What if bad fat isn’t so bad?

I'm working, and don't really have time to do this....but I had to post this!!

MSNBC has an article out that is pro fat! It's written by Nina Teicholz and notes that

Suppose you were forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent fat — about half of it saturated. If your first thoughts are of statins and stents, you may want to consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania.

In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart disease.

Scientists, confused by the finding, argued that the tribe must have certain genetic protections against developing high cholesterol. But when British researchers monitored a group of Masai men who moved to Nairobi and began consuming a more modern diet, they discovered that the men's cholesterol subsequently skyrocketed.

Similar observations were made of the Samburu — another Kenyan tribe — as well as the Fulani of Nigeria. While the findings from these cultures seem to contradict the fact that eating saturated fat leads to heart disease, it may surprise you to know that this "fact" isn't a fact at all. It is, more accurately, a hypothesis from the 1950s that's never been proved. (Emphasis mine)

In the article, Ms Teiholz discusses how this theory became accepted as fact and the controversy that was heard at the time. She also talks about the findings of the Cochrane Collaboration, which did a meta-analysis of studies that met strict criteria.

"I was disappointed that we didn't find something more definitive," says Lee Hooper, Ph.D., who led the Cochrane review. If this exhaustive analysis didn't provide evidence of the dangers of saturated fat, says Hooper, it was probably because the studies reviewed didn't last long enough, or perhaps because the participants didn't lower their saturated-fat intake enough. Of course, there is a third possibility, which Hooper doesn't mention: The diet-heart hypothesis is incorrect.

Really, a very positive article! Check it out!


Maybe the tide really is changing?

28 days

Quit smoking record - 28 days

28 days gone!!! Whoo Hoo!! And a weight loss on top of it all!!




OK....on November 14th I quit smoking. I had been back on plan for just 2 weeks after having a short but intense binge. After the first week I gained 6 pounds, mostly water according to the doc. I had been using sugar free candies and lollipops to replace the cigarettes and decided enough was enough. As soon as I stopped the junk I lost a few pounds. When I started the tighter dietary restrictions I lost even more (even tho my daily calorie intake is up!). Final outcome, I am 10 pounds lighter than my heaviest weight at the end of the first week, and 4 pounds lighter than the day I quit!

I'm still up 4 pounds from my lowest before the binge, but I'm gonna get there!

Day 25!

No smoking!! Day 25 now!




Doing good....some cravings, but not bad. Shut myself off on any sugar alcohols or artificial sweeteners for a few days, I was getting out of control!

Keith Olbermann: Special Comment

NEOCON JOB

Thursday 06 December 2007

There are few choices more terrifying than the one Mr.. Bush has left us with tonight.

We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War Three about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole -- or we have a president too transcendently stupid not to have asked -- at what now appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so -- whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed, were still even remotely plausible.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction: A critical juncture in our history and, contained in either answer, a president manifestly unfit to serve, and behind him in the vice presidency: an unapologetic war-monger who has long been seeing a world visible only to himself.

After Ms Perino's announcement from the White House late last night, the timeline is inescapable and clear.

In August the President was told by his hand-picked Major Domo of intelligence Mike McConnell, a flinty, high-strung-looking, worrying-warrior who will always see more clouds than silver linings, that what "everybody thought" about Iran might be, in essence, crap.

Yet on October 17th the President said of Iran and its president Ahmadinejad:

"I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War Three, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon."

And as he said that, Mr.. Bush knew that at bare minimum there was a strong chance that his rhetoric was nothing more than words with which to scare the Iranians.

Or was it, Sir, to scare the Americans?

Does Iran not really fit into the equation here? Have you just scribbled it into the fill-in-the-blank on the same template you used, to scare us about Iraq?

In August, any commander-in-chief still able-minded or uncorrupted or both, Sir, would have invoked the quality the job most requires: mental flexibility.

A bright man, or an honest man, would have realized no later than the McConnell briefing that the only true danger about Iran was the damage that could be done by an unhinged, irrational Chicken Little of a president, shooting his mouth off, backed up by only his own hysteria and his own delusions of omniscience.

Not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Bush.

The Chicken Little of presidents is the one, Sir, that you see in the mirror.

And the mind reels at the thought of a Vice President fully briefed on the revised Intel as long as two weeks ago -- briefed on the fact that Iran abandoned its pursuit of this imminent threat four years ago -- who never bothered to mention it to his boss.

It is nearly forgotten today, but throughout much of Ronald Reagan's presidency it was widely believed that he was little more than a front-man for some never-viewed, behind-the-scenes, string-puller.

Today, as evidenced by this latest remarkable, historic malfeasance, it is inescapable, that Dick Cheney is either this president's evil ventriloquist, or he thinks he is.

What servant of any of the 42 previous presidents could possibly withhold information of this urgency and gravity, and wind up back at his desk the next morning, instead of winding up before a Congressional investigation -- or a criminal one?

Mr. Bush -- if you can still hear us -- if you did not previously agree to this scenario in which Dick Cheney is the actual detective and you're Remington Steele -- you must disenthrall yourself: Mr. Cheney has usurped your constitutional powers, cut you out of the information loop, and led you down the path to an unprecedented presidency in which the facts are optional, the Intel is valued less than the hunch, and the assistant runs the store.

The problem is, Sir, your assistant is robbing you -- and your country -- blind.

Not merely in monetary terms, Mr.. Bush, but more importantly of the traditions and righteousness for which we have stood, at great risk, for centuries: Honesty, Law, Moral Force.

Mr.. Cheney has helped, Sir, to make your Administration into the kind our ancestors saw in the 1860's and 1870's and 1880's -- the ones that abandoned Reconstruction, and sent this country marching backwards into the pit of American Apartheid.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland...

Presidents who will be remembered only in a blur of failure, Mr.. Bush.

Presidents who will be remembered only as functions of those who opposed them -- the opponents whom history proved right.

Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland... Bush.

Would that we could let this President off the hook by seeing him only as marionette or moron.

But a study of the mutation of his language about Iran proves that though he may not be very good at it, he is, himself, still a manipulative, Machiavellian, snake-oil salesman.

The Bushian etymology was tracked by Dan Froomkin at the Washington Post's website.

It is staggering.

March 31st: "Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon..."

June 5th: Iran's "pursuit of nuclear weapons..."

June 19th: "consequences to the Iranian government if they continue to pursue a nuclear weapon..."

July 12th: "the same regime in Iran that is pursuing nuclear weapons..."

August 6th: "this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon..."

Notice a pattern?

Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.

Then, sometime between August 6th and August 9th, those terms are suddenly swapped out, so subtly that only in retrospect can we see that somebody has warned the President, not only that he has gone out too far on the limb of terror -- but there may not even be a tree there...

McConnell, or someone, must have briefed him then.

August 9th: "They have expressed their desire to be able to enrich uranium, which we believe is a step toward having a nuclear weapons program..."

August 28th: "Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons..."

October 4th: "you should not have the know-how on how to make a (nuclear) weapon..."

October 17th: "until they suspend and/or make it clear that they, that their statements aren't real, yeah, I believe they want to have the **capacity**, the **knowledge**, in order to make a nuclear weapon."

Before August 9th, it's: Trying to develop, build or pursue a nuclear weapon.

After August 9th, it's: Desire, pursuit, want...knowledge technology know-how to enrich uranium.

And we are to believe, Mr.. Bush, that the National Intelligence Estimate this week talks of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program in 2003...

And you talked of the Iranians suspending their nuclear weapons program on October 17th...

And that's just a coincidence?

---

And we are to believe, Mr.. Bush, that nobody told you any of this until last week?

Your insistence that you were not briefed on the NIE until last week might be legally true -- something like "what the definition of is is -- but with the subject matter being not interns but the threat of nuclear war.

Legally, it might save you from some war crimes trial... but ethically, it is a lie.

