Adjustments, experiments, and unsolved mysteries

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Hi, everybody.

 

My first Whole30 went really well.  I feel a lot better.   I lost about 12 pounds.  My skin cleared up; my nails are getting stronger. My energy is improving.  I had low thyroid, and my doc is still adjusting it upward, which may explain why the "tiger blood" never really peaked for me.  But I did get out of the sloth blood range.  Maybe to housecat.  Still, an improvement, and I'm eager to see where the increased thyroid takes me.

 

I officially ended my first Whole30 a couple of days ago when I got home later than expected and decided I would sleep better with a souped-up protein shake than with a template meal inhaled after 9 pm.  I'd stayed on track an extra ten days and was planning for a Whole60, but I decided that sometimes discretion is the better part of valor. (shake was Primal Nutrition protein with some bulletproof collagen, some soaked chia seeds, a spoonful of maca and cacao, a dollop of coconut oil, and a scoop of Barlean's green powder).  I think that worked well for me.

 

The other thing I've "reintroduced", if you can call it that, is the occasional green drink (Barlean's) when I'm having trouble getting the whole template thing cooked and eaten on schedule.  This happened in large part because my "cook-up" did not happen last weekend.  So that event is back on the calendar for this evening and tomorrow afternoon.  My weekends are busy because I work on Sunday, and we have an active teenage daughter with events to attend, etc., so I have to really be determined to get that cooking done.  

 

Okay, and I ate a pemmican bar that had a few sweetened cranberries in it - didn't seem to do me in, but that was actually a mistake in purchasing that I won't repeat.  I really am liking avoiding all sugar.

 

Other than that, I'm staying the course.  Not really reintroducing food groups yet. I'm liking having real food and at this point have converted almost completely to organic/grassfed etc. I think it is making a big difference in taste and in how we feel.  I still have problems with stomachaches and digestive inconvenience, though, and I want to figure that out.  I think it may be partly low stomach acid and partly gallbladder-less-ness.  I'm trying Paleologix (Kresser/Wolfe) digestive supplements to see if that helps. May also get some labs done.  

 

I love the M1/M2/M3 concept.  Seems silly, but somehow it makes it psychologically easier to switch things around.  My favorite breakfast now is a WellFed hot plate of some kind of browned ground meat (pre-cooked and reheated) with whatever veggie leftovers I have from the last day or so.  Cooked in coconut oil, which seems to give it a little softness and sweetness - and a glug of coco-aminos if it's too bland.  Lunch is still a work in progress - sometimes a hot plate, sometimes a salad, sometimes a box of leftovers.  Dinner is getting simpler - smaller portions of protein, often something starchy like a small (SMALL!) sweet potato and some ghee.    

 

Today

M1 - leftover flank steak, mountain of broccolini with melted ghee and lemon juice

M2  Beef patty, sauteed (coconut oil) spinach and garlic, 1/2 avocado, lots of lemon juice

M3   Pork sausage from USWellness, kale with onion and coconut milk, sweet potato fries

Drink while cooking: green kombucha

 

AND - hit my 10,000 step goal and then some!   Hooray!

 

 

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Day - 44? Sunday.

 

The fitbit (not fitnit!   Freudian typo!) is really helping me.   My inner six year old LOVES the happy faces and hoorays! when I hit my goal.  This is what academic overachievement looks like in middle age.    But it's working for me.  Over 10,000 steps is helping.  It's helping my stress, my general propriceptive dysfunction (fancy way of saying I often don't know what my body is up to - live in my head to a riduculous extreme) - and I think it's helping my lymphatic circulation and perhaps even my gut-repair project.  

 

Sometimes I like to listen to podcasts and sometimes just walk with my own thoughts.  This evening I was glad to be podcast-free, as I enjoyed seeing the Easter Bunny (actually a big cottontail rabbit who lives somewhere in the little copse by our driveway) and I liked seeing where the bluebonnets, paintbrush, and winecups are coming up this spring.  There are more of them out there than you can see from the car, that's for sure.  I really, really want to work on the walking trail we've been talking about but not doing for fifteen years.  Walking with the weedwhacker-mower is a pretty good workout, and a place to start.

