RobertP

Being one who tries to see things besides the obvious, I would suggest that weight gain has less to do with calories and more to do with metabolic fitness and balance. Too many calories needing to be eaten suggests to me a need to accomodate for something missing. The subconscious can pretty much just send hunger signals, and the conscious needs to figure out what is needed. Diabetics for instance crave sugar. Not because they don't have enough, they just don't 'feel' like they have enough in the sections of their brain that measure this sort of thing. More calories means among other things, deficiency in other things that will help create and maintain gray matter, as well as an absence of craving creating parasites that want to get fed and also directly poison the nerves and brain. If only anything was simple. I know I would use all the above and any more that I become aware of, don't eat too much, get what I need from what I eat, and feed me but not the bad critters that seem so willing and ready to take up residence on our American diet. I know I will have to learn more. It can't be this easy, can it?

The Redmond clay looks similar on paper to the Pascalite. Let us know what you think. Also, it looks reasonably rich in trace minerals. Maybe you could put some in your garden soil as one of the sources.

Ah, advice, talking with my conscious to your conscious mind when really somehow we need to get to the emotion center. It listens to what we think and feels appropriately, or we feel it and think appropriately. Cycles. Advice? Forgive. You know that already. It's your burden you carry in not forgiving. If you can believe that strong enough, that subconscious listener might get a clue and take on the charge and attitude of the belief rather than the belief taking on the charge of the thought. Cycles. I first learned this when I found a surprising amount of debt on my credit cards by an authorized signer. It was enough that I was hollow. Angry? No. Sad? No. Bewildered? Not really. What to do. I mention it because later I learned that our feelings run off what we think we should feel from what we believe, and in looking back, I had no belief or setup for that particular situation, so I just looked at it, looked at options of what I could feel, as they came on they all seemed dumb, so I rejected them all, and refinanced the house. Good advice? I don't know. I still work on it for deeper rooted stuff, not always easy. Also, forgiveness with me links with a replacement of lost trust, and it shouldn't. If the grudge is gone, the trust is back somehow, I need to find that line bettter. Pray, be thankful, that seems to be a great neutralizer. Gratitude, feeling it permeate you, seems to generate light. Give thanks in all things. Like in The Hiding Place, the women were in a concentration camp, and one sister said Thank you for the fleas, the other sister hesitated on that one, they did anyway, and it turned out the fleas kept the guards away and gave them just a little freedom, less oppression in that circumstance, and they did end up being thankful for the fleas. Hope it helps. Oh, if you really want to be off the wall, I would look into Pascalite. It cleans out physical junk that won't pass and kills bad guys along the way, quarter to half teaspoon, once or twice a day. When the 'stuff' passes, sometimes the 'stuff' passes, strange correlation. :) Good luck either way.

Being one who has some kind of negative reaction to wheat and being made aware it is among the top 4 allergens, I don't really get to say what I think or ask for ideas along the lines of my experience in class. Wheat for man, right? Right. Allergy schmallergy, you just don't understand the scriptures properly. It isn't as cool to me as it is to most because of that and trouble with fruits. On the other hand it presents an interesting puzzle. Thankfully I don't have to eat wheat like I have to avoid coffee.

