How I lost 11 Inches Around my Waist

Envisioning myself in shape

7/7/07 Con't - The next telling thing happened a decade later when
a London truant officer invited me to a party. (My son and I were
living in a derelict building and I wasn't getting him to school in time.)

People from Iran and all over the world were at the party. It was at the
time of the Iran hostages so finding the Iranians to be so nice made an
indelible impression. It was such a warm, friendly event.

The next day plaque, called "tartar" back then, kept coming loose
from my teeth. Dentists had always told me I had an unusually large
amount and I'd never before had it drop off on its own.

I thought I must have eaten a lot more the garlic dip
than I ever had before, and it dissolved the plaque.

Years later I was back in Santa Fe and I had to go to court. I'd gone
before and had felt so intimidated that I was tongue tied and lost.

Worried that I'd lose again, I decided to ask people who knew and
liked me to come, and many made time and did: The feeling of all
those people in court with me was amazing. And, I won.

The next day plaque fell off my teeth in chunks.

Those are the only times in my life that plaque has spontaneously
fallen off. But, once I began having B12 replacement therapy plaque
stopped building up and I needed a fraction as many cleanings.

So, it looks as if stress causes
our bodies to make plaque that
can be unmade by warm,
supportive friends, love and
B12. (The picture is of a heart
made by a sweet potato I baked
in my iron skillet.)

(A friend with Parkinson's
Disease told me that Parkinson's involves a build-up of plaque in the
brain.)

Here's what I think: I am losing weight a lot more easily because B12
replacement makes me feel good the way I did in university when I
was able to live away from home and my mother's constant anger at
me. I think that speeds up my metabolism. Not only that, my skin is
pretty firm. By that I mean that I've lost several inches and my skin
gets quite wrinkly, but then it gets firm again. So I think it's the B12.
(Methylcobalamin, not cyanocobalamin, is the kind that works.)

Also, I think the B12 is making my cellulite far less noticeable. (or,
maybe it's the serrapeptase)

I'm inclined to think it's the B12 because in London I was major thin
at one point and I had horrid cellulite. I remember wondering how it
was possible to be the thinnest I had ever been in my life and to
have my thighs look all pitted. It just didn't seem fair.

At the time, in London, things were dire. (I had no idea there were
going to be decades of dire.) My gums used to bleed, my periods
would be so heavy I couldn't go out, and when the bleeding stopped
and I went to visit friends, they would comment on how pale I was.

I was younger then, so I think my body was better able to cope,
whereas by 1997 the stress was too much for my body which was
no longer as resilient and I got permanent nerve damage.

The long and short of it is that I am slimming. (That's
what they used to say in London; they would never say
they were "dieting," rather, they would say they were
"slimming." I just loved it!)

I know I am slimming because the dress I ordered that was too small,
was so small in fact that it was hard to get out of and I feared I was
stuck, well, now it is so loose I can grab a handful of fabric, which
gives me a nice feeling.

That's why I was thinking I'd look for something in a smaller size to
order, only the links weren't working so I wrote this instead.

http://www.health-boundaries-bite.com
Your fingernails reflect your health --
Learn some warning signs --
Karen Kline

6/29/06 Today the second sundress arrived, same size but blue, and it
fit. Happiness! Plus, it is really cute. When I have it on and look
down it makes me happy. When I have it on and look in the mirror I
see an awfully heavy woman wearing my pretty dress. lol

But, if I stand up tall and face forward I look quite a lot like the
picture in the online catalog (bearing in mind that I have a lively
imagination). But, really, the dress has a few gathers, as opposed to
being tight across my hips. It's quite hopeful. (It's when I turn
sideways that my excessive inches are shocking.)

8/16/06 Yesterday was two years from the day I got the needle in
my toe that led to tetanus. I learned so much from having a central
nervous system disease that, aside from the astounding pain when
the back muscle seizures hit, I'm grateful that I had it.

Today I've discovered a truly neat thing. I should have told you on
the day that Maggie told me about serrapeptase that she also told
me about chia seeds. I ordered them, too, but because I can't go out
to shop it's been a hard to figure out what to have them with.

Maggie thought they would be way superior to brown rice. Her
feeling was that chia seeds are the answer to dealing with diabetes
and a few other things, to include weight loss.

What the chia seeds do is make gelatin, really quickly. The day that
my order arrived I put some in a glass and added water. When it
came time to taste them, about twenty minutes later, I was reluctant.
They look like seeds, maybe sesame seeds, but still, seeds. Sort of
like seeds in cloudy, soupy Jello.

Still, I drank them and they had no taste.

The

feel like

Jelly

Babies that aren't hard:

they didn't make me

desire to

have them

again.

Today, ah, here is where the neat thing

comes in,

today I had a new

kind of

multivitamin with my

morning coffee.

Coffee is my breakfast.

(There have

been

several news reports on how people who

drink

coffee commit suicide much less than

people who

don't. I can

understand that

because on the worst of

days in the worst of

times I

have been uplifted by the

thought of

coffee. Even though I did not

want to get

out

of bed ever again, I did want to have

coffee.

So, I got

up, made it and felt so

much better

after drinking it.)

This morning I had the multivitamin with my coffee and at noon I
wasn't hungry. I mean really not interested in eating. But I knew that
would be tricky because of the serrapeptase which now controls
when I eat. I can't eat for an hour after taking it, and I can't take it
until three hours after eating. It seems very complicated to me.

Since I wasn't hungry I had the serrapeptase and no lunch. So, I was
hungry a couple hours later but then it was too close to dinner.

I began to wonder what chia seeds would be like in coffee, which I
drink with so much creamer that it's nearly thick. (I use Creamer
because milk products, other than yogurt, give me a lot of mucus.)

I put some seeds in filtered water, waited twenty minutes, made
strong, concentrated coffee (Columbian from Wal*Mart with some
Starbucks French Roast), put a lot of Creamer in my mug, half filled
it with chia gelatin and added the strong coffee.

I was hesitant to taste it. But, it was dynamite. Totally dynamite. It
was like one of those coffee drinks that Sonic or Dairy Queen
advertise on telly all the time. It was sooooo good. And, filling. I feel
just so satisfied right now, except it was so good I'm going to go use
the rest of the seeds I soaked in a second cup. MMMMMM.

Later: Oh, Oh... Turns out chia seeds made me sick. See 12/2/06.
Might be fine for some people, it wasn't for me. Also see 8/23/06.

"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes."

Gandhi

“Envisioning the end is enough to put the means
in motion”

Dorthea Brande, 1893-1948

“When we create something, we always create it
first in a thought form. If we are basically
positive in attitude, expecting and envisioning
pleasure, satisfaction and happiness, we will
attract and create people, situations, and events
which conform to our positive expectations.”

Shakti Gawain

"Imagination has brought mankind through the
dark ages to its present state of civilization.
Imagination led Columbus to discover America.
Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity."

L. Frank Baum

"The possible's slow fuse is lit, by the Imagination."

