In the beginning...

[amberino21]

Hi! Welcome back

Despite your one day, I think it sounds like a positively successful few days - not just of compliant eating, but learning and understanding your body and relationship with food! Awesome!

Hope your week goes well - and if it starts to get difficult, make sure to think about the weekend you just had

[Born Sandy]

Thanks Amberino, it really does make a big difference being around like minded supportive people too, really appreciate the support and positivity. 

[Born Sandy]

....also, meant to upload this before but am also thinking the beautiful environment I was in assisted me in my philosophical nutritional ponderings  -the pic below is a hike I did yesterday with my little girl, was absolutely stunning and a nice break from the gym. 

[amberino21]

oh, WOW!!! that is sensational....you've made me want to head away down south here now, that's where we both feel relaxed and completely at peace being surrounded by wine and delicious food as well as beautiful scenery may not be the best idea right now though,hehe

[Born Sandy]

You know, we had a roaring fire, I had books, magazines and that is absolutely normally my cue for red wine. Did I think about it? Well yes, because of the familiarity of the scenario. Did I want red wine? Nah, not really. Heading to the farmers market then coming back and cooking up was pretty satisfying actually, didn't even miss the wine part of it....although, that possibly would have been different if I was down at Marg's. 

[Born Sandy]

Just finished up making my food for tomorrow though seeing as it is a 12 hour fly day. Made up a pile of little sushi wraps with my left over beef eye fillet, avocado, Lebanese cucumber and baby spinach, I have tub of smoked salmon wrapped around avocado, a punnet of raspberries and some grapes and some almonds, macadamia's, coconut flakes and raisins. I will no longer ever get caught on the hop without food anymore!

[amberino21]

You know, we had a roaring fire, I had books, magazines and that is absolutely normally my cue for red wine. Did I think about it? Well yes, because of the familiarity of the scenario. Did I want red wine? Nah, not really. Heading to the farmers market then coming back and cooking up was pretty satisfying actually, didn't even miss the wine part of it....although, that possibly would have been different if I was down at Marg's. 

 

 

we could quite easily go down and not have wine...we love picking up fresh produce at the Saturday markets, and cooking up a storm.

we got married at vasse felix though, and driving past without stopping it is sad! hehe. we rarely drink, but enjoy a nice glass of wine with "special occasion" meals

[Born Sandy]

Day 15 down and I do have to say I have an element of pride in myself over how it went because it was a tricky travel day. Started the day  very early with meal one of a steak with mushrooms and salad, I cooked that up with ghee and also had a bullet proof coffee. Meal 2 was one flight and nearly 5 hours of meetings later but....I feel I did okay with organising my lunch last night with snack ideas from a previous link I put up. I  made sushi rolls with rib eye beef, cucumber, avocado and baby spinach, some smoked salmon 'wraps' with avocado in the middle, I had a trail mix ready and also a punnet of raspberries...oh and a black coffee at the airport.

 

All that held me over until I got home and managed to make up a sweet potato, cabbage, onion, garlic and zucchini fritter type thing that I had with a few lamb chops and some field mushrooms cooked in coconut oil. All up, a fairly successful day food wise-if I could have I wouldn't have had such a big break between breakfast and lunch but I couldn't really avoid that.

 

Again, peace of mind and calmness seems to be the main and most obvious thing for me at this stage, oh and energy, I seem to have a lot of energy. I had set my alarm for 5.15am this morning to get ready and get to the airport for an early flight but actually woke up at 4.30am. This isn't so unusual for me but I am normally pretty groggy at that time. This time though, I lay there thinking 'do I need more sleep?' and ended up figuring no, so got up and did some stretches... so anyway, calmness and energy are the real winners for me from this whole thing, so much so in fact that I am completely rethinking how/what and if I may reintroduce any of the stuff I am now not putting into my body. I don't care so much about weight loss, am not a real scales person anyway but definitely feeling pride in myself, feeling at peace with myself and the world seeming a little bit 'softer' makes this whole 30 journey for me totally worthwhile. It is really far more than I ever expected from it and frankly would like it to extend as long and as much as possible in my life.

 

[calee]

I have to agree that the emotional calm is a great end product of template eating. I think that you've done amazing with all of your recent experiences!

[melbournegirl]

Well done sandy, have you discovered the qantas fruit platter meals yet? Thats what I always order now.

[Born Sandy]

@Juzbo, cheers and no I haven't yet but will do next time. Lots of my flights are regional NSW though so fly teeny tiny Rex and Qantas link planes of which the food selection is pretty dire (i.e. pretzels  ). It is actually so bad, it is no bad thing to miss out on it.

