Previous post on weight & health: Wheat is the culprit I've spent most of my life as a thin person. I was a skinny kid and then a gym rat who constantly struggled to stay down at a size 10 or under. My raging sweet tooth that never stopped somehow never tipped the...
After my year of austerity (drastically reduced sugar, dairy and grains), I totally indulged last week when I visited familia in Houston, Texas. I ate cookies and cupcakes and pie. I also had grain-y foods like pancakes and tamales because I wanted to take a break...
Last week I got all excited because my period was late and I fantasized that I'd entered menopause and was never going to menstruate again. Anyone who thinks menopause is very uncomfortable and I'm crazy to want it, here are two points: 1. Menstruation with fibroids...
I'm amazed to blog this, but after a year of struggling with horrific cramping, today is day two of my period and I'm not in agony! Four ibuprofen every 3-4 hours has kept me comfortable, as in PAIN-FREE. Oh, my god. I'm so, so grateful. I can hardly believe it. I'd...
Previous post on weight & health: Physical vs. emotional Last November I cut grains, sugar, dairy and caffeine out of my diet. That means that on most days of the week I didn't indulge in any of those things, but periodically I had each of them in turn as the...
Doing "cleanses" is a popular practice, which usually means temporarily purging certain foods from your diet and taking some kind of supplement (often a juice or shake) to help your body release toxins. I think afterwards many people just go back to the way they were...
During a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Jon Krakauer said his 1996 climbing of Mount Everest was a mistake. This is startling because in his 1997 book Into Thin Air, he explains that reaching that summit was a dream he'd had all his life. In many ways, it...
(My original post about my fibroid tumor is here.) So I decided to go with the Lupron treatment for my uterine fibroid tumor symptoms, but in the two weeks since my doctor appointment, their office has been having a hard time getting the paperwork through. The cogs of...
Someone from the Midwest Institute for Minimally Invasive Therapies commented on a recent post and sent me a link to the Chicago Fibroid Clinic. I'm passing it on for anyone who is suffering with fibroids and considering a hysterectomy. What I forget is that the...
So, I've been battling horrible menstrual cramps for months now and I've gone as far as I can with acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal supplements, diet, meditation and exercise. After eight months of drastically changing the way I eat and getting good results, the...
Last November, I cut out sugar, grains, dairy and caffeine at the suggestion of a doctor who identified those things as contributing to my hormones being out of balance. Having gone on this type of diet a few times in my life, it's felt familiar even though it's also...
Previous post on weight & health: The tyranny of sugar is over In my last post I wrote that I believe I could get physically hooked on sugar again, but not emotionally. Those can be hard to distinguish, but what I mean is that when I cut out sugar last November,...
49 candles ablaze Previous post on food & fatness: Sweet dreams Now I know I've truly turned a corner on my sugar addiction. On the morning after my birthday party, with a quarter of my birthday cake sitting in my refrigerator, I wasn't even tempted to have cake...
My hair stylist recently made a comment about her children's definition of "old." She seemed to dislike their idea that she was just a couple of years away from being old, but I disliked her dislike. I said, "I don't think there's anything wrong with being old." She...
Part I is here. The worst of the sleep disruption went away by the third night after she stopped taking Norco, but her mood plummeted the next day. She woke up feeling anxious, tense and worried. In the mirror she saw an ugly person with a ruined middle aged body. She...