Rationing Happiness

Ripley, Presley (in the pet stroller), and me.  (Presley, being deaf since birth, has to be 100% an indoor cat for her safety.  All her outside visits are strictly controlled and supervised).

Sometimes it feels as though true happiness is only fleeting, because it sort of is.  Neuroscience has actually explored that certain events will lift us up, sometimes extremely high, (a graduation, a wedding, a vacation, your book hitting the New York Times Best Sellers List, an Olympic gold medal, whatever), but we all have a baseline we quite quickly go back down to.

In fact, in contrast to our recent burst of happiness, our baseline can now feel comparatively low.

Then we can understandably struggle with the fact that our burst of happiness felt so fleeting.  

Understanding this mechanism helps me figure out why I do some of the things I do.  When I am having a comparative “low” moment (which is most probably my baseline, it just doesn’t feel that way) following even a small high, (hey, I got a new couch, my first one in 18 years, I love it!), I struggle to make good decisions.  It’s almost like I am angry that my happiness did not last very long.  In fact, in those “low” moments, I don’t even trust that the happiness I felt was real…because it sure didn’t last long!

And then I want to medicate my lower emotions.  Food, yes, some food will make me happy, won’t it?

But only fleetingly.

Then sometimes we truly feel lower than baseline for a valid reason. 

I follow a blogger who has real health issues.  Not that my own health issues are not real, but in terms of how the general public will scale things, my hEDS, mitral valve heart disease, and osteoporosis is most definitely trumped by cancer.  He has CML, or chronic myeloid leukemia, which is “a type of cancer that affects the bone marrow, causing it to produce too many white blood cells. It is a slow-growing cancer, also known as chronic myelogenous leukemia, that can progress to a faster-growing acute leukemia if not treated.”  And we can imagine cancer treatment for any type of cancer is beyond challenging on the human body.  Maybe the treatment can be even worse than cancer, at times, at least until someone is on the other side of the treatment and is NED=no evidence of disease.  But challenging health diagnoses aside, this blogger just lost his senior cat.  And his post today had me just sobbing.  In fact, a week ago, I could not even read his first post that announced the final goodbye to Clyde.  When I saw the title of his post last week, I thought, oh god no, I just can’t.  I wanted to “like” his post to support the blogger, but how do I communicate support without simply hitting the “like” button?  Wordpress needs a “care” button, just like Facebook.

Anyhow, even though this blogger battles health issues that, in my opinion, exceed mine, (not that this is a competition), Clyde’s health conditions were even more challenging, in the end.  I was just gutted by his story, but how loved was Clyde that his family never gave up on him.  

And that reminds me not to give up on myself.

And I have to say this blogger, who self proclaims to not have been just the best English student in school, wrote this post today that spoke to the hardness of loss in a deeply meaningful way, but also written in such an eloquent way, that I could absorb the hardness while still seeing the incredible beauty of the unique life that was first lived.

(And although this is just my opinion of his words written, I know something of what I speak, you know, me having a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing, and all, just sayin’).

Thank you to all the storytellers out there (aka bloggers) who adrift in the sea of YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok reels and shorts, still feel called to put down words on the page.  And deeply touch and inspire their fellow man.

Well Crap! (No Pun Intended)

Well, as if the Raynaud’s was not bad enough, this week I have been on a roller coaster ride with what Chat GTP calls Refractory Constipation.

“Refractory constipation is a severe form of constipation that does not improve with standard treatments like high-fiber diets, laxatives, and behavioral therapies. It is defined by the persistent and inadequate response to adequate therapy, which may be up to 4 weeks for each medication or 3 months for behavioral interventions. Management of refractory constipation may require a more intensive and specialized approach.”

Why your constipation is so refractory (hEDS-specific reasons):

People with hEDS often struggle with constipation not because of low fibre or hydration, but because of:

1. Dysmotility from connective-tissue laxity

• The bowel is physically more floppy and less propulsive.

• Transit time slows, so fibre can solidify rather than help—especially insoluble fibre.”

Well crap! (No pun intended).

Even though that all sounds really dramatic, to tell the truth, it truly sounds like a fit to what I am experiencing.  

So, an hEDS related problem needs an hEDS tailored solution, which I am working on, (short answer includes regular but therapeutic-dose amounts of magnesium oxide).  Although being really slow in that department is nothing new to me, it has been far worse this week.  

