Meet Jade

She’s a 9 year old rescue. We got her at 6 months and at 1 year, she stopped eating hard kibble and started hissing. We took her to the vet who told us she appeared to have Feline Oral Stomatitis.

Oral Stomatitis is when the cat’s immune system attacks their teeth. Humans can get it as well as cats. It’s not contagious, it’s considered by some to be an autoimmunity problem.

They said to switch to soft foods and that steroid injections monthly were the first treatment but it could get bad enough to require surgery. We took her home to research steroids since we were concerned about health and started feeding her wet food. When she progressed to baby food pureed meat, we took her back in for her first steroid injection and she went back to being able to eat dry kibble. After that, every month we took her back at the first hiss and continued for a year.

When she was 2, they started discussing surgery with us and we ended up having to take out a personal loan for the surgery. After the surgery, we found out she had TMJ and severe periodontal disease.

She is now nine, doesn’t have any problems eating (but loves to eat and still eats like she is on steroids) but she’s happy and healthy. She even still acts like a kitten half the time.

She loves- sleeping on the bed or couch, being pet (but not really picked up) and cuddling on our laps.

She dislikes being carried around or the kitten getting too close unless she’s playing.

How to Balance Online School, Work and Life

In 2006, I started college. I went with no real plan and ended up dropping out. I kept trying to go back over the years but something always fell through at the last minute. When my 5 year old was born, we decided we were done and I promised myself that once she started school full time (Kindergarten) I would head back myself. She started back last year, so did I. I now have a whole year behind me of work, a full time course load and life behind me. Despite being the primary caretaker of the kids while also working, I have managed to hit every deadline for school as well as everything else while pulling my GPA up above what I need to graduate (after messing up and starting last year with a 1.7 GPA) and passing all my classes. It hasn’t been easy, but after three semesters, I have this down.

Here are a few tips for doing online school, work while having kids.

Determine how you will go back– there are options ranging from technical or trade schools, online programs or in person four year colleges. Going back in person is more difficult but many four year colleges offer programs online, especially after Covid. I found the program I wanted to take offered online (the online program actually first rolled out the semester I went back ) and I am going back to the college I started in person in 2006.
Sign up for financial aid– this is important when you have kids, work and are running a house. Make sure to file your FAFSA on time and sign up for anything you can get. You may find that with the costs of online education vs in person, you can get by with grants without taking out loans, but the loans are there if you get hit with an emergency bill and need the extra cash.
Determine your deadlines– they will come up with a syllabus at the beginning of the school year. The syllabus will typically let you know when everything is due, some will give a week-by-week break down of everything and they will tell you due dates of important papers and tests. With this, you can see when everything is due and what days the weekly course load will end.
I’m taking five classes this semester, a few are more reading intense and one is writing intense. I have found over the past year and a half that I always have at least one class where I can get ahead of the work then focus on the other class(es) that require more attention. Don’t let yourself fall behind in one class, though, that can lead to near failing or lower grades if you can’t catch up.
Enlist help– If you’re married or in a live-in relationship, your spouse can help a lot. Mine pulls part of my slack during finals week or any week I have a big project or paper due. He’ll help around the house, with the kids or any other time I need help. If you have parents who are in your kids’ lives, they can also help during finals week if you’re single or don’t have other help- see if your kids can visit grands during the times you have to take finals.
Wake up before the kids– if you’re like me and most productive in the morning, it might help to wake up about an hour before your kids have to be up. My kids are also early risers but I found waking up in the morning around five helps me get a paper finished, started or some reading finished. (It also makes getting the girls ready for school faster and less stressful)
Finish things after bedtime– Once the kids are in bed, you can unwind with a text book or settle down to finish a discussion you need to get done.
Use stretch breaks to get household things done– When I get tired of sitting and don’t have the kids at home with me, I get up and move by putting in some laundry, loading and starting the dishwasher, scooping the litterbox or sweeping the house. It helps clean the house but also gives me the chance to get up and move. Those are the days I’m off and the kids are in school. I do not work full time and I work random hours- sometimes off on weekends and sometimes off during the school days. If you have a regular M-F job and work regular hours, you will be able to sit down and write out a schedule and if you work like I do, you will likely have more time during the school days while the kids are in school to work on things. It can be done with a full time job, time management is the number one thing to keep in mind.
Do make time to have fun– Doing things like parties, making time to watch games or partake in hobbies you love makes life a lot more enjoyable. Don’t let yourself fall into the rut of work/school/responsibilities and leave out all fun. Just because you’re adding a full courseload to your plate doesn’t mean to stop enjoying things you enjoy doing. You can take time to watch a game on TV while working on homework. You can pencil time in your schedule to take your kids to a birthday party or take your kids out to do something outside the house. Those things only take two or three hours and can be your way of celebrating finishing your homework.

