Hi y'all, I'm back. I haven't been on here much lately because I've been spending so much of my time in the hospital. My Dad went in to have open heart surgery and for the last two months has been in and out of the hospital a lot because no one could figure out what was wrong with him. As I come from a very close family, this disrupted everyone's life, and my way of eating. I'm not complaining here, he's worth it......

All this has really brought home to me the importance of eating right, for your health as much as for anything else, including weight loss. It has also meant learning a hard lesson about my eating habits. This way of life had become so easy for me in the two months I was on it........ Until my Dad went into the hospital.

I'd like to suggest to everyone to try and make out a plan to help you make it thru uncontollably hard times, like when you have to eat out a lot, you're under a lot of stress, or when you can't control every little thing you eat. I'm quite proud of myself over all. I only gained 2 pounds through it all, and managed to stay away from most anything sweet. That's not easy when you're scared your Dad is going to die before someone figures out what is wrong with him....... Or when you're at the hospital for several days, all day long, and after already eating a less than great salad for lunch, you're looking at the pizza, and another salad (which is wilted and rusty looking) and your nerves are shot. Believe me when I say, you will probably eat the pizza......

After the first couple of days I had decided that I didn't need the stress of beating myself up if I didn't eat "all the right foods". I tried to stay away from sugar and make the better choices. But sometimes I just said "Screw it!!" and had the pizza. (My comfort food)

The good news is that my Dad should be fine. The bad news is:

DON'T assume that just because your cholesterol numbers are good, that you'll not have any heart problems. One of the reasons they couldn't figure out what was wrong with my Dad was because ALL of his blood tests all along were perfectly normal. (In fact good) He also had no symptoms at first and when he did, he didn't have "normal" symptoms and that totally confused the doctors..... And he had major heart problems all along. They did a double bypass on him (one artery was 100% clogged and the other was 90%) and replaced his heart valve.

Another thing I learned the last few weeks:

About 3 weeks ago, my hubby and I both had full blood workups. I finally got around to calling the doctor's office back today and both our test results were great. For us anyway, this way of life did not hurt our blood chemistry. In fact it helped my husband's. He had always had high cholesterol. The bad one of course. I never have had bad cholesterol levels, and eating this way did not cause me to start having bad numbers, so..........
I'm not sure it really matters anymore, after seeing what happened to my Dad, but according to our blood tests, we're healthy!!!!

Secondly, even though I did go off it for a while, everything is okay and I'm going to go back to eating right, and it shouldn't be a big deal.

I do, however, have a question, if you all don't mind helping me. Since I've been off of it for several weeks, should I do induction again? I didn't gain a lot, and the only thing I really had any of was pizza and some bread here and there. What do you all think?

Thanks in advance for your help, and, well, just for listening.......