Take Two: Lady M's second Whole 30

[LadyM]

I think if I were trying to not drink socially in my 20s like you are, Nadia, it would be ahelluvalot tougher. I have no problem not drinking while out among drinkers, and I still seem to be the life of the party much of the time despite my sobriety. But every now and again I'm going to want a festive cocktail and I think that's OK. I don't believe striving to religiously adhere to w30 protocol and restrictions forever is mentally or socially healthy for me. My point is that it surprises me a bit how much my attitude and desires toward alcohol have shifted as I've continued for months on my current W30. And I'm curious about how my life will be affected by these shifts and how I'll move forward.

[LadyM]

Day 81

M1 meat quiche, bone broth, 8

M2 beef and veg stir fry, naked salad, sliced berriesmelonpineapple, 11

M3 romaine jicama raspberry avocado salad with citrus vinaigrette (holy deliciousness!), brisket, 7:30

Did well last night at the restaurant. Checked the menu ahead of time and had as compliant a meal as possible. My fingers are a bit stiff this morning, though, which tells me there was something that didn't agree with me. But who knows what that is? This is why I've lost my passion for dining out, even at the finest of restaurants.

I also had some pretty terrible tummy pains after dinner that I think turned out to be gas. Perhaps from the RX bar I ate to tide me over bw my early lunch and late (for me) dinner. I really do best to eat earlier in the day with dinner bw 3:30 and 4:30 and then done for the day. It's like my body has its own IF requirements for optimal performance. It works best with about a 15-hour overnight fast. Interesting.

Slept in this morning bc of late rehearsal last night and therefore missed yoga. I shall make it up this evening. And I'm itching to get on my bike, too, so we'll see.

[pjena]

I can totally see you as the life of the party regardless!  I also agree that it's easier socially to avoid alcohol now that I'm older.  Everyone has "issues" and it seems to be a favorite topic so saying I don't sleep well when I drink and woe is me I'm not 21 anymore seems to do the trick and gets everyone nodding in empathy. 

 

I missed yoga, too.  It was pouring and cold and I just couldn't get myself out the door.  I practiced crow in my living room instead.   I'm getting better.  I can hold it for 10 or 15 seconds before I fall out.  I think it's mainly fear of falling on my face.  Headstand is going great.  I can pretty consistently get up and stay up without the wall.  I need the wall nearby for comfort, but I don't need to use it most times.

[Nadia B]

Haha of course you are, who would have doubted. Apparently I read that alcohol passage wrong, but your reply made everything clear. 

 

Funny how "food out" has became a food group of it's own. I have very few places that I trust and that's all. Restaurants around my area interest me from one stand point - emergency compliant food. Sorry to hear that eating out turned out so disturbing for your system. 

 

IF - there is a lot of science behind this. I've read quite a bit of a research about how it can be super beneficent. I also read how it might suppress the hormonal secretion for women. But this is exactly where paralysis by analysis starts. I am happy that you do what feels right, not what "another science-y study" has shown. That's the goal of our dwellings here after all.

 

And yeah. Bike. You know that I got the guts to buy one because of your post last year? Right? 

[Physibeth]

I too understand better with the alcohol clarifications. I think having a drink between W30's because you want to is definitely different than because you feel you have to. 

 

Food out scares me so much that I basically won't do it while on Whole30. I had another instructor offer to take me to lunch as a thank you for subbing a lot of her classes lately and I said sure, after June 10th. Its just more stress than it is worth to me.

 

Before I found paleo I did 2 rounds of the clean program where they have you not eat for 12 hours overnight. I always felt so much better doing that and think it is ideal for my body. With teaching a lot of 7pm classes it isn't always going to happen for me though unless I sleep way later than I seem to be able to in the morning.

 

My bike...needs to be ridden or sold...maybe you ladies will inspire it out of hibernation.

[LadyM]

Jen, you impress me with your diligent home yoga practice--those cranky crows and planks you do!

 

As for IF, yes, when I first experimented with it about a year ago it was terrible. I was forcing it and using BP coffee and I think it seriously worsened my blown out adrenals. Wasn't doing good things for me at all. But now I've just kind of organically figured out that this works for me. For some reason, I don't tend to be hungry at all after my final meal, even if it's at 3:30 in the afternoon and I go to bed at 10. And I wake up less hungry the longer I've gone without food the day before. When I eat later, like I did last night, I wake up famished. I don't know what that's all about but my best guess is hormones. It's always hormones, isn't it?