 

I'm amazed that I am just not tempted by "frankenfood" at this point.   At coffee hour after church there were pigs-in-a-blanket and homemade cookies - just a month and a half ago I would have been stuffing them down.  Today, even as I was getting hungry after a long and busy morning, I just wanted to go home and eat my paleo goodies.   No desire to eat out at all, even though tired.  In fact, I was so tired that I just ate a few bites of the chicken liver pate I made last night, and then took a nice nap.  Then a little more liver and some broccolini (doggone that template when I don't have veggies prepped!).   WF2  "deconstructed gyro" coming up.   I LIKE having good food.  It's worth it.  And my husband is even willing to do the dishes (on his own schedule, but, hey.)

 

I'm still overwhelmed by too much food info.   Low carb or not?  Eggs good or bad?   Nighshades?   What is causing the lingering tummy-ache?   I think the paleologix supplements are beginning to help, and they say it sometimes takes 90 days on them to re-set digestive juices - heck, I'm just at the 45 day mark on paleo-ish, and just started those about 4 days ago, so a little patience might help.

 

Best new thing - courtesy of listening to Sara Gottfried - "Deep Stretch Yin Yoga" dvd.  Takes an hour - very gentle and soothing, but challenging stretches.  AWESOME.   My Holy Week practice!   And Eastertide too.  Ahhhh.....

 

M1 - Cookup with ground beef, onions, ras al hanout seasoned kale with coconut milk & a bit of broccolini.

Snack chicken liver

M2  serving of chicken liver, broccolini w/ ghee & lemon

M3 deconstructed gyro, butternut squash.

 

and so to bed, by 10:30 I hope!   Busy week coming up.

[Gramma Susie]

Welcome to the forum, Carrick!! I also had a very positive Whole30 and now it is seven months later and I am still having a relatively easy go of it all. I'm not finding myself tempted by very much processed food at all and have been very successful with truly enjoying an occasional offroad. Example this weekend was some French toast. Our son and his family were with us overnight on Saturday to replace the fact they can't be with us on Easter. I wanted to make a nice breakfast before church, so I bought this special homemade raisin nut bread at a healthy food store. The French toast from this loaf was amazing. I had a half a piece with butter and maple syrup, along with my scrambled eggs. I savored every bite of the toast, but when my piece was gone, I was easily able to be done. This Whole30/Whole9 system has really helped me to occasionally (really it is rare that i am even interested in off-roading) participate with family and friends in some of that very good homemade, but non-paleo food, and not have to over indulge. I feel blessed.

But, I also wanted to reply to your yoga comments. I've only tried a couple times, but each time I've sat in on a Yoga class at my health club, I've either left early or left saying to myself I'm not going back. Today is my day to give a real, focused attempt again. My health professionals and trainers at the club have all advised I get involved in Yoga regularly for my continued recovery of adrenal fatigue, and to calm my generally intense way of doing everything, but I seem to crash and burn every time. I'm always thinking of the rest of my day and how I can't wait to get out of there so I can get on with it. Today I'm going to basic yoga with a different instructor and am really hoping this is the start of Yoga for me at least once/week. I'm also going to keep in mind the DVD you mentioned. Will see.

Again, though, welcome to post Whole30. It's the best decision I ever made (actually, with one exception being to marry my husband, Steve) and I'm not looking back. I hope your experience continues to be positive.

[Nuthatch Rancher]

G Susie- I am THRILLED that you showed up here!  I just read your whole thread a couple of days ago and was very disappointed that it seemed to end around the first of the year, because I really wanted to connect with you.  I do think we share a similar outlook on this.  And I so admire your motivation - which is very much like mine.  I'm not a grandma yet - daughters are finishing HS and college - but I'm really thinking about rebooting my health for the next phase of my life after decades of neglect and abuse (I mean dietary/adrenal stuff, not the CPS kind of thing  ).  

 

I have also had bad experiences with yoga - actually sustained my only apparently-permanent injury doing it years ago - and I recently tried a class with my daughter, but it didn't really light my fire.  I do hope yours goes better.  But if it doesn't, try the DVD (about $12 on Amazon.)  This yin yoga stuff is a whole different animal - it's all about stretching and relaxing - with some intensity, if that makes any sense.  I have committed NOT to push my exercise this time, for the reasons you mention.  I am walking (about which I read somewhere "that's not exercise - that's a mode of transportation.  It's movement, not exercise").  And stretching/yin type yoga, and maybe some mobility or prehab exercises - and that's it at least until the end of this month.   Then maybe some Pilates.   It's taking an embarrassing amount of time just to get my energy fixed.    (See - how driven is that?  I'm embarrassed that I'm physically burned out.  Good grief.)  

