Popping The Clutch On the False Quit Dates

Back in 2016 I had given myself the deadline to either finish the “quitting smoking” book or get an agent.  I did not meet the requirements of my deadline. After 7 years of working on it, I was done.  I had to move on.  I wanted to indulge myself in a new project. Namely, why does food affect my geographic tongue and give me migraines?  During a session with my Nutritionist, in trying to figure this out I blurted, “I want to get 100 people in a room. I want to get 100 people with a geographic tongue in a room.”

While I was thinking of round tables in a meeting room in a convention hall, after a few days of Capturing the Idea, I Sought the Solution of the internet and started Geographical Oddity.  An on-line community where we can all blog about the cause and effect of our Geographic Tongue.

I spent a few blissful months without giving the False Quit Dates a thought.  I couldn’t even generate a thought about my process to quit smoking during the few times I was asked about it.  That vault was sealed to the point that even “You’ve Got To WANT It,” floated through my brain as a response.  I remembered enough of the process to NOT SAY THAT.  In a last minute scramble, I explained that it took me 9 months of focus to get me to the point where I could actually quit.

Then one day I was talking with the administrators of the social-media community about alternatives in building my site, but the questions were for building the False Quit Dates and not Geographical Oddity.   Totally caught me off guard.  I thought that vault was shut and sealed. Although, I did think it was kind of cool how easily I could “overlap” the two, so I held on to that thought.  Then I figured, I’d get so damned curious about what would happen if I did create a community for the False Quit Dates, that I’d better find out.  After all, I don’t want to miss out if it happens to become a wild success.

At 14.99 a month I think this could be a great deal.  Much cheaper than a carton of cigarettes, or buying the patch, lozenge, or prescription.  It is also a better deal for a whole year at $164.00.  That is still cheaper than smoking cessation classes that demand people quit smoking in 6 weeks.

While this blog really has no direction and has become a behind the scenes dumping ground for everything I practice (and maybe become a bit whiney sometimes) you are going to see more practice.  I have finally graduated to a professional e-mail with ConvertKit that is what I am going to be practicing.

As always, writing right up until the time I have to go to work.  See you next time.

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Geographical Oddity is getting its own space!

Hello everyone! I’ve been busy! I’ve created a special space just for Geographical Oddity. This space is reserved for people with Geographic Tongues and parents that have children with Geographic Tongue.  I’m so excited! Once we get together posting our experiences, asking each other questions, taking each others polls, who knows what we will come up with.  So of course, any medical professional who is curious about what we are doing is always welcome.

Geographical Oddity is a deep interest community that I’ve created over on Mighty Networks.  If you have participated in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In app or Gretchin Rubin’s Better app you’ve done this before.

Membership to participate in the community is $1.00 a month. We are talking about inflammation here and who knows where that topic will lead us. A membership charge helps kick the seclusion up a notch. (Please note that I am offering a little quiet corner of the internet and not security.)  I also understand that inflammation may also hit the paycheck pretty hard, so first, join right now and I will see what I can do about keeping membership free, second, I have some ideas about donating membership but we need to get started in order to have those conversations.

This blog will continue for things that I find interesting because after all, Life is a Crooked and Varied Path.  (haha Love it!)

 

Got questions?  Come on over and ask them because we are going to dive deep into this interest.

Geographical Oddity: Why Stay On Such A Strict Diet?

To be in total awe of your body is wonderful. I knew that the body is an exquisite machine but I had never known that with my body. Never. Now that I have experienced the efficient machine God intended, I don’t want to let that go.  This efficient machine is not just meant for other people; it’s mine too. I want to keep it.  I don’t want to lose it.  And then, I get a pissed when I think of all the years that I was robbed of it. I could cry.

There are consequences when I eat the wrong foods. I get, heartburn, nausea, aches, pains, sweating, headache, dizziness, vertigo, excessive thirst.  Like diabetic thirst.  Except my blood sugar isn’t that high. I get brain fog; I’m quite spacey, and my intelligence is diminished.  To be clear, I believe my I.Q. is the same, but my intelligence is more accessible when I eat clean.