It is indefensible.

You have been yelling threats into a phone for nearly four months, after the guy on the other end had already hung up.

You, Mr.. Bush, are a bald-faced liar.

--

And more over, you have just revealed that John Bolton, and Norman Podhoretz, and the Wall Street Journal Editorial board, are also bald-faced liars.

We are to believe that the Intel Community, or maybe the State Department, cooked the raw intelligence about Iran, falsely diminished the Iranian nuclear threat, to make you look bad?

And you proceeded to let them make you look bad?

---

You not only knew all of this about Iran, in early August...

But you also knew... it was... accurate.

And instead of sharing this good news with the people you have obviously forgotten you represent...

You merely fine-tuned your terrorizing of those people, to legally cover your own backside...

While you filled the factual gap with sadistic visions of -- as you phrased it on August 28th: a quote "nuclear holocaust" -- and, as you phrased it on October 17th, quote: "World War Three."

---

My comments, Mr. Bush, are often dismissed as simple repetitions of the phrase "George Bush has no business being president."

Well, guess what?

Tonight: hanged by your own words... convicted by your own deliberate lies...

You, sir, have no business... being president.

Click to see the video on YouTube.

Quit smoking record

Quit smoking record

As some of you maybe aware, I'm in temporary housing (yes, I'm still waiting! but I just can't get started on that right now.), have just been told that I "definitely" have Rheumatoid Arthritis, and quit smoking.

This has been one of the easiest quits ever, initially I was using both the patch and Chantix, but now it's getting dicey. I stopped using the patch over the weekend, as I forgot to put one on, and now I'm starting to feel the effects of the nicotine withdrawal. UGGGG I want a cigarette, but I cannot have one!

So.....I decided I need to post. I'm not guaranteeing I'll post every day, but I will update the ticker at least every few days...Let's say at least on Wednesday and Saturday.

Here's my ticker so far:




Today, Wednesday, December 5th, is my 22nd day smoke free.

I am continuing with the Chantix and I will not smoke.

I am sticking with low carb, but depending way too much on "low carb foods". I'm using sugar free lollipops in place of cigarettes, and I've got the munchies all night!

Luckily the doc I'm seeing for the quit smoking is Dr Eric Westman, fairly well known in the low carb community. He's working with me on both the quitting and the diet. In fact right now I'm on, at his suggestion, a diet with several restrictions (nightshade veggies and grains mainly). I'm also supposed to minimize my use of artificial sweeteners, which I haven't been doing too well lately. The first week I quit I gained over 6 pounds, but I've lost that and since then my weight has been stable, which is good, but I'm not loosing like I wish I was....probably due to the junk I'm snacking on.

Update 10/7/2007

Well, here I am, all settled in at my motel room!! I'm in a small, nice motel close to the highway. I have a queen bed, refrigerator and microwave and Internet access, but wireless and wired.

The owners also allow dogs, so I have my 2 with me. They're adapting well.....seem to think they own the place now! There are other people with dogs, and so far things have been good. My friend works here and last night, while I was visiting her, another woman came by with her dog. My two were actually crying because they couldn't say hi....but the woman wouldn't let her dog meet mine as it's a recent rescue and she didn't know how her dog would behave.



This is going to be longer haul than I figured. I'm getting information a little at a time and not happy. As of right now I do not have a pre-qualification letter!! The good news is I no longer owe anyone!!! Well except my car and a small personal loan (may get paid off, depending on ending balance)....and one charge on my report owed to "unknown", which for obvious reasons won't be paid at this time.


The ranch is now sold, so the bungalow is the one I'm hoping for. They finished the bathroom and did a great job! I'm hoping to put down an offer soon!!


I've been doing pretty good with sticking with my plan. The night I finished moving and the next day I binged. Red hots, crackers with peanut butter and chocolate! Back on track the next morning, Wednesday, and have been sticking with plan since. I've pretty much maintained.


I'll update again soon! In the meanwhile, if you haven't already, check out some of the blogs on Kimkins!! Spread the word!
Deni's blog,
Laura Dolson's take on About.com,
Becky's blog,
Kristen's blog,
Kimkins Dangers,
Carol Bardelli's blog post,
and her Anti-Kimkins site.

I'll be back!!

But I'll be gone for a while.

I am moving!! My house sold and I should be closing on Monday afternoon (Tuesday AM at the latest). I'm done with the showings, and done with the repairs and almost done packing!!

Not sure where I'm going yet....but the hunt is going good. I had to pay off a few things before I could get a decent mortgage and I have at least 2 choices! There are 2 homes in a nearby small town.

One is a bungalow and has 2 bedrooms, a big kitchen and a decent size living room There's also 2 baths and it's on about 1/3 acre. The house was built on 1914 and I'm told it's obviously a home that was "built for someone special" because of the work and attention to detail.
The house is newly renovated, with new stove and refrigerator as well as 2 new baths (1 full, 1 half). The 2 bedrooms are decent size and the living room is a good size. There are Pergo floors all rooms except the kitchen and main bath. The kitchen has little counter space, but I'm used to that. There is a fantastic attic that can be used for storage, although access isn't good. This was my first choice until the owner decided to add the half bath (apparently his Realtor didn't tell him I was interested!). The second bath isn't finished, but should be by Monday, so I can see the finished product.

The other house, the one that is my first choice is a ranch. It also has 2 bedrooms, about the same sizes. There is also a kitchen and dining area as well as a huge living room with a wood stove. I love wood stoves! This is a nice sturdy house build in 1980 and also has a nice yard. The deck on this house is bigger, but not as new as the other.
This house is also newly renovated and has wall to wall carpeting. Also a new stove, no refrigerator, but it does have a dishwasher. There is a separate area for dining, and there are lots of cabinets and more counter space. There is only 1 bath, but it's large and right by the 2 bedrooms. The washer and dryer are in the bathroom. The closets in this house are bigger. We didn't see the attic, but the crawl space is nice and dry and there's a carport in the back. The problem right now with this place is that there is currently a contract on it. The buyer is having problems with funding, and it may fall through. We'll know for sure in a few days.

I'll be staying at a nearby motel with my 2 dogs. A friend works at the Motel and her boss gave me a great deal!! The room is large enough for the dog's crates and it's just about the same distance to work. I'll have a microwave and a refrigerator, so eating is going to be OK. I will have Internet access, but I'm not sure how reliable it will be. I'm going to spend my spare time reading. I'm way behind on a lot of my favorite blogs, and I've got Gary Taubes' book arriving any day!

Oh yea!! Check out my Flicker pics to see the furniture and dishes I'm trying to sell!!

This should be an interesting couple of weeks!!

Ex-Kimkins or New to Low Carb?

For those that are switching from a very low calorie diet (or looking into low carb plans for the first time) you'll want to plan to get the most of your diet. Don't just start out cutting carbs and adding fat. You'll want to find a plan and follow it, at least until you know how your body is reacting. If you have been following a very low calorie diet, your body will likely initially react by holding onto fat and water. While this can be distressing, try to ignore it and realize it's temporary!! Take this adjustment time to plan and learn about your diet choice.

Now, I would like to post my own recommendations for anyone coming off Kimkins or just looking into a low carb plan.

1. For the next month or so don't count calories, and don't worry about weight gain or loss. You weight may fluctuate wildly for a while and you need to be prepared so you won't get discouraged. Don't count calories as they will likely regulate themselves and can always be cut back later if necessary. During this time start researching and reading about the different plans.

2. First, cut out all "whites". White flour, rice, sugar, potatoes, etc and all items made with them. So, no white breads, rolls, etc. No potatoes of any kind....and that includes baked as well as fried. No sugar. If you must have sweet, find an acceptable artificial sweetener (AS) and make/buy drinks that contain it. Observe your reactions to the foods you eat, noting especially how soon after eating you get hungry.

