Halfway Through my Whole30

Just thought I'd check in at the mid-way point of my Whole30.  I've definitely had my ups and downs.  I've had headaches and dizziness while my body is adjusting and while I try to figure out what exactly my body needs to perform optimally.  Despite that, I feel healthier than I've ever been.  There have been times when I wanted to quit so bad.  But more times that I'm so very thankful that I didn't.     

I have not weighed or measured myself.  That's off limits during the whole30, and besides that, I don't really care about numbers.  What I do care about is how my clothes fit.  And they don't fit anymore.  Here's a picture of me in my size 6 pants that used to fit me perfectly:

I have not been exercising a lot while my body adjusts to this way of eating, so any inches lost has been completely diet-related (granted, the muscle that I've built up burns more calories).  Exercise is definitely important, but what you're eating is so much more.  When I exercised 5 times a week for an hour a day (and didn't eat as well), I wasn't anywhere near this.

I can't say I have it all figured out.  I'm still trying to work out a balance that works for me, but I'm looking forward to the next 2 weeks, and then beyond that not straying too far from what I eat now.  I haven't gotten my family completely on board, and there has been complaining for sure.  I got a fantastic cookbook called Eat Like a Dinosaur, and every single thing we've cooked from it so far has been absolutely delicious.  I'll probably be doing a more in depth review soon.

So that's it for now.  I'll report again at the end of the 30 days, and try to maybe post some recipes or things that we're eating and loving in the meantime.

Doing the Whole 30

I've always been skeptical about low-carb/Atkins style diets.  I thought they were anything but healthy, and then I came across the Paleo diet (links to follow).  At first I had the same thoughts, but for some reason I kept coming back to it.  There's something about it that resonates with me.  Something about it just makes sense.

Although our society is much more sedentary than our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we don't have to be.  My main concern with the Paleo diet was that we shouldn't eat like they did because we aren't as active as they were.  But that's a silly concern because I can move as much as I want to.  I can do a lot of housework, I can go for walks, I can exercise.  I can easily be as active as they were.

So that brings me to the Whole 30.  In a nutshell, it's this:
We eat real food – meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruit, healthy oils, nuts and seeds. We choose foods that were raised, fed and grown naturally, and foods that are nutrient-dense, with lots of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals.
This is not a “diet” – we eat as much as we need to maintain strength, energy, activity levels and a healthy body weight. We aim for well-balanced nutrition, so we eat animals and a significant amount of plants.
 My personal reasons for doing it are not to lose weight.  I feel like I'm generally in pretty good health, but I do have nagging things that are always there.  I get migraines at least a few days every month.  Sometimes I have no energy at all.  I get really bad PMS.  I'm not "regular".  The list could go on.  Just little things that I wonder if I could fix if I changed what I ate.  So I figured I would just go for it.  I've just finished day two, and even though I thought this would feel really restrictive, I'm hot having a hard time with it at all.  (We'll see how the weekend goes when movie and snack time comes up).

Here's what I ate for day two:

Breakfast:

Scrambled eggs with spinach and grape tomatoes

Lunch:

Leftover garlic burger, lettuce and tomatoes drizzled with sesame seed oil

Dinner:

Spicy pepper chicken, ginger garlic chicken, and asparagus

And I had a banana for an afternoon snack.

What I've found whenever I eat paleo is how much I really love to cook.  It gives me a chance to experiment with spices and different veggies.  And I love garlic--I put it in just about everything.  I'll try to keep anyone who's interested updated on how my whole 30 is going and what I'm eating.

If you want to dig into what Paleo is a little more, here are some helpful links:
Mark's Daily Apple
Robb Wolf
The Paleo Diet
Everyday Paleo
Paleo Parents

And I have to add a little bit of a disclaimer.  If you buy all your meat from a grocery store, and don't have any intention of changing that, I wouldn't recommend the Whole 30 or the Paleo Diet.  Even if you're not interested in Paleo, check into local meat sources.  It may be slightly more expensive, but it tastes better, it's healthier for you and the environment, it's more humane for the animal: the animals are fed what they are supposed to eat and do what animals are supposed to do.  On top of that, you can support local farmers, and who doesn't want to do that?  There are so many very good reasons to get your meat locally that I don't know why you wouldn't. :)

Getting Healthy

I wanted to share a little bit about what I've been doing lately to be more healthy.  The biggest thing that anyone needs to do, whether you want to lose weight or just feel better is to eat right.  You can't fuel your body with junk and expect it to function well. 

