Whole30 - 1 Week Down

I've waited a little while to share this anywhere, but now that I have a week under my belt, I feel like it's okay to officially claim that I'm doing a Whole30. 

What in the world is the Whole30, you ask? Basically it is a strict Paleo eating plan for 30 days. So no sugar, dairy, grains, or legumes - and guess what? I'm not dead yet! ;) 

We had already been eating Paleo dinners since the beginning of September, and enjoyed pretty much everything we made. (We love the Against All Grain cookbook!) Jason was about 90% Paleo, but I was eating pretty much whatever I wanted all the time. 

Leftover birthday cake? Gone. 
Cookies and brownies from my sweet Mamaw? Gone. 
Chick-Fil-A nuggets and fries? Basically every day. 

I have been working out at the Y consistently for 9 weeks, and have felt better overall, but hadn't seen any improvement in my particular problem area. 

As a side note, I only gained 20 pounds with Miller (since he came so early), and lost that pretty quickly, but when I stopped nursing, I gained - you guessed it - 20 pounds. I weighed as much as I had 8 months pregnant. Except I wasn't pregnant. None of my pants fit. My shirts got super tight. The number on the scale didn't bother me so much (other than the fact that it kept rising...), but the way I felt was not how I wanted to feel.

So after a lot of prayer, God nudged me in this direction. Cut out my addiction to flavored coffee creamer, Halloween candy, French fries, and wheat thins. Get drastic and see if you survive. It's been tough!!!

I started out by cleaning out anything in our pantry that wasn't "on plan." Which... was basically everything. 

It's just stored for later, but now it won't mock me every time I open the pantry. 

So what HAVE I been eating? Breakfast is bacon, eggs, and grapefruit if we have it. (For the FIRST TIME in my life, I'm not piling sugar on my grapefruit. I took a note from my MIL who sprinkles salt on hers - it brings out the sweetness!) Lunch is leftovers or grilled chicken, grapes, sautéed zucchini or steamed broccoli, and a sweet potato for "dessert". Sweet potatoes used to mean butter and tons of brown sugar. Now it's cinnamon and salt, for the same reasons as the grapefruit. 

Dinner is typically one of our favorite recipes from the Against All Grain cookbook - BBQ bacon burgers, meatloaf muffins, slow cooker chicken tacos, and almost ALWAYS mashed garlic cauliflower, which fulfills my craving for mashed potatoes. 

Alright, do you think I'm crazy yet? Don't knock the cauliflower til you try it! :) It's definitely hard when temptation is all around (like ANY trip to Walmart, or the amazing cookies and cream cake I'm still having dreams about), but I'm committed to sticking it out! I'm ready to feel better and not feel like such a slave to sugar. 

Have you ever given something up (like for Lent) that you didn't think you'd actually be able to do for the set amount of time? What would be the hardest food/food group for you to give up?

Hobbies and Health Lately

Obviously, by my million posts about Project Life, you see that I've found a creative outlet lately! :) I've been doing other things too, of course, like keeping a sweet 2 year old and a squirmy 7 month old alive. I've been back at church choir, after a long hiatus this summer (during my difficult season with Miller's dietary issues), and I'm sooooo thankful to be back! Of course, we're working on Christmas music, which is crazy, but lots of fun. Wednesday night and Sunday morning are some of my favorite places to be. God is always present in our time together.

Jason has been working out at Crossfit for a couples months and really loves it! Through that group, he has become more interested in the Paleo lifestyle. At first I was very reluctant, but now I'm ok with it, just not committed to it (yet). We've been making healthy dinners and stuff, but I haven't been strict with it the rest of the day, but J has! I'm proud of him for sticking with it, and for being patient with me. 

So that said, he bought the "Against All Grain" cookbook and we've liked everything we've made so far: mashed cauliflower, lemon-garlic zucchini, BBQ burgers, chicken broth, butternut squash soup, and my most favorite - banana bread! Mmmmmm...

I joined the YMCA last month! There is one really close to our house, and childcare is almost always available, so no excuses! (Well except for the "my kids are sick" excuse. But we're all better now!) When I go to the Y, I either do strength training (via the ActivTrax site/app), or I go to Zumba! I didn't know what all the fuss was about - I have several Facebook friends that do it regularly, and now I know why! It's fun, fast, and it will make you all sweaty. Which, in my case, is a good thing, since I don't tend to push myself with cardio on my own. 

Ok so we've covered my creative outlet, working out, Paleo stuff... Oh yes. My personal revelation that is not new to anyone. I've come to realize, if I don't have a plan for the day, I get nothing accomplished. Simple but such a revelation for me. One day this week, I made a really long to-do list (more like a brain dump of all the tasks that have been swimming around in there) and thought I would try to get one thing done during naptime. I ended up crossing like 6 things off the list! However, on the days that I don't have a list/plan, then even if I do several things, I feel like I haven't accomplished anything. Plus, I'm the kind of person that likes to cross things off... are you?