 

Thanks so much for showing up here.  I hope we'll become friends!

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Busy day with an evening meeting yesterday - I am really feeling it when I'm off track with my program.  I didn't eat unapproved foods, but I didn't get my veggies, especially at lunch, and I felt draggy.  I did not get to do my 10,000 steps - did 4000 with only one active minute (mercy!).  Got home from evening meeting after 10 - not the plan - and decided to stay up and do my yin yoga stretching dvd, which did help me decompress.  The stretching felt good.  But no hot epsom bath, to bed late, somewhat wakeful night. 

 

The walking is turning out to be absolutely key for me.  It's challenging to find all the time.   This morning I got up and walked about 7000 steps right off the bat, just to make SURE I get it in.  (It's freezing out there!   What is up?  It's mid-April!  but nice for walking.)  

 

yesterday

m1- liver and broccolini  (that broc is finally gone.  Not sure I'm going to buy another Costco tub.  that was a LOT of broccolini for a lot of days!)

m2 - sardines.

m3 - hot plate with ground beef, onion, chard, yellow squash.  Indigestion after - wonder why...

 

Today - walking, stretching, maybe a massage if I can squeeze one in. . . and lots and lots of work to do.  Better get off the net.  

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Wondering how to sort out lingering digestion issues, and wondering if my thyroid problem is Hashimoto's, and if so, does that bring in the whole autoimmune thing.  Exhausting to think about.    I emailed my doc with the thyroid question, and I'm sure we can get to the bottom of that.  But the tummyache thing - that's a different kettle of fish, and I'm wondering if labs are in order.

 

I'm dragging my feet because the idea of giving up fodmaps AND nightshades (and eggs!) on top of the whole30 bad guys seems just too awful. How do you cook without onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers?  So I guess I need to determine whether any of this is actually a problem or something else is going on.   But whole30 HAS taught me that I can live for 30 days with restrictions, and then it could be possible to figure out what the problems are.  No need to catastrophize.   Bad for cortisol levels. 

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Good Friday.  Lots of stress at work this week.  More coming.   But the stress management is really working.   Had MAJOR problems at the end of Thursday, which would have sent me into a tailspin a couple of months ago.  Instead of a big glass of wine and 4 hours of computer games, I did my yin yoga stretches and took a hot bath, and I didn't even WANT to complain after that.  I just went to bed.  Got up and did my flexibility exercises and walked.  Went on to another stressful situation at midday - then a scheduled massage, and tried a chiropractor for the first time.  I think it helps some with the tension in my neck and upper back.  

 

Off plan a bit with fortified protein shake for breakfast  - for a Good Friday "fast", since I hadn't eaten since 5 pm yesterday, and IF any longer than that is definitely not for me.  A good paleo lunch  - roasted free range chicken, kale, sweet potato, and a treat ginger kombucha - at the Picnik food truck in Austin, and mulling over whether to cook something or close down the day with another shake.  I'll finish out my 10.000 steps and consider it.  I bought a big sackful of frozen cuts of grass fed organic happy beef and lamb from a local rancher on my doc's porch, and can't wait to try it out.  YUM.

 

Nobody is saying anything, but my clothes sure are fitting differently, and my energy is definitely up.   I picked up a kit at my doctor's today to do some intestinal testing, but that's going to take a few weeks because I have to wait for probiotics and digestive enzymes to clear first.   I am thinking H pylori is a definite possibility.  We'll see.

[Nuthatch Rancher]

Slacking off a little this week - not intentionally.    I'm not hitting my steps.  Makes me cranky.  I'd like to get something set up on the treadmill so I can do some reading/surfing done while still moving (not trying to get in an "aerobic zone" - just move).  

 

Without weekend cook-ups it's pretty touch and go.  Struggling to make it a routine.

 

But I'm sticking with the rules, except for adding some protein shakes.   I'd like to get back to only having those occasionally.

 

Canned sardines (boneless skinless) are a lifesaver.

 

I'm a little more focused at the moment on the productivity/Less Doing issues.    Life feels clutttered.