I thought I would post the latest here. I have pondered at times how to break the cycle. If I ate better, I would feel better, I would make better stuff, but I don't feel better so I eat what's handy and spiral down. Now mind you, I don't buy stuff that kills me, so there is a stabilizer there in weak moments. My wife has nothing related to this, gets an hour or 3 less of sleep per night than me, I float around 9-10 hrs a night, but have shaved it to 8 or 9 lately. Since she doesn't have this, she becomes a great help in keeping me floating higher in this mess than it might otherwise be. She is a good cook who gets the rules, and just how to break them... On to another cycle. If I studied harder, I would do better, I would make more, I could buy everything and find out the best things among them. The reality, it hampers education, earning power, and therefore options on how to get out. Another cycle. No one can tell, but I have found usefull stuff on this thread, new stuff, reinforcement of things I have heard elsewhere, so I venture again with things I have learned, maybe, just maybe, it can benefit someone. I have mentioned that we like David Williams around our parts. He had an issue last year where he devoted the whole thing to medicinal clays, Pascalite specifically. My dad was impressed and got a pound for all of us. I tried it, liked it for half a week, then didn't like it. I kept it handy for other listed uses, but a week or so ago I did one of my searches, see what comes up, what can beat this thing, it's cycling back on me. This one suggested diatomaceous earth. I think my Pascalite clay is in that category, and it's sitting in my pantry. I started taking it, needed a little less sleep, felt better, food started smelling better. A week and a half back on it now, today was terrible, started strong, got the blinding headache, got all the normal cravings that are against the rules to keep this at bay, but in that state of being, I couldn't get a bearing on what all these signals meant. With that, I ate all the junk, all the stuff that doesn't do me any good. I said I don't buy it. I lied a little. I'm married. Things end up here that are delicious and hopefully worth the price I pay for them. But they didn't crash me out so bad. In summary, I would point people who are interested to medicinal clays, and maybe Pascalite specifically since that is one I read good things about and have actually tried. Follow your own radar. For breaking a cycle, it's cheap in comparison to almost everything I've tried. It seems to be enough by itself but also make my other supplements work better. Garden produce grown in soil I spiked with trace minerals last year also seems to have taken me to another level. I have had a garden for 5 years and liked it, but I do think the trace minerals added something noticeable and good. Now my food does the same thing as some of my favorite supplements, which hasn't happened before. My wife is eating green lettuce from the garden and she has never liked green lettuce. Now she planted 4 extra plants to keep up. Food always had something missing, no matter what almost, which drove me to the supplements in the first place. Now maybe I have some ideas of what part of the problem is. Gardening, pascalite, cranberry, I still have variations of SCD around, although anyone actually doing it would laugh and say it's pointless. I have 1 SCD meal per day still. It helps without withering me away. I offer it as my opinion that clearing this junk will let the hormones stabilize. These little parasites send signals that mess stuff up, and when I have moments of clarity, it is abundantly clear to me that the body wants to be healthy and feel good as much as I do and when it has those opportunities, it seems to excitedly snap right into shape, if only for long enough to tell me it can be done. It is being done. I have to feel the pain and fly against the gradient to get out. It has barriers to get through, hurdles to clear. Some of them I am seeing more clearly, I think, until they fade. I keep looking. I hope you all are too.

I appreciate the previous posts. I am learning a lot. I hope I have something to add that is useful as well. I have thought at times to report here on what I'm learning and recent successes. It is slow. I can't find it in me to give up though. There is always a loose thread to pull at and see where it leads. Sit here and hurt, or pull the loose thread that looks like maybe it will be a way out. I'll pull the loose thread whenever possible. I have pulled at a lot of them. For now, most of my attention is on the parasite model, specifically for now Candida. At first, the low blood sugar model, hypoglycemia, gave a little relief, way slow carbs like vegetables, mild grains. Since, it has the Candida overlay, so I see it as both, and things for both help the other. My big discovery lately is biotin. I knew already that it can help with multiple chemical sensitivity. MCS mainly means the liver is sick of cleaning poisons. Since Candida internally can create these, and chemicals externally can create others that take a similar pathway inside for detoxification, reducing these from every angle available helps, and keeping up the known nutrients that speed up this detox process is also helpful. I have known about Biotin for a long time, but I started running again (I have never done this for more than 2 weeks straight, other forms of exercise last a little longer) that seemed to move junk through and bring on another cold, one of the reasons I stop. Biotin both helps the liver clear poison faster AND keeps Candida from colonizing so there is less to detoxify. What a deal? I looked it up since I was experiencing it and hadn't thought about it in this model. I thought it just worked because it was a B vitamin. When I looked it up, I found this. The Role of Biotin in the Treatment of Candida. Since I experienced it, then read it, it seemed to hit home. Pantethine and biotin, what a team! Of course, the Pantethine is from the coenzyme active B vitamins that I'm such a fan of. Changing my whole makeup is a task though. It is like taking a big ship and holding that rudder through the impulses that would take me off course, hoping I am operating on the right set of facts, and knowing I am succeeding at times because I get worse. During the worse time there is no marker to say this is working, just that what I am doing right led me there, and a day or two later, if I hang on, it's a little brighter on the back side. I seem to be on the way out, for about 3 weeks straight now, and for 5 months straight in other ways. It is a low patient climb that doesn't always seem like it on the way out. I mark part of the start of this current round of progress to the specific carbohydrate diet, which I sort of wasted away on, but also it gave me some markers to pay attention to. Then the Cranberry, biotin seems a valuable addition, only a week I can say it has worked so far, but that is something. Exercise, but I have to leave feeling pretty good, not tired. I have to carefully monitor the level while I'm doing it or I just raise my stress levels and fatigue. That's no good. Easy does it. Below are my favorites, for now. Anticandida Cranberry GSE Biotin Kolorex blended in a shake Best diet I can figure out in the mean time. Nutritional Super B's from Wellness Resources, let me know if there is another like this out there. CoQ10 CDP Choline Chromium Polynicotinate Glandular extract, shotgun kind, a little each, thyroid, adrenal, thymus, a few others. Omega Gold 3/6/9 Good digestive enzymes More, many more, but this is a decent little core in my way of seeing things. Even this post is way over simplified in some ways, I've been busting my head on this for a few years, 21 or more, but I think I am starting to see part of the root of this junk. It's big. It reminds me that I can ride a unicycle. I tried someone else's, and the crank was a different size, so I couldn't just up and ride it. For how complex this is, there is a root that lets me see a bit of the spectrum of this whole thing. But maybe I shouldn't say that. Even at this rate, I told my wife I feel closer than ever to getting over this, which I've fought longer than she's known me, but since it has an element that teases me, it will probably be another decade. I hope not of course. I feel progress though, and that is tremendous. That is largely what I am reporting on here. Possibly at least one person here can find at least one thing I suggest helpful. For the thyroid stuff, can't remember if I posted here, but even that has a Candida connection. The Candida uses a structure to hold to your intestine (transglutamase in the article below), and the immune system attacks that, and that substance finds its way to the thyroid, and activates antibodies there. I'm sure there are other pieces to this puzzle, but this (Candida and digestive balance) has my attention for now, and it is requires patience and consistency to see if it's useful. Digestive Alert – Thyroid, Celiac, & Candida | Health and Wellness News Do I believe spiritual healings can take place? Definitely. When I have prayed and sought healing through that channel or means, the answer seems to be that I ought to learn something and come out wiser for this than just to have a gimme granted by a magic wand, but who knows for sure. Maybe I read it wrong and could have been over this years ago. This is clearly the path I am taking. It certainly has given me a point of view to see things from.

