A new strategy: the milk cure

[Lynda (Fl)]

I appreciate your sharing the details of the milk diet with us.  I learned some things and enjoyed your writing style. Thank you.

[Jan in Key West]

Hungry,
One of my favorite yoga teachers from India once said that as humans, one of the hardest things for us to do is to be gentle with ourselves....could be a good time to give it a shot.

[HungryinTN]

I did remarkably well while my boyfriend was in town over the weekend, sticking pretty close to my low-carb, paleo standards, drinking minimal alcohol and lots of water.  By Saturday morning I was back down from 181 to 175.  Then there was a bit of a catastrophe on Saturday (he accidentally broke an irreplaceable family heirloom loading the dishwasher...) that sent me into a bit of an emotional tailspin and my yet-unhealed bad relationship with food reared its ugly head for a couple of meals.  But now it's back to reality.  I'm starting the morning with some locally fresh-pressed vegetable juice by a company called Arden's Garden.  I know everyone here probably has different opinions on juicing, but I feel like it helps sometimes when I am trying to detox after some bad food choices.  So I'll have my juice first, then in a little while my BP coffee, and then a glass or two of whole milk in place of lunch.  I'm planning to have grass-fed ground beef patties and julienned zucchini for dinner.  The good thing is I'm running out of money again so I'm forced to use up what's in my kitchen.  Fortunately boyfriend was sweet enough to buy me a few groceries before he left town to make sure I could get through until the end of the month.  I should have enough $ left to supplement what he bought me with a few more veggies and another gallon or so of milk, plus a tank of gas to go to Tennessee for a meeting at the end of the month (right before payday, of course).  But I do NOT have enough to go out to eat or for drinks, which is a good thing. 

Re-starting weight today is 179.8. 

[HungryinTN]

Starting over again....again!  We celebrated both of my parents' birthdays over the weekend and I let my family be a very bad influence on me.  I had more sugar over the weekend than I've had in total in all of the past year, probably.  My sister and her husband brought a crustless cheesecake.  I tried to refuse to participate but my sister is VERY sensitive right now having just finally given up on fertility treatments after eight years of trying to have a baby, and it seemed easier to just eat it rather than hurt her feelings.  The next night she was sick so we stayed home and ordered pizza instead of going out.  To everyone else a gluten-free pizza isn't worth the indulgence, so they all ordered full-gluten pizza from Mellow Mushroom and I got myself a gluten-free from Dominos (loaded with vegetables, of course!).  It was a splurge, but it didn't ruffle feathers as much as abstaining would have.  I have explained to my sister before how much I pay for any slip.  The last time I drank a beer it took me almost a week to feel like myself again.  Sunday we went to the zoo and were all starving by the time we got halfway done.  The on-site options were abysmal.  Not even salad.  My father and I split an order of the most not-worth-it nachos on the planet.  And then after the zoo we went out for Mexican.  And all of that is on top of the free-flowing alcohol (including Baileys, of all things), all weekend long. 

I'm home now and back to normal, and too broke to splurge on anything.  I have vegetables, grass-fed ground beef, bacon, eggs, and lots of butter and coconut oil to get through until the end of the month.  I have enough money to pick up enough raw milk to supplement my diet, and hopefully by some more fresh produce, but I have to make a trip to Tennessee next week so I have to save every penny I can to make sure I can get there and back. 

Today's weight:  181.2 (oops!) 

[HungryinTN]

I definitely started detoxing yesterday, evident by the number and nature of my bathroom trips (thank goodness I work in a home office!).  I haven't picked up any more milk yet.  I had my BP coffee at about 7:30 and sipped on it until about 9:30, then eggs, bacon, and sautéed cabbage around 11:00.  I made extra bacon and snacked on it through the afternoon, then for dinner I had a grass-fed beef patty and julienned zucchini noodles cooked in butter and topped with a splash of organic tomato sauce and olive oil.  In addition, I drank about 80 oz of water and four or five cups of detox tea.  I also snacked on raw milk cheese in the afternoon and evening. 

Weight today: 179.4

[Jan in Key West]

A couple of Hungry's posts over the last few days brought to mind this missive by Dr. Michael Eades, my initial mentor into low carb/higher animal protein living many years ago. It speaks to lots of issues we all experience from time to time. http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/weight-loss/meditating-in-the-garden-of-self-loathing/


And on a personal note, being in the throes of our annual Fantasy Fest activities.....we're going to need a long fast to return to some level of normal....thankfully, it's only ten days long!

[HungryinTN]

Thanks, Jan!  Great article! 

Another good day under my belt.  Though it was also kind of a bad day, thanks to Comcast (aka the Evil Empire).  But that's a story for another time.  I had my BP coffee late yesterday because I hadn't closed my dishwasher all the way (yay dishwasher!) the night before when I went to turn it on, so I had to run it when I woke up.  I had a couple of cups of herbal tea first thing instead and had my coffee closer to noon, which put my first meal off a little as well.  When I did eat, around 2, I think, I had an omelette with raw milk cheese and diced red pepper and a side of sautéed cabbage.  I got stress-hungry (I'm editing a report for my office and it is TERRIBLE - I'm basically having to rewrite the whole thing) later in the afternoon and snacked on some bacon before dinner, which was a grass-fed beef patty and squash "casserole" (basically yellow squash and sweet onion cooked on the stovetop in butter and coconut oil and then mixed together with parmesan cheese and baked for a little while) with a little Bubbie's sauerkraut on the side.  I had lots of tea and water throughout the day and experienced a few "detox" bathroom trips.  Some people don't like that feeling, but it makes me feel like what I'm doing is working and that my liver congestion is evacuating my body on the double quick. 

