writing

My New Goal: A New Writing Practice

Posted on by lily / 0 Comment
New Writing Practice

It dawned on me today, while sitting in a car for over four hours, driving from Denton back home to Austin, that if not now, then when? Inspired by Seth Godin, I’ve been wanting to blog every day, something I’ve been dying to do, yet so damn afraid. Afraid that people will think I’m too much, too narcissistic, or on the other end of the spectrum: not enough. Not enough knowledge, not enough education or connections, still feeling as if I still don’t know enough to write, despite the school loans I’m still paying down many years after a MFA in Creative Writing. (Funny how I felt much more confident to write BEFORE I formally enrolled in a program designed to teach me just how to write, to publish.)

I’ve decided to finally begin this self-imposed challenge to myself: write in this blog every day for an entire year and watch what happens! Will my writing improve? Will I gain more confidence to allow myself to be seen, to be visible? That someone like me, of this certain age, gender, race, class, ethnicity, whatever, could possibly put myself out there like this? Whatever the case, I decided to start now. Here on a Friday. The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday, in fact. Instead of wildly online shopping, I am here online, putting myself out there on the Wild Wild Internet, to put my words out there. To actually “trust my words,” something I encountered this past week when I dared to enroll in another writer who I respect’s online class, part of her beta writing circle.

I realize there may be no one reading this, but it’s healing to practice allowing myself to put my words out there. To trust that this process of writing, of exposing myself, will be fruitful. I want to get over my fear of being judged, being criticized. Of worrying about what others, especially friends and family, will think if they realize what I think about x, y or z. This is a practice of sharing my words, my truth, at this moment in time. Because who I am and what I believe will shift with the sands of time.

Part of the inspiration today is this guy I listened to named Derek Sivers. His quick podcast post on limitations and freedom really reminded me of all the self-experiments I’ve indulged in so far in my life. The time I did several months of carnivore-eating and how it made such a difference in my physical and mental health. Experiments are a way to spice up life and to challenge you to try a lens on life you may never had the balls to try before. Because you know it’s only temporary, and for only a set amount of time, you’re able to work within these constraints, finding an incredible amount of freedom. It’s like being confronted with a vast blank page of whiteness versus being presented with a focusing writing prompt.

I’m realizing that for me, I’m someone who finds freedom in limitations, in constraints. Especially ones of my own choosing.

So … here goes: Today, on November 29, Friday, 2019 (I’m not even gonna wait until the New Year to start), I am beginning my own N=1 experiment of a new writing practice. I will write in this blog every single day — even if it’s only a sentence — until November 29, 2020. With no fanfare, no telling of anyone even in my own family (I’m typing this as they sit around me playing video games), and not waiting until I’m in the perfect of writing conditions (again, I’m in the same room as my family, all three of them laughing and playing as I type, post-Thanksgiving). No excuses whatsoever. I’m finally realizing that waiting for everything to be perfect is the perfect recipe for failure… I don’t even know what I’m going to write about, but whatever it is, I’ll find something. I’m going to allow myself to fail, flail: wildly!

And the thing is, I can’t wait to find out what happens when I get to the other side!

 

 

writing

What I’d Tell My Ghostwriter: Advice on Finishing My Novel

Posted on by lily / 0 Comment
Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

If I were to hire a ghostwriter to write my novel, how might I instruct her?

Here is what I came up with:

  • Write a coming-of-age story that encapsulates a young Chinese American girl’s life growing up Jehovah Witness in the 80’s — her desires, her struggles — and how her life changes throughout the course of the book.
  • I’d ask this ghostwriter to remember the title and keep it in mind as she writes: THE FOREVER LIFE. (That’s a title I don’t want anyone to take, by the way, so I really need to light that fire under my ass to finish this thing, otherwise someone else will have that title. Fuck that!)
  • If I had a ghostwriter, I’d tell her to channel her memories of youth, that my character, Natalie, is only 14-years-old, struggling to belong, either in the life of forevers (the path of her mom), or a life of freedom and agency (her friend Rachel.)
  • I’d instruct my ghostwriter to come up with writing prompts before writing for each section/chapter/scene.  (E.g., What parts in the Taiwan trip can you pull out for the novel? Natalie is in the hospital post-car accident. What happens next? Knowing your outline for the closing of Act 1, how can you incorporate that into this hospital scene?)
  • I’d instruct my ghostwriter to read coming-of-age novels I love (like Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend) to get a sense of story, voice, structure, pace, tone, setting, and characterization.
  • I’d have her revisit writing-related notes on the manuscript in all its iterations, such as the ones in Carolina de Robertis’ class at Cristina Garcia’s Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop. Pull out the stories she had showcased about narrative tension. How can you apply this to your own writing? I’d have her revisit April Bosshard’s Deep Story Design notes for coaching. Perhaps revisit the class notes from the past class on story structure and the technical aspects within a story (ex. midpoint, plot echo points). Revisit Elizabeth Tallent’s notes from Squaw Valley. Revisit Cristina Garcia’s feedback from that time we met up in San Francisco. Revisit Michelle Wallace‘s manuscript notes she helped me edit. Revisit third writing group’s (Brenda and Gina from Liminal) notes for novel. Revisit my second writing group (Small Vino) feedback with Mel, Sam, Kiala, Muthoni and Michelle. Revisit my notes from my first writing group with Tiff and Steve. Revisit notes from my first MFA fiction class with Gail Tsukiyama at Mills College. Revisit my notes from VONA, from ZZ Packer and Ashe Bandele. Classes I took at the Writing Salon and the SF Writing Grotto.
  • I’d create a solid writing practice for her to follow. A schedule. So she’d fall into the writing easily. I’d tell her not to be so hard on herself when the writing doesn’t flow. I’d ask her to use pomodoros and build in breaks to stretch, run to the bathroom — basically to not sit in a chair the entire time.
  • I’d ask her to build in time for research, study the craft (see above about revisiting class notes), reading both books about how-to write (e.g., Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext book I lent Lorelei when she was eager to learn about novel writing) and fiction. I’d have her build a solid literary life.
  • I’d also ask her to live her life — outside of writing — because all of life can be material in some way. (Not in a nasty capitalistic way of churning straw into gold, but in that stories can be found everywhere.)
  • I’d ask her to pair writing with music. To sometimes write with a song on repeat, a song that moves you, gives you life. Something like Max Richter. Or Helen Jane Long. And songs from the 80’s my characters — 14-year-old Natalie and Rachel  — would be listening to, like Depeche Mode, Ministry.
  • I’d ask my ghostwriter to follow the outline I’ve given her, but to feel free to deviate if it serves the story. To not be afraid to do so, but to check in with me, and we can adjust as necessary. I’d ask her to give herself permission to feel free. This is fun work. This is play. Write with lightness and spaciousness.
  • To write in this way, with ease, I’d instruct her to meditate before writing. To meditate when she gets stuck. Or to get up and move. Perhaps a walk outside in the fresh air, taking in the textures and colors of nature, marveling at the world larger than ourselves.
  • Reading is essential to writing well. I’d ask her to remember that when I read fiction or memoir, I read to find out how someone has lived, how they surmounted hardships, how I seek, often continuously, to know that I am not alone–in whatever struggles I’ve felt, or once felt, in life. I also read to be entertained. I like the excitement of cliffhangers, of what happens next. I like seeing characters in impossible or crazy situations, watching how they overcome the world they are boxed in.
  • I’d also ask her to pull up a blank page, especially in 750 words (because it’s on someone else’s server), to use as a canvas to draw on, so to speak. It’s okay to scribble, sketch. Then take that over to Scrivener to turn into a painting later.
  • I’d ask her to research Jehovah’s Witnesses. Go through my mom’s old books, the Watchtowers, the Awakes. And when writing, not to feel as if you have to explain everything to readers, in a didactic way, but to weave it into the actual story.

