Day 31: Results

Because that is what I know you really want to know.  It was what I really wanted to know.  I stepped on the scale this morning and the scale flashed: 147.2

My starting weight was about 153, meaning I lost 6 pounds this last month.  I was finally able to break through the plateau I've been in since I gained the weight back, start eating more steadily, and over the past week my afternoon crashes have disappeared.  I had really hoped to weigh 145 but I am happy with my results.  That is only two pound over my goal and three pounds lower than 150, which was about as low as I could get before.  And that was with starving myself and killing myself in the gym.  I have loved not needing to count calories.  I have loved not feeling hungry all the time.  It has been hard, but counting calories and sticking to a certain number is hard too.  There is freedom and limitations with each approach, but for me, only one leads to true freedom.  The need to eat processed foods and sugary foods is gone.  There is still temptation, and still times when I think I want to eat those foods, mostly when they are right in front of me.  But I don't seek them out.  I am perfectly happy making a home cooked meal, even if it is something as simple as heating up some sausages and putting some fresh vegetables and macadamia nuts on my plate.  I don't seek for opportunities to eat out like I used to.  I always wanted to eat out before, and that gets expensive.  Now I seek for reasons to eat at home.  I think as I reintroduce some more foods and learn how to navigate eating out better, I will enjoy eating out again, but for now I am going to stick to safe options.  Once I add rice back in the Korean restaurant will be great as they always have meat, vegetables, and rice.  That's pretty much all they eat.  There might be some sugar in their sauces but I would doubt it, Korean's don't like sugar, even their cakes taste terrible because they don't put nearly as much sugar in them as we do.  (We never ate Korean cake when we lived in Korea it was soooo bad).  There is also Chipotle which is a great place (get the burrito bowl or the salad).  And now that Noodles and Co. have those spinach bowls that is a great thing to get too.

Today started reintroduction and I opened up a can of baked beans for lunch.  There were more off plan ingredients than just the beans in the can but on day 31 the no added sugar rule is pretty much gone, not that you are eating sugar by the droves, but if you want to eat lunch meat that has sugar in it, or sausage or bacon cured in sugar it is okay.  So there was some sugar in my baked beans but I didn't worry about it.  I added the beans in and I felt just fine today.  I ate them for lunch and dinner and I didn't notice any energy drops, or gas problems.  My stomach didn't hurt and I feel just fine right now.  I now go back to the Whole 30 for two days to see if there are any long term effects from eating them.  For instance, if I notice tomorrow that I have no energy it is probably because of what I ate.  I haven't experienced any bloating or unpleasant side effects as of yet.  But I think it would be good to eat them sparingly because of the higher sugar content.  They make a good side for hamburger night.

Source

I did it

I made it.  30 days on Whole 30, no backing out.  It's the first goal health and weight loss goal I've set that I have accomplished in a long time and I am proud of myself.  I am happy that I was able to make it, to make a commitment and see it through.  Now, near the end of the program I am finally starting to feel more energized, and I am having more days where I don't crash in the afternoon.  It has taken what seems a very long time to get to this point.  30 days however is not very long in the grand scheme of things, but it can seem like forever when you are going through it.  I learned that it isn't that hard really to say no to people when they ask you if you want to eat certain foods, even if you have to decline a few times and tell them you really are sure you don't want any.  They aren't going to think any less of you 99% of the time.  Eating healthier really does make you feel better.  This past week my stomach aches finally went away, and my energy increased a bit.  I'm not sure if I would call it "magic" like they do in the books, but my diet was really out of control before I started the program, so I'm sure it has just taken longer for me.

