Permanent

It doesn't take long for me to slip back into old habits.  This week has been awful for me as far as controlling my eating.  I did so good on Whole 30, and I felt good, but it was only 30 days, and it ended.  Once I officially decided I was done with Whole 30 all my old bad habits came rushing back.  This past week has been one long carb-a-palooza and I've been left here sitting wondering what happened.  I've been thinking a lot this week about what to do and I've decided that what I need to do is that there is no timeline.  I've decided that on Monday I am going to make a permanent change in my diet, and go Paleo.  It is very similar to the Whole 30 but not as strict, a little more flexible.  I'm also going to keep in rice and some dairy.  If I make a permanent diet change I figured I would need to be able to make it fun and enjoyable and there are a lot of great Paleo recipes I can use for some old favorites like paleo coconut pancakes and paleo ice cream and you can even make paleo cookies if needed.  Naturally I would try not to eat many sweets for a while as I'm learning to switch my diet permanently.  I'm going to start by cooking my way through Nom Nom Paleo. 

I want to do this for me and for my health. I know I need to make a permanent healthy change and I know eating this way makes me feel good and energetic and happy from doing my whole 30.

I'm terrified, and full of doubt, but I'm also determined to make a positive lifestyle change and kick the sugar bug and the binging habit for good. 

We are headed out for the weekend so I won't be blogging for several days.  I'm going to officially start on Monday.  Then I can think to myself that "I just don't eat that" instead of "I can eat that again in a little while".  I really think it is the best thing for me to do. 

So, here goes nothing....

Lessons

So I made a mistake on Monday and I definitely learned a lesson from it.  On Monday I went to the gym to do my Zumba toning class.  I love that class, and I had a great time.  Right after Zumba toning I was feeling really good and there was a Zumba class starting right after my class, in the same room.  So I stayed for the Zumba class.  Totaling 2 hours of cardio with no breaks and no refueling in between.  All I ate for breakfast was my normal breakfast of eggs and potatoes.  I walked out of the Zumba class utterly exhausted.  I had zero energy.  The Zumba class was great fun but the last half was really tough because I was just tired.  I crashed, and I didn't get my energy back for the rest of the day.  After the two hours I took a shower and ate a quest bar because that is what I had, and then I went home and ate and ate and ate.  I was starving.  I ate my lunch and my stomach was pretty full but I was still feeling hungry, probably because I didn't fuel myself properly for exercising for two hours and I didn't refuel afterwards properly.  So I ate some cookies.  Then I was just so tired the rest of the day.  It reminded me of how I felt all the time before starting Whole 30.  Killing myself in the gym, not eating properly and then feeling tired and like I just want to sleep the rest of the day.

Lesson learned.  Do not do a bunch of unexpected exercise without proper fueling.  If I'm going to do a double class at the gym I will have to bring something to eat inbetween, or make sure I am eating something that provides energy right before and right after.  Like almond butter.  I have discovered that my body reacts really well to Almond butter when I am exercising.  I love to eat it right before a workout, it helps me keep my energy levels up.  It's what I ate at the triathlon inbetween my events.

The rest of the day was wasted since I ate poorly the rest of the day and was so tired.  When I get very tired I tend to eat, and it's usually snacky food.  So I had popcorn and cookies, which is of course the most nutritious dinner and snacks.  Yesterday I was recovering from Monday.  I was tired and grumpy and felt kind of sick all day.  That is what happens to me when I don't eat well.  When I stick to my Whole 30 plan I feel great, when I deviate from it I usually REALLY deviate. That tends to be my pattern.  I can't just eat one cookie, no I go all out and then I'm stuck feeling like crap for the next 48 hours.

Today I'm finally feeling better and I think I'm just going to do HIIT 15 today, and hit the gym tomorrow.  We have lots of things planned for today.  I'm taking the kids to the park this morning for playgroup so I'm going to miss my Zumba class, hence the HIIT 15 plan.

I made this recipe for breakfast this morning.  It was pretty easy and it is something different.  It has apples mixed in with the sweet potatoes.  I never would have thought of that!
http://www.ourpaleolife.com/recipe/eggs-nest/

http://www.ourpaleolife.com/recipe/eggs-nest/

I didn't have any bacon crisps to put on top so I ate it with just the potatoes and eggs.  It was a welcome change to my normal routine!  I'm trying to find some new recipes since that is how I cook.  I am not one of those people who can just make up their own recipes or throw a bunch of food together and make it taste good.  I'm a recipe follower.  Tonight we are having grilled steaks, I looked up a marinade recipe and I'm going to grill some potatoes and make some veggies.  That is about as close to cooking without recipes that I can get.