Yeah, if writing this novel were easy, I’d hire someone else to do it. But I’m sure I wouldn’t feel good afterwards, knowing I didn’t do it.

If writing it were easy, I’d just write. I’d look forward to writing it. I’d have a regular writing practice, sitting down each day to write. I’d tell myself to just keep going when I have doubts. I’d hire a coach/editor to keep me accountable (which I have). I’d make writing dates (which I’m doing regularly now with my friend Julie via Skype on weekday mornings).

I’d just keep showing up …

Each. Fucking. Day.

keto/rv life

Sometimes I Forget How Far We’ve Come

Posted on by lily / 8 Comments

Sometimes I forget.

Forget why we began this trip, this new RV life. How easy it is to get caught up in the middle of life — with all its ups and downs — and forget how far we’ve come.

But when I revisit pictures like this, I am reminded of how far we’ve come together as a family, in regards to our health, and how much we love each other.

These pictures were taken between 2014 and 2015, when my husband of almost 22 years, Darrell, [if interested, he has his own separate blog] was diagnosed with cancer, when we dreamed up the idea to reduce overall stress in our lives by quitting our traditional 9-5 jobs, stop paying for a mortgage for a SF Bay Area house we could barely afford, and live and travel the world together in a RV as a family.

There’s still some stress now, but it mostly stems from work-related and time-management stress as we both work on-the-road part-time chasing wi-fi.

But nowhere near the stress of worrying that you don’t have much time on this earth with the love of your life and your son and stepdaughter’s father, burdened with high costs and massive amounts of debt.

In 2014, when Darrell went into his regular General Practitioner’s for a cough that refused to disappear, he discovered something was  amiss when the chest x-ray technician gasped at the sheer size of the mass that appeared on his black and white screen. From there, it became a mystery game, a hunt to discover if he even had cancer, and if so, what kind.

Most importantly, we all wanted to know: How long did he have left to live?

We were at a loss as to what to do. Should Darrell turn vegetarian again? He had been vegetarian for over 15 years. I imagined the freezer full of Morningstar burgers and fake bacon. I had recently adopted a Paleo diet and it had already helped me come off all my meds, but I still had weight to lose. Other friends suggested juicing and the Gerson Therapy. Others suggested other alternative therapies. We didn’t know what to do, what to choose.

Only three years before, Steve Jobs had died and I read up on all kinds of diets and scenerios, imagining the worst outcomes possible. But then a good friend who followed a Paleo/Primal way of eating Darrell’s mentioned the ketogenic diet. “There’s talk that cancer feeds on sugar, on glucose,” he informed us while visiting from out of state.

A former biology/chemistry major, Darrell immediately latched onto the science and chemistry behind the ketogenic diet. It made sense. We began searching online and came across Ellen Davis, Dominic D’Agostino, and Miriam Kalamian. I immediately bought e-books and devoured everything I could on the subject. My sister, who had lovingly spent much of her time babysitting and helping me with my virtual assistant clients while we went to doctor appointments and during hospital stays for the two biopsies, introduced me to the audio book by Jimmy Moore: Keto Clarity. Later, I found Patricia Daly, Martina Slajerova, as well as Maria Emmerich.

In the meantime, as I learned how to cook and eat keto, I adapted many of the Paleo recipes I had from all the Paleo cookbooks I had amassed, such as Melissa Joulwan and Michelle Tam of Nom Nom Paleo. I encouraged Darrell to reach out to Miriam Kalamian for a Skype consultation, and he did. She was extremely helpful and encouraging, and I remember making my first mug cakes from recipes she had sent us, in addition to the ones I was making out of her e-book.

At first we didn’t know what type of cancer Darrell had. It was right before Thanksgiving in 2014, and Darrell’s fantastic oncologist in (Alta Bates Summit) Berkeley pulled some strings and found a doctor who would do a biopsy in Concord, at John Muir Hospital. That doctor speculated Darrell might have thymoma. Then there was talk among other doctors brought in that it could be a teratoma. We looked it up. Could Darrell’s tumor have teeth, have hair? Even through the despair, we found a moment to joke around. What if Darrell had a miniature clone growing inside his chest, where the tumor was located? That year, we skipped Thanksgiving, spending it in the hospital.

