World Enough and Time

I would be really interested to hear about how your food plan goes. I'm starting to wonder if part of my fatigue problem is caused by the food I'm eating.

(This is Amy S. from the LMB list, in case you're wondering who the heck is stalking you! ;) )

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Amy! Delighted to see you here.

Yes, my problem of fatigue was really severe last year (around November) and I'm trying to combat and prevent it. Having dealt with candidiasis in the past almost to the point of non-funcitonality, I'm trying to get my energy up and my health improved.

So I'll keep you posted here on the diet issues. Thing is, I'm not very good at specialized diets - wish me luck.

If it gets me more energy and less fatigue, it's worth it, whatever the cost in effort. I need to convince myself that I will feel better: hence a testing period like this. (Right before Thanksgiving, too. What timing.)

I get particuarly tired after meals, which I think is indicative.

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I wish you very much luck!! I'm terrible about maintaining specialized diets, too, so I feel your pain. And I wouldn't skip Thanksgiving, either!! (What makes up a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, anyway? Color me ignorant.)

My fatigue is really getting to me right now. Of course, it could very well simply be airborne allergies, but it's much worse this year than usual. I often feel nauseated after I finish eating. I'm not sure what that's indicative of, but I figure it must mean something!

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Urgh. And posting a new comment instead of a reply is definitely indicative of my fatigue....

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I've done that!

I suspect that my fatigue after eating and your stomach upset, whatever their specific causes, are both signs of the body not working as well as it might. So I'm hoping the diet will improve that. I hate going to bed as soon as I get home from work because I'm too tired to do anything else. I have books to read, stories to write, things to do - ! Even housework is more fun than that.

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Oh yes, I definitely resemble that. I used to take naps every single day when I got home, until I realized that they were screwing up my ability to get to sleep at a normal bedtime. Now I force myself to plod through the evening, no matter how hard it is. Of course, having three wonderful cats to play with helps! (Two of them are in the icon. I can't get all three of them to stay in the same place together for a photo, the silly things!)

I really hope your diet helps you. That sort of mind-numbing, will-sapping fatigue is just no fun at all.

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Gorgeous cats!

I seem to be able to nap indefinitely and still sleep all night, which gets very boring. I try to skip the nap if I can. Some days it's easier than others.

I have theories as to the cause: allergies, candidiasis, light sensitivity (like SAD). Or a combination?

I am not, I say firmly, going to take this lying down - !

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Combining my replies into one!

Yes, Blood Ties really deserved better. I keep hoping that they'll resurrect it.

I'm rather partial to my kitties, myself! The third one is in this icon, from a photo taken the day I got him. (He weighs at least 15 lbs now!)

If I could nap indefinitely and still sleep all night, I think I would find it rather harder to skip the nap! I spend much of my day wondering, in the back of my mind, if I'll be able to take a nap. Rather demoralizing.

Fight back!! Seize the day! And the night! I really hope the food plan helps you.

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Sleeping too much and too deeply is one of the things I am trying to control by improving my diet and increasing my exercise. So far so good.

Hard to imagine that cute little guy in your icon transforming into 15 lbs!

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I'm glad to hear that your new diet is helping! I'm interested to hear your full report on your experiment!

I was rather stunned when Lucky grew up to be so big. I was sure he was going to be a little guy, based on his 10-week weight. I guess whatever happened to him before I got him caused him to be severely malnourished. (If you're interested, you can read the entire saga of how I got the Lucky Kitten. (http://allyra.livejournal.com/297867.html)) He is now many pounds of pure muscle! (Another sign that he's part Bengal.) And his nickname has become "Monster", following the strange naming patterns I tend to use. In this case, Lucky --> Luckness --> Luckness Monster --> Monster (once he clearly WAS a monster!).

Eep, sorry - didn't mean to turn this comment into mostly kitty-babble. I'll stop now!

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Luckness Monster! What a great name.

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Hehehe, thanks! I think it's quite clever, myself. Sadly, most people look at me blankly or with confusion when I use it.

