Betsy Diet

[Sunshine1]

Hi Betsy!

Would you share your diet tips?

How is your thyroid doing?

I would like a new endocrine system ( HAHA )



thanks,

Aimee

[Betsy]

My thyroid is fine according to the tests done a few weeks ago.

Diet tips...for weight or for CAH management? Both?

I'm not sure I can do diet tips for weight as I have always been quite thin except in when I was over suppressed... I'm pretty tiny too...only 5.2.

One thing I didn't grow up with being part of the clean plate club. My parents never insisted we clean the plate and even now I only eat when I am hungry without regard to "meal times" and only until I am slightly full. I can eat again later if I want but I really don't know what it is like to "be full" because I don't go there.

I plan what I eat for the most part and will choose veggies over meat most days but dirty water dogs from a stand on the corner in the city are a weakness. LOL...hot dogs are a weakness.

I don't do fast food of any type ever---ever except on very rare occasions. Sometimes I simply get a craving for big macs and cave in to it.

I also don't do "prepared foods" at all---that is, anything that comes in a box, or a can. I haven't bought canned or frozen veggies in over a decade. Anything with preservatives are out of the question for me. I will do canned tomatoes over the winter for soup---and yeah...I eat a lot of soup all year round. French fries and wings are about the only thing I will eat fried.

I don't do fried fish---but love sushi as long as I trust the restuarant. I also llike raw stuff like clams and oysters which is really risky but one I am willing to take if I know where the stuff came from and I will not hesitate to ask to see the tag if need be.

When I do eat meat, I try to know where it is grown. It's pretty unusual for my to buy a perdue chicken for instance due to the hormones they put in them to fatten them up. In fact I cooked a perdue chicken last night and girlfriend ate it up and then some for lunch but I couldn't stomach it.

I grow alot of my own herbs and veggies organically in a small garden now with the fertilizer/bug/disease repellent coming from compost I make from my own kitchen scraps. What I don't grow myself, I know where to buy to it from asking around and then schlepping my butt to get it early in the day. I'm hoping this year to start to do my own canning so I have stuff over the winter.

Winter can be hard but last fall I stored up a bunch of cabbage and root veggies with good sucess.

Beef, pork and ckicken comes from a free range fram down the road from me. I really like meat, particularly pork but eat it in moderation---my filling food are veggies. Oh...and watch what oils you use! YOU want to watch the saturated fat/unsaturated fat differences. I use most vegetable oils, reserving the lard for fried stuff . I love chicken skin though and tend to eat too much of it.

In regards to the CAH, I only use natural unbleached sea salts, make sure I don't scimp on the salt (a trick to learn when you are feeding someone others too), I drink a quart of buttermilk each week (I often make my own---I've got a great mother growing) and I do a small cup of lhot icorice tea each day. It is about a quarter inch of barked root steeped in about a regular coffee cup and it works good for me. I don't grind it btw...just that 1/4 inch of root until the water is kind of cool.

It sounds like a difficult diet but the green markets are great resources. I will do a couple in the city and conveniently ask them where they grow and even if they are not around me, often know someone who is. Asking neighbors reveals lots of places too. It also helps that I live in a rural area and there are a lot of farms around and I am brave enough to knock on their doors.

Does that help?

Betsy

PS...exercise. I get eough in my garden. I can't stand gyms and haven't been in one in probably 20 years. I hate exerting myself for the most part. So, no, I don't do it.

[Sunshine1]

Dear Betsy,

This is perfect! I will write more later but wanted to know is the buttermilk for bone density loss?

I'm glad your thyroid is ok. Mine has been under attack from my immune system for a long time w/ Borderline Hashimoto Thyroiditis which I guess is pretty common if you are originally from the rust belt of the country. Plus, celiac sprue where the protein gluten found in wheat and other things like the Gastro Doc said" it's in everything" which is Ok because eating wheat/gluten free isn't so bad and that way the gluten can't attack the villi in the intestines and make absorbsion of nutrients to help me fight off cancer recurrance harder. So, it's all good and the adrenal gland plugs along Knock on wood. I've toyed with skipping the afternoon dose of hydro here and there but I'll ask the Endo first. Reading that SV an SW do over lap to a degree and living where I do in the tropics plus working outside. My fear really isn't being ill but sliding off to half unconsiousness only to wake up choking on my own vomit and I've been there done that. CAH=Olympic Vomiting Medal.



Aimee

[Sunshine1]

Thanks again for all the info. I always like to compare and contrast what people with CAH eat plus factor in any other gland things and also cultural/ geographical influences for example mid-west and the corn issue.

I have very low blood pressure CAH or Thyroid related. Growing up SV was more in line with the blood work than SW but down here I've gotten so how are you handing the heat and one Endo that I ran across thought florinef wouldn't be a bad idea for me. With my very low blood pressure the licorice root does sound good. Been reading about the hashimoto borderline thyroid and I believe that has something to do with blood pressure also. I've had this thyroid condition for many moons of different Endos and med students but it's keeping on the hypo side a little to much now and prompted the current action of my Endo.