We were told Darrell needed to stay in the hospital for several days. He was fed orange juice, sandwiches, dessert. While Darrell had the biopsy which would take quite some time, per the doctor, my sister, my kid and I sat in the waiting room, taking turns playing the piano. We also spent some time in the chapel area, writing heartfelt notes, wishing and praying for the best possible outcome. The doctor at John Muir pulled me aside after the biopsy was over to inform me that he believed Darrell had a thymoma that would require open-heart surgery, chemo, and radiation. “He’s not going to be able to work anymore, not for some time. In fact, it will be hard,” he said gruffly, a doctor with not the best of bedside manners. And with that he was gone. I was left in tears, worried about my husband’s chest cut open, the danger around cutting near the aorta.  Later, I remember being comforted by my sister-in-law over the phone shortly after.

No one ever tells you how time seems to slow down when you’re awaiting a cancer diagnosis. Especially around the holidays.

After about a week, the biopsy came back: Inconclusive. The doctor had cut around Darrell’s chest area and there still wasn’t an answer?? We were disappointed and angry.  So was Darrell’s oncologist. Apparently, he chewed out this doctor at John Muir who had recommended we go ahead and act as if this were a thymoma. Again, Darrell’s oncologist pulled some strings, and this time, sent him to Stanford, even though it was now close to Christmas. We were worried time was running out. Would we have time to shrink the seemingly unusually large tumor?

Our answers came easily at Stanford. This time, the doctor we were assigned to who did the biopsy was easygoing and made us feel at ease immediately, unlike the one at John Muir. He guessed it was lymphoma, not thymoma, and he was right. The biopsy was quick and easy, a short outpatient visit, and within a day or two, we found out Darrell was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (Stage 2B). The doctor assured us that if there was a cancer to get, this was “a good one.” Again, we laughed. Relieved. But our oncologist was still concerned with the size of the three tumors (7, 3, and 2 cm). He had three near his heart, and the chemo would have to pass through his aorta. I worried about how fragile that area was, how fragile the heart can be. Would he be able to handle it? (A lesson learned here: Just because someone is an esteemed rock-star doctor, he may not know all the answers. You are your own best advocate when it comes to your own health. Don’t be afraid to get a second opinion.)

But at the same time, we were both ramping up the ketogenic diet, now following Miriam Kalamian’s advice in her book, along with other keto for cancer books out at that time in 2015. We bought a scale, Ketostix at first, used MyFitnessPal for macros, then the Precision Xtra to measure glucose and ketones, discovering Dr. Thomas N. Seyfried’s book that Darrell immediately downloaded onto his Kindle, a dense medical book that recommended that the GKI be as close to 1 as possible. I wrote a blog post for Heads Up Health, a client of mine, about how Darrell and I tracked his Glucose Ketones Index during his cancer, and still do, now in remission.  He included some fasting as well. To support Darrell, I decided to eat mostly keto too. I was also intrigued to see if it could help my moods as someone once diagnosed with Bipolar Type II, having read in Jimmy Moore’s book that the keto diet had the potential to help those suffering with this disorder. I had been off all meds–including asthma–simply reducing the amount of flour and sugar back in 2012, and was encouraged by what a Paleo/Primal diet could do. Also, my doctor had warned me that with my latest HBA1C, I was now diagnosed with prediabetes. (In 2016, we began tracking our health using Heads Up Health, enjoying the ability to import medical records from different labs and using the Analyzer graphing feature to see how far we’ve both come in terms of our health, motivating us to continue staying keto-adapted.)

The oncologist, radiologist and the nurses in the chemo infusion room all noticed how rapidly Darrell’s tumors were shrinking. They also remarked on Darrell’s lack of the usual symptoms post-chemo: no hair loss, no nausea. Even though all food Darrell ate tasted like metal, he enjoyed eating the mug cakes, the fat bombs, bone broth and all the keto food I made using a Paleo/Primal lens. We kept his net carbs really low, at 12 net carbs, weighing and measuring portions, afraid to eat too much protein then, due to gluconeogenesis. I pricked my finger alongside Darrell daily, checking our blood glucose and blood ketones (beta-hydroxybutrate/BHB), then making sure his GKI was low as possible. The fasts helped with the chemo, lowering insulin and raising ketones. “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!” One nurse smiled warmly at us after checking Darrell’s blood test results before beginning his hours-long infusion, seated in a lazy-boy-like recliner, his laptop still propped on his lap as he refused to quit working full-time. His employers were understanding, wanting him to take time off, but working gave Darrell something else to think about, and this was what he wanted then.

During this time — several months — of weekly chemo infusions, Darrell stopped taking the BART train for fear of catching colds, compromising his immune system. Instead, he took a commuter bus near Oakland that brought him into San Francisco where he worked downtown for a FinTech company.

Although I know the treatment and oncologist helped, what Darrell and I both know today is that eating keto played a part in quality of life, and we feel it in our bones that it also helped in the rapid shrinking of the large tumors that resided in his chest.

Now it’s 2018 and in October, Darrell will have been in remission for three years. Even though much older now, we are both now in the best shape of our lives. Although not 100% compliant every single meal, we still incorporate keto eating and fasting into about 90% of our lives. What keeps us keto-adapted and in ketosis most of the time is tracking our health (e.g., blood ketones, blood glucose) with the Keto-Mojo (much more affordable blood ketone strips than Precision Xtra) and Heads Up Health (e.g., GKI, waist and hip measurements, weight, lab tests like the Hba1c), MCT oil, butter and ghee. And now almost three months in, we’re about to embark on a trip around the world in our RV, finally having the energy to exercise, to pursue our dreams. We recently sold our house in the SF Bay Area and downsized in the biggest way, leaving a 3K+ sq ft house for a 100 sq ft expedition vehicle/RV.

