Time to change

Over the last few days my cold has turned into a sinus infection and the pain on the right side of my face hurt so much my teeth were aching.  I looked in my essential oils book and it said to use eucalyptus oil and to swab the inside of your nose with it.  Since I was home most of the day yesterday I made sure to swab every few hours, or as often as I thought necessary.  Every time I swabbed it would cause a ton of gunk to come out and this morning I actually felt better for the first time.  That was pretty cool.  Now it could just be a coincidence since I have now been sick for 8 days, but I do feel like the eucalyptus oil helped.  I know for a fact that every time I used it my sinuses emptied out.  So I thought that was neat to actually see some results and to get some success using the oils. 

I've started playing my flute again.  I picked up a bunch of music at the music store and some pieces online that I want to work on.  I got this brilliant idea to play my flute for my grandparents.  My grandma on my mom's side has dementia, and my brother played his trombone for my grandparents last week and she really enjoyed listening.  I've been wanting to start playing again for a long time and this gives me a reason to play and to work on new songs.  I'm pretty excited.  I've got a bunch of good stuff to keep me occupied for quite some time.  (It also gives me more stuff to do in the day and maybe can help keep my mind off food..... maybe).  I also picked up a rhythm kit for the kids.  It has a drum and a triangle and some other percussion instruments, and a beginner recorder book for Lily.  I'm going to start teaching Lily how to play the recorder and how to read music.  I'm sure it will be slow going but whatever exposure she gets will be good for her.  I also want to do some rhythm activities with the kids with their new instruments.

In other news, things seem to keep going from bad to worse in the triathlon field.  I talked to my father in law today and he said the third guy might not come through after all and that he (my father in law) doesn't really want to pay for the trip up to Aspen (hotel room) to do the triathlon.  So it seems like we might not do it at all now and we might try to get our admission tickets changed over to a different triathlon in August (the one where we are relaying and I'm running and my husband is biking). 

Well I've been thinking about this whole journey and where I am now and what I need to do to progress.  I feel like I have the exercise part down pretty good.  I have found lots of activities I like, and when I'm not sick I get between 15,000-25,000 steps in per day.  But I am just not making it with the food portion.  I have been trying for a year and a half now to get my eating under control and to change my eating and eat healthier and I just have not been able to do it.  I realized it was time for a major nutritional overhaul.  In times like these I feel like you might need a push forward.  I started looking at what beachbody had to offer since I had a good experience with Shakeology.  I had pretty much decided on their 21 day ultimate reset and I started talking to my mom about it.  She said I should try Whole 30 first if I wanted a detox program, it's pretty similar to the 21 day ultimate reset (only without all the supplements) and the huge bonus is that it's free. (Compared to the ultimate reset which is $200 just for the program and supplements). 

Holy crap I'm actually going to do it.  After ridiculing it, I'm jumping on the bandwagon.  Now it is important to approach this from the right angle and for the right reasons, otherwise it is just going to be a bunch of wasted time.  I am not looking at this as a diet or the magical cure to all my problems (although I'm sure it will help (It had better help!)).  I am approaching this from the angle of learning something new, experimentation, and taking my journey to the next level.  I want to do the whole 30 program because I want to cleanse my body, get rid of food cravings, feel better physically, boost my energy, and stabilize my mood.  All of which the creators of the whole 30 plan claim their plan can help with.  If I don't do anything, I'm not going to get anywhere.  I've been killing myself with exercise and getting nowhere.  I NEED to get my food under control.  I NEED to kill these cravings and learn how to behave myself around food, and how to have a proper relationship with food.  It is time.  Either I can keep doing what I'm doing now and continue getting nowhere, or I can change my food, learn a bunch of new things, try something new, and see where it leads me. 

I'm not going to tell my husband I'm doing it lol.  He eats whatever I put in front of him, and besides that he is gone from about 8am-9pm so it doesn't really matter what I make at the house.  And making a nicer breakfast for him will make him happier.  I will still get him sandwich bread and stuff to pack in his lunchbox, lets just be practical.  But hopefully the kids will benefit from eating healthier too.  We still have way too much junkfood in the house to get the kids 100% on the bandwagon, but you have to start somewhere.  I am aiming to start on Monday, but I don't know if I can read through all the literature, meal plan, and shop in time to start Monday.  I also want to blog about every day through the process, track the benefits, the drawbacks, the changes.  Everything I can and see if it is really worth it.  I'm also excited to see if there are certain foods my body reacts negatively to, and to see if it helps my seasonal allergies like some people say.  There is a lot to find out and to experiment with.... It's going to require more cooking and meal prep and the tricky part will be how to not eat out for 30 days without Matt discovering what I'm doing (He knows of the whole 30 diet plan and thinks it's ridiculous... which I did too, but now I have a purpose and a reason to do it and I have no intention of staying super strict after the 30 days, definitely planning on reintroducing foods, but sticking to healthier food choices.)  Maybe I will just tell him I'm really focusing right now on eating clean.  The Whole 30 is less strict than the Ultimate reset which is another desirable trait.

Well I'm going to read the book a little bit before bed and hope that I feel good enough to go to Zumba tomorrow,  If not I will just take the kids to the gym and read my book anyway.