Emily Dickinson

"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment
a single man contemplates it, bearing within him
the image of a cathedral."

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

6/14/06 I needed to lose weight. I've been inactive for nearly two
years, major inactive. When I looked in the mirror (two months ago)
I could see that it was hopeless, and I went to the kitchen for
something to take my mind off it.

Then I begam looking at catalogs and seeing myself differently. I
remembered that when I worked in Green Bay, many years ago, I
lost a lot of weight by going shopping every noon hour. In those
days, I bought a black, rabbit fur coat instead of a car.

I'm refusing to weigh myself. My weight always makes me sad.
(Two months ago I weighed 280 pounds, that's twice as much as I
weighed when I was young and thought I was fat. Back then, I
thought 140 pounds was Huge. That's how much I weighed when I
was pregnant with my son. In London, where I had my son, they'd
say, "10 stone." (A stone is 14 pounds.)

What I'm doing, rather than weighing myself, is reveling in my
clothes being more and more loose.

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what
you see."

Henry David Thoreau

"You can't depend on your eyes when your
imagination is out of focus."

Mark Twain

“Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals.
Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the
beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness
that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them
will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly
environment; of these, if you but remain true to
them, your world will at last be built.”

James Allen

19th century English writer

6/18/06 I don't know if you've ever measured how much exercise it
takes to lose weight... but I have. Sort of.

A few months ago (before I lost my condo) I was determined to lose
weight. For breakfast/lunch I had three saltines with one, single,
pre-sliced slice of American cheese divided among them. I ate half
the dinner entree that is delivered to me (because of how debilitating
tetanus is); I didn't eat the soup or bread, and I froze the dessert.

After two weeks, I had lost 1 pound. And each day I had been
starving. (I needed to lose one hundred pounds.)

Then something happened, I forget what, probably something to do
with the foreclosure, and I was so depressed that I ate all the frozen
deserts in two days. And, you know what, I didn't gain any weight.

That made me wonder: Why did my body lose so little when I ate so
little, then not gained when I ate weeks of desserts in two days?

I decided the reason I lost so little was that I am in bed all of the
time. Zero exercise. (Tetanus is extremely frustrating because if I do
the least bit too much, my muscles tighten again. I can't use my
Gazelle exerciser because five minutes makes my stomach muscles
so tight they bend me over.) It seemed my only hope was to walk a
little in my garden, day by day, gradually increasing the distance.

That's what I did. I was up to four times around my back yard, but
then m y beautiful condo was taken and it was so stressful I was
having intense sudden pain and falling, so I had to stop; but my
clothes are fitting more loosely; and, I've been spending time
looking at clothes and imagining myself in them and slimmer.

I actually ordered things but in the wrong size. I measured myself
and everything, but I put in the wrong size, by mistake. Bother!!! I'm
going to try the things on again next week, and see if...

“I learned the most important lesson of my life:
that the extraordinary is not the birthright of a
chosen and privileged few, but of all people, even
the humblest. That is my one certainty: we are all
the manifestation of the divinity of God.”

Paulo Coelho

21st century Brazilian writer

“If at first you do succeed, try something harder.”

Ann Landers

“It is very dangerous to go into eternity with
possibilities which one has oneself prevented
from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint
from God. One must follow it.”

Sören Kierkegaard

“Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the
world.”

Albert Einstein

“Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the
purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason
demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in
accordance with his own nature.”

Letters from a Stoic

Seneca

“Love not what you are but only what you may become.”

Miguel de Cervantes

“No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are,
raise your sights and see the possibilities – always see
them, for they're always there.”

Norman Vincent Peale

"No vision and you perish; no ideal, and you're
lost; Your heart must ever cherish some faith at
any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to,
some rainbow in the sky, Some melody to sing to,
some service that is high."

Harriet Du Autermont

"Those things that nature denied to human sight,
she revealed to the eyes of the soul."

Ovid

6/30/06 In the 60s when I had recently moved to Santa Fe with
some of my girlfriends from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, (Yes, I'm a
pretty old lady -- certainly old, maybe not that pretty) one of our
friends was a commercial artist who wanted to be a genuine,
starving artist, only he was heavy-set. His name was Richard.
Maybe his last name will come to me. Anyway, he introduced us to
the brown rice diet. Basically, you could eat all the brown rice you
wanted, with anything on it that you wanted, like brown sugar or
white sugar or honey, if you were looking for something sweet.
Well, low and behold, we all lost weight. We decided brown rice
was so boring that we gradually ate less and less.

I have a different take on it now. Here's why: in 2003, just as the
privy pit began to undermine so much in my life, Miria L'auroel
wrote me to say thanks for the B12 information on my site. She said
her fingernails had ridges and that the B12 was making a difference.
She said she had been a chemist, but had gotten sick and decided to
devote her life to what she loves, her music, and she wanted to warn
me that hydrogen sulfide (from the privy pit) is dangerous for health.
She also said to look into the Eat Right for Your Blood Type diet by
Dr. d'Adamo, and gave me the link for its food database.

I didn't know my blood type, so I found foods in the database that
were beneficial for all, or neutral for all, and I ate those things. One
of them was brown rice. At the same time I read that brown rice was
good if you had pernicious anemia. (My mother had pernicious
anemia and I think that if I had not found out about my low B12 that
I would have developed it. There is research that shows it is a result
of low B12; that once someone's B12 has been low for a long time,
they begin to produce less and less intrinsic factor. Without intrinsic
factor no B12 can get into the body in a useful way.)

After ten days of eating brown rice consistently, I lost several
pounds. In those days I used to weigh myself. But, more
significantly, my gastrointestinal system regulated in a way that it
had not done in at least ten years. I was amazed.

But, when I got tetanus in 2004 and Kitchen Angels was going to
bring me food every weekday, I thought it would be easier if I took
what they offered, rather than saying I needed brown rice. (The food
they bring was/is totally amazing. And I am so grateful.)

Now that I can be up long enough to peel an onion and cut it into a
cooking pot, I have been making brown rice for lunch (I like the
short grain sticky kind) with chicken. The thing about it is that I can
literally eat all of it that I want, like when things are so stressful
with losing my condo without knowing that they'd foreclosed it and
sold it, I can eat bowls and bowls and bowls of it to help "sponge"
some of the stress out of my system, and I don't gain any weight. In
fact, I've been consistently losing weight, judging by my consistently
loosening clothes.

"Some men see things the way
they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream
things that never were, and ask
'Why not?'"

George Bernard Shaw

7/1/06 I'm finding it hard to figure out how to arrange this page. I
think it's too boring to have all my comments at the top. I think the
quotes are so much better at the top. But if I just start out with the
images and quotes, it looks like I sent you here to buy something.
Really, I want to tell you that I've been spending a lot of time
looking at images of clothes in catalogs. For instance last night I
looked at a couple hundred dresses and had no snacks whatsoever.
I didn't even think about snacks.

"May you live all the days of your life."

