One Week of Clean Eating

What an interesting experience!  I did not expect to feel quite the way I did after a week of clean eating.  As I alluded to in my previous post, I am not hell bent on compliance here, however, up until the evening of Day 7, I ate only Whole30 compliant foods.  I will confess that I didn’t stick 100% to the “spirit” of the program which is three meals, no snacking.  Most of the time I was OK, but as the week wore on, breakfast became more and more of a problem and I found myself snacking on cashews instead of eating a meal.  Even after making  this:

I still couldn’t summons up the enthusiasm to eat breakfast every day.  It is a meal I have always struggled with.  I was doing intermittent fasting and skipping breakfast altogether.  That style of eating actually worked really well for me but then I discovered the Chobani coconut and chocolate yoghurts and started eating those every morning for breakfast. Yum!  Back to the here and now, if I didn’t have a meal prepared, I also didn’t eat lunch on schedule. Yesterday for example, I didn’t get lunch until 3 PM because I didn’t have time to fix it.  This is on top of no breakfast.  Could I make this work?  Absolutely!  But I would need to change so much about my lifestyle to be 100% compliant and I am not feeling the motivation or the need to make these changes.

I woke up on day 2 of the Whole30 thing feeling great!  But that really was the last time I have felt great.  My head was less foggy than usual, but my stomach was a disaster.  And this was part of the problem with breakfast.  As soon as food hit my stomach, the gas and pain would begin.  It got progressively worse throughout the day to the point where I was miserable and in pain every evening. I looked to be 6 months pregnant.  This did not ease at all over the course of the week.  Yesterday I bought magnesium and what I hope is Whole30-compliant lactobacillis acidophilus.  I haven’t yet identified why I am having so many GI issues but I am guessing that either my soluble fiber intake is too low, or my stomach acid levels are too low, or I have an imbalance between the good and bad bacteria in my gut.

We were unexpectedly invited out to dinner last night.  I knew I had not the will power to get through a dinner out without breaking the rules.  So I compromised with myself. I’d order a salad and have a glass of wine.  Well, we all know that I don’t do just one glass of wine.  I was true to form and had two glasses with dinner.  I had a third when I got home.  I also ate a few corn chips with cheese dip.  Yup, if you are going to break your diet, might as well do it with style!  I am proud of myself for only having between 5 – 10 corn chips though.  If I’d not been on the diet, I’d have eaten the whole basket!

And that brings me to another aspect of the Whole30 diet that has surprised me. I haven’t been hungry at all. No cravings for anything.  I think the bloated stomach plays a big role there, but that’s OK.  My main objective for doing this was to stop the carb binges!

Luckily for me, my mother was an excellent cook and she turned some of those skills over to me.   Putting together meals without a plan isn’t that difficult for me.  I made this green curry from leftover stir fry chicken and vegetables:

 

My slow cooker has become a best friend and has allowed me to easily prepare meat that can be used in numerous ways, including my own version of southwestern pulled beef:

 

I have discovered some foods that I didn’t know existed.  This loaded sweet potato has a big spoonful of coconut butter on it.  This was one of my favorite meals to date.

 

I bought a spiralizer last summer and it really is the most practical diet tool in my kitchen.  I am not a big fan of spaghetti squash but I love spiralized summer squash or zucchinis.  I made this “pasta” dish and served over summer squash.

 

I also made myself a sweet potato shepherd’s pie using lamb from a roasted lamb that I fixed on the first day of the diet.  It was really, really good.  I also used the lamb in the breakfast casserole. I have yet to find breakfast sausage that is Whole30-compliant in my town.

 

I know that eating this way is not for me. I  don’t really enjoy it and the bloating impacts my life significantly.  After my intentional slip up last night, I woke with no bloat but with a wicked migraine that was resistant to all drugs.  I know the wine is the culprit and I am treating yesterday as a reintroduction day, of sorts.  That means that today, tomorrow, and the next day are pure Whole30 eating.  I will then add in dairy for a day, as detailed by the plan.