For my part, I have considered Joseph Smith's words, where he says things like he saw two beings whose brightness and glory defy all description, and Oliver Cowdery's flowery words trying to explain his joy of seeing an angel blasting the shadows of darkness away, and I am satisfied that I only have words to say what I mean. I lean toward Joseph Smith's style. Description is not possible, so I don't attempt anymore. I'll just get lost in words that don't quite do. I was born in this church, have had every opportunity to leave it, and have decided to stay. My parents and teachers taught me to get a testimony, which in some ways I was born with, but teenage years dimmed that enough for me. I couldn't let go completely until I knew it was true, or knew it wasn't. So I read, and when I was ready to give up, I would come across a passage saying I better be sure because this wasn't a light thing. So I kept on. I would get tired again, no answer like I was taught could be. A few times like this, but I couldnt deny what was millions of other's testimonies, couldn't write it off quite that easily. And the testimony came. Later on my mission, a man gave fantastic reasons why others could claim the same experience that I describe above and belong to other churches. It caused me trouble. I told God that it didn't matter my lineage, what lines went to what pioneers, and other strong members from later, it was irrelevant, if I was leading people astray, let me out of there, or more directly, I will leave, but teach me where to go instead. I would not waste my time, for it either didn't matter at all, or I was not on the right track or helping anyone. The answer received at that time was more than sufficient to stand through whatever came on my mission, and long since. But words are all I have. And I can't prove anything. If I could, where would be the power? In me? I decided long ago I couldn't prove anything, and if I could, that would mean the answer was right here on the earth for all to see and for me to show at will if they would follow and look. As it is, the answer is outside this world, giving us something to reach for if we will have the beginnings of faith. The means of finding it is truly scientific. It is the same for anyone. Why do I stay with this church? I have asked, and God has answered, and I need to be ready to account for this in a positive way, not to my condemnation. Are there scriptures? Sure. Alone they are nothing to me though. Without a testimony, something that confirms to my soul, they are just words. That would be my best answer. I wanted to know, although maybe already knew in an underlying way, and kept at it until I knew, and then there was no turning back. Challenges, sure, but do I know it's true? I do. It's in my heart and being, and mind, but I mention that last on purpose. When my mind has played tricks on me, I have had to hold to my testimony while my whole perception of reality split around me and rewelded, the same, but a little different. When posed with holding to my knowledge or my testimony, I was glad to choose my testimony. That is where the light is. Knowledge without the Spirit is darkness. I just read over your tarry note. Absolutely. I had to wait, I read of even leaders of the church who had to wait, and there is something to be said for patience. I am satisfied in hindsight that the Lord wasn't going to give me something for the asking, and there had to be some proof that I wanted it in a real way, not superficial before it was given. So that, in a nutshell, is why I stay with this church.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to second guess as it may seem, and my brain was stuck more broadly on what I was thinking than specifically what that is about, a lapse in my thinking like I do sometimes, I suppose. I'm afraid I learned some good things there (yes, for at least semi-obvious reasons) that taught me how to retrain triggers that I thought I was a victim to, finding the root of emotion and learning to change it, reverse the rotation of the auger or the cycle. It seems to have far reaching implications as I'm taught it works for heroin, cocaine, pornography, and a few other things, but now that you mention it, nicotine isn't on the list. Maybe that's different? Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, learning to identify triggers and retrain them is the core of it I suppose. Noticing the trigger, reinterpreting it to have the meaning that is desired so it doesn't run away with you. I can tell you of the people I know who HAVE quite smoking successfully and talk about it, one procrastinated, just waited until tomorrow to buy more since he knew he was a good procrastinator, one used the patch, then cut it in half rather than buy the box with smaller sizes, and another learned he just had to wait 45 seconds. That one was interesting to me, but he would let it pass, 45 seconds at a time, and the waves would get smaller. What I learn from that is there is more than one way, and maybe the same doesn't quite work for everyone. My old ward mission leader was funniest, because he liked smoking and was addicted, liked the bug repellent properties, oh, and hated the church and handed out anti-mormon literature at Temple Square before joining. He didn't want to quit at all, so he would tell me semi regularly that he had no sympathy for people who couldn't quit smoking. If he could do it, anyone could. I am not quite there with him. I think I have a little sympathy. There is an effort either way, to fight coming back, or to come back, or so it has been with me. Why keep it buried? I would suggest there is more peace in coming back, if it has its own variation of opposition associated with it.