And today is the second anniversary of my dad’s passing that I wrote about here.  I should have gone skating.  Instead, I spent most of the day having a lot more “what’s the flipping point?” thoughts.  Add in gas build up when exercising, and it feels like my body is really turning on me!  I used that as an excuse to avoid doing much in the moving my body department today.

Then we had a wonderful Sunday night roast beef dinner, and I ate a lot, without weighing my portions.  My “who cares” thoughts fueled this.  Then I ate a healthy dessert, (strawberries), but I really didn’t need any more food, because I was already starting to feel stuffed!  Then the thoughts of, “If you are already going to feel like crap, might as well drink a big glass of that egg nog in the fridge that you have been resisting.”  Good news, I managed to come here and blog instead of drinking the nog.

Hopefully I am not writhing in agony in bed later for over stuffing myself (thank goodness cooler heads prevailed before I drank that egg nog!) because I am still dealing with my “food is going in and who the heck knows when it will finally make its way out” problem.  It will probably take weeks or longer to sort myself out with the new and evidence-based for hEDS advice I will be implementing.  Sigh.

Sorry for all the bathroom talk.  Now that I think about it, diet blogs do not usually mention the price some of us pay in the bathroom (hEDS or not) when we are NOT eating “perfectly” on our meal plan. But maybe they should. 🙂

The Roller Coaster Ride Continues

My Raynaud’s attack yesterday afternoon, both hands at once, sigh, brought my mood down again.  Many people feel the pain when the fingers go red and the blood rushes back into them.  My personal experience is that it my fingers also feel very painful when my fingers go white like this:

Almost like I can feel the cold emanating from them. Numbness yes, but also a painful feeling of cold almost radiating from my hands, like I could cool the whole room down!  Just like those scenes in “The Sixth Sense” when Cole knew a ghost was in the room…and he sat there breathing and we could see his breath.

“Primary Raynaud’s occurs by itself with no underlying disease, while secondary Raynaud’s is caused by another medical condition, such as an autoimmune disease, injury, or certain medications. Secondary Raynaud’s is less common but tends to be more serious.”—Google

Yes, mine is secondary to having hEDS.

Whenever I feel pain, it just makes me feel blue (in mood) for a time period afterwards.  

I will work hard today to lift my spirits in a healthy way, so that I can go into the weekend feeling good.  How about you?

My Own Worst Critic

I came across a Facebook post that said:

“The next time you find yourself blaming or shaming someone, because they deserve it for how they wronged you, take a pause and a breath and ask yourself: What is it in me that needs attention here?  Shift your energy. Take responsibility for your own life and embody the energy that you want to attract.”

Lately, I have been stuck in a rut of cycling into feeling sorry for myself for every time I have ever felt gaslit about my health, by doctors, and yes, even at times by my spouse.  But truthfully?  I was my own worst critic.  I felt unheard and abandoned by myself.  In fact, I experienced a lot of self-loathing, because feeling unwell usually resulted in bad food choices that made my feelings/symptoms worse.  Those times my body was sending me a message saying hey, something does not feel right, I ended up feeling (rightly or not) that the narrative was: it’s all in your head, just stuff it down, and I regularly told myself exactly that.  Instead of believing the signals coming from my body, instead I asked myself: what are you getting from “not feeling right?”  What are you getting to avoid?  Something feels “off” because you must WANT something to feel “off,” so then you won’t have to show up for your life in some way.  Just stop it.

Ultimately, I was really hard on myself, and I have been grieving, in a way, that I treated myself like that.

I feel very bad for my former self that I put down and punished for “misbehaving.”  I wouldn’t EVER treat anyone else that badly.  Yet I blamed and shamed myself.

But now that I am no longer gaslighting myself, I need to ask: What is it in me that needs attention here?  

I cannot change the past, but I can change my future.  I need to quit dancing on the edge of that cliff.  I need to take care of myself.  I need to treat myself with kindness.  I need to love myself (my body) just like I would my best friend.

Right Message Right Time

I am not trying to plug this book.  The last thing I need is a book-long lecture that has me READING about what I should be doing, instead of just going out today and DOING it.

But this is the core message:

“Instead of fearing mortality, this book challenges us to use it as fuel—to stop waiting, start living, and focus on what truly matters.”

Boy, I think I really needed to hear that today.