     

Life can still be stressful at times, but we have so much to look forward to now.

And with that, I cannot be more grateful.

rv life

Yellowstone: #RVLife

Posted on by lily / 0 Comment
Yellowstone Geyser

“Nuggets!” My kid cries, bent over his screen, as if he’s been shot, heading to the bathroom. Outside, I hear my husband cough amid abundant birdsong.

We have traded the mosquitos for birds.

The last campsite — Yellowstone/Lewis Lake — had bodies filled with our blood.

Today we awoke in Montana; yesterday in Wyoming, in Yellowstone.
The states are beginning to blur, as are the days.

We are nomads, travelers, drifters. We are adventurers, overlanders, full-time RV travelers, #digitalnomads

We live, love, and fight in a moving cube.

Yesterday morning, we erupted, like Old Faithful, before the drive toward Mammoth Hot Springs. It was the usual arguments and panic about where we’d land, could we find a spot in time, given all we wanted to do, given all the miles we had to drive.

The eruption was great — talk of airports and dissolving our plans, our trip.

We had learned of constriction as the mechanism beneath hydrothermal features such as geysers, and as we drove toward the hot springs, I felt constriction in my chest. The heat of our anger, our frustration, like magma; our words flowing like snowmelt or rain, words that pelted with hurt and misunderstanding.

As we drove, I pondered the anatomy of a fight.

Always the eruption, the constriction, tempered by silence, space, and time. Ours simmered down to a low boil, punctuated by sightings of wildlife — a grizzly bear ambling matter-of-factly on the side of a road, bear-faced cow-like bison, families of geese waddling into the moving Yellowstone River below. Followed by walks to the volcanic mud pots that boiled with sulfer and smelled of soft-boiled eggs atop steaming bowls of ramen. One was named Black Cauldron, a fitting name. Later the hot springs and travertine terraces, ending the night in Montana, sipping wine and reading aloud short stories to my family — the eruption now subsided.

keto/mental health

Why I’m Eating A Carnivore Keto Diet

Posted on by lily / 12 Comments

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a journalist from The Guardian about eating carnivore and a ketogenic diet.

Just why would someone do it?

First of all, I just want to say that I don’t believe in “mocking vegans” and mentioned this during my phone interview with the journalist, despite my admiration for Dr. Shawn Baker, who I think has a vital message to share in regards to red meat and saturated fat.  I have many friends who are vegans and vegetarians, and like religion (I grew up Jehovah’s Witness; not one anymore), I respect people’s beliefs. In fact, I actually went with a vegan friend to a restaurant with an all-vegan menu a few months ago and simply fasted, sipping unsweetened iced tea, focusing on our conversation and friendship instead.

Yet at the same time, I’m also beginning to believe (along with my husband who was vegetarian for over fifteen years and now eats carnivore keto too) that a plant-based diet may not be as healthy and sustainable as we have all been led to believe. My husband, Darrell, who is now in remission from cancer (using the ketogenic diet in conjunction with chemo and radiation), is the one who suggested trying the carnivore diet after we read up on Dr. Georgia Ede’s work. We were also inspired by Danny Vega (and his Fat-Fueled Family), Amber O’Hearn, and Shawn Baker. (Darrell is constantly telling me I should read a book he believes wholeheartedly in: The Vegetarian Myth  by Lierre Keith.)

The second thing I want to mention, and also told the reporter during our phone interview, is that I’m just beginning my experiment eating carnivore, now over three months in. I’m not even certain if I want to do this for the rest of my life. It’s just a self-experiment. And I’m also making it my own, not completely following it in the way long-time zero carb and carnivore folks have been doing it (e.g., I add MCT oil to my coffee, track my fasting glucose, blood ketones and GKI  and also drink wine and whiskey from time to time.)

I also told her that I’m still learning everyday about eating this way, and pretty far away from an expert or someone with long-term lived experience like Kelly Hogan, Amber O’Hearn, or Charlene Andersen who have all been successfully eating carnivore for over a decade. There’s also Mikhaila Peterson who has successfully used carnivore for mental health.

But the main reason I’m choosing to eat a carnivore and keto diet is because of my mental health, for bipolar disorder. It’s funny how easy it’s been to tell people I eat keto for prediabetes, how it helped with (my husband’s) cancer — all true — but I’ve been so afraid to come out about using the ketogenic diet for bipolar. There is so much stigma attached to bipolar disorder that is unnecessary!

In my twenties, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Bipolar Disorder after I mentioned to the psychiatrist I briefly saw that my sister had been diagnosed with Type 1. The psychiatrist I had been seeing for my anxiety and depression, who had me on SSRIs, suddenly switched me to an anti-convulsant instead. Imagine my surprise when I realized my friend who has epileptic seizures took the same prescription drug I was taking: Neurontin!

In my thirties, while doing a MFA program in Fiction and Creative Writing, I almost dropped out before also being diagnosed with ADHD and Social Anxiety. (I couldn’t, for the life of me, focus on doing assignments turned in on time, and freaked out having to do literary readings in front of other people, often running into class late, and leaving as soon as the bell ended to avoid any social interactions with anybody.)

I went through a series of configuration of meds, always involving an anti-convulsant, like Neurontin or Oxcarbazapine. I was put on Adderall for my ADHD. As a new mom in grad school, I also faced post-partum depression. But the anxiety I faced was crippling, despite the meds, and I would quickly oscillate from anxiety to depression, and back. What did help some was cognitive behaviorial therapy (CBT) that used mindfulness and meditation rather than medication alone.

But then I began seeing a nutritionist who happened to be one of the parents in my son’s elementary school class in Oakland, CA. She introduced me to Sally Fallon’s book that emphasized whole foods and healthy animal fats. We began an elimination diet to take out sugar and flour. I discovered Paleo and Primal eating, falling in love with Robb Wolf, Marc Sisson, Melissa Joulwan and Michelle Tam’s books for recipes. I began to feel better and my therapist and psychiatrist  saw the positive changes. In fact, they both decided I was merely “on the spectrum of Type 2 Bipolar Disorder,” prone to hypomania but nothing debilitating enough to put my own life (or that of others) in danger.

