When I did my candida cleanse Dr. D prescribed chlorella supplements and said it would curb any cravings, would help detoxify my body, and would start rebuilding my digestive enzymes. I started out taking 6 grams twice a day.

And she was right! No cravings at all. Now that may not seem all that miraculous to you, but I have tried every diet under the sun my entire adult life and could never last more than a few weeks due to intense cravings. To have the ability to complete a 3 month stringent diet without a single cheat was like a miracle. After my cleanse was completed I stopped taking it, and the cravings haven’t come back. Yes, I want comfort food, but I’m not driven to eat sweets or fatty foods like I used to be.

So what IS chlorella? I did some snooping around online and here’s what I found…

Chlorella detoxifies the body by removing mercury and other heavy metals

Finlandia – Canadian online source of Chlorella

Updated info added August 21, 2010:

I take Chlor-Essence brand, and their website has some great info about it. http://chloressence.com/ You can order on their website, but my local health food store carries it, so I just buy it there. I take anywhere from 6 to 12 grams a day in pill form, depending on how bad my carb/sugar cravings are. Each pill is 500 mg, so that’s 12 to 24 pills, but they are REALLY small and I can swallow 6 at a time. A bottle of 300 costs me about $45 and will last me 15-30 days depending on how much I’m taking.

I’ve been taking Chlorella off and on for a year now, combined with a rice protein shake in the morning. I initially started taking it when I did a candida cleanse with our Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor, and then continued taking it cause I loved the side effects. I rarely have blood sugar fluctuations any longer. I used to have BAD blood sugar highs and lows and intense sugar/carb cravings, but those have pretty much completely resolved now even though I’m not on the restrictive cleanse/treatment diet any longer. Plus I have PCOS and there’s that whole insulin connection there, so it’s quite amazing that I no longer experience those crashes even when I’m not sugar free. Oh, and added bonus? My menses went from being once every 3-6 months, to every 35 days like clockwork. It hasn’t been regular since I went off the pill in 2001!!!! I know it’s likely the entire cleanse/treatment plan, not just the chlorella, but it definitely played a part.

Last summer, a year tomorrow actually, our family embarked on what would end up being a 5 month healing treatment plan. We had every intention of completing it around April of this year, but then in January I discovered I was pregnant, and immediately derailed the family’s treatment regime.

Then came the month of March from hell. I had a miscarriage, hemorrhaged and had to have emergency D&C surgery. We thought that was bad, but then we found out we had to move out of our home and find a new location for our home salon business… Over the following 3 months our life became pure survival. Packing boxes, moving most of our stuff into storage, living in a small cramped studio at my parent’s house, limited space for cooking or storing food, opening a new business location with expanded services, and finally moving into our new rental home the middle of July.

So here we are. The 10th of August. I finally have a moment to sit down and take a self inventory and I am not pleased with what I see in the full length mirrored closets in our master bedroom… I’ve regained 10 of the 23 lbs I lost last year. My clothes are tight. With good reason… I am drinking copious amount of coca-cola and coffee with sugar, and eating large portions of my typical comfort foods – woodfire gourmet pizzas, shells & cheese, crackers & cheddar, artisan bread slathered in butter, homemade cheesecake (thanks, B!), Backyard BBQ Kettle chips, and caramel chocolate coated Haagen Dazs ice cream bars… Sure it tastes good… but the aftermath is not pretty…

Health wise I am not doing well. Last week I was diagnosed with anemia (see my last post about being tired all the time) and plantar fasciitis (ouch!). I ache all the time, I have very little energy, and I’ve been having way too many stress related tension headaches. I feel puffy and ugly all the time. I swing back and forth between constipation and diarrhea. I am literally sick and tired of feeling unwell.

Enough is enough!

Time to make some positive changes…

I’m not getting any younger…

I need to lose about 120 lbs, build better digestive enzymes, and heal all the inflammation in my body. B and I had a talk with our son this morning and we’ve decided to re-start the healing treatment plan we did last year – as a family! It’s just too difficult to for me to do it alone, and we’d love to see B’s chronic cough cleared up, and M’s asthma and allergies resolved. For financial reasons we plan to eat up all the forbidden food currently in our pantry and stock groceries and supplements to fit the plan, which is why we’re starting on the 23rd of August and not tomorrow…

I figure posting this publicly means we must actually follow through with the plan. Now hold me to it!

If you would like to read more details about the actual treatment plan, click here.