My cravings, while not gone have lessened and I realized another thing: it doesn't matter how many times you give in, you will always want more.  Giving in will not lessen your desire for that food any less.  Eating everything in sight will not make you less likely to binge again.  No matter how much candy you eat or how many cookies or how much cake, you will always want more.  It might be a day later or a week later but cravings will always come.  You have to learn how to deal with cravings, you have to learn how to live around and navigate sweet foods without losing yourself to them.  They are everywhere in our society and if you give in every time something is offered or available... well there is a reason why I got so fat in the first place.  The only way for me to overcome my food addiction is to learn to live without it.  It was very hard, and I expect it will continue to be very hard for a long time.  20 years of eating habits don't just disappear in thirty days.  But through fighting those battles, I become stronger and slowly over time I know I will be able to navigate the food world a little easier.

So what happens now?  Now that my 30 days are up, I'm not planning on changing much.  I'm doing a slow roll reintroduction, I think tomorrow I'm going to add some baked beans to my lunch and dinner and see how my body handles that.  Then I go back to Whole 30 for two days, and on Thursday I can add something else from the legume section.  I'm thinking black beans or soy.  Doing a very slow reintroduction will help me evaluate each food I add back in separately as well as give me more time on Whole 30 practicing healthier eating, and growing stronger in my ability to say no to sweets and other carbs.  When you are happy with the way you feel and look, it is easier to eat a certain way.  Regardless of what the scale says tomorrow, tonight I feel good about myself.  Tonight I feel like I have made progress, tonight I feel like I have been losing weight and I think  I really do look thinner.  Tonight, I am filled with hope.

Source

Prime

Today I was getting some m&ms for the kids out of the big bag we keep in the pantry and when I opened it up I just wanted to stick my face in the bag and start eating. I still want to eat sweets and other foods that are bad for me, it's just a lot easier to say no to those foods when you aren't hungry. So often we go on diets and we cut out a lot of the foods we like and then we are starving all the time because we are only eating 1200 calories a day and eventually we crack. That is what I like about this program. You aren't hungry the whole time. Your physical hunger is satisfied, which makes the emotional hunger, while still difficult to deal with, much more manageable.

  This afternoon I really wanted to snack again. It's a bad habit that has proven very difficult to break. I wasn't very hungry but I still wanted to eat anyway. I knew we weren't going to be eating dinner until late so I snacked on some strawberries and dates and drank some water. Afterwards I couldn't eat any more I was pretty full, but I still had the urge to snack just out of habit. I busied myself with my kids to take my mind off food.

  When Matt came home from work we went on a hike. I brought Pippin with us and he was very happy to come along. He did pretty good considering he hasn't been out much. He pulled a lot on the leash but I'm sure he will get better with time. I'm really going to try to take him out more often now that the kids are older. I grilled up some hamburgers on our grill for the first time and they were pretty good. I didn't get them squished quite flat enough for my tastes so they were a little thick but still tasty. It's been hard to find good seasoning for my hamburgers and fish because the usual spice mixes I use pretty much all contain sugar. Now why do they do that? (probably because it makes them taste better). I used a sweet potato as a bun again, and this time Matt actually asked me about it in this way: "What Is THAT on your hamburger!" I had to smile a bit because this is the third time this month I've done it. The first two were at the beginning of the month. I simply told him it was a sweet potato and I read that you could make a sweet potato bun and then you don't have to get all the calories from a regular bun.

  I got my eyebrows waxed this morning at the mall and then let the kids play at the play area there. I haven't been to the mall on a Saturday in a very long time and I was surprised to see all the booths set up everywhere. They had a booth for a local radio station and they had a guy in a moose costume. The kids loved the moose, and I was able to spin the prize wheel. I ended up winning a $25 gift card to the mall! How cool is that?! Then as we were walking to the play area I totally had an impulse buy

 How cute is that!  They were headband with giant bows.  I really liked the purple one but the kids both wanted pink.  The purple one was super cute, it looked like a sunburst, but Pink is in so that is what the kids got.  I also bought them a cute little pink basket, I figured it could help organize some of the toys in their rooms.  I found them at one of the little kiosks in the middle of the isle so they were pretty cheap (easy on the budget is always good for an impulse buy). 