In the article it’s mentioned that the carnivore diet helped me to come off my bipolar meds. That isn’t true. I mentioned in my interview that in 2012, I was able to ramp off all medications after simply reducing my flour and sugar intake, following a ancestral/paleo/primal way of eating. The psychiatrist I saw (not in my insurance plan, unfortunately) suggested that I eliminate flour and sugar out of my diet to see if that helped — and help it did!

I wasn’t the type of person you hear about with bipolar disorder who rushed out and had sex with strangers, abused massive drugs, gambled or was constantly suicidal. My biggest problem was saying “yes” to everyone, filling up my life constantly with people (despite having social anxiety; go figure!). Another problem was I amassed quite a bit of e-courses on my hard drive and books I never got to reading on our shelves. I was also terrible with spending money, having become bankrupt by my early twenties. And when I taught English at a community college, I was so anxious, I had to take a beta-blocker from time to time just to face my thirty or so students, always waiting to the last minute to grade essays.

In December 2014 when my husband found out he had cancer, a friend told us about the keto diet, about the possibility of starving the cancer cells from glucose, and we immediately jumped in full force. By then, my general practitioner had warned that with my blood tests were climbing to “prediabetes” levels, and told me I should eat better and move more. I immediately gravitated to eating keto when I read about the potential benefits for people with Central Nervous Disorders (CNS), such as bipolar disorder and ADHD. Recently I read that cancer researcher Dominic D’Agostino believes the keto diet is the first line of defense for people with cancer, as well as those inflicted with CNS and neurological disorders

As someone who can easily go from Spongebob to Squidward (or for you older folks: Winnie-the-Pooh to Eeyore) within the space of an hour or a day,  it’s not easy to battle day-to-day mood swings. And I know it’s not easy for my family members as well.

Everyone noticed, including my friends, when I simply switched to a regular keto diet, how less anxious and depressed I was, compared to how I used to be, back when I was eating a SAD (Standard American Diet) way life, filled with high carbs (mostly refined carbohydrates), pasta, bread, cakes, cookies, pizza. I used to think of myself as a foodie, someone who valued what some of my friends would call, “bougie” foods, searching for high-starred Yelp and Zagat reviews, chasing high-end food trucks, salivating to the Food Network Channel while binging on high-carb, high-sugar foods.

Can A Ketogenic Diet Help Bipolar Disorder?

I love Dr. Georgia Ede, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and her work around mental health and ketogenic diets, a subject close to my heart. In this video, Irish engineer Ivor Cummins interviews Dr Ede about how a keto diet can help with bipolar disorder, seizure disorders, and Alzheimer’s disease. They discuss vegetables—how healthy are they really?

“A ketogenic diet seems to stabilize brain cell chemistry. In particular, lowers intracellular sodium…and that is also the way a lot of the mood stabilizing medications that we prescribe work for bipolar disorder. So there’s a lot of similarity between BP and seizure disorders, in terms of the underlying mechanism. The meds prescribed for BP disorder as well as seizure disorders—many of these are the same medications.”

Now I know firsthand that keto works. Not only in bringing down my prediabetes (HbA1C from 5.8% to 5.2%) and help with shrinking my husband’s tumor during his cancer, my moods began to improve even more. I ramped off ALL meds in 2012, including asthma meds (like my steroid inhaler and Prednisone for all the coughing that took forever to disappear after colds I don’t get anymore). And to this day (today, as I write this, I turned 46 years old), I have never felt better, more optimistic about our future moving from a house into a RV, about spending time with my family and loved ones–feeling younger and happier than ever!

Now keto-adapted since August 2017 (I half-assed a keto-ish, paleo-ish diet since December 2014), my husband and I decided to try this carnivore keto approach, but adding in the keto and paleo/primal elements we care about, such as MCT oil (with its anti-convulsant properties), grass-fed and pastured meat and eggs, raw cheeses (when we can find them), tracking our ketones, fasting glucose, and GKI (Glucose Ketones Index).

Most people who eat carnivore or keto tend to use it to lose weight–which is great. But Darrell and I are doing it mainly for cancer, bipolar disorder, and prediabetes. The weight loss, newfound energy to work out, better body composition, higher energy and libido, mental clarity, have all been giant bonuses–icing on the cake! I’ve really found that when you eat in a way to have better physical and mental health–and not for weight loss–the weight comes off more easily. It’s not a diet. It’s just a way of life!

Others Who Have Successfully Used Keto for Bipolar Disorder

Others With Bipolar Disorder

As I mentioned, the fear about coming out about bipolar disorder is beyond scary. I worry about all the stigmas that come with it. Yet I know deep down that I have been–and still am–a loving, responsible, whole human being. And throughout history there have been many people who are (or had been) inflicted with bipolar disorder. Here are some just off the top of my head (and many of these people are/were conventionally successful):

Before Deciding To Chuck Your Meds to Implement Keto, Read This First

People who are currently taking meds for bipolar disorder and are considering eating a keto diet, should read this important advice from Dr. Georgia Ede:

This is another great article I recently came across on general mental health and the use of low-carb diets from a trusted source:

mental health/rv life/writing

A Mindset Shift: The Difference One Little Letter Can Make

Posted on by lily / 4 Comments
A Mindset Shift: What a Difference One Letter Can Make

It’s amazing how easily you can make a mindset shift simply by changing the ‘o’ to an ‘e’ in the phrases: “I’ve GOT to” to “I GET to.”

As ‘a glass is half empty type of person’ my entire life, I find myself needing to remember this on a daily basis.

Lately, with our recent move from our house to an RV, I’ve been struggling with going into this default mode; namely, looking at life via a negative lens. But doing this exercise allows me to quickly shift from despair and overwhelm to a more grateful and positive existence, which is what I’m perpetually aiming for, not wanting to be overruled by stress.

