Eat all the (healthy) FAT!

Things are finally leveling out. It’s Day TWELVE! I made it through the ‘hardest days’ with great success. And temptation has been in my face almost every day. With the wrong mindset I would have swooped in on all of the temptations and ate everything! But the determination, the lack of hunger and the overall feeling of feeling good trumps all things bad that are food related! Pretty much I’ve got into a good food routine. I had tried out some new recipes but was in such a hurry I never photographed any of them. Hopefully I’ll do better next week!

1/16/14 Dinner

EAT HEALHTY FAT!
I do believe the hardest thing for people on this journey is the fat content. FAT is scary to most folks. We’ve learned throughout time via our Drs., tv shows, etc.. that LOW FAT is best. And when you consider that as a society we are mostly inundated with sugary, grain, fried fats on a daily basis, then YA eat low fat to rid those bad choices. BUT when you eliminate the processed foods and grains, you eliminate inflammation, you cut calories THEN you eat healthy grass fed animal and vegetable fats in your body it’s a whole different story. You get satiated more quickly. You have more energy. Fat is fuel for your body. Your body needs this fat. You WILL NOT GET FAT by eating the right amount of fat daily on the Whole30 plan. Whole30 suggests you eat 1-2 serving of fat per meal. OMG WHAT? How many calories is that? I have no f’ing clue because you aren’t supposed to count the calories here. A serving of fat for oils is about the size of your thumb. But if you’re looking to eat an avocado, 1/2 to a full avocado is ideal. As for my favorite fat added foods, it’s COCONUT flakes. It’s almost like dessert for me when I pair it with blackberries or an orange.

But enough rambling. If you want more, you should read It Starts With Food by Dallas & Melissa Hartwig. They pretty much explain it all in a very easy to understand way!

1/16/14 BOOM Box
Conditioning: 500m row X 3 rest 2 min between efforts
Oh boy, I tried to stay row for row with the guy next to me! That worked for about 150m. Then I was smoked. I went from 1:42 pace times to 2:30. But I gave it some effort. The other rows weren’t a little more consistent. Rowing is NO JOKE!

MetCon: For time 21 Turkish get-ups, Right arm 50 Swings 21 Overhead squats, Left arm 50 Swings 21 Overhead squats, Right arm 50 Swings 21 Turkish get-ups, Left arm
When I read the board, I hadn’t fully let it sink in as to what was in store. I saw how long the class before was taking but it still didn’t set in with my brain. When coach had us work on the Overhead Squats with a KB and one armed I was like oh CRAP, this is hard. I tried using the small 25lb KB and that was not happening. I moved to the paperweight 9lb KB and it was doable. But it was going to be a buttwhoopin! As far as the Turkish Get Ups go…I wasn’t too scared. I knew it would be tough but I was more concerned if my wrist could hold up. After 4 reps, I had to change over to step ups while holding the KB on my right shoulder. This was pretty challenging as well. I did move through the OHS a little bit better than I imagined. But the KB Swings in between were what were killer. I was huffin and a puffin. Finally got to the 21 Get Ups on my left arm. And I am smoked. Like I could break down in tears any minute. But I just lay there, breathe and get back to it. I HAD to leave at 6pm because I had things like making my kids basketball game in time and dropping off another kid. So I only made it to 15 reps. 6 to go. I don’t even know when I stopped, maybe 21 minutes or so. But I didn’t have the time to finish out the last 6 reps. Ah well. I put in a lot of work none the less. I just don’t have a time on the board. Nor did I have time to take a pick of the board. My back is smoked.

That’s a Wrap!

Ya it’s a short one today folks. I have a lot going on, but I promise next week I will have a giveaway for 3Phase Paleo by Paleo Parents. Plus I’ll be reviewing it as well! Stay tuned. Have a great weekend! And get healthy! Whole30 ON!

Day 30 – Whole30

Hooray! My last day of Whole30 has finally arrived! I’m quite confident I’ll finish the day on a good note and just keep going on tomorrow as if I’m still in it. I feel really good. I feel fantastic. Words can not express how GREAT it feels to feel good all day, EVERYDAY!

I just wish I could let everyone have a mental and physical peek into a world where you aren’t drained midday. Where you can get good sleep. Where you aren’t consumed by tired, pain and headaches. Then you could know and then you would just do it! I’ve recapped my joureny so you can read about it but I want you to really FEEL it! Because I KNOW it’s HARD. It’s time consuming. It’s whatever excuse you can possibly dream of that suits your need at the moment. I get it. I’ve been there a BAZILLION times! But rebooting, starting with a CLEAN (food) slate and working the program WORKS! Whole30 gives you the support to make it through.