Speaking of impulse buying I accidentally signed up for Amazon Prime the other day.  I was buying an external DVD drive for my new computer and I even bought a protective case to go with it so I could get the free shipping.  And of course they never have the free shipping automatically selected, you have to go in and select the free super saver shipping.  Well it was late at night and as I was searching for the box to select my shipping speed I saw these words "Free Shipping" and I clicked on it.  Then a box popped up that said "Are you sure...." and I said yes.  Next thing I know a box says "Thanks for trying Amazon Prime!  Your 30 day free trial has started".  Well that is what I get for buying stuff at 11pm at night and not reading everything.  So we have been trying it out.  I think it is great.  I've already ordered some small things to get the free two day shipping on them (first of all I get my cd drive on Monday instead of next Saturday which is super cool) and I am potty training Chloe at night.  She has been getting little prizes every 5 consecutive days of having a dry diaper.  She just earned her princess Aurora doll (Princess Aurora is her all time favorite) and tonight she is super excited to wear her undies to bed.  Not having to wear diapers to bed is a pretty big motivating factor for her so we will see if she wakes up dry again tonight.  I sure hope so.  She is going to get some olaf silverware if she can go five more nights.  That was pretty cheap and free two day shipping too!  And I didn't have to add stuff to my order to get up to $35. 

The kids have also been really enjoying Amazon Instant Video.  They have all the Dora, Diego, and Blues Clues episodes on there that Netflix doesn't have.  We also have a super awesome smart TV (that was Matt's birthday present) and the kids like watching the shows on that.  They watch Netflix on the ipad because I have a friend who is letting me use their Netflix account on my ipad.  I had to try out the music stations too, and I am excited to find some new music.  I've already found a couple songs that I like.  It is supposed to tailor your music selections to what you listen to and you can mark songs as either you do or don't like them and it will play more or less of those types of songs.  I've never had Spotify or Pandora, or any other music streaming service so this has been really fun and interesting.  I just need to get some external speakers setup so I can put on the kids channel and we can rock out and finally have no commercials and not have to worry about using up all our skips to find songs we like. 

I totally didn't mean for this to turn into a rant about my experimenting with Amazon Prime, but I have been enjoying my 30 days free.... And This is only day 2 mwahahaha. 

*ahem* anyway.  Today is day 29 of my 30 days!!! Woo Hoo!  One day left.  I'm not sure if I will blog tomorrow or not but definitely Monday.