Jonathan Swift

"Your vision will become clear only when you
can look into your own heart. Who looks outside,
dreams; who looks inside, awakens."

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)

"If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little
above it; Every arrow that flies feels the
attraction of earth."

Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow

"We lift ourselves by our thought. We climb upon
our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge
your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it
and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you
long to be, always everywhere."

Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924)

"Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible
objections must be first overcome."

Samuel Johnson

"If you constantly think of illness, you eventually
become ill; if you believe yourself to be
beautiful, you become so."

Shakti Gawain

"It's so hard when I have to, and so easy when I
want to."

Annie Gottlier

7/8/06 This is a picture of me at a
Fiestas party before IRS levied me
in 1991 for 1984 which I'd paid in
1985. The stress changed me from
my nerves out.

(I'm putting this picture here
because I heard people look at
things with pictures more than
things that are all text.

7/11/06 Yesterday I measured
myself before ordering some new
lingerie and, Ta Da! I have lost

another inch around my waist and another inch around my hips.
I better mention that a dessert is delivered with my meal five days a
week -- and I eat it. I was thinking I should give it up but then I
reminded myself that I'm already losing weight. (Judging from the
inches I'm losing.)

I think being able to eat the deserts has something to do with the
brown rice. Maybe the brown rice regulates my metabolism. I don't
know. But... here's the thing, losing the inches is happening!

Another important thing is that I have been unable to walk in my
garden. I can walk out to my chair. But walking around has been cut
short by this fierce pain I get near my hips. It is sudden and it makes
my legs give out, which scares me. Mostly it's happened in the house
where I grabbed something for support. Of the times it's happened
outside, I've twisted my ankle twice and hurt my wrist. But I haven't
broken anything and I keep praying for a reduction in stress. I'm
pretty sure the pain is from the extreme stress of late.

The point is that once my body got the idea I was going to do some
walking every day it treated calories as if they were being burned up
by walking... even when I wasn't walking. This is what I meant when
I wrote about exercise. The amount of exercise that is needed is
simply more than the body is used to, just enough to set the body
into a whole new schedule of behavior, so to speak. By "schedule
of behavior" I mean level of metabolism.

So, deciding to lose weight and rushing off to the gym for an hour's
workout is a bit counter productive since that sets the body's
expectations way too high. (at least for me to keep up with - if I
could even go to a gym right now.)

I think buying new clothes is a real stimulus to losing inches for me.
It's so rewarding to have a really good reason to buy something new:
Because the old things are too big! It sure works for me.

"Imagination is the ability to create an idea, a
mental picture, or a feeling sense of something.
In creative visualization you use your
imagination to create a clear image, idea, or
feeling of something you wish to manifest.
Then you continue to focus on the idea,
feeling, or picture regularly, giving it
positive energy until it becomes objective
reality ... in other words, until you actually
achieve what you have been imagining."

Shakti Gawain

"The power of love to change bodies is
legendary, built into folklore, common sense,
and everyday experience. Love moves the
flesh, it pushes matter around.... Throughout
history, "tender loving care" has uniformly been
recognized as a valuable element in healing."

Larry Dossey

"So often time it happens, we all live our life in
chains, and we never even know we have the key."

The Eagles, "Already Gone"

7/13/06 I forgot to mention something that illustrates an important
point: On Saturday I burned my brown rice into a charcoal lump
stuck to the bottom of my pot. Remembering that tomato sauce
removes that kind of thing because it's acid, I boiled some expired
spaghetti sauce in my pot. (The sauce was Hunt's and reminded me
of Rob Hunt, the director of the condo association who wanted to
get my condo for cheap... and low and behold, I'm told it's his real
estate agent who bought my condo at the foreclosure sale I had no
idea about. I remember talking to Rob Hunt shortly after 9/11; he
was saying he'd been flying and was stranded in a few places, but
luckily he had a home in each.)

Okay, so while the tomatoes were boiling, it smelled so good I
thought I'd make spaghetti instead of brown rice for dinner.

I was excited about having spaghetti and it was great! But, I had
forgotten that spaghetti leaves me hungry. After eating as much as I
would have if it were brown rice, volume wise, I was still hungry.
So I made twice that much more, ate it, and still felt hungry.

That's when I remembered that when I was in major poverty after
the privy pit, that I used to get Ramen Noodles, which are
basically thin spaghetti with a pulverized bullion cube for
flavoring. Their big attraction was their nine cent price. But even
if I ate a huge, twenty-seven cent bowlful I wasn't satisfied. That's
the big difference with brown rice: it makes me feel satisfied.

For instance Saturday night after I'd sadly burned my brown rice, I
still had enough to eat with fresh cherry tomatoes from my garden. I
had two small heaps and I felt satisfied after I ate it. So when I
stopped eating it was because I felt satisfied, not because I was
trying to lose weight.

I used to eat HUGE bowls of Ramen Noodles. I'd feel full, in the
sense of my stomach feeling jam packed, but I wouldn't feel
satisfied. I've tried taking vitamins when I eat cheap food, to
produce a satisfied feeling. It may help a little, but not enough.

What makes brown rice so great is that it's satisfying. It makes my
body feel as if it has what it needs. Plus, I think brown rice scours
the gastrointestinal system because after two weeks of eating
brown rice there's a fresh feeling.

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that
there was in me an invincible summer."

Albert Camus

"Say you are well, or all is well with you, and
God shall hear your words and make them true."

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Whenever you fall, pick something up."

Oswald Avery

7/14/06 There's something else that's playing a part in my slimming.
But, it's time for another picture. (This one takes courage.)

My hair looks less gray,
more blonde, so that's
good; the outfit is
Vikki Vi from Dillard's.
It's wonderfully black
and conceals bulges,
except on my face.

The picture was taken
May 9, 2006 at the
hearing on my condo. I was upset and saying I felt like a fool for
believing in the rules. I'm pointing at a book of court rules. I left
"Buy a Print" because I think it's okay for me to use the New
Mexican picture if I leave that on.

Oh dear, a worrying thought just struck: What if I lose a lot of inches
and still look horrible? Okay, not to go there. (That's sort of what I
wanted to write about, though.)

Prior to buying the Dillard's outfit I h'd lost some but was still very
heavy. I wonder if I'd have won if I'd looked like the model in the
dress at left. (Although I'm aiming at getting into that dress I haven't
ordered it yet because it is a lot of sizes away. It is a medium.)

It helps me to look at this picture and see myself looking like this.

Years ago when I first read Creative Visualization by Shakti
Gawain, I took the book to heart when it said to start out with
something small, something you really wanted but didn't think you
could have. I visualized myself getting this cute, casual outfit from
Dillard's. It was way more than I used to spend on clothes, but... I
kept at the visualization, and low and behold in no time I had the
outfit and I never ceased getting compliments when I wore it. (I
stopped wearing it after the IRS thing.)

What I think now, is that it's probably no harder to visualize being
slimmer than it was to visualize being prosperous.

