How to conserve your wood supplies and stay warm and healthy.

[Seasoned Oak]

AS a part time burner i only us about a cord or less a year.Still have 2-3 cords i split &stacked 3 years ago. Since i cant use the stove on sunny days and when it over 35-40 outside that limits my wood use.

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Congratulations on a great turnaround. I have found that diet works for me too, it's basically low carb and dairy. I can shed about 10 pounds in a few weeks just by cutting them out. However, I can't do the niacin and high does of vitamin C make my stomach acidic. With the niacin I turn beet red and feel like I have the worlds worse case of the hives, even at half that dose. Had to stop because it was freaking out my coworkers and had no effect on my cholesterol levels. I have genetically high cholesterol on both sides of family. Diet, exercise, niacin, etc. had no effect on my levels. Statins have helped me get them back to normal. That was until my last blood test in which my levels plummeted. Triglyceride level went down too. They were better than my wife's low levels! (HDL 41, LDL 87) There was only one change for that test... I had stopped drinking coffee. A bit of research for why that would have an effect turned up an interesting bit on cholesterol science. We drink unfiltered coffee from a Bodum press pot. It turns out that unfiltered coffee is very high in terpenes. And terpenes convert into cholesterol when metabolized. I am due for my annual blood test next month. I switched to mostly tea drinking since then. If the levels stay low I will be dropping statin dosage to a lower level and retested.

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to share that personal info. I'm a little confused though, at first you say you found diet worked for you too, but then you say Diet,,,, had no effect on levels????
As for the niacin, most people flush pretty good when they first start taking it, but if you start low and gradually bring up the dose it doesn't take long before you can handle the mega doses they recommend. I still feel the flush once in a while if I take it on an empty stomach, but I don't get that strong rash like I have hives anymore, it's just a warm feeling on my skin, and this may sound weird, but I kind of started to enjoy it.
Vitamin C is an acid, so it you have problems with acid food, it might be hard to take.
That coffee thing troubles me, I initially eliminated it from my diet, just because I was doing a purifying thing, but started drinking it again after I had lost the weight and my cholesterol levels had dropped. All info I had read about it suggested that it had no effect on cholesterol levels, providing you don't take cream and sugar with it. Guess I better do some more reading.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm overdue to have my levels checked again. I even have the paper work from the doctor I'm suppose to take to the lab to get the blood work, just haven't gone in yet. I should take care of that and see where I stand. If it turns out good I won't bother giving up my coffee, if not I may have to rethink things a bit. ?

 

[gyrfalcon]

That coffee thing troubles me, I initially eliminated it from my diet, just because I was doing a purifying thing, but started drinking it again after I had lost the weight and my cholesterol levels had dropped. All info I had read about it suggested that it had no effect on cholesterol levels, providing you don't take cream and sugar with it. Guess I better do some more reading.

Lumber-Jack, coffee is actually *good* for you in all sorts of ways, they keep finding out. The one exception is unfiltered coffee, as from a coffee press. The filters most of us use, however we make coffee, take out that compound that jacks up the cholesterol.

 

[begreen]

Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to share that personal info. I'm a little confused though, at first you say you found diet worked for you too, but then you say Diet,,,, had no effect on levels????
As for the niacin, most people flush pretty good when they first start taking it, but if you start low and gradually bring up the dose it doesn't take long before you can handle the mega doses they recommend. I still feel the flush once in a while if I take it on an empty stomach, but I don't get that strong rash like I have hives anymore, it's just a warm feeling on my skin, and this may sound weird, but I kind of started to enjoy it.
Vitamin C is an acid, so it you have problems with acid food, it might be hard to take.
That coffee thing troubles me, I initially eliminated it from my diet, just because I was doing a purifying thing, but started drinking it again after I had lost the weight and my cholesterol levels had dropped. All info I had read about it suggested that it had no effect on cholesterol levels, providing you don't take cream and sugar with it. Guess I better do some more reading.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm overdue to have my levels checked again. I even have the paper work from the doctor I'm suppose to take to the lab to get the blood work, just haven't gone in yet. I should take care of that and see where I stand. If it turns out good I won't bother giving up my coffee, if not I may have to rethink things a bit. ?

The no carb diet works for me to reduce weight quickly, but unfortunately this has no relationship with my cholesterol levels. That's why I asked about yours. You are lucky that your levels are responding nicely to the changes in lifestyle and diet. Mine did not until this last change where the variable was coffee. If you are drinking filtered coffee you might not notice a change. Filtered coffee has much lower oil content and thus lower terpenes. Note that I am double-damned with high cholesterol levels on my mother and father's side. You may not be as sensitive as I am. I've had blood tests for the past 16 yrs and nothing dietwise seemed to make a difference until the last test. If repeatable, it's unfiltered coffee that's affecting my levels. We'll see with the next blood test.

http://webhome.idirect.com/~wolfnowl/thyroid9.htm
http://www.livestrong.com/article/470929-pressed-coffee-high-cholesterol/

 

[SlyFerret]

At new years 2011, I was 230 pounds. Today, I hover right around 168. When I hit my goal weight, I wrote this blog post about how I got there. It took quite a bit of will power to change my habits. No idea what my cholesterol was before I started, but in October of 2011, it was at 169, and that was only 20 pounds into my weight loss.

http://matt.gehrisch.us/2012/04/07/i-have-reached-my-goal-weight/

-SF

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Nice blog SF, and congrats on the weight loss and birth of your son. Great combination of life changing events. From 230 down to 168 lbs, that is a awesome achievement.
You have some good advice in your 12 tips, on your blog.One thing I like to do now is observe what sorts of food people are buying at the grocery store, it's easy to tell just buy looking at their groceries which people are concerned about their diet, and those that are not.