Drastic Times

 From my scant blogging over the past year, I’ve managed to talk about my struggles with getting healthy. In the past few months, I hit a major setback with what seems to be the very natural but sometimes devastating signs of perimenopause. The more severe and frequent parts being hot flashes, increased bouts of chronic and localized pain and mood swings. Diet and exercise have been difficult to adjust and I ended up putting back on the weight I struggled to lose over two years plus about ten pounds. Despite circuit training and tracking diet (both calories and macros). I tried fasting for longer intervals, both two weekly 36 hour fasts and the infrequent three day fasts. Fasting helps the chronic issues a lot but I haven’t gotten any weight loss breakthroughs. And really, most fasting blogs and advice are coming from young healthy men (and rarely women) so their advice is rarely reflective of what I, a middle aged obese woman with questionable health obstacles, can actually expect to experience or safely do. 

However, I worked up to my current situation and know how to read my body. Early on in the fast, I consumed tea and black coffee but that seemed to cause more problems that it fixed so the last two days have been water and slowly sipping high sodium broth because I don’t want to have a fragile infant’s digestive system after this. Therefore, supplementing a proper level of electrolytes has been key. I take potassium and magnesium in capsule form in the morning with a lot of water then save a probiotic and high sodium broth for the night. Sometimes I do need to take Pepto Bismol, omeprazole or famotidine at night to ease my stomach for sleep but I have not experienced insomnia (and have slept pretty great throughout). It’s really important that if your prolonged fasts are not supervised to take into consideration how your medications will affect you and to never think fasting will be more beneficial by eliminating medication or electrolytes. These do not make fasting results more effective and can cause chronic health issues or worsen current ones if you buy into ‘clean’ fasting bullshit. The same extreme diet and exercise you could get away with as a healthy 20 year old could kill you later. A safe and intuitive fast beats a ‘clean’ fast any day. Also, be advised that you may benefit more from a fasting-mimicking diet, which is often the ‘extremities’ that diabetics are put on. Personally, I do better cutting out solid foods and calorie worries altogether and just use electrolytes as my safety net.

I might have forgotten to mention I am reaching the last 10% of a five day fast. You may have heard you’ll get mental clarity and focus and energy, which I haven’t gotten outside of the second and third days and never for long. I also have inattentive ADHD so hyperfocus and no focus at all are the only two settings I normally have and wouldn’t know what ‘increased focus’ actually means for someone like me. Since the pandemic and moving, I haven’t been medicated for it but outside of working, I don’t need it and I’d rather reserve going back on stimulants for when I’m able to work again. So I can’t attest to whether focus or clarity is actually a positive of fasting because I didn’t really experience anything like that. Just like taking Adderal tends to give the average person meth-like powers of cleaning and laser focus, it really just slows me down so I can socialize and react a bit more controllably.

The worst part can be the hunger pangs (which also never quite went away for me but only ever dulled) and the almost hallucinogenic obsession with food. I can smell it and nearly taste it with enhanced memory and I get insane inspiration for recipes that just dance in my head with powerful clarity. And despite the fact that food obsession is almost torturous while fasting, I record or plan how I will eat afterwards, which actually reduces the risk of overfeeding or outright bingeing. But since I’m a soul cooker, I don’t actually have set recipes; I season to taste and experience so I can definitely list off what I use but can’t guarantee you will balance it the way I do. 

The other negative for me is that anything I ingest outside of the supplements and water can turn into a nasty shart later. Not in my clothes because the Bucket List movie’s ‘never trust a fart’ is so true but having to run to the bathroom for a weak coffee colored wet fart is annoying so that’s why I end up ditching the coffee and tea beyond the second day. However, the supplements are useless without sodium and plain salt water is awful so the high sodium broth is a necessity. I just have to be mindful to either dilute it a lot or sip it very slowly between lots of water or I’ll be hitting the toilet.

This is where I have to assert; these small spurts aren’t dangerous, but take them as yellow flags to discontinue. Because of the dark coloring, it was an obvious symbol of tea and coffee being the culprit. However if you expel a full bout of loose stool or outright water, start eating a small amount of food and break the fast gently and immediately. Even taking electrolytes, frequent urination or an expulsion of diarrhea are immediate signs you’re losing way too many electrolytes and need proper nutrients now. Don’t wait this out or try to bear through it or you can end up heading to the emergency room.