Many will criticize me for doing this for only 1 week.  I had hoped for 2 weeks but I just don’t see any point in being this miserable.  I find that the diet has too much meat in it for me.  I also feel nauseated at the prospect of a full meal for breakfast.  The last issue I have is muscle fatigue.  My muscles burn to a ridiculous extent when I do anything more than a brief walk.  Clearly, my muscles are not accustomed to drawing energy from much other than an immediate source.  On the one hand, it is probably a good indicator that my body is trying to use fat instead of glucose.  On the other hand, it sucks to feel so physically exhausted.

So there you have it.  My first attempt at a very dramatic dietary change.  Let’s see how the next 3 days go.

 

 

 

So Much for Good Intentions

Why is it so hard to blog regularly?  I love talking and I love writing.  Yet, blogging is a chore. It isn’t as though I have nothing to blog about either.  Heck, no one needs to have material other than day to day life!  But here I am.  Perhaps one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging is because all of my good intentions to change my lifestyle have not come to fruition.  My recovery from hip surgery was a lot longer than I anticipated and as a consequence, I have gained 20 pounds since my last marathon.  I also had a very busy semester so time was not on my side.  The upside is that I feel as though my hip is 99% recovered and I can run again.  I joined Weight Watchers online on Monday and plan to use it to help me through the silly season.

The easiest way for me to lose weight would be to give up my wine in the evenings.  During the semester breaks, this is easy, but during the academic school year, I have made a habit of unwinding with a glass of wine while cooking dinner and then usually another one with dinner.  And my glasses are no 5 oz!  What can I do instead?  That is really what I need –  way to unwind in the evenings that doesn’t involve alcohol.  Having two young children means that I am not free to just disappear and do whatever.  I have the Tony Horton Power90 DVDs and they have been instrumental in getting me back into some form of shape but the kids hate it when I do it.  They want my attention.  I even try to get them to do it with me, but they last through one set of exercises and then they’ve had enough.  So today I have two questions:

How do you maintain and not gain weight during the holidays?

How do you unwind after work?

Savor the Moment

So many things lead to this point in time. Tonight/tomorrow we are expecting snow.  Yes, snow in April.  Not only are we expecting snow, but we are expecting accumulation of several inches.  Last weekend we were outside spraying each other with the garden hose!  Last weekend I rode my bike on the trail.  Monday just past, it was in the 90s for the Boston Marathon.  Tomorrow, parts of PA and NY are going to get over a foot of snow.  I am thankful I spent most of last weekend outdoors.  Just as my title says, savor the moment.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Exercise.  Many of us take it for granted.   Many of us don’t do it.  We always say we will.  But we never seem to start or if we do, we don’t continue. There is always tomorrow, or is there?  My hip is continuing to get worse.  I am still able to get about and I could still probably run or cycle but the payback pain isn’t worth it.  We walked for 3 hours with the kids at the mall on Saturday.  Today I struggled to walk around the supermarket.  For those who keep saying they will start tomorrow, my advice to you is start today and enjoy every moment of it.  I had hoped to train for my third marathon this summer and perhaps get a couple of short distance triathlons in.  Now I am wondering if I will be spending my summer recovering from surgery.  For those who can, savor the moment.

And how am I doing with the spring cleaning?  I devoured a bottle of wine on Friday night.  Not very pleased with myself for doing this but one slip up in about 3 weeks is pretty good.  I fought the temptation to refill my Ambien prescription today.  I have no reason to do this.  I don’t seem to need it right now and it wreaks havoc with my short-term memory.  It makes me sleep like a baby though!  Migraines/headaches have been responding well to Zomig and nothing has escalated to the point of requiring intervention from a health care provider.  This is good news.  Perhaps I am finally outgrowing my migraines!

Tomorrow it is back into the battle zone at work, but I do actually practice what I preach.  We had a fabulous weekend with the kids, even though the weather was miserable.  Littlest one fell asleep before 10 PM tonight which is a miracle!  Now I am going to savor some moments of responsibility-free time.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

How often does your day start out well and then go rapidly downhill?  Fortunately for me, it isn’t too often.  And even more fortunately, my downhills are really only very small anthills.  It seems as though perhaps I could be labelled something like “Drama Queen” if I was to be totally honest with myself.  Fortunately again, there are only a limited few who get to see this side of me.  Most people around me think of me as the rational, stable one.  Boy, have I got them fooled.