I appreciate the thoughts.

I would not be able to answer your question, and I have wondered the same thing at times. Clearly women are not less than man in an eternal perspective, or who would fill eternity with only women, or only men. There is nothing if that is all. But I notice even Nephi leaving Jerusalem kept this custom. The begats are always men, except the note of Beth Sheba in Jesus' geneaology of all people to mention by name. The only thing I can suggest is I find it difficult at best to find the only way to take this as women being disrespected directly. If it's the way things are, it's kind of the way things are for that time, and we come along later with different conditioning and different eyes, and not knowing why assume it must be because they are less? I won't offer an answer, but I hesitate to agree immediately that it had anything to do with disrespect. The snippets I do get when women ARE mentioned, which isn't often, gives no flavor of disrespect at all, when they are about doing their business, and Jesus with the woman taken in adultery, he GAVE the law. Sarai, Abish, Ruth, Bath Sheba, Mary, Mary Magdalene, I'm straining, but when you mention the punishments, I see where you are coming from, but when I see the day to day life, what little is recorded, I don't see disrespect, but hey, I'm a guy. I might have a skewered point of view on that.

Funny, my sister is active LDS, has been her whole life, returned missionary, and admits she is attracted to guys with tattoos. :) I'm just sayin', they're out there. She doesn't admit it much around us holier than thou brothers of hers, but I heard her say it, and she meant it. Tattoos make me squirm a little, it's true, and I wonder what's wrong with her, but maybe I'm getting over it in some ways. As for the lifestyle stuff, there's always a way out. Start by just believing that. It's true. Innergold here has a site he recommends, Candeo: A powerful and anonymous online training program to help individuals understand and overcome pornography addiction has useful counsel as well, specifically for certain elements of addiction that are obvious when you go there, but can readily be modified to other addictions I am sure. Chin up. It can be done. You can do it.

I'm married and have felt the same way since teenage years. Not sure what to do. I'm an odd duck and I know it. If I say what I think in Sunday School, it doesn't go far at all before the blank looks start. Even if I thought before I said it that it was right on target. Alas. Possibly marriage is the line, but differences people aren't comfortable with is more of a line I am familiar with. I try to mesh myself in with them, and I just can't do it. Yesterday, for instance, I was made aware unintentionally of a babysitting group that I am not a part of for a few people our age to get out on weekends. Have I thought to start one? Yes. Did I? No. Do I see all of them in the group at regular summer parties that I am not invited to at the house that neighbors my back yard? Yes. While I'm out back working in my garden? Yes. Do they look over and say hi? No. (What a relief, it's awkward enough already, but I have work to do) Do I grumble? As little as possible. I realize it is me they are uncomfortable with, and I know why. So I don't know if that helps, but my point of view is if there is a difference someone is uncomfortable with, you because of marriage status, me because of the eyes I see the world through and how that makes me see things, well, that's the road I'm on and I'm well aware when I go into blind mode and see what is in front of me and not get anything, I feel quite blind. So I can't join them, and it is oil and water. Am I part of the problem in this case with that attitude? Probably. We have a lot to learn. Bearing others' burdens is the instruction, but some burdens we just don't know how to bear, so we look at them blankly. Some are too heavy or strange for us to know how to pick up so directly. If that makes sense. I'm glad to see you're hanging in there. Keep it up!