ETA (August 12, 2010): After emailing our Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor, she wants to do a re-evaluation, and will not be able to send us the results till after Aug 29th, so we are postponing starting the treatment plan until we know what supplements/diet restrictions we will have this time around and have all the supplies in stock…

This morning I woke up disoriented. I thought I heard Rodents Of An Unusual Size (ROUS) chomping on the drywall of my parents work studio where we’ve been living since the end of May, but when I opened my eyes I discovered it was a dragonfly trapped in the skylight above my bed. His wings were clicking against the glass. Delightful. So much better than ROUS.

I tripped my way over boxes and piles of stuff I had started unpacking last night and made my way to my master suite bathroom. As I peed I smiled to myself. I am the proud recipient of a lease that says I get to enjoy a master suite bathroom for a minimum of 2 years. The ROUS infected studio is a thing of the past.

I’ve been intentionally avoiding posting on my blog because I’m overwhelmed and tired. My life has been seriously de-railed over the last few months.

Remember that healing cleanse I did last year? Well, our stop-gap home at my parents had very limited space, and they had no room to store prepared food in the fridge so we started eating a lot of easy quick food. Pizza, frozen meals, cheese sandwiches, chocolate, soda, chips, ice cream, and a LOT of restaurant meals…

It’s mid-July now and my menses have been regular since my cleanse (less the 11 weeks I was pregnant), but ever since the D&C my monthly has been incredibly heavy and energy-sucking, and then I spend the rest of the month completely drained and exhausted.

I keep trying to break the cycle of bad eating and low energy, but by 10 AM I don’t have the energy to get through my day so I grab something quick for that boost – usually full of caffeine and sugar.

Last weekend we moved into our new home. It’s fabulous. It has the best view of the ocean and Mudge Island, a large fenced garden that I’m sharing with the landlord, and the space works incredibly well for our family. I love organizing. It’s just a weird quirk I have. Yet, I have no desire to unpack. Each day feels completely overwhelming. This is not like me. I usually enjoy setting up in a new place. This time feels different. Tiring. I just want to go to bed and sleep with no interruptions. Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t ask me questions. Just leave me be so I can sleep.

The things that motivated me in the past aren’t working.

We took a vacation in mid-June. It was a whirlwind holiday to Seattle, WA. We rode the Amtrak train from Vancouver to Seattle, saw Bill Cosby live, took our son to the Seattle Zoo, took the monorail to the Space Needle, visited the Science Center, IMAX theatre, Music Experience Museum, Sci-Fi Museum, and basically wore myself out more than I was before we left. I need a holiday to recover from our holiday.

I cut all my hair off (see pic above). I love the new look, but still no umph.

I weighed myself. I’ve gained 15 lbs. I’m too tired to truly care enough to diet or exercise. I tried restricting my calories for a week or so and ended up eating 4000 calories one day. So yeah, not exactly helpful.

I re-started the Colonix Cleanse three days ago. I fill my water bottle with 8 cups of filtered water every morning. And drink it too! I take a handful of chlorella to help cope with the detox. I drink a protein shake with a high protein egg breakfast, and take an iron supplement every morning. I have such a bad headache by 1 PM that I usually cave and buy a skim latte and load it with sugar or buy a bottle of coke to get through the rest of the work day at the salon. I don’t have the energy to eliminate sugar and caffeine and dairy and wheat and whatever else it was that I wasn’t eating on the healing cleanse.

I bought a new bike. It was delivered Saturday night and we tried going for a bike ride Sunday morning. We made it as far as the cemetery (not far – but morbidly ironic). The bike ride and the heat completely laid me out and we had to go home so I could sleep.

I LOVE cooking organic healthy whole foods for my family. I am so exhausted I can barely stand long enough to make dinner. I thought the excitement of moving into a house with a kitchen and a fridge of my own again would motivate me, but instead I feel paralyzed and unable to function.

I don’t cope well in chaos. I have half unpacked boxes everywhere and nowhere to put stuff cause this place has so little storage. I did find a dresser at GIRO last night (thanks to a friend with a truck!), so that’s a start, I guess. I don’t have the energy to figure it out.

Is this depression? Are all the events of the spring finally catching up to me emotionally? Am I deficient in something? Is it my thyroid? Low Vit D? Anemia? What? I called to make a doctor’s appointment but they can’t fit me in till Friday, August 8th. It feels like a lifetime away.

L to R Adults: April, Bill, Brent, & Amarins. L to R Children: Micah, Robin, Cheyenne, & Jasmine.

