Ready. Set. Go.

I really want to do this.  It has been a very long time since I have actually achieved any of my goals I have set for myself.  I have been going backwards since hitting 145 a year ago.  I have set goals and failed time and time again since then to accomplish them.  Hitting 140?  Didn't happen.  Never again seeing 150 on the scale?  Didn't happen.  Stop binge eating?  Still struggling.  Regulate my eating so it's not so up and down?  Yeah right, it's like one week on one week off right now.  Lose the holiday weight I gained? I've still got 10 pounds to go.  Participate in a triathlon?  The rug was pulled out from under my feet.  I will get back on track tomorrow?  My husband says he would be rich by now if he had a quarter for every time he heard me say that. 

So here I am feeling like a big fat failure.  My confidence and self esteem are shot and I'm gathering up the broken fragments of my remaining determination for one last hurrah.  Which brings me back to the beginning.  I really want to do this, and do it right.  I want to see what it can do for me.  Can it change MY life like it changed so many others.  In an interesting turn of events, as all my regular cheerleaders have taken a backseat since I have been struggling for so long, my Mom has stepped up and is cheering me on saying that this is something I can do and helping me along the way.  I'm getting all teary eyed just typing this.  To have my mom on my side helping me and supporting me, even just through small comments such as "you've got this" gives me an indescribable feeling and determination.  I want to do this for me, and I want to do this to show everyone I can, and I don't want to let my mom down.  Mom's are precious, and hold a tender place in our hearts and can influence us in ways no one else can, even when we are grown and have kids of our own.

Anyway, enough of the sappy stuff *wipes eyes*.  Agenda:  Here are some things I am going to keep tabs on over the next 30 days:
-Chronic fatigue: I wake up tired, get some energy for my workouts and remain tired the rest of the day.  Which makes me not want to do anything with the kids and makes me feel more guilty about being a bad mom to my kids.
- Poor Sleep: I wake up a lot at night.  Toss and turn.  Probably helps contribute the the whole chronic fatigue thing
- Mood regulation:  Lets see if this helps me not be all over the place, feeling good for a few days then feeling depressed which leads to the next thing
-depression.  I feel like I spend way too much of my time feeling depressed, and I feel like I shouldn't be depressed because I have life pretty good which of course makes me feel guilty and more depressed
- food cravings and obsession.  I've already talked about this at length in my previous posts
- weight loss- this is huge.  I want to be below 145 by the time I finish the 30 days.  I would be lying if I said I was doing this only for the other health benefits. 

I finished reading the book last night and started meal planning for the week.  You are encouraged not to snack in between meals so I only had to plan three meals a day, planning snacks as well starts getting time consuming.  I'm going to stick as close to the plan as possible and for now that means no snacking.  When I ramp up my activity again and start doing more intense workouts I will make sure to add some extra protein and fat (what they recommend as a snack).  What I like about this program is that it isn't all black and white.  They give you the tools and you are supposed to figure out how much food your body needs.  It's the whole learn to fish vs giving someone a fish type of thing.  They tell you what to eat, and even give you estimated portion sizes but it is entirely up to you to decide how much is right for your body and how frequently you need to eat. 

I decided to go ahead and start Day 1 today since after eating about 10 molasses cookies I realized I really couldn't put this off any longer.  I needed to start now.  My eating habits are so messed up I am in dire need of help.  They talk at the end of the book about extending the program if you need it, and I think I might be one of those people that need it.  You do a minimum of 30 days because that is the minimum amount of time needed to change.  I'm thinking of doing 30 days exactly as the plan says and then doing another 30 days almost exactly as the plan says, but I might add some rice back in here and there.  I have to give up my Juice Plus for the duration of this challenge because it contains oats and all grains are forbidden.  So I'm thinking day 30-60 I will add back in my Juice plus.  We will just have to see how everything goes.  The only thing coming up is my birthday on the 20th, and well... it's my birthday so I can do what I want and I don't have to eat cake or ice cream if I don't want to. 

So here is a summary of how Day 1 went for me:
Day 1

 I woke up tired but determined.  Matt snored a bunch last night, combined with my late night sugar dose kept me awake until about 1am.  My sinus infection is slowly going away.  It feels much better today although when I bounce around my teeth still hurt.  For breakfast (the largest photo in the collage above) I had 3 eggs with 1 tbsp coconut oil, onions, green beans, bell peppers and 1/2 avocado on top.  After breakfast and cleaning the kitchen I was feeling more awake and we were off to the grocery store to get the first load of Whole 30 groceries (picture: Top left).  In the picture you can see all the yogurt, that's for the kids.  Yogurt is not whole 30 approved.  The point of the picture was to show how many veggies were in my cart.  I've never had so many veggies in my cart before.  I also bought something I've never bought before: coconut cream.  It is used in many recipes to add thickness and creaminess.  The morning was a bit hectic as we had to leave to go to a birthday party pretty soon after we got back from shopping.  The party was from 11-2 so I wanted to make sure I packed a suitable lunch.  I pulled some Chicken sausage out of the fridge and after quadruple checking the ingredients, decided they were safe.  I don't know if you can read that ingredient list but it says chicken, dried apple, salt, fruit juice concentrate from apple, pineapple, pear and peach.  Spices celery powder in a pork casing.  Everything looks clear. Pure fruit juice is whole 30 approved. 

In the mid morning I was feeling kind of queasy and a bit grumpy but that is probably due to several days of bad eating and lack of sleep.  I did well at the birthday party.  I created my own lunch of sausage, green beans, carrots, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 mango, and a little less than a serving of almonds.  The parents of the birthday girl are just finishing their whole 30 so they were totally supportive.  The kids had a good time, even if they did get sprayed a lot with the squirt guns (my kids can only dish it out, they can't take it.) and broke into tears about twelve times.  They also played on the playground which had a tire swing and they got way dizzy and a little nauseous so we decided to go straight home instead of going to a different store to pick up a few specialty ingredients (like clarified butter). 

I kept myself busy all day and I didn't feel hungry in between meals.  Around 3pm I started getting a headache (probably due to lack of diet pepsi today) and was getting increasingly more grumpy.  I cooked dinner (bottom right in the picture) which was a coconut curry chicken with lots and lots of sauteed kale.  The guideline is first put your protein on your plate, then fill the rest of it with veggies.  I made these recipes out of the whole 30 cookbook.  Each recipe serves 2, so I doubled the chicken and made one recipe of kale.  So I took half the kale since I figured that was about as much as I was supposed to eat.  I ate three small tomatoes that we grew from our garden.  Lots and lots of veggies.  I'm feeling very tired right now.  My headache has subsided and I got the kids to bed early so that is a huge stress relief.  They were being awful tonight.  My general feeling is kind of cruddy but I know it's going to take a while before my body starts feeling better.  I didn't do myself any favors this past week with food.  I was sick and depressed, and to make matters worse I was sick in the head not the stomach so I pretty much just ate to cope.  I am now going to sweep and mop the kitchen floors since it is only just about 7:30 and the kids are in bed so I can actually do it without getting interrupted and I don't want to do it tomorrow.  Day 2-4 are supposed to be the worst feeling days (physically) on the plan.

All in all not a bad day 1, only 29 days to go.