The biggest thing I have not been loving myself very much for over a month now.  All I have been doing was bemoaning how my body has failed me in some way.  The biggest kicker has been there is a huge difference between suspecting something is not quite right, and now knowing it.

I haven’t fallen completely off the ledge about the things I now know about my body and health and longevity, but I have been dancing on the edge. And it has to stop.  Now.

Let’s hear it for a Monday start with a better attitude.  My body is amazing, and will simply allow me to do the things I want to do today.  That is always a win.

The Ghosts of My Past Selves are Hungry

Boy, am I ever being tempted to go back over to the dark side lately.  The biggest question steering me towards my darker thoughts is my old thinking that nothing really matters.  That no matter how hard I try, in the end, ultimately nothing health-wise is up to me.  

There is no such thing as the perfect meal plan, or the perfect foods that will prevent disease.  Bad stuff will still happen despite good food choices.  Nothing is guaranteed, no matter how much we want to believe that if we eat “healthy,” (whatever it is that we decide defines “healthy”), we will get/remain healthy.

So, why bother?

I know this is all a bunch of my old thinking, thoughts that will enable me to simply give in and give up, but these thoughts having been persisting all week regardless.

But a newer voice, maybe a voice of reason, says keep trying.

Some Bio Joy: Acts of Service

I do not often explore why I titled this blog, The Bio Joy Diet.  I called it that because I fundamentally believe a person needs to tap into our own biological instincts, and use those instincts in a different way, if our intention is to have sustainable weight loss.  So, I came up with a name for finding that biological foundation, and using it to make us happier, because being happier would help us tolerate less food.  And we have to find something that makes us happier than food, because, by design, eating food makes us very happy.  And successfully obtaining food makes us happy.  Especially at the dawn of man, we had to love food enough to go out and get it, hunt it, gather it, which was hard and sometimes took all day!  Which is why intermittent fasting is okay, because maybe that one big meal was a reward after a long hard day getting it, preparing it, and cooking it up!

I also know that biology will fight us tooth and nail to stay right where we are.  And sometimes that is more weight than where we want to stay.

Homeostasis: a self-regulating process that allows organisms to survive and function in a constantly changing environment.  But where we are at in weight, if that weight is more than we want to be, the problem becomes that our body doesn’t know why we want to eliminate our excess storage.  All our bodies know is staying the same weight, whatever weight that may be, is better than not getting enough food.  Our bodies ask us to focus inward on maintaining our survival.

The North American food environment is obesicentric, surrounding us with highly palatable, highly processed, and easily accessible foods in large portions, which even the most dedicated fitness program cannot outrun.  And we have ended up heavier in weight (on average) because of it.

So, the only way to “outrun” this environment, when our instincts tell us instead to rest to preserve energy as much as possible, (that is survival too), is to find some “Bio Joy” in other ways.  Go outward, outside ourselves, and use those instincts in new ways.  Find purpose.  Make our health our purpose.  Rise above in the hierarchy of needs into the “esteem” category.

One way I go outward is to imagine that helping myself is just like I am helping others.  An act of service.  Of course, sometimes I do actually help others, not just imagine that helping myself is helping “others.”  I travelled to pack my mom’s house when she moved.  I travelled again to unpack her house when she finally bought one.  I will help friends when asked.  I will fill in working outside the home at a rural post office, (which although is technically getting paid to work, not “help,” but being available that one time with only 15 minutes notice to fill in for her because her car was stuck in her driveway in a snow storm, that felt a lot like an act of service, and I was happy to help).

I get a lot of joy out of helping others, when the opportunity arises.

Well, taking care of myself to bring myself back from the obesity I experienced most recently peaking in 2023, is helping “others,” in a manner of speaking.  I show up better for my family in all ways when I have first taken care of myself.  When that call came that she was stuck in her driveway, I was up, and dressed, with proper nutrition in me, and able to change my working from home into covering the counter at the rural post office instead, at a moment’s notice.  If I had been eating chocolate in bed in my pajamas, procrastinating my own work from home responsibilities, then I may have struggled to help her out on short notice like that.   Because how can I help anyone else, if I am not first helping myself?