So the good.  I went for my run this morning.  This happened despite the cold (weather) and despite the cold (virus).  I got the boys to daycare, got out on to the trail and got my 2 miles in.  It wasn’t fast or pretty, but I got it done.  Home, shower, work.

The work day started out well.  I had to relieve a colleague at 11 AM from her role as exam proctor.  So I got to sit on my butt for 90 minutes and do nothing.  Nothing included checking email on the iPad and starting a new free book that I had downloaded from Amazon at some point in time.  Since buying a Kindle, most of my stuff is on the Kindle.  Of course, that Amazon cloud thing is the best thing ever and I can put all of my books on all of my devices.  It even syncs it all up for me so I can start out on the same page on whatever device I am reading.  But I just started a new book this time.  The book I am reading on my Kindle isn’t that gripping.  Shortly after my colleague left, a student had a problem with her computer.  Between me and another proctor, we managed to hook her up on a loaner computer.  Crisis solved.  But before long, another computer gremlin attacked.  This time, I was the only faculty member left in the room.  The other proctors had no idea what to do.  I managed a half-arsed solution and in the meantime, resolved yet another computer issue by emailing my colleague who had already left. Things didn’t turn out so bad until I looked at the exam stats.  My questions sucked!  Seriously, they really, really sucked.  It means that either the students are dumb (unlikely since they are medical students), I didn’t teach the stuff well, or the questions were simply too hard.  My guess is that it was a combination of the latter two.  I have been teaching this section for several years and this is the worst my students have ever done.  While this doesn’t sound like a catastrophe to most, it is a big blow to the ego to me.

This brings me to the ugly!  Yesterday I blogged about my debate over buying a bottle of wine to enjoy tonight.  As you can imagine, my somewhat drug-dependent mind rationalized that I would feel much better after a couple of glasses of wine.  Just a couple because if you remember, two is my safe migraine limit.  Three is usually, but not always OK.  Any more than three and I can kiss tomorrow goodbye (unless I have a stock of migraine meds – which I do, even if it has almost dwindled away to nothing).  So I crack open the bottle as I put the pizzas in the oven.  Sit down with 3 year old to relax in front of some SpongeBob Squarepants, a favorite in this household.  Dinner is ready before I finish my first glass.  Doing very well in my humble opinion.  Refill not quite empty glass and drink with dinner.  I then rationalize that I haven’t yet had two full glasses so I fill it up again.  I tell myself that my very few blog followers will be expecting some sort of weakness or set back so I might as well go for it.  Older child wants to watch a different movie so we go upstairs to the guest room.  Pop in Toy Story 2 and I read from the Kindle while he watches Woody and Buzz.  Enter into the room a one year old miniature Golden Doodle at the same time as my husband.  Before I could comprehend who was in the room, the dog has jumped into my lap, spilling my full glass of red down my almost non-existent cleavage!  Since I am sitting on a white comforter, I leap up and break a record running for the bathroom.  Husband is laughing his head off.

I put shirt and my favorite PJ pants into a sink to soak and head downstairs to refill the almost empty glass.  But here is where things get very strange.  Instead of refilling my glass, I find myself rummaging through my plastics cupboard in search of a funnel.  Then, as though driven by some divine force, the remaining wine in my glass ends up back in the wine bottle!  I have had enough wine for one night!  What the heck has got into me?  I decide not to fight it.  Instead, I rush for my office and head straight to my blog!  Somewhere out there in cyberland, someone will understand what just happened to me!

And now, the grand finale.  I want to post a pic.  I got to see some beautiful pictures by PhotoBotos.com and they inspired me to put some of my less talented photos up. Since this is a blog about me, I suppose I should explain my pics, but for now, let’s just say, I really love these birds.

Day 4: Sunshine

Today was a good day. From time to time, it is nice to write something positive. Of course it is occasionally difficult to find positives when life has been so difficult but it does happen.