I have been following the incredible journey of the Vogel Family, as they biked from the top of Alaska to the tip of South America… along the way they posted a link to another biking family, the Pedouins, who were biking from Kentucky to Alaska on a Quint Cycle. I checked out their website, and discovered they would be on Vancouver Island in June 2010. At the time, we were living on a property that had a great layout for camping, so we offered them a place to stay, and free haircuts at Brent G Hair & Spa for the whole family. This was before they had even started their journey in August of 2009.

This week we got the call – they were on Gabriola Island! Although we were unable to put them up, another family on the island gave them a place to stay, and we booked 5 haircut appointments. The family arrived at 3 PM on Tuesday, June 8th!

Wow! A powerful surge of energy entered the salon with the family, along with Frederick, a fellow biker who also happened to be a film-maker and was shooting a documentary about the family, and Derrick, a reporter from our local newspaper, the Gabriola Sounder News.

The kids made a beeline for the candy on the front desk, and our in-house masseuse, Chalise, generously offered complimentary massages to the whole family.

Brent started by giving the three girls, Cheyenne (7), Jasmine (5), and Robin (3) a small trim. Chalise gave Bill a massage.

Robin playing outside the salon

Then it was mom’s turn for a haircut. In her ultra-cool Dutch accent, she said “chop it all off! I’ve been waiting a whole year to go short and sporty, the way my hair was when I met Bill at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.” And short it was! But wait. Not all was right. Mid-haircut Jasmine and Robin spotted the drastic make-over and pandemonium erupted. Howls of dismay and even a (harmless) bite to Brent’s leg ensued until Bill intervened. Soon he had the girls calmed down, Jasmine left with Paul of Slow Rise Bakery to buy ice cream and peace was restored.

Then Cheyenne emerged from her massage. The howls of dismay and cries of “Mom! Put it back! I hate it!” filled the salon again. Mom, the one constant in the girl’s life over the past year, had changed. How dare she?! Fortunately mom loved the change and was able to convince the girls (eventually) that she was still the same awesome mom she had always been. (Is it okay to admit I had quite the giggle watching this exchange?! Or is that a bit too sadistic? LOL)

Mom comforting Cheyenne after mom's makeover change

We are honored to have met this family and are in awe of the adventure they are undertaking. The memories they are building, the will power (over 100 bike repairs, Bill?!), the stamina, the joy, the energy…

Wow. You rock. Anytime you want to come stay with us, you are always welcome in our home.

The Gibson Family, the Pedouin Family (less Jasmine who was off getting icecream), and Chalise (far left)

The family left the next day, in the pouring rain…

Back in the late 90′s I discovered the internet. It was so COOL how you could instant message with people and I spent hours chatting online. I loved writing and getting emails… I even met my ex-husband online in a chat room…

Then came blogs… They replaced instant messaging for me (all that chatting got a bit old and felt too intrusive) and I really enjoyed reading dozens of different blogs, and leaving comments. I started half a dozen different topical blogs myself and loved getting comments and responding to them.

I’ve spent HOURS upon HOURS reading and responding to threads on four or five different forums (my post count is embarrassingly high). I signed up on My Space but didn’t really “get it”, and totally resisted Face Book… until less than a year ago… At first it was so neat reconnecting with friends, reading and responding to status updates and thinking up witty things to say… Now I have almost 400 “friends” and I struggle to remember who’s who, and quite honestly, I’m not really all that interested in what people are doing every minute of every day.

I find myself mindlessly playing Bejeweled on FB cause I don’t feel like interacting with people. I’m tired of all the online networking. I prefer my real life, and as loathe as I am to admit it, I now find the internet boring.

I enjoy having it as a resource to look things up, google calendar keeps me organized and on track… Do you know I have a BOOK of online logins and passwords? A BOOK. I have a problem, people.

A close friend deactivated her FB account recently and totally inspired me to take an internet sabbatical. I took a long internet break last year, cleared out my blog reader, shut down my forum accounts temporarily, and stopped blogging. I didn’t miss it. At all.

I don’t want to sound all self righteous about it or anything, but I think it’s time to disconnect online and reconnect in real life. Ironic that I’m posting this on a blog. On the internet.