If you are just joining me, please know, this isn’t my first rodeo as it might have been for some of you readers, or maybe you’re still researching if it’s worth it! I can tell you it’s worth it. But for me, I’ve been eating Paleo for over a year now. I did the 21-Day Sugar Detox back in May which helped me tremendously because although I was Paleo, I was still eating too much fruit, honey and maple syrup because I was trying to Paleo-fy all sorts of desserts. I was a sugar addict. I held strong for a few months but I went off the rails at the end of 2012. I needed a reboot. I needed to reprogram. Whole30 is exactly what I needed. I jumped into the deep end of the pool. I bought their success guide, I subscribed to the emails. I went out and bought It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig (founders of Whole30). You don’t have to do all of that, you can follow everything they have online, on their blog and on the forums. But for me, being armed with as much literature and reference is what I needed. I carried around my success guide for the first 2 weeks along with my ISWF book. Also it helps me tell other people who inquire what it is that I’m doing and most of all WHY I am doing it.

I’ve documented my days, foods and moods in my posts starting January 2. Some days I was detailed and some days I just gave a general outline. In a week I was out of my “fat girl” pants. That’s when I knew I had to change something in the first place. My “fat girl” pants were getting snug. How SAD is that? But it’s true. I was so bloated. So filled with junk that I was just expanding. After the first week, I was feeling pretty fantastic. That’s how quick it happened for me. But remember again, my body already KNEW what this change was like. It just missed it and I think I bounced back much more quickly than others that are new to this kind of change might feel in a week. A lot of is mental as well. You want your wine, your dessert, your fast food. It’s so good and life isn’t worth living if you can’t enjoy those treasures, right? WRONG! Your life isn’t over because you cut out that stuff for 30 days. It’s 30 days folks! The #1 thing that stood out to me in ISWF is that Dallas and Melissa say “CANCER is hard, QUITTING a drug habit is hard, etc.” Giving up some foods for 30 days is not hard. We are all adults. It’s true. Start acting like one.

And let me tell you food doesn’t have to be “bleh”. It can be awesome. Some of the foods I’ve made this past month have been some of my kids favorite meals! Sure you may NOT WANT to cook and you figure a plain piece of baked chicken is fine then great for you. But that plain chicken is going to get old fast! Add some cumin, garlic, FLAVOR. Add some Whole30 approved ingredient salsa. Spice it up. You can still LOVE food while cutting out grains, legumes, dairy and alcohol. I’ve been honest with y’all in my posts. I did lose the motivation to cook and prep day in and day out! I’m not the kind of prep person who does it all on Sunday and then I’m set for the week. I prep 1-2 days ahead because I’m just that way. And it has worked for me! You will have to experiment what will work for you. It can be done.

1/30/13 Lunch – spinach salad with tomatoes and bacon, grassfed chili, strawberries.

Day 30 Breakfast – Chicken Thighs, Sweet Potato Latkes, Asparagus.

Whole30 is strict. They are serious! They want you to have positive results! I WANT YOU TO HAVE POSITIVE results! I know you will if you plan for this. 30 days! I have had ZERO brain fog. My ankles and wrists were hurting every morning and now it’s GONE! I was getting headaches, more specifically MIGRAINES that I hadn’t had in a year and now they are GONE! I’m not bloated all day, every day. I don’t feel bloated after I eat. I have ENERGY. So much energy my kids think I have become crazy. Dancing in the kitchen. Making up songs for me to dance too. Laughing more and enjoying life just a little more. Not everyday is rainbows and unicorns because life does happen but it’s not a result of my body quitting on me. It’s just a result of outside factors. And well that’s just LIFE! Don’t let food run your life. Let you run your life!

As far as working out. Let me tell you, you don’t have to be hardcore. You just need to be active. 80% of losing weight and maintaining weight is in the nutrition. That other 20% just boosts it. Not to mention that you’ll feel better because you’ll have even more energy, even better sleep and just feel like a better person. I do CrossFit. I love CrossFit. I have become stronger than I could have imagined. And I believe although I COMPLAIN alot that I have become better at my workouts with the clean eating. If you’ve recently read, last year we had to do 7 minutes of burpees. I finished with 74 a year ago and I was eating Paleo but pushing the boundaries. Just this past Saturday we did the same workout and I did 112! WTH? It’s almost unbelievable but I had witnesses to the work I was putting in. I was on a happy high the whole weekend. It felt good. It was AWESOME! I PR’d my Strict Press as well. 5lbs. Doesn’t sound like a lot but I’ve been stuck at 70lbs FOREVER!