I had to start treating myself as good as I would treat a friend.  One common thread that I have personally found over the years is that women sometimes treat themselves badly.  They take care of others, and actually punish themselves for their perceived failings.  Especially when it comes to weight, because our bodies (our biology) fight us when we try to lose weight.  And even when we do lose weight, our bodies fight us to put the weight back on.  Biological fact=once fat cells are created, they never disappear.  They can be emptied, but then they are more easily filled up again.  A weight-reduced individual, (simply someone who used to weigh more), will always regain the exact same pounds faster than that very first time the weight was gained. Talk about adding insult to injury.  Unless you experience gaining back weight “plus some,” it will only be the plus some that creates new fat cells.  All the rest is rapid regain refilling the cells that were already there…just waiting to fill up again.

I have my fair share of fat cells that I have emptied out.  But they are always waiting to fill up again, and it would not take long for that to happen.

So, all I can do is help my best friend today (myself), because she does not deserve to feel bad about herself today.  She deserves to feel good, so she can show up for her family and her pets with the extra energy to give to them, because she took care of herself first.

Self Care: What Should it Look Like

This is cute.  The post it was attached to said this was “self-care.”  A bubble bath, a mud mask, a candle, donuts, a Starbucks-esque drink, a computer.  But I think we should normalize self-care looking more like abstaining, rather than indulging.  Taking a step back from what we usually do, for a period of time, which maybe is not the mud mask and the bubble bath, but which is probably food, drink, and social media.  

Because, let’s be honest, how many people are probably doing those things, food, drink, and social media, every day?  I know I am.

So, could I go I whole day without food?  Yes, I think I could, and I probably would benefit from doing that once in a while.  

“Not eating for a day can have other potential health effects.  Research in a 2022 review suggests that intermittent fasting may help to reduce fasting glucose and insulin levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

Intermittent fasting may also help to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by reducing factors such as total body weight and fats in the blood.

Research in the review also suggests that body weight reductions due to intermittent fasting may improve systemic inflammation, which links to certain cancers and other health conditions.”—Google

I am going to admit, however, this is another example of when my hEDS can have a positive benefit, for me.  I regularly experience delayed gastric emptying, which is awful when it flirts with paralysis, but it has helped me, yes I will admit, get pretty slender for my height, after years of being overweight.  Because delayed gastric emptying leads to (for me) never really feeling hunger from my stomach.  But I still get “head hunger,” so I continue to need to be disciplined and consistent in planning what I eat, and eating what I planned. (Careful what you wish for though, lack of physical hunger pangs is really one of the very few things I can say is “good” about having hEDS, hello chronic constipation…)

Drink?  Well, we should drink water, at least, if we are trying a 24-hour fast.  But we could make sure we only imbibe drinks from home for a certain period of time, (no drive-thru!), if that is something in which we regularly indulge.

Could I stay off my iPad (social media) for a whole 24 hours?

Ummm…

Anyhow, just thought I would throw the 24-hour fast idea out there.  Maybe not a 24-hour fast, (I have heard women more than men can end up with counter productive cortisol spikes if we fast too long—however, more research on my part is needed), but just abstaining from something for a period of time as a self-care benefit that can give our bodies (do not have digest x, y, z, etc) and/or our minds (no doom scrolling) a much needed break.  That sounds like some good self-care to me, because working on our health is self-care.

Bikini Pictures: No Filter

—Picture on the left, July 28, 2024, 124.9 pounds.

—Picture on the right, July 1, 2025, 121.6 pounds

—A difference of almost 1 year, and only 3.3 pounds=real maintenance for me, for the first time in my life

—Same beach, same driftwood tree stump, no filter

I talked about my “shrinkles” here last year, so the intention of this post is not to brag—woo hoo, look at me in a bikini—and at my age!  This intention of this post is to show that my “shrinkles” look a bit better one year later, thanks to regular exercise, mostly just walking…(and maybe thanks a bit to my having hEDS).

Because I am trying to convince myself to look at more positives about my health diagnoses.  Even though I know I have been dealing with hEDS my whole life, I just finally have a name for it, I want to instead flip my script about knowing about these new things about my health, in an effort to deal more positively with my recent struggles with up and down mood swings.

So, a person who has hEDS can experience “a characteristic feature of hEDS is poor and delayed wound healing.”

But, they can also experience “The skin in hEDS may be described as soft, velvety, and hyperextensible (stretchy), which can sometimes be mistaken for ‘good quality’ skin, but its underlying structure is fragile, leading to the observed healing difficulties.”—Google

Myself, I think I have experienced the hyperextensibility, which helped my skin to stretch to accommodate my numerous weight gains and losses over the years.  (And luckily for me, wound healing overall has not been that bad either).  But I have not withstood my decades of weight fluctuations without some damage.  However, there is always hope, “While skin turnover is around 14–28 days for younger people, it can take 60–90 days or longer for people in their 50s and older.”