One wrong food and I stop losing weight. I retain water.  When it releases, I experience an urgent need to urinate and I’m peeing every twenty minutes. Just like when pregnant, a swollen uterus presses on the bladder and creates an urgent need to pee. This makes sense when I think of an inflamed bowel, swollen lymph nodes, and other tissues pressing on the bladder.  This experience can last anywhere from one to four days.  From ONE wrong food. Many wrong foods and the symptoms overlap each other creating a vicious cycle where I could have only one good day a month.

I also experience inconsistent bowl movements ranging from loose to bound up.

I also get those geographical patches on my tongue, white sores on the inside of my cheeks. My tongue thickens, the fissures deepen, the scalloping on the edges increase in size and I can’t taste my food.  That sucks especially now that I know what food is supposed to taste like.

If I keep eating the wrong foods, in a matter of days, I lose my hair in patches. I get anywhere from a dime to quarter size bald spots on my head.  This process is slow.  So slow that I will start growing a little tuft of hair in the center of this circle as I continue to lose it along the outer edge of the circle.  It looks like a weird donut. Once the process starts it continues until some predetermined genetics tells it to stop for that particular spot. Correcting my diet mid-fallout does not help.  I have to prevent it before it starts. The spot on the back left of my crown is usually about the size of a quarter.  The one to the right of my part is a nickel. The one behind my right ear is the size of a dime.   The one on nape of my neck to the right is about the size of two quarters. I have gone to the dermatologist and received steroid shots in my head.

Eating the wrong foods messes with my sleeping patterns. I used to snore, loudly, I’m told. So loudly that I moved into another room, because I was repeatedly awakened to tell me to quit snoring and roll over.  My snoring didn’t bother me. It wasn’t waking me up, my husband was.  Since I started my diet I have quit snoring and moved back into my bedroom.  I eat the way I eat because I like sleeping with my husband.

Low energy levels even when I get enough sleep is one of the first signs that I ate something wrong.  My guess is that this has more to do with disrupting circadian rhythms and the inability to reach R.E.M. rather than snoring and sleep apnea.

I also don’t have the highs and lows of adrenal dysfunction anymore.  My peaks and valleys were so extreme, I would often stop and wonder if I was bi-polar. The peaks were great until I hit the wall with some anxiety filled consequence, some of which I still can’t live down. I have burned bridges with some of my relationships because of this. I do prefer being alone.  When I am alone, I go at my own pace and it’s alright to make mistakes. I don’t have to handle other people’s embarrassment that is result of my high-strung ditziness.

Okay, so, my tongue swells and the lymph-nodes in my neck and chest swell. I feel buoyant.  So buoyant that I feel like that my boobs and double chin will run into each other. That swelling takes up room. All of that creates the snoring, the throbbing, the shortness of breath.

When I wonder why I am short of breath or have heart palpitations, even though I don’t smoke and I didn’t overexert myself, I start thinking about all the lymph-nodes in my chest wall and how my lungs have to press up against them when they are swollen.

I didn’t think I had trouble swallowing until the inflammation was reduced in my neck.

I don’t hear my heartbeat in my ears anymore.

I used to see stars.  I had suspected rising blood pressure because my readings are usually on the low-end. One day I saw stars right after I checked my blood pressure while waiting at the pharmacy. I checked it again and my blood pressure actually lowered. Surprisingly.

Skeletal; I felt frail. My teeth weren’t as anchored as they should have been. At one point I would clench my teeth and wonder just how strong was my jaw? My dentist was always telling me that my gums were at -4 and I had to watch it because it is a precursor for periodontal disease.  Not anymore.  Now it is in reverse and I can tell a difference.  Not only do my teeth feel securely anchored but my jaw feels stronger.  Also back when I was in the other bedroom by myself, I would lay flat on my back without a pillow all night.  Rolling over on my side would knock me out of alignment. …I really did feel frail. Like my joints were loose.  I do not feel as frail as I did a couple of years ago.

My feet hurt. Besides joint pain, I would stand up and have to wait for my weight to distribute over my feet before I could start walking.  I hobbled.  I don’t hobble anymore. Not because I am losing weight, it’s because I don’t have inflammation getting in the way of what my body is supposed to be doing.