So here’s an example of a simple mindset shift I’ve decided to make:

  • I’ve got to make this work!  becomes ==>  I GET to live this life!
  • I’ve got to eat better!  becomes ==>  I GET to eat delicious keto food that fuels my brain and body, especially because I love the mental clarity, increased energy, and improved moods when I eat this way.
  • I’ve got to exercise!  becomes ==> I GET to sweat and I know it feels damn good when I do, especially afterwards during cool down. And I get to listen to, and feel fired up by, my favorite podcasts and music. Not only that, I love knowing that exercise lowers my insulin resistance and fasting glucose, drives up my ketones which is good prevention for cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimers. And it increases my chances for longevity, so more time on this planet to spend with my loved ones.
  • I’ve got to write that novel!  becomes ==>  I GET to write a novel that I haven’t seen out there in the world before, creating a fictional coming-of-age story about a young Asian American girl growing up Jehovah’s Witness who is faced with an emergency blood transfusion, afraid she’ll lose her chance at eternal life, all the while grappling with religion, racism, mental health issues, and her undeniable feelings for her best friend Rachel.
  • I’ve got to work!  becomes ==> I GET to work with awesome clients aligned with my values to help them write and edit content, from web copy and newsletters to social media and blog posts.
  • I’ve got to be a better parent!  becomes ==> I GET to spend even more quality time with my middle-school-aged kid, learning as I go, striving to be better, to practice patience, grateful for this opportunity of a lifetime to travel in a RV with my kid and husband, both of us teaching him–as best we know–about the world around us so as to leave him a better person on this earth.

To be quite honest, since we said good-bye to our house of ten years in Berkeley, CA last Thursday (April 5, 2018) to drive to Denver, CO to begin our new #RVLife, I’ve been in a state of shock, battling mild depression. It’s easy for someone like me to fall into a state of despair, which is why I am a person who constantly needs to surround myself with positivity, with supports in the form of inspirational and motivational quotes, podcasts, books, friends, even the virtual community on Instagram which I love.

Today, while my husband and our kid went out to finalize RV preparations, I finally had some space (both mental and physical) to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with myself. I spent time writing, reconnected with my accountability buddy and good writing friend this morning (actually meditating again!), exercised by myself using the hotel gym, and spent some time reflecting in my bullet journal. I asked for time off from my clients to use this week to fully move into our new home (the RV). That’s something I haven’t done since last summer, so to have a week off just felt decadent!

I realized that my tendency to focus on the negative can easily be shifted with a change in mindset, which forces you to be grateful for what you GET to do, rather than what you HAVE (or GOT) to do.

Coupled with self-care — a focus on nutrition (currently a carnivore keto diet and intermittent fasting), exercise, meditation, and creativity — I’m back in that space of believing anything is possible.

 

Note: I can’t remember where I got this quote from. It might have come from that book I love: ESSENTIALISM. But I could be wrong…

keto

How I Stayed Keto-Adapted on Vacation

Posted on by lily / 0 Comment
Eating carbs on vacation while staying keto-adapted

Is it possible to stay keto-adapted on vacation?

For anyone who has been eating keto, it is pure joy to come back from a vacation and still be keto-adapted. In fact, our last vacation to Costa Rica started out with great intentions, but by the end of the trip, we had indulged in everything and completely fell off the wagon.

Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with indulging on a vacation.

But what my husband and I both noticed was that every time we fell off the keto wagon due to indulgences related to travel or special occasions, it took a long time–sometimes, many months–for us to get on track again.

And because we’re both eating keto for our health, not just for weight loss, staying keto-adapted, as much as we can, is important to us. (My husband, now in remission from cancer–Oct 2018 will be three years–used keto specifically during his cancer from 2014 to 2016, as an adjunct to conventional treatment; I’m eating keto primarily for prediabetes and its impact on my mental health, namely anxiety and depression, and focus, having been diagnosed with Adult ADHD.)

So how did I manage to stay keto-adapted this time? Especially to a carb-laden destination full of temptations such as Taiwan?  As I have never accomplished this feat before on past vacations, I’ve decided to document what worked this time, in case I forget and need to jog my own memory.

First of all, what does it even mean to be keto-adapted (aka fat-adapted)? Dr. Stephen Phinney, who coined the term, “keto-adaptation” and wrote, along with Dr. Jeff Volek, the books,  The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living and The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, has a great article to learn more about the science behind it.

From Phinney and Volek’s The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Living (p.22):

Keto-adaptation is a term coined by Steve Phinney in 1980 to describe the process in which human metabolism switches over to using almost exclusively fat for fuel (i.e., a combination of fat burned directly and as ketones derived from fat). While well studied and documented mainly in the context of starvation, ketone metabolism is not well-understood by most physicians (let alone nutritionists, dietitians, trainers, and athletes) as an approach to improve health and performance. This is primarily due to the emphasis in standard nutrition training placed on dietary carbohydrates as the preferred fuel for physical performance.

Basically, it’s when your body switches from being a sugar/glucose burner to a fat/ketone burner. It’s when you’ve been compliant with a ketogenic diet, keeping your carbs low, fats high, and protein moderate. And the cravings for carbs (sweets, bread, pasta) go away. You find yourself being able to go for hours without wanting to eat. This can take a while, about several weeks or so, if not longer. You’re also, depending on your metabolic state, able to get away with eating some carbs once in a while, and easily get back into ketosis. At least, that’s what I experienced during this recent vacation in Taiwan.

Even though I began eating a keto diet in December 2014, when we first began using keto for my husband’s cancer, I had always had trouble becoming keto-adapted because I had a half-assed approach to keto eating. What this means is that I’d get into ketosis for a few days, then go have a pizza (the kind with a wheat crust) when stressed out, then attempt once more, battling the keto flu all over again.

