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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

8 years of Food Sober Thanksgivings- Keep Calm and Weight Maintenance ON!

It's my 8th year of Food Sober Living and Food Sober Thanksgiving.

Keep Calm and Weight Maintenance ON!!!! (#KCWMO)

I'm also taking David Garcia's Thanksgiving pledge. (link) He's been #KCWMO longer than I have.

A lot has changed. But my clothes have not. Still wearing my size 6 revenge pants.

Not dead yet from eating red meat. In fact, I'm living my best life ever. Lowest amount of pain, allergies, acne, and illness. So glad I figured it out, never would have thought I'd be aging in reverse.

You'd better bet I'm going to have a big plate of beef brisket, salad greens, and some 85% chocolate on my plate. And, yes, my clothes will still fit. 8 years of it. Love it.  Eggs and Kale for breakfast. Will probably make some bacon, too.

I'll be fasting after 2pm. Keeps me lean.

Keep calm, weight maintenance on #KCWMO

One thing that I still have to remember, since I've been food sober so long, is that I am still a food addict in recovery. I can still fall prey to my own slippery slope thinking.

So to my brothers and sisters who abstain from their binge triggers, please know that you are not alone. I will be abstaining again, for the 8th year in a row.

Thankful for all that I have and for my commenters. Thankful for thinking for myself and good risk assessment tools. A life better than I could ever imagine.

Thankful for the ability to take long beach walks!








Saturday, November 17, 2018

Fall 2018 Challenges in long term Weight Maintenance- an example of a 10 day gain, and plan to return to normal

Here's my Fall 2018 Change (temporary spike in the scale)

Challenge: My weight wants to come back. I will not let it.

Normal stuff: I had a touch of something- probably viral, could have been a mild UTI but now it's gone, feeling better but my weight spiked a couple of pounds, and now I return to my cruising weight.

Challenge was I wanted to drop a pound or two.  I get what I get. I do not throw a fit.


What works:
I do manage my food and thoughts. I track my weight.

I wait for the root cause to be dealt with ( in this case sleep and time, and food and scale monitoring.)

Outlook: I expect to be back to 120-122 level here in the next 10 days.

What didn't work in the past: 
As a food addict in recovery, at Halloween and now Thanksgiving, I could have used it as an excuse to go back to food addiction. 

I don't sit there and cry about it. I Keep Calm and Weight Maintenance ON!   KCWMO.


Keep calm and Weight Maintenance on!  Let your root cause analysis determine risk, actions, corrections, and any preventive measure.

Calming Sunset, Carlsbad CA 92011




Tortitude from the IKEA Winter Cat House

Next post, I've had a small change in eating, so I'll be talking about that.

Hope you are staying within your Food Sober living parameters this Thanksgiving. This will be my 8th food sober Thanksgiving. Loving it!!!

Sunday, November 11, 2018

New Cholesterol Guidelines 2018- What is an Artherogenic diet and more important, what is MY risk, whatever works!


If you don't read my whole post, read this tweet thread
(I'll repost with screenshots if the emedding doesn't work)

*Edited to update TG/HDLc ratio- (correcting ratio)
**Edited to update pattern A (outdated biomarker, but still on my lab work)





Where I stand as an interested party in cholesterol guidelines

My History, so I can assess my own risk. 

My opinion: YO! Dudes and Dudettes, risk assessment will help with decision making. And, I can ask or pay a small amount for a second opinion to top experts, with the most current info and are used to seeing people like me.

If you are accessing your own risk, then making risk based decisions = You are winning at life.

The details: long story

Before 2012
A. Perfect lipid panels while obese-


  •  40 years of obesity and yo-yo dieting. 
  • 20 years of WW style low fat dieting,
  • f requent and painful binge eating sessions
  • Nearly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (corrected by diet and fasting before diagnosis),
  •  borderline high blood pressure, 
  •  had to get off birth control pills to bring down blood pressure, still higher 
  •  Hashimotos disease at age 31. 
  •  My hs-CRP was 6.8. 
  • My HA1c was 5.7
  • My fasting glucose was 90-100's
  • BMI was 35!!!! 
  • Massive joint pain
  • Frequent migraines to the point I missed work and travel.


DANG, the visceral fat tells a story
May 2011, perfect lipid panels!

B. SNP's: I have that 23NMe report with Promethease , so I don't shy away,

Genetics that code for

  • multiple SNP's for childhood and adult obesity
  • multiple SNP's 2 diabetes,  
  • joint pain with statins, 
  • poor outcomes on statins, aka- likely not effective
  •  low cardiac risk, no family cardiac history, 
  • one grandparent with stroke and high blood pressure. 
  • Some funky gene SNP's that lend them selves to good outcomes with 16:8 fasting.


Now, I have to figure out what to do: Meds or No cholesterol Meds? LCHF? Fasting or no?

As most of you know, I'm a cholesterol hyper responder. Three of my cholesterol values run higher when I fast and when I eat Low Carb and fast 16:8

So I run high
1. Total Cholesterol
2. LDL
3. HDL


While my other bio markers are low and have gone lower or favorable.

4. low Triglycerides
5. favorable TG/HDLc ratio *
6. low Fasting glucose
7. low HA1c
8. low BMI
9. low Resting heart rate
10. normal Blood pressure
11. clothing size 6, petite
12  Joint pain super low, no ibuprofen in a year
13. No migraines after a 30 year history
14. Little or no binge urges after binging 40 years
15. 0% coronary calcium scores
16. Normal carotid medial thickness and vascular screening
17.  **Pattern A Lipporotein
18. Normal Lp (a)


October 2018, loving low visceral fat life

No one can assess risk except you ,with your doctor's help and some second opinions and biomarkers and imagining tests. 

  • statins, no statins
  • low carb, low fat
  • abstain from sugars & grains, moderate all foods
  • migraines (no meds) or eat migraine triggering food (cover with meds)
  • skinny jeans vs XL stretchy pants

Hmmmm.  That's my N=1. Do your own. It costs me $130 a doctors office visit. Can you imagine my personal finance situation if I had stayed obese? Not to mention the many prescriptions I escape. I can cover my thyroid meds easily- I would have been on 5-10 other meds had I not changed up my situation.

Good risk based decisions means health outcomes I can live with , day in day out. 

Onward and here's to using good tools, new reference ranges, and getting second opinions as needed.


Time go get comfortable with personal risk assessment, decision making, and life in general. I can await and donate for new cholesterol reference ranges. I'm sitting on weight maintenance island. Waiting with and for others.