3. Start eating 3 regular meals a day with small high protein low carb snacks if needed. Cheese is a great choice for snacks, but many say eating it can lead to a stall. At this point, don’t worry so much about counting things, just eat natural unprocessed foods. If you do used processed foods, choose the one with the best ingredients. You should be eating enough at each meal so you are satisfied, but not overly full. The amount you eat should last until the next meal, although initially you may need snacks to hold you over. If you're used to very low calorie or tight portion control be open to having more than one serving of your protein/fat source. You should never leave the table hungry!

4. Start reading labels. You’ll want to start reading labels on any processed foods you buy or consider buying. Look for the least processed and best ingredients. For example, if you need salsa check out the carb counts and the ingredients. Buy the one that is lower carb especially if it's more natural. Dairy is also a good example. Fat free American cheese contains no fat, but 4 grams carbohydrate per ounce, while full fat cheese contains only 2 grams. Sour cream too....fat free, no fat, but 40 grams of carb per cup while full fat contains only 10 grams per cup. Watch ingredients too. If something says it has no trans-fat, or "0% trans-fat", check the label. Look for “hydrogenated” in the ingredients listing. If that word is there, it's very likely that the food contains at least some trans-fat, but by law can be listed as 0 if it's less than 0.5 grams.

5. Start reading up on low carb plans. There is a ton of information on the web and there are many plans to choose from. Go to your local library or bookstore and read a bit of the plans and see which one you can live with. If, for example, you like to have convenience foods, including frozen meals on hand for quick and easy meals, South Beach might be a better choice than Atkins or Protein Power. Each plan has it's specifics about how much fat, protein, and carb you should eat as well as what kind of foods they come from.

6. Once you decide on a plan, read the book. Front to back, at least once. Take notes or highlight text if you can. But really read the book. Pay attention to the science behind each of the author's points. Does what the author say make sense? Check the claims by searching online and verify facts when you can.

7. When you start on your plan you should follow it as closely as you can. For the first 2 weeks, minimum, do what the plan tells you. If it says to have as much green veggies as you want, then have it. If it tells you to limit something or increase something, then do it. Give yourself a month to decide if this is the right plan for you. Be sure to include exercise in your plan. Resistance training is felt to be more beneficial than cardio by many, but anything that you enjoy is fine.

8. Prepare to record everything you eat as accurately as possible. FitDay.com is an excellent product and is available online for free. If you really want to be accurate, measure and weigh everything you eat or drink. Record any exercise too. Check your weight and measurements and decide on a goal. Write this all down, or record in an online product. (SparkPeople.com is also an excellent free site that has a place to record food, exercise, goals, etc and also features support forums and teams as well as recipes and articles.)

9. Set a start date and de-carb your house. Remove as many of the "unacceptable" foods as you are able to. If you have family that you live with, be sure to get their buy in and agreements to work with you and your plan. At this time, if you haven't already, it would also be a good idea to talk to your doctor and get some baseline blood work done. If you are on any medications you may need your doc's assistance in changing dose as you loose weight. Getting baseline blood work is great to compare to additional work done later.

10. When following your plan, continue to learn more about diet and nutrition. Follow the research, but question anything in the mainstream media. Check out my links to blogs and web sites if you need a place to start!

11. Tweak your plan, after at least 2 weeks of following your plan exactly. If you don't like a certain aspect of your diet then change it. If you prefer meat over veggies it's not likely to cause you problems as long as the meat you eat is unprocessed and the veggies are good quality and as natural as possible. If you're not loosing enough and feel your carb intake is a bit too high, then lower it a bit. And if there is a food that you really miss see if there is any way to incorporate it or a substitute once in a while.

Following low carb may not be for everyone, but for the majority of us it is beneficial and results in lower blood sugar and insulin levels, lower blood pressure and usually significant weight loss. If you feel you are not loosing fast enough, cut back on carbs, and also rethink your expectations. Rapid weight loss is often not sustained over the long term and can cause several physical reactions.

If you properly follow a low carb plan you must make it a life plan. Sure you can follow the plan until you loose the weight you want to loose then go back to "normal" eating....but if you do you will regain the weight you lost, no question. And, if you are going to make this a life plan, you must find one that works for you!

A friend of mine recently asked me to find a list of foods that she cannot eat. Well, unfortunately it's not that easy!! Some people can eat fruit without a problem, but I'll be plagued by cravings if I am not really careful and have adequate fat and protein along with it. On the other hand, most people experience stalls from eating foods containing sugar alcohols (SA), but they don't seem to influence my weight at all. The foods that you "can't" eat are the foods that induce cravings and early hunger.

Limits should be placed on the total number of carbs per meal and not the food. If you are allowed 15 grams per meal and you want a veggie, you have a lot of choices:
Asparagus, cooked = 2 cups
Broccoli, cooked = 1.6 cups
Cucumber = 5 cups
Romaine Lettuce = 11 cups
Corn = 1/3 cup
Brown rice = 1/2 cup (1/3 cup of white rice)
White potato = 1/2 cup
So...you have a lovely piece of roasted chicken (eat the skin!) and along with it you can have a nice salad of lettuce (2 cups), tomato (1/4 cup), cucumber (1/4 cup), and mushroom (1/4 cup), along with an ounce of shredded cheese and 2 tablespoons of full fat creamy dressing, and some broccoli on the side, all for less than 15 grams of carb...or you can have 1/2 cup of potato. If you don't like salad or you're craving potatoes, maybe eating the 1/2 cup serving will be enough. The other thing to consider, and this is highly individualised, but it's likely that the starch in the potato is going to be rapidly metabolized and you will start to feel hungry sooner than you would if you had the salad. But, it's still your choice!! That's what makes any diet doable!


Here are some of the plans I'm somewhat familiar with:
Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution. Probably the best known and most misunderstood of all the plans. You start out with very low carb, no more than 20 grams per day, then increase them after the first 2 weeks. The increase in carbs is to allow people to figure out what their "critical carb level" (CCL) is. Your CCL is the level at which you no longer loose. Drop your carbs back a bit and you should loose steadily. As you get closer to your goal you increase carbs a bit more to slow your loss and gradually transition into maintenance. With this plan the emphasis is having a high intake of fat and a low intake of carbs. You are encouraged to eat veggies and some fruit. Exercise is a part of the plan, no exceptions.
Protein Power Lifeplan. My personal favorite, although what I do now isn't exactly by the book. For Protein Power plans the emphasis is on getting a minimum of a certain level of protein and keeping carbs below a certain level (30 grams/day to start). The original plan was a bit lower in carbs than the later one, but still the emphasis is on the protein (hence the name! LOL). In the first book there was a formula to figure out your minimum protein intake, but in the later book there's a chart for you to look it up. Fat isn't really addressed except to caution to use natural fresh fats over commercial ones.

And some that I'm less familiar with:
South Beach. Basic low carb for the first 2 weeks, then fairly generous for ongoing weight loss. Emphasis is to NOT remain on the initial phase for longer than 2 weeks. (Dr A and PP plans both "allow" you to stay on the initial level longer) This plan is considered low fat to many low carbers, especially those on Atkins. The emphasis isn't so much on quantity of fat as quality. It cautions against trans-fats (just like the Dr A and PP plans), but also cautions against saturated fat. Dr Agatston is/was a cardiologist, so it makes sense that he would fear saturated fats.

Dr Bernstein's books. I've read one and was impressed, but was already doing well with PP so I've never tried any of his plans. Dr Bernstein is a diabetic, a Type 1, who basically experimented on himself, then went to medical school so he would have more credibility. Unfortunately the general media tends to ignore him. He has a lot of good things to say, and promotes a low carb diet for all diabetics.

Other books about low carb, controlled car, low sugar plans:
Paleo Diet. Basically you eat what was available to our ancestors. So meats and any fruits and veggies that can be eaten as is. No processed foods. Meat, fish, gathered or foraged fruits, leaves, and roots of plants, mushrooms, nuts, eggs, and honey...that's pretty much it.

Sugar Shock. Connie Bennett figured out she was having a reaction to eating sugar and started investigating why. Her book gives and excellent explanation of sugar addiction and reactions in the body. She also has some excellent suggestions for those just looking to kick their sugar addiction.

The Zone diet. This one is about balance. The plan is to keep your carbohydrates, protein and fat in a certain ratio: 40/30/30 to be exact. I've heard that the diet can be confusing....and also that it's fantastic.

Sugar Busters. Basically with Sugar Busters you avoid all processed carbs and carbs that are high GI (Glycemic Index), like potatoes and corn.


Check out MY LINKS to low carb sites, books, and information....and have fun!!

Tonight's Dinner:

Brussels Sprouts with butter
cucumber with Caesar dressing
homemade chunky applesauce
herb rubbed roasted pork loin.

Kimkins survivors

I've been on a few forums lately with a high number of new members that are former Kimkins members.

Now, anyone who's been following the chatter in the low carb community knows that there's a lot of controversy about the Kimkins plans, and that it looks like the whole scam is about to blow wide open. Many members have been banned from the site and have looked for an found other sites to get the support and help they need.

You know....this whole thing turns my stomach and makes me want to cry for the victims.

Here's the story, from what I can gather on the net.

Back several years ago a poster on a forum said she had lost close to 200 pounds in a relatively short period of time. This poster went by the name of Kimmer. Over the course of many postings over many months, Kimmer said she was a woman who lived in California with her son. She also said she had foster children, specifically male teens. Apparently there was also a claim of being on permanent disability and having defaulted on college loans. Apparently there have been several confirmations that this Kimmer is actually a woman named Heidi Diaz, who lives in Corona, CA. (I encourage you to look up and at the evidence and make your own conclusions, but the sources I've seen look pretty convincing)

People on the forum were impressed by Kimmer's before and after pictures and started asking her questions about her plan. Eventually they started asking for advice in following her plan, and she more firmly defined it. Apparently there were several plans. After a while Kimmer was apparently approached by someone who suggested setting up a website of her own where she could post her plans and set up a forum for members. There would be a fee for membership. That fee started around $15 and is currently around $60. The fee was supposed to be for the support forums, a personal page, email, etc. The plans were readily available all over the net! (And there are a few!)

I never joined Kimkins as the first time I looked into it I found it was a low fat plan. At that point I just dismissed it as one I wasn't interested in. I did notice there was a lot of chatter on the forums about Kimkins, but never really paid much attention. I noticed more and more ads for Kimkins on all the diet sites....and noticed that even links that looked like they were for different things also lead to the Kimkins site. Women's World did an article about Kimkins and boy did the Internet light up with activity to the Kimkins site as well as various weight loss forums!

While this was going on, there began to be a few in the low carb community that were questioning the wisdom of these plans. There were also bloggers that were trying and openly promoting Kimkins, even some of the lower calorie plans.

Now, generally there are 2 groups that use low carb as a diet, and of course there are subgroups. The first group is mainly interested in weight loss....and the faster the better. The second group is more concerned with the health aspects of low carb while working at loosing weight. Within each group you're going to find differences of opinion on whether calories "count" or not, if high fat or low fat is better, if you should eat high protein or high fat, etc. Personally I am of the health group and believe both fat and protein are good in any amounts (as long as they're as natural as possible) and that carbs should be avoided unless they are veggies, fruit and some dairy. I also believe that calories do count, but low carb calories are generally better tolerated than high carb calories.

So anyway....while Kimmer was building her site and more and more people were joining and talking about the plans on other sites, there started to be seen people who had personally been harmed by the diet or were concerned about things that were being said on the Kimkins site forums. And I guess it was right about here that Jimmy Moore publicly joined Kimkins and began to heavily advertise for the plan. (Jimmy has since quit the plan and publicly apologised to his readers)

Jimmy Moore's enthusiastic approval of Kimkins really upset the low carb community. Jimmy's is a very heavily read site and many of his readers are people looking into low carb. By Jimmy approving the Kimkins plans, he was saying that these plans were low carb and safe. (There is also controversy as to whether these plans are to be considered "low carb" or "low calorie". Personally I say they are "very low calorie" diets that happen to be VERY low in carbohydrates and fats) Jimmy's endorsement upset many in the low carb community, myself included.

Now you are seeing blogs reporting fantastic results of following Kimkins as well as blogs explaining the dangers of a very low calorie diet. There are blogs with before and after pictures and blogs talking about the hair loss, weakness, inability to exercise and even loss of menses related to the effects of the diets. There were blogs praising Kimmer and the Kimkins plans and there were now blogs questioning the very existence of Kimmer, aka Heidi Diaz. The pro-Kimmer postings were definitely being overshadowed by the anti-Kimkins postings.

The charges that people are saying about Kimmer and Kimkins?
1. Kimmer is in fact Heidi Diaz, a woman that lives in Corona, California. This woman appears to be morbidly obese. No one knows if she ever lost the weight she claimed to have lost, but even if she did, she apparently was unable to sustain the loss.
2. That Kimmer is posting advice to severely limit the intake of calories to the point of starvation levels.
3. That Kimmer is posting advice to use laxatives on a daily basis.
4. That Kimmer is allowing and even advising at least 1 teenager on her site.
5. That posts on the Kimkins support forum have been edited or deleted. These posts are posts questioning the wisdom of the advice given by Kimmer.
6. That Private Messages have been accessed by the administration staff on the Kimkins site.
7. That members have been banned from the site,, but given no refund and in many cases any explanation.
8. That some of the before and after pictures on the site are fake.
9. That Kimmer accepted money for non-existent foster children as a result of posts about money problems on the site.

To me, there are 2 disturbing things about this whole thing. One is that this woman has been pushing and promoting a very dangerous diet plan without any training in the field. And the other is the way she preyed on a group of people that were vulnerable and, in many cases, desperate.

The plans that many are upset about are the plans that encourage very low calories. Some of these plans are said to have a high of 800 calories!! Fat is restricted as much as possible and vegetables are severely limited. Some argue that these plans are only for short-term use, while others note that there is no time limit stated with the plans and Kimmer is advising people to stay on them for the long-term. Even in the short-term, diets that call for calories as low as these promote should only be undertaken with close medical supervision. I have known several people who have been put on very low calorie diets by their physicians and they were all very closely monitored. They were also told to watch for certain signs of starvation like hair loss and loss of menses.

Kimmer preyed on people, mainly women it seems, who are desperate to loose weight at almost any cost. Some only had a small amount to loose, but desperately wanted to get back to their "goal" weight, and many others had 100 pounds and more to loose. The one thing in common that these people had is that they'd tried other plans and weren't successful....or weren't as successful as they wanted to be. These people were willing to do something dramatic if that something worked....and by all reports, Kimkins did work!

Apparently the support forums on the Kimkins site were great. Many wonderful people posted there and many friendships were formed as a result of belonging to Kimkins. Good thing, as now many of these disillusioned members are finding each other on other sites, including Jimmy Moore's new forum. Many refer to themselves as Kimkins survivors, and survivors they are!! They are now starting to figure out how to eat healthy and loose weight. Many are going to different low carb plans, but are still reluctant to increase their fat or calories too much. They are upset, and rightly so, that not only were they used by Kimmer, but they are also now being used by anti-Kimkins bloggers who are using their words without permission. They are afraid to trust again. The damage done by Kimkins is not only physical.

Luckily there are plenty of support groups on the Internet. I follow several low carb/diet support sites and I'm seeing threads and posts from new members who are former or still current Kimkins members. And the other members on these forums are doing what they can to help. Many of these sites have tools to help track your intake and progress and members that are more than willing to answer questions and provide information and support for those that are asking for it. If you aren't already a member of a support group, I highly recommend joining one. Here are links to some of the favorites on the net:
Active Low Carbers Forum
Jimmy Moore's site
Spark People
Low Carb Friends

My plan:

My plan:

Protein: minimum 100g/day. Ideal 130+g/day
Carbohydrate: Beginning Jan 1, minimum 15g/day, less than 50g/day. Subtract fiber grams only.
Fat: as desired of the following:

• Coconut oil (and other tropical oils)
  
• Butter
• olive oil (not for high heat cooking)
  
• Nut oils (avoid for high heat cooking)
• Bacon fat (minimal unless bacon nitrate free)
• animal fat (fresh)
  

Total calories: 1200+ per day
Intermittent fasting: 24h Jan 1, 2007, as desired.
Exercise: minimum 3X/week

• Cardio: walking daily, starting minimum of 20 minutes.
• Strengthening/toning: Body For Life program

Processed foods: minimal use
Grains: minimal.
Corn, canola, soy and other "industrial" oils: do not use.
HFCS and trans-fats: check all labels and avoid whenever possible.
Artificial sweeteners: minimal use. Mainly use oligofructose (Sweet Perfection brand)

I base my plan primarily from Protein Power Life Plan (2000 edition) with strong influence of Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution (?1992 edition).

Note, this document is in progress, and may be updated at any time.

Updated 9/16/2007

My review of Kimkins as posted on the BBB

I've been following a lot of blogs about Kimkins, which I feel has some plans that are dangerous. I followed a link to a place on the BBB (Better Business Bureau). I had no intention of posting, but then decided to give my 2 cents.

Here is the post:

As a health professional I have to write to condemn these diet plans, the ones created by and promoted by a person who calls herself Kimmer, and calls her website Kimkins.com. The website allows you to join so you have access to support boards, articles, lists, meal plans, etc related to several different plans. Some are higher in calories and nutrients than others and sound acceptable. But there are other plans that promote very low calorie and very low fat eating. The different diet plans are available easily to non-members, the fee is for support and other products. One of these products is a message board.

I have never been a member of the site, nor have I tried any of the diets. I am a RN of over 30 years and have been researching diet and nutrition for about 3 years. I don't know it all, but I do know that this diet, at least parts of it, cannot be healthful.

There are several things that have been reported about this plan/website that disturbs me and others.

Do clients loose weight? I'm sure they do. But that does not mean they are healthy or have learned how to maintain their loss. Anyone that severely restricts their caloric intake will loose weight....that is a given. But to loose weight rapidly due to very low caloric intake is not healthy. Without adequate nutrients the body will suspend certain functions and others will be altered and/or damaged. To this charge, many members have reported significant hair loss and cessation of menses.

Do the clients see an improvement in blood work? Again, for the things that people are going to check, lipids, blood sugar, etc, probably yes. Fasting, whether done short or long term has been documented to lower blood sugar levels and "improve" lipid distribution. But I'd be willing to bet they are also deficient in many key vitamins and nutrients. Many members have reported weakness, exercise intolerance and joint pains....all attributable to inadequate nutrition.

Is the woman behind this plan who she says she is? It seems not. Recently the Internet has been plastered with pictures of a woman that a private investigator claims is Heidi Diaz aka Kimmer, the creator and perpetrator of this plan. The woman in the pictures certainly is not the woman portrayed on the website. Is this private investigator real? Does he have any evidence that the woman he photographed is in fact Heidi Diaz? He says he does....so he should be contacted by the authorities as part of the investigation of this diet/website.

Additional charges by members and former members are that this plan is accepting under 18 year olds as members. These underage members are also said to be given advice to cut calories and fat dramatically and even take laxatives on a regular basis. Damage to young children's bodies could be permanent if the accusations about this diet are true and children are being counseled to severely restrict food and fluid intake. The psychological effect might be too much for some and lead to a serious and life threatening eating disorder.

And finally, members are reporting being banned and locked out of the website, even though the membership clearly states it is a lifetime membership.

This site should be closed immediately and investigated thoroughly. If these charges are true the site should be permanently closed and the owner prosecuted and/or fined according to any laws that may have been broken. If the charges are unfounded the site should be reopened.

For those that think we're all fake, I am not in any way affiliated with Slamboard, or any other anti-Kimkins blog or website, other than being a reader and commenter. Jimmy Moore, who also posted a negative review, is well known and respected in the low carb community.

I am a RN licensed in North Carolina and formerly licensed (but eligible for reinstatement) in Massachusetts. I received my first license in 1976. I no longer work as a nurse, but follow literature, news, research, etc with a particular interest in diet, nutrition and good health.

Thank you
Alcinda Moore
aka Cindy Moore, CindySue48, CindySue54, and madnicla
Durham, North Carolina

There are many people speaking out, but as long as the site is open there is a danger! Please post your review too!

Keith Olbermann - Special Comment - Sept 4, 2007

Once again, Mr Olbermann has written an excellent commentary on Mr Bush's recent activities!

SPECIAL COMMENT

By Keith Olbermann

Anchor, 'Countdown'

MSNBC

Updated: 9:20 p.m. ET Sept 4, 2007

Keith Olbermann Anchor, 'Countdown' • Profile

And so he is back from his annual surprise gratuitous photo-op in Iraq, and what a sorry spectacle it was. But it was nothing compared to the spectacle of one unfiltered, unguarded, horrifying quotation in the new biography to which Mr. Bush has consented.

As he deceived the troops at Al-Asad Air Base yesterday with the tantalizing prospect that some of them might not have to risk being killed and might get to go home, Mr. Bush probably did not know that, with his own words, he had already proved that he had been lying, is lying and will be lying about Iraq.

He presumably did not know that there had already appeared those damning excerpts from Robert Draper's book “Dead Certain."

“I'm playing for October-November," Mr. Bush said to Draper. That, evidently, is the time during which, he thinks he can sell us the real plan, which is “to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence."

Comfortable, that is, with saying about Iraq, again quoting the President, “stay... longer."

And there it is. We've caught you. Your goal is not to bring some troops home, maybe, if we let you have your way now. Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal. You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and anon.

Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception, for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal: perpetuating this war indefinitely.

War today, war tomorrow, war forever!

And you are playing at it! Playing!

A man with any self respect, having inadvertently revealed such an evil secret, would have already resigned and fled the country! You have no remaining credibility about Iraq.

And yet, yesterday at Al-Asad, Mr. Bush kept playing, and this time, using the second of his two faces.

The president told reporters, “They (General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker) tell me if the kind of success we are now seeing continues, it will be possible to maintain the same level of security with fewer American forces."

And so, Mr. Bush got his fraudulent headlines today. “Bush May Bring Some Troops Home."

While the reality is, we know from what he told Draper, that the president's true hope is that they will not come home; but that they will stay there, because he is keeping them there now, in hope that those from his political party fighting to succeed him will prolong this unendurable disaster into the next decade.

But, to a country dying of thirst, the president seemed to vaguely promise a drink from a full canteen -- a promise predicated on the assumption that he is not lying.

Yet you are lying, Mr. Bush. Again. But now, we know why.

You gave away more of yourself than you knew in the Draper book. And you gave away more still, on the arduous trip back out of Iraq hours in the air, without so much as a single vacation.

“If you look at my comments over the past eight months," you told reporters, “it's gone from a security situation in the sense that we're either going to get out and there will be chaos, or, more troops. Now, the situation has changed, where I'm able to speculate on the hypothetical."

Mr. Bush, the only "hypothetical" here is that you are not now holding our troops hostage. You have no intention of withdrawing them. But that doesn't mean you can't pretend you're thinking about it, does it?

That is your genius as you see it, anyway. You can deduce what we want. We, the people, remember us? And then use it against us.

You can hold that canteen up and promise it to the parched nation. And the untold number of Americans whose lives have not been directly blighted by Iraq or who do not realize that their safety has been reduced and not increased by Iraq, they will get the bullet points: "Bush is thinking about bringing some troops home. Bush even went to Iraq."

You can fool some of the people all of the time, can't you, Mr. Bush? You are playing us!

And as for the most immediate victims of the president's perfidy and shameless manipulation of those troops -- yesterday sweating literally as he spoke at Al-Asad Air Base -- tonight, again sweating figuratively in The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death, the president saved, for them, the most egregious "playing" in the entire trip.

“I want to tell you this about the decision, about my decision about troop levels. Those decisions will be based on a calm assessment by our military commanders on the conditions on the ground, not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians to poll results in the media."

One must compliment Mr. Bush's writer. That, perhaps, was the mostly perfectly-crafted phrase of his presidency. For depraved indifference to democracy, for the craven projection of political motives onto those trying to save lives and save a nation, for a dismissal of the value of the polls and the importance of the media, for a summary of all he does not hold dear about this nation or its people nothing could top that.

As if you listened to all the "calm assessments" of our military commanders rather than firing the ones who dared say the emperor has no clothes, and the president, no judgment.

As if your entire presidency was not a “nervous reaction," and you yourself, nothing but a Washington politician.

As if “"he media" does not largely divide into those parts your minions are playing, and those others who unthinkingly and uncritically serve as your echo chamber, at a time when the nation's future may depend on the airing of dissent.

And as if those polls were not so overwhelming, and not so clearly reflective of the nation's agony and the nation's insistence.

But this president has ceased to listen. This president has decided that night is day, and death is life, and enraging the world against us is safety. And this laziest of presidents, actually interrupted his precious time off to fly to Iraq to play at a photo opportunity with soldiers, some of whom will on his orders be killed before the year maybe the month is out.

Just over 500 days remain in this presidency. Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield in these last 500 days.

Consider the singular fraudulence of this president's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of the Petraeus Report in these last 500 days.

Consider how this president has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream in these last 500 days.

And consider again how this president has spoken to that biographer: that he is “playing for October-November." The goal in Iraq is “to get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence." Consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered in these last 500 days.

In the context of all that now, consider these next 500 days.

Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end. Even if it means your resignation. Even if it means your impeachment. Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term. Even if it means a Democratic Congress and those true patriots among the Republicans standing up and denying you another penny for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.

This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country in the next 500 days.

Not while you are playing.

Click here to access the video.

Starting over

Now that vacation is over I'm back on plan!!

OK....I've been home 2 weeks, so this is the new start of a sugar free, low carb, high protein diet. This isn't a "diet" in the sense of loosing weight, but a "diet" as in a way of eating. (see 1 a and 1b below)

Main Entry: ¹di·et
Pronunciation: 'dI-&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English diete, from Anglo-French, from Latin diaeta, from Greek diaita, literally, manner of living, from diaitasthai to lead one's life
1 a : food and drink regularly provided or consumed b : habitual nourishment c : the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason d : a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight diet>
2 : something provided or experienced repeatedly diet of Broadway shows and nightclubs -- Frederick Wyatt>

So, to start back on track, I want to report I've lost more since vacation!! Since returning from vacation on August 26, I've lost an additional 2.8 pounds! And! I'm at a new low! I have not seen this weight in over 23 years!




This is going to be a short post. I'm taking today to rest and get back on track. I've been under a lot of stress lately, which hasn't lessened yet....and I'm tired. So today is a day to rest and get caught up on blogs and message boards!!

I've sold my house, but everything isn't finalized yet! The buyer had inspections done yesterday, and all passed except for a problem with termites! I'm not sure how extensive the damage is, but I'm sure I'll loose even more off the price of the house! Oh well....as long as the buyer doesn't back out, I'll take it. I really need to get out of here!

I'll be posting 2 additional posts today. One will be a special comment by Keith Olbermann and the other will be my review of Kimkins that I posted on the Better Business Bureau.

Vacation to Hilton Head Island

Vacation to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina was fantastic!!

Our suite was a bedroom with a double bed, a huge bath with both a shower and tub (with jets), a well equipped kitchen, a nice living room area with a sofa bed and a nice little patio!!

Patio

Sharon in kitchen

Me in living room

Sharon in bath

Bedroom



View from patio

Quite a nice suite, and a very nice island. They preserved a lot of trees when building on HHI, which makes it look different from other seaside tourist places. No huge condos/hotels lining the beach front....we only saw one and that was only 5-6 stories. Plenty or tourist shops....beach wear, candies, ice cream etc....but not lining the main roads! There are several shopping areas or malls and even these have many trees in the lots.

Food was good. I didn't exactly stick to my plan, but did better than I expected. I love fried seafood and it's almost impossible to find any that's good here in Durham. I had fried seafood twice. Both times the breading was fairy light....one place so light you could actually see the markings on the shrimp right through it! We had breakfast (brunch) in the room each morning...mine was mostly shakes, fruit and breakfast bars. We ate out every evening. Seafood twice, steak/hamburg three times and a salad bar once. We also ate breakfast out one day. For treats, in addition to my fried foods, I had ice cream twice and pralines twice. The ice creams were worth it....both were homemade on the premises. I was able to eat a protein meal/treat shortly after indulging, so never had any really bad cravings. I was pleasantly surprised in the evening to not really want anything extra, even though my friend was snacking frequently!

We went to the pool twice (Sharon went 3 times) and to the ocean once. After the first swim in the pool I developed a rash on both legs. It got worse after the second swim, so I decided to avoid the pool from that point on. The one time we went to the ocean I got stung by a jellyfish after about 10 min in the water!!

On Thursday we went to Savanna. We drove to Savanna and took a 90 min narrated trolley tour of the city. It's very pretty with some really beautiful homes and churches. After wandering around and having dinner....and being entertained by our waitress....we went back for an evening ghost tour! Never saw any ghosts, but heard some very interesting stories!!

Here are some more pictures. Click on them for full size.

Day tour

Ghost tour guide

Savanna


Sharon at pub in Savanna

Savanna


Sharon and I

Pool at night

Pool fountain at night.

On vacation!

I'm on vacation. I'll be returning August 25.

Call for Kimkins Investigation

I found this link on the Kimkins Survivors site.

If you are as concerned about "Kimmer" and the diet she is promoting (even to minors) please go to Petition Online and sign!!

Update and I've been tagged.

Just a quick update.....no I haven't sold my house yet, and yes I'm still packing and cleaning!! Man what a lot of work!!



I've been tagged by Sparky's Girl to list 8 random facts about myself.

First, the Rules:
1) Post these rules before you give your facts
2) List 8 random facts about yourself
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged


Here are my 8 facts:
1. I have 2 adult children, ages 22 and 25, that I raised as a single mom. (and I'm incredibly proud of them!)
2. At the age of 43 I packed up my kids and myself, sold my house, quit my job, and moved from MA to NC.
3. I'm a RN, and probably became one because of my dad's sister, also a nurse, who I adored.
4. My hair is pretty much completely gray and has been for several years....I first noticed it changing before my 13th birthday.
5. I'm the baby of the family, the youngest of 4. There is 13 yrs between me and my sister, the oldest.
6. I'm a RN, but right now I work as a QA Analyst testing a web-based application for nurses, social workers, etc. I'm self taught in at least 75-80% of what I know about computers and applications.
7. I have 2 dogs, Daisy and Duke, who are rescues. They are a mix (we think) of Doberman, Shepherd and some kind of hound. After I move I might get a kitten.
8. I love birds. I like to feed them, watch them, photograph them....but I can't stand to see them in a cage!!


Now...who will be my victims??
1. Jimmy Moore (Livin La Vida Low Carb)
2. Connie Bennett (Sugar Shock)
3. Mark (Mark’s Daily Apple)
4. Mr & Mrs Fat (Blogging While Fat)
5. Lady Rose (The Diet Pulpit)
6. Crabby (Cranky Fitness)
7. BamaGal (Back Across the Line)
8. Carol (Kudos for Low Carb)

I hope none have already been tagged....I'm way behind in my blog reading!!


OK....Now the REAL reason I'm posting today. I have hit my latest mini-goal!!!



I am soooo psyched!! My goal was 180 by 8/12, and I weighed in Saturday at that, then Sunday at 179.4!! That means I have less than 20 pounds to go!!

Last time I weighed under 180 was when I was pregnant with my son.....yep, the 22 yr old. When I got pregnant with my son I weighed 175....so that's my next goal. I think by December 1. Since I'm so close to goal I know the loss will be slow, and I don't want to set too high a goal and end up getting frustrated.


This weekend I'm going on vacation with a long time friend. We're going to Hilton Head, where she has been able to get a vacation share. We have no idea what the place looks like, but we're going!! I don't even care if it rains all week!! Just being able to get away from work, and the house, and all the rest....and talk to a dear old friends.....who needs sun!!

OK....that's it for now!! I'm hoping once I get back from vacation things will be a bit quieter. But not for too long!! I want to sell my house and move and get back to normal!!

Thanks to all who read my blog and post comments. Be sure to check out the people I've tagged! They all have great blogs!





.

Going to be gone for a while

Two weeks since I posted my progress and I've lost another 1.8 pounds. I do love this digital scale!!



I'm in the process of selling my house and looking for a new one, so I'm going to take a break from blogging for a bit. It's a lot of work cleaning and packing a house after 10 yrs of living there!!

So, I'll still be reading my favorite blogs and following my team on SparkPeople, but otherwise I won't be online much. Still have a lot of stuff to pack and a few things to sell!

Wow!! I just realized that I've been sugar free for over 21 weeks!!

Keith Olbermann's SPECIAL COMMENT 7/20/07

Go to Iraq and fight, Mr. President

SPECIAL COMMENT
By Keith Olbermann
Anchor, 'Countdown'
MSNBC
Updated: 8:39 p.m. ET July 19, 2007

It is one of the great, dark, evil lessons, of history.

A country — a government — a military machine — can screw up a war seven ways to Sunday. It can get thousands of its people killed. It can risk the safety of its citizens. It can destroy the fabric of its nation.

But as long as it can identify a scapegoat, it can regain or even gain power.

The Bush administration has opened this Pandora’s Box about Iraq. It has found its scapegoats: Hillary Clinton and us.

The lies and terror tactics with which it deluded this country into war — they had nothing to do with the abomination that Iraq has become. It isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The selection of the wrong war, in the wrong time, in the wrong place — the most disastrous geopolitical tactic since Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia in 1914 and destroyed itself in the process — that had nothing to do with the overwhelming crisis Iraq has become. It isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The criminal lack of planning for the war — the total “jump-off-a-bridge-and-hope-you-can-fly” tone to the failure to anticipate what would follow the deposing of Saddam Hussein — that had nothing to do with the chaos in which Iraq has been enveloped. It isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The utter, blinkered idiocy of “staying the course,” of sending Americans to Iraq and sending them a second time, and a third and a fourth, until they get killed or maimed — the utter de-prioritization of human life, simply so a politician can avoid having to admit a mistake — that had nothing to do with the tens of thousand individual tragedies darkening the lives of American families, forever. It isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault.

The continuing, relentless, remorseless, corrupt and cynical insistence that this conflict somehow is defeating or containing or just engaging the people who attacked us on 9/11, the total “Alice Through the Looking Glass” quality that ignores that in Iraq, we have made the world safer for al-Qaida — it isn’t Mr. Bush’s fault!

The fault, brought down, as if a sermon from this mount of hypocrisy and slaughter by a nearly anonymous undersecretary of defense, has tonight been laid on the doorstep of... Sen. Hillary Clinton and, by extension, at the doorstep of every American — the now-vast majority of us — who have dared to criticize this war or protest it or merely ask questions about it or simply, plaintively, innocently, honestly, plead, “Don’t take my son; don’t take my daughter.”

Sen. Clinton has been sent — and someone has leaked to The Associated Press — a letter, sent in reply to hers asking if there exists an actual plan for evacuating U.S. troops from Iraq.

This extraordinary document was written by an undersecretary of defense named Eric Edelman.

“Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq,” Edelman writes, “reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.”

Edelman adds: “Such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks.”

A spokesman for the senator says Mr. Edelman’s remarks are “at once both outrageous and dangerous.” Those terms are entirely appropriate and may, in fact, understate the risk the Edelman letter poses to our way of life and all that our fighting men and women are risking, have risked, and have lost, in Iraq.

After the South was defeated in our Civil War, the scapegoat was Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and the ideas of the “Lost Cause” and “Jim Crow” were born.

After the French were beaten by the Prussians in 1870 and 1871, it was the imaginary “Jewish influence” in the French Army general staff, and there was born 30 years of self-destructive anti-Semitism, culminating in the horrific Dreyfus case.

After the Germans lost the First World War, it was the “back-stabbers and profiteers” at home, on whose lives the National Socialists rose to prominence in the succeeding decades and whose accused membership eventually wound up in torture chambers and death camps.

And after the generation before ours, and leaders of both political parties, escalated and re-escalated and carpet-bombed and re-carpet-bombed Vietnam, it was the protest movement
and Jane Fonda and — as late as just three years ago — Sen. John Kerry who were assigned the kind of blame with which no rational human being could concur, and yet which still, across vast sections of our political landscape, resonates unchallenged and accepted.

And now Mr. Bush, you have picked out your own Jefferson Davis, your own Dreyfus, your own “profiteer” — your own scapegoat.

Not for the sake of this country.

Not for the sake of Iraq.

Not even for the sake of your own political party.

But for the sake of your own personal place in history.

But in reaching for that place, you have guaranteed yourself tonight not honor, but infamy.

In fact, you have condemned yourself to a place among that remarkably small group of Americans whom Americans cannot forgive: those who have sold this country out and who have willingly declared their enmity to the people at whose pleasure they supposedly serve.

A scapegoat, sir, might be forgivable, if you hadn’t just happened to choose a prospective presidential nominee of the opposition party.

And the accusation of spreading “enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia” might be some day atoned for, if we all didn’t know — you included, and your generals and the Iraqis — that we are leaving Iraq, and sooner rather than later, and we are doing it even if to do so requires, first, that you must be impeached and removed as president of the United States, sooner rather than later.

You have set this government at war against its own people and then blamed those very people when they say, “Enough.”

And thus it crystallizes, Mr. Bush.

When Civil War Gen. Ambrose Burnside ordered a disastrous attack on Fredericksburg in which 12,000 of his men were killed, he had to be physically restrained from leading the next charge himself.

After the First Lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill, authored and enabled the disastrous Gallipoli campaign that saw a quarter-million Allied soldiers cut down in the First World War, Churchill resigned his office and took a commission as a front-line officer in the trenches of France.

Those are your new role models, Mr. Bush.

Let your minions try to spread the blame to the real patriots here, who have sought only to undo the horrors you have wrought since 2002.

Let them try it, until the end of time.

Though the words might be erased from a million books and a billion memories, though the world be covered knee-deep in your lies, the truth shall prevail.

This, sir, is your war.

Sen. Clinton has reinforced enemy propaganda? Made it impossible for you to get your ego-driven, blood-steeped win in Iraq?

Then take it into your own hands, Mr. Bush.

Go to Baghdad now and fulfill, finally, your military service obligations.

Go there and fight, your war. Yourself.

The video can be found here.

Weigh In week 19

No loss this week, in fact, I'm up 0.4 pounds this week!




Been following my plan as closely as I can. I did have one day that I had almost 150 carbs, but it was all "legal" foods.



