Gearing up for the New Year

This has been a rough week.  This month has been difficult all together.  Wednesday afternoon my brother and sister came over and they were supposed to stay the day and we were going to play games, and watch movies and hang out.  Shortly after they arrived we started getting text messages from mom about grandma.  She had a brain hemorrhage and was dying.  We decided to all head over to grandma's house.  I brought a movie for the kids, and we said our goodbyes.  I was able to talk to her and tell her some of my memories at her house from when I was younger.  She couldn't move but she started crying when I was talking to her.  I was crying too.  Shortly after I talked to her, she passed away.  It was a very emotional afternoon.  Couple that with my older sister talking about her pregnancy most of the time and I was an emotional wreak.  I really tried to not show any negative emotion when she was talking about her pregnancy but it just brought back all the feelings of disappointment and sorrow from losing my own pregnancy.  It was the perfect timing, we were going to be pregnant together, our kids were going to grow up together being the same age, I would be through with the worst part of my morning sickness by now.  It was tough.  Matt came home from work early to pick up the kids from my grandparent's house so I could stay a little longer.  I am sad about losing my grandma.  It is the first person in my life who has been close to me who has died.  It was time for her to go though.  She had been suffering from dementia and the aftermath of some major strokes for about 10 years.  She just kept getting worse and worse, and now she is no longer in pain.  And while I am saddened about losing grandma, I know she is in a better place now, I think the deeper pain is in seeing how grief stricken my own mom and my grandpa are.

Thinking about the new year.  I have hashed out a plan.  I am taking all the parts and all my experience over the past three years and putting them together this year to make a livable and workable plan.  It's not going to be easy.  Easy is not the goal.  It is supposed to break my bad habits such as emotional eating, snacking too much, binging on sugar, getting out of control, being on plan and off plan and on plan and off plan, and cycling up and down.  It should help me stabilize my eating.  So there is no on and off, there is just the eating plan and trying to be my best.  I am going to drink Shakeology for lunch every day.  I hate making lunch, and I can never seem to eat something that is healthy and fills me up.  I remember really liking shakeology when I tried it that one month, so that has been added to my daily routine for 2016.  I am going to eat similar to the Whole 30 but not so strict, in that my mayo is not going to be home made, I can have honey in my meals, I am allowed to have a treat on special event days such as holidays and birthdays.  Eating out I am just going to get the healthiest yummy thing I can find.  I am going to stay away from sugar as much as possible.  No sugary treats except on special occasions.  I have got to break the grip sugar has on me.  No soda pop.  Matt bought me a soda stream for Christmas!  I have come to realize that I really just crave the bubbles more than I actually crave the soda now.  So I have my soda stream and I'm just going to drink carbonated water when I want a soda.  I also have some of the La Cruix carbonated and flavored water.  That will help too.  Breakfast is going to be some variety of eggs, vegetables and a healthy fat like avocado or macadamia nuts.  It is one of my favorite breakfasts.  I usually do hash browns for my vegetables.  A mix of potato and sweet potato.  Matt bought me a grater attachment for my kitchen aide so I can quickly shred my potatoes!   I think I am ready.  I know it isn't going to be easy, but it's necessary. 

Merry Christmas

We had the best Christmas this year that we have ever had together as a family.  We stayed home for the first time this year.  The kids had a blast.  We took several breaks for breakfast and lunch and just to let the kids hang out and play with what they got.  Lily really enjoyed getting her doctors kit and play tool set.  Those are two things she really wanted and we just hung out for a while after she opened them to allow her time to enjoy the gift.  We tried to remind them throughout the day of the true meaning of Christmas and teach them why we give gifts at Christmas time. 

Matt bought Lily an art set because she loves to draw.  He is teaching her about pastels and charcoal... she looks like she's asleep!  She had a hard time paying attention as she just wanted to grab the colors and jump right in.

Cinderella Crown for my little Princess. 

My husband loves maps.  This one is magnetic and came with several magnet pins.  The present to his right (the giant one) is the kitchen we bought for the kids.  we had to put it together (and by we I mean me) and then I wrapped it.  We made the kids wait until the very end to open it.  They loved it and were so excited when they found out what it was.

Got her tool kit

Her new Super spinny dress and she is making bead necklaces.

We watched Inside Out in the afternoon.  The kids loved it.  I thought it was really clever and funny.  Very well done.  So we had a great Christmas. 

I've been thinking about the new year and what I want to accomplish next year.  My biggest goal I want to accomplish next year is to get my eating under control permanently and get rid of bad habits and make new long lasting good habits.  So I've decided to do a year of Whole 30.  It's not going to be super strict, I don't think I cold do that.  So basically when I am at home and on every normal day I am going to do Whole 30.  When we go out to eat I am going to focus on picking something healthy off the menu and eating a normal sized portion.  For Birthdays I can have a slice of cake to participate in the festivities.  For Holidays I can have a free meal especially if we are eating at family's house.  But every other day, I am going to adhere as closely as I can to the Whole 30 guidelines.  Hopefully after one year, I will get into a routine that I can keep going.  Hopefully after a year I will have squashed some bad habits.  I've tried to do moderation, but I'm not the kind of person who can control myself easily around food.  The only thing that I have done this past year that really made any difference in the way I felt and the way I ate and my moods, and energy levels and my attitude was the Whole 30.  So I've got until January first to prepare myself.

Life Goes On

Lily turned five this week.  The weekend was all about her birthday party and making sure she had  a great party and birthday.  It was actually quite therapeutic for me.  I spent a lot of time decorating with Lily.  She had a blast decorating and when I was done she kept putting streamers up on the walls by herself.  We had wall decorations, streamers, ceiling hangers, and one of those giant wall coverings.  The theme was princesses.  Lily is all about princesses this year.  She wanted a castle cake with princesses on it.  One of her presents (her first present) was a pack of magic clip princesses.  And we put them on the cake.  If you remember my disaster trying to make Lily's cake last year, you will understand why there was no way I was going to try to make a castle cake.  I bought it at a bakery.  It tasted so yummy and looked amazing.  Lily loved it.

I also planned four games for her party.  She just had family over but they all got into it.  We had them draw a dragon and then Lily picked the one she liked best.  We had a quiz about Lily and whoever got the most questions right won the game.  Lily asked the questions and then provided the answers.  Then we had a castle building competition with blocks.  I had two boxes with identical blocks and we had team Chloe and Team Lily.  There were three challenges: fastest castle built, tallest castle, and best moat.  Everyone was involved and had a great time.  The last game I was pretty proud of.  I had a bell you can ding and I split everyone up into two teams and two people would come up at a time and I would ask them a question and they would have to answer with the name of the princess.  The first person to ding the bell and say the name of the princess won a point for their team.  I called the game "name that princess" and I thought up all the questions myself!  It was lots of fun.  Some of the questions were:
Which Princess lives in France?
Which Princess falls in love with two men?
Who is the fairest one of all?
Which princess is friends with mice?
Which princess has a tiger for a pet?
Which princess marries Prince Phillip?
Which princess has magical hair?

