Healthy Diet at Home

The Radioactive Iodine Uptake test was no picnic. Although the nuclear medicine technician who gave me the iodine capsules assured me that the capsules didn't have enough iodine to produce any side effects, it definitely increased my hyperthyroid symptoms -- drastically. I'm guessing that one might not notice the upswing if one wasn't looking for it, because it would just be more of the same. Especially in those people whose thyroid is putting out a whopping amount of thyroid hormones already. In my case, the test was quite uncomfortable. I had to try to hold still for 20 minutes, and then again for 4 minutes, as the technicians measured the amount of radiation my thyroid was putting out and the amount of iodine my thyroid had taken up. I also had to go back again the following morning for another iodine reading at exactly 24 hours. With thyroid nodules, what they are initially looking at is whether or not the nodules are making thyroid hormone independently from the thyroi...

It has taken me a long time to reach this point. I don't really know how I feel about it all . . . just yet. The additional tests that the first nurse practitioner ran came back quite abnormal. But I didn't hear from her until I chased her down a couple of weeks later. She was very confused and was trying to figure it out on her own. In the meantime, everything in my body was racing. My metabolism was high, but the body was in starvation mode, so I don't understand her personal need to figure it all out. Since Cigna's insurance chart said our local Endocrinology clinic was not set up to take Cigna patients until January, I just wanted her to run the blood work for me, so I could decide if it was worth it to pay for the doctor visit myself, or if I should wait until our new insurance became effective in January. Hubby's company is dumping Cigna for a local health insurance company instead. When I didn't hear back, I called the clinic and asked for a copy of my r...

As I talked about in my last post, the holistic practitioner that has been working with me lately suggested that I move toward the Paleo Diet in order to regain my health. That caused me to smile. Not only because I didn't expect her to say that, but because after spending 5 years on a strict, whole-foods low-carb diet of just meats, eggs, vegetables, berries, and healthy fats, I was no closer to health than I was before I started. That's the naked truth. Foundation Claims of the Paleo Diet I decided to look into the Paleo Diet anyway because I was relatively familiar with the program. I started with Lorin Cordain's website since he was the founder of the Paleo movement. I thought I would get a clearer picture of what the diet was all about if I went to the source. What I understood after the hours I spent reading there was that Paleo is based on mimicking the foods our ancient ancestors ate before the Agricultural Revolution because those are the foods our bodies are gen...

Okay, she's not really a doctor. She's an holistic nurse practitioner who performed our annual physicals so that hubby's work would pay for our health insurance premiums. It took me over 4 hours to find the doctor she works with because Cigna's online listing showed over 400 family practice physicians that specialize in pediatrics. Calling the phone number on our insurance card was a nightmare. The computer voice just kept saying, "I'm sorry, I don't understand you." That's because I got angry. Speaking to a real life representative wasn't an option it gave me. Eventually, I screamed at the computer voice that I wanted to speak to real live person. A lot of good that did me. "I'm sorry, I don't understand you. Let's try again." Somehow, I finally ended up with a live person, but I don't remember how. She wasn't very helpful. She kept insisting that there were over 400 doctors within a 20-mile radius from us. Doc...

A low-carb diet is one of the heathiest ways to eat, but unfortunately, it takes more than diet and exercise to reach your weight-loss goals. For most people, successful weight loss also requires you to make a mental adjustment. For that reason, many people wonder, "Will a low-carb diet work for me?" The answer to that depends on your motivation, personality type, and determination to succeed. What's at the Heart of a Low-Carb Diet? Before I introduce you to the three personality types that are most likely to achieve success on a low-carb diet, let's briefly discuss what sits at the heart of carbohydrate restriction. Better health through correcting insulin and blood glucose imbalances, improving cholesterol markers, an adequate protein intake, lower hunger levels, and gaining better control over your cravings all make a carb-reduced diet extremely attractive to dieters. But don't forget that the basis for low carbing originally came from "observation" o...

(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you didn't read Part 1, you can find it here . This post was originally published at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important and I have other plans for that blog now.) Once I realized that the zero-carb folks didn't understand biology, I stopped posting to that particular forum. I didn't know if I was hurting myself by being there. However, I was enjoying the thread on Frankenfoods, and I couldn't read and participate in that thread unless I was a member of the forum. So I just kept silently reading. In addition to the forum, I read everything about biochemistry that I could find on education websites. I read everything on the Bloodsugar 101 website. And I read everything on the "Over 50s" thread at the zero-carb forum as well. That thread began to reveal a lot of things that I was going through. From the gain of belly fat, to the rise in blood sugars, I ...

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. It was originally posted at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important, and I have other plans for that blog now.) Over the course of my low-carb journey, I have tried several different types of low-carb diets. Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Atkins 72, the Kimkins Diet, Protein Power, and a round of hHCG are just a few. Each time I made a change or tweak, I would carefully evaluate my progress to see if what I was doing was working, or if I needed to toss it aside. In the Spring of 2009, I started participating in a 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge. The reason I entered into that challenge was because a traditional low-carb diet had stopped working for me. Since the whole idea of a low-carb diet is to find your own personal carbohydrate sensitivity, I thought the basis for the challenge made perfect sense. If you aren't losing weight, then you're eating too many carbohydrates. Perio...