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Not ready to give up my training wheels


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Aw! That is amazing. I love kid poems. They are the best. No self-consciousness just pure genius.

Day 23 (lost track of my days somewhere but this is real according to my daily emails)

Great yoga class tonight. Felt strong and fluid, if a little spacey. I even got dizzy at one point coming out of a backbend, which I attribute to not eating real dinner before my class. (I struggle so much with eating earlier. It is the hardest thing for me but I know it must be done.) Came home, found a parking spot in front of my building (usually have to drive around for 20 mins). YEE haw.

Had more energy this afternoon than I normally do. Took the kids for a walk with the dogs. We make quite a sight: 5yo in his glittering silver knight cape on scooter, daughter in stroller, two jack russell terriers, me getting dogs tangled around my feet every ten feet. We dropped our compost at the community garden (yay for more freezer space!) and had some imaginary play time, which I enjoyed instead of endured.

My psoriasis seems to be fading. Now I am obsessing over (about?) my belly. I know I'm smaller but I'm impatient with my progress. My hips have definitely narrowed, my thighs are feeling stronger.

M1: lamb patty, sweet pot with ghee

M2: blanking but not exciting and compliant

M3: (pre yoga): a few cashews, some pot roast, some of my daughter's Applegate hot dog, raw peppers and cukes, picked at some green salad

M3: leftover pot roast and carrots, red leaf salad with peppers, red cabbage and vinaigrette, 1/4 avocado

Didn't have caffeine till almost lunch time today and felt ok. Big doins! And now bed. Oh how I look forward to falling asleep these days.

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Yeah. It's a pretty awesome cape. It glitters and ripples in the sun. Someone on the playground asked if I made it and I was like, "No, I think I found it on Amazon." Two days later my son very thoughtfully says, "I think Santa's elves made my cape with a magic hammer." I said, "Yeah! I think you're right." Oooops.

Day 24

M1: sausage patties, leftover salad w vinaigrette, avocado

M2: scrambled egg, more sausage, kimchi, TB coconut butter while cooking, strips of veg I was cutting for dinner

Ate lunch really late! Just spaced on it. Didn't get crazy hungry till right before I ate (fat-adapted?) but just tired. Threw this "lunch" together around 4:30. Woops.

M3: mahi mahi in foil packet with peppers, broc, cabbage and Thai-ish flavors (coconut aminos, fish sauce, ginger, cumin, cilantro), red leaf salad w vinaigrette and 1/4 avocado

Overcooked fish. I am off my cooking game. But I did pull out my Spoonful of Ginger book. It's mostly Chinese cooking wih a focus on healing foods. Many of the recipes call for rice wine so not W30 compliant but I did get some good ideas. I'm eager to try a few new recipes and add new tricks to my bag.

Had more energy today. Felt more calm. Noticing the absence of anxiety. I still get anxious, yes, but it's isolated and I can move on instead of being in a perpetual state of panic.

Feel like I'm starting to look like myself again. Jeans that were tight in Feb are bagging out in all directions. As is my bra. :*(

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Day 26

Super special day.

My husband, who volunteered to put new wood floors in my brother's house in NJ--very nice but also quite the long-term on-going never-ending project--took my kids with him for the day. SIL and brother's GF volunteered to watch them. I'm free!

Spent the first couple hours at the community garden sifting compost and worms and pulling weeds: joy.

Next: pilates equipment class. If I found a giant pile of money in the street I would so have my own pilates studio and an instructor, or at least take classes a few times a week. I love the way it feels. Mat class is great but the machines are where it's at. Yes! Every muscle in my body feels worked in a super pleasant even way. I took one-on-ones on the machines after my son was born when my back was unusable, and later took prenatal classes when pg with my daughter. But I haven't been on the machines in three years. It was like reuniting with my best friend. Totally love it and wish the only group class wasn't mid-Saturday but today it worked and made me happy. The reformer RAWKS.