So we all had a good time.  Now I have to start planning Chloe's birthday.  She is into Cinderella, so her theme is going to be Cinderella.

Last night I finished Lily's stocking, or rather, my Mom finished Lily's stocking.  I can't sew.  I helped iron... and Made the charms. 

So Yea!  It's all done with 8 days to spare.  It's absolutely beautiful.  But there is no rest for the weary.  I need to get started on Chloe's stocking so it will be ready for next year and  then I will finally be all caught up.  For now....

With it being the holidays, I have not  been eating well.  Too many treats around.  Birthday cake, toffee, cheesy popcorn, cookies, party food.  Bleh.  I'm going to have a lot of work to do to lose the holiday weight when it's all said and done.  But interestingly enough, I seem to have lost my taste for soda.  I'm not sure how it happened.  Somewhere between morning sickness and miscarriage I lost my taste for diet pepsi and I've just been drinking Perrier.  Bubbly water.  I'm drinking more water than ever before each day, and willingly.  Because I want to.  I don't know how it happened but one step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.  It is one piece of the puzzle, and a problem I thought I would never solve.  I thought I would never get off of diet pepsi, and yet here I am.  No desire to drink it.  And I have a giant case in the garage, but I keep choosing Perrier instead of pop. 

I'm doing better emotionally but I'm very tired.  Part of it is my eating habits at the moment, but I think a big part of it is just recovering, and all the blood loss.  I still have to go into the doctor for blood draws (I sure hope the insurance will help pay for all the lab work my doctor is requesting), plus the kids are waking up a lot at night with leg aches.  Poor Chloe had terrible leg aches last night. And so life goes on.  I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays and spending lots of time with family and building lasting relationships. Christmas is next week!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well I guess I will just go in that exact order.  First for the good.  I finally finished all the cross stitching and back stitching for Lily's stocking! 

I'm going to the fabric store today with my mom to get the lining and the backing so we can sew it all up.  We probably won't get around to actually sewing it until sometime next week since this weekend I have two birthday parties and a Christmas party on the schedule.  We are celebrating Lily's birthday on Saturday.  She is turning 5!  She is super excited.  We ordered her a castle cake and bought her some princesses she has been asking for and we will put them on the cake so she will have a princess castle.

I guess now it's time for the bad.  Well let's just cut right to it then.  I had a miscarriage last weekend.  It was absolutely the most miserable and horrifying weekend of my life.  I have been pretty fortunate all my life.  No one that I am close to has died.  All four of my grandparents are still alive, both my parents, all my siblings, I've never had any friends die.  I have been fortunate up to this point.  But now I can no longer say I've been untouched by death.  I was pretty early in my pregnancy, I hadn't even announced it on the blog.  I was debating whether or not to even say anything on the blog, but then I decided that my blog is about real life, and this is a part of life.  Also, how am I going to write anything without mentioning how I really feel inside and without writing about what I am really going through.  I was 9 weeks along, and I was feeling pretty good.  My morning sickness which usually hits around 6 weeks didn't hit until 8 weeks, and was more mild in week 8 than what is normal for me.  I suppose now I know why.  I've heard that if you don't get morning sickness it can be a bad sign.  I know all the statistics, I know how 1/3 of pregnancies end up in miscarriage, how 70% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal defects, how each miscarriage is usually an isolated event.  However, it doesn't lessen the pain of the loss.  We were very excited to be expecting our third child.  The baby would have been born at the beginning of July, and I would have had all July to recover before Lily went back to school.  The kids were super excited.  Lily really wanted a little brother.  When we told them the baby died, Lily cried and was really upset for a little while.  They seem to be doing better now, secure in the fact that we can try again later.  In fact, Chloe keeps telling me "it's ok mommy you don't have to be sad, you can have another baby in your tummy."  It's super cute.  Now that I'm recovering, my emotions are settling a little bit.  I'm trying to focus on the children that I have and the hope for the future, instead of thinking about the past.  The evening is the hardest time.  When I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep is when I tend to think about it the most. 

And now for the ugly.  With the holidays and the stress I've been under, My weight has increased to 161.8.  Actually I'm surprised it's not higher.  But I'm not happy to be in the 160s again.  That's a number I vowed to never see again.  I need to start paying more attention to what I'm eating and make healthier choices.  Also, since I am no longer pregnant I'm asking for a new exercise program called Cize.  It's from beachbody, and it's a dancing exercise program.  It looks like a lot of fun, especially considering how much I like Zumba.  It's a high intense program like Turbo Fire and you can't do something like that when pregnant. 


Photo from Amazon

I want the delux kit since it comes with two extra DVDs. 

Well I guess that is all the news.  I'm off to start the day.

Why

It's been a crazy week with Thanksgiving this week.  We went to my parent's house and had a great time.  My brother was there with his fiancé and that was the first time I had met her.  She was great with the kids.  Apparently she has always wanted some nieces and nephews but her two older brothers are not married.  She is the first in her family to get married.  So she loved playing with my kids and in return she won their hearts.  They absolutely adored her, and couldn't wait to see her again the next day. 

I've still been stitching like crazy.  I stayed up until 11:30 stitching at least three times last week, and a couple times went to bed at 9pm because I was so tired from staying up the night before.  I am getting much closer to being finished than before.  I think I can be finished in two weeks.  That would give me about a one week grace period for unforeseen delays.  I'm cutting it pretty close, but at least it will be done.... Then I get to start on Chloe's stocking and try to get it done before next Christmas.  It's never ending. 

Lately I've been thinking about why a lot.  Mostly the question "Why do I want to be beautiful?"  And I'm not talking about just not being ugly.  I'm talking about being movie star beautiful.  I never really stopped to think about it, I just knew I wanted to be really beautiful.  Now it is perfectly normal for every woman to want to feel pretty, and want to feel like they are beautiful.  But it is different when you externalize it and you say "I want the world to think I'm beautiful."  I would look at pictures of myself in utter disgust because I wasn't super thin and beautiful.  Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by beautiful people.  Mostly my sister.  Living in my sister's shadow.  She was always the knock out.  Which is ironic when you think of how much the two of us look alike.  But she was always the prettier one.  Not just marginally pretty but movie star pretty.  She almost went into modeling, until she decided she didn't really like it.  I also have a cousin who is very striking.  She has moved back into town and my whole family is commenting on how beautiful she is.  She was asked out within one week of moving here.  I guess that is why I've started thinking about my why.  People have been talking and I've been feeling jealous.  But when you think about it, it's silly.  I am happily married to a man who is crazy about me and I have two daughters who think that I am the most amazing person ever.  They love me no matter what size I am.  They love me when I'm happy and sad and even when I yell at them.  They love me when I eat a lot of food and when I eat a little food. 

Maybe it's just one of my fatal flaws.  Something I need to work to overcome.  I should be happy with who I am and with what I look like.  Find peace within myself and maybe if I do that, I can start to find peace with food.