 

I was super scared about eating out in the early days of my W30, too, because you just can't trust anything you don't prepare yourself. But I figure by day 80 or 81 I don't have to have a freak out anymore and I can do the best I can. For example, the catered lunch today in which they offered me a special soy-free stirfry was delicious and probably mostly compliant. (I told them I had a soy allergy rather than going into all the gory details. Again, that was a choice.) That sauce tasted awfully sweet, though, so it's more than possible there was something noncompliant in it; but I decided at this point, it was better to eat the beef and veggies (avoiding the rice), my salad naked, and the sliced strawberries and pineapple they gave me for dessert since the cheesecake also had soy in it (WTF?) instead of eating my emergency rx bar in my purse, which I know gives me gas and leaves me hungry when eaten on its own. And now, nearly six hours later, I'm still not hungry and I haven't discerned any ill effects, so good result!

 

Thinking I'll just go to yoga in 45 minutes on an empty stomach, have a somewhat late dinner, and call it good.

 

I'm committed to making it 85 days W30 style, but I'm almost playing at riding my own bike in this final countdown while not deliberately off roading. It seems like a good transition.

[Beets]

Nadia, I have (in the relatively few times I've stayed sober, which says more about my lack of social life than anything) had a fun time talking to drunk people. It's hilarious. I find that some seltzer in a glass with a little citrus helps.

Then again I blew my w30 on day 26 with red wine so that's how much my advice is worth!

But, yeah, it's ok being sober when everyone around you is drinking. It's still fun. But I hear you on people being suspicious of non-drinkers. Prob says more about those people than you.

M, I do admire your shift in thinking when it comes to drinking. As we know I haven't yet made this shift. :-\

I seem to IF on auto pilot. I'm fine with a coffee in the am and then lunch. I might do better with breakfast, but sometimes when I force it I feel nauseated. Think it depends on my level of activity.

[LadyM]

I seem to IF on auto pilot. I'm fine with a coffee in the am and then lunch. I might do better with breakfast, but sometimes when I force it I feel nauseated. Think it depends on my level of activity.

Interesting thing my trainer told me: she said eating within an hour resets cortisol, but so does working out. This came up when I was asking her about eating before and after exercise. Working out in the morning on an empty stomach works for me, followed by breakfast. It also makes my thyroid pill/eating schedule (need to wait an hour after taking it before eating) pan out just right. Of course, I'm not cross fitting or powerlifting. The w30 mods might not dig this so much, but it's working out for me.

[Physibeth]

Interesting thing my trainer told me: she said eating within an hour resets cortisol, but so does working out. This came up when I was asking her about eating before and after exercise. Working out in the morning on an empty stomach works for me, followed by breakfast. It also makes my thyroid pill/eating schedule (need to wait an hour after taking it before eating) pan out just right. Of course, I'm not cross fitting or powerlifting. The w30 mods might not dig this so much, but it's working out for me.

 

*moderator cap on* What you do post W30 is your own business. I personally don't know the science but what your trainer says makes sense. Personally I can not work out fasted. Never have been able to and I've tried. This is where we figure out what works for each of us after words.

[LadyM]

Day 82

M1 meat quiche, green tea, 7:30

M2 crudités w guacamole, banana w sunbutter, brisket, 12:30

M3 baba ghanoush, crudités, chicken thigh, couple merguez meatballs, bellydance beets, 5:30

Jicama, where have you been all my life? This is my new crunchy, slightly sweet, refreshing go-to summer food. Not as easy to find as I'd like (picked up this one at whole foods last week in Ann Arbor).

Very mellow yoga last night was good. Heading to a yin class here in a sec which will set me up for napping throughout the day, no doubt.

Last night I reread my two logs from last year and wow. What a journey this has been. More on that later, but mostly I was struck by what an amazingly loving and supportive community this forum has been for me. Nadia, Beets, Jen, Lee, KB, Moluv, Mary, Jen, Derval, and a few others really lifted me up through some truly terrible times last year. Thank you all SO MUCH for that. I mean, this is something I will forever look back on as life saving. And here most of you still are. This is us using our infinite power for the good. So glad I was reminded of that.

OK, more soon. xoxo

[Nadia B]

Love me my morning Lady M read )) 

[pjena]

LOVE jicama!  Kohlrabi is great raw, too.  Crunchy! 

 

And you give back every bit of what you get.  Your thoughtful comments and beautiful writing keep me going, too! 

"Use your power for good" is my mom's motto (along with "I'd wear a tiara but it would be redundant"). I think it's a great one.

[LadyM]

LOVE jicama!  Kohlrabi is great raw, too.  Crunchy! 

 

And you give back every bit of what you get.  Your thoughtful comments and beautiful writing keep me going, too! 

"Use your power for good" is my mom's motto (along with "I'd wear a tiara but it would be redundant"). I think it's a great one.

Awww, you're such a pussy cat, Jen. Kohlrabi is wonderful. I love it in salads. Crunchy and a bit peppery. It's almost in season, too!

