Day 2 PALEO

Weight 246

This weight is actually from yesterday.
I started the new year off eating paleo so we are on day 2.
The hardest thing was not having coffee on Sunday morning... a very very very normal thing for me on Sunday morning.  I did have a smoothie with Cacao and that should have given me a similar boost.  But it just felt like a habit.

Yesterday I didn't really have any snacks so I wonder if that was a problem... I felt hungry and ate meals late.  I did better today because I was home but I need to make sure I have some friendly snacks around.

Check in later... hopefully with weight loss to report. :)

The Paleo experiment

So, I looked back at this blog for the new year.  I looked at all of my entries (well most of them) I looked at the progress I made on raw foods and how things went doing vegan, raw, all forms there of.
There is so much I learned from being raw, vegan, vegetarian, eating meat and junk and all of it...
I know what makes me feel bad and what makes me feel better and what makes me feel good.

I remember realizing thru limiting my diet that I knew what made me feel worst...
bread, sticky carbs, processed foods... they do a number on my blood sugar...
And dairy is next... I can feel a difference... I feel phlegmy
Next is meat... I can tell you what meat does to my system.. it slows it down...
But I also would say... which is funny because as a long time vegetarian growing up... it is what I have restricted from my diet the most.... but it effects me the least.

Raw foods did amazing things for my blood sugar... I could eat less and feel OK blood sugar wise because I never had the dips of hypoglycemia.  It helped my thyroid function better... and it made me feel good... but the truth is... the numbers don't lie... for the way I was eating I should have seen bigger weight loss.

I decided to give Paleo a try... based on reading on dairy and blood sugar and based on some friends experiences with it.  So here it goes.... 30 days Paleo.

I was already eating meat and not healthy meat at that... eating whatever really.  So... lets give it a try and track my success and see how I feel.  Giving this blog another life and maybe me some more health.
: )

Prepping (and convincing) for "2nd Gear"

Day 11

1st gear

255 lbs (-16.5)

I am super excited because I checked the ol' scale this morning and it recorded another ten lbs lost! Super stoked.

I even considered staying in this gear a bit longer before going to the 2nd gear but I think that is just me talking myself out of it all. I have to admit... the fear is all about the juice feast. The thought was something like this... "if I push back the 2nd gear then I can do a little less of the juice feast. BUT the truth is my lenten fast of a juice feast seems like what I need to do and I need to talk myself INTO it.

I have been prepping myself and my house for the 2nd gear stretch by....

1. Building back up my raw food ingredients. Some of the ingredients are so pricey and buying them all at once is simply not an option. So a little at a time I have been buying some of the things I will need next week.
2. Reading. Finishing and re reading parts of "There is a cure for diabetes" to see what he recommends that is different from the way I have done "raw" in the past. There are quite a few and there are a few supplements of herbs, etc that I am looking into. He recommends so much it is hard to know where to start.
3. I visited LUSH and bought myself some good stuff for my skin and my emotions during the detox. I bought a "Oatfix" mask which is so natural it is refrigerated and has an expiration date. It will calm my skin and also aid to eliminate toxins. I also got some bath bombs which I LOVE. When I just feel like I can not go on having them on hand to sooth my soul will be a welcome thing. I also bought new shampoo which has sea salt in it. My hair feels great and it will do the same thing as the mask to my head during detox.
4. A juicer. This is really for the 3rd gear. BUT my friend says I can borrow her Champion juicer during my juice feast. What a blessing!

I still need to buy a couple more things:

• A loofah on a stick. You know the kind you scrub your whole body with during a detox... to help aid in the elimination. I def need this before the juice feast.
• A trip to the vitamin/ herb aisle w/ a list from Dr Cousins.
• A hair cut. Life always seems better with good hair. :)

But I also still have a lot of prep to do for Astrid's B day party this weekend. So busy I need to get. ;)

Love to me in my broken state.

Weigh In

1-08-10

Day 8

1st gear

weigh in

265 lbs (-6.5 lbs)

YES! I feel so much better about myself. I don't know if you could tell but I was really upset by my weight 8 days ago. I looked back at the very beginning of this blog A LONG TIME AGO and my weight was about the same as when I started all that time ago. It is so easy to get discouraged and for me to just give up and "loose" the scale. Denial is an easy place to be... facing the truth and working when times get hard... not so easy.

I feel better because I realize

1.) that the weight will come off.

2.) that I have a lot of knowledge this time around that I did not have about nutrition.