Think of the time you spend scrolling on social media. How much time do you spend mindlessly scrolling? If you are one of the people who sits down to check TikTok or Instagram then before you know it, you just scrolled for two hours; you have time to work on school work. It will be difficult, but think about your reason for doing it. You may be ready for a change of pace or a new career or you could be looking for full time work with benefits and unable to find one currently. Remember to keep your reason in mind. If you need to, write it down. You won’t be as able to motivate yourself if you don’t have a reason.

Remember, don’t go on a whim with no idea why you’re wanting to go. Don’t just pick a random major and run with it. Make sure there will be jobs available and there will be some demand. Make sure you have a use for the major (IE you’re studying writing and you’re an aspiring or current author/writer/journalist, you’re studying in the sciences and you can list several jobs you’ll be able to walk into or you can easily handle a higher degree at this time- you don’t want to end up taking courses in something that will burn you out or will put you in debt for a minimum wage job (or an unskilled job due to that career path being a total dead end). If you have a passion hobby or project (like me with writing), you will need a fall back- something to support you while you’re working on your project.

Things to Do When Quitting Smoking

Quitting smoking cold turkey is not easy. It requires will power and not everyone succeeds but not everyone can handle the nicotine gum or patches without getting sick. One of the worst parts of quitting are the cravings. They get easier over time, but in the beginning they get intense. The first three days are breaking a physical addiction, so once you get over the 72-hour mark, you will find that you’re not feeling physical withdrawal but you are still feeling desperate for a cigarette. That’s because addiction changes your brain chemistry so your brain is trying to get that hit to relieve the withdrawal.

Normally when you quit, you will experience cravings. Those will be like hunger pangs and won’t last long. The best thing to do is try to wait out a craving- it can be as little as a few seconds (just count to ten and see if they go away) to an hour or two. If they don’t go away with counting to ten, try to distract yourself.

Ways To Distract Yourself

Go out and prep dinner
Bake something
Read a couple pages of an interesting book or blog
Watch part of a TV show
Take up knitting/crocheting
Take up loom knitting
Take up making earrings or jewelry
Start sewing
Do a small craft
If you’re a writer, start writing something- a book, short story, blog, article for a client- anything
Play a game with your kids
Play a video game

One of the reasons many people light up is because of boredom. You tend to feel bored when you have nothing to do. If you find something to do, you’ll be less likely to pick a cigarette up and more able to fight a craving.

You will find that you’ll go through some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms while you’re trying to quit. Withdrawal can be very annoying and can make you feel desperate for a cigarette but if you know what to expect and prepare ahead of time, you should be able to fight back against the symptoms to be more successful.