Yesterday my food was legal if uninspired and not health-ful. I foodshopped in the late afternoon, came home and snacked on a couple dates, a handful of cashews and some raisins. I also drank some Kombucha. The combination was enough to send me into a sugar-induced haze for the rest of the day and I never managed to put a decent dinner together. I ate some salad around 9pm. :(

This morning I woke up ravenous. I'd planned to throw together some salmon cakes with ginger mayo, using the super easy foolproof hand-blender mayo method. 1) Canned salmon is full of little tiny bones?? WTF. I never used canned salmon before but I was pissed. 2) My foolproof blender mayo was a puddle. I found a direction to throw in an extra yolk: bigger puddle. Finally I realized my container was too big and I rescued it with yet another pastured $9/dozen egg. At this point, I was practically falling down with hunger and screaming at my entire family.

Then, I was late for my gardening clean-up slot. Ran out without any food. Pilates with only a tiny apple (the thing that was available at the garden that I could eat), my subway coming home from pilates took forever, I ate a Larabar, it gave me a giant headache, more dizziness.

But I am not going to let any of that ruin my special treat of an all-alone day. Going to get my hair done around the corner. AFter eating some slaw with my yummy ginger (I added cumin) mayo.

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So glad you got an alone day! Those are better than gold. Sorry that it was stressful, though, with the puddle of mayo and bones in the salmon. We're so close! Don't lose focus now. If we give in and don't finish this out and do a proper reintro, the 20 something days were a waste of time. At least that was what I was telling myself last night at the Mexican restaurant. :D We came this far. Let's finish strong!

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now I'm eating whatever I can throw together.

I'm on Day 5 and I'm already doing that... especially when pressed for time.

I plan to do weekly cookups on Sundays hoping that will help... did one yesterday, but I don't think I cooked enough food to make it to Wednesday :P

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Hmm. I haven't logged my food in a couple days. I have been compliant but I have eaten lunch really late a couple days in a row, which has been really screwing with me. I have gotten dizzy a couple times. I guess this means I need to load more onto my breakfast plate--in addition to making a timely lunch a priority. It's hard for me to really enjoy that meal--my kids are always climbing all over. I tend to leave half of my breakfast on the plate if I try to eat a lot.

I guess it means a tightening up of my schedule--as always! Time management is not my strong suit--to say it mildly. (And, no, my W30 has not cured my ADHD.)

Saturday:

Ate lunch very late and had a Larabar, in desperation, after my pilates class. Planning to fail/failing to plan. Yup. I was starving after not leaving myself enough time between gardening duties and pilates class to come home and grab food. The dates I bought to make homemade LArabar-esque things for my kids are just way too tempting. I snacked on them while cooking dinner. Dried fruit has always been a stand-in for late afternoon snacky chocolate-eating for me. I need to watch that. Dinner was a yummy pastured chicken and salad.

Sunday:

Soup of sautéed spinach and cabbage, l/o roasted chicken and broth with fresh ginger.

BTW, the nomnompaleo trick of freezing a knob of ginger and then using the microplane to make a ginger pile is the most genius food tip I've picked up since starting this. I love ginger, but mine gets soft and nasty or lost in the fridge between uses, and even with the microplaner I end up giving up and mincing it. Freezing is genius! It shaves so nicely and smells delicious. Ginger shave ice: voila.

We went into Manhattan to meet my BIL and his family who were in from NH on a last-min trip to NYC. We thought we'd only see them for a half hour before they got on the road northward. We planned to find a Chipotle afterwards. But we ended up staying in the park for over three hours. It was so much fun! It's always nice to have people visit because you do touristy stuff you never do and it's always a lot of fun. Central Park in April is just gorgeous.