Check in

I'm warning you now, this post is going to be very short. I just wanted to check in because I realized I hadn't posted in a while. I have been stitching (cross stitch) like a crazy person. I'm trying to finish Lilys stocking before Christmas. Every free moment I've had has gone to working on it. I've been staying up until 11:00 most nights working on it and I'm well over half way done. I think at this pace I can finish in time but my blog will probably be neglected along with most of the household cleaning.  I did make Mu shu pork for dinner today from Julie Bouer's paleo cook book and it was so good. I have loved every recipe out of that book, it's definitely a great book to have in your kitchen for healthy eating.

I am going to try to get some pictures of my stocking and post them but that takes time and effort and I kind of have a one track mind right now. I will post tons of pictures when I am finished with it.

Holding steady

I've been doing pretty well since I decided to start working on my goals.  I haven't been perfect.  But that is the point of goals and that is why they are not rules, but something that I know I need to work towards improving.  I chose healthier dinners two times this week when I would have had something much worse to eat, or I would have just rummaged around since I didn't have an official meal I was making.  I had a salad one night when I wasn't too terribly hungry.  I didn't do Paleo dinner perfect every night.  One night I wasn't thinking hard enough and I had corn chips with my dinner.  Even though I had made a Paleo dinner that night, corn is not Paleo so naturally corn chips would be a no no.  I didn't realize it until half way through my dinner and by then I was thinking "oh well, I'm just going to finish my chips and not worry about it."  I didn't let it lead to the thinking of "I've blown it so I might as well eat like crap." because I'm working on bettering myself and not following a set of rules that can't be broken. 

The only goal I've done "perfectly" is the sweets every other day.  Adding honey or maple syrup to dinners I'm not counting as a treat or a sweet or a dessert or whatever.  One of my Paleo dinners was a stir fry type dinner and I had to add honey to the meat.  Also one of the dinners I made was a shrimp meal, and I had to add honey to that sauce too.  That doesn't count as a sweet.  That's just an ingredient in my dinner.  Stir Fry does not equal dessert. It's still been difficult to refrain from eating sweets all the time.  With all the leftover candy and especially when I have to get it off the top of the fridge so the kids can pick out a candy and then open their candies for them.  It's tough, but I've managed to stick to the ever other day guideline.  On days when I can eat sweets I have noticed that I'm not eating as much as I was.  In the sense that I'm not binging on it until I feel so sick I want to curl up into a ball and die.  I know that when I want more later that day I can have more and I know that I will be able to have more within a few days.  On my off days I just think, "I can have candy and treats tomorrow.  I can make it one day."

Probably the hardest one is slowing down my eating pace because that takes the most effort and continuous conscious thought.  It's so natural for me to just sit down an eat but then to remember "oh yeah, I'm supposed to be eating slower" so half way through my meal I try to slow down.  It's going to take a long time to slow my eating pace.  I still finish ahead of my kids even when I'm really trying to eat slower. 

I'm doing ok on not going back for seconds.  Pretty much if I can remember not to eat seconds I don't eat them, but when I'm not paying attention I've grabbed seconds before.  Awareness and not forgetting is a huge part about working towards these goals.  Two of them are so easy to just overlook as I go on autopilot and don't think about it much: eating slower and not having seconds.  There have been many times over the past week where I have remembered and I have consciously chosen not to have seconds when I wanted some.  And I was fine the rest of the night.  I wasn't hungry and I was rewarded with not feeling stuffed and bloated. 

It might take me a year before I get these down, and it might take longer, or shorter.  But I know I have some realistic goals to work towards and these are habit changing goals that will help me live more naturally without dieting.  My weight is FINALLY holding steady and I'm not doing anything extreme, and I'm not withholding any foods.  I'm eating just about everything I want: popcorn and sweets included, but within some guidelines and I'm feeling pretty good about it.  My weight has been 158 for this past week.  I've been weighing about every other day.  So my weight has finally leveled out.  That is the first step.  If I can maintain my weight with a livable and loveable lifestyle then once I master these goals and move onto new goals that will make me healthier, I may start losing weight again.  But for now, maintaining is fine.  Of course I wish I could have maintained at 148 instead of 158, but the struggle is real, and I definitely struggle.  I'm certainly not perfect, but I think I just might be headed in the right direction.

Game Plan

After much thought I have finally come up with a game plan of sorts.  I have set four goals to work towards.  Once I feel like I have accomplished one of those goals I will take it out and put another one in or I will modify it. 

So the first one is of course my nemesis: sugar.  This one went through several adjustments before I finally settled on what I figured would work for me.  At first I was thinking of making my goal to only eat desserts on holidays and special occasions, but that is much too hard, so I was thinking of once a week, but that also seemed too hard, then twice a week, and I finally settled on the easiest thing I thought I could do: Every other day.  No other restrictions.  Noting to the effect of "one dessert on days I'm allowed sugar".  No it's every other day.  Basically, if I eat sugar one day, I can't eat any the next day.  No chocolate chip pancakes or white chocolate lemon bread.  No candy, or baked goods or treats.  I have to have one day of no sugar in between each day I have sugar.  I can have multiple days of no sugar but I can't have back to back days of sugar.  Once I master that, I will change it to something like, three days a week, then two, then one or I will start refining and say "two treats on sugar days" or something like that. 

The second goal I have is to eat slower.  I am such a fast eater that I often finish my meals in five minutes or less.  Considering you are supposed to take somewhere around 20 minutes to eat your meal (because it takes 20 minutes for the signals to reach your brain that you are full) that is something I really need to work on.

The third goal is to not go back for seconds.  I think I could cut out a ton of calories if I never went back for seconds of anything be it snacks, meals, or desserts.  Going back for seconds or thirds is a terrible habit that I need to change.  So I am going to make sure I pay attention to what I eat and how much I eat and not go back for seconds.

Fourth is that my dinner will be Paleo friendly.  I am really good at making Paleo dinners but I don't cook every night.  So the challenge comes in when I am not cooking or when I am out.  That will help a lot too.  Makes sure I don't just decided to go get a pizza. 

And that is the game plan for now. 

Where do i go from here?

The question I have been pondering over the past several days is this: How do I take back control?  I have thought of doing another Whole 30 but the thought of giving up soda and panini's and not being able to eat out at all has turned me against it.  I've thought of going Paleo but then I couldn't drink my soda or eat any bread.  I would have to go gluten free and that is a pain in the butt.  Also I wouldn't be able to eat any popcorn.  So what is the answer?  I dread calorie counting.  Actually I reinstalled My Fitness Pal on my phone and tracked for a whole half a day before deleting it again knowing that I wasn't going to be able to keep it up.  I am in a real pickle.  I feel like I have just lost all motivation.  What I really want to focus on is eating healthy.  Maybe what that means is making sure I eat three solid meals a day, not junk food, and cut out sugar.  I'm not sure that is possible though.  If I could cut out sugar except for holidays and special events that would be a major victory.  I don't know if I can do it though.  I am filled with self doubt.  I am weary of this fight.  I feel battered and broken and have lost the will to try.  I can't even maintain in a normal way.  At least not yet.  I'm back up to 156.5 and I am so crushed.  Why do I do this to myself.  How could I let this happen?  I feel pudgy.  The 10 pounds I put back on, I can feel it in my face, on my legs, my arms, my stomach.  It doesn't feel good and yet I can't bring myself to do much about it.  I'm tired.  So tired of the mental drain, the physical drain and the emotional drain. 