@Calee, I seriously think the emotional calm stuff should be shouted from the top of the W30 program. It has been amazing for me, really amazing.

 

As far as day 16, I definitely think I have a taste of the 'tiger blood'. Very high energy levels accompanied by the emotional calm and general sense of well being. Things seem a lot 'lighter' or 'softer' and I'm far more focused in my work and concentration.

 

Woke at 5.30am this morning (before my alarm clock) and had a boiled egg and a bullet proof coffee before heading off to a boot camp class. Felt good in that the class started with 5 and ended up with 1 person-me!  Was a tough class but felt great after. Meal 1 was scrambled eggs with coconut milk, vegetable fritter from last night, field mushrooms, avocado and spinach leaves.

 

Meal 2 was two lamb chops again with my vegetable fritter pancake thing, olives, avocado and spinach leaves and Meal 3 was roast chicken with roast veggies (sweet potato, egg plant, onion and garlic) and sauteed chard and kale. No snacking at all which surprised me, didn't really feel the need but I did have another coffee (black) in the afternoon around 2pm. 

 

In a physical sense I feel a lot stronger. The wo this morning felt good and I am finding I am able to do a lot greater range of movements than I have been and really extend myself in training. My body is definitely harder and more muscley than it was. Feeling quite blissful really and really enjoying the journey. 

[Born Sandy]

Oh dear, so much for meticulously maintaining a log of the food-real life intervened and time constraints in the day became a lot more rigid!

 

On the positive side of things the last two weeks has been full of some yummy and enjoyable cooking-mostly my own creations but enjoyable none the less. I've made up whole baked and stuffed coconut fish, lime chicken curry, some delicious slow cooked meals like lamb shanks, good, delicious and nutritious meals. 

 

On the other side of things and I kind of summed this up in my July thread, my whole point of doing this was to tweak my health and fitness regime and really try to push the strength side of things with the food into my exercise and activities. With this in mind I feel fantastic and it is hard to distinguish how much is contributory to the food and how much to the exercise given the complementary nature of them all.

 

Weight wise (whatever that means lol!) I'm about 1.2kg heavier which appears to be solely muscle so am chuffed with that. At 177 cms and 65kg I've also moved from a size 12 (AU) to a size 8 (AU) so I'd say I'm pretty much operating a optimal weight. Irrespective, my focus is now on eating well and exercising and my body being reflective of that as opposed to some extraneous and unconnected idea of my "perfect" body size/shape/weight that has no correlation to the internal and ongoing choices I make on a daily basis in regard to my health (if that makes sense?)

 

The benefits I have noted is definite improvement in strength and endurance capacity. I have increased my weights in training and have also now added in swimming twice a week and running 7km 1-2 times per week as well as a cross fit class. The intention is to see how I go with this and possible set my sights on a triathlon in the future.

 

On a psychological basis, I'm really finding my focus has shifted around the concept of self care. I know in the past I have often been guilty of focusing so exclusively on my work it has been all encompassing and I have set aside my own needs in regard to it (i.e. little sleep, excessively stressed, no physical activity for long periods and poor nutritional habits such as living off coffee). I've really worked at this with introducing even more exercise and making arrangements for it (such as allocating an extra hour before my uni lectures twice a week so I can hit the uni pool or, sending my daughter for a play date so I can go running. With the cross fit, my partner also comes and does it with me and the kids occupy themselves for the class doing homework and playing on their iPads  )

 

Anyway, the benefit of this in relation to my work is I'm finding I'm far more efficient and focused in my work then I was. On another side, I've also become less stressed and more relaxed around it and am finding this to positively influence outcomes....maybe confidence is the word to use here and maybe it is something to do with the strength I feel in a physical and psychological way-not sure but certainly increased opportunities seem to be opening up work wise with my new 'peace of mind.'

 

So all up, a bit of a blip on the blog here in as far as faithful recollections of all that I ate each day however I have stayed compliant throughout. I guess though it was quite good to also have time away from social media and discussion sites to focus a bit more internally on the transformation that was happening for me. It definitely did start with food but then exercise had a huge part to do with it for me in addition to challenging myself and really revelling in the peace of mind combined with the extra energy (or tiger blood, whatever you want to call it), definitely a positive ripple effect in the rest of my life.

 

As far as reintroducing things, I don't think life will change too much for me. I ate fairly clean before this and can't see myself eating dairy and legumes again but will probably eat the occasional bit of rice and have a glass of wine now and again, in fact I'm still doing the Dry July here in Australia (no alcohol fundraiser) so am still alcohol free. Maybe Friday night I'll have a work out and have a little toast afterwards.