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Hi. I think your three little pals are gorgeous, and highly enjoyed your description of Lucky's name. I have four cats, although I intended to have three, because my big guy, Osiris, who has become Buddy ("Hey! Where's my buddy?"), needed company to keep him young and active, so I brought home two young sisters, whom I named Mercury and Quicksilver because they were so quick and alert and totally alike even though very different also... then the tiny grey tiger showed up on my porch, crying, and when we got him into the house, he about killed the other three with love, and from that tiny size has now grown to over fifteen pounds -- all of it gentle and affectionate. His name is Fog. From the Carl Sandberg poem. And his name is mostly the intent of this rather long post [g]. Cheerio....

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I had planned for years to name my budgies - all my birds - after Shakespeare characters. Which is why my first bird was Tony, for Mark Antony. Somehow the budgies had ideas of their own and instead I've named them all after X-Men. That works too.

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When I was young, we named our pet cats after celestial objects: Sunspot had kittens, one was Star, one was Comet, then Saturn because he had stripes (rings), and then Mercury, Orion, Eclipse... it became fun. It all ended with a litter of three who became Tom, Becky, and Huck. Hee.

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Naming pets is such fun.

And then I start to think that I see attributes of the characters in the birds.

Though Logan isn't particularly tough.

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I think people are probably confused because of the unexpectedness of it - which is why it's so clever.

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Thanks for the wishes of good luck - at the moment, I'm feeling up for this, but then... it's still Day 1. There are a couple of other books I want to look at, that I have on request at the library. Whether they will complement this plan or give me an alternative, I don't know yet.

I was about to say blandly, "A Canadian Thanksgiving is just like an American Thanksgiving, but earlier" - except I don't necessarily know exactly what an American eats at Thanksgiving, so I'd better not assume! My family always ate turkey with stuffing, baked (or mashed) potatoes, cabbage salad, squash, other vegetables, rolls... And pumpkin pie for dessert.

I love pumpkin pie.

Who is that in your icon?

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Ahhh, so a Canadian Thanksgiving is just like an American Thanksgiving, but earlier! Well, except for the cabbage salad, maybe....

The icon is of Blood Ties' Henry Fitzroy, played by Kyle Schmid. Main show link here: http://www.bloodtiestv.com/ I'm still highly annoyed that Lifetime canceled it!!

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The cabbage salad might have been a quirk of my mother's, rather than typical of Thansgiving.

Henry Fitzroy! I thought he looked familiar. I watched one, maybe two, episodes of Blood Ties and quite liked it, though haven't had a chance to see it again. I liked Henry conceptually and historically - and he was nice to look at, too.

I didn't know it was cancelled. Hmmph. It deserved better.

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rosiespark.livejournal.com

6.20 is practically the middle of the night. ::shudders::

And I found the CRON page rather terrifying. I quote, from the section on "disadvantages": "Having difficulty sitting comfortably (sit on a cushion)." My GOD! I mean, how skinny are they imagining people will get?

And this: "Reduced libido. If this is a problem, reducing the severity of calorie restriction and /or conventional libido-enhancing techniques may overcome this." Note the use of "may".

It all seems a bit extreme.

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Believe me, I am not likely to do any kind of a diet to such an extreme. When it comes to diets, I cheat, procrastinate, and make exceptions. What's the point of a diet that doesn't include cinnamon toast? I like the theory of the last diet book I read: eat whatever you like on Sundays.

What I like about CRON is that it pays a lot of attention to nutrition, and it's heavy on vegetables. That's what I liked about the South Beach Diet, too.

Don't worry, if anything threatens my libido, I'm outta there immediately!

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rosiespark.livejournal.com

Your libido needs to head over here (http://rosiespark.livejournal.com/84284.html?nc=2). Trust me. ;)

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Sounds fascinating. Good luck to you.

Ah, right, your Thanksgiving is this coming Monday. Every year I forget. So, happy Thanksgiving, eh?

Since I've been about nine solid months without soy in any of its blatant forms, I have been able to notice when I eat anything else that I'm sensitive to or intolerant of. Also, I notice more quickly when I come in contact with any other stuff I cannot tolerate: chemicals in soaps and cleaning products and personal-care products. Basically, I can't tolerate ANY of them, dammit. Making me very happy that I never picked up the habit of wearing make-up or using hairspray or such things, back in my youth, as if I had, how messed up would I be by now from all those other chemicals, huh? I shudder to think.

