The Experiment: Day 151 ~ It’s A Brand New Day! Let No Blessing Go Unnoticed…

Oh my dearhearts, there are just so many blessings, and I don’t want to miss a single one.

First of all, as soon as I got up this morning and out the door with the dogs I recorded a live video for Instagram. (These live videos only stay up for 24 hours.) Now if you look in the Instagram widget down the side of this page, or if you go to Instagram on your computer, you will not be able to see the live videos, at least I surely can’t find them? I can only see the live videos on my phone. If you go to my Instagram page on your phone, if you’d like, you can see the little walkabout video I did this morning. Now there was one last night too so look for the one that starts on my deck. You can use the little arrows that scroll to the right to see the next video. It will walk you around outside with the pugs, into the house, through the studio and the Cozy Room and on into the kitchen where you will see me start my day getting food for the pugs and making coffee. I wanted to do this because this is how I start everyday and it is so precious to me, such a blessing, every single moment, that I celebrate it each day.

After I did the video I got the dogs their breakfast, made my coffee, and settled in here at my work table in my studio. This is where each day begins in earnest, with my frothy “BulletProof/Keto Coffee,” — I actually did a live video for Instagram a couple of days ago showing how I make it — and the crackling fire that I always have on my desktop, it is so soothing and makes it feel so cozy in here, and watching the wild birds and squirrels just outside the studio windows. (You can see the many bird feeders and where I put food out for the squirrels in the video.). I talked to my darling friend Jeff on the phone as I do most every morning. We share our morning keto journey, getting on the scale. Today was a fabulous day for me, another BIG blessing. I hit a new low with my weight loss — so wonderful to see the scale moving again. Today it was 302.6! (I started at 333 pounds.) That’s even 2.8 down from yesterday! And one week ago today I weighed 306.8 so I am down 4.2 pounds in one week. That is just huge for me because the scale hasn’t been moving in 2 months after losing 25 pounds, and eating perfect keto, not one bite of non-keto food since I started, I just wasn’t losing. I thought I’d lose my mind but I stayed steady. It seems that I was simply eating too little food and my body wouldn’t let go. Almost a week ago Jeff said, “This is enough, you’ve got to eat more food! Good keto food but you’ve got to eat more.” He brought me some amazing keto food. And a nice bottle of red wine. I had a little glass of wine with my dinner, have eaten a little more and had a little wine each day, and the scale finally started to move again. This is contrary to what the people I follow say. They say there is no such thing as “eating too little” nor the body going into “starvation mode.” That it just isn’t a thing. Well it sure seems to be for me! Now, mind, I am not all of a sudden eating a ton of food, just more than I was, a couple of reasonable meals a day. I’m still not hungry until at least lunchtime or early afternoon because of the way I have my coffee, the fat in it sustains me. This is something else. “They” say not to have Bulletproof coffee, “Don’t ‘drink’ your fat or your body will not burn your own fat.” I understand and it makes sense to me but I seem to do as well or better having it. Mind I put very little butter and coconut oil in my coffee, I’m not sure it’s even a teaspoon of each + a little heavy cream, and this one yellow mug is almost, without exception, my only coffee of the day. I think the lesson I have learned is that you learn the protocol and follow it with keto and then, to some extent, you have to find out what works best for your body, of course completely eliminating all the things you are NOT supposed to have. Again, this is working for me and I’m thrilled. A BIG blessing indeed.

And today is going to be a fun day! Today, after 6 weeks, I am going back to the marvelous man that I just love that has been managing my meds for some time. At my last visit I had recently stopped taking xanax and he gave me guidelines for coming off my other meds. Cut them in half for 2 weeks, and then, if I felt ready, eliminate them, watching, of course, for any adverse reactions, and calling him if I needed him. I had my prescriptions filled when I last saw him but I never had to take them again after I finished taking what I had. The three bottles of pills are still sitting on my kitchen counter, full. This will be the first time he has seen me off meds. He is going to be so happy for me. We have been working on this together. Too, I have written about the fact that I still had something to take to help me sleep at night “as needed.” I don’t like to have to take it because I get terrible dry mouth and don’t feel as clear. One week ago I stopped taking it completely and I’ll tell you I feel so much better. Even going to sleep, if it takes a little longer, there is a gentleness to the way I drift off to sleep, not that drugged feeling of taking the meds and all of a sudden being out but in a very drugged sort of way. I feel free.

