Day 2: Hangover from Hell

Today has been awful.  AWFUL.  It started at 3am when both Joel and I woke up miserable with headaches.  Mine has stuck faithfully by my side the whole day through.  How sweet.  It's unbelievably unfair to feel this hungover without all the fun from the night before.  I suppose it's mix of dramatically reduced caffeine intake along with NO SUGAR for 24 hours.

This will pass.  This will pass.  This.  Will.  Pass.

On the bright side, when I got to work I had an awesome present waiting for me from my coworker who is nearly complete with her run through the program!  She filled it with some Whole30 essentials  - compliant marinara sauce, coconut milk, avocados (which I promptly turned in in guacamole when I came home!), macadamia nuts, ghee (more on that in a minute) and some Larabars which I am very excited to try but a little nervous that will feel like a treat instead of part of a meal.  We'll see!

So, ghee is the latest Whole30 thing I have tried.  It's clarified butter, which means that you basically take unsalted butter, heated up and skim the milk fats off the top.  So it's butter without lactose which makes it compliant with the program.  

I had a sweet potato with my lunch so I put some this on it.  Not too shabby, but I don't think my potato actually needed anything added to it.  I mostly just wanted an excuse to try it.

What I ate today:

Breakfast:  egg muffins, homemade sausage, banana, macadamia nuts

Lunch:  grilled chicken breast, sweet potatoes, peach

Snack:  raw veggies, canteloupe

Dinner:  grilled chicken, baked white potato, red bell pepper w/ guacamole, blackberries

My meal planning and preparation this week has left a lot to be desired.  I have been up after the kids have gone to bed, cooking food for the next day's lunches.  Right now, I've got breakfast in the oven as I type.  I feel like I've done nothing but cook ALL WEEK LONG.  Definitely looking forward to the weekend where I can take a minute, make a plan and do my normal weekend marathon cooking so that I don't have to work so hard at it during the week.

Like my coworker noted:

Day 1: Mourning the Loss of Diet Coke

This morning, while getting ready for work, I decided that I didn't really want to go to work today.  I needed to stay home so I could mourn the loss of my Diet Coke in private.  Kidding!  (mostly.)

Truthfully, I took an impromptu vacation day because I was realizing how little of summer there is left (a week!) and I just wanted to spend a day with my kiddos.  We went out for lunch at McDonald's - kids' choice - where I promptly busted out my left overs while they ate their nuggets and fries.  Is it bad when on Day 1, you have to exercise a lot of restraint to avoid eating the kids' unwanted fries???

Then we went downtown for a block party that Cummins was putting on.  Bounces houses, snow cones, face paint, some big trucks and engines.  Joel was able to meet us down there.

But it was awful hot, so then we went to the pool.  The kids swam and I buried my nose in my Whole30 book.

So, how did my day go through the Whole30 lens?  I only ate "compliant" food all day!  Yippee!  But right now I have raging headache which likely due to mostly caffeine withdrawal but also too much sun.

What I ate:

7am Breakfast:  egg muffins with sautéed veggies, banana

9am Mid-morning:  watermelon and cantaloup (cause I was cutting it up and I snuck some)

10:30 Lunch:  Pork chop, sautéed green beans, bell pepper, tomatoes; blackberries and pineapple

2:00 Snack:  raw carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes 

4:00 Snack:  apple

7:00 Dinner:  Pork chop, tomato & roasted red pepper soup, canned green beans, misc bites of fruit

I was absolutely starving to death from about 1:00pm until after I ate dinner.  So, looking back, lots of things not right about my meals.  Too much fruit.  Not enough "healthy fats."  Too many snacks.

In my defense, I didn't actually get the Whole 30 book until last night.  So I didn't really read the part about what a balanced meal looks like and what I should be eating each time and how many times a day, etc.

So I finally read that part (while at the pool today), but I know it's going to take me some time to get use to it and how it's different from what I have been doing the last 4 years.  I think I'm probably not going to get it right for a week or two - at least.

I did make some sausage this morning that I plan to have with tomorrow's breakfast!  Can't wait to try it... I really hope it doesn't suck.

In summary, I don't think I get to call Day 1 a success until I make it all through the night without heading to the kitchen for some peanut butter somewhere in the wee hours.  But, so far, I'm ok.

Day 0: The day before it all begins

Tomorrow is the first day of Whole30.  

I have good intentions to document how this goes each day.  Challenges, successes, new food/recipe  discoveries, how I'm feeling.  This could get really boring in a hurry - sorry about that.

