Giving up Grains

by Sylvie from Lipedemic Me

First, I need to say that because of the magic of the Internet and of, yes, Facebook, I met many wonderful ladies suffering from Lipoedema from all over the world!

We have support groups on Facebook, some of these women have websites, blogs and we are building up a strong community!

On the Lipese website...the idea came of starting a Lifestyle Challenge, which is all about making some changes in our eating habits, exercising, experimenting with supplements, treatments, etc...that can be resumed in 3 words: MANAGING OUR LIPOEDEMA.

My own personal changes started in November 2012, when I decided to go wheat and sugar free. Thought I would go nuts and end up like "Grumpy" but hey, was I in for a surprise!! I lost 10 pounds in a month!! Of course I had withdrawal symptoms: diarrhea, headaches, abdominal cramps but I persisted and now if I have something sweet I go "NAH!...this is WAY too sweet". Never thought I would pronounce this words in my sweet teeth's life! 

My January challenge was to give up all grains!! At this point, in time, I no LONGER have bowel issues, no more loose stools, no more massive abdominal cramps. I had all of these even before giving of wheat!

I exercise 3 times a week too. And jog on my mini-trampoline. So far, this month, I have lost another 4 pounds. My non-lipedemic fat is melting!!

I also go to me MLD treatment once a week and do regular SLD!  

I'm really proud of myself! Never thought I would have the determination to do all of this.

Halfway through January Lifestyle Challenge

By Tatjana van der Krabben

I’m on board with the inflammation theory. I acknowledge sugar and wheat are bad news and only fuel inflammation. Did I give up on sugar and wheat? Not exactly. I cut back a lot and am virtually off sugar and take some wheat. Awkward pause…

For January Lifestyle Challenge I tackled my last source of artificial sweeteners: soda. No ifs, ands or buts here: I cut out soda January 1^st and stand by it. Soda was my is-it-somewhere-6-o’clock-yet? thing. So it was a habit. Giving up on it gave me cravings, first for soda and when I did not cave: sugar. I did cave there a few times, but regrouped after a week. I now sometimes take a glass of sparkling water, as I get tired of flat water, tea and coffee. I have not lost weight or inches, but I feel better. More relaxed, more energetic, despite an insane workload. Apparently I cut something useful out.

Now I’m at a crossroads. About 2 years ago I was leaning towards RAD diet. Unfortunately, as I made progress, I did not feel better. I went from not being much of a meat eater to horrendous cravings for meat in my almost vegan phase. I lacked energy, had trouble with the liquid food bit. I do feel fighting inflammation is key. I also support additive-free eating, which is promoted by RAD, but I needed to find a new way. When attempting RAD I did not even get around to cutting out wheat to the present extend (addicted? me?).  

Stopping all together is hard. It’s not just addiction. It’s about being wheat-free in a wheat world with a wheat-husband and wheat-craving kids. I can’t see it. I get lost in the how and work around it. I buy spelt bread. Technically that’s a type of wheat, only less modified and usually tolerated better. I bought gluten-free pasta a few times. Still starchy, obviously. I also get menu requests with noodles. I tried rice noodles. It’s like eating noodles soaked in wall paper glue! Imagine that in your gut. Yuk! I bought kelp noodles. I cooked them for a great length of time to try softening them. I only got to ‘trying’…

Am I weak? Making excuses? There’s light at the end of the tunnel. You need guidelines, a source for recipes. I now lean towards Paleo/Primal. I don’t know what to think of the specifics like the nightshade veggies or dairy. I’m not there yet. I stopped forcing myself to eat fruit every day. That was a relief. Now I enjoy eating fruit again, when I do. I eat more animal protein. I hate plain eggs, but looked for recipes to incorporate more eggs. That’s working out fine. Meals high on protein, also almond flour or meal, work well for me.  After taking in more protein and healthy fats, I did manage to cut back on wheat a lot.

December and January brought more change. I also stopped taking sugar in my coffee and creamer, since I learned most powdered foods contain aluminum. I also switched baking powers for that in January. I finally allowed the nagging feeling to sink in that the low-fat margarine spread did contain an awful lot of funny ingredients to be that healthy. I did something last week that felt soooo wrong: I switched to real butter from grass fed cows for the occasion I do eat bread. Real butter goes against EVERYTHING I was taught growing up. But it’s yum, satisfying and hours later I need to remind myself to eat again. I also started taking rutin again last week, to see if it does more after quite literally cleaning up my act. What else? In December I changed shampoo. This new one I used to buy for the kids when babies. It contains about half the ingredients my old shampoo had.  

