Final Thoughts II

Well Amy, it’s been fun!  Thanks for being a sport and taking this ride with me!  And congrats on your 2 pounds!  Here are my final thoughts (for now).  I also lost 2 pounds but then gained back a half leaving me with a net loss of 1.5 pounds for the month.  That was discouraging.  But that was also with little exercise other than dog walking and less than optimal health for the month and mega (job) stress.  I’ll take the loss…I just hoped for more.

I spent a lot of time in my head on Saturday wondering about good food and bad food and the realities of continuing long term with so few carbs.  It’s hard for me to demonize fruits and veggies and potatoes.  Oh, I love potatoes.

I came away from that talk with myself with an appreciation for what I have learned in the past 7 or 8 months of blog/book-reading & podcast listening.  I no longer look at soy as a health food.  I know why Crisco is bad for you and butter is good.  I know that food closer to how God made it is best for us, and that processed foods should not be our norm.

I’d like to continue to lose weight in November, though I know it will be a small and slow loss, as per my usual.  I’d like to maintain my loss in December so that I don’t end up losing ground before resolution-making time.  I’d like to eat real food keeping an eye on the carbohydrate intake, but not being dogmatic about it.  If I eat something sweet and delicious, I would like it to be something that my great-grandmother would have baked in her kitchen, or picked from her orchard (if she had an orchard!).  I would like to continue to spend the extra money to ensure that my meat & poultry are grass-fed/free range or at least hormone and antibiotic free.  I’m going to try to eat 3 meals per day and cut back on the snacks, and really, really work on my sleep.  

Thanks again to all of our readers (do we have readers??) for following along and as a final thought, I’d like to encourage others to try this – you never know what you might learn about yourself along the way!

Final Thoughts

Well, it’s over, and to be perfectly honest, I was horrible this past week! Too much Halloween candy.  And to make it worse, I haven’t been exercising AT ALL! Which is totally not like me.  But I wake up super early, get wrapped up in “work” aka Blogging, and I don’t stop all day.  I find it hard to pull myself away to exercise, or even eat for that matter.

Despite that, here are things I was true to:

I lost 2 lbs!  That may not seem like much, but those two pounds are actually ones that haven’t returned!  I started this experiment i think at 123, and I’ve been 121 for the last two weeks!

• I didn’t eat any whole grains the whole month!  This is a HUGE breakthrough for me! Even if I start eating oatmeal again, I don’t think it will be hard to never eat bread or pasta again!  I really think this alone has helped me keep the weight down, despite not exercising.
• I stopped killing myself with the cardio!  Well, it did help that the marathon was over, but I think I was finally able to let go of two pounds because I wasn’t “conserving” the fat for those long stinkin runs.

So, those are the two changes I’m sticking with, and I’m lightening up on the rest of the stuff.  Less grains and no bread… plus less long cardio sessions.

Thanks for the challenge Mindy! I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) have done this without you!

My Cheatin’ Heart

The good news is that I’m over my bout with the flu or whatever that was.  It was short-lived and thankfully I only missed one day of work.  That day when I stepped on the scale I was delighted, though not surprised, that I was down 2 pounds.  But I also knew I was dehydrated and it would quickly come back, which it did.

Now I’m in a weird place.  I allowed dairy back in a bit.  Then I had a couple baked steak fries.  Then I had a bit of chocolate, then a bit of carrots (all this week…not just today!) and now I’m feelin’ fat! 

I also find myself thinking about the long term….what if I just did a “balanced” eating plan?  What if I had a spoonful of brown rice? 

Jimmy Moore says that you should find what works for you and do it everyday for the rest of your life.  So does Paleo work for me?  Does low-carb?  Clearly, when you look at the weight chart on my BLOG, it appears to work better than high-carb/low-fat….but is there anything that works better?  I’ll be dead before I’m skinny, at this rate.

I just feel like nothing really, really works for me.  Everything works for a little while, and then it stops.  So today I’m discouraged and wish I could follow the Brownie Diet for a few days! 

Too Sick to Blog, II

This past week was so freakin’ crazy!  And I ended the weekend with a stomach bug, courtesy of my oldest daughter.  I’m wrapped up in a blanket in my flannel jammies, sipping diet Ginger Ale and I’m keeping down 4 saltines.  I feel 10x better than I did last night so that’s progress.