That shouldn’t scare you but it needs to be a proper warning. Don’t feel guilty if you need to end a fast you haven’t tried before or aren’t prepared for yet. I’ve had setbacks but I give myself proper healing time then try again.

I should note that because I’ve had so many weight loss setbacks that this 5 day fast has no weight loss goals attached in the least. I’m not even going to weigh for that reason. This is because I’ve experienced autophagy (pronounced aw-TAW-fuh-jee) benefits for pain and inflammation on previous three day fasts and I’ve since read about extending autophagy and am really hoping it can balance my hormones and reduce pain to make my diet and exercise routines (which are more than sufficient otherwise) more effective.

Which brings me to the benefits that make me fight the worst and keep going. Hot flashes, gone. You actually get cold easier while fasting (that much is actually true) so I’ve done something I haven’t been able to do all summer: turn the AC off for hours at a time. I would love to be able to enjoy this along with energy in the future but this is huge for now. Secondly, HUGE reduction in chronic and localized pain. I have both fibromyalgia and touch and go issues with hips, ankle and toes and all of those have been significantly dulled over the course of fasting. Although lethargy and brain fog have not been so magically affected, I’ll take those two things alone and embrace them as evidence enough.

I do advise you research autophagy. There have been proven studies for its effectiveness in slowing and even reversing some aspects of aging, preventing and even treating cancer (again, if you have cancer, this is something you’ll want to okay with your doctor still), cell regeneration and renewal as well as disposal of old and ineffective cells, and even healing old aches and wounds that therapy and medication haven’t quite helped. Even the revised version of how it works can be quite lengthy, so I’ll pique your curiosity to begin with that. It starts with what to expect in fasting stages (anabolic, catabolic, fat burning, ketosis and deep ketosis) and those will often coincide with how to activate autophagy and what the results can be with extended fasting. What I have read on autophagy during five day fasting has intrigued me. I initially intended to do at least four days but since I am still feeling okay decided to go for five. 3 days can go a really long way with digestion and immunity but you’ll start to involve increased stem cell production and musculoskeletal repair if you keep it going. It’s really interesting how your body starts to assign different jobs when digestion isn’t demanding so much energy and your body becomes more efficient at using what is left. And at the same time, your hunger hormones will still keep screaming at you about attaining food so you don’t just give up and starve. This is largely why I don’t seek to ignore or suppress the desire for food. That is not something you ever want to lose. Instead, rein in on how you can use food thoughts efficiently later. If it’s really becoming too much on your willpower, you may want to do something a little physically exhausting (but not to the point of dizziness or fainting) to sleep off some of the fasting period. 

I absolutely intend on sleeping off the last eight hours. Ten o’clock tonight is bedtime and by 6 AM I’ll have conquered this five day journey. I truly hope I’ve achieved the level of autophagy I need to knock through some health issues but if nothing else, I never lose hope and I never stop trying.

I would love to reach more people on the reality of obesity and personal struggle, to stop people from assuming obesity means a lack of effort or laziness or pretending it’s concern to shame or belittle people or even shower them with good intentions and unsolicited advice without knowing anything about the many medical hurdles and conditions that can make all of the CICO/hot yoga/etc banter just die. It’s lazy ‘advice’ and there’s nothing kind or eye-opening about it. I was healthy, athletic, full of energy and a normal weight up until I very suddenly wasn’t. Circuit training and strict dieting worked to get me close to a normal BMI until it didn’t. I wish I could say what will work next but I don’t know. I’ve never imagined there would be a place where P90X3 and a managed diet wouldn’t work. And more terrifying, that I’d watch the weight pile on plus a little more WHILE I was so carefully dieting and exercising. But when something doesn’t make sense, there are complex levels that only working with a doctor MAY help me breakthrough.

I couldn’t get a doctor appointment for blood tests until late August. I didn’t want a long fast to mask any levels or concerns that might help me get accurate treatment which is why I’m doing it now. By the time I go, I will have literally tried every healthy path I could. I’m actually hoping there is some pesky food intolerance I can eliminate or some hormonal therapy that can correct whatever is happening because… let me tell you, it’s taking every ounce of optimism and determination and self-love to face this. I can never have a model slim body but I sure as hell want to build a strong healthy one. The sort that will have me firing off my creative energy without physical limitations again! I can’t tell you how much I’m obsessed with being that person again.