I’ve cleaned up my act so much the takeout pizza from last weekend hit my stomach like a ton of bricks. The scales were unforgiving: 4 lbs up, completely bloated. I looked on the website: Domino’s doesn’t do gluten-free crusts. I will have to make my own. I have a recipe. I do. But I do enjoy the occasional takeout, a I-don’t-have-to-cook day. Cooking from scratch takes dedication and time. And going wheat-free completely and losing my last bit of tolerance for it scares me a little. The less I eat it, the worse I feel when I do eat it. How do you deal with vacations? Day at an amusement park? Visiting people? Always packing your own food? It’s a wheat and sugar world and I’m not ready to be wheat-free and sugar-free in that world. At the same time I try my hardest to – otherwise – clean up my act and detox. It’s working: my legs are feeling better.

My First Whole 30 - Week 2

By Christina Routon

Moving into week two of our January Lifestyle Challenge, I'm feeling the rush of energy described in the Whole 30 timeline. I've been following along with others in the forums there, and we're almost all experiencing the same thing, although I haven't had any food dreams yet.

The second week was easier in that I wasn't as hungry as I'd been the first week, although I'm still missing my gluten-free pancakes. I really wanted a quick and easy dinner on Friday night and that would have been wonderful. Instead I raided the fridge for some vegetables, mixed up another batch of homemade mayo from Nom Nom Paleo's recipe, and made some chicken salad. The prep work has been easier as well since I've started sticking to basic recipes and asked my husband to help with the chopping, browning meat, and the clean up.

My favorite foods so far come from Melissa Joulwan's cookbook Well Fed. They are Jicama home fries and chocolate chili. I'm making the jicama again this week, I can't seem to get enough.

I added two more things last week - get eight hours of sleep and exercise three times a week. So far, I haven't been consistent with either, although going to bed by 10:30 is difficult, especially when my husband gets home from work after nine. It's difficult to stop a conversation and go to bed, but I know it's important for my health.

I've been reading some interesting information about Omega 3 & Omega 6 fats and I'll be sharing that later in the month. I haven't found anything yet that pertains specifically to lipedema, but we do know Omega 6 fats are inflammatory, and I'll be sharing what I discover regarding a balance of these fats.

My first Whole 30 - Week 1

By Christina Routon

For the January Lifestyle Challenge I chose to start a paleo diet. I went all in by following a program called Whole 30. You can find out more about this plan at Whole9Life and check out the following websites for recipes:

The Clothes Make the Girl (I'm also using her cookbook, Well Fed)
Nom Nom Paleo

Whole 30 is an elimination plan (no grains, legumes, dairy (except ghee and eggs), sweeteners of any kind) and it also includes other rules such as:

No "paleo" treats
No "paleo-ifying" regular foods - no "paleo bread", etc.

This means my gluten-free pancakes with sugar-free syrup are out, as well as the corn tortillas and grits, peanut butter, and other things I was still eating. Also, all sweeteners, including stevia, Splenda, Truvia, agave - are out. It's been a learning curve, but I'm doing okay. I'm not having the cravings / headaches other people have talked about during the Whole30 timeline as I'd already gone wheat-free / sugar-free.

Here are a few things I've learned this week. The lessons should apply to any type of plan you're doing.

Plan ahead - This is crucial. I can't just run out and grab something to eat for lunch or toss something together for dinner. There has to be a plan in place and food has to be ready ahead of time.

Keep it simple - Don't try to make meals that consume too much time in the kitchen. It's been a week and I already feel as if I'm in kitchen jail. I do try to cook ahead as Melissa recommends in her book, Well Fed, but I end up cooking for about two days ahead instead of the week. One of my rules for recipes - must include items found in my local grocery store. The only item I bought at a health-food store was Coconut Aminos.

Get family participation - My husband is doing this with me as a show of support. It's always nice to have support and participation. Our son still lives with us, but he's been buying his own food.

It doesn't have to be expensive - Yes, I know a lot of paleo and primal sites want you to buy grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and organic vegetables. I can't afford those at this point in time. I buy what I can, even if it's not perfect. I do check the dirty dozen list to see if the vegetables / fruit should be bought organic, though, and if I can I buy them organic or do without. I started buying ingredients and testing recipes during the weeks leading to Christmas, just to test them out. So far, I've only exceeded my weekly grocery budget twice in about three weeks, and then by $20.

I'm not weighing until the end of January, but I do have my weight and measurements from the end of December to compare. However, I'm not doing this for weight loss. As many of you know, with lipedema we're not really trying to "lose weight". We're trying to fight inflammation. Some of what I'm doing may result in weight loss, but I'm not expecting my legs to change overnight. I'm not expecting to drop a significant amount of weight. My reason for following this plan in January and continuing with the paleo / primal diet is to reduce inflammation I already have and prevent any more from occurring.