High School Reunion

Today had many ups and downs. The morning started out well enough, but come 9am I decided to return the sink faucet before Zumba class, which turned out to be a mistake because it took a lot longer than I thought it would take, so I ended up missing class. Then the grocery store was right next to the plumbing store so I had to run in and grab a few things, which of course needed to be refrigerated and so I ended up going back home and skipping the gym all together. I was pretty tired anyway from being up late last night. I failed in my attempts not to analyze myself in front of the mirror before I got into the shower this morning. I started feeling depressed about everything and thinking that nothing has really changed and I haven't lost any weight and this has all been for naught. Even though these self sabotaging thoughts were running through my head I still managed to stay on plan. Although it was a bit more difficult around lunch time due to my mood and the fact that Costco no longer sells my Whole 30 compliant apple chicken sausage. They still have the same brand but the switched the type of sausage for one that has Swiss cheese in it, so of course it is out regardless of whether or not it contains sugar. I ended up opening up a can of chicken and mixing in some coconut cream with onions and having that as my protein with vegetables on the side. After muscling my way through lunch I spent some time with my flute and enjoyed playing. I'm getting better and better the more I practice and it is getting kind of exciting. I used to be quite good (way back in high school) and I am enjoying being able to play the songs that I have been working on better and at a quicker tempo and with fewer mistakes. My tone is improving too, but I still have a lot of work to do in that area. For dinner I grilled some Mahi Mahi with Southwestern Seasoning from Pampered Chef and olive oil. I made broccoli on the side. Matt said he really liked the dinner which is always a good thing. After dinner we went to my 10 year high school reunion! It was great because it was at the park and the kids could play. They had two events, one tonight at the park and one tomorrow at a restaurant. I'm not going tomorrow, It sounds like people are going to be playing pool and drinking a lot and I don't drink alcohol. Period. So I figured it wasn't really my thing. But the event tonight was great. The kids loved playing at the park and Matt was able to come so he played with the kids quite a bit while I visited. Lily loved playing with all the other kids that were there. This was definitely the family event. There was a lot of ice cream and the kids ate some but I refrained. I was asked many many times if I wanted ice cream but I just kept saying no thanks. Besides, it was mostly melted anyway. The coolers they kept it in did not keep the ice cream cold and it had been sitting in the coolers for several hours before the event and it was hot today. I was able to see several old friends and even found some that were living here that I would like to re-establish contact with. None of my very best friends I used to hang out with showed up, and there were a lot of people I didn't know (I wasn't exactly popular in high school) but we all had a great time. I sent Matt and Chloe home early because Matt had gone directly to the park from work and was pretty tired and hadn't eaten yet, and Chloe was getting really tired. Lily and I stayed until the sun went down and it started raining. We were some of the last people there. I found a couple people I had missed during the event that I was talking to. One was a good friend from band and I wish I had more time to talk to him. I only got to talk to him about 5 minutes before I had to fetch Lily from the rain and by the time I got back he was engrossed in a conversation with someone else, so I ended up talking to another less known friend but that was good to chat with her for a bit. Of course I didn't take any pictures, typical of me. But I am happy that I was able to see some people, and hopefully re-establish some old friendships. Two more days of Whole 30. Weigh in day is looming and I'm excited and nervous at the same time. I am having a hard time telling anything with my clothes. It seems like my size 8 pants fit a little better but they are still quite tight. They don't hurt when I wear them but they aren't exactly comfortable. My size 10 pants I can't seem to make any use of them because they are tight when I put them on right after they get washed and then by the next day they are falling down. I don't know what to think about all that. I just hope that I am around 145, that is what I really wanted. To get back within my healthy weight range (at the very least). Tomorrow I am going to get my eyebrows waxed and she hasn't seen me since before I started, so it will be interesting to see if she has anything to say. I'm not going to bring it up or ask how I look.

Catching Up

My computer came in yesterday! Yea! I finally got my birthday present. I am super excited, I already downloaded windows 10 onto it and I think I am going to like windows 10 much more than windows 8. I have bad karma with windows 8. I haven't done much with it yet because I was gone when it was delivered so I had to go pick it up in the evening. Most packages I will allow to just be dropped off at my doorstep and left there, but when it's a brand new laptop, that is a different story. I don't want that getting up and walking away. I figured out how to turn my backlight on and off, and set up Cortana. That is going to be pretty fun to play with. It's basically Siri (although I have some bones to pick with Siri, for example today I asked where the closest Noodles and Co. Restaurant was and it sent me to a Chinese place. I ended up going to Noodles website to find the location). I took the kids out to dinner because they had been really good all day and were good sports about coming along to pick up my package.... that and I didn't want to make dinner.

  I just had some water because I had already eaten leftover chicken curry. I can't believe that I am almost done with my 30 days. I really want to weigh myself but I know the importance of the last several days. Big changes can happen the last week and especially in the last few days. So I'm being good. On Monday I get to start reintroducing foods. The first group is legumes and I think I will start with baked beans. I don't eat many legumes but I have four things in this category to introduce and instead of doing them all at once I think I will do them separately. They are: baked beans, black beans, peanuts, and soy. I love edamame so I'm glad I will get that back to add into my vegetables. I have a lot of frozen mixed vegetable bags in the freezer that have soybeans in them.