I've weighed more and I've weighed less---Over supresssion by an Endo fellow under the supervison of an Endo when I was 17 made me weigh about the size of a Good Year blimp hence my general hostility toward med students besides the genital exams for their curiosity.

I bet you have some great soup recipies.

How much pred do you take? I think that you told me once that it was around 7.5 mg/day depending on you and with my 25 mg of hydro based on the potency of the two cortisones, I'm actually taking less and my blood work is good. Plus you wrote it is the Florinef that you ditched and I've talked with other people that don't take the florinef as much or anymore.

As for height? I'm 5.1. My Bio- parents were 5..5 and 5..6. So meant to be short anyway. As for that bone age x-ray stuff as kids though the last record is being two years over.


Thanks,

Aimee

[Sunshine1]

another thing about CAH that I've been wonderig about here is Ok your adrenal gland is being given the cortisone to do the job of the cortisol that was lacking in the first place in that it helps your body function--deal with physical stress, illness and the day to day part of the adrenal gland running and fuctioning with the rest of the Endocrine gland system and the body functioning as a whole Ok they always say it's a theraputic dose and therefore no effects on anything else but really define theraputic dose? is that the 25mgs/day of hydro that I've been on for the last two years and rather like? the 5 mgs/ day of pred during childhood? the 20 mgs of pred during the teen years which was bad, the 10 mgs/day or 7.5 mgs/day of pred during my 20's? Now all super under the blood work but I wonder all super as suppress excessive androgens/testosterone/progesterone levels ...Someone has really good 17 ...progesterone levels ....oh fuck whatever BUT it's always about that and it makes me wonder is all this suppress so much and a result is Estrogen Dominance that comes with its own brew of trouble that isn't really shared with you even when other medical problems pop up as a result?

Thanks,

Aimee

[Betsy]

Hi Aimee,

My 17-OH levels have always run really high. Bringing them down to "textbook" levels would make me add a ton of weight--been there, done that.

I go by the obvious clues, which means I don't pay much attention to it. I've little or no facial hair (I've always had faintly noticeable upper lip hair), no hair loss, no weird muscle development. None of that is happening to me. I menstruate regularly (predictable almost to the hour) and as I've mentioned before, my boobs only grew once that 17 level went up. They are still small, but adequate and sure beat implants which I had considered in my 20s.

I don't do any hormones such as BC pills which more than one doctor wanted me on for the estrogens. When the 17-OH levels were "good", I used to need to take progesterone every few months to induce a period--which would be so heavy they were worth a sick day or day just to cope with the blood loss. With the diet, I've tried to eliminate similar hormones which would end up in my body by eating stuff. It works for me but I can't vouch for it's effectiveness with anyone else.

On the prednisone issue, I've tried to get it below 5 mgs a day but can't--I simply don't function good on anything less than 5. Most days I do about 7 or 8 as splitting the tiny 1 mg pills is too much of a bother. It makes a big difference the next day if I take that 2 or 3 mgs before bedtime. In the morning and if I know I have a low stress day (life and weather) ahead of me, I often will only do 3 mgs in the morning instead of the full five. Much of my dosing is based upon what my day will hold. If I hit unexpected stress (like the subway stopping in the tunnel for 30 minutes on a hot day), I will sometimes take an extra 1 or 2 mgs.

I keep a good supply of 1mgs and 5mgs on hand at all times, including a small stash in my bag--right next to my sea salt (want to piss off a chef?--pull out some salt when there aren't any shakers on the table because they think they are too good for such a thing. I hate it when a chef/waiter says to me I shouldn't eat so much salt, etc.).

Because I don't have insurance and have to buy the stuff myself, I find it way more affordable to buy 120 or even 200 at a time. It usually takes an extra day as most pharmacies don't keep that kind of stock on hand but the cost per pill goes way down.

Oh yeah...and the vitals. I'm 5'2 and one-half" and usually about 105-110 but the hospital stay weigh in put me at at 115. I think the scale was off. :mouth_clo

[Betsy]

I usually improvise most of my soups...based upon what is available fresh at the market or what I have on hand. I don't do recipes other than as loose guides and everything is a pinch of that and a double pinch of this. A good soup simply comes from having a good stock (which you can make from scraps if you save them up) and then adding the ingredients you want or have on hand. If you want some carbs, put in some noodles.

Much of what I eat is not based upon ingredients but rather, what it puts into my body vitamin wise.

But I don't obsess about it either---tonight's meal was picking at a small turkey I smoked on the grill today and some really greasy but wonderful stuffing I made with the drippings. I intended to balance it all with some greens but didn't feel like cooking them.

PM me or send an email and I will be happy to send off some roots of licorice for you. Just take in moderation, please! It's easy to get sick on it as I learned.

[Sunshine1]

thanks for the Info because it was one of the first things that i noticed when you were on TV that hey this lady is thin. Will Email you about 17 OH and soup.

Aimee