So I say all that to say this… I’m not leaving permanently, but I am going to take a summer sabbatical… Warm weather is here, and I’m going to spend a LOT less time online and a lot more time outdoors, and interacting with the people who mean a lot to me. More time with my son… more time with my husband… and my parents… more time with new friends that I’ve neglected nurturing relationships with… more time working in my garden… more time riding a bike… more time at the beach… more time sitting outside in the cool of the evening with my family, sipping a cold drink and talking, or just looking at the stars…

If you feel challenged and inspired to do the same for the summer, go for it! You’ll like it. And the internet will still be here when the weather cools down and we need somewhere cozy and warm to hibernate to. If you need to get ahold of me, pop me an email (check out the contact page) and I’ll be sure to get back to you before winter is upon us…

When I found out I was pregnant last January we had a family plan. This would be our last natural child, I would get my tubes tied after the baby was born, and when the baby was 6 months old we would start fostering a little girl between the age of 5 and 7. It was simple. It felt right.

Then I miscarried.

Then we got evicted and we are moving to a home that doesn’t have the required 3 bedrooms in order to qualify for foster care.

Suddenly it feels really complicated. Our answer to most problems is to make a list of pros and cons…

Pros to having another baby:

1. B and I would get to experience the pregnancy, labor, delivery, and new born phase of parenthood together for the first time in a loving supportive relationship. My son was 2.5 years old when B and I met, and I went through my entire pregnancy, labor, and delivery without a partner present. I reconciled with my ex when my son was 3 months old, but he was less than supportive and loving (understatement of the year award) through the new born phase, and then we separated and divorced when my son was 20 months old. I was a single parent until I married B when my son was 4.5 years old.
2. Our son would have a sibling, and the opportunity to grow up with another child without worrying the child would be leaving, as happens with a foster sibling.
3. Babies are lovely. They are sweet, dependent, innocent, and they love you unconditionally. There’s nothing like waking up to a baby snuggled up to my breast for morning milkies, grinning up at me with milk dribbling out the side of their mouth. All the firsts are so precious  – first laugh, first word, first step, first kiss.

Cons to having another baby:

1. I hate being pregnant. I am extremely miserable, fatigued, and have chronic pain in my hips and back from the day of conception. The whole 40 weeks I feel like I’m in a daze and am unable to connect with anyone emotionally until I give birth and all those pregnancy hormones rush out of my body.
2. I’m terrified I’ll have another traumatic miscarriage.
3. I’m unsure we’ll even be able to get pregnant again with mine and B’s combined fertility issues, and the constant roller coaster of hope and dashed hope is very hard on us emotionally.
4. I’m terrified I’ll have another 80+ hour labor and delivery, but am too educated and knowledgeable about the negative effects of medical intervention to compromise on anything less than a natural home birth.
5. After having a child who has multiple serious life threatening food allergies, a speech delay, sensory issues, severe eczema and asthma, I’m terrified I’ll have a baby with truly major health issues or complications and am not confident I have what it takes to deal with that.
6. There will be a minimum 7+ year age gap between our son and the new baby, so will they even have much of a relationship? By the time the baby starts school, our son will be a teenager, likely with other interests.
7. Even if we move into a 3 bedroom home, foster parenting will be put on hold until the baby is at least 6 months old (their policy).
8. We are attachment parents who believe very strongly in breastfeeding, co-sleeping, child led weaning, baby-wearing, and no daycare or babysitters until baby is weaned. Having a baby is a huge emotional and physical commitment for us – but more specifically me. We just signed an extended lease on a business commercial space and in order to afford it, I need to work in the salon booking appointments, and doing reception, bookkeeping, marketing, and admin. Baby would have to come to work with me, which is possible, but not an ideal arrangement by a long stretch, especially given the line of work – people come to a hair salon/spa to be pampered, and babies don’t generally fit into that equation.
9. We have a very full busy, and often hectic, life and adding sleep deprivation into the mix is not appealing.
10. Babies cost money (clothes, cloth diapers, car seat, slings, etc) which means less disposable income for replacing our VERY old car, holidays and travel, and purchasing our first home.
11. We are in our mid and late 30′s and when the baby leaves home after graduating high school (or college) we’ll be less than 10 years away from retirement.

So there are the hard cold facts and emotions about what we are agonizing over. Making a list of pros and cons doesn’t help because it’s such an emotion-driven decision to make. We have gone round and round and round and can’t come to a conclusion. Most people we talk to suggest we just use BC and not do anything permanent, but quite honestly there are few BC options available for us personally, for private reasons I won’t get into, and we need some kind of resolution.