  Tuesday was a great day, I didn't crash in the afternoon like usual and I had a good run. I went up to my parent's house to run the hills around there and ran 3.5 miles. My mom mentioned that I looked like I had lost several inches which is always a good thing to hear. My run went really well. I'm still slower than a snail, but at least I am out there doing something and doing it of my own free will.

Wednesday was another great day. Again no afternoon crash and I was able to play my flute and do Lily's reading lesson. I had a really hard time falling asleep. I about passed out at 11pm when we were going to bed and then Matt started talking to me and after that I just couldn't fall asleep. I know I got in plenty of physical activity as we went to the Zoo in the morning. The kids had a good time, and were able to get their faces painted. They chose butterflies again. Chloe was wiped out by the time we left and she ended up sleeping until 6pm!

I tried to exercise in the afternoon but after about 25 minutes I just started feeling sick to my stomach. I wonder if it was the heat. Which sounds wussy but we had been out all morning in the sun and it was 76 in the house (this is where everyone who lives in hot climates throws something at me. I really feel like I should be able to workout in 76 degree weather, but something was up today with my body and it was having none of it in the afternoon.)

  Thursday dawned and I was remarkably not too tired. After getting breakfast and bathing the kids I went on a run. I decided to bring my dog with me and he didn't make it the whole way. I was planning on running 5 miles and he pooped out at 3 miles and I had to carry him home. I picked him up and took a shortcut home, but still had to walk the last mile. I think I will only bring him on my shorter runs for a while. But it is good for him to get out and get some exercise so I want to take him on my runs. After the triathlon on the 22nd I won't need to do the long runs anymore and I can just run 3 miles or so and build up his endurance better. It was too hot today. In the 90s, bleh, the kids were all red in the face while we were traveling. I went to my grandparent's house today and had a good visit with them. The kids read books to my grandma who has dementia and I played a couple songs on my flute. I only had two songs performance ready so it was over pretty quickly but that was fine because it was so hot in the house my flute kept slipping off my face due to me sweating so much.

 When we came home the kids watched some movies and I worked some more on getting my new computer set up. I really like my new computer, I just had a bunch of technical problems with ITunes and my phone. I wanted to update my old iTunes email to my new one but I had already used my new one as a recovery email so I had to go through all these hoops to change my old email address to my new one, including resetting my security questions because I apparently can't remember what answers I put down. That took a while and then what really took a long time was getting my iPhone synced with my PC. I was having this problem with the old lap top and thought it was a windows 8 thing, but now I'm wondering if it was just that version of IOS because after I updated my iPhone the computer recognized it like normal. I needed to transfer my photos from my phone to my computer. I am just happy that everything is working... Except inserting pictures into this blog post. I wonder if that is a Microsoft Edge thing (their new internet browser) or if blogger is just having troubles right now. This wouldn't be the first time I have had problems inserting pictures into my blog posts. I have had a lot more energy over the past several days and I wonder if I am finally getting into the Tiger Blood phase. They did say it would take longer for people with a poor diet before the Whole 30. Today I didn't crash in the afternoon again and I'm starting to be optimistic. I think I am going to set a permanent alarm for 6am and just have that be my regular getting up time. Ideally I would like to sleep from 10pm-6am and use the time in the morning as a time to get stuff done, like read my scriptures. The kids aren't awake usually at that time (until daylight savings hits I'm sure).

Note: Okay so I just switched to internet explorer, (because I don't have Mozilla or chrome installed yet and I was able to insert the pictures just fine, so it's windows edge) 


As a parting thought I really need to have another side baking day because I'm starting to eat too many potatoes and not enough other veggies, so tomorrow morning I am not going to eat any potatoes.  In fact I'm going to try to stay away from potatoes for the next few days just to make sure I am getting enough other veggies. 

The Things I Miss

So my husband will be taking the laptop with him to work over the next three days so I make no guarantee I will be able to write another post until Friday.  If I have something terribly urgent to say I will go turn on the computer in the basement but I don't like doing that much because then the kids come downstairs and start playing in all the business supplies. 