Funny, I wrote a blog on this recently. I just had to get it out. Then this? Hrm. Don't forget the obvious. Light is intelligence, or part of intelligence, which is light and truth, or the light of truth. You convert light, which shines on something that exists, and the light shows the truth of that thing that exists, and you convert it into? Intelligence. Now you know something you didn't before. Only now it's light you can't see with your eyes, but it is light you comprehend in your mind, for instance to keep your car in the lane. Try that with your eyes closed and the car moving. Transduction. Changing energy from one form to another. Magnetism to electricity, electricity to light, wind to motion to electricity. I think it happens everywhere. Matter to touch, sound to hearing, so then what is taste and smell? All end up in the brain in their way. Yeah, that is a can of worms you open here, although the book is a hundred years old. I am sure I will be pondering on this for some time. I would go as far as desire to gratification of desire as being magnetic, and all emotions have a neurotransmitter element, which has an electrical element, and a magnetic element, which allows you to be attracted to something, while the neurotransmitter itself only has a small gap to jump. That small jump inside is connected to your connection to the world outside, and ultimately the universe if the light came from the sun. Not sure if that helps, but I had to throw that in since it is here. :) Just remember, we have two pin holes of light to take in the whole universe, and a leaky brain behind it. God knows everything. Seems he can see the light we can't, including the photons that don't hit his eyes directly, if that can be one way of looking at it. We are stuck only with the ones that bounce off something and hit our retina and optic nerve directly. A laser shining through a vacuum can't be detected from the side that I know of.

Addiction is addiction. You don't get what you need from what you need. To lose weight, it is not as simple as eating less calories than you burn. You can reduce your fat levels in much the same way you can reduce your oxygen levels. It will work while you are paying attention, but when the survival system designed to balance what it thinks you need for oxygen, you will do it. When it balances what it thinks it needs for fat using things like perception of leptin levels (versus actual level) to calculate how much thyroid stimulating hormone should be made for metabolism to fire up, or turn it down because of a perception of low energy, and fire up ghrelin for appetite, you find eating less calories only fires up the survival mechanisms of hunger, impulsiveness, and lethargy. If weight is lost, the body will make up the difference when you look away with a yo-yo effect. There is room for a little complexity here. If you don't have this, thank the Lord, seriously. How much will power does it take to not go to a bad site right now? Hopefully none, because you just don't want to, all the time. There is no will power involved at all for the non addict, or very little. If you 'want' to, but you don't 'want' to, then the minds are somewhat out of synch and they don't synch up quite so well. Addiction recovery has to do with synching the minds back up, higher and lower, among other things, and will power can be effectively be used to recondition the base response to temptation rather than actually resist temptation, although that can be a part of recovery. Truly though, if will power is being used, it refers to the discomfort of the temptation, and that releases adrenaline, which is a memory neurotransmitter among other things, and it burns the idea in rather than making it go away, and starts or continues the OCD cycle. Will power is not the answer at all in this context. Certainly not directly, although it possibly can fill in gaps during the recovery time. How much will power does it take me to not buy cigarettes every time I shop compared to a recovering addict to cigarettes. There is quite a difference. We are talking about a base survival mechanism gently out of line or possibly berserk. Some people need help to find out how they can recover. It is a trap by design and not all find it in them to free themselves, even with lots of prayer and other spiritual things alone and no help. But for them, there is hope and there is help for those who need it, for a modest fee. :) Talk to your bishop if help is needed on the financial front. It seems nothing worth anything is free. They need to exist to help you I'm afraid, so they need to be paid. I really am glad you have gotten through this without help Dravin, at least from this sphere that is more visible to us and directly from the Lord. That suggests great faith. Keep up the great work!

I would stop short of saying it's doctrine. It is not in my scriptures. As a person who believes the scriptures, and sees this history, I believe it is consistent enough to be a match. Doctrine? No, it's not quite at that level, or even close really. What John Taylor said sounds reasonable to me, and that would say more that the history is polluted with time. This does not equate to doctrine.