My head says I should get my tubes tied. My heart says wait. Do we go with logic and reason, or heart and emotion? We would love for our friends and family to weigh in with your thoughts. We just ask that you please be sensitive and thoughtful in your response as this is a very vulnerable topic for us…

First of all, stop being all eco-friendly and stuff, and embrace your inner-anal. Buy all your boxes brand new and from the same storage facility (budget, in my case) because they stack better, and look neat and tidy. Purchase two sizes. One large size for lighter things that take up more space (clothes, blankets, linens, etc) and one medium size for heavier things that take up less space (dishes, books, toys, etc). We are guesstimating we will need 25 of each. They will refund us for any we don’t use as long as we don’t break the tabs. Be sure to ask if they will do this before you make the purchase.

Purchase the largest possible permanent black marker that your local stationary store (Staples) sells. Actually, two. Just in case “you” (read: other family members) misplace the first one. Don’t forget packing tape with a dispenser, and a good pair of utility scissors.

Designate zones for packed boxes. My system is Zone 1: boxes to go into storage facility. Zone 2: boxes to go the new hair salon. Zone 3: boxes to go to recycling depot. Zone 4: boxes to go to our temporary home. Zone 5: stuff going to the trash.

Deliberately sort and purge as you go. If the items don’t actually belong to you – in my case my husband’s or son’s stuff – be sure to consult with them as you pack and purge or you will have a very tense month ahead of you. Prepare two boxes and a garbage bag.  One box is for keeping, one is for donating, and the garbage bag is for, well, garbage. Make it simple. Ask them is this keep, donate, or discard? Move quickly and don’t let them think too long or you’ll lose your packing/purging rhythm. Upbeat music can help the process move along…

Pack like items in each box and mark the contents specifically. For instance, if you are packing your child’s room, don’t just mark “toys” or “kid’s room” on the boxes or you’ll find yourself digging through 15 boxes marked “toys” or “kid’s room” for that special Buzz Lightyear action figure that they can NOT go to bed without the first night in a new home. We have a box for puzzles and games, another for super hero/action hero/transformer toys. Another for books. You get the idea…

As each box is filled, move it to the correct zone, tape it shut, and label it. Label includes contents (again, be specific) and where it’s being moved to.

Coordinating moving day:

• Book a moving truck/company as soon as you know you’re going to be moving. Do the move as early in the morning as possible to leave time for repairs and cleaning in the afternoon/evening. If you hire a moving company, be present to direct traffic and witness any mishaps.
• Do handyman jobs such as patching walls, paint touch-ups, and swapping out personal fixtures after you move everything out. We are moving everything out almost a week before the end of the month, so we have the luxury of doing this the day after our big move.
• Move-out cleaning – make a check list of everything that needs to be done and work the list. I always pay someone to do it for me so I can focus on getting my new location unpacked and organized.
• Carpet cleaning (if necessary) – at the same time you’re booking your moving truck/company, call and schedule a professional carpet cleaner as they get particularly busy at month-end when everyone is moving. They should come after the move-out cleaning is done.

Moving makes me nuts, I loathe it, but at the same time I shamefacedly admit it also feeds some rarely indulged deep-seated need to control, organize, and be exceedingly anal. I’m sure my family will breathe a sigh of relief when crazy-anal-moving-April has receded back into her cave.

PS: The new boxes thing only applies to when you’re putting almost your entire house into storage for up to a year or more (like us), and you don’t want your belongings smelling like bananas or rotten cauliflower. If we were just moving things from one location to another and unpacking again right away we would TOTALLY (and have done in the past) re-use boxes from the local liquor/grocery store, and kind people on freecycle.org.

So, with the move, one of the saddest parts for me was having to let my sweet sunny garden go. I’ve stopped trimming the grass, and it’s already taking over my garden beds where I planted garlic last fall.

We purchased deer fencing and put it up last year, and we had such hopes and dreams for our garden this year. We had a load of organic soil and a load of fish compost delivered literally a week before we got our eviction notice. Talk about bad timing!

We have decided we are going to be staying in a little studio at my parent’s house for the summer, and they have very generously donated their sunny veggie garden beds to us for our use. We will do the gardening and share the produce in exchange for the use of the space.

Last weekend we loaded up the soil we had delivered to our old garden and started new lasagna garden beds in our new garden. Layers are in order from bottom to top: cardboard, manure, organic soil, leaves, and fish compost. They are the juiciest most yummy looking garden beds EVER.

We also took down our deer fencing and metal poles, and will be taking it with us for my parents to use… or we’ll use it at whatever home we end up moving to more long term if they don’t use it.