So for now I'm just going to try to eat healthy meals and snacks.

Weaknesses

Thank you to everyone who commented or reached out to me yesterday.  It really helped and reminded me that even though I do not have people around here that know what I am going through, there are others online that I can reach out to for help and support.  One of the things that was recommended was for me to watch a mini series of short videos that was put out by my church on addiction.  There were 12 videos, each one talking about a step in the addiction recovery program and each one had a story from a different person.  Almost every single video was about a drug addiction and listening to these people's stories and the struggles they went through and the fight they went through to overcome their addictions really touched me.  I realized that my trial could be a lot worse.  When I binge on sugar I don't like the person I become.  I become cranky, mean, short tempered, tired, lethargic, and of course bloated and sick and I get bad headaches and stomach aches.  I don't like that person.  Being on sugar changes the way I act, albeit in a smaller way than being addicted to drugs. 

While I haven't eaten any candy or desserts over the past few days I have eaten chocolate chip pancakes and some pumpkin spice popcorn.  For now it seems, I've been able to regain some mental clarity.  Sometimes all you need to do is talk about your problems.  To reach out to others and feel like you are not alone.  I've been praying very hard as well for strength, for help.  Several of the videos talked about offering up your weaknesses and offering up your addictions to God and letting him take them from you.  Surrendering yourself to his will, confessing you have a problem and that you cannot do this on your own.  The idea of offering up my addictions was a new idea to me.  The idea of saying "here is this problem I have, please take this and give me the strength to overcome."  But not just offering up your weaknesses, but also asking for the very desire for that thing to be taken away.  It doesn't mean that you won't be tempted, after all every time you take a step towards God and towards righteousness, Satan doubles his efforts to drag you back down.  But you will be given strength to overcome Satan, you will be given strength to overcome weaknesses.  After all we are promised in the scriptures that God can make weak things strong. 

Darkness

I've been in a dark place over the past week.  In a place of uncontrollable cravings.  Sugar.  It's always there.  Always around.  Especially now.  Candy, Pie, Ice Cream, candy, candy, candy, candy.  One piece leading to another and another and another and there is no one around to stop me.  Only me, and I am not strong enough.  So I don't tell anyone what I'm eating.  I don't want anyone to know.  What would they think of me?  Would they think me disgusting, marvel in wonder at how one person could be such a slave to sugar?  No one around me knows that irresistible pull, the uncontrollable urges to eat sweets, and to keep on eating until you don't care about anything anymore.  You don't care about your health, your weight, what others might think.  Just as long as you can have some of that sweet sweet stuff in your mouth.  Chew, swallow, chew, swallow, repeat.  Until you feel sick and bloated and tired and miserable.  I hate myself when I do that.  I hate that I seemingly have no control, I hate that I let myself down again, I hate that after nearly three years I still can't figure this eating thing out.  I can't get off sugar, I can't control it, I can't put it in it's place.  One failure after another.  I can kick it out of my life for a while but then it comes creeping and soon flooding back in.  Like a drug addict looking for their next fix the hold sugar has over me seems frightening.  In times like these I wish I had a friend to talk to who knew what I was going through.  Someone who has been there, who has had to break the hold of food and sugar.  Who has had to fight and understands that the struggle is real.  My family just looks at me confused.  Wondering why it could possibly be so hard to eat normal portions and to eat healthy.  Wondering why I have been stuck here for a year and a half and why can't I just get to my goal weight and stay there.  What is so hard about it afterall?  Those who have never been overweight, those who have never had food addictions, those who haven't gone through weight loss can't understand.  They can understand the science, but not the emotion, not the psychological battle that must be played out day after day after day.  And when I'm tired of fighting, when I'm mentally and emotionally burnt out.  That's when it happens.  Day after day after day.  Giving in, until something finally smacks me in the face and says "pull yourself out of it".  So I do.  For a while.  But I always end up back there.  Back in that dark place where there is only me and food and that ever present desire for sugar. 

It strikes me now that I will probably never break free.  This is my trial.  This is my struggle.  This is my addiction.  I never thought of myself as an addict to anything.  I don't drink alcohol, or even coffee.  I don't do any drugs.  Addiction?  That was always something associated with substance abuse.  All those things we were told to avoid in the DARE programs.  Certainly not sugar, certainly not food.  But as I have tried again and again to free myself from the grasp of sugar and failed time and time again.  Giving into that pull, that undeniable urge to eat sugar, and not just a little bit, a whole lot of sugar.  I have come to realize how getting off drugs can be so hard for so many people.  Even when the physical cravings are gone, the psychological cravings are still there.  And I always end back up in the same place.  I'm not strong enough to resist forever.

A glimmer of hope shines through my darkness as I pour out my soul to my God seeking refuge from the storm.  Seeking help and strength.  A realization comes.  I've been doing this backwards.  I don't want to feel left out as I've said, but it seems that every time I pull myself out of a sugar coma and kick it out of my life, I miss an important event.  I chose to climb the incline on my anniversary instead of going out to eat and getting a fancy dessert.  I didn't get a birthday cake this year because I was doing the Whole 30.  And my temporary victory is consumed by the damage that I do after.  So.  Lets switch it around.  On holidays and special days I can eat treats, and on every other day of the year, sugar is off limits.  I'm not sure it's going to work, but at this point it's my last hope.

Spin on Jack-O-Lantern's

I think I have a new favorite recipe.  It's amazing.  I love buffalo flavored things.  Buffalo spice and buffalo sauce are so yummy.  Must be he hot sauce.  Anyway.  I found a recipe for Buffalo Chicken stuffed peppers.  Wow, so good.  Lily had a blast helping me make them too because we carved faces in them!

How's that for a Halloween dinner!  Talk about good timing on that one.  I of course would never have thought of such a thing on my own and the good people at primally inspired thought it up for me.  The recipe is here: http://primallyinspired.com/buffalo-ranch-stuffed-peppers/
It was really easy to make too.  Just mix some spices, sprinkle on chicken, bake, melt butter and add hot sauce.  Combine with chicken and boom!  You just have to make sure you start plenty early because the baking time adds up to over an hour.  Not a spur of the moment meal, but not a hard meal and you can do other stuff while the food is baking in the oven. 

Lily made each one a different monster.  That big yellow one above is a zombie, the red one a vampire.  There is also a Ghost and I think the bright orange one is just a pumpkin with a smiling face.  They were a little spicy since they do have hot sauce in them, but Chloe ate them.  They were a little hot for Lily but she said she liked them.  Definitely recommend!

Caching Up

I promise I have not abandoned my blog.  I have just been unusually busy the past several days.  It's been the kids of days where I get up and start going and don't stop until I'm too exhausted to do anything else.  I've had flute lessons, Temple trips, play dates, Home Parties, and various other activities to attend.  On Friday nigh we went to Boo at the Zoo.  The kids had a great time.  I was worried because it was drizzling when we got there but it turned out great.  My feet got pretty wet but it wasn't too cold (we had lots of layers on) and the kids had so much fun.  We went inside and they had lots of booths set up where the kids could get candy and the adults would get flyers from each company.  They had everything from Sams club, to Skyzone, to swimming lessons, and even dentists. 