I give Whole30 credit for all the positive things that have happened this past month. Too bad they can’t help me win the LOTTERY. But I feel like a BADASS, clean eating, Happy person! I took a “before” picture which I’m hesitant to share, and I weighed. I’ll weigh tomorrow since I still have to make it through today and hopefully take an after picture. I’m not perfect by any means, I don’t have ABS of steel. Just lots of pregnancy damage from having 3 kids. I don’t have perfectly toned cellulite free legs but they are thinner than they were 30 days ago. I don’t have GUNS for biceps either. I’m still flawed but I’ve learned slowly over the past year to let go of it. It still creeps in every now and then. But feeling good and feeling strong helps trump those negative “self” feelings.

I really give It Starts With Food credit for the information that I’m armed with to help me to stay on track. The Hartwigs really put the “sciencey” stuff into terms that made sense to me. They give you the info to understand how our body works after we’ve wrecked it with processed, sugary and chemical foods. They break it down. They give you examples that related to me, so I’m sure they would relate to you. They taught me about FOOD with NO BRAKES! They taught me how to balance my eating. They taught me to love healthy fats. They taught me how the food industry is SNEAKY! They gave me the armor to deal with my mental issues and to enjoy cleaning my slate. It’s a book I’ll probably reference forever. I highly suggest you go out and buy it.

Alright, alright. I’m done. If you want to know what I’ve been eating then please peruse my previous posts. I can’t give you all the Whole30 deets. I’m sure the Hartwigs wouldn’t want that. But I’m here if you have questions. I would love to be your support system. I want change for you! I really do! I’m ready to finish Day 30 just to say I did it! But I know Day 31 will be Whole30 and hopefully I can just go until I have that special event or moment where I can enjoy something decadent and sinful. But until that moment comes I’ll stay clean the best I can.

Back to the box tomorrow and for those of you who read yesterday, I did go check out the Boxing place. I’ll report on that tomorrow. Have a beautiful Thursday! Can you believe it’s February tomorrow?!? Wow! Well you know the drill go out and BE AWESOME in all that you do!

Womp Womp!

Argh, this morning my stomach was not feeling settled and I chose not to go to the BOOM Box. In the end I felt fine a couple of hours later and now I sit here wishing I had been able to go. Ah well, it is what it is. I still have Saturday’s workout to recap and of course I will break down my Whole30 weekend. Still going strong and my book came in – It Starts With Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig (founders of Whole30). I’m about halfway through and if this book can’t convict you to change how you eat then you just don’t care about much at all including yourself. Harsh? YES. I know it is but they really make all the “science-y” stuff make sense to those of us who aren’t well read in how our body functions.

1/12/13 WOD
Let me get to Saturday’s workout before I forget all that we did! It was actually humid and not so cold and we did our MetCon outside. I wish today was humid and semi-warm but it’s not!
MetCon: 10 minute AMRAP of 1 minute of Air Squats and Straight and 1 minute of Straight Legged Sit Ups.
Of course it doesn’t sound horrible but give it a whirl trying to get as many reps as possible and your legs will be all jelly-like! And I promise my ABS are still sore today. I started off strong and really slowed down midway. Bad idea. I tried to pick it back up for the last minute but not good enough. Total reps: 261

Skill/Strength: Open Skill Session
Work on your weaknesses is what I say! So I worked on Snatch. It’s been a while since I’ve really done any Snatch work so it was back to the basics for me. I didn’t try to put any weight on the bar, just work on technique.

Whole30 Days 10-13
As I mentioned last week Day 10 lunch was comprised of leftovers and I also finished the day with a dinner of leftovers. I didn’t feel like making anything fresh which was fine by me because I was tired due to my lack of sleep from the night before.

1/11/13 Lunch (notice my book!)

Day 11
Of course, NO PRE-WORKOUT meal. And I hung around the BOOM Box for too long after to make any use of a Post Workout Meal, well at least in my opinion. I know BAD FORM but I made sure my breakfast was legit and full of all the things I needed. Besides heating up some spinach with my Shredded Pork it was more leftovers. I have plenty! Egg Muffins by the way are great reheated! I’m getting rather boring with the leftovers, but I make sure it’s a little bit of everything.