I will be very excited to talk to Geoff about all of this. And I have questions and things I want to tell him. For one thing, “Where do your diagnoses go when you are finally off meds and feeling good?” I’ve written a little bit about that in my blog posts but I’m anxious to see what he really says. In the last 4+ decades I have been diagnosed with Clinical Depression, A severe anxiety disorder, PTSD (All of those since I was young, with sexual abuse going from 4-18 they were raging high from early on.), and in midlife Bipolar disorder and agoraphobia joined the list. As I said in a post recently I don’t imagine bipolar disorder and all the rest disappear. Are they “in remission?” As I asked above, where do they go? For one thing I know that agoraphobia is not off the table. I can go out when I have to but it isn’t comfortable for me, I get out to do what I have to do, like my appointment with Geoff today and a couple of quick errands afterwards and then I get home a.s.a.p. And this week, for me, is one of the harder weeks because I have Geoff today, have to take a pug to the vet in the morning, and then have my usual day out Wednesday to go to therapy and the grocery store. For weeks now the only day I have left the house has been on these Wednesdays. I have very full days here at home, just because I don’t leave the house doesn’t mean I am just sitting here all day. I am at work here at the computer from the time I sit down here with my coffee, usually by 10 or before, until I am ready to get off to go to bed at night, more or less, which might be 10 or 11. But going out is still a challenge for me and may always be. I didn’t just stop taking meds and then start floating through life as if I’d never had an issue, but I get up happy to greet the day and have really productive days. It’s the reason I recorded that live video for Instagram today. A year ago I could barely get up, and I only did when I did because I had to take care of the dogs, and I started the day in such fear and anxiety and depression I could barely move, and what I accomplished was basic survival mode at best, and that not easily. If you hear me go on and on about keto, these daily blog posts, and all the rest it’s because they have created such an outright miracle in my life I get up every morning stunned at the beauty and joy of it all. So many blessings, so much to celebrate.

Oh my friends it is all so possible. We each have our challenges, our ups and downs, and part of what I am learning is that I will have my ups and downs too and it doesn’t mean I have to go back on medication. Being on medication for so long dulled my senses so that I didn’t know, any more, what it felt like to be human, to have the everyday ups and downs that are simply part of being alive. Now I step carefully, at times, through the days, still being a little uncertain, because when I have a hard day as I have had a couple of times in this past week, I am afraid that things are going bad again. But they haven’t. And my therapist assured me last week that this was simply part of waking up again. As a side note something else I noticed, which I haven’t felt in years, and even though I only have this one mug of coffee in the morning, is that I can only drink just so much coffee before I start to get caffeine jitters and have to stop. There is still just less than half a cup here and I have stopped. My body was too dulled on medication to even notice this.

Now I am sitting here having a cup of hot organic bone broth with a bit of Himalayan salt (Yes, on keto you have to be sure to get enough salt!), No Salt (Potassium), with a tiny bit of butter, and 2 slim slices of Havarti cheese. That will do me for hours. But before, you see, I went far beyond this without even eating. I am learning, discovering what works for me, finding my way. And by the way Geoff will still be monitoring me. I may only have to go every few months, always being able to call him if I need him, I am not going willy nilly off on my own with no guide to oversee my wellness. I am being responsible, I am taking care of me on every level, and it feels so good. And I count every single blessing, I celebrate them all. I am grateful to be alive, and oh my word, that is really saying something for me. Amen and Hallelujah!

Have a wonderful day loves. I’ll see you again tomorrow. Check out that live video on Instagram and I’ll be putting some videos in these posts as well soon.

The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda