Carb Flu

So I stalled out, hit the wall, plateaued…pick one. Extra water, all my allotted points….nothing. I’m stuck in this three pounds range. They leave, then they get homesick for my hips and bring their friends with them.

I did a carb detox over the weekend to reset things. Saturday was OK, but Sunday I woke up at 4 AM with a bad headache and a runny nose. And to add to the hilarity, Aunt Flo showed up with no warning. Yesterday I woke up with the same plus a blood sugar crash. I was fine once I spooned peanut butter into my mouth and sat for a few minutes. As the day went on, I started feeling better. Still pretty tired, but better.

After a consult with Drs. Bing and Google, I found the name for my condition: the carb or Paleo flu. It happens when a person starts removing the bad carbs from their food intake. It’s not unlike detoxing from mood-altering substances.

Another interesting point: that some people have what’s called “inflexible” metabolisms. It means they can burn calories from one source more efficiently than others. Some people do great on carbs and fat, others on carbs and low fat fare; others don’t do so well on carbs. I think that I fall in the latter category.

The diets I’ve had the greatest success on have been the ones with limited carbs. It’s not incompatible with Weight Watchers–the points just have to go towards the protein and the fats.

So we will try again and see.

Vivat Anna Regina!

May 19, 1536. Anne Boleyn met her fate on a scaffold in front of the section of the Tower of London where the crown jewels reside. Stripped of everything save her birth name and her dignity, she went out with her head held high, knowing that she and the men she’d been accused of knowing too well were all innocent of the charges fabricated against them.

Maybe today, we can take a moment to remember her, and her successor Katherine Howard, executed on the same grounds some years later.

Maybe today, we can spare a thought for the women who have lost their lives to violent partners.

Until the balance between the masculine and feminine is restored, until we return to the Old Ways of peace and honoring and celebrating the differences and their inherent wisdom, this will continue. Light a candle, say a prayer that we return to the divine partnership of equals that was intended since the beginning of time, and do what you can in your corner of the world. It’s changing, so let us work with that momentum.

Recovery and Stir Fry

Caution: not for the faint of heart or easily grossed out. 

I’m not doing very much today. I need some down time, as does Oakley.

It started last weekend with some restlessness and withdrawal. Then the loose, unformed poops started.

Again. For the third time this year.

I gave Oaks some bentonite clay in his pumpkin or sweet potato. Seemed to put the brakes on, and it worked.

Until Wednesday. Went to acupuncture, went to run errands, came home to find him standing in his crate. Usually, he just lies there and gives me the big hound-y eyes until he gets a token of apology from me. But he was standing.

I opened the door of the crate and found out that he’d had an explosive accident.  Emphasis on explosive. Cleaned him up, threw the bed out, mopped the floor. Ran him out in the yard where he barfed up bile. Called the vet.

We were able to get in with Dr. P. She does traditional Chinese medicine. That was good. The bad: we couldn’t get in until her last appointment on Thursday.

Took it. One of the other vets took pity on us and refilled the chicken-flavored Kaopectate gel so we could both get some peace.

Bloodwork and poop samples came back normal the last couple of times, so I didn’t bother with that. Dr. P asked a ton of questions. Out of that came the game plan:

• Wean him off the acid blockers. They had crossed the line between providing relief and interfering with the digestive process.
• Feed “cool” foods. In TCM, references to a food being hot, warm, cool, or cold are not about the level of spiciness or temperature.  It speaks to how likely a food is to cause inflammation. Currently, his proteins are restricted to turkey and bison. His carbs are coming from pumpkin or barley. We’ll try millet. The sweet potatoes and hard squash contain more sugar than his system can handle, and contributed to the bacterial overgrowth in his intestines that triggered off the whole cycle. Veggies allowed include spinach, mushrooms, and celery. He’s had a bit of zucchini, too, which seems to sit well.
• Adjust portion sizes and balance. Even with all the digestive distress, he had still managed to gain weight since his last appointment. My bad. I had misread a feeding chart and was giving him a lot more meat than he needed. Dr. P suggested a book that I will review here after I read it.
• Change up the herbs–get him back on the Liver Happy whether he wants to or not after a cycle of one to stop the diarrhea.

It’s all working beautifully. He slept well Thursday night, and on Friday he passed a poop so well formed that I almost posted a picture of it on Facebook. I thought the better of it, though. (You’re welcome.) He’s not happy about the forced abstinence from chicken and beef, or the smaller portions. But he does like the barley, the spinach, and not having cramps and an achy tummy.

And I like that we found an alternative to another round of antibiotics.  As if both of us sleeping through the night wasn’t awesome enough.

So today, we will recover. We had a lovely walk with friends this morning. Another one is in the offing for this afternoon. I will make a pot of stir-fried veggies later today. We will watch the episodes of “The Tudors” leading up to Anne Boleyn’s demise. And we will enjoy the peace.

The “Wolf Hall” Notes

(Admit it. You would have been heartbroken if I didn’t put in my two pence worth, wouldn’t you?)

“Wolf Hall,” the latest TV take on the Tudor dynasty, ended last night. Of course it concluded with Anne Boleyn’s execution. That, unless it’s a work of speculative fiction, is inevitable.

Hilary Mantel deserves props and kudos for the book of the same name and “Bring Up the Bodies,” its sequel. The producers seamlessly merged the two novels into the six week series. Points for historical accuracy over my beloved “Tudors” are conceded. And the music was great.

What I didn’t like were the portrayals of Henry VIII and Anne. Granted that an almost cuddly Thomas Cromwell is the protagonist in this slice of the Tudor-verse, but they came across as one dimensional sociopaths. Damian Lewis was a flaming a**hole of a Henry with no conscience or soul whatsoever, unlike Jonathan Rhys Meyer’s Henry who tortured himself over his impulse driven mistakes. Natalie Dormer’s Anne had depth, complexity, and the drive to be more than a pawn in her father’s power games.  I was ready for Claire Foy’s Anne to be executed ten minutes into the first episode.

I have a feeling that Ms. Mantel really doesn’t like Anne very much. I read “Wolf Hall” a couple of years ago. The only way she could have made her feelings about her more clear would have been to have the book designers insert I HATE ANNE BOLEYN into the footers alongside the page numbers.

Will I watch it again? Maybe. It was still a good drama. But it wasn’t the slice of the Tudor-verse that I know and love.