Lily went as Rapunzel and Chloe went as Cinderella.  Lily's favorite princesses right now are Rapunzel, Jasmine, and Ariel.  Chloe is fond of Cinderella and Aurora.  Lily loved wearing the blonde hair, and if it fell off she insisted that I put it back on right away.  We all went out to Noodles and Co. for dinner when I got the Asian Buff Bowl.

I think it is awesome that they are offering some of their menu items "In the Buff" where they remove the noodles, add spinach, give you meat and double the vegetables.  Score!  And the kids love that place.  Mac and Cheese all the way.  They each got some color changing cups that they wanted to use for their soda pop.  They have never seen anything like that so when Lily's cup changed from pink to purple she was super excited.  Chloe's cup changed from yellow to green.  I only ate one piece of candy (one of those fun size pieces you get for Halloween) so I was pretty proud of myself for that.  My sister came over later that night and we watched Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.  I love vampires and Vampire movies so I enjoyed it even though it was kind of a dorky movie.  We still had a good time.  I'm going to the theaters with my dad and sister on Wednesday to watch the original Dracula with Bella Lugosi.  I'm pretty excited, it will be a fun time.  My mom is going to take the kids to the church Halloween party while we are out watching Dracula, so they will have a fun time too. 

Today was my sister's 17th birthday party.  I didn't do too well staying out of desserts, but I didn't go nuts and make myself sick either.  I had one piece of cake and one scoop of ice cream.  My mom made a special salted caramel cheesecake for Chase for her birthday and it was Amazing. 

My weight has been hovering around 153, and my goal now is to be able to 'effortlessly' keep it there.  Once I stop the up/down/up/down cycle and feel more confident with controlling what I'm eating and I feel like I have found a place where I am stable and eating generally well most of the time, then I will be ready to start tackling weight loss again, and this time I am going to do it by making a few small adjustments at a time.

A New Approach

Right now I have to carefully monitor myself.  I just can't trust myself, and I can't control myself.  If I have the green light I really just go crazy.  So I've decided to look at my calendar and outline the special days that I will allow myself "less healthy" food.  When I know of an event that I know I will want to eat something special at I will determine what I am going to allow myself to have in advance.  This may seem a little strict but it is better than "no off plan foods ever" and it isn't so free that I just eat a whole plate of cookies every day.  So I know my sister is having her birthday next week and if I am celebrating with her (teenagers-I'm not sure I'm invited to the party yet.  But I am sure we will celebrate sometime). I am allowing myself one piece of birthday cake, or maybe I will take her to coldstone since she doesn't like cake and she loves ice cream so I will allow my self one small Ice cream.  For Halloween I am going to let myself have 4-5 pieces of candy and that's it.  That will insure that I pick out my favorites and hopefully I will think to eat them slowly and enjoy them because I only get a few pieces and not the whole bag.  This way I don't miss out on life, but I have a plan.  Sure there will be occasions where things pop up where I will want to eat something.  But for now (unless I know about it several days in advance) I'm just going to say no.  If the day is not outlined and it is outside of my planned treat then the answer is no.  I just have to suck it up and learn to say no.  I need to get a healthy relationship with my treats.  Not feeling deprived, depressed, or like I'm missing out, and also not going AWOL.   I might be a little bit more liberal with my diet soda.  That will probably be the last thing I kick.  For now, lets try to find a plan that I can actually do!

Seashell Necklaces

I've been having a hard time lately getting the kids to go to the gym.  Lily is usually fine but Chloe has been putting up a fuss lately.  She just doesn't want to go.  When I say we are going to go to the gym she starts crying and fussing and saying she doesn't want to go and then when I drop her off she throws a tantrum.  I've been thinking of stopping my gym membership lately.  The kids have been so sick this year and I'm pretty sure it's because of the gym.  We are in the longest stretch right now that the kids have had of being healthy and I'm thinking it's because we didn't go to the gym for two and a half weeks.  At the same time I don't want to quit because I like going to Zumba class and if I didn't have a gym membership it would be very difficult for me to keep up my running.  I would pretty much have to quit and start over again another day when I had time to actually go running by myself without worrying about the kids, maybe when the kids are all in school, which won't be for several more years.  Also, Lily does like going to the gym and she protested a little when I mentioned quitting the gym.  She said if we quit then she wouldn't be able to see her friends at the gym anymore.  Chloe was all for quitting, she doesn't seem to want to go anymore.  I've been itching to do my beachbody workouts again: Turbo Fire followed by Chalean Extreme, and then maybe getting a new program to do after that.  I'm also looking at things from the perspective of being pregnant (No I am not pregnant now!!!) but Matt and I have decided to start trying for our third.  So I'm thinking about how to handle that with exercise because you can't do high impact when you are pregnant... maybe the first trimester but after that, lifting weights could be a good program, and then maybe Piyo or just finding a maternity program.  It's still a ways away so I don't have all the details figured out.

The weekend wasn't the best as far as eating goes, I went to the annual Harry Potter Party that my girlfriends put together and I ate a lot of junk.  (Hey! When else do you get to eat chocolate frogs, treacle fudge, cauldron cakes, and all those other yummy Harry Potter treats.  ummm... pretty much never).  Yesterday was decent.  I did make some cookies in the afternoon, but I had a protein shake for dinner (mostly because I just didn't want to cook) but also because I hadn't eaten the best earlier in the day and I wanted to keep it light. 

On another note we have finally started doing some things with the seashells we collected at the beach.  Some of the shells we found had holes in the top and so we decided to make some necklaces. 

Now I'm not a jewelry maker and I'm not into jewelry making but I thought that they turned out pretty cute.  (I saw that idea on Pinterest)  I'm feeling pretty tired today.  I'm not sure if it's due to how I've been eating or having interrupted sleep.  The kids have gotten up in the middle of the night several times over the past several nights and the kids wet the bed on back to back nights which was rather weird. 

Other than that things have been going about the same as always.  I know I've been saying it a lot but I really just want to find a good lifestyle, and establish a baseline and stop going up and down and up and down.  I need to stabilize and once I feel like I can sustain my weight at about 150 without doing the on plan off plan on plan off plan, gain 5 lose 5 gain 5 lose 5 crap I've been doing for the past year, then I will look at refining my eating and exercise plan.  For now, healthy and sustainable is the goal. 

Going Down

As you know by now I can't seem to stay off the scale, so yesterday morning I was 153.2.  And this morning I was 152.6  I was happy to see that my bloatedness is finally going down, however I still have five more pounds to go before I get back to where I was a few weeks ago.  I'm not going to get on the scale again until Sunday, that's my plan.  Shouldn't be too difficult, it's only two days.  I hate this process.  You would think I would learn my lesson and stop doing it.  I would much rather be at my low weight working on being healthy and losing more weight instead of being at a higher weight working on getting back to where I was before I went AWOL. 