But even with my half-assed, lazy, version of keto, I ended up reducing my HbA1C from a prediabetes level of 5.8% to a more “normal” number of 5.2% within a year. So it shows that some keto eating is better than none. Even if it’s the kind of keto eating where you never become keto-adapted, like how I was until recently, finally keto-adapted from August 2017 until now (March 2018). Although I’ve been keto-adapted before, it was never for long, and soon I had succumbed to carbs back again.  What finally helped me get keto-adapted this time–and actually stay this way–was having accountability.  In July 2017, I signed up for an early bird discount for Shawn Mynar’s Fat Burning Female Project ,  an online program with lots of support and advice on how to eat keto and become keto-adapted, aimed specifically for women. I loved Shawn’s approach of not focusing on the number on the scale, that weight was something that falls off once your body begins to truly heal. And she brings you down from carbs slowly, so your body isn’t shocked from going from high carbs to suddenly low. (Of course, you can get keto-adapted on your own, with discipline and compliance, but I’m someone who craves accountability, and this was, in my eyes, an investment in my health.)

Here’s an informative article by Amber O’Hearn on keto-adaptation. I especially love the section on “How to make keto-adaptation as quick and painless as possible.” Great tips for those trying this on their own.

GKI-fast-therapeutic-ketosis
My 8-Day Extended Fast, in Therapeutic Ketosis (GKI 1 or under)

How I Stayed Keto-Adapted on Vacation

  1. I used a glucometer and ketone meter. Every morning, I checked my fasting glucose and blood ketones, using my favorite new health device: the Keto-Mojo. (I love how the blood ketone strips are so much cheaper than the ones I used to buy for my Precision Xtra glucometer, allowing me to actually measure my ketones daily.) This is a great way to get immediate biofeedback, helping you make course corrections as needed. I don’t even check my weight regularly on a scale anymore (just once a month, relying on body measurements of waist, hip and how clothes fit more). And I don’t track my macros (I did at first, when first learning how to eat keto, though.) Now I just rely on three numbers daily: fasting glucose, ketones, and my GKI (glucose to ketones ratio), regularly tracking every morning. These numbers give me, as someone with prediabetes, an instantaneous idea of how I’m doing health-wise.
  2. I tracked my health to keep motivated and adjust as needed. I’m one of those weirdos that oscillates between analog and digital, preferring to first record my fasting glucose and ketones into my bullet journal health tracker, then log these numbers into Heads Up Health**, a health tracking site that is a phenomenal help for people like my husband and myself, who follow a keto and low-carb-high-fat (LCHF) lifestyle. Here you can easily enter your blood sugar numbers and ketones in the Dashboard and have your Glucose: Ketones Index (GKI) automatically calculated. This was a biomarker my husband tracked exclusively during his battle with cancer, following Dr. Thomas N. Seyfried‘s advice of keeping the GKI between 1 and 2. Recently we learned from a podcast with Thomas Seyfried with HVMN founder Geoffrey Woo [00:34:49] that when your GKI ratio is 1 or below, you’re in “Therapeutic Ketosis.” In Seyfried’s own words, “As I said in my book–Chapter 19–on cancer prevention…if you can get yourself down in therapeutic ketosis for three to five days, you’re blasting the crap out of these incipient tumor cells. Your body’s just going through and gobbling them up, eating them. So, before they can take off and start growing as a neoplasm, which is a dysregulated growth of cells, your body is killing them. So therapeutic ketosis, I always say, is a place to visit. But it’s nota place to live. You visit the zone periodically. But you don’t live in the zone.” (See graph where I fasted for 8 days, bringing my GKI under 1). Probably my favorite feature of Heads Up Health is the ability to graph your biomarkers using the Analyzer to notice trends. This allowed me to spot correlations between lack of sleep and high glucose, or too many carbs the day before and lowered ketones the following day. Seeing this on a graph helped me make course adjustments as needed.  
  3. The incorporation of fasting.  Fasting is a great tool to use to stay keto-adapted. For example, if my fasting glucose was higher than I wanted in the morning (and my blood ketones lower) because I ended up eating more carbs than I had anticipated, I can easily, bring the numbers where I want them to be the next day by fasting. If the numbers are looking pretty bad, I might opt for a 24 hour fast. If the numbers are close enough but could use some help, I might do some intermittent fasting, going for 16:8 (e.g., fast for 16 hours and eat within an 8 hour window). I also know that an extended fast can be done once the vacation is over, as a way to cleanse damaged cells (aka autophagy), which is highly protective as a way to prevent cancer, per Dr. Thomas N Seyfried, whose book my husband read when he first began using keto for his cancer, beginning December 2014 (see above mentioned podcast link). At least once a year, my husband and I aim to get into therapeutic ketosis, tracking and monitoring our GKI using the graphing/Analyzer feature in Heads Up Health.  I should also mention that being keto-adapted already makes fasting so much easier than when you’re not. You go into the fast padded with fat and don’t experience hunger cravings that you’d normally experience if you were to go from a Standard American Diet (high carbs, low fat) diet straight into fasting.
  4. Being keto-adapted already helped me finally understand what it means to “eat in moderation,” something people who don’t eat keto or low-carb love to say to you. (“Just eat in moderation! Live a little.”) But what they don’t get, is that for insulin resistant and metabolically challenged people such as myself, this advice doesn’t work. That is, UNTIL YOU ARE ACTUALLY KETO-ADAPTED. Then for the first time, I am truly able to understand what it means to “eat in moderation,” especially when it comes to refined carbohydrate-laden foods, such as many breads, cakes, cookies, and pasta. This time, being in Taiwan, I actually sampled pork dumplings, pork buns (xiao long bao), green onion pancakes, sugar-laden treats from the dessert bar at the hotel buffet, hash browns, and even Afternoon Tea savories and sweets. If you know me at all, I have never eaten like a bird. I’m one of those “All or None” folks who eat until every last morsel is gone. God forbid I waste food when so many in the world are starving! That’s the way I was raised, the way I’ve taught myself. You will rarely see me with leftovers. And I eat fast, practically inhaling the entire plate before you’ve even finished asking me a question during a meal.  So let me tell you: being keto-adapted allows something inside your mind and body to tell when you’ve eaten enough. Even some sugar-y thing. I’ve never had this capacity in my life before; I swear, this feels like a new-found super power! Now you don’t necessarily have to be fat-adapted to follow steps 1-3 above. But trust me: It’ll certainly make the process much easier.