I'm visualizing myself: both thinner and smiling, just like the model
in the picture.

7/15/06 I started taking serrapeptase last night. I was told about it
last Sunday, and my order arrived yesterday. It's supposed to reduce
pain, swelling, and the plaque that clogs arteries. My friend Maggie
sent me an email about it after reading this page. So, I ordered some.
I'm hopeful. Pain has played an enormous role in my weight gain,
and I think that's a common problem. So, we'll see.

"A man should hear a little music, read a little
poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his
life, in order that worldly cares may not
obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God
has implanted in the human soul."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The universe is transformation; our life is
what our thoughts make it."

Marcus Aurelius

7/27/06 Serrapeptase may be making a difference in the amount of
pain and how quickly it sets in; but, for sure, it is contributing to my
weight lose. But not the way you may think.

See, you aren't supposed to take serrapeptase with or near food.
You're supposed to wait three hours after eating, and not eat until an
hour after you've taken it. So right there you can see that it cuts
down on how much time there is to snack.

If it weren't working in relation to the swelling in my jaw and the
pain in my back I wouldn't be so keen to keep taking it, especially
since it tastes a little as if I've been chewing cardboard and it leaves
my mouth feeling as if the cardboard soaked up all the moisture.

In terms of slimming results, the lingerie I ordered on 7/10/07
arrived and it's too big.

"It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed
and unchangeable color to every object;
beware of this stumbling block."

Paul Gauguin

"I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed.
If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would
grow up to be an eggplant."

Ursula K. Le Guin

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until
I set him free."

Michelangelo

7/30/06 Okay, I think the Serrapeptase is making a difference in
how my veins near my left ankle look. I think it is also making a
difference in the pain: reducing it a bit, and extending the length of
time before it sets in. But, I tend to be optimistic. You can look at
the pictures I took of my ankle. I'm not just posting them here
because they look a little ... not that pretty. And this page is
supposed to be about keeping a beautiful image in mind.

Another thing, I am going to order the dress that only comes in a
medium, the black one up above. It's scary to think that as many
inches as I've lost, I have to lose 17 inches more to fit into the dress.
It's hard for me to believe I can lose that many more inches. It's just
such a big number. But... it would be so cool to be able to post a
picture of me in the dress. So... I'm going to go order it right now.

“Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it
once, because I need it. Don’t work for my
happiness, my brothers—show me yours—
show me that it is possible—show me your
achievement—and the knowledge will give
me the courage for mine."

Mallory in

"The Fountainhead"”

Ayn Rand

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so
shall you become. Your Vision is the promise
of what you shall one day be. Your Ideal is the
prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”

James Allen

“Here is a test to find out whether your mission
in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't.”

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Richard Bach

"Every thing possible to be believed is an
image of truth.”

William Blake

“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”

William Blake

“He who binds to himself a joy Does the
winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy
as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise”

William Blake

"The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex
or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with
energy."

Ezra Pound

"Peak performers develop powerful
mental images of the behaviour that will
lead to the desired results. They see in
their mind's eye the result they want, and
the actions leading to it."

Charles A. Garfield

"Relentless, repetitive self talk is what
changes our self-image."

Denis Waitley

"An individual's self-concept is the core of his
personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior:
the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A
strong, positive self-image is the best possible
preparation for success in life."

Dr. Joyce Brothers

8/23/06 Whew! I had to file my appeal on Monday. It took all my
brain cells and I got confused on my serrapeptase schedule. In the
end I was relying on chia seeds and coffee, and I forgot to take
serrapeptase for a day and two-thirds.

But, I learned something. I felt starving after eating chia seeds (a
thick, large amount of them in many cups of coffee) for a few days. I
ordered a pizza and I was still starving. I ate frozen dinners, I was
still starving. It just seemed too complicated to make the rice. It's not
complicated, except that my mind was overwhelmed with the appeal.
There were so many "issues" and I couldn't remember them without
going back over and over again. It finally was hopeless to think I
could do anymore: I was too confused. I couldn't write anything
because I couldn't remember what I'd just checked on. Very stressful.

So, I don't know if I got a cold sore from the chia seeds (which is
what I thought) or from the stress, which is probably likely. I don't
know if you know that vitamin C makes cold sores go away, but it
does. So the cold sore didn't last. But while I had it, it made me think
of how I tend to get them from corn. I never get them from brown
rice so I began to wonder about the difference between chia seeds
and brown rice.

Here's a link for a chia seed page:
www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c20nN.html
Here's a link for a brown rice page:
www.nutritiondata.com/facts-B00001-01c21U6.html

I don't know if the chia seed page is correct or not, but it doesn't
show any vitamins in chia seeds, whereas the brown rice page shows
several different B vitamins.

Today I cooked brown rice and ate a ton of it, and I finally feel
satisfied. I wish I hadn't forgotten to take the serrapeptase because on
Monday some pretty sharp pain hit me sort of where my thoracic
diaphragm is.

This morning sharp pain hit my thigh/hip so hard I couldn't walk. It
made me fall back when I was trying to get up; when I was up, it
nearly toppled me. So, again, it could be the stress, or maybe the
serrapeptase was helping but then when I didn't take it regularly my
body reverted.

I'm not sure, but maybe the brown rice works for people who are
low on B vitamins. Maybe when someone is low on B vitamins they
feel hungry, the way I was feeling like I was starving even after I
ate. What I mean is, it may not be the same for everyone, but for me
brown rice takes away my hunger, and the chia seeds don't seem to
do that. Plus, believing that the chia seeds were going to take away
my hunger worked against me because I wasn't prepared for how
ratchet-ie I felt, and how uncomfortably starving. (Have you ever
used a ratchet? I got my finger caught in the first one I used and got
a spectacular blood blister.)

"Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines
what we become."

Maxwell Maltz

"Image creates desire. You will what you imagine."

J. G. Gallimore

"Every person is the creation of himself, the image of
his own thinking and believing. As individuals think
and believe, so they are."

Claude M. Bristol

"It does not matter how slowly you go, so long
as you do not stop."

Confucious

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The
most certain way to succeed is always to try just
one more time." Thomas Edison

"Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a
mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold
this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade.
Your mind will seek to develop the picture...Do
not build up obstacles in your imagination."

Norman Vincent Peale

"All that is necessary to break the spell of
inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were
impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the
formula, the command of right about face
which turns us from failure to success."

Dorthea Brande

"But the real secret to total gorgeousness is to
believe in yourself, have self confidence, and try
to be secure in your decisions and thoughts."

Kirsten Dunst

"I've been thinking about how brown rice never bores me.

"I was thinking about when I worked at the
Lamplighter, I was never bored by donuts. I used
to get so depressed, and I would eat half a dozen.
That was before I was having enough B12 not to
be depressed.