And I blog this nitty gritty BECAUSE I didn’t see much representing the experience of people in a similar demographic. Ffs, we don’t just get here and give up and we need to hear there’s hope! Keep finding your health and peace, ladies! To the rest of you, I’m rooting for you too but biologically, my experiences probably aren’t going to do you much good and that’s okay too. I’m hoping the foray into autophagy might be enlightening though!

Magic Pill

There are few diagnoses that ever led to solutions for problems in my life. Bipolar Type II, sure, fibromyalgia, ouch, GERD, eh... The list went on with little relief, each one not really explaining where my energy and focus went and why treating them wasn't making them come back.

ADHD. Didn't really think that was it. I internalized unexplained anxiety, causing mood swings and lack of impulse control. I wasn't an outward exhibitor, largely because surviving in my environment meant a poker face and suppressive methods. Rather than becoming more socially adept, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with not being able to get it. Any of it.

However, I was willing to accept anything a doctor could tell me, get back on medications and be honest with myself. It wasn't until I started taking Vyvanse that I started really seeing myself. The body aches are less. The focus and energy to actually do things I love is back. I'm working on projects more often and having less anxiety about the unfinished things, just enjoying what I'm doing in the moment. With ADHD, there is a tendency to either have no focus or an intense stubborn focus on one thing. I'm both more flexible with having to put something down and less anxious about starting things.

I'm not going to say it's a miracle, but it's promising. A little stimulant is helping me wrangle my brain without the fear I'm becoming too numb or losing myself. It's helping me get back what matters most.

Vyvanse isn't for everyone. I've known some who do better with Adderall. What comforts me about Vyvanse is its lower addictive properties. If longer term side effects are negative, it's less damaging to withdraw from it.

I've been the frustrated Guinea pig in the past but my resolve to be honest about my problems, even when I'm confused, is making a big difference. Public knowledge of ADHD, autism and mental illness is making doctors more aware of what to ask confused patients. Because I'm very intelligent, ADHD was overlooked. Of course, ADHD was once attributed to hyperactive children who struggle with tests. Until markers like focus were examined (I aced tests but skirted around homework. Did class work well but never studied.), doctors were missing what made me awkward, sensitive and frustrated. Teachers were struggling to understand the extremities.

I talk about this because every story can help someone make a breakthrough. People CAN find a way to live their best life if they can learn to balance their chemistry. Now, I'll never be normal, sometimes inappropriate, always socially awkward, but when something can blow away the fog and pain that doesn't make sense, what is left is room for what I want.

I always wondered why Adderall didn't speed me up like it did my peers. But now it makes sense why it was just making me feel the normal that people talked about.

I hope Vyvanse is a lasting solution. I've had very little luck in the past, but a whole lot of hope. Maybe now I can start to do more normal things, like drive a car or go on a date. Okay, maybe just drive. I've never been that interested in dating.

Anyways, back to crochet for tonight. Quite a bit to do before Christmas!

Adding an edit here, something I don't often do. I am very optimistic but when it comes to drugs, I feel the need to be more responsible about my observations.

Mornings suck. When I wake up, I immediately take a handful of medicines to shake off the feeling of being 80 years old. Sour or cramping stomach, body aches everywhere, lethargy. I walk the boys to school feeling like I'm hiking up a bumpy mountain. It takes about half and hour to an hour for everything to make me feel normal and it's almost euphoric to get there. Keep in mind, that euphoria isn't somehow making normal people superhuman and happy. If you don't need drugs like Adderall or Vyvanse, you might feel more focused or hyper, but your risk of dependency and the downside of negative side effects more than someone who does. Because people who are using a drug they don't need are abusing it, and that comes with all the things addicts are often in denial of.

I don't mean to lecture my readers, but it's so important to understand the messages we hear about drugs. At the grocery store up the street from my house, a man was overdosing on heroin in the parking lot. We live in a world where people are chasing false highs at alarming rates and the denial is even greater.