3.) that I have a lot of knowledge this time around that I did not have about my body.

That will all arm me for success.

I just need to commit to the idea that I CAN and WILL do it. It is hard to break what your body knows and your mind thinks. You kind of settle into the reality of weighing over 200 lbs, over 250 lbs, etc. You start believing that is the best you can be. You start thinking your past experiences with dieting will equal your failure with trying to eat healthfully now. I will try to just re-imagine what my body is and what I "can do" as far as food goes.

Love to me in my imperfect state.

Bodies matter to God. Matter matters. Until we can proclaim that wondrous truth, ecology will be a sideline in our pastoring and preaching, our theologies and liturgies ... Wetlands and rivers, wheat fields and dough rising, people dancing in the aisles and people sleeping in the streets of our cities. Matter matters to God.

- Barbara Lundblad, from her sermon "Matter Matters"

I have been having a decent time as a vegan the last week. I have not been super strict, I have tried really hard. The last few days I have eaten out more then I planned which is almost impossible to be 100% vegan with... but I did pretty good. I definitely am not taking in the amount of greens I would have liked to the last couple days. So I will try harder tomorrow and Friday to get them in. I was getting a pretty good cleansing just from the greens because I had started eating some meat the last bit prior to the New Year. This is what I wanted with this first "gear" to just get my body under control and start undoing the damage of my "backslide". My blood sugar is just not as good as it will be when I am higher raw and take away bread. But it is a start. When my blood sugar is low I get more headaches and am hungrier esp at night it is the kind of thing that makes it really hard to eat right with. You crave sugar because your body says "I need sugar, give me food!" All part of the cycle that I need to break. That gets easier the more raw I do.

I am really proud of myself for just kind of feeling my way thru it and I seem a little less worried about food and relaxed about doing this. I feel really good about myself and I am happy to be eating HEALTHIER and am not bogged down with perfectionism. Good example is a visit to the mall yesterday. My daughter & brother wanted to get ice cream and as we walked over I braced myself. The idea of ice cream sounded so good, I was headed for a major cheat that would set off a chain of food cravings and be a major trigger. I thought I would look and see if they had a sherbet and have it just so I would not feel deprived but feel like I was not going back on my NY resolution. I looked at the sherbet, the ice cream, the cone. I spent time really thinking thru what I wanted. I realized I was thirsty. So I decided to get a bottle of water and see how I felt. I gave myself permission to order the sherbet if I wanted to after I drank the water... water down... I TOTALLY did not want the ice cream, the cone, the sherbet. Success.

I have been looking into eating disorders and whether I have a clinical eating disorder. I refer to myself on this blog as a "food addict". Which gets a little confusing because this blog (about food) could be considered obsessive... so I'll think am I just being "unhealthy" in this blog. BUT I realized after looking into compulsive overeating that I do not think that is my problem.

I believe (although I reserve the right to change my mind) that I have at some point had many of these symptoms I esp remember my mom having them and I remember doing some of these behaviors when I was younger. But, really the obsession with food and the binge eating type thing is not my issue now.

When I think about what keeps me from being a healthy weight and having success with weight loss I feel like it is mostly about giving up. I think I do tend to self medicate with food. But, mostly it is that I feel overwhelmed and I do not want to think about it and it feels easier to just eat whatever.

I also think that the SAD diet creates an environment for me that leads to an unhealthy cycle with food. Here is my cycle:

Stress = Tired = Overwhelmed with life = Not taking care of myself = Not planning meals, grocery shopping, or even thinking about food until I am hungry = low blood sugar = grabbing whatever I can to just eat. When I remove the SAD food from my diet I end up with more energy, better blood sugar and that breaks this cycle.

It is a passive inaction. A letting things slide. A letting things happen to me mode. My problems lie in the choices I make and when I make them under duress or stress they are not good choices.

Which I guess is kind of messed up.

More work to do.

On a more positive note

Day 2 - 1st gear

I have already lost 3 lbs.

When I weighed in this morning I was

268.5 lbs. (- 3 lbs)

I will not weigh everyday because I do not want to get obsessive. But it is good to see (and I looked back thru the blogs to see it too) how quickly this weight can come off.

I am not even doing raw. I just committed to basically vegan with greens and I am already dropping what is most likely water weight.

I do feel myself going back to raw easily. Even with not officially starting the "raw phase" I probably did at least 50% yesterday. I did have a headache last night which I would attribute to caffeine withdrawals and maybe low blood sugar. I feel a little better. Although it does heighten why raw is best for me because the cooked meal from yesterday left me feeling the most hungry. Go figure.