The day started on a high note. All 5 Zebra Danios were still alive when we woke this morning. Even though I have many years of experience with tropical aquariums, I have never had all of my Neons die so quickly! The two goldfish that we had prior to getting the Neons, lived a great life and grew to sizes that I didn’t know was possible for a 10 gallon tank. But Syd and Manny were strong and they thrived for a very decent amount of time for goldfish in captivity. Day 2 with the new tank set up and still all of the water chemistry is spot on. Phew.

The second high for the day was a 2.25 mile jog with a friend. Nothing makes me feel better than running, even when it makes me feel like crap. Does that make sense to anyone? Let me attempt to explain to the non-runners out there. Even a bad run feels good when it is over 🙂 Every day in which there is a run, any run, is a better day than a day without. Call it an addiction if you will, and I will! Of course 2 miles isn’t going to help with the weight but at least I am out there doing it.

My morning of work was from my home office. This makes life infinitely easier than having to travel to the not-home office. Plus, I have a window at home whereas my not-home office is windowless. It is cosy, and nicely furnished so I wouldn’t call it a hole-in-the-wall, but I have a very strong attraction to daylight.

In the afternoon I went to visit an old friend who, not by coincidence, is a chiropractor. It is a long time since I have felt as good as I did leaving her office. She couldn’t do much to the hip because there is simply too much pain and inflammation, but she was able to relax just about every other part of me and I walked away with a prescription for MASSAGE! I believe my insurance will be dropping therapeutic massage as of July 1 so I had better not do my normal practice of sitting on the prescription (not literally) for long.

I have to say, that appointment with my chiropractor friend made everything feel so much better and so less overwhelming (in the sports injury department). I set about running down my bank balance by purchasing some supplements that she recommended (and, by the way, so have all the other health care professionals – I sat on that advice too). I felt very proud of myself for having rather flexible hamstrings and quads – I don’t usually. This means that I have been doing my ATC-prescribed exercises – yay for me.

For the first time in a long time, I managed to stay fairly calm at home this evening. I am often at the end of my tether by the time the kids get home with my husband. And the first thing they do when they get in the door is dump their things all over the floor and start whining at me to get them this and get them that. But tonight was so much nicer. I don’t remember any whining at all! Is it just my attitude that has changed? Quite possibly. Could the washout of CNS drugs be responsible for the change of attitude?

Now on to the challenging part of things. I did have fairly strong cravings for a drink tonight. This isn’t unusual by Thursday. I always figure that Thursday is close enough to Friday to have a drink. But I will tell you again, I was held back because of you, my almost non-existent readers! I am posting on a public blog and I don’t want to let myself down by screwing up in the first week! So far, so good. No Lortab today either. I actually had no reason to take it. Sure, my hip was sore, but not as sore as yesterday. I could walk relatively easily today and only had to hobble a little. Tonight I confess to cough medicine. Hubby is in the midst of a snotty cold and it would appear that I am about to begin down the same path. Hopefully it will pass quickly. I hate to ruin a perfectly good weekend with the crud.

Tomorrow will be an interesting day. I do need to go to the office, but my duties tomorrow are mindless and easy. Can a task be mindless and difficult? Hmm, that is something to ponder, indeed. I would like to do another short run before I go to work. I have time so unless the army of little bugs that have invaded my respiratory tract multiply overnight, I think I will try to do this. Now, the other difficult decision to make is whether or not to buy some wine. Friday nights are typically pizza night. I usually buy a bottle of wine that lasts me the weekend. On day one of my blog I said that I wouldn’t drink wine during the week. I think I have done very well – I haven’t even had any beer and there is still that lone Mike’s Hard Black Cherry Lemonade sitting in the fridge in the garage. I tell you what. If I finish tomorrow feeling great, then a bottle will be bought. If I am not feeling great, then I won’t buy a bottle. I actually feel pretty good for not having drank all week. It would be nice to keep it that way. But a couple of drinks (and I do believe I promised you all that I would remain within my migraine-trigger limit) might be a nice way to end the week. I am not going to stress about this decision. It will be made on the drive home from work tomorrow.