Today's weight:  178.0  (-3.2 from Tuesday - hooray for liver flushing!)

[HungryinTN]

No weight loss today, which is no surprise considering TOM.  But I did sleep well last night, which is pretty major.  Normally during TOM I don't sleep much at all.  But I went to bed a little before 11, dozed between 11-12 before getting into a deep sleep, and slept straight through until 6:15.  I haven't had any major insomnia episodes all week, as a matter of fact.  Can't complain about that! 
I've also been incorporating a little bit of movement into my days.  I got up one morning and did a short workout on my stationary bike - nothing strenuous, no "chronic cardio," but twenty minutes of movement that helped me get going that day.  I've also been getting up and doing yoga poses and isometric exercises about every half hour, mainly so I'm not just sitting all day all day every day.  I'm actually just a little bit sore across my upper back today, in a good way.  So maybe in addition to TOM water retention I'm actually gaining a little bit of lean mass? 
 Today's weight:  178.0

[HungryinTN]

I haven't posted in a while - been on a bit of an internet-presence hiatus in general for personal reasons - but I've been doing the Milk Cure again as a spring cleanse and I wanted to revisit this thread. It's interesting to see where I was versus where I am now, and the connection between the two. During the fall my life was such a mess. I experienced great success doing the milk cure but I was not in a position to sustain it at first, and then my milk supply dried up until last week. I'm still not really trying to lose weight right now, as I am focusing on healing a damaged metabolism, but I am certainly trying not to gain. My whole life I have been either gaining or losing. I don't think I have ever stayed within three pounds for more than a week.
After my initial success on the milk cure, I gained ten pounds back over the course of about a month, during which time I was either out of town or entertaining company every weekend. Over the holidays, I continued to bulk up (as seen in my defunct "Fresh Start for 2015" diary). Since then I've taken several more trips out of town, started having panic attacks again (which I thought I had shaken when I went grain free), and gained a few more pounds. Because of menstrual irregularities, I decided to increase my carb intake by adding a sweet potato at dinner. My usual day consisted of 3-4 eggs in the morning, sometimes with a couple of slices of uncured, dry-rubbed bacon, and a spoonful of sauerkraut; lunch might be a grass-fed ground beef patty with zucchini noodles in butter and a salad of spring greens; for dinner a piece of chicken or fish with cauliflower and a sweet potato (always plenty of healthy fats with my veggies).  I was aiming for an intake of 2000-2500 calories for weight maintenance. Exercise consisted of body weight exercises a couple of times a week and occasional walks, but mostly taking it easy to avoid undue stress to my metabolic system. My weight had more-or-less stabilized around 188 for about a month but then a couple of weeks ago my grandmother passed away and I spent a week in the food desert that is my father's hometown. As usual, I managed to stay grain-free and sugar-free, but that's about all I could say about it. I doubt anyone in that town has even heard of coconut oil.

So I started back on the milk cure two days ago at 192.4. I haven't weighed today, but I have measured, and my waist is UP two inches. And it doesn't feel like bloating. It feels like fat. It's like my body is having the total opposite response to the milk than it did in September. 

I'm going to keep up the milk for now anyway because I'm almost broke and I have to go out of town for a week in a few days, which will be expensive. Thankfully my parents are coming to see me for my birthday a few days after I get back, so I will only have to go hungry for a couple of days if I run out of money, milk, and canned salmon (which I always keep in the pantry in case of budget crisis).  I only hope that I can still fit into my work clothes by the time I get to the conference. 

I just want to wear a bra size that's sold in stores one of these days. 

[Rita]

Hi Hungry,


I'm so happy to see your post.  I've missed you. 


Bummer on the 2 inches.   Do you feel constipated at all?

[HungryinTN]

Not really constipated. Not quite "regular," either. What I'm thinking is that I'll just drop the carbs back down to zero by doing eggs and broth for a couple of days before the conference just to minimize bloat and help me fit into my clothes comfortably and confidently. I'm taking magnesium and vitamin C which some bloggers suggest to help with the constipating effects of the milk cleanse, plus some dandelion root tea a couple of times a day and milk thistle once a day to boost liver function. So it may just be that it's more glycogen buildup than I'm accustomed to from all of the lactose?  I've also reduced the amount of milk, which feels a little counterintuitive to me right now in terms of metabolic healing.


Overall I feel great with the milk, just like before. I've been focused and had great energy. I checked my weight a little while ago and it looks like it's down 3-4 pounds from when I started. The waist expansion is just frustrating because it could be the difference between being able to wear my nice, professional clothes or looking like a frump for this big, national conference I have to go to.