We rented a rowboat on the pond. I used my rowing skillz from a two-week stint on the crew team in college to race against my BIL and his kids in another boat. Even after giving up on crew (4am on freezing cold water?) I used to love the rowing machine. Last time I tried it, I put my back out of commission for a couple weeks. But yesterday I felt strong. My pilates workout was hurting in just the right place to remind me to use my abs in the right way--and it was a ton of fun. I expected my shoulders to kill today but I feel almost nothing.

After that I was practically falling down. I was so depleted. I couldn't wait to find a Chipotle further downtown, park and go in so I stopped in a fancy Upper West Side bodega and bought a $9 container of raw cashews and a box of raisins. I felt better, but then I got really bloated from the nuts. Never noticed that before. Hm!

Dinner was a roasted chicken, roasted brussels sprouts, gallon of mineral water (not literally).

Sunday food prep

Despite losing a good chunk of the day I'd planned to spend cooking, I still managed to cook some stuff up. Before heading into the city (even in Brooklyn we call it "the city") I insisted on stopping at my beef stand. Stocked up a cooler. I didn't cook any meat yesterday but I cleaned two chicken carcasses and chopped the chicken into bits for soup, roasted two trays of veg, baked 8 assorted size sweet pots, and cleaned out my fridge--chopping up wilty veggies for my dogs' homemade food.

Winter is Coming

Then it was GOT time, baby! Another great episode. It's going too fast. I just love Jon and Ygritte--I'm a sucker for that kind of romance despite my normal lit snobbery. (Have I mentioned I'm obsessed with Game of Thrones?)

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I was totally disgusted by the little bones in the canned salmon! I have to pretend I'm not noticing when I remove those little vertebrae and then I have to not really look at my food. It's the one thing we've been eating which kinda grosses me out, yet it's a great tasty meal to have salmon salad and salmon cakes with the leftovers so I keep putting it on the meal plan!

You have a lot on your plate. Reading about your battles with psoriasis and reactions to food and then about life with kids and all your exercise, I'm impressed with how much you manage to get done!!! I'm also envious of the time you get for exercise and pilates, but coming from my own space of kids, colds and asthma, knee injuries and no tiger blood, I'm feeling pretty humbled by how much we all put on ourselves. I've been feeling pockets of better and think I'll try to continue on whole30ing into the new month in hopes of some reduced inflammation internally and improved healthy, but it's a LOT of work!! What are your plans?

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P.S. I'm feeling full of energy right now. Which could be W30 but I usually get a little hypomanic this time of year so it's hard to say. Still, I'm relatively less anxious and less bogged down by my dark clouds. And usually a little hypomania leads to less sleep--> more mania--> more caffeine --> more alcohol --> less sleep.

So at least I'm not in that cycle right now.

Walking home from dropping my son at school through a soft drizzle, with white pear tree petals floating in the air, I felt happy.

(That made me teary-eyed to write that. I guess I haven't felt happy in a long time.)

Good things.

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Dang, lady. I'm impressed! And you make your dogs' food to boot? Jesus H. You don't make things easy or give yourself much credit, do you?

So glad you're finding happiness in small things. Most of the time it's all we've got. And it's enough.

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I was totally disgusted by the little bones in the canned salmon!

You have a lot on your plate. Reading about your battles with psoriasis and reactions to food and then about life with kids and all your exercise, I'm impressed with how much you manage to get done!!! I'm also envious of the time you get for exercise and pilates, but coming from my own space of kids, colds and asthma, knee injuries and no tiger blood, I'm feeling pretty humbled by how much we all put on ourselves. I've been feeling pockets of better and think I'll try to continue on whole30ing into the new month in hopes of some reduced inflammation internally and improved healthy, but it's a LOT of work!! What are your plans?

Yeah, the salmon was such a major bummer--especially in the morning.

I really do not get a lot of time to exercise. If only. My husband leaves around 7am and gets home around 7:30pm or later. I usually go to yoga a couple times a week (now I'm going a little more bc I got a deal on Amazon: monthly pass for $45!) but can only make the 7:55pm class. I have to drive to the studio and get home/park after 9:30pm. My son is in school for two hours and fifteen minutes. My daughter is home. I try to do some exercise on non-yoga days in the morning. I use a video while my kids climb all over me and I have to stop and restart it 30 times.