This morning I took my before pictures.  Tomorrow I will take my measurements, weigh in and check my body fat %.   I'm freaking out about stepping on the scale.  Haven't done that in a couple months and I'm fairly certain it's not going to be a pleasant outcome.  But, it is what it is.  I earned what I will see there so have to own that and move on from it.  

So, I'll leave you now to suck down the last of my last Diet Coke.  

Wish.  Me.  Luck!

  

Happy, Hippy Shit.

My husband is so supportive.  I am so lucky.  When I told him that I wanted to do this Whole30 reset, I knew he would be on board to do it with me.  I mean, this is exactly the kind of "happy, hippy shit" he can get in to.  

So supportive, in fact, that he was ready to jump start a day early and even proposed a solution to the extra food in the house that I hated to waste.  

Believe me when I say that I really did consider whether my leftovers could be safely delivered to the homeless who lives at the Walmart.  

The Whole30. What am I thinking?

It's taken me a couple weeks to wrap my brain around trying Whole30 and using that as my mechanism for getting my control back.  

I've tried and tried to get back to basics with Weight Watchers or following the FXB nutrition plan.  

It ain't working.  

I need something different.  Something serious.  Something big.  

Something that will help me to regain control.  Even if I don't lose a single pound or wear pants with a button ever again, I need to have my control back.  

My coworker is nearly finished with her first 30 day journey through Whole30.  She's the one who introduced me to the idea.  At first, I completely disregarded this program - "no way, no how, not for me."  Give up cheese?  Puh-shaw!  No bread - not even my "healthy, multi-grain" stuff?  You're kidding, right? NO DIET COKE?  😱 No.  Just, no.

And then I had a few very bad eating days - in the daylight, daytime zombie eating - and realized, it's now or never.  It was kind of a hit me square in the face moment, much like when I joined Weight Watchers in the first place. 

The Whole30 is meant to do a lot of things.  Detox your body from sugars and processed food chemicals and all sorts of other junk.  By getting your body and guts cleaned up, it will do so many things in addition to getting my control back - improved immune system, reduced inflammation and what I'm most excited about, clearer complexion.  My skin has looked worse than a adolescent teenager's for going on 2 years now.  I'm over it.  

I've been doing a little research.  Chatting with my coworker.  Reading a couple books.  Stockpiling recipes.  Building an arsenal of information.  

And freaking out.  But in an excited sort of way!  Right?  Yeah, let's go with that.

The main premise of The Whole30 is to eat clean, whole foods in order to get your body to a "clean slate" environment.  You eliminate foods that are typically considered triggers (mental, physical and emotional ones) for (at least) 30 days.  All the while, keeping track of how you feel (energy, sleep, skin, joints, etc).  Then, after that, you systematically reintroduce these foods and see what it does to influence those same attributes.

Here's the summary of what you eliminate:

No dairy - no cream in my coffee, no yogurt, no CHEESE!  

No legumes - no peanut butter!  No beans, no hummus!  (But wait, that stuff's healthy, right??)

No sugar - no splenda in my coffee, no baked goods (not even my kick ass "healthy" banana bread), no CHEWING GUM!

No grains - no bread, no rice, no quinoa

And. 

NO DIET COKE.  😭

In case it wasn't already obvious, that one has me a little bit sideways.  Which, according to the support literature I'm reading, is a ginormous, HUGE, red flag that I need to give it up.  

So, I officially start this thing on Wednesday.  Why Wednesday?  Well, first, I still have some more reading to do on the specifics of the program.  Second, I have a lot food in my fridge that isn't "compliant" that will go bad before I get to the reintroduction phase.  I really hated to waste it.  So I compromised - I'll pitch a few things, eat up a few things and give myself a couple more days to get organized.

T-minus 2 days!  

Blog resurrection.

I haven't written a blog post in well over year.  It just got so hard to keep up with and the pressure I was feeling about trying to post something every few days or every week or even just once a month got to where it was not a fun hobby anymore.  I was always behind and I really didn't need something in my life which made me feel like a failure on a regular basis.  😩

But now I'm back, albeit perhaps only for a short time.  Like maybe 30-something days.

I need to focus.  I need some accountability.  I need to vent.  I need to whine.  At least, I'm pretty sure I'm going to need all those things.