So I've changed what I eat.  I'm eating real food, and trying to cut out all the processed stuff.  This means (for me) grass-fed, pasture raised meat, fish, lots of vegetables, some fruits, nuts, good fats (like olive oil, coconut oil, olives, nut butter) a little bit of dairy and sometimes beans.  I've tried to limit my grains, and if I do eat them, just whole grains.  And it has made a difference.  Eating like this, and adding in BodyRock workouts (which I'll talk about in a minute), changed my body this much in just 25 days:

Normally I wouldn't share a picture of myself like this, and yeah, in the before picture I was carrying a little holiday weight (Friends reference), but I'm really excited about the changes I made, and I want to share with people who are wanting to get healthier.

I'm experimenting with a lot of new recipes, and I'll try to share them on my blog as we find ones we love.  I checked out Everyday Paleo from the library, and I love it so much that I'll probably buy it.  Here's one of my favorite recipes that I've tried so far:

I was about to type up the whole recipe, when I realized it's probably on the Everyday Paleo website, and sure enough it is: Shrimp Flying Saucers

The whole family loved this one, although Ethan picked out the shrimp and eggs, mostly.  It was delicious, easy to make, and not very expensive.  I'll share more recipes later since I don't want this post to get too long.

The second part of what I've been doing is BodyRock.  The workouts are pretty short, but super intense.  The workouts are usually under 20 minutes, and people wonder if you can get results working out that short of a time.  If you combine the workouts with good eating, you for sure can (see above picture).  I love these workouts, I never get bored, the time flies by, and I actually look forward to working out every day.

If you find that going to the gym is a chore, you're sick of the same old routine, you don't want to spend hours working out, you want a great community to support what you're doing, please look into BodyRock.  I absolutely love it.  Here's the website again: http://www.bodyrock.tv/ 
 

Pinteresting Wednesdays - Books!

This is my first time participating in this meme, but I always love looking at all the great stuff on all the other blogs, so I thought I might as well join in. Since one of my biggest passions is reading, that's the theme for this week.

Source: None via Brenda on Pinterest

Source: notetoself.typepad.com via Brenda on Pinterest

Source: fleamarketstylemag.blogspot.com via Brenda on Pinterest

Source: olderandwisor.blogspot.com via Brenda on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Brenda on Pinterest

Alpine Loop

 Last weekend we decided to take a drive around the Alpine Loop.  We were probably a couple weeks too late to see all the colors, but there was still some really pretty trees.  We drove up a really long, bumpy dirt road to get to this lake, and it wasn't as pretty as I was hoping.  Oh well. 

I liked this spot.  I thought it was kind of neat.

 I didn't tell Ethan to pose here or anything, he's just this cute.

This reservoir was so pretty and blue, but I couldn't really capture it on camera.

This was my favorite spot.  It was so gorgeous!

And here's two pretty things.  Nature, and my beautiful daughter.

I have dirt on my face!  I love being with my man, though.

Just one more.  I love looking at it, and I love my family.  I'm so blessed!  Thank you God for this beautiful life!

Fall Wreath

I saw an idea for a yarn-wrapped wreath on another blog, and decided I would give it a try.  The other one was plain white, and could easily be used for any season.  But while we were looking for yarn, we (Kaitlyn and I) decided it would look cuter with fall colored yarn, and it so does!  I love this so much more than a plain white wreath.

It took longer to wrap than I thought it would, and I ran out of yarn and had to go buy more, but I really like the finished product.  The Squirrel and leaf are just pinned on, so they can easily be taken off and we can change the look.  I'll probably do more wreaths for different holidays and seasons.

House Stuff

 I've been doing a few little projects here and then to update my house.  I'm sick of wishing things were a little cuter.  I finally printed off some of the pictures my sister took of us last year.  It's hard to take a picture of pictures, especially when it's in the hallway, but you get the idea.  Eventually I'll add more black and white pictures.

I wanted to change the flowers in my holder thingies, and maybe go with the seasons.  I'm not sure if this one is quite full enough, but it always takes way more than I think it will.  I thought the stuff in this one would fill both of my containers. 

And I finally updated our family picture.  Ethan is no longer a baby in our picture! :)