Work has been horribly busy!! It's been good, in that things are going fairly smoothly....but it's been busy. Which does make the day go faster!!


I've been trying to get my house on the market....and man is it a lot of work!! I have closets that haven't been completely cleaned in years!!! We're not going to be doing painting, etc....we're just trying to get everything cleaned up and packed up.

I have brought a ton of clothes and other things down to Salvation Army, and have a bunch more to bring down. I've also thrown out a ton of stuff!!!


A friend and I are now planning a trip for next spring. Not sure of dates yet, but we're going to Rome!! Holly, my friend, has been to Rome twice, but I've never been out of the country....except Canada as a kid and the Bahamas on my honeymoon.

So....here's the story. Holly has a plane ticket for a trip she was supposed to go on this past week. The trip was canceled, but the ticket can't be. It can, however, be changed to another date and destination. So....Holly had a deadline for changing her ticket and the two of us got together and decided we're going to go to Rome, but not until the spring. By then I should have my house sold and all my bills paid off. As soon as all is final with the house, I'm going to apply for a passport, then plan the date of the trip.

I am so excited!!! I've been following Dr Mike's posts about Rome....and boy I can't wait!!!


Speaking of Dr Mike....he's done it again. This time it's a post about inflammation.

I have long believed that the food we eat and many other things cause or increase our levels of inflammation. All the chemicals in "foods" that are a part of our regular diet cannot possibly be good for us. Well, according to Dr Mike, it's the food itself!! Read his post and see if you agree.

On that same vein, I've long believed that it is NOT good for us to spend an hour or more each day doing strenuous exercise. I've also believed that pushing yourself and exercising with pain is not good. The comments on Dr Mike's post agree with this. You know what I'm talking about....the ads on TV showing people "working through the pain" and taking drugs to stop the pain so they can continue to exercise!! Oh yea, that makes sense!!

One of the ways our bodies have to tell us something is wrong is by producing pain. Our bodies can't tap us on the shoulder and say "hey, your left knee is not doing good. It's all inflamed and needs a break". No....our bodies do this by causing pain. Pain should be a sign that you need to stop. And chronic pain means you need to make some serious changes!!

So...if you're finding that your inflammation markers are elevated, check the foods you eat and how you exercise. Stick with whole, natural foods whenever possible and take it easy with the exercise!! And yes, when something hurts take it easy!!

Personally, I'm a fan of resistance training over cardio exercising. Now sure, if you like running or playing basketball or biking, great....but it probably isn't the best thing you can do for fitness!!

I am also a major fan of Krill Oil for inflammation. I started taking this as a result of an article I read, again on Dr Mike's blog, about a study that showed Krill lowered inflammation markers. I have long standing problems with my back and neck, including 3 bad discs and arthritis with bone spurs. I noticed a difference in 48 hours!!

The most remarkable thing with the Krill is that after being on it for less than 3 months I had blood work drawn and almost all of my inflammation markers were within normal limits!! Sed rate was still a tad elevated, but my CRP and other levels were all within normal limits!! I cannot remember when they were last normal. Low carbing brought some down, but Krill seems to have done the rest.

I posted on this in the past, and only heard from one person, but that response was positive. I've told several people in work, but they all think I'm a nut case, so they'll probably not may any attention.

So, if you think it will help, give it a try. And if you do, let me know....and let Dr Mike know!

One caution. If you do decide to try the Krill, make sure it's "Neptune" Krill oil. I buy mine at Vitamin Shoppe and buy the Source Naturals brand. It's not very expensive and well worth every penny!!


I read an article today that will probably not be a surprise to many in the low carb community. It seems that triglyceride levels are more of an indicator of heart disease than it's been believed to be in the medical community. According to this article, it's not the fasting triglyceride level you have to worry about, but the after meal level.

In the past I've read several articles that stated that triglyceride levels are useless as they literally go up and down all day long. The argument was, what good is it to check a fasting level when it's an artificial level. While I can see this....and this article seems to agree....to me the fasting levels shouldn't be thrown out either. Before I discovered low carb my triglycerides were too high to count. At the time I was told that meant they were over 700. Now, if my fasting was over 700, what was it after a meal!!!

The article is a pretty good one, although they never really give any optimal levels, nor do they mention how long after a meal the levels should be checked. And then, at the end, of course they turn to drugs!!

Whatever the testing routine may ultimately turn out to be, dangerously high triglyceride levels require the same corrective measures as high cholesterol levels, McBride said, with close attention to the well-known risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and inactivity.

(emphasis is mine)

NO!!!! No! No! NOOOOO!!!

Triglycerides are directly related to carbohydrate intake!!! Lowering fat intake is NOT going to help. Lowering protein intake is NOT going to help, Lowering levels with drugs is NOT going to help!!!

Lowering carbohydrate intake is the BEST way to lower triglycerides. Check out Dr Mercola for information, or Dr Mike, or Dr Vernon. Don't bother looking at the AHA site (or any of their influenced sites like WebMD) . Although the AHA does say to cut back on carbohydrates, they also suggest, of course, a low fat diet.

But, if fat is the cause of elevated triglycerides and not carbs, why do we see a dramatic lowering in people that start a low carb diet? Even those that follow very high fat (60, 70% and more) diets , when it's accompanied by a very low carb (less than 20-40grams/day) diet usually see a fairly rapid and very dramatic lowering of cholesterol levels! If fat is the cause and not carbs, why do people that follow Dr Ornish's diet or the AHA diet often see an increase in their levels??

Following a low carb diet is the best way to lower triglycerides. Following a low carb diet is also the best way to lower blood sugar and insulin levels. Most experts (real and imagined) agree that high triglycerides are often seen in uncontrolled or undiagnosed diabetes.

So lowering blood sugar and blood insulin levels are the way to go. And we all know that the best way to do that isn't with drugs, or with limiting fat, it's by limiting carbohydrates!!

Will the medical industry ever figure it out? When they can make a fortune on drugs and procedures why should they?

You know....I'd like to say I don't care. But I do. I have friends and family members that listen to and believe everything the AHA and ADA has to say. The simple fact that I am a RN with over 30 years experience and have been researching this for over 2 years doesn't matter. It's against what the "experts" (the imagined ones) say!!


Calling all insomniacs!!!! I read a comment on one of Dr Mike's blogs, where a commenter said that since starting vitamin D3 insomnia was a thing of the past. Well, when I read that, my jaw dropped.

I have been an insomniac for as long as I can remember. I can remember being a teenager and lying in bed for hours before falling asleep. Didn't matter how tired I was, I would lie in bed as the rest of the family slept. This continued into adulthood, and there were times that I would only be able to sleep for 3-4 hours a night. Night after night, I'd lie there, trying to sleep and still lying awake.

Several months ago, in March, I started taking vitamin D3. I use Carlson's brand and have been taking 5000 IU each day. About 2 months ago I realized that my insomnia was gone!! Now I've had periods where for several days I'd be able to go right to sleep, but never longer than 2-3 days at a time. And that would be followed by several weeks of insomnia. Now, however, I go to sleep withing minutes of going to bed!! I still have "bad" nights, like last night, but on these nights I lie there for 30-60 minutes before falling asleep. GONE are the nights of lying awake until 2 AM, 3 AM and even later!!

If you too have problems with insomnia, give vitamin D3 a try. If you've also noticed an improvement in your sleeping since starting D3, let me know. I'd love to see a study done, but of course there's no money in supplements. I have been able to find several references that say that insomnia is a side effect of low D3 levels, so maybe this isn't all wishful thinking!!

I've passed this info on to a friend who has as big a problem as I have. I don't know if she will take the D3 or not, but she sure seemed interested. If she takes it and give me a report, I'll post it here. And if anyone else has seen an improvement in their insomnia that is felt to be due to vitamin D3, please post a comment!


OK....I guess that's it for now. Again, thanks for visiting!!