That means for me, every 3 months or so, my skin can still improve following my weight loss, (most recently for me, a 70 pound loss), even with aging in my fifties.

I just had to give it some time.

And lots of walking.  

Admittedly, July of 2024 I had gone into a bit of a mental slump, and I only walked 30 kms that whole month (doing about a 1K to the mailbox and back everyday, but no other activity).  Right now, I am averaging about 100 kms per month.  And I think it shows.  Not just moving more, but moving more consistently.

Also, this post is to normalize that our bodies will show our history, unfiltered, our damage and scars too, and we should NOT feel bad about it.  I have chosen to put out into the public space that yes, I was not perfect, I gained weight on and off over the years, because I overate many times for emotional reasons, not because I was hungry.  But I also lost my excess weight, and now I am working very hard to keep off my excess weight, and this is what it looks like for me.  

I am very lucky to have the body I have, defects in the manufacturing, and all.

Highs and Lows of a Different Kind

After my post earlier, I felt so much better.  It felt great to be…honest.  “I feel what I feel, and yes, I feel sorry for myself,” she declared.  Instead of a more acceptable, (because I feel peer pressure to constantly check myself, and invalidate my own feelings just in case when comparing myself to others, they have it worse than me), instead just saying, “I’m fine.”

I am not fine.  

But I will be.

The 2 pictures above are from Halloween 2012 and Halloween 2025.  A 13 year difference.

Three times in my life (before now) I saw the 130’s.  Back in 1991, after I got married (not before, lol), I saw 132 and 136 pounds for about 2 weeks (then it was Christmastime, oops, that did not last).

I have dieted since a very young age, (grade 3=stepping on the bathroom scale at a friend’s house, and being happy I weighed one pound less than my friend, is my earliest memory of worrying about my weight).  I am 5 foot 6 inches, (oops, thanks to osteoporosis in my spine, I am now only 5 foot 5 and a tiny bit inches), and throughout a lot of my life I have bounced between the 140’s, and the 170’s.  There were a few times when I really got up there, the 190’s=in the years 1998, 2011, and 2023.  And even twice I crested into the low 200’s=in the years 1999 and 2003.

Then it took 21 years before I ever saw that weight in the 130’s again, the first of the above pictures=Halloween 2012.

In 2012, I found out I was Celiac.  And after struggling with my food for decades, not just to soothe emotions, but also to some degree self-medicating digestive upset and low iron, going gluten free was truly a game changer.  It felt easy to lose weight, and I was a lot healthier not battling against maldigestion, malabsorption, and other things that an undiagnosed Celiac experiences when they don’t know they should NOT be eating wheat, barley, and rye.

(The feeling great did not last, because I did not know then I also have hEDS.  I saw the 130’s briefly in 2016, but experienced some of the same struggles self-medicating digestive upset and low iron for years before going completely grain free in 2019, which has helped me a bit with that.  But there is no such thing as a PERFECT diet for someone with hEDS).

Needless to say, I coveted this picture.  When I regained some weight, I would pull this picture out and stare at it=OMG, was that really me??  Wow, how did I do that?  How did I actually get to that weight, and in my forties, no less?? (Which was 138.8 pounds, knowing that exact weight proves how diet obsessed I am/have been).  Can I EVER get there again? Stop stuffing your feelings with food, you silly woman!!

Yes, that is how I talked to myself.

Anyhow, battling some depression lately has sent my brain to thoughts along the lines of=You know what would make you feel better?  A whole bowl of pudding.  Or these Almond cookies you just saw on Facebook.  I bet your stomach could handle those…

Or this…

Of course, my stomach could NOT handle a whole batch…which would probably be what I would eat if I made them.  Because I am desperate to feel better, ug!  And only a whole batch will truly stuff me to the point where my physical discomfort will be enough to distract me from my emotional discomfort.

Which leads me to the second picture.  OMG, is that me??  Wow, how did I do that?  How did I actually get to that weight, (122.3 pounds), and in my fifties, no less??

So…

I must never forget that stuffing my feelings with food is NEVER the answer.

Next time I am tempted to overeat to soothe my feelings, I will just come here and read this post.

P.S. Obviously when I am struggling, I want to blog more, lol.