 

I am totally stealing "I'd wear a tiara but it would be redundant" from your mom! Of course, I do have a sizable tiara collection--this probably comes as no surprise to you. . . .

[Physibeth]

Awww, you're such a pussy cat, Jen. Kohlrabi is wonderful. I love it in salads. Crunchy and a bit peppery. It's almost in season, too!

 

I am totally stealing "I'd wear a tiara but it would be redundant" from your mom! Of course, I do have a sizable tiara collection--this probably comes as no surprise to you. . . .

 

This begs the question...do I need a proper excuse to wear my wedding tiara again? I wanted to wear it to our anniversary dinner but husband talked me out of it.

[LadyM]

You wear your tiara any old time you want, Bethany! I like to wear mine while vacuuming.

[Physibeth]

You wear your tiara any old time you want, Bethany! I like to wear mine while vacuuming.

 

Hmmm...maybe that could make me vacuum more. Hmmm

[Beets]

Omg, Jen, those are both great sayings! Your mom must be great. ðŸ˜ðŸ˜

I should get some jicama, too.

[LadyM]

Day 83

M1 meat quiche, green tea, 7:15
M2 mashed cauli, brisket, cm chai, noon
M3 celery w pate, sw pot, romaine salad w chicken breast, mango, red onion, jicama, prosciutto, citrus ginger vinaigrette, 7:30

So, reading those logs was really something. It showed me how very far I've come from when I first came upon W30--and even before that, when I started with PeerTrainer and Fuhrman and then JJ Virgin (which really annoys me how it relies on really expensive shakes you buy from them, but hey, it was a step in a process for me and got me, in part, to where I am now) three or more years ago. When I go back to my journal from those times it's painful to return to how much I struggled and suffered about food and my body. It's not all the way gone now, but yikes is it a whole new world.

It strikes me that that obsession about food and my body was a way for me to escape much of the deep emotional and spiritual pain I was experiencing--my mom's suffering and looming death--and experiencing to a lesser degree because I shifted focus to self hatred, aka body dissatisfaction. Genuine obsessive and addictive behavior. It was miserable.

Every food and exercise choice worried and plagued me. It was impossible for me to be present that way. And I realize now that it served me in a strange way. It protected me from having to fully face the true ugliness right in front of me.

I am in such a different place now. There. I've said it again, in case I lose track of that, let's face it, miracle.

I still spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about and preparing food, but I do so in a loving manner full of joy and curiosity about the wonders of food and my body.

I still want my body to slim down and release excess fat and function optimally, but I'm not obsessed with appearances alone and I'm not so damned mad about it all the time. I've developed real patience and love for myself. See that? I just conflated self and body--two things I have historically separated without much thinking at all. I experience much less dualism in this regard.

I still ask too much of my body/self (OK, there's still some dualism there) (and please note the recent SI sprain debacle) and cause myself to suffer, but I don't expect/fear permanence. This came to me over the weekend while reading Pema on retreat. Impermanence is the nature of EVERYdamnTHING. And for the most part, I love that. I love that the seasons change and often unpredictably so. And while I struggle more than I'd like to admit with aging and the snail's pace of my fat loss, I can intellectually accept the impermanence of my physical form. I would like to be able to celebrate that eventually, the way I celebrate the changing of the seasons. I'm still in the anxiety of fall into winter rather than the joy of spring into summer, to stick with the metaphor. But of course, my perspective, like everything else, will change and shift in time.

And, while impermanence could also be summoned as an explanation for wild mood swings, and I still shift from joy to despair on occasion over very few hours, I am so incredibly even keeled compared to how I was a year ago. God help that woman I was during my first W30. I was so veryveryvery sick in so very many different ways. I am so clearly healing in so many different ways.

I also understand that there is no end point, no "Hey, look at me, I'm healed!" But that I can trust W30, my FMD, and myself to help guide me in all kinds of ever shifting ways toward strength and health.

OK, moving on from the abstract to the concrete, I started brewing booch again yesterday, yippeeeee!! We'll see how it goes with resurrecting my SCOBY from her year-long slumber in her refrigerated hotel.

I took two yoga classes yesterday--Yin in the morning and Restorative at night. I'm coddling my adrenals like it's my job. I am such a nicer person for it. The classes are also just a little boring, but I'm still babying my SI. Hoping to balance all this deliberate chilling out with a bike ride one of these days and getting back to bootcamp and maybe even some burst training/running next week. Craving it.

Doing OK on the fats front. Adequate, not excessive, is the name of this game--and something MissMary wrote in my log last year confirmed that this was key for her. BTW, Mary, you are one of my chief role models in all of this, and I don't think I've acknowledged that before! Thank you for riding your own bike in such a persistent and elegant fashion and for sharing it on the forum. It really inspires me and keeps me consistently on the path of patience and perseverance.

