Looking good Magistra! I'm so impressed and glad to read about your posture & hand exercises working. Wow!!!

I'm down a little bit more today but I'm not counting it yet. I think my scale is getting worn out. Three people in the house are using it and I think I need to get a scale that's just for me. Today it just kept saying "Err." It took me several tries to get it to work, Grrrr . . .

Todays food:
B: two slices swiss cheese (product of France - French Swiss cheese lol!), glazed turnips, coffee with MCT oil and cream, handful of pistachios
L: spinach, arugula, and baby romaine salad with smoked oysters, raw pecans, evoo and vinaigrette dressing
S: 1/2 a dozen dates (too many dates! comfort and stress eating!)
D: wild caught salmon, steamed asparagus, steamed Brussels sprouts, very small glass of red wine (I didn't actually finish it)

My birthday is coming up in a couple of days and I will be baking a cake not made from wheat flour and cane sugar. Since I have completely eliminated these foods from my diet, I know the moment I eat them, I will probably go into a coma (Seriously, it would be a big mistake to even try) This cake looks divine and I'm really hoping it tastes as good as it looks. Here is the recipe I'm going to use: https://downshiftology.com/recipes/p...hocolate-cake/

Sundove Nice to see you! I walk around doing the posture exercises all day long. Some I can do standing, some sitting, some in funny places like waiting in line (Why is that strange lady looking at the ceiling?) They are working! I can almost make a fist now with my right hand, and my wrist no longer hurts. The pain has made it's way to the middle of my back, but as I keep doing the exercises, that is disappearing too. It's so cool when something actually works like it's supposed to.

Magistra I thought of you when I read this article. Researchers have begun to tease out the molecular basis for how ketogenic diets help with inflammation.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2017/09/40...ammation-brain

Sundove Thank you! That's super interesting! I keep wondering if I should go keto. Thinking about it. I have actually looked into it. I do have some brain injury from all those migraines I used to get. I haven't had a migraine since June, which is when I started this Plant Paradox diet. I hope that through food, I can banish those awful headaches and all my other afflictions forever.

Magistra You're welcome! You have sure had amazing results with your plan, not just with weight loss. How wonderful! I thought you might already be doing keto, without that being the main focus. I think you said 'low carb' once, but I cold be confabulating,lol. It sure sounds like you body likes what you are doing and your foods sound so good. How wonderful to be free of migraines, etc. May it be forever!

Sundove It probably does seem like I'm doing keto or low carb because a lot of the foods I am eating fall into that category, but it's not intentional. The main focus is eating a wide variety of low lectin plant food. Animal protein is limited for a total of 4oz to 8oz a day. Most vegetables are allowed except night shades, white potatoes and squash, which are high in lectins. I am basically grain free and liking it very much! I feel so good not eating wheat, corn, oats, etc. that I will probably never add those back into my diet. (Eating anything with oats actually used to give me horrible stomach problems, so good riddance!) Fish and fishy foods are encouraged. The ultimate goal is to become a vegequarian - fish and veggie eater. I'm not quite there yet, but working on it. I'm kind of borderline Mediterranean diet. I eat almost no processed foods. I do eat pasta but it's almond flour pasta, which in my opinion tastes better than wheat flour pasta.

There is a keto version of my diet which eliminates all fruit except the avocado. I think that's the major difference between how I'm eating and keto. There are some other things but I don't remember what they all are.

Here is a little summary of my diet: http://gundrymd.com/food-pyramid/

If you want to see the food lists, you can view them here: http://gundrymd.com/plant-paradox-shopping-list/

I could talk all day about food! I am so fascinated by it.

Today was my birthday! I didn't make the cake I originally had planned to make. I didn't have time, making the frosting was too much for me to do after working half the day. Also the frosting for this cake requires 8 cups of powdered sugar and I would have to powder my own coconut sugar. That was just too much work and too much sugar, but I made a batch of almond flour brownies instead, and we put candles on it before cutting it up. They turned out perfect--soft chewy melt in your mouth delicious. It was the perfect alternative for cake and I won't have to look at left over cake in the fridge all week long. Yay! I used this recipe: https://www.onelovelylife.com/the-pe...free-brownies/

Today's menu.
B: one green banana, smoked oysters, coffee with MCT oil and cream
L: Capello's fettucine topped with mushrooms and cream sauce
S: pistachios, hazelnuts, medjool dates, green olives
D: grass fed beef taco meat, shredded cabbage, cassava flour tortillas, sriracha sauce, sour cream
D: two brownies

B: 2oz swiss cheese, coffee with MCT oil and cream
L: 2oz taco meat, one cassava flour tortilla, sour cream, a cup of shredded cabbage, 1 tsp sour cream, a good amount of sriracha sauce
S: several green olives, small handful of pistachios and hazelnuts, one brownie
D: 4oz wild caught salmon, roasted sweet potato, beets, carrots, onions, brussel sprouts
D: 3 medjool dates

I weighed myself this morning . . . probably a mistake since I ate out last night and my weight always goes up slightly after eating out. I'm up a pound today, and feeling annoyed. I have basically been up and down with the same one pound for about six weeks. I do have a little swelling this morning. I can feel it in my hands. But I really want to solve my plateau.