So I hope you understand that my magic pill is simply helping me function on a normal adult level. I'm not free of problems and anxieties, I'm just in a place where my body stops giving me so many false signals. I'm experiencing benefits like impulse control, focus, energy, things people take for granted. I can't blame people for taking things for granted because everyone is struggling.... All the same, where I mostly function as a scared teenager, I've been able to come out of my shell a bit to do things the rest of the world does easily.

I feel incredibly lucky that I can work with doctors who care. Right now, that is largely due to being on poor people's insurance. I can't stress enough how much ALL Americans, even ones who can afford it, should not have to pay for basic or life saving medical needs. So I'm going to close with that. Medicare for ALL. Americans can't be our greatest if we aren't healthy!

I Know, But I Don't So I Wish You Well

While I did have a good relaxing weekend--got to spend time with one of my best friends, Emily--it was also a pretty bad week for an alarming number of my friends that lost pets.

When Frodo, my toy poodle/fox terrier mix, died, the two months after that, I wasn't sane. I was hearing his bark and running outside as if Dad left him out there again. I'd wake up thinking he was cold and needed a blanket when I knew damn well he was buried in our backyard under fresh snow. It wasn't pretty but I'd just lost a dear human friend the year before and I didn't have a gauge for the grief of losing a pet that was a huge part of my day to day life.

As if there is one, but I'll get to that.

My cat died six months later. Both my cat and dog weren't euthanized but if I could go back, I would have taken that route. Watching my dog die of congestive heart failure over a few days and then watching a tumor growing on my cat, lonely in the basement because it kept bursting, were traumatic. I can't imagine they were happy to suffer through it as well. Yet it was because I saw their suffering that I was able to gracefully let my mother go. I don't find in mercy in the kind of hope that makes people dangle those they love on the miserable edges of a finished life. It's not even selfish to say that those who go on living need to let go rather than prolong the grief. I still feel the guilt of how my cat and dog died, but I am at peace with my mom's passing.

As I was saying, there is no gauge, no way to prepare, but I have a hard time bringing people close. I think of the misery of what it would be to lose the family I already have. I even think of their misery if I go first. And then I don't think about it because those thoughts can never prepare me for the reality. 

So while I know grief takes on many forms, I also can't tell you I was ever more or less despondent with any incident. There's not a ranking and I despise when people try to compare grief. It's always a black hole with no edges. Whether you lose a child or a baby squirrel you were trying to nurse back to health, if you ever got the warm fuzzies from that life, then your grief swallowed you. 

Time does factor in. Even though I feel the clench of loss and shed tears for all of them still, my grief is beyond the hole without edges. I can somewhat recall the floating nothingness but I can't tell you I know how you feel. Pain is not something we tend to remember vividly, no matter how much we think so.

Because it's funny like that. At one of my lowest points, I went mentally numb and cut myself but didn't feel it. A sense of wonder crept in and I kept dragging the scissors over the cut and the nerves were dead. It's not the sadness that is most dangerous, but that numbness beyond it. When we're crying and sulking, we are feeling and processing, but when it stops, when someone seems serene, you best believe that is where you have to keep an eye on someone. Pain can reach a point where it simply becomes ineffective in warning us of what is wrong. While severe pain may resurface and feel familiar, it is not ever the same. We do not remember; fresh pain will always just feel like the worst pain. We can even empathize to the point of physical pain, but...

I'll never tell you I know how you feel or pretend I'm an expert on what you're going through. Those places are lonely and the people around us will feel helpless. They'll try to empathize or cheer you up and it will probably piss you off or add a layer of guilt for pushing them away. Let people annoy you and hover on the edges. They're there because they want to be, so the guilt is one-sided. They want to make sure you're feeling, that you're not going numb, that you're not suddenly euphoric and generous as so many people on the edge of suicide sometimes are. Your anger probably makes them relieved that you're exhibiting any emotion at all.

You might push people out of your life. That happens. Sometimes your grief is making them depressed or frustrated and they need to move on. Sometimes you'll also bring people in who understand you better. You will never be the same and you don't want to be. Your life from then on is without the one that died and learning to find the edges and see around it means you can't focus on making everyone else okay with how you adapt. It doesn't make you or them good or bad--it means you're incompatible and you move on.

