Misty Zaugg's Blog - Posts Tagged "journal"

Hi friends,

First of all, I hope those of you who picked up the boxsets for the 6-book Aftermath series Steph and I wrote last year are enjoying the stories! We had a great time writing them!

If you missed the email last week, our publisher still has them at 99c each! So 6 books and 2k+ pages to read for under $2. Awesome deal! (Also free to read in Kindle Unlimited if you're a subscriber)
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Boxset 1: First three books!


Boxset 2: Last three books!
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My husband is still finishing up the poison ivy healing. Thanks for all the amazing suggestions you sent me. They really helped!

I'll put together what treatments worked and didn't for next week's newsletter.

For today, I thought you might enjoy a little discussion on fasting, juice fasting in particular.

I have a familial type of diabetes that doesn't respond well to traditional treatment. Both my father and brother are very sick with serious medical issues despite following their doctor's treatment. So, I'm always on the lookout for ways to maintain my health as I get older.

Fasting is a technique used throughout history for many ailments and it can be very effective.

The study that caught my eye years ago was an investigation into something curious about patients having stomach reduction surgery who also had diabetes. It turns out that their blood sugars began to improve almost immediately after the surgery, long before it could be attributed to the weight they eventually lost.

The study hypothesized it was the minimal amount of food the patients were able to eat after the surgery, ie. essentially a type of fasting.

So they took a group of people with Type 2 Diabetes and put them on the same restricted calorie diet of the post-op patients to see if they could duplicate the effect without the surgery.

No surprise, but they had quiet a few drop outs. Fasting isn't easy! Only when we make a significant dietary change do we realize how much eating food is an integral part of our lives - celebrations, luncheons, parties, family gatherings, etc.

But for those who stuck out the study, the had similar, amazing improvements in blood sugar and HbA1c levels.

That started my fasting journey, and every time I've done a juice fast, I've found that my diabetes numbers improve.

But it's hard for me. Both in the not eating food as well as the work of buying produce, washing, juicing and cleaning up.

So, despite my personal successes in the past, I haven't done one in a while. Lately, however, my diabetes numbers have gotten worse. My husband also wanted to get a little healthier. So we found a company on Amazon that will ship organic juices that are frozen fresh.

That takes all the work out of it, leaving just the not eating part. Ugh!

My husband "bought" me the juice fast for Christmas and it took us until June to finally place the order. A mix of procrastination and reluctance. LOL

Here's what showed up mostly frozen on our porch on Wednesday:



Raw Fountain 7 day Juice Fast

And here's what we drink each day, starting about 30 minutes after we wake up: one of these 12 oz bottles every 2 hours.


I did label them with M's and T's so my husband and I could find ours more easily while digging them out of the chest freezer.

So today is the second day and here's what my blood sugar looked like yesterday. Can you figure out when I drank the six juices? Count the peaks starting around just before noon. :D



My blood glucose averaged around 135 for the day, which is decent but nothing special. Hopefully I'll se more improvements throughout the week.

Oh, and my weight started at 155.6 lbs and is 153.4 this morning. Based on experience, I know the first 5 to 6 pounds lost will come back once I start eating again and fill up my digestive system. :)

I'll give you an update when we finish. Let me know if you have any questions.

Plus, if you've tried any form of fasting, I'd love to hear your experiences with it.

Stay healthy out there!
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Misty's Writing Update:

I feel a bit like I'm treading water, not many words this week. But sometimes, that's the way it goes.

Plus, I'm trying to decide when to start publishing my litrpg book on Royal Road.

The issue is summer family plans. I'm heading to Florida for a week to help with my grandbaby on vacation. My oldest daughter is returning from her year and a half mission trip at the end of July. And then we're heading out to visit family and take her back to school for a couple of weeks in August.

The issue is that once I publish on Royal Road, I'm committed to publishing three or four chapters a week if I want to see some success. Being unreliable with putting up chapters will lose readers.

I obviously will struggle to get chapters written while doing all the family stuff, but on the other hand, I have a pretty decent number of chapters written, so I should be alright. I'd just lose a chunk of my buffer of chapters while I don't write on vacations.

I could wait until Sept. 1st to start, but I'm getting antsy to see what readers think of this story and don't really want to wait.

What do you think? Take the plunge now or wait until Sept?

Thanks!

Enjoy reading this week!

— Misty :)
Misty Zaugg Website

Juice Fast Results - Health Tip #9
Hi friends,

Whew! I can eat again! And good news is any food seems and tastes like a treat. This really helps with the pleasure eating and makes healthier foods easier to choose over junk food. :)

Thanks to all of you who shared your fasting journeys with me. I loved learning about them and picked up a bunch of new information!

I'm not sure why I really struggled with hunger for this fast, even though this is the shortest one I've done, some previous ones as long as 30 days. Possibly it was due to getting older, a lower quantity of juice or that this was purchased instead of made fresh myself.

In any case, I thought you might enjoy seeing the results:

1. Weight loss (BMI for my height indicates a healthy weight of 121-153 lbs):
• Starting weight: 155.6 lbs
• Day 1: 153.4 (loss of 2.2 lbs - weight often comes off fastest at the beginning as your digestive system empties out)
• Day 2: 151.6 (loss of 1.8)
• Day 3: 149.6 (loss of 2.0)
• Day 4: 148.8 (loss of 0.8)
• Day 5: 147.2 (loss of 1.6)
• Day 6: 146.4 (loss of 0.8)
• Day 7: 147.4 (gain of 1.0 - not sure why)
• Total weight loss = 8.2 lbs
• And then this morning after my first day eating yesterday: 146.6! Which would put my total weight loss at an even 9 lbs.

I'm totally happy with this because I was creeping up out of the healthy range and am glad to be back within it. In the past, I've seen about 5 lbs come back once I start eating again, so I was surprised to see this morning's weight drop. I'm just happy to meet my goal to be within the BMI range.

2. Diabetes - My average daily glucose sat around 135, which translates to a Ha1c of 6.3. This isn't too much better than where I normally sit, though my last Ha1c was 7.1 in December which is an average glucose of 157.

In any case, I've had drops to the low hundreds in previous juice fasts, so I was disappointed seeing some 200+ responses after drinking a juice.

It was only when I started eating my normal lower carb, healthy diet yesterday, that I saw a big difference. My glucose response to my normal meals was much lower than usual!

Yesterday, my average glucose dropped like a rock and at this moment it's 108 for the last 24 hours! Very nice!

The fast has definitely improved my diabetic response to food.

Then last night, I actually had some lows, which indicates I might be able to discontinue the second diabetes medication, at least in the short term. I was forced to add it recently when my nighttime numbers had crept up.

So, if I can reduce back to a single medication, instead of two, this seven days of fasting was completely worth it!

Thanks for your support, and stay healthy out there!

— Misty :)
Misty Zaugg Website