New Year, Old Me

 Well, I meant to get back to the blog long before now. I've had a rough couple of weeks. My whole family took turns with a stomach bug, my little dog Valentine had an eye infection, my son had girlfriend drama, and a million other things were going on. Everything seems to have run it's course now, though.

I'm late on this, but my New Year's resolution is to be more optimistic in my life. I am going to try to find one good thing for every bad thing that happens.

As far as my health goes, I'm still at 290, and I haven't been exercising much. I've been doing yoga, but that doesn't really get my heart rate up. It does make me feel so much better and stronger, though.

I have signed up for a water aerobics class that starts on Monday. I'm really excited about that. Also, my gym has added a new cardio class that works better with my schedule than the others did. Now I just have to get over how much I hate my gym. I'm also signing up for the Daily Burn. I'm hoping that the different workouts will keep me motivated.

I have started getting up earlier in the mornings. This has helped me feel much less rushed. I have time to warm up to the day. This should also give me enough time to eat breakfast (always a problem) and even to fit a short workout in.

I'm still going to be logging my miles and logging my food. And my family is going back to a more plant-based diet. While my son was home, we ended up eating a lot of chicken, plus we had turkey from Christmas. On top of that my husband and I received summer sausage as a gift, so I had some of that. So we will be eating lots more greens and legumes.

So that's the plan! As always, advice and support is welcome!

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Heading in the Right Direction

I'm feeling great! I have done morning yoga three days in a row. I really helps me start the day off right. I've done a different routine each time, and I still have some poses I want to try. Eventually, I'll have built a short 10-minute routine that hits all the stretches and areas of my body that I want. Then I'll pick some yoga music for it!

Yesterday I walked almost two miles with some short bursts of slow jogging. And I did it outside. Me outside is a pretty big deal. I don't like outside. But I did it!

I've eaten breakfast two days in a row. My plan was to have some steel cut oats, yogurt & honey, and a piece of fruit every morning. When I bought groceries, I couldn't find any regular steel cut oats. All I could find is the Quaker 3 Minute Steel Cut Oats. So I gave them a try. Big mistake. It's like oatmeal flavored cream of wheat. I don't understand how it can be marketed as steel cut. Rolled oats have more bulk than this crap. "Hearty texture" my ass.

I'm still eating them because I have them. With my next paycheck I will order some regular steel cut oats from Amazon.

I did my Tuesday weigh-in for the Holiday Scale Accountability Club. I'm down a little. I'm not down to where I need to be for the challenge, but it's going in the right direction. So that's good.

I'm really feeling good with where things are headed right now. I think I'm going to be able to make it through the winter. At least until it starts icing over, LOL.

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What Works for Me

First things first, my Holiday Scale Accountability Club weigh-in was not good news. I didn't expect it to be since I've not been good the last couple of days. I'm back up to 290. But next week's will be great. I know what I need to do.

After my experiment with Whole30, I've decided to give myself a kick in the rear and do what I already know works for me, adding in what I learned from the Whole30 experience. What works for me really comes down to one thing: exercise and quiet time.

The only time I'm ever been able to lose weight effectively is when I focus on exercise. I'm not saying that diet isn't important, or that I don't need to watch what I eat to lose weight. What I mean is that when I am exercising every day, I don't have to watch my food intake because I just naturally make good choices. I don't even have to think about it. After I've exercised about 10 days in a row, I just stop reaching for Cheetos, cheese, Cokes, and bowls of rice. Instead I start grabbing asparagus (yes I eat it raw), cauliflower, celery, apples, and clementines. When I get hungry I want a salad or a pita stuffed with greens. I want squash and lentils. I drink way more water. It just happens.

The other thing that really helps me is meditation. I used to do a 25-minute yoga session every morning. It helped me wake up and keep my focus throughout the day. It was better than the cappuccino I've been using instead. With two kids gone, more of the morning chores have fallen back to me, so I've let it go. I really don't want to get up 30 minutes earlier everyday, but maybe a 10 minute routine in the morning could be squeezed in.

I also used to meditate before I ate, every meal, for about 5 minutes. It caused me to make better choices about food, eat more slowly, and enjoy my food more. I stopped because I was eating lunch out a lot and didn't really want to shut everyone out for 5 minutes at lunch. Then I dropped the other mealtime meditations, too. I've changed jobs since then, and have a different lunch hour than my coworkers. I need to bring those meditations back.

So my own personal weight-loss program for Connie is as follows:

1. Do at least 10 minutes of yoga every morning.
2. Walk/run (I don't run but I want to) for at least 30 minutes every day.
3. Meditate 5-8 minutes before each meal.
4. Eat breakfast.

That's it. All the other changes come naturally with how exercise and meditation make me feel. I am ready to get this done!!