Anyway, I did just fine today with the diet, but I didn't want to make the chicken stir fry I had planned on making tonight.  I think I was just tired, actually I still am tired.  I have been having a really hard time falling asleep at night lately and I don't know why.  I haven't been falling asleep until about 11:45 regardless of if I try to sleep at 9:30 or 11pm and regardless of how tired I am.  That's been three days in a row so I really hope tonight I can fall asleep quickly.  I have no clue as to why I can't fall asleep. 

Today was hard because I was around my extended family, the side that looooves diet pepsi.  (There is a reason why I am hooked on that stuff) and I really really wanted to drink some diet Pepsi.  My water just wasn't tasting all that great.  But I stayed strong and refrained.  I have been thinking about what things I really really miss eating and there isn't too much that I really miss.  I miss my almond milk, and I'm too lazy to make some, so I'm just going to wait until reintroduction and I can buy it again.  I also really miss diet pepsi, but I know that is something I really need to get off of anyway.  Maybe I can have like two a week or something.  Sugar of course, but that is something I am not going to touch for three months (my goal is 90 days at least).  Other than that there isn't a whole lot I miss eating on a regular basis.  Most things I would be fine with eating every once in a while, like rice, beans and peanuts.

   There was also leftover birthday cake today which I passed on but gave my kids some to eat when they discovered it.  I figured it was just a grocery store cake so it wasn't anything special and besides that it was several days old so it was probably getting stale.  I did have a good time with my family, but I am really tired now and it is only 6pm.  I want to just go to bed.  Both the kids fell asleep in the car on the way home so they will be up late *sigh*. 

I ate scrambled eggs and leftover hashbrowns for dinner because I really just didn't want to make anything.  I need to make sure the chicken gets cooked soon though.  If I get any energy before tomorrow maybe I will at least cook it up.  I want to get up early and run tomorrow, but if this bought of insomnia continues I doubt I'm going to have much energy or desire to get up at 5:45 and go run, which is really bad because I desperately need to get in some outdoor runs before race day. 

I'm kind of moody right now, being tired does that.  But at least I don't feel like eating, I just feel like sleeping.  I don't really have much else to say, things are going about the same as they have been the past three weeks.  I'm trying not to think about my weight or look at myself in the mirror, although today my family asked about my diet and I told them a little about it and what it entails and why I was doing it.  They said that I looked great, so that is some encouragement there.  One week exactly until I get to weigh in, Next Monday!

The Last Week

I can't believe I am here on the last week of the 30 day plan.  I am on day 23 and I feel like I am doing well.  I still have some pretty strong sugar and snack cravings.  I still feel like I could eat a while cake (especially right now) since sugar cravings have absolutely nothing to do with actually being full.  Right now I feel like I could eat and eat and eat and eat sugary foods.  I wonder if I will ever be free from this feeling.  Maybe by the time I finish 90 days of the program I will not feel the urge to devour a whole batch of cookies.  I know that giving in doesn't help.  I've been giving in for a year and the cravings and urges haven't lessened one bit.  I have gained no control by giving in, therefore the only thing I can think of doing is to not give in and hope that helps.  I certainly don't want to spend the rest of my life fighting sugar cravings and feeling depressed because I chose not to eat something sweet and then hating myself because I chose to eat something.

This is the time of the program where people start analyzing themselves in the mirror trying to decide if they have lost weight, and if certain body parts look smaller than they remember them being.  I am doing that really badly.  Their advice is to avoid the mirror as much as possible and to stop looking at yourself.  Instead think about how you feel and focus on more important things.  I wouldn't say that I'm bursting with energy.  I do think that my energy levels are a bit more stable than before.  I used to cycle through energy every few days.  I would have a ton of energy for a few days and then no energy, then lots of energy for a week an then no energy for two weeks.  It seems that has leveled out a bit, the highs are not quite so high and the lows aren't quite so low.  I still get tired in the afternoon, and I wonder if that is something I will just have to live with.