I used to get a tingling sensation that started in my shoulder, skipped my elbow and felt it in my fingers. Not anymore.

I’m not kidding when I say I am growing younger.

Because of this strict diet, I quit going to the chiropractor routinely.  My reasoning? My lymph nodes quit swelling and quit pushing everything out-of-the-way and knocking me out of alignment.

Sometimes when I think of the simplicity of it all, I just want to cry. It’s like duh, accommodations need to be made for the swelling.

Speaking of lymph nodes, those tender lumps under my armpit went down.  My doctor always blamed shaving for those lumps. I don’t do routine breast exams because I had always felt lumps. Lumps that weren’t cancer. I should be doing routine exams because my Grandmother died of breast cancer before I was born.  She was young.

My migraine quality headaches.  I used to think they were skeletal; spinal.  Now I think they are lymph nodes in the back of my neck that swell then push up on my skull and makes everything collide with my brow bone.

I also have a dot behind my shoulder-blade that I can never reach, but that doesn’t stop me from backing up to any door jamb or corner to press on it anyway. I have another one on the other side of my back between my spine and shoulder blade.   This one I can reach and the massage is more effective.

Sciatica.  I believe a swollen lymph node presses on the sciatica and makes nerve pain shoot down the leg.

I used to have aching in the upper calves behind the knee.

All of these are gone.

Swollen ankles.  This has been my favorite, favorite, symptom to eliminate.  I actually have a feminine turn between my calves and my feet, instead of a thick cankle.  I can see an ankle bone.  I still have pockets in front and behind the ankle bone, but I expect this to be an area of improvement as time goes on.  (I don’t know what the pockets are; fluid, fat, tissue, lymph, ???)

This strict diet isn’t a wonder cure where one thing fixes all.  Gluten gives me room spins. Tomatoes give me nauseating heartburn. Citric acid makes me sweat profusely.  But, even then I’m not treating a thousand things.  I’m treating one thing, I’m preventing inflammation, and inflammation makes everything go haywire.  It make sense when I think about it.  Inflammation presses on my bladder, it presses against my lungs, it makes my throat smaller, affects the size of my ear canals and makes me dizzy, and swells between my joints and makes them hurt.

Once I eat something wrong, the effect lasts for days. It could be a week.  This isn’t; be uncomfortable for a few hours and start again tomorrow.  I have to let it run its course.  It may start with heartburn.  It may start with a backache. The migraine may subside but I still experience inflammation.

Usually I can tell the episode is over when I break out in a refreshing sweat and I instantly feel wonderful.  Sometimes this happens at 9:00 pm then I am up for another five hours because I feel good.  Feeling good is energizing.  It’s like letting down the flood gates and the energy flows.  Then I’m either cleaning, crafting, or writing all night.

Another reason to stick with the strict diet? It’s temporary.  This can’t last. We have to find out what is going on, because this is no way to live.   The more that people are on board with this the more that the medical community, scientists, have to take a look at what is going on.  I know I am not the only one.  Who else is out there?

 

Geographical Oddity: Menu

Sometimes it’s easier to list what I can eat.

All Organic.

Breakfast:

• Gluten Free Toast
• Eggs

Everyday.

My other meals are made up of the same things made one way or another.  Usually in salad form or layered in buttered toast, meat that is shredded or ground, then drizzled in oil, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning.

Oils

• Olive Oil for meats.
• Coconut Oil for what vegetables I can eat.
• Butter

Seasonings

• Olive Oil
• Pink Himalayan Salt
• Pepper
• Italian Seasonings.

This is my Salad Dressing for lettuce and this is also my Mayonnaise and my chicken seasonings.  From time to time, I add the Italian Seasonings to my eggs just to switch it up in the a.m.

My cheat is Spice Islands because I already had it in my cupboard before my elimination diet and found that it didn’t bother me as I used it up afterwords.  So far I haven’t found an organic version that doesn’t have garlic in it. Since I’m not having a problem with it, I’m not trying too hard to find one.

Meats

• Beef
• Chicken
• Turkey
• Buffalo

Cooked in Olive Oil or its own fat.  I mostly eat hamburger because everything is so expensive, but I will have steak or roast to switch things up.