I've been on this weight loss journey for what feels like an eternity but it's actually been just over four years.  The first ~2 years, I focused very hard on "eating right" according to the Gospel of Weight Watchers.  I had tremendous success with that program over that time period, steadily dropping pounds and pants sizes and walking on cloud 9 pretty much all the time.  

Then I kicked it up a notch and joined Farrell's - punching and kicking my way to the healthiest I've ever been.  Feeling strong.  Feeling fit.  Feeling tough.  Even becoming an instructor.  Me!  Instructing fitness classes!  Still seems like a strange alternate reality sometimes.  

But somewhere over the last 12-18 months, I started on a slow backslide.  I don't miss an FXB workout unless I'm out of town.  So, that wasn't the problem.  But my eating habits have taken a nosedive.  I stick with my Weight Watchers protocol mixed together with the right protein/carb balance that FXB taught me most of the time.  Except when I don't.  

Here's where I get brutally honest.  Cause that's what this blogging process is all about.  Put it out there - no hiding - no lying.  It's the middle of the night peanut butter debacle that was my undoing.  I don't really remember when this started, but it's been a good while back.  And that middle of the night peanut butter then became PB plus some of the kids chocolate candy.  Or 10 pieces.  Or whatever.  I called this my zombie eating.  It was literally like I had no control over my arms or legs and the cravings won every time.  

I'd wake up the next morning and just feel AWFUL.  I'm telling you, horrible.  

And I'd go through that day, beating myself up and emphatically telling myself I would NOT repeat that same midnight kitchen adventure that night.  And then, it would happen again.  And again.  And again.  

I would try to be so strictly "good" during waking hours because I knew there was a very high likelihood, I would be anything but once I got to the middle of the night.  So on the outside looking in, people see me eating so healthy and working out diligently and complementing me for working so hard.  But I felt (feel) like a fraud.  Very out of control and if you know one thing about me, it's that I like to be in control.

Then, as if lack of feeling in control wasn't bad enough, the actual physical consequences started showing up.  Next thing you know, all pants with a button were no longer an option in my daily wardrobe selection.  So I bought a couple pair of bigger ones.  And now, those don't fit either.  

Recap.  Feeling out of control.  Eating poorly.  Energy draining.  Stress eating begetting stress eating.  Weight packing on.  Failure swirling.  

So.  Time for a big, fat (pun intended????) intervention.  I cannot go back here:

Friends, in a few days, I'm going to start The Whole30 cleanse / nutrition reset / getmysh*ttogether program.  

I'm.  Very.  Nervous.

Miscellaneous March.

As my birthday approached, Lily asked me if we were going to have cake on my birthday.  At first I said, No, Mommy doesn't really need any birthday cake.... but the look of complete and utter disappointment on her face reminded me that, for the kids, the whole POINT of someone's birthday is so everyone can have cake.  

So, the night before my birthday we ran to walmart to get a box of cake and some icing and the kiddos helped me bake my own birthday cake.  Uh, it looked good enough to eat.  So I did.

Lily had a friend's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese.

Joel and I had a date night and went indoor rock climbing Bloomington.  It was awesome.  Mostly I just can't stop staring at that picture of my back.  I.  Look.  Ripped.

We flew kites, again.  It was a windy day but apparently not the right kind of windy day because we STRUGGLED to keep those kites in the air.

Random visit to the Yamaha dealer.

Date night #2.  Yep, TWO date nights in one month!  That NEVER happens!  We went to dinner and then went to a pub downtown where we randomly met up with one of my coworkers.  We proceeded to drink for a bit and then headed down the street to a "nightclub" in Columbus where we danced and danced and danced at the Farrell's "after party" from that sessions 10-week awards banquet.  AND THEN, we hit up Steak and Shake and didn't get home till 2am!  What the what?!?!  What a great time we had!

And then, we had to wake up early for the kids Easter program at the daycare.  Doh.  Lily sang her little heart out.  Tyler acted like he could not believe he caught in this most embarrassing singing situation and barely bothered sing one word or make one motion.  

After the singing, the kiddos had the annual Easter egg hunt.  They came home with SO much candy!

The Easter Bunny was there and BOTH kids wanted to sit on his lap!  Wasn't it just 4 months ago, when neither of them would have a THING to do with Santa?  And that guy was going to give them presents!

There's no such thing a miscellaneous post without a picture of the kids passed out in the car.  (Lily loves her booster seat except for when she wants to take a nap in the car.)

Meme and Papaw (and Suki) came for a visit.  The kids REALLY love that dog.