"Okay, so when I make chicken and brown rice, I put lots of black
pepper on the chicken and a bit of salt. I sprinkle on quite a bit of
sage then throw in a few kubabas -- that's Polish for whole allspice.
Oh, and I started out with olive oil and a couple of cut up yellow
onions. Yellow onions reduce the incidence of skin cancer. They
are very good for us. Then I add water. When it's boiling I throw in
a mug of short grain brown rice. It smells so good when it's
cooking. It is never boring. It is sooooo good.

"But right now I've been adding ginger because ginger
helps ward off depression; I need to do everything I
can not to sink under recent events. The most upsetting
thing is that the court refused to acknowledge the case
law I cited, which should have been controlling. So, I
need to give it to the Angel of Divine Love. Otherwise
it is too depressing and actually disorienting to find out
you can't trust the court, that there is no rule of law.

"Okay, so I've been using ginger and pepper, a bit of salt and
sometimes curry powder on the chicken. (Michelle buys me the
boneless, skinless breasts and I've been having
at least one huge one a day.) I feel as if I need
the protein, as if my body is really craving the
protein.

"It's strange because I ate so much rice with the
chicken right after those first hearings. But now I seem to want
the chicken more, and I'm not as hungry as I used to be.

"Okay, so you could use a lot of different spices. Think of how
good brown rice would be with green chili. Yum. Or, you could put
in squash and onions and -- that would be really good with brown
rice in it. But get the sticky kind, because it's more, I don't know,
more like mashed potatoes or dumplings or, even sort of like the
tortillas in our breakfast burritos. Mushy. It's really different than
the white rice that is so ... stand alone proper. I hate how it doesn't
stick together. Sticky brown rice sticks together." (6/21/06)

"We have a mental block inside us that stops us
from earning more than we think we are worth.
If we want to earn more in reality, we have to
upgrade our self-concept.

Brian Tracy

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about
creating yourself."

George Bernard Shaw

"Every decision you make - every decision - is
not a decision about what to do. It's a decision
about Who You Are. When you see this, when
you understand it, everything changes. You
begin to see life in a new way. All events,
occurrences, and situations turn into
opportunities to do what you came here to do."

Neale Donald Walsch

"Only the wisest and stupidest of men never
change."

Confucius

12/2/06 - Well, the chia seeds made me really sick. Or, it was that
the chia seeds didn't offer the nutrients I needed and I got sick from
relying on the chia when it was nutrient poor. I don't know. I didn't
realize that at the same time I got the cold sore I got a bed sore. I
didn't feel it. By the time I found it, it was huge. I;d been feeling so
sick so much of the time, but I didn't guess. It took months to get rid
of, using a lot of alcohol and Neosporin. I couldn't even feel the
alcohol when I'd press cotton balls soaked with it against the sore.
Very scary. The whole area that was red was about the size of a
saucer. The running sore was about the size of the indented part of a
saucer.

So, don't get chia seeds and think that they are a healthy addition to
your nutrition. They are not. Plus, it was extremely hard to get my
money back. I got lecture after lecture and no refund. It took months.

For the last 6 weeks I've been having Whey Protein with my coffee,
and it does not leave me feeling starving the way that the chia seed
did. (The chia seed may have reacted that way for me because of
whatever it is that makes me not tolerate corn very well. Something
like Celiac Disease, maybe.)

The protein/amino acids in the Whey seems to be helping me heal
from the tetanus. I'm beginning to realize that if I'd had more protein
early on, I might not have gotten as sick as I did. Sadly I ate a lot of
the cheap free food because of my poverty due to the whole privy pit
problem. The free food is really bad. It's got lots of the hydrogenated
oils, and the canned meat was either extremely fatty, or a bit fetid. It
probably wasn't really spoiled, it just wasn't fresh smelling or tasting.
I began to wonder how healthy the cows are that they use for this
kind of thing.

Also, except for when I'm stressed, I've been sleeping more soundly.
But then, I'm also taking magnesium because of an infection in my
jaw around old dental implants.

One thing I never wrote about, but started to many times, is that I use
my garden to help me believe I'll lose weight. When I look in the
mirror it seems impossible that I'll ever lose a significant amount of
weight. But when I look at the "cool corner" of my garden, which
was barren to start, and I see things beginning to grow, I'd have
hope. That works really well.

But then, fall set in and my garden was no where near as far along as
I'd hoped. There wasn't enough time when it takes me so long to do
things.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted with how much I got done at the
rate of three spadefuls followed by rest (or I'd crater and be in too
much pain).

But, I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I'd thought. When
there was only one zinnia, I got so sad. It was fall, it was too late for
more, and there was only this one zinnia. I got so depressed.

But then I tried to look at it from the point of view of how lucky I
was that there was one zinnia, instead of none. And then the zinnia
looked very beautiful, with a rare quality. And I was happy.

12/26/06 - I've been taking Serrapeptase before I go to sleep at night,
and in the early morning when I wake up before it's really time to get
up. There was a week of intense pain in my thoracic diaphragm,
which has tended to bode ill. That pain has been so bad in the past
that I can't make it beyond the edge of my deck. So this time, when I
don't want to take Ibuprofen because of what the Periodontist said
about it weakening my jaw bone were my old implants are causing
an infection, I took the Serrapeptase, and it helps. It's not like an
aspirin that makes pain go away, but it for sure dulls the pain. And
I think, I'm pretty sure, that by not taking the Ibuprofen anymore,
that I may be helping my liver, too. (I'm also taking Milk Thistle,
because I'm sure my liver has been over worked.)

7/17/06 About the serrapeptase: Yesterday my left leg felt like it used
to when my B12 was very low - sort of extremely tingly, not in a good
way, sort of a pre-frostbite kind of feeling. I'd had a B12 shot in the
morning so it wasn't from low B12. Still, I took the full dose of three
serrapeptase.

Today I didn't have the feeling and it seemed as if the varicose veins
by my left ankle were smaller. (I don't have them on my right ankle.)
They had been standing out quite a lot. But today they were hard to
find. The thing is, I could be wanting this to happen, and so I had a
hard time finding them to make my hopes come true. Do you know
what I mean?

I took a photo of my ankle so that I can see if they improve from here.
I wish I'd taken one of my ankle before I started the serrapeptase.

One thing that's improved is the swelling and pain on the right side of
my jaw. I think my jaw was out of joint from the left side having been
swollen from a bad toothache or maybe the tetanus. Anyway, my bite
was way out of alignment. So, that's cleared up. Which is very good
because I was taking Ibuprofen for that, too.

I'm planning on taking the serrapeptase as long as it was advised for
clogged arteries; that's because after just a short walk around my
garden my chest feels as if it is full of something. When I had a
similar feeling during the hydrogen sulfide time, I thought it was
my heart, but the heart tests showed that my heart was fine.

Only... I mean... didn't former President Clinton have heart tests that
showed he was just fine shortly before he had that life threatening
episode? I think so. And if he did, then I think his doctors must have
been sort of the best you can get, and so too the tests, and they still
didn't identify the problem.

