Monday, January 19, 2015

Officially day 9! - Still surviving....

So it has just passed midnight in my little corner of the universe which means Day 9 of my whole 30 has arrived. It is statistically the WORST day of the 30 apparently... hehe so we will see what the morning brings. I'm going to work on keeping busy to get me over the sugar craving hump. If you are busy the little voices in your head saying "oh just one block of chocolate can't hurt!" are harder to hear. My efforts to do that today resulted in a huge amount of cleaning and bedrooms that positively sparkled! Go sugar dependency withdrawal frustrations!

I have kept up with the Bikini Body Mommy workout and did day 15 today - WOOHOOO!! I am feeling pretty proud of myself for sticking with it this far and hope that I can keep at it. I haven't really noticed much of a difference yet but I'm only two weeks in so things can only improve right. Anyway I was up until 3am the night before last and up for an hour with my littlest dude early this morning so I am going to call it a night here.

Hopefully by my next post I wont be craving junk as desperately as I am right now.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

I've been thinking...

So I have been waffling back and forth about starting a strict healthy diet and I have been trying to decide which one to do. I was tempted to start the 8 week program from the "I Quit Sugar" book but I think that cutting out fruit entirely to start off will probably have me ditching the diet in no time at all.

I have decided to start a Whole30 tomorrow. That's where you cut out sugar, dairy, gluten, legumes and eat lots of vegetables, meats and fruit. I have borrowed my mom's copy of "It Starts with Food" which outlines the why's and how's of the diet and I am armed with enthusiasm. The last time I did one I felt amazing, I lost weight and bloat and gained energy and a more positive attitude.

I am happy to report that I have stuck with the Bikini Mommy Body work out - It felt weird having a rest day today but I am excited to compare my before and after pictures when I hit 90 days. Woohoo, 7 days done - only 83 to go. Wish me luck and staying power. Here's hoping that it will be long enough to turn me into one of those people who have to exercise, I really want to be one of those people. I have found that I have little trouble sticking to the 30 days of this diet, I feel amazing and am happy I did it and then one day of eating junk rolls into three months and I am back where I started and wondering where I went wrong. I think I will probably need to do two or three whole 30's back to back to really ingrain the new lifestyle and make it my new norm. I figure a cheat day here and there won't be terrible after that but I can't just let myself go back to "regular" eating. My 'regular' eating needs to become something better than it is now. For my sake and my family, they need a good example to follow and I would love that job!

I want to eventually be able to eat Kefir and the sourdough bread but I do think I need to take a wee little step back and reset things a little. Here's to the next 30 days. I will try keep you updated with how things are going on a regular basis but you should probably brace for some grumpy posts. Day 9 is apparently universally the WORST day of this diet so let us see how I fare....


Wednesday, January 7, 2015

I'm still around!

No, no this blog hasn't died a quick and spectacular death just yet. Things are going mostly well here - I have just had a bad case of the "Winter blahs" so we won't discuss my diet in detail today... it will get back on track I promise! - I have however been working out. I signed up for Bikini Mommy Body and as of today (day 3!) I have done each one of the workouts. Yay me! I have been a gross sweaty mess at the end but the point is I have stuck to it so here's to the next 90 days and continuing to STICK to it!

I have been experimenting with baked goods made with flour soaked in kefir which are apparently easier to digest. My first attempt was a banana bread and boy did that fail SPECTACULARLY. To call it a monstrosity would be too kind. This was a chewy lumpy ridiculous tasting mess and the fact that it had to cook at a stupidly low temperature for an hour and a half totally added insult to injury. Plus it smelt AMAZING... I have no idea how the smell was so appealing and the actual bread... ugh so gross!

I had better luck this evening with muffins and scones but I will talk about those more tomorrow - it's super late and I need some sleep.

Chat soon :)

Friday, January 2, 2015

My sugar starved brain is trying to bust out of my skull....