So all I can do for my friends in their time of loss is say that I hope I can be there on the edges. I hope our paths, even if they separate, will cross again. I want you to find your new life on the other side of the chaos, whether you bring anyone with you or have to leave your old life behind.

I know your pain, but not really, so I just wish you well.

Flower Power and Meanings

Ooo, why not flex some of my florist muscle with this one!

In case, you haven't caught on (and it is missable so don't feel oblivious), these posts are becoming inspired by the introduction of the character that appears in the color-porn feature I've been adding to the end of each post. In the last one, we had Freesia promised for today, which is the name of a soapy smelling flower (if that candle in Cracker Barrel was accurate), so why not lead into her with a post about flowers?

This could be a book or twelve in its entirety since there's no real way to cover all of the meaning associated with flowers. Roses alone have a catalog of 'meanings' by color: red (passion/love), yellow (caring/friendship), white (I can't forget you). There are a ton of natural varieties and many more manmade/cultivated varieties. Flowers themselves are quite simple and rewarding to hybridize-- alstroemeria (also called Peruvian lily), a customer favorite for their price and beauty alike, are only cultivated in a few greenhouses over the entire world and are one of the easiest to vary. Wikipedia alone lists 122 named varieties, with most of them being South American.

Stargazer (oriental lily)

Easter lily

Lilies tend to be a widespread favorite. Stargazers are among the most visually captivating and smell fantastic. Easter lilies are the most powerfully fragrant, but like all lilies, have messy pollen clustered stamens once bloomed (if you're a lily lover, then you know that a barely opened pair of scissors or a pair of rubber gloves is handy for stripping those off-- lily pollen stains bright yellow). Lilies are another variety that have just as many meanings as varieties and, while you tend to see them a lot at funerals, I've always thought of them as 'fireworks flowers', looking like just-popped explosions of light.

Fall mum varieties

Sticking with the most salable all-season varieties I dealt with as a florist, another popular showstopper flower with a staggering amount of varieties: chrysanthemums (mums). You've probably seen a ton of them hitting stores for Mother's Day since they are an inexpensive and hardy favorite along with petunias, begonias, pansies, daisies-- 'mom flowers.'

Spider Mum

Aside from the common miniature varieties you buy potted, we also got in the long stem cut variety of spider mums, one of my personal favorites next to stargazers in terms of sheer aesthetics (another 'fireworks flower'). You'll often see rainbow varieties when sold cut; like carnations, they absorb water fast so soaking the stems in food dyes gives brilliant results. Natural varieties can be very colorful as well. Again, meanings vary by color, but the overall sentiment of a mum is happiness and celebration.

Belladonna

But why not jump away from what you find in your florist shop and play with some deadly beauties? Belladonna, the beautiful lady also known as deadly nightshade, a shy drooping bloom resembling the conservative skirt of a ballgown that opens to reveal a brilliant sinister center. While not pictured here, it grows alongside it, large shining berries, black as night, that you do NOT want to ingest. Beautiful to look at-- high shine like mirrors and black as marbles but I can't say I'd be tempted to eat it, especially since it's not a common color in flora.

Beautiful nerium/peach oleander flower

No part of a deadly nightshade plant is fit to eat as is. It is, however, used sparingly in medicines for its anti-inflammatory and numbing properties. Many people aren't aware that tomatoes are in the nightshade family. You may have been cautioned not to eat tomatoes, stems, leaves etc. but the compounds it shares with its nightshade brethren are NOT in toxic levels (or put more plainly, you'd get sick from over-consumption alone before ever accumulating toxicity). Also in this family? Oleander, foxglove, larkspur and hemlock. You'll recognize some of these as herbs and flowers.

The more you flip through larger varieties, the more you see that many of them are very catch-all in the meanings department, most meanings created to sell them, if we're being perfectly honest. You don't get a lot of 'negative' meanings; most inspire love, beauty, grace, friendship, memory, kindness, calm, shyness, honor. I can't say it wouldn't be hilarious for the odd practice of buying negative flowers for your enemies to crop up. Even the poisonous ones are breathtaking.

To wrap this one up, how about a speed round? I'll throw out a couple quick ones with less conventional meanings/origins.