I did not post everything I ate yesterday so I am going to go correct that on my food blog.

Keeping myself accountable is the only way to stay on target with this.

Love to the Blog.

The big weigh in

THIS SUCKS!

There is no two ways about it.

I will try not to dwell on it but I needed to face it.

MY WEIGHT!

I have not stepped on the scale since my last post.

Lets go ahead and call it denial. If I do not see it, it is not true.

But lets face it here and now on this first day of Jan 2010!

Day 1

1st gear

weigh in

271.5 lbs

OK now it is done. There is no looking back and no doubt that this is all needed.

LOVE to me even in my imperfect state.

Plans for 2010

My facebook status update said

" Why do forgotten blogs and new years resolutions go hand and hand?"

So here I am at my long forgotten but dearly loved Blog updating my journey and some radical plans.

◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ ◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ ◰ ◱ ◲ ◲ ◳ ◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ ◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ ◰

So far 2010 and my plans for it has three phases. I'll think of it as driving in, 1st, 2nd, 3rd gear.

1st GEAR (Jan 1-16th)
Vegan again w/ high greens (green smoothie and a fresh green salad a day).

2nd GEAR (Jan 17th- Feb 16th)
There is a Cure for Diabetes (80% raw, 20% whole grains and rice plus cooked veggies, low glycemic index foods).

3rd GEAR (LENT - starts Feb 16th -ash wed thru Easter)
Juice Feasting

The Plot thickens

Plotting a new course. Or reconfiguring for the mistakes that were made and still moving forward despite feeling it might be all for nothing. That is my goal for the year.

The past 2 years, since Gus' birth and really my pregnancy I have had a rough time.

My husband and I hit a rocky patch to say the least. We almost did not make it and I am not being figurative here. We almost did not make it out of it as an intact family. A lot of painful things happened. And the grief and feeling that I was JUST coping was overwhelmingly what had to be focused on. I survived the last couple of years, that is all. I did not flourish, did not excel, did not live... I feel like I just survived. It is really easy to get stuck in that mode of living... but my husband and I both have worked unbelievably hard and we have managed to not only stay afloat but to reconfigure our lives to be happier and happier every month, one day at a time.

I started entering what I called my "healing phase" recently. I made some MORE bold and radical steps towards happiness by quitting my job and trying to craft a life where I would have the ability (at least for as long as needed) to focus on healing.

For anyone who has taken the time to look at this blog. It would be easy to understand that that need to focus on healing would ultimately lead me back here... to this blog, to physical healing, emotional healing. Healing in one of the main ways I COPE that is unhealthy.

So it is time to go here.

I have been preparing. I got the book "There is a Cure For Diabetes" by Gabriel Cousins about 6 months ago. When I started reading it... it was so hard to read. It was like an alcoholic picking up a book on how to get sober. I had to pick it up, read for a while and put it down just to digest it all the while grieving the last couple years.

Finally during Christmas (after I had made some decisions about my job and had refocused) I started feeling less overwhelmed when reading it. As I read it during Christmas (finally getting to the chapters on what he "prescribes") I finally was feeling like I might be entering a time when I can finally take on this mountain of an issue with me.

I decided to go about it the way I had succeeded in the past but also to look at my failures.

I decided, based on that, to take this thing in stages. Egged on by some sections in the book about "moderation" and how moderation is a death sentence to someone like me. It clicked and I felt like it registered to me as truth. It is like telling an alcoholic to moderately quit drinking. OR telling a smoker to cut down. When something is killing you, you don't slow it you stop it.

His recommendation still scares me. I am just not sure I can do it.

I know I CAN be high raw for a good length of time. I know I can do 50% raw and live like that.

I know I can because I have done it. BUT he recommends his program (21 days 80% raw) and IF you still have weight to loose... he recommends juice feasting! Juice Feasting! Seriously, that is the one thing I would have said I could never do or would never do. BUT, I said that about raw foods too. How committed are you to your health? From what he says, juice feasting is the way to get rid of obesity. It is the way to ultimately do the radical healing that needs to happen for someone like me.

So... I move on... to making a plan.

It is New Years Eve. I looked at the calendar, I prayed, I've read.

And I have a 3 phase plan based on my life and on what has motivated me in the past.

The plan... I know you want to know about it... fair warning, it is radical.