Hsterical

I can relate to the frustration of wrong ordered and being talked into something I didn’t want. I recently received two packages that I didn’t recognize the sender. I should have just wrote return to sender on them. They are for very expensive junk now I have to repackage them and return them. I received a third package too! That one I didn’t open and wrote return to sender on it. Obviously someone gave them my name and address. I’m so fusterated.

Thanks for your support, dear Nammu. Gosh, I hope there is some way to avoid getting even more wrong deliveries.

Just to clarify....Actuallly Veenmo didn't talk me into anything at all....they just gave me so much wrong information that they put through orders I did not make.

Oh, that’s even worse. I hope you are able to undo it.

I deal with that often I hate order things because of that. So I have my husband look things over now. I don't even fill out assistance forms anymore because my paranoia gets really bad.

Thank you, Victoria. I totally get it that you want your husband or someone else at times to help you.

I know what you mean about forms. When I first got dx'd, in my 50s, I could not fill out forms for 2 years. When I was in my 30s, I had a secretarial service and filled out forms for anyone that needed that.

I'm happy for you and y our husband for your compassionate relationship. I'm also fortunate to my partner. We don't live together, each of us having our own apartment in the same building. He has seen me hysterical, and he just helped me out.

My health care advisor wants me to have help, too. I have an in person appointment tomorrow with her and an agency woman to find a home care worker for me for several hours every day. I'm going to see if the worker will stay overnight, too, because I need assistance walking to the bathroom every two hours, and I have terrible balance, even with my walker, and am afraid of falling down when I am sleepy.

You need to eat protein. And since you are vegan, you need to be especially careful about meeting your protein needs. I listened to a podcast by a biologist and science popularizer while I was cooking a mostly vegan soup, except I missed commercial turkey stock with water. The podcast reviewed the latest studies of protein restriction in the mouse model, the limitations of extending its conclusions to humans, what we know from observational studies of various protein intake regimens in humans, and the methodology problems of those observational studies, such as infrequent self-reports of food intake. Then the biologist gave her recommendations.

In a nutshell: between the years 50 and 65, possibly, especially for sedentary individuals, protein restrictions might lead to better outcomes because less protein means less growth and that includes potential malignant cells. So, fewer cancers, possibly.

After 65, the trend reverses and more protein is better. More protein in this age group helps fight sarcopenia, and sarcopenia leads to frailty.

You are 84, you are a vegan, which makes obtaining enough protein from the diet challenging, you already have health issues that limit your mobility... you need that protein.

How is your bone density, by the way?

Do you eat legumes, tofu, tempeh? Do you eat nuts and seeds? Do you drink soy milk? Can you make an almond milk smoothie with frozen berries, nut butter, and vegan protein powder (pumpkin seed, pea protein, etc.)? Does any of this sound palatable? Using frozen rounds of overripe banana or ice cubes in a blender greatly improves the consistency of smoothies, making them far more palatable.

Let me tell you a funny story. From 2016 to 2021 I rented a room in a 2-1 apartment from a Peruvian gentleman who lived in the bigger bedroom. He was a professional soccer coach and he also exercised at the gym a lot. I bought pea protein powder. I ultimately didn't like it and gifted it to the head of the company I then worked for, a Jain and hence vegan and a runner, and he appreciated using that pea protein after his runs. But back when I was trying to incorporate pea protein into my diet, I made aberry smoothie with it and offered it to my roommate. He looked at me with those shocked eyes... I still remember his facial expression. He asked me to repeat what I was offering that he taste. I did. A deeper shock.

Until I figured out what was shocking him.

He thought I was offering him PEE protein.




Bump: If indeed you get a home care worker and that person can go to Trader Joe's for you, I highly recommend their 17-oz chicken bone broth in aseptic packaging, see the attached image. It is shelf-stable, so the worker can stock up for you, buying enough for several weeks.

You heat it in the microwave. Since you are a vegan, it would be great to mix in a tbsp of nutritional yeast for B12 and other B vitamins.

The broth provides protein, hydration and electrolytes; it is warm, nourishing, and tastes like comfort food.

It is much cheaper than refrigerated bone broth at TJ and than all bone broth at Safeway.

A great product.

I might be missing something, but I don't think chicken bone broth is vegan?

