Whole30 Update

I am officially a week and a half into a Whole30.

No matter how often I read that feeling crappy while detoxing or dieting is "normal" and you should work through the pain, I still can't escape the feeling that if you're feeling awful physically and emotionally you should do something to remedy it.  Eat a cookie or something, especially if you're a mom of small children.  As a result, I was very hesitant starting this.  I'd rather be a little chubby than spend any time miserable on purpose, that's the long and the short of it.  But, I really was getting to the point where something needed to change, and this was the step I decided to take.  I'm pleased to inform everyone that I haven't had any emotional or physical problems (and I'm past the time when they should've started).  I haven't had any sugar "crash" or horrible cravings or anything that I was afraid of happening.  Which seems a pretty good indication that this is actually a healthy diet, unlike things like no carbs or no fat or drinking nothing but apple cider vinegar for a week, I actually feel really good right now.

One of the big rules of the Whole30 is NO WEIGH INS for the whole month.  Because it's a diet primarily to get healthier and wean ourselves off of toxic foods and sugar, fat loss shouldn't be the goal.  The lack of a scale allows us to focus on the other positives the diet is doing for us, and it really works. I notice my clothes fitting looser (hubs told me he thought my clothes were getting stretched out or something, because they were looking too baggy, haha, thanks a lot hubs).  My mom (who is also doing it) cheated and weighed herself.  She's lost 7lbs so far.  Because of my mom's bad example (tisk tisk, mom), I cheated and weighed myself, too, I've lost 5lbs.  Not too shabby, enough that I'm encouraged, not so much that it's unhealthy or hard to maintain.

I also have a LOT of energy, which is good and bad.  My house has never been cleaner, but I don't have a lot of patience sitting down writing blogs or watching a movie with my husband, I always feel like I need to be doing something.

My face is clearer than it's been since we moved to Wyoming.  I don't know what it is, I assume it's the lack of humidity, but my face has been broken out since we moved here.  Now, though, it's completely clear.  Which is super nice.

Plus, I'm learning quickly how to NOT be a stress eater.  There have been parts of this week where normally I would've turned to a brownie or a cheeseburger to destress, but I didn't.  And the desire is going away, noticeably.

My mom's favorite part of this diet is that food actually starts to taste better.  When you aren't eating sugar, you really begin to notice the natural sweetness of a lot of different vegetables and even meats.  Fruit becomes satisfying.  Food also becomes more deliberate, I don't find myself absent-mindedly snacking anymore.  It's nice, though meal planning takes a little more forethought, and it's nearly impossible to get take-out.

Anyway, that's my 1/3 done update.  The end.

Wordless Wednesday

I don't often fall into the schtick of alliterating the titles of my blog posts to fit a popular theme, but the pictures really do speak for themselves.  This is what we did yesterday, after Cam got off work a few hours early:

My Budding Photographer

As I'm sure you all already know, I'm one of those Instagram moms.  I know, I know, Instagram is supposed to be for hipsters to take close-up pictures of decaying architecture and cool thrift store finds, but, not being a hipster, I like to use it to share pictures of my kids and food.  Housewife Instagram users are in the minority, but we're a strong minority.

Since my phone is with me everywhere I go, I find I take a lot of pictures, mostly of my kids, as I said, or of my kids and husband, or whatever.  I don't have a lot of pictures of me, though, because I'm the one behind the camera.  Since my 5 year-old loves to play on my phone, about a week ago I had the bright idea of letting him take pictures of me.

He's actually hilarious.  He points the camera in my general direction, and yells "click, click, click...!" as fast as he can, while pushing the button as fast as he can.  So, after 30 seconds, I have 50 pictures or so, and out of those, I find one or two that aren't fuzzy and upload them to Instagram.  So, here are a few he's taken recently:

And my favorite...

So, there.  Photographic evidence I exist.

I was just thinking, wouldn't it be funny if Sam wound up being a wedding photographer?  "Can we get just the bride with her bridesmaids?  CLICK click click click! Now, the whole wedding party?  Click click click...."

Yet Another Post About Mom Guilt

As I mentioned the other day, I'm doing a 30 day dietary "reset," I'm about 20% done with it, actually.  It's going surprising well so far, at least where eating is concerned, not a lot of cravings, in fact, the diet it's a lot easier than I thought it would be and I have a lot of support.  The hardest thing about it is, I'm sure you guessed by the title, mom guilt.