So, I figure it will be wise to take the serrapeptase for the 18 months.
If my chest starts feeling like it's easier to breathe before the end of
18 months, that will be so good, and I can reevaluate then whether to
keep up for the entire time.

"Keep your faith in all beautiful things; in the
sun when it is hidden, in the Spring when it is
gone."

Roy R. Gilson

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in
the heart."

Khalil Gibran

(1883 - 1931)

"Though we travel the world over to find the
beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find
it not."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The future belongs to those who believe in
the beauty of their dreams."

Eleanor Roosevelt

“We are what we think. All that we are arises
with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make
the world.”

Hindu Prince Gautama

Siddharta

founde

Buddhism 563-483 B

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth,
so a single thought will not make a pathway in the
mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again
and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think
over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate
our lives.”

Henry David Thoreau

1817-1862

"The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he
gets for it, but what he becomes by it."

John Ruskin

"I lost 11 inches around my waist! Almost an inch a month! Read
6/18/06, 6/30/06, 7/7/06, and 7/13/06."
Karen Kline, August 2007

6/30/06, Continued - Bobbette, who has been providing help for me
through the state, because of how debilitating tetanus is, said it
sounded so boring to eat brown rice all the time. I can see how it
might sound that way, but this is what I emailed to her:

7/7/07 Most of the links aren't working today. So, without the
catalogs to use as spring boards to seeing myself slimmer, I began to
think about the one big underlying thing that I haven't talked about.

It falls into the "Why I'm Fat" category. And obviously since I've
already talked about exercise, it's not lack of exercise that is making
me fat. (Well, it is, or was, but there's more to it than that and not
eating brown rice.)

Basically, I've had a weight problem since I was eleven: after I had
my appendix out I gained weight and it never left, not entirely.
Though, up until now I was more, "too tall" than "too fat."

Okay, so, my mother was always angry at me. I don't remember her
ever hugging me. She blamed me for her marriage breaking up,
saying that I had come too early. I wished she'd had an abortion
if she didn't want me, but it was too late for that so it was
meaningless to even think about it.

In college I went out every night so that I would avoid her. I drank
water most of the time, so it wasn't a drinking problem. In the
morning I didn't get up until after she'd left for work. But still, it
was constant stress.

When I had a chance to orient the freshmen at university I applied
immediately because I would have to live in a dorm. (My
grandparents lived almost across the street from Old Main, and mom
and my brother lived several blocks further away.) I don't remember
getting paid, but accommodation and meals were free. What I do
remember is losing weight. I remember thinking it was because I
wasn't worrying so much.

This is a short bit of music that makes me feel
so good: Barbados Rocks

by James Provan

12/2/06 Cont. But I also had a huge deck problem. My deck was
rotted in several places, which I didn't really appreciate. If I hadn't
been taking pictures to show off my cool corner, I might not have
noticed and I might have stepped on one of the rotted places and
broken through and broken my ankle or leg.

The deck was a headache because it was really hard to get anyone to
do a good job. One man endlessly inspected the wood to determine
where the "crown" on each board was... He was very expensive
given that after three days of work he'd only put down 7 boards.

I was getting chest pains from the stress of it. So that's why I haven't
updated this. And, sadly, I gained weight back while I couldn't
exercise. The garden was full of the old rotten wood, and I couldn't
walk for fear of falling on a nail left sticking up in some of the wood.
The stress was also making me fall quite a lot again.

Out of the 22 pounds I'd lost, I gained back 8. Extreme sadness. But,
I think that if I can not be so stressed (by the court things, now) that I
won't have as much pain and my muscles will be less tight and I can
exercise again... and I bet with the protein powder, that I will lose
the weight more quickly. (I hope.)

9/10/07 After I filed my Appeal Brief a month ago my right knee
kept buckling, making me start to fall. So I've been in bed and not
walking. The good thing is that an intense pain I had in my left leg
has stopped. I think that with all this rest the nerve that was causing
the problem must have healed. But not being able to walk, I'm
worried about gaining weight back.

Since my electric was shut off on April 4, 2007, I decided to take
care of myself and get solar so that I wouldn't be threatened all the
time. I feel I have more control in my life. It feels good. I'd wanted
to pay, but needed a day to transfer money. They wouldn't give it to
me and after they shut off my electric my phone didn't work. By the
time Easter passed, I was determined not to let myself get into that
kind of situation again, where I needed a day and it was refused. I'm
sure that not worrying about that anymore is a part of how the nerve
in my leg healed, because of less stress.

The whey amino acids are still working, as is serrapeptase. I have
bad tinnitus today even though I had a B12 shot last night. I think it's
because my Revised Brief is due but I've seen that Leverick,
Deutsche's lawyer in my condo foreclosure, lied in court about
pivotal dates and it's disorienting to me that the Court said it was my
"version" which wasn't supported by the record. I haven't been able
to sleep properly, so it's especially hard to focus.

Recently a telling thing happened. Ever since a therapist told me that
nerve pathways regrow in our brains and that exercises help, I've
done mental exercises every day to increase my memory.

I tried to remember who brought my meal each day. Then one lady
wore a skirt that caught my attention, and the next day the next lady
wore a great top. I was delighted to find that day after day I could
still remember those two women and their clothes, in sequence.

The following week each of them wore different great things, and
now I could remember two weeks. I was just so stoked about my
mind beginning to work more like it did before I fell and hit my head.

I was looking forward to remembering for three weeks when I
answered the door and there was a person who wasn't the Wednesday
person. When I closed the door, meal in hand, I could no longer
remember what the other two women had been wearing, at all.

I was shocked that something new erased a memory that had seemed
firm. I think that must be why I get so confused with my Appeal
Brief when something shocking happens. Things in my mind are
like a house of cards, carefully built up, then something happens
and it all collapses. I have nothing left and have to start over.

The good thing is that I've lost ten inches, I have less daily pain, and
for two weeks I could remember two different women and two
different sets of clothes. In contrast, four years ago I felt as if a black
tunnel was following me and swallowing everything, leaving me no
memory, even of what I'd just done.

I wish I could remember what's in my appeal so I didn't have to
reread all the time. I wish I hadn't added stuff that made it too long
and that isn't as easy to delete because it's hard to remember where it
fits and where it doesn't.

The Dr. Brothers quote below is helping me remember how when
I'm patient with myself I can get on track and though it takes time, I
can do things with an increasing degree of accuracy.

I used to sit in my cool corner and raise my thoughts to the Angel of
Divine Love, but that got disrupted. I need to come to this page more
and read the quotes to help me feel hopeful.

Gosh, do I ever want to see me wearing that black and white outfit I
ordered. I love the pictures I have on this page now. They speak to
me about hope that seems solid, especially when taken in
combination with the quotes. I need a perfect picture to put next.

This is the image
I've selected to
help me see
myself prevailing
in court.
10/19/08 - I
thought it was out
of stock but I
found it today in
the outlet, each
piece was $9.99 -
I ordered them
with great joy and
thankfulness. I
hope I do well in
court wearing
them.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe
to heaven.