Checking out Paleo

Last weekend was awesome.  I absolutely loved going to Time Out For Women, which is an event put on by Deseret Book that is a spiritually uplifting event for women.  They bring in speakers and music artists and it is a lot of fun and inspirational.  I loved going.  Even better I had my Mom go with me at the last minute!  I did pretty good with my eating over the weekend.  The hotel we stayed at offered some food in the club room from 5-7 and so we decided to eat there instead of going out.  They had chicken and hummus and some cheese and fruit.  Along with other things I didn't eat like crackers and cake.

Yesterday I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and didn't do so well staying out of them.  Today I ate a huge lunch of leftover ground beef stir fry and I am so full that my dinner is pretty much just water.  Ok, and I really want to try that Paleo Ice cream recipe I saw in the new book I bought.  I bought the cookbook from the nom nom paleo website 

Source

I bought the hard back copy because I have come to the conclusion that I do not like my cookbooks on electronic format.  I have tried it before and I have a hard time with it.  I'm loving this cookbook.  It's full of great information and really good looking recipes.  Spice mixes to throw on your meat to make easy meals, and how to make perfectly hardboiled eggs that peal easily.  The pictures look awesome and the cartoons are funny.  I bought this book because I loved the Whole 30 so much that I wanted to look more into a practical Paleo approach for long term living I did great on my Whole 30 but once it was over it was kind of like "well now its over" and it didn't take too long to cave and overeat sweets and other junk again.  If I want to be able to lose weight and keep it off for life I have to make a life long change, and I love the idea of eating whole healthy foods.  I also really want to get the kids eating whole healthy foods and less foods like goldfish and fruitsnacks.  Paleo is very similar to Whole 30 which is why I'm looking into it.  I've been going through the book and realizing how much more learning I really need to do and how much I don't know and how much more practice I need.  So I've been thinking about cooking my way through the entire cookbook.  I've never done that before and I've had a desire to do something like that ever since that movie Julie and Julia came out.  I think this might be the book for me!  Except I refuse to make that coffee ice cream in the back.  As a Mormon I don't drink coffee and you have to use brewed coffee in the recipe, so I refuse to make it.  But I will suffer through all the mushroom recipes, and maybe just maybe I will find some mushroom recipes I actually like.  I'm getting pretty excited for it.  I think I'm going to start after our trip to Florida which is the first week of October.

Hard Times

This will be a quick post, I'm leaving for the weekend in just a little bit.  Yesterday was a great day, I felt good, had lots of energy and I got a lot of things done.  Last night Chloe wet the bed and then decided not to go back to sleep for the next several hours so I'm pretty tired today.  I've been really struggling today mentally.  I just keep thinking how terrible I look and how fat I am and I try not to think about it but I can't help it.  It might be because of how poorly I slept last night that caused this change in mood, I'm not sure.  Hopefully this day will pass and I will start feeling back to my better more cheery self soon.

I've been pretty stressed today since I'm leaving for tonight and tomorrow without my family, I'm going up to a Women's church event and I am really excited to go, but I'm going with three other girls and one of them got really sick so we were worried about her (she had to go to the hospital) and find a last minute replacement for her (otherwise she would lose all the money she paid to go) and then the timing that everyone is getting picked up at kept changing and now we are leaving pretty late and I'm worried about traffic and I hope we can get to the evening session on time.  That has made me want to eat a lot of junk like usual.  My emotional eating reared it's ugly head.  I did snack, but I had some mango, and nuts.  As far as snacking goes that is much better than what I used to eat when I would emotionally eat.

Still trying, still working, still living.

Busy Days

Now is about the time when I start to realize that I can't do everything every day.  I have now gotten to the point where I have added so many things into my day that I just can't fit everything in there.  Which I think is a good thing, it gives me variety and makes sure we are not doing the same thing every day.  Between preschool, music time, story time, reading time, going to the gym, cleaning the house, cooking, taking the kids to activities like going to the zoo or going to the park etc. daily scripture study, playing my flute.... wow, that is a lot of things.  And the list goes on, there is Chloe's ABC time and number time, playing board games.  There are so many things to do.  My life finally feels like it is picking up and I finally feel like my life has purpose and meaning.  Because I gave it meaning.   I gave it a purpose.  I have let go of my identity as someone who is worthless and who can't do anything, and someone who needs to lose weight to be of any value and I have been eating healthier and therefore have more energy and I have moved myself into a place where I feel good about myself.  It has been hard to get over my problems with hating myself and it has taken a lot of mental self talk to tell myself that I really do have worth. It also took action.  I had to start doing things, I had to succeed at something, and launch myself into a better and healthier place.