This Saturday was special bc my husband took the kids for the day--but that is the first time that has happened since my daughter was born! SEriously, it was the first time I was away from both of my kids for more than four hours, with the exception of maybe my brother's wedding when my kids were upstairs during the reception and wee hour cocktailing.

I am not sure where I'm going. I know my husband's birthday is Monday and we are going out to dinner in the next few days and that I will indeed have a glass of wine. I might have a chocolate-y creamy treat. I plan to completely avoid all grains--forever--and stick with this WOE as best I can. I have never done moderation ever. I thought about doing the AIP but I just am not sure I'm sick enough to sustain that for 30 days, or even another W30 right away. Then again I am turning 39 in June and I want to feel good. We will see.

But, yes, humbled is a great word for this W30 experience. Maybe the tiger blood will hit tomorrow. :rolleyes:

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I briefly considered the AIP protocol as well, but I have too much that I want to do in May to make it happen. I'm thinking about just cutting out nightshades, eggs and nuts (and anything else that negatively affects me during reintroductions), but without all the other whole30 restrictions.

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Im thinking about giving SCD a go. Similar to W30 but allows or encourages yogurt left out for 24 hours (will be very sour and watery I think) and discourages starchy veg. I'm just not sure where to go.

My psoriasis and other skin itchiness is still present. And I am very tired. I think it might be gut imbalance that needs more work and time to heal. I got ringworm in high school (fungus related to athletes' foot) and recurrent yeast infections (ick) always. So I know I've been imbalanced for a long time.

I have a bad tooth pain. I have horrible teeth. I mean, they look nice and straight but I have constant issues. And tooth pain = money anxiety. Feeling reall anxious today. Wtf? I was feeling better but the anxiety is creeping back and I don't like it. Ack. Tooth.

The pressure of the W30 ending and not feeling wonderful is getting to me too a little bit. I need to make a list of all the ways I feel better. But I could crawl back in bed right now and it's 10am. Is this a blood sugar problem? Gut? Candida die off? Does that exist? What foods do I eliminate do I do now? I need to take a break from thinking about this stuff.

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If you do try SCD, stay here on the post W30 section!

I definitely will. I am thinking about doing it for sure. It's either that or AIP. I'm trying not to think about which is less appealing, but I can't deny that's entering my decision making process!

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Im thinking about giving SCD a go. Similar to W30 but allows or encourages yogurt left out for 24 hours (will be very sour and watery I think) and discourages starchy veg. I'm just not sure where to go.

My psoriasis and other skin itchiness is still present. And I am very tired. I think it might be gut imbalance that needs more work and time to heal. I got ringworm in high school (fungus related to athletes' foot) and recurrent yeast infections (ick) always. So I know I've been imbalanced for a long time.

Just cutting sugar in its various forms and adding more probiotics in its various forms has got to be helping your gut and yeast overgrowth. Maybe you just need more time. What if you just extended the Whole30 and maybe cut back on nightshades to test that for your skin? I think I've said that before, but maybe that's less overwhelming than taking on a whole new protocol.

That's how I've felt about it, anyway. I have chronic eczema and acne that Whole30 hasn't miraculously healed, so on week 2 I cut out tomatoes and peppers (no other real nightshades in my diet) to see the effect. Those foods are the basis for so many savory paleo recipes, it's kind of a bitch, but it's not so difficult to get used to. Not like practicing and mastering a whole new protocol. That might be crazy-making at this point.

I also think it's worth acknowledging how very challenging it is to trouble shoot these nuanced health issues on our own. The functional medicine doc I see does muscle testing, and she can tell me straight up what supplements my body needs and which are causing greater stress to my body. She's expensive, but when I think about all the money I've thrown at useless supplements and the madness I've created in blindly chasing down that rabbit hole in the name of healing myself . . . well, she's totally worth it.