Tried out a couple more winning Well Fed recipes, including Merguez meatballs and baba ghanoush. That baba ghanoush is freaking stellar, man. And I also think the nightshades are a bit much for me. I defer to ayurveda on this one. I can take them in small doses when balanced with more cooling foods.

Speaking of ayurveda, I've decided to join my dearest most favorite and longest standing ayurved and yogini friend/teacher on a retreat in Bali next year. I've been wanting to do it for years, but never had the money and didn't feel I could go abroad all the years my mom's health was so utterly precarious. I am sitting on a big check from a freelance job I did and, well, I'm going to do it. It falls during my spring break next year, too, so it's perfect!

[pjena]

Retreat in Bali!  That sounds perfect! 

 

I love that you have a tiara collection.

 

Your post today is fabulous, as usual.  I'm always impressed at how introspective you are.  I figured out a while ago that I used obsession with food/weight to distract me from other stuff.  I used to fall asleep counting calories in my head.  Sad.  It's a hard habit to break and it's so hard to be present in your life and deal with all the negative emotions along with the positive.  But, it's a noble goal that we keep striving towards. 

[missmary]

Doing OK on the fats front. Adequate, not excessive, is the name of this game--and something MissMary wrote in my log last year confirmed that this was key for her. BTW, Mary, you are one of my chief role models in all of this, and I don't think I've acknowledged that before! Thank you for riding your own bike in such a persistent and elegant fashion and for sharing it on the forum. It really inspires me and keeps me consistently on the path of patience and perseverance.

 

But you are a role model for ME, blushing now, but thank you. 

[Beets]

Bali! Yes!!!

I always get those emails from various yoga studios. I email them to my husband and write, "40th?" Well now it's almost my 40th and I haven't gone so I'll start writing a different number.

I'm so different too from the person I was last year. I was responding to a different thread from a woman on a similar place to where I was. Made me curious to read my old logs, if I can stand it. I was so deep in my stage of feeling sorry for myself that I, at first, couldn't even listen to the help being offered.

I remember the disappointment of losing weight after my son was born. (Well, two years later.) I used also Furhman and Peer Trainer. I was smaller than I'd been since my 20s but I felt so sad. Wherever you go, there you are. How different things are now.

I love your thoughts about impermanence. **Taps over to Safari to Google Pema.**

[LadyM]

Beets, this is the Pema Chodron book I reread over the weekend, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

 

I read your response on that other log and it reminded me how far you've come, too. It's amazing. Worth reminding yourself by rereading those old logs if you can stand it.

 

Yes, the Bali trip feels like a once in a lifetime kind of deal. A treat of the sweetest kind. I hope you can give yourself something that feels like that at some point soon!

[Beets]

Thank you! I shall check it out for sure.

[LadyM]

Day 84

M1 eggs scrambled in better butter, crispy prosciutto, green tea, 8:30
M2 same as last night minus swpot and mango, plus raspberries and avocado, 1:30
M3 rib eye, asparagus, naked salad (out), 8

Fighting a bit of the sore throat funk creeping back. Yet another reason not to drink, though we'll see.

The weather is stunningly perfect right now. I'm savoring every moment.

Walked to yoga and back last night. Lovely yin practice lulled me to sleep after a truly inspired dinner.

My new ritual when I walk in the door after work is to pour some kombucha into a champagne flute for myself. I swear it's that ritual and the feeling of giving myself something special that I'm after--not the wine or chocolate or cheese and crackers or whatever. This is important information to remember!

Getting excited about my long-awaited Memorial Day weekend. Debuting my new hats and dresses and bathing costumes, no matter that my workouts have been compromised for the past few weeks, my body's nowhere near as slim as I'd hoped it'd be, and the wobbly bits are still wobbly. If my body offends anyone, fuck 'em. I'm flaunting it! (Of course, the reality is, our bodies offend no one but ourselves. I learned this on a pebbly Croatian beach many years ago when I witnessed 350-pound grannies sunbathing in bikinis. It was awesome. They were goddesses.)

Need to get organized before a massage and packing then getting this show on the road. Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

[Beets]

It's true, M. A European beach is a great reminder to enjoy the feel of the sun on our skin, no matter the shape. I loved the topless moms, imperfect breasts and all, hanging out with their children. No shame or self-consciousness. And what is there to be ashamed of?

I'm psyched for your Memorial Day weekend, too! Can't wait to hear how it goes. Hope the brilliant weather lasts.

It's true about the ritual. I do find a wine glass of kombucha after the kids are in bed gives me the same "it's over" signal as a glass of wine, without the headache. (Though I won't lie, I still enjoy wine.)