Once you figure out what plant-based protein sources are available, it's actually VERY easy to meet protein needs without any meat or dairy. Some people think you need like 200+g of protein a day, too, and there are very few people this is true for. Anything soy based (soy milk, tofu, tempeh), beans and lentils like you said, a lot of grains have some protein, nuts/seeds (especially pumpkin seeds), almonds and peanuts (and other nuts), edamame is pretty high up there. I've heard of people use this stuff called seitan but when I found it, it was like $12 a pound and I'm not even fully vegetarian anymore I just avoid meat most of the time a combo of personal reasons, practicality, and cost, but that's an option too if you'd like.

You are right, Muddy. I still consider my soups vegetarian when I do not use meat or chicken of fish in them but add chicken broth to augment liquid, but technically speaking, chicken broth is not even vegetarian, much less vegan.

Want to share, the protein requirements are calculated from the ideal body weight and not actual weight for overweight people. Do you know if that is the same for underweight people? Ask the person who said you are too lightweight.

Where do you get B-12 from? How about calcium and D3?

The NHH nutritionist said most people are fine with 50% of their weight in pounds in mg of protein, so if someone weighs 160lbs they'd be okay with 80g of protein. I was told to up it to about 70% especially since I had goals of returning to hiking and am thinking about pursuing a job in EMS or SAR and I really needed to build back a crazy amount of muscle to get to baseline, so my personal at the time the goal was 75g. Excessive protein doesn't have any benefits and actually can wreck your kidneys.

Right now I have a Raisin Bran obsession so I start the day off with a bowl of RB and soy milk which has a fair bit of B12 and calcium. Google says D3 is mostly from animal sources and sunlight. Personally I get plenty of sun(living near the 44th parallel makes that a little harder in winter, I have to admit) and I do eat eggs and fish. As for vegan food sources for @WantToShare, a lot of orange juice and some plant based milks are fortified with D3, and mushrooms that were exposed to the sun will be a source too.

That biologist whose podcast I listened to yesterday updated her audience on the kidney risk part. Apparently, if you consume excessive protein via supplementation, say whey isolate, it can be harmful, but if you get that extra protein via food, the healthy kidneys will be fine because that food also contains water and some other nutrients (I do not remember which ones) that will help the kidneys clear the protein just fine. But not for people with an underlying kidney disease - those she referred to their doctors.

She also said that the primary benefit of plant protein vr animal protein is not the difference in protein itself but the other things that come attached to plant protein, fiber being the main one.

Muddy, your mention of D3 in mshrooms are me think of mushroom broth. Mix with nutritional yeast and heat in microwave. Nutritional yeast is an easy way to get B-12 without bulk and mushroom broth is palatable.

There are different types of amino acids composing proteins and it is easier to get the nine we need with meat since meat is a “complete protein,” but you can with plant-based if you know how. I think you cover all nine amino acids with just rice and beans and certain plant based sources like soy are complete in themself.

I think that nutritionist was referring to people that get mega doses of protein which is hard to do without adding some kind of supplement. I don’t even know if I could get to the amounts she was talking about on beans and pumpkin seeds if I tried (definitely not today).

You are young, Muddy. The nutritionist was talking to you, addressing your needs, those of a young person wanting to get back to hiking and possibly start an EMS or search and rescue job (I think this would suit your personality very well).

The body's capacity to benefit from protein declines (I think after 65, but am not sure), and at the same time, appetite often declines with age. So it is becoming increasingly important to get more protein in the diet, especially for @WantToShare (limited mobility, uses a walker).

It was in a mixed group at the state hospital, I just did the math on my own with my weight. For older adults it gives similar recommendation she gave me when I asked about underweight adults with my goals, so I would go with the upper bound of that for underweight or maybe slightly over for older adults personally, but she was referring to the “proteinmaxxing” trend where people have like 200-400mg of protein a day and that is over 11 cups of lentils lol (which I think people only hit if they are eating a lot of beef with an high appetite or having protein shakes or something).

Edit I’m also thinking about this in terms of a 120lbs woman so obviously if you’re a taller and heavier person that recommendation for absolute quantity is going to be higher than my 75g. 200 is 70% for some older adults. I don’t think any of them are underweight though (idk about super tall men’s weight recommendations honestly at that point it feels like measuring a streets distance in mm for me).