Speak of the drive home from work, I am busy working through Pimsleurs Spanish at the moment. It is thoroughly enjoyable and I can say “Pardon, where is the hotel Bolivia” and “Pleased to meet you”, “are you from America” etc. Oh, I can also say “I understand…” or “I don’t speak…”. So I am fairly confident that I could at least start a conversation with a Spanish-speaking person without muttering “no hablo espanol”. The conversation might end quickly with a “hablo un poco de espanol” or “entiendo un poco de espanol pero no mucho” but at least that is a start! Please pardon my spelling as this is entirely colloquial Spanish and I have not seen a written word.

I must email my Dad. When I am feeling brave, I will tackle the topic nearest to my heart, the death of my mother. This sad event took place in December, 2011 so it is still very fresh and very upsetting. However, my Dad, who lives on the opposite side of the world to two of his three children (me being one of them), still needs us very much.

Buenas noches.

Day 2: Make Me or Break Me Day

Usually on day two of a detox, I have convinced myself that I am not a problem drinker and that one beer after work isn’t going to hurt. And so, I have that one beer! Today I didn’t do it! I almost did because let’s face it, I felt like one. Just one. And I probably would have had just one. I don’t seem to need to keep going with beer like I do with wine. But, for two reasons, I didn’t reach for the beer. The first being that I am determined to do this. The second being, there is no beer in the house LOL. There is however, Black Cherry Lemonade which is very, very good. I don’t even like cherry flavored stuff but this stuff is gooooood!

Also on day two is the no unnecessary ingestion of Lortab. This was a pretty big battle today for two reasons. First, I had a headache. Wasn’t bad, but was annoying, and like all headaches, it had the potential to transform into a migraine. But I was feeling as though it probably wouldn’t, and I was correct. Second, I went for a 2 mile run this morning. Finally decided to check out the hip to see if any of my exercises were working. Turns out that 8 days of strengthening exercises and stretches do not help at all. By late afternoon, my hip was considerably painful. Now, instead of taking Lortab (I only have 8 left until sometime next month), I took Panadeine. This is an over-the-counter medicine available in Australia that contains acetaminophen and codeine. The codeine is in ridiculously miniscule doses which I doubt have any greater effect than the acetaminophen alone, but I took it just the same. I needed to at least try for a placebo effect. At least the pain got me on the phone making all sorts of appointments around town to try to sort this out.

Tonight I would like to introduce a third addiction of mine – Ambien. I have had sleep-onset insomnia all my life. This was a real problem as a kid and now it is just a real nuisance. Ambien changed my life. I could finally sleep again. I don’t even care if I am addicted to the stuff. There is just one problem with it, it DESTROYS my short term memory and probably has other more subtle effects on cognitive function. So, it is best for me not to keep it in the house. I have prescription refills that will give me enough for 1 a months for the next 3 months but for now, I am not filling it. I want to, but unless I can limit myself to using it only once or twice a week, I refuse to keep it in the house. Tonight will be night 2 without Ambien. In its place I have lorazepam (Ativan). This drug is OK. I use it sometimes. I believe that while I am detoxing from alcohol, Ambien and probably hydrocodone, popping a couple of lorazepams a night is probably a very sound thing to do. I don’t really notice its anxiolytic effects but I think I sleep better with it onboard. Eventually, my goal is to be drug-free except for when needed for the migraines and the arthritis.

I was the crankiest mom you could ever imagine tonight. I knew I was going to be. What with the premenstrual stuff going on which is probably also perimenopausal stuff AND detox, what can you expect? I feel a little sorry for my adorable little boys and a lot sorry for my lovely husband. They get the raw end of the deal when mommy/wifey is like this. But I can promise you all that I do not neglect my children or my husband. They are well taken care of both physically and emotionally. I am also the major breadwinner in this household and have managed to raise us to the social status of “soccer mom family”. Big house, big cars, big vacations, too many toys, a dog, a cat, a hamster and fish. Three fish at the moment. Just put 5 neon tetras into a 10 gal tank and two died right away. The other three look great so hears to hoping that they remain that way.

Ah, but blogging is therapeutic. Every time I thought about a drink or medicine today, I thought about my blog. Heck, no one has even read it yet but just the thought that it is public makes me want to stick to my guns. Now I just need some followers who can encourage or flame me. Tomorrow is going to be a great day!