At first, it's sort of hard to imagine why simply cutting a few items out of one's diet would be enough to convince a person that they are a horrible mom.  But, if you've ever done it, you know you spend a LOT of time thinking about what you can't eat.  And if you've cut a major staple like meat or, in my case, grains out of your diet, you spend a LOT of time trying to come up with new recipes...chunks of meat with veggies loses its' appeal, sooner rather than later.  Plus, actually having to cook three meals a day when you can't just pour a bowl of cereal or make a sandwich is time consuming, especially since there's not a lot of nitrate, msg, sugar, grain-free meat and veggie "convenience items."  Dieting really is consuming, mentally, emotionally, and chronologically.  And the first thing a mom feels, when consumed by the thought of something other than her wee bairns, is guilt.

It's also hard on the kids.  If you're used to eating sugar, not eating sugar can make you crabby, that's all I'm gonna say about that.  On my particular diet I can drink coffee, but if you've ever tried not drinking coffee, you know that your attitude can weigh on your kids, too.  Also, suddenly, the way your kids are used to eating changes, and they don't really like it.  Either they have to eat your "diet" food, in my case means a lot of veggies and a lot of spice a lot of the time, which they won't eat enough of to sustain them for very long, or a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which really isn't a well-balanced diet.  More mom guilt.

Anyway, it's funny to realize that the thing that hinders me most is feeling like I'm letting down my kids in some way, by trying to get healthier.  But, it's really about short term goals vs. long term goals.  No, I don't want to be snappy today, but if they have to deal with me being a little withdrawn now so that I can be healthy overall, it's worth it.  I think it's worth it.

Happy New Year!

Well, I'm a few days late, but happy New Year anyway.  We're at the end of the first semi-normal, no sickness, almost non-holiday week we've had in a while.  The kids started back at school, and hubs worked more than 40 hours, so we're starting to drift back into our routine.  I realized after a week of Jubee being sick, then a week of Sam and me being sick, then Cam being sick, on top of travelling to Missouri for a quick, whirlwind Christmas visit, we really needed our real routine.  A routine that didn't involve watching cartoons all day long (like we did when we had the plague) or punching one another (which the kids seem to have gotten in the bad habit of doing) or eating incredible amounts of sugar and processed grains.

Today, I turned off the tv.  It's been going better than anticipated.  Usually, when I realize that too-much-tv watching has snuck up on us and I turn it off, we spend a week in the throws of withdraw, whiny kids begging to watch cartoons every five minutes, until they get used to it.  Today, though, they are playing happily together.  Which is awesome because...

Jan 2nd, I started a Whole30.  I do need to lose some weight, but I'm actually doing it not primarily to lose weight, rather, to detox a bit off of sugar and bread and beer so I can lose weight.  I actually eat pretty well generally and I move around quite a bit, so I think that my extra weight is a consequence of eating horribly from the age of 15-25 and hormones, plus I'm a 30-year old woman who had two kids 14 months apart, which, as you probably know, isn't very good for your gut. 

This is the picture of myself from Christmas present opening at my sister's house that convinced me that I needed to do something.  I normally wouldn't put a picture of myself online like this, but this is the motivation I need.  When, in a week or two, this becomes hard and I want a brownie or an IPA, I have something to deter me.  Haha.

So, I'm about 2.5 days into eating nothing but meat, eggs, veggies, fruits, good fats and oils, and nuts.  I can have coffee, which makes it a whole lot easier, nay, possible.  I haven't even had any food cravings or urges to speak of yet, and I'm not lethargic or stressed, which is what usually happens by the first afternoon when I restrict my diet in any way.

Cam's job is going really well, too.  His supervisors like him, he likes his work, and we are really blessed financially because of it.  That's pretty much the best you can hope for less than a year into a new career.

That's our beginning of 2013.  We're starting it happy, healthy and hopeful, which is means it can only go downhill from here.  Haha, I'm totally kidding.  If there's one thing that's been pretty consistent my whole adult life, it's that just when I think things can't get better, they do.  That doesn't mean that rough things don't happen, it's just that they don't seem so bad in the broad scheme o' things.