On Saturday we went to the happy apple farm and picked a pumpkin and some raspberries.  They didn't have any apples because they had a frost that killed a lot of the blossoms and then they had a bad hail storm that destroyed a bunch of apples.

 We took the kids on the hay ride, and they really loved that.  Yesterday we drove to the top of Pikes Peak and the kids had a good time going up the mountain.  We stopped a few times to get out and hike around and we had a picnic (when we were still in the trees) it was pretty cold on top and we didn't stay up there too long.  There wasn't much to do at the top except sight see.  Not any trails we could see, but the kids were pretty cold anyway.  It was really windy up there.

I have been feeling pretty good with my eating.  At the beginning of last week I was 149 after coming off of eating a little too much in the way of popcorn and eating out.  Sunday I weighed 147.6 and I am happy with that especially since the first two days of the week were not good eating days.  Tuesday and Wednesday were the hardest days, getting back on track with healthy eating.  I really had to fight the sugar demon on those days, but now I'm feeling pretty good again.  My energy is pretty high again and it is much easier to avoid sugar again now that I have not been eating it for a week.  I made Matt some chocolate zucchini bread last night and didn't have any or even taste the batter.  There were free samples of cookies at the store today and I didn't eat one, didn't even feel like I wanted to eat one (they were probably stale anyway which is why they had free samples for those cookies when they usually don't).  

I've given up my fitbit.  I don't need it anymore because I know for a fact that I get in over 10,000 steps every day.  My weekly average for the past 8 months has been 100,000 steps.  But it also signifies a change in my mentality.  I am still working out of course, but my focus is changing from trying to lose weight by working out like a crazy person to trying to live a healthy life by changing the what and how I eat.  I'm more focused on the food portion than I am on the workout portion.  That being said, I still went to the gym today and ran for an hour and then did bodyflow to stretch out.  I am by no means abandoning my exercise, I just know that I don't need to wear my fitbit because I know I get in enough exercise, I don't need to track my steps anymore.  I know I'm an active person.  

The other day I made a really good Thai Shrimp Curry and had rice on the side.  Matt loved it, especially with the rice.  

It has bell peppers in it and I usually don't like bell peppers especially in that large of chunks, but this was just amazing.  I am enjoying discovering new healthy foods and finally getting away from cooking with cream cheese, and canned soup.  I'm staying away from processed foods like chips and crackers as much as I can, those are all foods without breaks for me.  I can just sit down and eat a whole family size bag of chips, or half a box of crackers in one go.  

I try not to obsess over getting down to 145, but I am so close it is hard not to think about it.  When I catch myself obsessing over my weight like I used to, I will stop myself and say "lets go do something else".  I do the same thing if I'm thinking about snacking endlessly in the afternoon when I know I don't really need to eat.  It has been good for me to get more things done in the day instead of sitting around eating or sitting around bemoaning the fact that I'm not a few pounds lighter.  I will usually go do something with the kids, or go play my flute and that is much more productive.  So you should now know what the absolute hardest time of day is for me to control my thoughts.  That would be when I'm in bed trying to fall asleep at night.  It gets so hard not to dwell on weight loss and body image when there is nothing to distract me.  Often I'm so busy trying not to think about weight loss that I can't fall asleep because I'm thinking about too many other things.  And before you say it, no, thinking about weight loss will not help me fall asleep, it will just make me antsy and feel like I need to go workout some more so I can lose weight this week.  

Today was a very busy day, in the morning I made breakfast for four people, cleaned it up, then did scripture study with the kids and then immediately got them and myself ready to go and off we went to the Gym where I ran and then did Bodyflow.  From the gym we went to the grocery store and did the shopping for the week, and when we got home it was putting groceries away, feeding the kids and myself, cleaning the kitchen, sweep and mop the kitchen floors, go take a shower, *phew* Now it's time for the kids to get a snack, and lets do ABC and number time with the kids so Chloe can get more ABC practice.  Ok, now it's time to get the mail and start dinner.  Mom comes over right after I start making dinner and she helps make dinner and then we all eat, and then I do her nails while the kids watch some TV.  Matt comes home, feed Matt, finish nails.  Mom leaves, clean kitchen again, put kids to bed and now blog.  And tonight I need to work on a new music routine for the kids and look up new Whole 30 recipes as I feel like my stash of healthy recipes has been made several times and it is time for something new.  