<-------Plumeria (frangipani)- connected with spirits and ghosts

Yarrow (aka Key Flower; really just found this while looking for 'flowers meaning key

------------>

Some of my runners-up for favorite: gardenia, queen anne's lace, and peonies. Gardenias and peonies smell and look fantastic, but I always loved the story of  Queen Anne's lace. What an odd flower to grow mostly flat and white like lace, yet have that pinprick of a tiny violet bloom, truly as if the lacemaker pricked their finger with the needle they wove it with.

Flowers can bring an unconventional hidden meaning into any story, one that can be tragically misconstrued. The poisonous flower picked for its beauty and gifted to a loved one could be seen as an intent to kill them. Culturally, flowers could have vastly different meanings. The color red is lucky in some cultures, yet ill-fortuned in others. White could be a color of purity, but is also the color of mourning. Color has its own context despite assigned meanings. Often a created convention is not as commonly held as we think. The best place to hide evil intent is in beautiful things, be they aesthetic or just presented as safe. When I use them in stories, I like to delve into those possible hidden meanings. Sometimes they can inspire a plot I might not have thought of otherwise.

So now we move onto another color-porn selection!

Freesia's hair was always meant to be a deep reddish brown. I needed her character to be grounded, yet with a taste of that notorious red-headed temper. She is my wounded animal type, skittish but defiant against being victimized again. She sees through a lot of the petty and frivolous aspects of human behavior, but displays a hopeful naivete when her defenses exhaust her.

As for her eyes, I wanted something cooler than Krose's warm violet brown yet not too dusky/cold. It's not Freesia's intention to be cold so she needed a cool rich violet to portray the guarded softness within. There's probably a shade deeper peeking from the pupil's borders, but I chose this purple and brown for the visceral draw of them and their link to her (with an artist's consideration for their complements as well).

I don't mean for that to sound pretentious. Sometimes it might. I'm not waving the expert flag, just saying this artist likes them together!

As for Freesia, perhaps there's a touch of the shrinking violet impression, so I wanted her to challenge that as much as fit it. I think even the starkest personality conflicts are found warring in the same vessel and this is true in her as well. She tries to be light and friendly, but it can seem forced and transparent for what it's trying to hide. She is broken at first, but she hangs on the edges of a new life, drawn to being a part of it. Because of that need for acceptance, she gives her entire being to learning how to be the best.

Up next: our boy with a Purpose, Pierait. What is a human without a proper soul? This guy!

So, my garden of kinder-grownups, are you man enough to tell me what flowers resonate with you? Is it smell, aesthetics, size or poisonous qualities that make you shiver? Spill it below!

A Birth Day and a Shocking Death

I have to admit that this week put a crunch on my plans. Today, I wanted to drop a Happy Birthday to my brother Ryan and my niece Melody (her birthday is tomorrow) but the girl who lived next door to me growing up, one that I've kept in contact with over social media and only a few years older than me...

She died in her sleep.

My condolences to her mother Mary, brother Bobby, husband Korey, their little boy Kendrick (only a few years old) and teenage daughters. Grief is not something I've ever mastered because there's naught to be said or done to salve it. Not that I expect them to read this, but I wanted it to be out there. Just last week, she was having fun with friends, looking healthy in pictures. I know her sciatic nerve was giving her hell, but otherwise I have no clue what the human body is thinking when it just shuts down like that. I know it happens and it's scary and shocking, but we still catch ourselves numb but twitching with one word questions. I don't often cry right when hearing news like this, but this hit hard and fast. She will most definitely be missed and we break to become something completely new again. You don't really heal after loss. You just reassemble on little more than instinct and disbelief and hope. Even nearly 18 months after losing my mom, I still have those dumb moments where I'm thinking I need to call her. Those moments where you laugh at something they would have found funny, those can hang like melancholy instead when you mentally reach for them.

I think I'll leave it at this for today. Tomorrow, I'll aim for something more upbeat or informative. Writing has always been healing so it certainly doesn't stop here. However, I do want to think some more. Even though this marks a week since I got the news, I didn't want to reduce my reaction to an impulse. I might not have been super close to her and her life, but certainly it's more personal than just another celebrity death or something I'm distant from. It's always painful to lose a truly good person. There's such a shortage that its absence is certainly felt.

Kristen Thurman (neé LaManna), you'll be missed.