I've been thinking of healthy and sustainable over the past few days.  What can I sustain for the long term?  Don't deprive myself, but eat healthy meals.  I've been eating eggs with vegetables and coconut milk for breakfast.  I don't usually snack before lunch but if I workout I am making sure to get a post workout snack so I'm not starving by lunch time or by dinner time.  Lunch has been a salad (there is this really delicious recipe out of one of my Paleo cookbooks).  And some Chicken Apple Sausage.  Today was leftovers though since they are kind of piling up.  Dinners have been from my Paleo cookbooks.  I've eaten if I felt hungry, and tried to eat something good for me like avocado and tomatoes or green beans and apples or celery with almond butter and some raisins.  Yesterday the kids asked for popcorn and I  made them some.  I got myself one bowl and indulged in one bowl.  I didn't want anymore, but I made sure I didn't feel deprived or left out or upset I couldn't have any.  It didn't make me feel very good though, so that is something to think about.  Last night the family had pumpkin pie and I decided I wanted to have a little piece too, so I allowed myself to eat a piece.  When I finished I knew I was done, it made me feel kind of cruddy.  But I still went down in weight and I can only assume that if I were at my lowest I would just stay the same weight.  Yesterday was not a bad food day, it was a pretty good food day, but I did indulge a little bit.  Today I don't feel like I need to indulge especially because I have fresh in my mind how it made me feel yesterday and I don't want to feel that way. 

So that is how I am structuring my meals, and how I am planning on eating.  I am just focusing on using what I have learned from Whole 30 to structure my meals and cooking from my paleo books and really zeroing in on sustainable and healthy.  What is it that I really want to do for the rest of my life?  And I've really enjoyed my food this week.  I've felt full and satisfied.  Knowing that nothing is off limits, for real this time, but also knowing that I don't HAVE to eat less healthy foods and knowing how those foods make me feel and having a strong desire to just feel good again has helped me get out of the vacation funk and moving forward into the right direction.  I would love to get to a place where I just don't obsess about weight loss anymore.  I'm trying to avoid looking at myself in the mirror.  I can't help but asses, and judge myself whenever I see my reflection and that isn't good for my self esteem. 

Today went well.  I ate a RX bar after my gym workout.  I wanted to try the RX bar because they are Whole 30 friendly.  They are made with egg white protein which I thought was interesting.  It does make them taste differently.  I think they taste a lot better than regular protein bars because I don't really care for the taste of Whey protein. 

I had my salad and sausage for lunch.  There is enough salad and sausage for tomorrow and then I will have to figure something else out for lunch.  Blast.  Lunch is the hardest meal of the day for me to figure out what to eat. I really enjoyed doing Zumba today, it's been several weeks since I've been to class.  I had a lot more energy today than I have had the past several days.  I am finally starting to recover from my vacation.  Been drinking a lot of water... or at least a lot of water for me, I haven't been counting how much I've been drinking. 

Jet Lagged

I've still been feeling jet lagged over the past few days and the kids haven't fully recovered yet either. Yesterday we went to a friends house in the morning and Chloe couldn't hardly play. She sat in my lap most of the time and fell right asleep when we got home.  She slept for three and a half hours and went to bed at 9pm which is unusual for her if she takes a long nap she usually won't go to bed until 10 or later.  This morning I was 154.8 so I've gone down a little bit, not as much as I expected but I really did a number on myself while on vacation and I drank a ton of diet Pepsi which I am sure is making me retain water. I've been thinking of how good I felt after my whole 30. I just felt so good and energetic and so happy and I want to get back to that place again just to feel good. I'm tired of feeling bogged down by food and feeling bloated and tired.


Yesterday I had my first flute lesson and I was so nervous. I don't know why but I was sweating like crazy on the way over and my hands and feet were sweating and my hands were shaking. I kept thinking to myself that this is stupid! I am going to a person who is going to help me and work with me and make me better, I have no need to be nervous! But I couldn't calm myself down. If you've ever started taking music lessons with a new teacher the first thing they have you do is play something for them so they can asses your playing style, your technique and your level so they have an idea of where you are at and how to help you. I knew which piece I wanted to play, it was a piece I have played a lot and performed twice yet when I played it for her I was such a nervous wreak that I totally botched it. I had to stop in the middle and start the phrase again because I just messed up so badly. My fingers were shaking and I kept missing the notes in the fast part and I was so nervous my face was sweating and my flute kept falling off my face. I kept thinking this is so ridiculous! Why am I so nervous!? But my body had a mind of its own and wouldn't listen to the logic from my head. I hate it when that happens. After I played my new teacher proceeded to turn my whole flute playing career upside down. Turns out I learned the flute when they were teaching a certain technique to new students in band class and that technique has now been proven to not only not work but to actually be harmful to a persons playing because it places the flute up too high on your face and created a lot of extra tension. So now I get to spend the next 4 weeks unlearning bad habits. Story of my life!! I feel like all I'm doing right now is changing bad habits, bad eating habits, bad exercise habits l, bad drinking habits.

Well hopefully some good will come from all this bad habit changing and hopefully I can be successful at changing these habits. But I was really happy with my first lesson even though I was totally embarrassed by how badly I played and then I couldn't do the exercises the had me start to work on changing my habits. I was thinking "no! Let me go home and practice this and then you can hear me play, because right now I can't even make a sound ony flute doing this!" But now I have nothing to fear because I did so awful during the first lesson I should be good on the next, and now that I know her I should be less nervous.  Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to better myself and that I can do something for me to develop my talents and do something that I really enjoy.  I'm also glad that I talked to my brother about picking a flute teacher before I settled on one.  When I was taking lessons in high school my teacher didn't say anything about my embouchure or teach me the proper way to breath.  It was all just working on music and practicing notes and rhythms.  And while those things are important having a correct mouth placement and proper embouchure seems to me to be the most important thing you can develop.  It's the foundation on which all your playing comes from.  So I am excited for my lessons and feel like I can really improve and do something with my flute playing. 

Anyway, today was a pretty good eating day.  I did have a bite of croissant bread at dinner time, but not a whole roll.  My mom made a really good chicken stew and a salad.  I had to pick up Pippin from my parent's house today and I got a free meal with it.  I also braided Lily's hair.  She surprised me by asking for me to braid it that is the first time ever so I'm not very good at it right now but it turned out cute enough even if it didn't stay long.

 

Vacation

I just got back from vacation in West Palm Beach, Florida! 

Chloe on the airplane traveling to Florida, she was super excited

We had a good time but it was also a very strange vacation just because all these weird things were happening.  My diet flew out the window as there were seven of us all together and we ate out several times.  I didn't want to worry about it.  We had a very small kitchen so we focused on easy meals: Tacos, spaghetti, and frozen stir fry.  I ate oatmeal for breakfast and had a lot of sweet potato chips and drank a lot of diet pepsi.  (and I'm paying the price for it now.  I'm really bloated and today I am so incredibly tired... but that also might be jet lag.  I'm sitting at 155.4 after vacation.  Ouch).  But still the kids had a good time playing at the beach and making sand castles and looking for seashells. 