But not tonight. No, tonight is the best night of the year. Tonight is better than my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. Tonight I get to stay up late and howl at the moon! I get to go see Rocky Horror Picture Show with my friends and act crazy. Tonight I am able to make myself look however I want to. And tonight that means that I am a Zombie Masquerader!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!!

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What I Learned in the Last Week

So even though I was only on the Whole30 for four days, I do think I learned a lot about myself from it. First let me tell you why I didn't like it.

1. I felt obsessed with food. So much of my time was consumed with what I could have and what I couldn't have. Whether I was at home or at work, all I thought of was food. It really felt unhealthy to me to be so focused on food. I mean, the whole reason I started this blog was so I could STOP obsessing over my food, right?
2. I had to eat meat. As I mentioned in a previous post, the amount of meat really bothered me. I'm fine with eating meat when I go out to eat somewhere or on special occasions, but every day and sometimes twice a day was just too much for me.
3. I didn't want to exercise. Besides the fact that I was too busy thinking about food to think about exercise, the Whole30 requires special pre- and post-workout food. My life was already complicated enough.

 Clearly, this was never going to become a lifestyle change. But even with all that, I did learn some important things from it.

 First, I learned that I need to eat breakfast. Duh, right? I knew I was supposed to. I know it's the first thing every weight loss experts says to do. But I always resisted it. I've always said I don't have time. I'm too rushed in the morning. I don't like eating early because the food feels heavy in my stomach (yeah, if you're having donuts or pancakes or biscuits). But I found on the Whole30 that I did have time to make breakfast (with a little planning), and when I ate breakfast I had a clearer head and was more focused at work. My job is one that depends entirely on reading and listening. Without breakfast (I skipped it yesterday), I can see a definite difference in my work.

Second, I consume too much sugar. A lot of you probably think this is another "duh," but it was never obvious to me. I didn't think I had that much sugar, really. I don't eat sweets. I don't ever crave candy, cookies, cake (I actually don't like cake), donuts, or the like. I did drink Coke, but that was only one a day and was something I was already trying to decrease. But I hadn't noticed how my once-in-a-while gas station cappuccino had become a daily habit or how my new-found love of apples had led to caramel dipping sauce. I don't think sugar is a trigger food for me or that I need to avoid it in things like ketchup or mayo at all costs. I don't even think I need to give up my Christmas baklava or birthday lemon icebox pie. But I do need to be more aware of what I'm eating and especially what I'm drinking.

Third, I eat too much white rice. I eat a lot of foods with rice, and I don't think rice is bad. But even though we buy a lot of brown and wild rice, I turn to white rice the most. It's my comfort food. When I'm sick, all I want to eat is white rice with butter and salt. When I make a stir fry, I'll have twice as much white rice as veggies, and I'll have a bowl of just rice for seconds. I've made stir fry with wild rice, and it's delicious. My family loves it. I love it, too, and I eat a normal amount of rice then. I need to stay away from white rice.

Fourth, my family doesn't miss meat. My vegetarian daughter and meat-allergic son are both away at college. Michael and Tori have no issues with eating meat. Tori eats it as school, and Michael ate it anytime he was away from the house. They never exactly complained about being vegetarian at home, but I could tell they missed it. Turns out, not so much. They both liked all the meals I prepared on Whole30, but they also complained about all the meat. Turns out, meat for dinner once a week or so is more than enough for them. That made me happy.

Fifth, 90 percent of my aches, pains, and morning headaches have nothing to do with my diet and everything to do with Sebastian. Bash is my husband's supposed-to-be-a-Jack-Russell-but-SURPRISE!-is-actually-more-of-a-pitbull.

Sebastian is very sweet, but only a year old and much larger than we expected.

Bash sleeps in our bed, as does my Valentine. Both dogs usually sleep at the foot of the bed, but as it's gotten colder, Bash has taken to crawling under the covers in the middle of the night. He slides in between me and Michael. This starts out fine, but at some point he turns sideways. I spend the second half of the night somehow pinned between the two dogs and with my husbands arm slung over me trying to pull my upper body closer (Sorry hon, I can't snuggle. There's 30 pounds of dog in the way). I think once we figure that situation out, my life will greatly improve.

Sixth, I already know what my body needs. I really do. I know what makes me feel good (healthy good, not spoiled brat I want my Cheetos good). I know what makes me lose weight. I know what a long term healthy lifestyle looks like for me. I just don't do it.

So the obvious conclusion to this: Do it. Do what I know is right for me. Stop being a pansy-ass.

So I will.

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Day 3 of Whole30--tired of the meat already

I'm really not liking this. Part of it is the meat. It's not really heavy with meat, and to be fair, I've only had tuna, a pork chop, and some hamburger so far, but each of those has just served to remind me how much I don't like meat. When I became a vegetarian it was because I didn't want to kill other animals, but now I think part of the reason it was so easy for me was because I just really don't like meat.