Symptoms of Withdrawal

Cravings– they can vary in severity but typically only last a few seconds to a few minutes. If you can distract yourself long enough, they usually go away on their own but will come back. The best game plan is to decide how you will distract yourself. Come up with a list of things you can quickly switch to doing and do them when a craving hits. Try to also come up with why you crave them.
Common reasons people have cravings- people they usually smoke with, memories or positive feelings associated with smoking, being hungry or overly tired or being stressed. Different people can have different triggers but it’s best to try to either avoid triggers or reduce them as much as possible.
Mood swings– there isn’t much you can do. There are some methods to controlling anger or emotional outbursts- like stopping and counting to three, walking away from whatever is about to make you snap or using a stress ball. Like dealing with triggers, different methods work for different people at different times. If you normally use video games to relax and you’re at work, you won’t have an option to play. You might find that taking a stress ball to work helps ease the tension enough to get you through your shift.
Feeling anxious and restless– cigarettes give you stuff to do with your hands. Many people find that stuff like suckers and tooth picks help with calming the hand to mouth habit. Chewing gum and brushing your teeth can also help- both give you a fresh feeling in your mouth that will feel better than the stale feeling of cigarettes.
Lightheadedness– Make sure to eat and when this symptom hits, remember that your blood pressure is dropping and some lightheadedness will be common. This should go away by the time the nicotine is fully out of your system. Try to avoid doing anything dangerous while dealing with this symptom; even if that means pulling over into a parking lot while driving.
Being hungry/weight gain– Nicotine is a stimulant and appetite suppressant. It both helps metabolism and decreases your appetite. The best thing to do to handle both of these side effects is to make sure you have plenty of fruits and vegetables/nuts and other healthy items to snack on and to exercise. Also, eat very slow so you will avoid eating past the point of feeling full. The first few bites of a super sweet item typically are the positive bites- the rest isn’t needed and won’t feel any better.
Feeling depressed or lethargic– you may feel down. You may feel more stressed and you may feel that you’ve lost a good friend. All these are normal. You may even feel grief- it could be understood because in a way, it’s like losing a long term friend. Cigarettes were always there when you “needed” one so it’s normal to feel like you’re losing a part of you. It’s best to remember in times like this that you are getting out of an “abusive” relationship. Cigarettes may always be there but they are contributing nothing and they are killing you. If you met friends or bonded with people over cigarettes, the memories may come rushing back. Remember the memories with the people and not the activity. You miss the bonding with people, not the smoking. To try to remedy this, find things to do with those same friends that don’t involve smoking. If they are true friends, they won’t leave you when you quit. They will support you.
Also where Nicotine is a stimulant, it may mask depression symptoms. It may also suddenly make you feel depressed. The best way to fight that is to either get help for depression, or if it’s situational depression; go out and do things you like. Eat as healthy as you can and make sure to get plenty of sun. Do things like work out that help with those same receptors in your brain but make sure not to replace an addiction with another addiction.

Keep in mind that slips may happen and relapses almost always happen before the final quit, but if you’re able to quit you will need persistence. Make a plan, plan how to handle triggers and ways you can distract yourself. Don’t beat yourself up over a relapse and try to learn from it.

If you have successful quit, what advice would you give to a long time smoker trying to quit?

What is Reactive Hypoglycemia?

Most people associate all blood sugar episodes with Diabetes, but there is a nonDiabetic condition that can cause chronic low blood sugar, that also includes seizures. The condition is called “Reactive Hypoglycemia.” It can come along with Diabetes but there is another version “Non-Diabetic Reactive Hypoglycemia” and that can start as early as teen years for some (maybe younger, I had my first episode in high school).

The way my former endocrinologist described Reactive Hypo to me was that I could fast for a period of time but if I ate foods higher on the glycemic index without balancing them out right with protein and fats, I would crash. I had a major seizure at work after eating a high dairy baked potato. It was supposed to be fish, baked potato and broccoli but my kids ate the fish and broccoli off my plate and I ended up having just the potato. I didn’t think much about it and headed on to work. A couple hours into my shift, I noticed I no longer felt hunger pangs.

Within minutes, I was pouring sweat- hot on one side; felt like I was on fire. The other side felt frozen and I was clammy in a cold sweat. My hearing amplified but I could also barely hear. My chest started hurting and I was too shaky to hold anything steady. I finally developed tunnel vision and by then was able to get a hold of a manager to help me get something to eat. My husband picked me up and took me to the ER where they ran a few faked tests then told me I wasn’t having a heart attack, it was just a panic attack. By that time, I was calmed down because I ate. I spoke to my doctor later and he told me it was a blood sugar seizure.