Beef is grass-fed, grass-finished.  … It really is stated on the label.

Chicken is free-range.  About the only brand we see around here is BARE.

Vegetables

• Carrots
• Summer Squash
• Zucchini
• Lettuce 
  • Green Leaf
  • Red Leaf
  • Romaine
  • Iceberg

I usually choose two and mix.

My cheat is non-organic Iceberg. (Dole)  They have really nice big heads of crunchy lettuce.  I know Dole has an organic line, I wish Iceberg was available either TO the store in IN the store.

Fruits

• Blueberries
• Dates
• Prunes

I try to eat blueberries in my pudding/shake daily.  This becomes and on and off practice.  I don’t know if it’s because of timing or if something in the shake is bothering me.  Currently I suspect flax.

The pudding/shake is made up of:

• 1/4 cup ground flax
• 1/4 cup ground chia
• teaspoon Spirulina
• teaspoon vanilla
• 1/8 cup of maple syrup
• 2 scoops of L-glutamine powder.
• 2 cups blueberries
• 1 1/2 cups coconut milk

Blend with immersion blender or food processor or regular blender.  Let it sit while you clean up so the flax and chia have a chance to thicken.

Currently: I put 4 scoops of L-glutamine powder in a tall glass of water and down it with my vitamins. My doctor increased my dosage and more than two scoops over power the blueberries and maple syrup.

*The scoop that comes with my L-glutamine is small; more than a teaspoon, less than two.

Grains

• Gluten Free Bread.
  • Canyon Bakehouse
  • Glutino
• Barilla Gluten Free Pasta

I wouldn’t do pasta during testing phase.

Juice

• Celery juice. (one whole head; daily)

Equipment

I fry in my own cast-iron skillet on the stove top or reheat in the microwave.  I also have my own toaster oven.  I avoid using the oven in case gluten burns off from drippings created by not-avoiding-gluten members of the family.

After three to six weeks of the strictest form of this menu without cheats (except Italian seasoning) add;

• Vanilla Coconut Yogurt
• Katz Glazed donuts
• Deli meat

Items on the in and out list.

• Grapes
• Cabbage
• winter squash
• potatoes
• pineapple

Whenever I eat these, seems to be that I also ate something else that I shouldn’t have.  So I keep trying.  

Drink

• Filtered Water
• Celery Juice.
• Almond Milk warmed with a big spoonful of Maple Syrup.

If you can’t do caffeine-free back it off to one cup of coffee a day, or get some organic tea.

Sugar

• Maple Syrup
• Real sugar

I will allow stevia in my processed food such as my CoYo or Almond milk.  When I go out to eat I have no control over this, hence the enzymes.

Cheats

Even my cheats are health food.

My cheats are the Natural versions of Oscar Mayer or Hormel deli meat or whatever brand, I can find at the organic market.  When I say cheat. I mean rarely. Like once every two to three weeks and I have to use the package up so maybe it will be for lunch, breakfast, and lunch again.

If I buy lunch meats I alternate between ham and turkey, because I am always eating beef and chicken. This is the only time I eat ham, so once every 4-6 wks.

If I have daily cheats I’m not doing any good. All I would be doing is punishing myself with a restricted diet and inducing the pain cheating creates, such as swollen lymph nodes, migraines, inflamed tongue. I would be keeping the status quo without changing the inflammation; without healing.

NO

No Gluten. No Vinegar.  No nuts. No fish or seafood. No pork. No potatoes. No sweet potatoes. No Tomatoes. No Garlic. No Onions. No apples. No bananas. No melons. No strawberries. No raspberries.  No beans of any type; string, green, yellow, kidney, black, red.  No broccoli. No peas. No diary. No high-fructose corn syrup. No natural sweeteners; Honey, fructose, stevia, or whatever xylitol is. No artificial sweeteners. No Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG). No fruit and nut bars. No citrus or citric acid, no lemons, limes, grapefruit.

Do not buy any treats or cheats for at least three weeks.