For dinner I remembered I had some bone broth in the fridge that must be utilized so I took some chicken leftovers, cut up some sweet potato, carrots, kale, mushrooms and scallions. Tossed it all in a pot and let it boil then simmer until sweet potatoes and carrots were soft. Now let me tell you, I eat Kale, and I try to find crafty ways to cook it but it’s still not my FAVE veggie. I know it’s packed full of goodness but it’s on the lower end of veggies I will CHOOSE to eat. In soup however Kale is less intrusive on my taste buds and definitely easier to eat. With that said, I’m still trying to integrate Kale into my life more often. The soup was delicious and I wish I had made more but really it was enough. I was plenty satiated when it was all said and done.

1/12/13 Dinner – Chicken soup deliciousness

Day 12
We were in a hurry to get out of the house since we slept in longer than we should have. I had more Egg Muffins with some veggies and reheated chicken. Scooped it down and we were on the road. For those of you new to the blog, we travel about 35 miles south of where we live every Sunday and pick up our grassfed beef, pastured chicken, pastured pork and pastured chicken eggs. We could make one trip a month or two times a month but it’s fun and we’ve become friends with the folks that work there. So it’s a field trip to a great little place called Burgandy Pasture Beef. Every now and then we also eat lunch there. They only serve Burgers and Frankfurters but they are delicious, and we eat ours bunless!

Sneaky Ernie taking pictures of me looking over some asparagus. Ended up being a colorful shot so I thought I’d share it!

After we finished our shopping for the day, we headed over to my dad’s house. He had leftover pancake breakfast foods to share and well I couldn’t partake but I brought the last of my pulled pork, kale and broccoli and a few macadamia nuts, Whole30 says these are the best nuts to eat, good cause they are my faves! I also made more Egg Muffins, Kale included, to share with my dad. Hopefully he likes them. I have to get him on track to a healthier life so he can stick with us a little longer! It’s a hard task though. For dinner, I used up the last of my spaghetti squash I had saved in the fridge. Added some kale, poured pasta/meat sauce and dinner is served. I also had a kiwi to go along with it. I think I’ve done GOOD in the eat more kale department! While I was heating up my dinner I was also prepping today’s breakfast/lunch. By now I’m tired of prepping. Yup, it’s gotten old and I wish I had someone to do it for me. I know I can’t let it bring me down but as of last night I just was blah about it all. Ernie jumped in to help while I ate my dinner. He was a little worried at his slicing and dicing skills. NO they weren’t the way I would have done it but I was relieved to have a small load taken off my shoulders. Thank you kind sir!

Day 13
Whew, I’ve made it this far and I’ve done well, in my opinion at least. I made some broccoli to go with the chicken I roasted last night and the sweet potatoes I also cooked up. I had some of the sweet potatoes this morning with a hardboiled egg and some pork belly. I wasn’t really all that hungry due to my stomach being all weird but I ate anyways. Gotta keep the food habits in place. As always the day of, I’m not sure what dinner will be but I know it will be good. I may make more chicken soup. I think the kids will enjoy it as much as I did. I also gotta get some beef bone broth going. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, we’ll see!

MOODI’m pretty sure feeling great is here to stay. I would typically take a nap on a Sunday but yesterday I was not tired. Only the boredom of monotony got me last night, but that’s a mental thing. A lazy thing. Other than my stomach feeling woosy this morning, which could be attributed to a number of things I suppose, I feel spectacular. And guess what?

My fat girl pants that were borderline snug are dramatically loose again. It takes time folks. And you must find patience. All in a matter of 13 days. It’s amazeballs!

It Starts With Food
I’m only halfway through the book so I’m not going to review it now, and I’m not really sure how well I can review a book. I’m wordy but the book is so good so far, I’m afraid a review from me won’t do it justice. As soon as I’m finished with it, I’ll think it over again. I do highly recommend it though. The Hartwigs do a great job in breaking it all down, giving you food for thought and have nice testimonials from folks that have been really “sick” and have either eliminated their sicknesses or on the way to eliminating them! Reading the book also gives me great backup to not screw this Whole30 up.

Now I know why I could eat a whole bag of OREOS! It Starts With Food, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig

And holy guacamole it’s Monday again! Hope you all make the best of it! Remember last week I encouraged you to make a change, even it if it was a baby change? How are y’all doing? Did you ditch the chemically flavored beverages? Cut out sugar? Make a vow to eat breakfast finally? If not, let’s try it again! Make one small change. It doesn’t even have to be food related. Spend 10 minutes in scripture, meditation, whatever, just do something new. Try and make it a habit. Do something for you! And of course be AWESOME at it.

idrankthecfkoolaid

and it's good

It Starts With Food

Eat all the (healthy) FAT!

Day 30 – Whole30

Womp Womp!

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