even PRE-DIABETIC) ALL MEAN THE SAME THING (basically). IT MEANS THAT YOU'RE IN TROUBLE and need to change some things. And quickly. I found out in time, thank God! But barely!! Now my main goal is to minimize my insulin (not take MORE, for Pete's sake, which is what most doctors do!!!!) so my blood sugars will reduce to a normal level. I've fought my way back to a "pre-diabetic" state for the first time in at least 20 yrs! THAT is a MIRACLE!!!

I was thinking today about one of my FORMER favorite pastimes of my youth: buying a one or two pound box of See's Candies (whatever I could afford) and eating them ALL to my head IN ONE SITTING!! If I get those cravings again, albeit they are milder now, I can just make some "fat bombs" and eat one or two PIECES as a dessert to dinner. They usually consist of chocolate powder (unsweetened of course), art. sweetener (like erythritol or Stevia or LIQUID Splenda), nuts and/or nut butter (pecans or almonds are the best), butter, melted coconut oil, flavorings or toasted unsweetened coconut (opt.), all mixed up and poured into tiny candy molds and frozen. They are VERY filling!!! Floats on the stomach, don't ya' know. Doesn't take much to feel really full, either. They can be made of cream cheese, too, and flavored with strawberry, lemon, orange...just about anything really. There are also savory fat bomb recipes that include bacon, eggs, and avocado. To be overwhelmed with various "Fat Bomb" recipes from many of the best Keto cooks out there, try Google "Keto Fat Bomb Recipes". So no, I'm rarely 'HUNGRY'. We ketovangelists have our ways. But if I ate a two pound box of Fat Bombs to my head right now: #1 I'd get sick of eating them WAY before I'd finish the box! They are tasty...IN MODERATION. And #2 I'd never get off the toilet! Too much fat acts as a laxative. Hands down, I'd be the "cleanest" kid in town!

I'm actually working on finding a good almond flour keto friendly bread with a really nice crumb and no "eggy" taste. Hard to find, I can assure you! I'd also like the recipe for tortillas and naan done the same way. I just bought some applewood smoked bacon that I'd like to pair with some tomatoes, homemade mayo, and some crispy lettuce all wrapped up in a nice "bread-like" wrapper of some sort! OH DROOL!!! I need to get my mind off of all of this yummy food stuff!

But I can see the daily improvement even without the scale. And tonight my muumuu clad body proved it to me as I caught the glimpse of my own reflection! YAY!!! SO HAPPY!!!!

Honeybera

[dancingfish]

Aw honeybera, celebrating with you! Well done on seeing some results from all your hard work for a healthier and happier life. :)

[there]

Yay, Honeybera! You go!

[honeybera]

dancingfish and there!!!! So good to hear from you! ♥♥

Big news! My ever-present TV just needed to be unplugged and plugged back in. Seems it "froze". So glad to have DS back!!! He fixed it in a snap. But (isn't there always a "but"?) now my remote stopped working! I'm waiting for DS to wake up to see what's wrong with it. Already put in new batteries. It wasn't that. I am amazed recently at how obviously addicting the TV is in my life. It mimics actual f2f interaction for me. I really need to do something (as safely as possible) to remedy that. I'm addressing my own loneliness (or at minimum aloneness) lately. If I didn't have this as an outlet, I'd be friendless. Sad that! I really need to fix this! I think the TV ceasing to work (even for a short time) was a very good thing, and a real wake-up call to me.

I was out there tonight watering my garden...until it began to rain on me! I stopped. It's still lightly raining now (after dark), but everything looks good out there. DS said that he'd help me in any way I need him. PERFECT! There is a LOT to do out there! First things first: I need to GET TO BED BEFORE 5 OR 6 OR 7 AM so that I can get up way before 3 OR 4 OR 5 PM and NOT after all the nurseries and the straw place are CLOSED!!! I wonder why I get so screwed up in NOT WANTING TO sleep during the wee hours. Is this an "old age" thing??? After June 1, I am going to NEED to be up in the morning to water and to beat the 90º-100ºF (OR WORSE!!) heat! From late June though late Sept. OY! So now is the time to correct this crazy sleep thing. When I sleep, I sleep deeply and solidly for 9-12 hrs. at a time. I just need to figure out how to relax and GET to sleep!

Speaking of the garden: many of my 8 varieties of squash are peeking out by now or growing like crazy. My Sweeter Yet cucumber is sitting in my bathroom tonight with leaves aplenty and tomorrow will be going out to sit on a nice little shady/sunny ledge underneath my stilted herb planters for a couple of hours to "harden off", back and forth inside and out for several days. I have its new permanent home all ready for it, complete with a nice little trellis ready to go. Little by little my garden is shaping up. I have one little squash of UNKNOWN origin on my busy footpath to the main garden area and the dog's yard, so I think that I'll dig it up tomorrow and transplant it to a safer spot.

OR I'll just cover it for the time being with these 8" heavy plastic pots I got for covering the ant poisons that will protect the poisons from the dogs, but still let the super annoying ants in through the many ½" holes in them! They're strong enough to have a brick or heavy rock placed on top of them without fear of collapsing, weighting them down so the dogs can't get in and eat the poison, and yet they are very perforated and accessible with the tiny ½" cutouts. People use these heavy duty pots for hydroponics usually. This should solve my ants-eating-the-dog's-food problem!! I put a can of food out and the ants swarm all over it within a couple of minutes. The dogs can't even eat it! UGH! So I came up with this plan. We'll see how it works. Sunday is SUPPOSED to be the LAST of the rain in this area, so Monday I'll set up little "ant stations" all over the yard. They're supposed to eat this "ant food" and take it back to the queen who also ingests it and also DIES. We'll see. Fingers crossed!!

I got my bean seeds and "bean poles" (actually very tall tomato cages) today along with another 10 thirty gallon Smart Pots. I have already purchased the smaller version of those massive 3 cu. ft. bales of potting soil; these new ones (on sale of course) are only 1.5 cu. ft. each (which I can lift all by myself!!) and I can get up to 60 of them. I've already paid for 30 of them, but it's hard to know exactly how many of them I'll need. I'll get those tomorrow or Saturday. I'm getting my STRAW MULCH for the dog's yard tomorrow, too, to place the currently potted fruit trees on along with the new pots for my bean plants and the squash plants. Tomatoes are next to the Raised Beds 1, 2, and 3 (currently my soil mixing bed). All the peppers are already in RB #1. More will go into RB #2, the ones that have sprouted under the grow lights. They're not quite ready for the outside yet, but I'm not quite ready for them either.

It's heading on to 11PM already. I have to stop typing, put the dishes in the dishwasher, and HEAD TO BED! I'm not even hungry tonight. I had a muffin and a Bulletproof coffee, my style, (1 t. Folger's instant coffee, a good shake of Saigon cinnamon, a dropperful of LorAnn Cream Cheese Icing flavored oil, a gob of butter - 1 T.?, 3 squirts of DaVinci's German Choc. Cake syrup - SUGAR FREE of course, a glug or two of HWC - 2-4 T?, and fill the coffee cup to the top with filtered water from the fridge door - and NUKE it in the microwave for 2 min 10 sec., stir well and enjoy! - OMG, YUMMY!) I had this at around 5pm. I'm honestly NOT HUNGRY. So my fast starts here. 5pm-5pm. OMAD. Works for me. And besides, if I'm asleep, I'M FASTING!

Busy Farmer Honeybera!!!