I have a lot of old issues with meat. My parents always wanted to be homesteaders. We kept chickens throughout most of my childhood, and at different points in time we had cows, sheep, goats, and rabbits. When my father would bring home calves, sheep, or bunnies, he would tell me and my brothers they were pets. He would encourage us to name them and divvy them up between us. I think this was his way of getting us to take care of them. We didn't have any "normal" pets, no cats or dogs (I think we had a hermit crab once), so we were always happy to have something new to love.

Except one day we would come home from school and find out our pets had been butchered. Part of the reason I was so thin as a child was that I refused to eat my pets. That meant unless it was chicken on the table, I went hungry (Mom was not a big fan of vegetables, so meat, potatoes, and gravy from the meat were often the only options). My mother still thinks I don't like casseroles. I like them fine, but it's really hard to pick the pieces of your pet rabbit out of a casserole. So I skipped them at home.

It was horribly cruel. My brothers and I weren't stupid. We knew where meat came from, and we knew the difference between pets and livestock. Like I said, we always had chickens for eggs and meat. I took my turn gathering eggs, feeding them, and cleaning out the coop. As the oldest, I also helped with the processing when one was killed. Same with the goats. Half my family is Mexican. Eating goat wasn't a big deal. I never considered any of the chickens or goats as pets. Of course, no one ever told me to name them.

Barbados sheep--the kind my family had

I'd mostly gotten over this, but when my oldest daughter became a vegetarian and my son became allergic to mammal meat, leaving meat behind just seemed a natural thing to do. It was really easy to change. Even when I stopped being vegetarian and moved to flexitarian, the meat I had was almost always chicken. Up until yesterday, I hadn't cooked a mammal in almost 3 years.

I'm still doing the Whole30, but I really don't think this is a lifestyle changer for me. But it is making me think a lot more about what I put into my mouth and why. That in itself is a good thing.

I had the same breakfast and lunch today as I had this weekend: eggs and leeks for breakfast, tuna and spinach for lunch.

Dinner tonight was tacos. I really missed the cheese, but the avocado helped that a little. I had to season the hamburger myself because I couldn't find a taco seasoning mix without whey in it. My seasonings just tasted like seasonings. I used chili, cumin, and paprika, but it just tasted like chili, cumin, and paprika. It didn't taste like "taco," know what I mean?

I had three of these things.

After dinner, I worked on my mask and face paint for Halloween a little bit. I really want it to look just right on Friday. Then I went to bed early again. The more time I spend asleep, the less time I spend obsessing over food.

ETA: I got on the scale this morning to weight for the Holiday Scale Accountability Club and had a gain.
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Whole30...Should I try it?

Hi everyone! Without going too much into our money troubles, I wanted to let you know that we are making it. I managed to sell some things and cut our expenses enough to make up for what we were going to be short. So that crisis is managed.

I have not binged during this time, but I haven't made good food choices either. I've also been dealing with my monthly cycle. That always messes with my digestion. Not to give TMI, but a few years ago I had Lap-Band surgery. My body built scar tissue around it which had to be removed, along with the Lap-Band and some of my intestine. So some things make my digestive system react in weird ways.

I haven't gone to the gym in the last week. My cycle and my laziness when it comes to washing my gym clothes have kept me home. I absolutely have to do laundry tonight (or go to work in a cocktail dress tomorrow), so I won't have any excuse not to go the rest of the week.

About a year ago, when I was still vegetarian, I was eating a huge variety of vegetables and sticking to a mostly whole foods diet. I felt really good doing that. Then I let life get in the way.

I've been thinking about trying the Whole30 eating plan. I've never excluded grains or dairy from my diet, and I wondered if that might help with some of my non-weight health issues. I have eczema and frequent migraines, both of which I've heard the Whole30 helps with. It might be worth trying this just to get rid of the migraines.

I'm nervous about it because of how much meat I'd be eating. Even though I am no longer vegetarian, I don't eat meat very often. I basically only eat it when I'm away from home. I don't prepare meat at home.

Besides eating the meat, there's also buying the meat. It's been so much cheaper to eat vegetarian. I'm going to have to deal with a lot of extra spending to eat Whole30. For that reason, if I decide to do the Whole30, I won't start until January. That gives me a couple more months to get back on track financially and to research some cheaper Whole30 compliant meals. In the meantime, I can work on cutting the Coke Zero and grains in a slower way.

My husband thinks it is worth it just for chance that my skin problems and headaches go away. He also remembers how much more energy I had when I was eating so many greens regularly.

What do all of you think? Is Whole30 worth the money? Any advice?


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