Well it's day two and I have stayed strong as far as the diet goes. My exercise wasn't as impressive today as yesterday but I did go for a walk around the mall with my daughter and didn't get a tea or coffee or sugary snack so yay for will power! As the title of this post suggests, I do in fact have a pretty miserable headache. It hasn't been a constant thing but I do recognize it from such other fun times as "quitting caffeine". My brain is apparently throwing a wee little tantrum. I don't have much against caffeine but gave it up both times I was pregnant just in case it wasn't great for my babies and then when I breastfed both kids I found the didn't sleep when I drank coffee. Now the studies will tell you that it's nonsense and it doesn't affect them, but my anecdotal evidence was enough to have me hanging back on the java. Sleep is in fact not "overrated" at all. It keeps me from wanting to harm random strangers so I figure we will do what we can to try and make sure sleep happens!

I did attempt to go buy a salad spinner today but only stopped at one place and wasn't willing to pay $30 for a gimmicky salad spinner that folded flat to save space. It looked a little ridiculous. Also $10 seemed too much for the one with a pull string that reminded me of the starters on gas lawnmowers... I mean seriously how do you keep the string and that dark dingy hole clean? yuck! I will be trying a dedicated kitchen gadget store in the next little while.

I got a little further with my book (I quit Sugar) and may be attempting a recipe or two tomorrow so stay tuned for that report back. I'm going to be doing a little research regarding soaking and then drying nuts and grains etc. I'm leaning towards buying a shelf top dehydrator to test it out because I'm not entirely excited by the idea of having my oven on for hours although I have done that to make rusks before... aw heck I'll use the oven the first time and if it is worth it I will invest in the shelf top one.

Anywho it's time for a movie with the Mr. so I will end off here.

Until tomorrow,
Health, Happiness and of course Fitness,
Lana

Thursday, January 1, 2015

A New Year and A NEW resolution!

Ok here's the thing, I have tons of wonderful ideas on how to get healthier, fitter, happier.. I just have a really bad habit of planning to start all of these things, "tomorrow". "Tomorrows" come and go and before you know it you are 30 and another whole year has passed. Yikes! So this is it, this here blog is me finally putting my plans into action.

It is January 1st and I have worked out, I quit snacking on junk and I have had three healthy meals. I have a headache that clearly says "Sugars wants you to know that you are her bitch and you probably need to drink more water", but I am ok with it. It shows I have done something. I did manage to do two whole30's last year, one half-assed and one properly and I do know that I feel a million times happier and more "me" when I'm not eating sugar, gluten, dairy etc. I plan to read a bunch of books this year and work out which dietary "rules" work best for myself. I currently make my own bread using a sour dough starter and will document that in the coming days, I have had a lot of fun learning about that and tweaking things a little. I am hoping that I can continue to eat this bread without getting bloated which regular bread seems to do to me. I also make my own kefir.... but to be honest I haven't quite worked out how to make that a regular part of my diet quite yet. I am not a huge fan of smoothies or drinking it plain so we will figure that one out as we go.

The first book that I am reading for the year is called "I Quit Sugar" and it is by Sarah Wilson. I usually buy my books because when I get them at the library I am absolutely terrible at remembering to get them back on time or renew them and then I end up paying fines. I guess this isn't absolutely horrible as it allows the library to buy new books for me to forget to return on time... but back to the book. I will read it and share the lessons I was able to take from it. If I try recipes from the book I will name them but wont post them unless the authors have a link out there that already exists to share - heck if I had to read the book to find the recipe then so do you!

Anywho I'm going to end off here - I made kale chips tonight, which were loved, but it is getting a little ridiculous that I dry the leaves with paper towel after washing them. For the record it takes about a million sheets of paper towel to dry one bunch of kale, a huge soggy wasteful, ridiculous mess. My mission tomorrow is to "go buy a freaking salad spinner already - you know there are going to be a lot more leaves in your healthy future so do it already"...

HEALTH, HAPPINESS and FITNESS,
Lana :)