I have a bad tooth pain. I have horrible teeth. I mean, they look nice and straight but I have constant issues. And tooth pain = money anxiety. Feeling reall anxious today. Wtf? I was feeling better but the anxiety is creeping back and I don't like it. Ack. Tooth.

The pressure of the W30 ending and not feeling wonderful is getting to me too a little bit. I need to make a list of all the ways I feel better. But I could crawl back in bed right now and it's 10am. Is this a blood sugar problem? Gut? Candida die off? Does that exist? What foods do I eliminate do I do now? I need to take a break from thinking about this stuff.

Yeah, I think you nailed it there. Anxiety of all kinds are bound to creep in at the end of the Whole30. It's provided structure and community and given each day a kind of direction and purpose. For that to come to an end brings up all sorts of questions and concerns. I can understand the impulse to dive into another even more restrictive plan, and I can also understand the need to relax a little. You'll make your way. This must be why they call it "riding your own bike."

So sorry about your teeth. Teeth problems are very worrying.

I know you have a dinner out planned and at least one glass of wine with your name on it, but have you thought about just continuing the Whole30 after a wee break. I'm still a week out, but I know my body needs more time to heal. I'm shooting for a Whole50 or Whole60 at this point.

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Thank you very much Lady M. Everything you wrote makes complete sense. Appreciate your thoughtfulness. And you totally keyed into the issues.

On one hand I'm wanting to "fix" myself and that leads me to more restrictive. On the other I'm looking forward to relaxing the rules a little bit. Nothing major, just maybe one glass of wine a week and not fretting about seed oil or a tsp of sugar in a marinade if I eat out.

I think I'm gravitating to the SCD because it would allow me to eat yogurt and tomatoes? Ha! I am really resisting the idea of avoiding nightshades, as you and others here have suggested, even though I suspect it might help. It's like, I QUIT COFFEE FOR GOD'S SAKE! WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME???

My brain might need a little relaxation of rules before I delve in more deeply. Buy whether it be another w30, AIP or SCD I am definitely starting back up next week, after my husband's birthday.

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I'm just so bummed I tuned in to your log so late. I love the way you structure your posts; they're very clear with the bold print and the italics designations. Of course, that's not the only reason I want to see how you're doing! :) I'm really interested in how your psoriasis and anxiety are improving.

I used to visit my sister when she lived in NYC and go to Central Park in spring and summer. Is there any better place on earth, really? I'd see the ponds and the wisteria climbing up a tree . . . and the Shakespeare Garden. You're so lucky to live so close! My heart aches to see it right now. I'll get to go when I see my sis in July or August. Too bad she lives in Long Island now! I'll have to make a special trip. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through you!

On relaxing on the rules a bit after W30 . . . that is a nice feeling, isn't it? I just want to know how it degrades into eating two donuts eventually. Perhaps one day we can get to that point of pretty much giving up sweets for good. I think sugar is the thing that affects people the most out of all the no-nos, failing all four of the good food standards.

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We are a miserable peppers/coffee loving bunch. Maybe a cleanest clean AIP10? Then some results should be visible, what do you think? It will be motivating enough to keep going. Putting coffee and pepper together was gross haha.

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We are a miserable peppers/coffee loving bunch. Maybe a cleanest clean AIP10? Then some results should be visible, what do you think? It will be motivating enough to keep going. Putting coffee and pepper together was gross haha.

I would be all-in for a 10 day mini AIP with you two, Three Musketeers style ;)ETA- a 10 day AIP in the Postw30 section though, as I fully intend to hve SWYPO coconut smoothies whenever I want.

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I would be all-in for a 10 day mini AIP with you two, Three Musketeers style ;)ETA- a 10 day AIP in the Postw30 section though, as I fully intend to hve SWYPO coconut smoothies whenever I want.

AIP10: yes!

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