William Shakespeare

All's Well That Ends Well

A successful person is one who can lay a firm
foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or
her.

David Brinkley

It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you
think you're not.

Author Unknown

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint,"
then by all means paint, and that voice will be
silenced.

Vincent Van Gogh

I fit into the skinny, black dress today! (It's the one from 7/14/06.)
It's tight-- I'm only half way there. Still, I am happy! I'll post a link
to the pictures I took of m yself along the way, but be warned: if
looking in the mirror had been encouraging I wouldn't have needed
catalogs. The look on my face reminds me of other thick set women
I've seen. It's sort of an inflexible look and in order to lose inches I
had to defeat that look. It is startling to me that I looked that way.
And yet my look perfectly reflects how stolidly I was what I was.
Despite the fact it was easy to eat rice and walk or use my Gazelle
for three or four minutes a day it didn't feel easy. What I felt was
that I if I lost a bit, it would pile back on overnight and there was
no way to lose enough to defeat how quickly it came back. Plus, it
seemed that if I had lost weight, I would look thin. But I didn't, I
always disappointed myself, mirror after mirror, so I steeled myself
with that inflexible look. And, I looked in catalogs to see me, the
real me. When the things I ordered were too tight, then tight, then
gradually lose, it was more reassuring that what I saw in the mirror.
It was amazing today, wonderful amazing, to be able to pull on the
skinny little dress. A couple more months, and I'll look good in it!
Happiness. 10/27/07

"One does not see anything until one sees its
beauty."

Oscar Wilde

"Discovery consists of looking at the same thing
as everyone else and thinking something
different."

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"Learn to see, and then you'll know that there is
no end to the new worlds of our vision."

Carlos Castaneda

"The whole of life lies in the verb seeing."

Teilhard De Chardin

“All good things arrive unto them that wait -
and don't die in the meantime”

Mark Twain

“Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a
flower, and draws all good things toward you.
Allow your love to nourish yourself as well
as others. Do not strain after the needs of life.
It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of
them. In this way life proceeds more naturally
and effortlessly. Life is here to Enjoy!”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“All good things which exist are the fruits of
originality.”

John Stuart Mill

“These two truths are the same in weight and
importance. Accept and love WHO and
WHERE you are now, and all good things
shall find you there.”

Unknown

“And all good things are yours.”

Swedish Proverb

"Imagination is more important that knowledge."

Albert Einstein

11/23/07 - Having trusted a malfunctioning battery monitor in my
solar system, I'm without electric until there's some sunny weather,
which may not be for days. But, the upside is that with no telly or
internet, I opened a book, and the particular book is, "The Giant
Book of Women's Health Secrets," by Kerri Bodmer and Nan Fuchs.
The book was a free gift when I subscribed to their Women's Health
Newsletter many years ago.

I sought out this book because last April when my power was turned
off I read it over several evenings and found an explanation of why I
lost weight when I ate brown rice, something which I became
convinced would be true for anyone who ate brown rice.

On page 308 the women write about how brown rice, which is a

complex carbohydrate, is slow burning and

helps burn fat

. So

eating

it may help to lose weight without doing anything else: the

brown

rice actually helps to burn fat.

That's pretty exciting, isn't it? To me it explains my experience.

For

you, it may help you decide to give brown rice a try.

Another thing about brown rice, that I remember from when I

first

tried it, is that it does something which has the effect of

reducing

cellular swelling. I think that may have been at the Eat

Right for

Your Blood Type site.. I can't check because I can't go

online right

now. I have to wait for sunshine to stoke up my

batteries. (I'm

doing this on the life in my laptop's battery.)

But, in any case, that was how it felt to me (as if the brown rice was
reducing cellular swelling) when I was eating brown rice after I first
heard about it from Miria. I remember feeling as if my cells were all
becoming less bulky.

It was hard to believe that eating as much brown rice as I wanted
was okay and I was still going to lose weight. The belief aspect of
losing weight is complex and I think it has a lot to do with the
outcome. Not that if we believe we will lose weight then like magic
we will, but rather the opposite: when we don't believe we will
lose weight it's so stressful that we inhibit our metabolisms.

I think that may be another reason that a small amount of walking
makes so much difference. The walking stirs up our metabolism and
thereby counteracts stress inhibiting our metabolism.

Another interesting and useful thing that's in this book, is that
walking does our bodies good because it exercises all the parts of
our bodies, even the small and large intestines, strengthening those
muscles so that they work better, and the better those muscles work
the more healthy our intestines are which benefits us because it is
through them that nutrients are absorbed.

So, do you want to know what kind of brown rice I get? I get the
Lundgren's organic, short grain brown rice. And it is Soooooo good.
Plus, imagine... You can eat it to combat stress... You can eat it
several times a day if you are under a lot of stress... I did, and I lost
weight.

But, remember, this is not a fast weight loss program or diet. It's an
easy way to lose two or three pounds a week, maybe less, but for
sure some weight and inches. So, do something to pass the time
that's interesting and reassuring... And, enjoy the results.

"Keep your thoughts positive, because thoughts
become your words. Keep your words positive,
because words become your behavior. Keep
your behavior positive, because behavior
becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive,
because habits become your values. Keep your
values positive, because values become your
destiny."

Mahatma Gandhi

Health Boundaries Bite

"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the
beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing
about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder.
This empowers us to find beauty in places where
others have not dared to look, including inside
ourselves."

Salma Hayek

"Every time you smile at someone, it is an action
of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing."

Mother Teresa

I've lost 60 lb. in about a year doing 3.5 minutes of exercise pretty
much of the time, but not always, and eating brown rice. This works,
for sure. But, I had to keep a positive attitude and not give up --
that's where this page comes in. I used the pictures and the
quotations to help me stay on track. I visited this page regularly.
You are not an idiot and don't need a diet for idiots. Please try this.
You will be SOOOO glad you did. 2/17/08 (see my notes, below)

2/23/08 - Oh Oh! It was warm enough to measure myself -- the tape
was so cold during December and January that I avoided it -- and
I've gained back 3 inches. I'm sure it's from not doing my 3 minutes
of exercise a day (it was so cold in my Gazelle room during the
winter that I was afraid I'd get a kink in my muscles if I exercised in
such cold) and I was afraid to use the little brown rice I had left.
Today was my third day back on brown rice and my Gazelle.

2/24/08 - The news reported recently that diet soda tends to make us
gain weight because our bodies are "programmed" to expect a
certain number of calories with a certain amount of sweetness, so
when we use artificial sweeteners our bodies set up a craving for the
calories they "know" they should be getting. You know what that
means: Give up diet drinks and things! IMMEDIATELY! Try
slimming my way. Read what I recorded, below, as it worked for me

and visit this page and read the inspirational quotes at least
three times a week. You don't have to read all of them, but
some. And do three minutes of exercise a day, the kind of
exercise that makes you breathe faster. That kind of
breathing gives your body the extra air it needs to set in
motion a faster rate of metabolism, just like bellows were
used to start fires years ago. You will not be disappointed.
I promise.