I've been reading up on how stress can cause your brain to stop you from losing weight. My stress level definitely went up as soon as school started, but it has also gone up another notch now that it is October and the sun doesn't rise until after 7am. Since I have to be up at 5am in order to teach my first class at 6:45am, I can't get any natural light first thing in the morning. This lack of light is zapping some of my energy and I'm sure it's throwing off my rhythm.

I've also been reading up on cortisol and how that can get thrown off by various reasons and cause other problems.

I'm going to continue to read over the weekend and then develop a plan of action. I think the first action I may take is to buy myself an energy lamp. I do have S.A.D. and I've wanted to try out light therapy for a while now, so I'm looking into it. I think this may also help with my cortisol patterns.

Probably another thing that I should do is stop eating so many dates. They have become my delicious comfort food, and although they have good benefits, they are a fruit and full of sugar and calories.

Belated Happy Birthday wishes to you, Magistra!

I love how you attack the plateau like a teacher and are building an action plan. The extra light and the decrease in date consumption sound like great starting points and may be all you need to bust through. Rooting for you!

Chunkahlunkah Hi! It's so nice to have you pop in! I hope you are doing well! Thank you so much for the encouragement and the birthday wishes.

I didn't do so hot with my food today mainly because I need to go shopping.

B: one omega 3 egg fried in evoo, one small avocado sliced up, coffee with MCT oil and cream
S: pistachios, macadamia nuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, one square 85% dark chocolate
L: baby carrots, baked sweet potato sliced into chunks and doused with evoo and salt
D: two slices grass fed New Zealand cheddar, two medjool dates

I didn't eat as many dates today, just two after dinner at around 8pm. Dinner was more of a snack than a meal.

Plan for tomorrow -- make a menu, a shopping list and go shopping

I woke up this morning with pitted edema in my fingertips. Ahh, lightbulb moment! I believe I now know what the swelling in my hands has been caused by. Dehydration! This is an ongoing problem with me. I gave up wheat and when I was eating wheat it was binding to water in my body, helping me to stay hydrated even when I was lazy about drinking water. I have never had good water drinking habits. Now that I've given up wheat, I need to pay closer attention to my water intake.

I looked up how much water I should be drinking and the answer is that I should drink .5oz to 1.0oz of water for every pound I weight. For me that roughly equates into a minimum of 11 eight ounce glasses of water a day. I've probably only been drinking about half that.

Starting today I will increase my water intake and see if the swelling subsides.

I finally weighed myself this morning and it looks like my plateau may be over with. I'm down .2 from my lowest weight which was 176.0 (20 pounds total). Today I'm at 175.8. Whew! I feel relieved but I also now have an idea of why I plateaued.

I found out that I hit a plateau because I have lost a reasonable amount of weight, and I have lost a bunch of fat cells that no longer need to be fed. My body needs a little time to adjust to the new lower weight, so there needs to be an adjustment period. I can help it adjust faster by eating fewer calories and stepping up my exercise. Or I can do some other things.

I'm really lousy about keeping up with exercise. I do some walking but not consistently. I am doing a lot of stretching every day because I can do the stretches any time anywhere. I'm also doing posture exercises because I can do those anywhere too.

I don't want to pay attention to calories. I don't like calorie counting and it's something I know I won't keep doing. I have decided to try some other things.

It's important to let my body know that winter is here, so that it can stop storing fat. I have decided to try not eating sugar. I wasn't eating refined sugar; however, I was eating apples, dates, honey, and coconut sugar either by themselves or added to my food. I just have to stop having those foods until my body and my brain get the idea that sugar is unavailable because it's winter. I can still eat those foods but in moderation. I was having them every day and sometimes twice a day. I've cut back now.

The other thing I'm doing is sleeping more. I was starting to stay up late, but since I get up between 5am and 6am, going to bed at 11pm or 12am doesn't allow me to get enough sleep. Extra sleep will also help inform my body that winter is here. Animals sleep more in the winter and since I am a mammal, I too need to sleep more in the winter. I just like that idea so much! How I do love to sleep. And it just seems right--now that the weather has cooled off--to crawl under my blankets in the middle of the day and take a nap. So nice!

To get myself to bed earlier, I plan to close all my screens at around 8pm. I think an energy lamp will also help with regulating my sleep. I haven't bought the energy lamp yet, but it is on my list.

That's it for now. I'm putting this into motion this week, and I'll see how it goes.