After he told me, I researched it and spoke to my endocrinologist about it. She was finally able to give me some dietary tips, but nothing I hadn’t already known. These episodes are normal for me if I don’ t watch what I eat, but it was nice to know what it was, that it had a name and that I could research it a little.

What are blood sugar seizures?

Blood sugar seizures happen when your blood sugar drops too low. Diabetics can also have seizures if their blood sugar goes too high. Normally a reactive seizure (or non-Epileptic seizure) happens when your sugar drops below 30. By that point, you need to bring it up or you can go into a coma and without correcting, it can be deadly at that level.

These types of seizures are caused by your body not having enough sugar in your blood to help your brain function. They are not related to Epilepsy but can run alongside Epilepsy, According to a UK Diabetes site, the two can commonly occur together side by side- Type 1, specifically and there may be an autoimmune link. With that overlap, there may be confusion when people have blood sugar spikes or drops and go into a seizure. The primary way to tell the difference is if eating or taking sugar pills can help come out of the seizure.

What are the Symptoms of Diabetic/Hypoglycemic Seizures?

The symptoms vary depending on the severity of the drop. I know first hand that my body gives me warning for at least an hour before it drops.

These are my personal symptoms leading up to seizures

Hunger
Violent hunger- my stomach will start aching and growling loud and often
Hunger suddenly stops- here is where I know I need to eat or else. I’ll stop having all signs of being hungry
The drop- typically happens suddenly and very fast. Lightheadedness is the first symptom
Vision difficulties
Numbness and tingling
zoning out
If I have gone this long without eating, I’ll be needing to sit down or rest from whatever I’m doing- I’m too shaky and it will be extremely difficult for me to stand up.
This is around the time the seizure starts- I almost never make it this far. If I do make it to the shakiness it won’t be long until I find some kind of sugar to raise my levels
Last seizure I had: I developed tunnel vision, lost peripheral vision, everything looked strange overall, I was numb, felt like one side of my body was on fire while the other side was frozen- and I was sweating on both sides, I was slurring my speech, I was shaking uncontrollably, pale, my eyes even lighten up from a dark brown/black to a very light golden brown.
Any longer and I’ll faint but I never get to this point.

Traditional Hypoglycemic Symptoms

According to endocrine.org, symptoms of mild hypoglycemia happen when levels drop below 70.

They are:

Hunger
Anxiety
Shaking
Sweating

Moderate symptoms occur when levels dip below 55, they are

fatigue
dizziness
confusion
trouble speaking
weakness
anxiety

Seizures and coma happen when levels dip below 50.

What Can You Do About Hypoglycemia?

What is there that you can do about hypoglycemia before they lead to seizures? It’s actually a very simple solution and doesn’t have to be disabling or inconvenient in any way. If you make a few simple changes to your diet, you can typically avoid having strong symptoms.

Carry snacks with you at all times. If you can’t always grab something to eat, the Diabetes supply section of the pharmacy in many grocers and other pharmacy stores have blood glucose tabs. They aren’t very expensive and easily can fit in a car glove box or purse. When you start to feel an episode and you’re out, all you need is to pop a tab and dissolve it in your mouth. One tab should help in most cases.

Ways to work your diet:

High protein
Low (bad) complex carbs
Low starch
Low white foods (bleached flour, white rice, white potatoes)
Use sweet potatoes instead of regular
Even out carbohydrates with protein and healthy fats
If you’re diabetic, talk to your doctor about the Keto diet. It was specially created for Diabetics and may work for you. Of course, you’re looking at going on a medical diet so make sure you’re working hand in hand with a medical professional.

I was told that I don’t need to avoid any particular foods, I can eat any of those- carbs or sugars but to make sure I always even out with a lot of protein.