So, here I am, wearing cotton and maybe silk, looking all the while for clothing made of hemp and woven bamboo (it exists, I just haven't really run across it), eating plain food and enjoying it a great deal... and drinking soda-pop, gadzooks, what am I thinking! [g] But a person needs one vice, right? That's mine.

Got some sweet corn on the cob and new potatoes, yesterday, and hope I have the energy to cook them tomorrow!

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Why does a person need a vice? The question exists on several levels: does one really need a vice, or is that just the voice of human weakness, keeping us sane? If it's human nature to succumb to our weaknesses, it must have an evolutionary purpose: otherwise we'd all be perfect and dealing with the problems that come from that.

Not sure what my vice is. Not soft drinks, unless you count Kinnie. I would jump on a Kinnie at any opportunity, which is maybe why I hesitate to order some from that gentleman in Mississauga. But....

Yeah. One vice.

I wish I could tell what I'm actually sensitive to. I suppose the idea of the rotation diet is that it doesn't matter: sometimes you can never tell, and I usually can't. It seems a good bet that I'm sensistive to wheat, or gluten, because I know I had candidiasis and that's typical of the condition.

Current theory: that due to the after-effects having an auto-immune disease, or more than one (I'm thinking 'polio' and 'scleroderma' here), or just a certain kind of metabolism, I am prone to all sorts of food sensitivities and when I eat the way most people do (allowing sugar, additives, white bread, etc.) it wears me down to an ongoing level of fatigue, allergies, congestion, and so on. If that's the problem, a rotation diet should make me feel better - which it is doing already. The good thing about this is that it means I can sometimes have sugar, sometimes have bread, and so on - I don't need to cut out anything forever. Just to be careful with all of it.

An ongoing experiment, being desperate to feel better, even though I haven't felt all that bad. Just not all that good, either.

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Hm. I think, to be fully honest, that when I said "a person needs one vice," I actually meant: I will never agree to obey society's rules for what I should be doing, and in that context, "vice" is simply "what someone in that external position would dislike me to be doing. I'll never behave, I meant. I don't consider vices to be weakness. I consider indulging in "vices" to be empowering. In this context, at least. Not trying to apply this universally, mind you.

I think your current theory is quite grounded and likely. I've been having that idea about your physical issues for quite some time, now, but never found a way to verbalize it. Remember you once pointed out to me, when I was saying that I seemed to be having more difficulty tolerating chemicals and so on (this was years ago, sorry, my may have fully forgotten), that you believed that people accumulate environmental toxins steadily, and finally at some point will start to react to them once a certain level has been reached? I have found this quite true. And, alas, some of us (in some instances but not all) will have a very, very low tolerance and one full meal might put us over the limit all at once, from more than one individual element. Such as, if I were to eat ice cream after having a Bic Mac and then have three bananas for breakfast. Let's see: dairy; soy; and a revolving intolerance for bananas. I'd be sick for about two weeks on that one. Just each one individually, I could overcome in a couple days; all on top of each other, however, multiplies the effects. It really knocks a person down. The time I overdosed on the cleaning-chemical smells in my rental car, it took me five weeks to recover. I was congested and had a sore throat and then food-poisoning symptoms... all of it from the cleaning product used in that car. Gnahh!

I agree again: sometimes have this, sometimes have that. Why else exist? And just be careful. You'll find a balance. I have. Took me decades of being blind to it all, then about six years of being mindful but ignorant, then two more years of being steadily increasingly informed and self-supportive. At first it was hard to stop eating the things that made me sick (I love the taste and texture of soy protein, for instance, and also margarine [all soy], and salad dressing [all soy], and so on), but as months go by, it gets easier, and I find other things to splurge on: soda pop, sometimes candy (usually just chocolate), and now and then just a nice restaurant meal that I don't cook myself.

But: getting to this point of self-awareness took, basically, the same thing you are doing: rotate what you eat, and see how you feel with each sort of thing. So... yep, you can do it. You've already started. Good for you!

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