Amy’s outlined her plan post-30-day-challenge.  I’m not so sure where I’ll end up.  But can you believe it’s day 25?  Not bad!

I think I’ll allow some dairy, when it matters.  Sometimes you just need some cheddar cheese over that burger, you know?  But then there’s other times that it really doesn’t matter and I’ll try being moderate with it.  I may end up back with whey protein as opposed to the egg white protein powder though, just because the taste is so much better, and I don’t suffer from acne and don’t find it bothers me.

I am going to try, try, try to avoid grains.  I have an occasional potato or sweet potato and will continue to have small amounts of fruit.   That’s my plan – as it stands now.

Sorry all, I have to stop talking food…ewww. 

My many URL’s

I’m obsessed.  Literally obsessed, and I don’t know how to stop myself.  I officially have like 20 domains purchased! But two new ones I’m excited about are:

Healthy Kids Plates , Kids Dinner Plates and Free Healthy Meals.

They aren’t really set up well yet, but certainly they are going to make me millions and millions of dollars:)

Anyway- back to the purpose here.  I really do feel energized and thinner (although I still weight the same)

I think I’ve had 3 eggs with half an avocado every single day! It keeps me full till lunch, when I have leftovers from dinner the night before.  I’ve been snacking on apples and almond butter.  String cheese and greek yogurt, fruit, lot’s of carrots, and chicken breasts. 

I know we only have one week left.  However this is how I see the future:

more protein (especially the eggs and chicken)

More fat (especially the avocado’s)

One grain per day

1 dairy per day

unlimited fruits and vegetables.

Cravings

Yesterday I couldn’t believe the cravings I was experiencing!  I don’t know what got into me, but I wanted junk food! I wanted pastries, cookies, or anything with sugar and fat that I could get my hands on.   Lucky for me, I didn’t have anything like that in my house.. so I kept putting it off.  I knew I was going to the grocery store yesterday, so I decided ahead of time that I was going to buy something indulgent.  When I got there, I couldn’t do it! 

Then when everyone went to bed, I decided I was going to make something like cookie dough to just eat and enjoy… and I couldn’t do it!!  I woke up this morning a half pound lighter!!  Hooray that I didn’t give in!  It just goes to show how VITAL it is to not have junk food accessible IN my house.  If I had bought our Halloween candy already, there would have been NO stopping me.

My current weight 122.2

Sometimes We Struggle

Oohhh…I’m having a rough day!  Not sure what is causing it (couple o"’theories) but if there was a brownie or a cookie in my house right now, I would be eating it!  Of course, it does not help that I’m watching the QVC “In the Kitchen” show – all day kitchen stuff – and yes, I did buy the Today’s Special Value Vitamix!  So on top of wanting to eat carbs, I want to spend money!  It’s sick.

On Friday, which was the 1/2 way point to this Paleo experiment, I decided that I deserved a cheat meal.  My husband was at camp and I thought it’d be a nice night to take the girls out for dinner.  My plan – to splurge on some potatoes – either fries or mashed – but to avoid gluten.  Apparently a lot of people go out on Friday night.  I’m usually home in my sweatpants while the world is getting social.  So, after 2 tries at restaurants with long lines, we went to Pizza Hut and I had 2 slices of gluten.  However, it was good.  As you know, I’ve been avoiding dairy these weeks, too.  So it was really good.  I also had an ice cream to chase it down.  I was hungry, and I did not over-eat (quantity wise) so I felt OK about it.

Could that be what’s effecting me today?  Is Friday’s “sin” what’s causing me to want sweets?  Or is it because it’s the glorious time of the month and it’s just a “girl thing?”  I did hear Robb discuss this on an old podcast the other day and the verdict was that girls just have more cravings due to the biology & hormones….so it’s as I have always suspected….it sucks being a girl!!

So that’s where I am today.  This week I have 3 full days out of the office and I’m wondering how I’m going to manage with food.  I did purchase a box of Balance Bars for back-up, that I hope not to resort to eating.  We’ll see how I do!

Hey Amy, did I lose you?  How’s it going?