Do not throw your “naughty” food out. Set a date to begin your new menu and eat up the foods that you will be avoiding.  Use this time to pay attention to how you feel after you eat; aches, pains, sweating, headache, dizziness, vertigo, sleeping patters, alertness, intelligence, energy levels, hair loss, urination, bowl movements, (frequency, urgency, consistency, color, for both) etc., etc., etc.,   Seriously, I really do feel like I am #growingyounger.

Pay attention to your tongue.  Pick a geographic pattern or two … or three and track them. Examine your taste buds and your fissures.

I completely missed out on tracking my tongue, because I had no idea that this was going to affect it. I was told this was part of who I am and to accept it.  I wasn’t paying attention; I went to Los Cabos, Mexico. I continued on with Gluten Free because I only had beer and maybe one flour tortilla that week. (Little did I know back then.)  I only eliminated gluten because I was frustrated that I wasn’t loosing weight from diet and exercise.  I had no idea that I was stumbling upon a “cure” from a lifelong affliction.  I completely missed out.

Little did I know, that it was more than gluten.

I do have a social life. I go out to eat with friends twice a month on Tuesdays. I also have home cooked meals with friends nearly every Wednesday, but they don’t understand things past gluten.  So I pop two enzymes, be very selective, and cross my fingers.  But! I have been on the strictest form of the elimination diet about three times now. These are types of situations you gauge after you are familiar with what is going on, not during your testing phase.

Get your 10,000 steps in.  I regret not exercising during my first two elimination periods. I did on the third and lost 3x as much weight.  Allow for sluggishness from detox.  Just get out there and move.

The elimination diet is a fact-finding mission to gain information for you to go forward.  In the meantime your liver, kidneys, lymph nodes, and over-active immune system and whatever else, are getting a break.  The supplements that you take get a chance to be absorbed and go work. etc.

I don’t have to be right.  Just do it for three weeks and you see how you feel. I want to know if ANYBODY has had the same experience as I did or if they have had a completely different experience.  So please comment below.

 

Geographical Oddity: Body Image

I stare at my feet all the time.  I always thought that my feet were mostly ok, except for a couple of weird little toes. I have my mom’s feet so they were FAMILIAR. Now, since I’ve been deflating as I fight inflammation, I’ve been staring at my feet.

What am I thinking when I stare at my feet? That they are mine yet, not. mine. They are unfamiliar with all their skinny and slender parts. Mostly I get mad at a lot of things.  Today, I will focus on the marketing for body image acceptance. Because my body was telling me that something was wrong and I was just trying to accept that is what I look like.  That this is the way it is.  Accept it. Get used to it.

Same with the Geographical Tongue.  There is nothing to do about it.  That is the way it is. Your unique. Get used to it.

Here is the deal with past and current image that I have of my body. I have been up the scale and now I am working my way down the scale, which means, I have been this weight before.

I’m looking at the same joints.  I’m looking at the same meaty parts.  AT the same weight.  I hated it before and now I like what I see.  WHY? I am looking at the same parts on the way down as I did on the way up!  I’m looking at the joints below the big toe.  When my feet are up on the recliner, I see the slender outline of my foot; specifically the ball of the foot. I cross my ankles and I can see the slender curve of my instep and how my skin and muscles hug my ankles.  Okay, I’ll admit they still get bigger from a hard days work, but nothing like they used to get.

What I thought was muscular from carrying my weight around, no matter how much I weighed throughout the years, is actually nearly all skeletal.  It is fascinating how slender my feet are.  How it doesn’t need that much muscle to work and my feet are stronger than they ever were and here I am aging but yet I feel like I’m growing younger, because my feet are so strong, flexible and might I say bony?

I’m conflicted, impressed, angered, befuddled; I get excited at how I can be the same size I was on the way up and appreciate my rib line now when loathed it before.

So here is my advice.  Pay attention to what your body is telling you.  Love the fact that your body communicates that something is wrong.  Accept the fact that you are gaining weight, but just enough to listen to your body. Don’t love the fat. Don’t love the bloat.  Acknowledge it but don’t back it with emotion. Then figure out what the heck is going on! Be aware when eating. Be aware of your environment.  Be aware of every little ache and pain. Be aware of when and how you sweat. Be aware when you run. Be aware during all your workouts. Be aware when you get out of bed.  Be aware when you wind down for the night.