When it comes to blood sugar, most people will have a time or two with low swings. It can be when you’re exercising heavily and haven’t ate well enough or it could be during a time you’re too stressed to eat properly. If you start finding that normal foods- sandwiches, baked potatoes and similar foods are making you feel hungrier or numb, it might be good to bring it up to your doctor. Food is supposed to help us and not hurt and when a particular food crashes your blood sugar, it’s worth talking to the doctor.

Even when the solution is as simple as carrying sugar pills and eating healthier, it could be warning you that you’re developing Diabetes or another blood sugar disorder or it could put you at a higher risk. Being monitored (A1C) is a good idea, as well as talking to your PCP about diet.

NICU Survival Guide

So, your pregnancy didn’t end the way you wanted to. You may have had a sick baby full term or given birth to a preemie. Either way, you had to watch your baby get whisked off to the NICU. What is the NICU? Why do babies have to go?

The NICU stands for Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. It’s the unit where babies go when they are too sick to stay with their moms or go into the normal nursery. When you enter a NICU for the first time, you’re going to enter a whole new world. You will see babies of all sizes. Babies who were born too big and too small. The thing they all have in common, is that they are all too sick to go home.

When you’re dealing with a short term or long term NICU stay, you will be under a lot of stress. You will go home but baby will not be with you. You will enter a strange land that will come to feel like a second home by the time you are done. What is the NICU and how can you cope with having a baby in the NICU? Read on to learn.

Who am I to talk about NICU stays?

My baby was born 3 months premature and weighed only 1.5lbs. She was very sick and had 5 holes in her heart. After five months in one NICU we switched her to a more specialty NICU out of state where she lived for another four months before coming home. In all, we had 4 surgeries and almost 9 months in NICU. With all that time, I went out of state to stay at the hospital, where I stayed in the Ronald McDonald House but primarily slept in the hospital with my girl. I studied books about different conditions she was born with, what other babies could be born with and read every resource available. I was 23, so I was still young myself when she was born.

I attended many parental meetings and dinners, socialized with a lot of other families and ultimately found it depressing watching all the families come and go so fast. There were people there for two or three days, a couple weeks and even one or two months. Seeing all the new faces constantly and saying goodbye to people with babies graduating got to be too much and I stuck with two other moms- one who had an older baby and the other who’s baby was born the same day as mine. She and I ended up leaving on the same day and even ran into each other at a few follow ups.

The family nights are vital to keeping sane. They can also cause you to fall into a depression if you’re in it for the long term while other faces are new and getting ready to leave. To me, at first, they were vital to feeling like I wasn’t alone. By the end of the NICU stay, it caused me to fall and I had to stop going.

Family nights are set up to help families meet other families in NICU and to provide some joy in stressed out lives. It doesn’t matter how long you’re in the NICU, it’s stressful. I sent my healthy baby to the NICU just for a few hours to get an EKG to make sure she didn’t have heart defects like her sister and it was stressful, and she wasn’t a NICU baby.

Parent Nights

Many hospitals will have dinners, pizza nights and even family craft nights. The second hospital we sent our daughter to had a once a week meeting of parents where we could talk about our babies’ progress as well as life in general. Those meetings can be vital to give a sense of belonging to families struggling to understand things and handle the stress, but it can be a double edged sword. If your baby has been in the NICU longer than half a year and you are seeing the babies come and go with no real improvement with yours, it can grow from a sense of community to feeling depressed that your baby will never leave.

If you find yourself stuck in that boat, try to find the other parents who are in it for the long haul. Other parents with a longer than six month NICU stay can help you find that sense of community.

Self care

Self care is vital. You will need to learn about different medical issues your baby is dealing with as well as having tons of information swriling around you. You will need to know feeding schedules, you will likely have to pump some if you’re wanting to breastfeed and you will have to deal with your baby with all types of needles, tubes and pumps. With all that added stress, you need to take care of yourself.