There was a hurricane that went North of where we were staying so it didn't hit us but it caused really large waves and a strong riptide current so the kids couldn't go out into the water for the first four days.  They splashed around in the waves as they washed up on the beach and we had to hold onto Chloe because she liked it when the water pulled at her as it washed back into the ocean.  On the fifth and sixth days the current disappeared but the waves were still a little large and there were thousands of fish in the water.  Along with the fish were sharks.  It was crazy because you could see the sharks chasing the fish.  There would be a line of fish that would jump out of the water then you would see a dorsal fin of a shark come up and see them chasing after the fish.  It was really neat to watch.  But there was no playing in the water those days.  On the seventh and final day the ocean was finally calm enough to go into with the kids and the sharks had departed.  The kids were having a blast in the ocean as it was the first time they had been able to get in all week.  They really enjoyed floating in the waves... until Chloe started screaming.  She was grabbing her foot and of course I immediately thought of the sharks last night and thought there were sharks in the water.  Not so.  I put my hand down by her foot to see what was going on and immediately felt intense pain on my forearm.  It was a jellyfish.  Just our luck.  Poor Chloe got stung across the top of her food by her toes and my forearm was swiped.  We both booked it out of the water, closely followed by the rest of the family.  Lily still wanted to go in the water so while Chloe and I were sitting in the sand waiting for the pain to pass (Being from the mountains I had no idea what to do when getting stung by a jellyfish, and my sister-in-law's advice of peeing on it was not helpful.  I was not about to start peeing on my daughter's foot on a public beach.)  So Matt took Lily down to play in the waves and he was looking out in the water and said he saw a large jellyfish floating in the water.  I was thinking they would have been the smaller ones but nope, we get large ones.  I'm just glad that Chloe's foot didn't get wrapped up in the tentacles. 

Those pictures were taken today, so three days after being stung.  Chloe definitely got it worse.  But Chloe gets over pain pretty quickly and after a while she decided to go play in the pool where there weren't any "mean jellyfish".  It was so sad, because that was the first time they were able to play in the ocean all week.  So back to the pool we went.  Chloe discovered jumping in the pool this last week and she spent several hours just jumping in the pool an climbing out over and over and over again. 

Three of us shared a bed but I would always put the kids to bed first and then bring Chloe out to sleep with her Aunt on the fold out couch.  I went into the bedroom after putting the kids to bed once and found this:

That was pretty funny.  I didn't know kids actually slept like that!  We also went to the turtle rescue center.  That was neat, they even had an albino turtle that someone found!

We also went on a little nature hike.  That turned out to be a bad idea though because the kids got eaten alive by mosquitos and lily freaked out after smacking one on her hand and it exploded blood all over.  I'm sure in her head it was like a horror movie.  You have all these bugs all over you exploding blood all over the place.  She ran out of the trail screaming. 

And we ate out A LOT.  It was such a nice break from cooking and from worrying about what to make and what to eat and what not to eat.  I just ate everything.  I tried not to overdo it, but probably failed.  As my weight manifests. 

I am glad to be back home.  I just felt so thankful for my own house when we got home at 1am (which was 3am Florida time).  I'm feeling better about trying to figure out what is a good way of eating for me.  My neighbor who has continuously done Whole 30 looks amazing.  She has lost a ton of weight so I know that I want to follow the Whole 30 guidelines, do some Paleo, and maybe even add in Shakeology.  I remember really loving Shakeology and it could be a good lunch for me.  I struggle with what to eat for lunch.  I always have, it's a meal I just have not mastered yet.  I'm feeling pretty confident with breakfasts and dinner but lunch is always difficult for me.  If I could just make a shake and eat some veggies and some avocado with it that would be perfect.  I'm still thinking about it especially due to the price tag of Shakeology. 

Today has been tough, there has been a lot to do and I'm totally exhausted.  We went to the gym in the morning and I chose to run the treadmill.  I worked so hard to get my running up and I really enjoy trail running and that is one thing I don't want to lose.  So I figured I would just take it easy.  I ran at 5 mph and walked when I needed to.  I did better than I thought but I didn't run for an hour straight.  I had to do all the laundry and the grocery shopping.  I was so tired doing the shopping all I wanted to do was sleep.  Lily has dance class in a few minutes so I need to get ready to go to that now.  I still need to pick up my dog from my parent's house but I don't know if  I will be able to get there until Wednesday!  Tomorrow morning I have a playdate with my neighbor and in the evening I have my first flute lesson!  Maybe  can go pick him up Tuesday after lunch.  Well, got to go now and get ready for Lily's Dance! 

Backwards

I've been feeling a bit queasy the past several days.  I'm not entirely sure why and I hope that I'm not getting sick.  We are leaving on Saturday to go on vacation for a week to Florida!  We are not going to Disney World since that is a four hour drive from where we are staying, but we are planning on spending a lot of time at the beach.  Living in a land locked state the kids are super excited to go to the beach.  They see the beach portrayed on Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and they are so excited to go play in the water and in the sand.  We went to Walmart today and they each got a new coloring book and a very small box of crayons for the plane ride.  I'm going to charge my old DS and get out the two kids games I have for it and bring that.  We are flying on frequent flyer miles which means we have the longest rout that makes absolutely no sense.  We will be having a very long travel day.  Leaving our house at 8:15 in the morning, plane leaves at 11:30 and then we have a layover in Texas before we catch our plane to Florida.  We land in Florida at 7:10pm, with time changes that is 5:10 our time, but still a very long day and I hope the kids are up for it.  We have decided to bring our car seats instead of trying to risk renting.  It's more to carry on but I think it is the best option being cheaper, and safer.  I'm more worried about the flight back, which has us arriving in Denver at 10:30pm which will be 12:30pm Florida time.  But I don't want to think about that right now. 

I did Turbo Fire 40 yesterday and today I started doing Fire 45 but just felt tired and rather sick so I switched to doing Zumba Wii.  I played my flute since I'm going to my grandparent's house on Thursday to play for them.  I feel like some days I play really well and other days I sound like crap.  I wonder why that is, I guess I should ask my brother about it, he is a musician, and ask him if he has days where he just can't play (or at least feels like he can't play) and misses all the notes and sounds like crap.  I've been out of the music loop for so long that I can't remember ever having good days and bad days.... Of course I think I always tried to get out of practicing in High School, so I did a minimal amount of it.  I'm starting to look through my Christmas music to play for my grandparents so I'm pretty excited about that.  I love playing Christmas music.  I'm going to be playing a concert with my sister and brother for all the family at my parent's house and then I'm planning on playing a couple times for my grandparents.  I have some old Christmas books from High School with the play along CDs.  Yeah, that's cool ;-) Anyway, they seem to enjoy it.  I have enough songs I want to play for at least two and a half visits of pure Christmas music.  I am not sure if I will have time to practice it all.  I think a lot of it is pretty easy stuff though.  That's always good for my self esteem. 