Starting today, January 7, I'm adding exercise back into my routine as well.

How are you doing on your January challenge?

You Are Okay, I Am Fat

By Maggie McCarey

YOU ARE OKAY.  I AM FAT

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
 By the time I finish my song?

     Healthy families raise children who love themselves and others as they are loved. Period. Healthy families raise children who believe in their intrinsic and unique importance at home and in society. Always.  Healthy families raise children to believe that they are not divine mistakes. Ever. On the other hand, dysfunctional families produce children who doubt their self-worth, generation after generation.  A dysfunctional family has favorites among its children and roles: martyrs, scapegoats, heroes, and clowns.  A dysfunctional family orbits around a broken and narcissistic individual who disables rational thinking and loving behavior among and between its members.  Dysfunctional families learn destructive coping mechanisms that they bring to the classroom, church, and workplace. 

BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY:  if you have been born into a dysfunctional family, and you were tortured for your weight, you were not really rejected because you were fat.  You were rejected because your family had to assign you a dysfunction role to preserve itself.  If you weren't rejected because you were fat, you would have been rejected for having ears like Uncle Egor or being too smart, or the youngest, or the oldest, or, or, or....  Being fat just made it easier for them to assign you a role.  Hey, appearances are "everything."  How can you belong to the "perfect" family if your body is  a sign board advertising  cultural imperfection?  The only way to deal with a fat child in a family denying its humanity is to tell him/er and yourself: your fat is your own fault; you are not like us; you are different; you don't belong.

I worked several years on a psychiatric unit where a sick family  was often evident in our patients.  In fact, in family therapy. we call the patient, our IP: (identified patient) because we know s/he simply sounds the alarm for a family that is about to implode.  Seldom is the real patient hospitalized.  For example, I was responsible for taking family history with each new patient.  I remember one teenager; promiscuous, drug and alcohol addicted; belligerent at school and violent at home.  I asked her perfectly groomed and sweetly smiling mother when she first began to see behavioral changes in her daughter.  The mother replied: "when she was 9 months old."  I looked up from my notes.  The mother clinched her jaw and said: I walked into her room after her nap.  She had poop on her fingers from her diaper and I knew right then and there, that this girl was trouble!"  Her rage was so kindled, the event could have occurred the day before.  And, fifteen years later, acting upon that truth, her daughter was on a psychiatric unit, the IP of a very disturbed family.  The girl's role had been assigned at nine months old.  Your Name Shall Be Called Trouble.  I probably don't need to add that while the girl was on our unit, she was fun, intelligent, wise beyond her years, starving for love, and broken beyond our meds and psychological support to fix.

As we prepared for our January Challenge, we did our usual thing. We did a searching moral inventory of our bad eating habits. We planned deprivation or elimination.  We picked a diet of the decade or the month.   I hope that we also  planned for a different reason than we have in the past. And a different path.  No calorie counting.  No being hungry.  No weighing every day.  I hope we planned to lose weight or maintain our weight because lipedema demands that of us, and not with the idea, that we will lose enough weight to "belong."  We did everything except, perhaps, the one thing we needed to do in order to succeed: bind our wounds with the balm of truth.

One of the greatest selp-help book ever conceived was I'm Okay, You're Okay.  I haven't thought of it for years but someone mentioned it a few weeks ago and at my age I finally got it.  Brilliant! Still being sold.  Keep It Simple Silly, author Dr. Thomas A. Harris suggests that three-quarters of adults live with the belief: "You're Okay.  I am Not." That's a lot of poopy! A lot of family dysfunction. A lot of cultural erosion. Its hard to argue against Harris' number with almost every aspect of just society unraveling in every corner of the world. 

The point? I think many of us who have spent all or most of our lives as fat people in a thin world are acutely aware that we are not okay.  In fact, we could add one more distinction to Harris' book which pretty much sums us up:  You are okay. I am fat.  Until we get to the place where we are okay with ourselves... Okay... Loved...  Cherished...  Able to love ourselves when others cannot because they need our imperfect bodies to hide their imperfections, we will not be okay. It won't matter how many times we lose weight or how much we lose because fat is really not our issue.  BELONGING is our issue and I bet most of you have found a way to belong; you just haven't found away to accept  belonging to people who think you are more than okay!   We have to begin the real lipedema healing process with the aha that we are okay and we are fat. That is our challenge for the rest of our lives.  And it has become a lot easier for us since we have discovered so many others who are okay and just like us.