Pictures

I was going through some old pictures on the computer the other day looking for photos of the kids to put in the picture frames I have when I stumbled across several pictures of me from before I lost the weight and I was really surprised at what I saw.  I have my weight loss timeline but still, I don't usually think about it.  Reality hit me hard.  I realized how far I have come, how much better I look now.  How much more I can do now.  I don't spend the day lying around the house exhausted, I don't dread exercise or taking the kids out or going hiking.  Life is much more livable and much more enjoyable. I realized how much happier I really am now that I have lost the weight and it helped me to come a little closer to loving myself and loving my body and being proud of myself for the hard work that I have done and what I have accomplished.  So often we get caught up in where we want to go, that we don't realize how far we have come.  I was so focused on getting down to 140 and into the 130s that I never stopped to appreciate where I am now.  I don't have my dream body, but I do like my body.  The whole 30 has helped me get past a huge hurdle and has started to help me learn how to eat properly for the rest of my life without dieting, without counting calories.  Learning to trust my body and my hunger signals, learning to resist cravings and temptations.  Learning how much to exercise and when to exercise.  For the past year and a half I have been exercising so much that I would just be wiped out the rest of the day and I spent the better part of it exhausted because I would expend all my energy exercising.  Not anymore.  I used to workout 6 days a week and I think it's time to let go of that.  There is so much more to do during the day now, so many adventures to find and to take the kids on.  So much to teach them, and so much fun to be had in the meantime.  And being with the kids, and really interacting with them is very active and is a workout in and of itself, I just couldn't hardly do it before because I was so tired from my two and a half hours of exercise.  But you see I never got anywhere with my weight, which just goes to confirm something I already knew.  It really is how you eat that determines your size, not how much you exercise.  Doing the Whole 30 has helped me let go of using exercise to lose weight and to burn more calories so I could eat more.  And If I'm not working out to burn calories to lose weight and eat more then why am I working out?  Like I mentioned in a few posts back, I like working out.  I enjoy Zumba, I enjoy moving my body and getting sweaty and feeling like I accomplished something and just feeling happy.  Exercise makes me happy, moving my body makes me happy and I am so thankful that I have been able to come this far.  And I do hope that I will be able to continue to lose weight, but I have come to a place where it is much less important to me.  I have FINALLY come to the place where I really just want to be healthy and happy.  And as long as I am eating healthy, and I have the energy I need to do the things I want to do, that makes me happy.

June 2012

July 2012

August 2012

Pictures are from right when I barely got pregnant with Chloe so I had been loosing weight from Lily's pregnancy.  As you can see I'm still very heavy.  I only got to the threshold of obese/overweight (175) with trying to lose weight after Lily was born and then I fell off the bandwagon and by the time June 2012 came around I was back in the 190s.

When you do what you are supposed to

I've noticed that there is a certain peace and happiness that comes when I am doing the things I am supposed to do.  When I am eating right, I feel good about myself, and I feel good inside.  I have been interacting more with the kids over the past few weeks and that makes me feel good too.  We have been doing story time where they listen to the Standin' Tall story book (I think I mentioned my project of getting all the cassette tapes into MP3 format) and we have been listening to the story books and dancing to the songs.  We have been doing Music Time where we do action songs and rhythm songs.  The kids are having a great time and so am I.  It is a challenge to keep everything orderly and I do need to spend more time preparing, but I can prepare once and use the same thing over and over again before the kids get tired of it and I will need to prepare something new.

I have felt better about myself over the past few weeks than I have for most of my life.  Every time I add something into my life that is meaningful I feel good about myself.  I am so happy to be playing my flute and I am happy to be interacting more with the kids.  We did preschool again yesterday and I'm planning on doing it again Friday.  Tomorrow I have to get my eyebrows waxed so I am going to be taking them to the Mall to go play.

I have been struggling with my sweet tooth the past few days.  Although I have managed to eat well I have eaten entirely too much fruit, so I am going to try and take the fruit eating down a little bit, but it is better to overeat fruit than to overeat desserts.