I've been working on eating healthy, not been quite as successful the past few days staying out of the sweets.  Ironically enough my stomach was really hurting after dinner and Matt wanted dessert really bad, so of course I made cookies for him.  I ate some of the cookies because, well, they are homemade cookies and they are hard to resist, upset stomach or no.  And the weirdest thing happened.... I actually felt better!  What is that all about?  That is totally backwards, I should be eating healthy and feeling good and eating bad and feeling bad, but today I ate healthy and felt bad and ate unhealthy and felt good.  Weird.  I'm not sure what is going on there. 

I'm going to try to get one more post in before we leave for Florida but Friday will be lots of preparations.  Maybe Thursday night.

The Next Phase

Today has squarely landed me in the next phase, if yesterday was the kill all the things phase, then today is the I just want to nap phase.  I was tired all day.  I felt like I had no energy at all.  I wanted to workout at home in the middle of the day today but that didn't happen.  I played my flute instead, which at least was productive.  And then I was really hungry in the afternoon.  I just wanted to keep eating and eating.  I think it was the Pho that messed me up.  This time around I'm allowing myself to eat rice and not worrying about sugar or soy in sauces and marinades when I eat out so Pho is okay.  Except it made me feel like crap.  Which I was pretty surprised about.  I feel incredibly boated and my stomach hurts right now and the Pho is the only thing I ate today that was off plan.  In fact everything else I ate today was leftovers.  Leftovers for breakfast and dinner, Pho for lunch.  So I know it was the Pho.  Ugh, that stinks because that is one of our family's favorite restaurants to go to for lunch.  I guess I will start having to push to go somewhere else or try to find something on the menu that doesn't make me feel so sick.  Basically they have noodle bowls and Pho.... I guess I could opt for the spring rolls on the appetizer menu? 

Lily was feeling better today, or at least acting exactly the opposite of yesterday.  If she was tired and lethargic yesterday she was hyper and spastic today.  By 6pm she had completely fallen apart.  She was complaining of her eyes hurting and her teeth hurting.  I gave her some medicine and put her to bed which she was none too happy about. 

Matt dove into the pumpkin pie tonight and said that it was really amazing.  I'm still not sure if he was over reacting for my benefit... Maybe it was to make me feel good so I will make him more pie in the future.  He said he wouldn't lie about something like pie because he wouldn't want to punish himself with bad pie in the future.  It made me laugh.  The kids each had a little slice before bed.  Lily was being her usual self and immediately said she didn't like it the moment she saw it (before even trying it.  We insisted she take one bite (although why we are encouraging her to eat sweets is beyond me... lets just say we are encouraging her to try new foods, that sounds much better).  She loved the pie and ate her whole slice.  She cracks me up sometimes.  She does that quite frequently where she makes a big fuss and then when she tries it she actually eats all of it.  I wonder if maybe she just likes the attention she gets or if she really is nervous to try new foods. 

Home made pie

I have to admit I tried a few bites.  Not a whole piece, just a smidge of what was leftover on the kids plates.  All that hard work to make pie and not even taste it?  Ridiculous.  And I never make pumpkin pie, let alone from a fresh pumpkin.  It was really good.  I liked the combination of spices.  I made the recipe from this website but I didn't make the sugared cranberries or the crust.  I made the crust from this website  because I didn't have to chill it overnight.  Only 30 minutes.  One thing I really want to make this season is a Pecan Pie.  I do love pie and I'm not sure why I never make it.  This is the first pie I've made in maybe two years, and that was a key lime pie and that was the first pie I had made in probably five years.  I guess I'm just more into eating cookie dough than pie filling.  There are some pretty awesome looking desserts in that new Paleo cookbook though that look scrumptious.  I will wait until after my mock whole 30 though.  Still trying to keep in tune with the spirit of the program and not eat pancakes and waffles for breakfast and not make paleo dessert yet. 

 

Here is my poor sick Lily yesterday passed out on the couch.

 

Here is my guacamole and bell peppers.  I made a big batch of guacamole with 3 1/2 avocados and Chloe ate most of it.  She had several bell peppers with it too.  That was her dinner.  At least it was healthy!



Feelin Better

Despite being super sore last night and tossing and turning all night because of it, I am doing much better today.  I'm feeling good, and I'm remarkably not all that sore today.  I thought I was going to be in for a rough day since my legs were so sore yesterday.  But this morning I hardly had any soreness.  However Lily woke up sick.  I cant believe she is sick again!  She has had a mild cough for the past week and a half and I've been giving her the Emergen-c hoping she won't get worse but she had a mild fever this morning and came into my room crying and saying her mouth hurt.  I gave her some Ibuprofen and she is doing pretty good now.  I hope this is just a mild sickness and doesn't turn into anything sinister.  She just got over croup three weeks ago! 

In other news I decided to check my weight today and see how my deflating progress is going.  I was 147.6!  I was super happy to see that because that means I'm pretty much all the way back to where I was after my original Whole 30.  One week after my first Whole 30 I was down to 146.6 so I'm only one pound over my lowest from a few weeks ago.  That makes me feel good because last week I really overate and ate poorly.  I'm starting to feel better today too.  I don't have a headache, but I did take some Ibuprofen because my bones were hurting.  Probably from being so incredibly busy this week.  Cleaning the house, exercising, running errands, playing with kids, and generally being very active.  Much more active than usual, which I am sure helped expedite the deflating process.

Today was more low key than most days because Lily didn't feel like doing much.  We did need to run to Costco, and of course I realized later tonight that we are out of toilet paper, so I will need to get that pretty soon.  Maybe I will wait until we get back from our Florida Vacation, I think we can last until then.... I suppose I should double check, there is nothing worse than running out of toilet paper. 

I managed to keep pretty busy today.  I played my flute, and baked Matt his pumpkin pie.  I wonder if it will be any good.  He isn't home yet to try it so I don't know yet how it turned out.  I'm sure it is at the very least edible.  I got in a new cookbook today!  It's a new cookbook by Juli Bauer called "Juli Bauer's Paleo cookbook"  and she blogs at paleomg.com
I have been enjoying looking through it and it is very different from the other cookbook I got from nomnompaleo.  For instance there are a ton more recipes for breads, desserts, muffins and the type.  I was really surprised when I started looking at it.  Some of the stuff in the breakfast section I will never make for breakfast and I think should be in the dessert section like chocolate muffins.  But I suppose muffins are not quite cupcakes.  There are a lot of good looking recipes I want to try out and I am glad to have the sweeter recipes to help me on my way as I try to transition to healthier eating and get away from binging on regular cookies.  There are recipes for pancakes, ice cream, and even breakfast pizza!  I'm super excited to make some of the paleo tortillas and have breakfast burritos and fish tacos and fajitas!  All without the added junk that comes from store bought tortillas!  (Did you know I can keep store bought tortillas in my pantry for over two months and they still don't mold!?) Talk about your preservatives. 

After going through the book I am buying my immersion blender tonight on Amazon.  It pretty much seems to be a necessary product for cooking this way.  Making sauces, mayo, and blending soups is a breeze with that tool and after exploding hot curried broccoli soup all over my kitchen yesterday I'm pretty much over blending my soups.