Over the next week or two we will be taking down our gate (standing lonely in the pic above after we took down the fencing), moving the rest of the fish compost pile (under the black tarp) from old garden to new garden, and transplanting a number of our plants we were establishing. I also have a bunch of seeds ready to plant as soon as the beds are prepped: beets, kale, carrots, beans, peas, sunflowers… and we had a bag of seed potatoes and 6 tomato plants given to us by friends/neighbors. If anyone local has organic spaghetti squash, pumpkin, or cucumber starts they’d like to donate to our garden we’d be most grateful.

We weren’t allowed to pick apples from the apple trees at the end of our driveway, so maybe our next home will have apple trees, or even better, cherry trees, and we’ll be able to pick fruit to our heart’s content…

So, with new garden prospects ahead of us, we are not quite so sad to say goodbye to our old garden and are truly ready to move on now and embrace The Great Summer Adventure of 2010… 

Prep ingredients…

Prepare filling…

Layer filling and phyllo…

Slice before baking…

It’s golden brown after an hour of baking…

Serve with a fresh wild herb salad, french bread and a hearty red wine.

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked brown rice
3 – 4 quarts fresh young nettles
1 onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T olive oil
Basil, oregano, marjoram & thyme to taste
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 c provolone, grated
2 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 package frozen phyllo, thawed
1 cup feta, crumbled

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Precook brown rice.
2. While rice is cooking, prep your nettles by rinsing in a colander, and trimming stems off. Remember to use gloves as they will sting until they are cooked. Chop onion and garlic.
3. Saute onion and garlic in olive oil. Add rinsed nettles. Press the nettles down and cover. Cook for 5 minutes until nettles have shrunk down and are tender. Add herb seasonings to taste (1-2 t of each should be adequate). Pour saute into a large bowl. Add ricotta cheese, provolone, and 2 eggs, and mix well. This is your filling.
4. Roll thawed phyllo out, and place phyllo under a damp dish towel on the stack to keep the phyllo moist. This is important, and you must work quickly with it as it can get dry and brittle and is hard to work with if exposed to the air too long.
5. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9×13 baking pan. Place a layer of phyllo on the bottom of the pan and brush lightly with butter. Place another layer and do the same. Repeat this process until you have used half the phyllo.
6. Pour your filling over the phyllo and sprinkle crumbled feta liberally on top.
7. Repeat layering phyllo until you have used the rest in the package.
8. Cut nettle-kopita in diagonal pieces before baking.
9. Bake in oven for an hour. Top will be golden brown.

Serve with a fresh wild herb salad, french bread and a hearty red wine.

(Recipe is compliments of Heather Loyer of Dancing Maidens Botanicals. To sign up for an herbal workshop on Gabriola Island, BC, call 250-247-8514.)

My SIL is a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor, and she offered to treat our entire family. We started the full body healing cleanse on August 11, 2009. The first month I lost 10 lbs just by eliminating sugar, dairy, caffeine, soy, wheat, yeast, vinegar, and citrus.

The second month I started regaining weight at the rate of about 0.4 lbs a week for 3 weeks running. I felt angry and betrayed and wanted to give up. In desperation I consulted my MD about a referral for weight loss surgery (WLS).

After getting my hopes up that the surgery might actually be a possibility, my hopes were dashed when the Vancouver Island Health Authority slashed gastric bastric OR times. I re-consulted with my MD and he decided to try me on a WLS type diet without the surgery. He had me eating around 1000 cals the first week and a half, and then I had to up it to 1350 cals cause it just wasn’t enough food. I lost 13 lbs in a month!

I am continuing with this weight loss program in addition to the healing cleanse my SIL, Dr. D has me on, and I am loving the results I’m seeing! Scroll down to see my progress pics. I will be updating them regularly…

Goal Weight: 150 lbs

Weight Log

Aug 1, 2009: 280
Sept 1: 272.5 (-7.5)
Oct 6: 270 (-2.5)
Nov 2: 262 (-8.0)
Dec 7: 254.6 (-7.4)
Jan 4, 2010: 253.5 (-1.1)
Feb 1: 255.3 lbs (+1.8) + pregnancy test Jan 12th
Mar 1: 258.8 lbs (+3.5)
April 5: 256.0 (-2.8) miscarried March 4th
May 3: 256.6 (+0.6)

254.6 lbs on December 11, 2009

256.6 lbs November 28, 2009

268 lbs September 11, 2009

278 lbs August 9, 2009

280 lbs May 8, 2009