Being keto-adapted is an amazing state of being. Your blood sugar levels are pretty even so you don’t get “hangry” as you once did when you were eating high carbs and low fat. And you just have energy and enthusiasm about life that just wasn’t there before, able to tackle things you’ve been putting off, trying new things you’d normally be afraid of, like selling your house and moving into a RV. Now my husband and I feel a sense of freedom and joy, excited about the life ahead of us with our family. With all that we’ve gone through, there’s one thing we know for sure: health is the ultimate wealth.

 

**Note: Before coming on board working part-time at Heads Up Health to help with writing and social media,  I had been avidly using it to track my own ketones, glucose, GKI, plus body composition measurements. I especially love how I’m able to centralize my medical records and blood tests such as my hbA1c, thyroid and cholesterol numbers, and track the data I’m self-collecting with devices like the  Keto-Mojo, apps like MyFitnessPal,  and wearables such as the Oura ring (I’ve preordered one because that’s a huge area in health I’d like to get better at: sleep.)

If interested, I wrote a blog post for Heads Up that detailed how my husband and I tracked his GKI during his battle with cancer, using the keto diet as an adjunct with conventional treatments. I also help maintain a keto for cancer resources page there.

keto

From the Archives (When We First Discovered the Cancer and Ketogenic Diet)

Posted on by lily / 4 Comments
Darrell driving blissmobil

I can’t believe I just stumbled upon an old blog on Tumblr I had written in despair, back when we first found out Darrell had cancer. Rereading it now (Jan 2018) is surreal, transporting us back in time to when it all began (Nov 7, 2014), when our lives divided in half, changing to “Life Before Cancer” and “Life After Cancer.”

Funny how memory can fail us; I’ve been actually telling people we started this keto life in 2015 when we actually started eating keto at the end of 2014. Whatever the case, it’s the best thing we’ve ever done for our health, for our lives.

If interested, check out what I wrote during this time. It was a time when I was scared as hell, and also a nice peek into our initial experiences eating keto for cancer (and the irony of learning how to eat keto while devouring  mac n’ cheese, plus lots of beer):

On Borrowed Time: My Husband’s Cancer

 

rv life

Starting Over: A New Life

Posted on by lily / 3 Comments
New Life in a Blissmobil

Life, as I’ve known it, is about to change.

All my life, I’ve lived in the Bay Area, in California. Born in Millbrae, CA, raised in Concord–a tunnel away from San Francisco–and over two decades in Berkeley as an adult, I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by my entire family and circle of friends. I actually have friends from elementary and middle school I am still close to. Unlike my husband, a transplant from Texas, I have never lived anywhere else.

But now we’re planning to say good-bye to life as we know it. The comfortable life that my husband, Darrell, and I have built together as a family.

Recently, I entered a local bookstore in Oakland, scanning the shelves for books that remotely resembled what we were about to do.

There were no books with titles such as:

So You Want to Leave Everything and Everyone You’ve Ever Known and Travel the World in a RV.

How to Homeschool Your Middle-School-Aged Kid While Traveling the World.

So You Can’t Afford Your Mortgage Anymore, Can’t Fully Retire Just Yet, and Still Need to Learn How to Make Money, Yet Want to Do It Remotely from Anywhere in the World.

How To Take Your Child Out of School to Learn about Different Cultures and the Kindness and Beauty that Exists On This Earth, Despite What the News and Popular Media Would Have Us Believe.

The Side Hustle: Learning to Juggle Multiple Irons in the Pan in Your 40s and 50s.

How Not to Scar Your Teenager So That He Ends Up Writing Scathing Memoirs About His Dysfunctional Family Life.

I joked with the woman helping me search for books that I should write these books. She nodded, laughing: “That’s a missed opportunity.” The writer inside me, the one who had paid so much money for an MFA in creative writing, vowed I would do it, even if what I churned out ended up resembling the Watchtower and Awake pamphlets I grew up reading and hawking door-to-door, as a child of a Jehovah’s Witness mother.

As I browsed the bookstore for signposts to this largely unknown world I was about to explore, I found glimmers of it in the Travel section, near the back corner.

There were travel memoirs. Travel books specific to a country, city, or region in alphabetical order, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Books loaded with glossy photos and fold-out maps. I wandered to the Children’s section. There were middle-grade books about bullies, space, magic, and zombies. But where were the stories — fiction and non-fiction — aimed at kids traveling the world?

The woman and I walked all over the bookstore, but there wasn’t, to my surprise, not much of a selection. For some odd reason, I thought there would be an abundance. Recently, there seems to be a surge of people online–on Instagram and on blogs–who are traveling in their RVs or vans (lots of hashtags on IG with the likes of #vanlife or #homeiswhereyouparkit—especially overland travel–which is what we’d love to do). We’d seen pictures of 4×4 RVs crossing creeks, in remote deserts, beaches, forests, all over the world: Mongolia, Australia, Columbia. We had become smitten with the Blissmobil, especially…

The idea was born the year my husband discovered he might have cancer. 2014. That was the year my husband sat me down and showed me all of his passwords to all things financial. It was the year we finally decided to hire an attorney to help us with a will, cashing in the coupon advertised in a local magazine aimed at parents for a free two-hour session in Alameda. It was the year our son was about to turn ten years old. My husband’s daughter, my stepdaughter, had just turned twenty-two years old and was still living in Istanbul for grad school. We didn’t have the heart to tell the kids that their father had cancer.

Not just yet.