I Wanted Change; I Got Change!

For the first time in my life, I got fired.

I’m not reacting like I thought I would.  Most of the evening I’ve been shivering like the after effects of an adrenaline rush.  Every once in a while I have to shake off the shock, you know because it’s awkward sitting there and letting the situation of we’ve decided to let you go play out. I came home to a caring husband; I had a couple of beers with some girlfriends, and I had some laughs with my sisters over a group video chat. I’m short on sleep, but it is more about excitement rather than anxiety.

I should be upset that someone didn’t want to keep me around. That they didn’t care about my livelyhood enough to keep feeding me a paycheck. There was nothing really wrong, but there was nothing really right either.  It wasn’t a good fit and for that I got fired.  Wow! I got fired! Are you kidding me? I don’t get fired.

Yet, I’m not too broken up. I’m not bawling over it. Actually, I’m really curious about what is next. So, I figure I’ve got about three to four weeks before I really start freaking out about money. Starting tomorrow (Sunday) I’m going to make the most of it.

It is supposed to get up to 70 degrees so I am going to walk a marathon.  I’ve biked the loop around the city several times, and I’ve wanted to walk/run it. So I will do it tomorrow. I’m sure it will take me all day. I’ve been running on the treadmill the last two months so I will just be going overboard and not extremely overboard from a sedate winter.  Hopefully that will wring bad energy out of every cell in my body.

Starting Monday, I’m going to write and turn the next section of my proposal in to my writers group.  Maybe by the beginning of next week I will shoot off another round of query letters to agents.

I had hit a little bump in the road with the Geographical Oddity quest.  I was going to write about that instead of this post, so now I will have time. I’m going to continue my efforts on my diet an my work for getting 100 people in a room.

My husband and I also started tearing out the bathroom so we will be finishing that and maybe I will do the sewing project that has been lying around.

On top of all that I will turn in a couple of applications per day and spend some time with friends and family.

All is good until I have to make a car payment. Until then I’m curious as to what God has in store for me.

Geographical Oddity: Change

Okay, big changes have been happening.  For one: I got a new job. Both better hours and better pay.  Plus I only work with three people and we all get along.  …so far, we’ll see how everybody fares the increase in summer business.  For two: I think my gastroenterologist and I have done what we can with the gut so now I am seeing someone in integrative medicine.  This doctor works with a health coach and does acupuncture.  Now I feel that my actions and reactions are better charted.

The worst part is that I’m on an elimination diet … again.  No caffeine. No sugar. No sugar substitutes.  No eggs.  All whole foods, so no bread (not even gluten-free), no sausage.

I was adding maple syrup to sweeten up some stuff, such as hot almond milk,  because some diets allow this low-glycemic sweetener and I don’t react.  Even though I was only having three Tablespoons a day, I was surprised that I naturally cut back to one because even that small amount was just getting a little too gooey-sweet.

For the most part we have eliminated FODMAP foods, histamine foods, high glycemic foods. I hardly eat any fruit and those are just blueberries, blackberries and cantaloupe.  I still get a bloom, or two, or three, on my tongue which lasts about four or five days. Right now I’m blaming turnips, but I’m getting to the point where maybe I have cut through the inflammation and found the real geographic tongue. We’ll see.  There isn’t much more food I can cut out.  So if I can stick to foods that I have been eating for another two weeks, I think I can get a clean slate to start adding foods back in.

Furthermore, I have been running.  Everyday I leave work and stop by the gym before I go home. I’m off work at 5:30 and I have my alarm set for 6:30 and when it goes off I get off the treadmill. I have to take my speed and distance for what it is. It differs because I don’t get out of work right away.  Sometimes I get 45 minutes in, sometimes I only get a half-hour in.  Right now my best is 2 miles in 28.5 minutes.

I’ve lost 12 pounds since January 23rd.  I haven’t had a migraine quality headache since, but I have had withdrawal aches, pains, and cravings, especially with caffeine.  I did have light to medium blooms on my tongue four different times, so I am still looking for that clean slate.  I feel great except I need to have more variety of food.  This is no way to live, although I am hopeful because I feel like I finally found what normal feels like.