(story of my life)

So there you go! Some of the things going on in my world lately! Stay tuned for "Clothes & Habits Lately", I know you're just DYING to know. ;)

What have YOU been up to lately?

Being Healthier: 1st Steps

Last month, I really felt a strong desire to pay more attention to what I buy to feed my family. I've known some things weren't so great for us, but there were so many more things that I learned over the course of the month.

source

You guys, I used to think that all those people buying "organic" stuff and worrying about all that were crazy! NOW, I'm realizing that I've been the crazy one, just accepting that food companies would never sell us products that could harm us. It's unfortunately just not true.

I watched several documentaries (Forks Over Knives, Food Matters, part of Food Inc., and the most impactful to me - Genetic Roulette, << here's a 10 minute version of the 90 minute movie I watched) but I took everything I watched with a grain of salt. I didn't go throw out all of our processed food or anything, but it all definitely got me thinking more about the kinds of things that we eat.So here are the baby steps I took over the course of October, and a reason "why?" behind the change:

• changed our white table salt to real salt - Not only is there no benefit to table salt, there's also some scary stuff in it, so switching to real salt was an easy step (read on their website for better info)
• kicked my white sugar habit - This is so awful... I was putting 5 tsp of sugar in a CUP of hot tea every morning. Oh, the shame. So I bought some organic raw agave nectar and have been using that instead. Then a week or so ago, when I got a cough, I put some local honey in it, and to my surprise (bc I kinda hate honey) it was AWESOME! So now I rotate between honey and agave. UPDATE: Turns out, agave isn't so good for you... I'll be sticking with my honey!
• started baking my own wheat bread - After my first failed attempt, I am now happy to say that I have made 2 really great batches since then! And as I said in my October goals post, I keep getting sweet compliments from Jason about how good my bread is! SCORE!! I've been using this bread recipe, with half regular white flour and half whole wheat flour, and without lecithin or gluten so far. We haven't bought store bread in over a month!
• switched to organic whole milk for the boys - Jack has been drinking whole milk since his birthday, and I typically buy 1% for Jason (I use almond milk). After watching some of these documentaries and discussing dairy with friends, I decided to bite the more expensive bullet and buy organic whole milk instead. Now, to be honest, I was getting a gallon of milk at Aldi for like $3, so paying $6 for organic was a little devastating at first. But seriously, the scary stuff that gets into regular milk these days is enough reason for me not to give it to my tiny precious child. Milk and water is all he drinks, so he takes in a ton of this stuff! What if it had growth hormones and antibiotics and all kinds of ICKY stuff!! Whew. Anyway, Jason is so easy going and didn't one time complain about switching to whole from 1%. Crisis averted.
• switched to butter made from grass-fed cow's milk - We already use butter (not margarine) so this wasn't a big deal to switch, except for the price. Again, you pay more for something that takes more effort to make. I'm slowly learning that. I bought Kerrygold butter and you can get it at Walmart.
• switched to organic and "everything free" eggs - I'd really like to get local eggs, but for now I'm just getting hormone free, antibiotic free, cage free eggs from WM. I was buying the cheapest eggs in the world (which are at Aldi, by the way), but in all honesty the eggs I just bought were only like $2.50 instead of $1 for a dozen, which isn't really that bad. And since Jack will eat 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast, I want them to be "free" of all the yuck. {This is a GREAT article that I read about why another family switched to organic chicken, butter & eggs!}
• started using organic chicken and local grass-fed beef - There's a million reasons why we decided to use better meat, but based on everything I've already said, I'm sure you can guess. Non GMO-fed, no antibiotics, no growth hormones, etc. We have been totally happy with this change and plan to keep it up, despite the higher price tag. Meat is truly where you spend the extra money, so we're trying to use less at each meal to make it last a little longer. :)
• bought organic veggies that are on the dirty dozen list - This is a MOSTLY true statement. I still have a hard time passing up a huge deal on veggies, but I have been more mindful of this at the store.
• started drinking aloe vera juice and taking salmon oil pills at night - Okay, so this one makes me kinda weird, but I'm already seeing benefits! The salmon oil pills (like fish oil) are just added omega-3s that I'm not getting otherwise and are really beneficial for pregnant women! Now, the aloe juice is where it's AT! I've always had stomach issues (I'm lactose intolerant) and even when I take Lactaid pills, I will often get sick later (probably 3-5 times in a month). In the 4 weeks since I started drinking 1oz of aloe juice before bed, I have only been sick 1 time. This is HUGE for me! Sorry for the overshare, just wanted to get this out there in case someone else struggles with that. 

Wow! That's actually a lot more than I even realized! I have just purchased these things as we ran out of what we were currently using, except for sugar, salt, and flour. I truly have been taking this one step at a time and for every really great thing on this list, I have about 5 other things that I need to work on - and some things I don't really have the conviction to change yet! I mean, I'm doing all this, but I'm not exercising and I know I don't get enough water each day, so there's definitely room for improvement, but I'm pretty proud of the positive changes we've made! 

And, if you'll excuse me...

I have to go pat myself on the back now. 

:)

Have you made any positive changes towards being healthier?