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8/6/06 I have been really afraid that I only think I'm losing weight
and slimming. So today I weighed myself and I've lost 22 pounds. I
have to admit, I thought I'd lost at least twice that.

On the other hand, that averages about 7 pounds a month while
eating a dessert nearly every day and doing a tiny amount of
walking as my only exercise. Added to which is the impetus given
by imagining myself in these much smaller clothes. (Though, if I
still have 78 pounds to go, it's going to be awhile before I can
wear the black dress I ordered in medium - above.)

The main reason I hate weighing myself is that I get obsessed and
weigh myself all the time, always deeply terrified of what the results
will be. So weighing myself this morning was taking a risk. I did not
want to get obsessed with the numbers as I have in the past. Luckily
I feel pretty good. I'm so relieved that I've lost something and this
isn't just in my mind. Whew! (I think I'm safe from the obsession.)

Just My Style Support, Enhanced Toe Pantyhose, 1X-7X, 3-Pk, Plus Size

7/26/08 - I need to look at pictures to remind me of how well I'm
doing despite disheartening legal outcomes. Not disheartening is
how much more smooth and healthy my skin is since I began eating
nuts for lunch and numerous snacks. I wish my skin had looked this
good when I was young. and envious of friends whose legs shown
in the sun at poolside. My legs looked worn and refused to show t
hat I copiously used moisturizer. But, better late than never. And as
long as I don't eat too many the nut protein speeds my slimming.

10/19/08 - Sigh! My skin looked so good. Then stress levels rose
and it began to look like crepe paper. So discouraging. But it's
getting better. Today I ordered a blazer and skirt from Ulla Popken
that I've wanted for a year. In measuring myself I found I'm not as
slim as I wanted to be by now. At the doctor's last week I learned my
weight, 226. That's more than 50 pounds lighter than when I started.
But it's been three years. I thought I'd be to my ideal weight by now,
but stress has interfered. Stress makes an intense pain strike my hip
and I lose my balance. Once that starts happening I'm afraid to walk.
5 minutes of walking is so little, but if I fell and broke a bone it
would make things more difficult. This also means I cook things that
require little standing. So, with stress I gain back, over and over, part
of what I lose. Still, I have lost over 50 pounds that haven't come
back and lots of inches and I'm healthier. All it took was a little
exercise and lots of brown rice. Brown rice works because it
contains more protein than potatoes or pasta. It has one of the most
complete essential amino acid profiles of any vegetable crop.

“Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people who
have come alive.”

Howard Thurman

Le Mystere Lace Group camisole

6/21/09 - Last fall I fell. After that I wasn't able to walk much. By
spring I wasn't as slim as before. I was afraid walking to lose weight
wouldn't work again. But, it has. I've been losing an inch a month
and am now back to where I was, maybe a bit improved. Whew!

Newspaper photo
(Bad reporting)

Dereon Solid Maxi Dress

Fossil "Gabby" Shopper

Alfani "Fiano" Top-Handle Bag

Fossil "Erin" Top Zip Bag

Fossil "Weekender" Organizer Crossbody Bag

Norma Kamali Large Canvas Bag

Fabulous Flower Clutch

Sterling and Birthstone Claddagh Ring

Black Princess Cut Diamond White Gold Pendant

Heart-Shaped Sapphire and Yellow Gold Ring

5 Carat TGW Amethyst and Topaz Sterling Ring

Created Pink Sapphire Sterling Bracelet

Keepsake 14kt White Gold 2mm Wedding Band

12/23/09 - When I went to the doctor in late Summer I learned I'd
gained back 23 lb. I had been constantly working on legal things,
could barely walk around my garden once, and I wasn't picturing
myself in new, smaller clothes because I had so little money. Now
I'm determined to put legal things and money second to my health.

12/24/09 - Happiness!!! I just walked around my garden where it's
not icy. I'm thankful I can feel my feet and have better balance. In
past winters I didn't go out because my feet problems made it seem
imprudent to walk with ice and snow increasing the risk of falling.

Denim Patio Dress

Animal Border Print Skirt

Sleeveless Knit Lounger

World Famous Polartec(R) 200 Jacket

6/30/10 - Losing a pound a week is easy if there's not a lot of stress
or a major food/drink change: For three weeks I drank cheap fruit
punch while taking lots of vitamin C. I gained and was so depressed.

Now I soft boil organic eggs to have with a grapefruit. I drink less
coffee and the house is cooler on days I don't boil water.

When I was young we believed grapefruit increased metabolic heat
to burn the egg and other calories more quickly. Maybe they do. lol.

Herringbone Blooming
Cardigan

Jungle Pathways
Jacket

Phantastical Paisley
Tunic

Orchids in the
Rainforest Tunic

Rose Garden Print
Gypsy Topy

Coral Photographic
Stripe Vest/Tank

Batik Burnout Tank

Mosaic
Smocked Top

Sequin Zebra Tunic

Medallion Print
Lounger

7/20/10 - I was so sad to gain back inches that I thought a new dress
was a waste. But I bought two anyway. I'm glad I did. They helped
me go back to my 3 min of exercise a day and I'm smaller again.

Sequined Animal
Print Tunic Top

Wild Thing
Maxi Dress

Shimmering Surplice Top

Denise - Honey Calf Leather Cross-Body Bag - Francesco Biasia

Rose Zucca Medium Chef Bag - Fendi

Lilya - Paprika Leather Hobo Bag - Luana

Chiffon Butterfly Dress

Rakuten Ichiba Japan is the largest shopping site in Japan, with thousands of merchants and millions of products.

Ikat Print Georgette
top

Pretty Paisleys Tunic

KMart LOVE YOUR STYLE LOVE YOUR SIZE

3/6/11 - When you're young be sure you enjoy your life as much as
you can, because once you're older, if you have a health problem, it
becomes harder and harder to recover from minor injuries. That said,
I started eating scrambled eggs for their tryptophan content, to help
me sleep after pain from hurting my back was constantly keeping me
awake. It took a few days for the tryptophan to kick in, but it did. So,
I'm going to order something new to wear, to celebrate sleeping
better and weight loss from switching from brown rice to two eggs.

Alfani Cap Sleeve
Print Tunic

David Lerner Rip
Tee in Black

Neon Maxi Dress

Wildfox Splatter
Flash Dance

Taylor Model 7506 Glass Electronic Scale

3/12/11 - Despite everything I've written about not using a scale, I've
had to order one because I need a due to my back injury,
and they are made for people of different weights. The
has excellent reviews, and it's pretty. See the picture lower left.

Taylor Scale

Rollator

T eeth Saved!

Methylcobalamin
t he active B12

$$ Saver~P aper, ink, etc

S limming E asily

Linens and a story

Toxin s in homes

Solar : Investing Rewards

G ardening

Movies - watch FREE
which service is best?

Skin concerns?