I was given a self care package from a group of people when my baby was in NICU and one of my favorite things was a hand and nail scrub. They gave me stuff to do my own little spa days and those helped me feel more human.

Choose little things you can do to make you feel better. I took up jewelry making and loom knitting. Babies sleep a lot and you can’t always get your baby out of the crib on demand, so while she slept, I worked on making hats and earrings. Pick easy to move around crafts, if you’re the crafty type, and work on those. If you enjoy knitting or crocheting those are easy to move from one room to another.

Miscellaneous

Another thing you can do is start a page on social media or a group to follow your baby’s NICU journey. You can invite friends and family who are wondering about it and spend your free time bringing awareness to the condition(s) your baby is dealing with.

Find a new TV show to watch and make it a ritual to hold your baby while watching new episodes. My baby was in the NICU when the TV show Secret Circle came out. I made a habit of holding her while she napped and watching the show. It felt like a special bonding moment with her in the NICU.

I will never stress this enough, when you’re dealing with the isolation of having a sick baby in the NICU, you need to find a community. You need other people. You may search around online to find long term NICU support groups or you may even want to see if other long haulers in the hospital your baby is in want to get together. If you’re in it for the long run, it can and will be depressing seeing everyone come and go so if you find a community of others like you, you will have the chance to talk to other people who feel more like you do.

There are many ways to survive long-term NICU stays. You don’t have to do it alone the nurses will be there to help you understand your child’s condition and there are plenty of books you can get to help you understand.

If you have a preemie and have the “What to Expect” books, you likely can just toss them out- preemies tend to not go through the same milestones at the same times as full term babies and reading where your baby is supposed to be can just cause added stress to an already stressful time.

Beginner Guide: Beekeeping

If you’re interested in having a supply of fresh honey, wanting to eventually sell honey or you’re wanting to collect your own beeswax to make candles or other items, you may have thought about starting to beekeep.

Research

The first step is to study up. Start in the summer or fall and read everything you can. Look on Facebook or Nextdoor and find a local beekeeper group, ask people you know who keep bees. They say spring is the best time to start a new hive, so spend the other seasons collecting your gear and preparing for your hive. The first thing you want to study is all about honeybees. You want to know as much as humanly possible about the way honeybees work, how their bodies are made and what they do.

You do not want to even think about bee keeping until you’re well versed on bees themselves, it likely won’t work if you do not understand bees.

Supplies

After you learn about bees, start studying and watching everything you can about bee keeping. There are many great TikTokers who go into detail about their hives, including one who is always showing herself moving hives around and saving hives that are in bad locations.

Once you have learned all you could about bees and beehives, once spring rolls around, you will want to start gathering everything. You will want the supplies before you get your hive.

If you network in local or online groups, you may be able to find someone who will sell you a hive when you’re ready to start. They can also recommend the best supplies.

Get your supplies- you will need a full body suit, a smoker, storage for the hive, a veil to keep your face safe, a hive tool and uncapping tool and a brush. You can find these on Amazon for cheaper than in specialty stores and depending on where you live, you may need to shop online.

Once you get all the supplies, it’s time to get an actual hive with the bees. It is recommended to start with 1-3 hives. You could try more, but more hives would take more time and care and if you end up with your bees getting sick, you could deal with all hives getting sick.

While doing your research, learn the difference between honey bees and all other types of bees. You need to be able to identify any bees that could come along and pose a threat to your hive(s). You also need to be able to identify honey bees if you want to get bees from the wild instead of ordering. If you get them from the wild, make sure to get the queen so the worker bees will stay in the hive. There are clips you can get to keep the queen from escaping until they are more established in the hive.

You can go on Youtube and TikTok and search for beekeeping to learn everything you’ll need to know about what to do and where to go.

You will need to find a location far enough away from the house where you won’t be attacked, but also away from creeks and other bodies of water- that way the hive won’t be lost if the pond or creek flood over. Some people recommend to point the hive to the south, but there is nothing proven about bees preferring a certain location.

Some random tips

Make sure to include the queen, not everyone does but the queen helps hold the hive together and helps with reproduction.

Try to keep a place bees can go if they swarm. Swarming is done when hives get too full, so they will either take off or you can have another location so you won’t lose part of the hive.

Check on the bees at least once a week. You don’t need to check daily, but you do want to monitor at least every week. You want to be able to see if the bees get sick, are got by predators or end up with any parasites that could destroy the whole hive. You also want to make sure they’re safe and still there.

It’s best to use a frame but let the bees build the honeycomb. Frames are easily taken out and moved around, so they are better to use.

Bees become stressed easily, they can be harmed by being checked on too much so you do not want to check every day or excessively. Let the bees do what they need to do.

Enjoy- Beekeeping is a hobby. It’s meant to be enjoyed by people who love bees so don’t stress out over it and don’t fear it. A lot of honey bees are mellow when they aren’t feeling threatened.

What tips do you have for people interested in starting to bee keep?

Whole30- Day 3 and 4, yes I “failed”

Today I forgot to eat my eggs with breakfast and since it was heavy on the potatoes, my bloodsugar started to drop.

After eating, I was fine and outside of that minor issue, I felt good on day 3.

Day 4, I found my OCD obsessive nature had me so obsessive, I couldn’t force myself to think about food. OCD was what kept me in the past from doing it again but I sat myself down and decided I am finishing the month low sugar/Paleo.

Since I already found my food sensitivities last time I did it, I have no real need to do it again and having a small desert when you’re stressed out isn’t bad- in moderation.

Paleo limits all the foods I am sensitive to already so tomorrow I’ll officially start a Paleo challenge. I have felt so sick today and with my job, kids and everything, it’s not a good time to feel sick. I’m not going to run off to Starbucks, just switch and see if Paleo feels better. I’m realizing I don’t need extreme restricitive when I already have some healthy foods I can’t eat, or eat much of.

Whole30- Day 2

Today, I woke up a bit late and ended up with 20 minutes to get ready to head to work.

Thanks to that and lack of planning, I had to grab a bowl of fruit and didn’t eat until after I got home.

I ended up only having 1 meal and 2 peices of fruit today but I’m still feeling full. I made a large meal of fried potatoes, onions, peppers, tomatoes and ground beef.

I cooked the whole roll of ground beef and hard boiled a full dozen eggs. Last night, I made a batch of unsweet iced tea so I would have something to drink other than water or coffee. The tea gave me my caffeine fix since I didn’t have time to grab a coffee.

The day has been slow and fast. My day at work went by extremely slow but my day after work sped by. During week 2, I’m planning on cutting fruit for a week to cut all sugar out of my diet. I have my breakfast and lunch planned and am thankfully off work on Monday.

Smoking progress- I reset my quit date. I am trying to pace quitting, wanting to still do it but not wanting to do too much all at once and end up failing everything. I am cutting way back.

Day 1- Whole30

Things are going well. I’m planning on making some iced unsweet tea when I get home because I’m craving tea and love unsweet

I’m not craving anything outside of unsweet tea and it’s allowed, so its all good. I did get to feeling very hungry but my lunch break was late.

I’m planning on going grocery shopping today after work so ill be able to get what I need.

I’m working up to quitting smoking so I don’t end up failing everything

So far- mood- fine

Cravings- none

Symptoms- brain fog and time standing still

Completed my first day of grocery shopping

It killed my budget but I hope it lasts through the majority of 2-3 weeks.

The meat alone should. Im not feeling great nor bad. Wanting tea and that’s it.

Today is my technical last day but my food has been compliant

I was wrong before. I keep thinking there are only 30 days in the month.

Today, I ate bacon and eggs for breakfast and have a lunch of a plain baked potato, salmon and kale with no butter.

I’m still unsure if ill allow myself one last time indulgence or am going to just start today. Im thinking starting today.

Tomorrow is my cigarette quit day, I have work then a day of making candles and editing my book planned after to keep my hands and mind busy.