(no subject)
It’s been awhile. I haven’t been struggling in the same way as I was. For awhile I struggled more, but in a less direct way-there wasn’t anything to say. I was just down, for no reason and every reason and there were no words to write. Then, in mid-February, I took control of something-grabbed my nutrition by the balls and threw all of myself into planning, executing, and making myself healthy and whole when it comes to food. I didn’t write about it in case I failed; I didn’t want to face my failure spelled out in blue and white.
I spent weeks reading, researching, plotting, and planning. Talking with friends who had embarked on the same journey, reading books and blogs and cookbooks. A lot of it was intuitive, but a lot of it was not. I threw every bit of energy I had into getting this off the ground for myself, hoping against all hope this would be the One Thing I had been grasping for, the piece I could build on, and succeed at, and let the momentum carry me forward into more positive places across the board. This was taking a huge amount of time and thought and effort and energy, certainly more than I had in the beginning, but I just kept planning, knowing deep inside that It Starts With Food.
I had support from my partner and my best friend. I had apathy from my family. I got a lot of negativity from others in my life. But I knew I needed this, and along with my decision to give up diet soda in an effort to help myself two years ago, I figured it wouldn’t make anything worse. I could only get better. And I needed to get Better.
So on Valentine’s Day, instead of doing anything romantic, I grocery shopped for five hours at six different stores. Then, armed with my tablet and a menu plan and a massive collection bookmarked recipes, I cooked for nearly six more. Chickens, vegetables, a deeply salted pig in the slow cooker. Scrambled eggs and homemade mayo and fritatta muffins and so much good, delicious, whole food that I was sick of this before I even began.
But I had committed to myself that I was going to do this, for myself. Thirty days eating nothing but whole, nutrient-rich foods-high quality proteins, vegetables, fruits, and fats. No dairy, grains, gluten, legumes, sugar, or alcohol. Nothing processed, nothing anti-nutritive, everything real. No snacks, eating breakfast. I’d eaten “well” before, but never had I done a full on elimination diet and never had I eaten CLEAN. I knew this would be good for me, but questioned if it would be worth the difficulties. I had spent the better part of a year spiraling down, stuck in the cycle of feeling like crap so I ate food that I thought made me feel better but it never really did. I ate and I ate and I laid in bed and I couldn’t do anything else. Even with my menus, my recipes, my plans, and my preparation, I doubted if I could work through the negative enough to get to the positive.
But on February 15th, I started it anyway.
When I began, I weighed 132 lbs and was wearing a tight size six. I didn’t take measurements, but in early January for SisterFriend’s wedding, I measured 37″-29″-38″.
And so. Thirty days began. I had physical symptoms ranging from headaches and exhaustion to feeling shaky and skin-crawly-not unlike coming off of cigarettes, actually. I had cravings for things I liked and missed, and things I never ever really enjoyed. For the first couple of weeks, I regularly felt resentful about just how much WORK this whole thing was. Cooking, planning, shopping, DISHES. SO MANY DISHES. My weekends were spent focused on how to continue my quest to eat clean instead of laying in bed, and I spent many conversations acting petulant, expressing frustrations about how I had to cook or clean AGAIN instead of laying in bed wasting away to those closest to me. I hated that my evening cup of mint herbal tea was not ice cream, cereal, wine, ANYTHING but mint herbal tea. I had to explain over and over again to coworkers and casual acquaintances about how I was doing an elimination diet, and I had to keep defending my choice because no, I wasn’t “overweight” and yeah, what I’m eating doesn’t really look like “diet food”. I didn’t explain much, giving just enough detail about health improvement and feeling better to get people to back off.
However, almost immediately, I also noticed a huge number of positive changes. I feared my ability to resist boredom eating at my desk at work, but eating 3 full, nourishing, sustaining meals every day meant that I didn’t care to snack. I started sleeping better within a couple of days, and being able to get out of bed when the alarm went off THE FIRST TIME became easy. All my belly problems vanished. I had solid, sustained energy throughout the day and focusing on work became so much easier. I was expanding my palate and flexing my culinary muscles. I wasn’t eating pizza and ice cream, but I was eating a lot of really damn delicious food.
Over the course of the thirty days, my cravings shifted and changed. I figured I wouldn’t go back to eating like I was last month, but that I also would regularly consume most of the “whole” foods I’d cut out-rice, bread, corn, cereal, milk, cheese, etc. I was mostly using this as a way to break the reliance on processed comfort foods and junk, not so much as a way to reexamine my relationship with dairy, rice, or bread. But as the month went on, I found myself losing interest in those things-I would occasionally crave a pizza or cookies or a bagel and cream cheese, but I didn’t feel like my meals were missing something without them anymore. I began to really think hard about what I foods I’d eliminated that I would like to have again and couldn’t really come up with much besides dairy. I never thought I wouldn’t consistently miss cookies or breadsticks or booze.
I come from a background of disordered eating and conventional “diets” rooted in weight loss. They always proved effective but the combination of tracking and limiting myself often left me behaving obsessively, fixating on what I could and couldn’t have in an effort to find the magic combination that left me satisfied but still within my limits. Whenever I would try to “make better choices” by cataloging what I was eating, or limiting calories, I would end up resentful and ravenous a few days in. This month, I have not been hungry. I’ve reduced the groups I’ve been eating from, but the quantity and sustaining quality of the food I *can* have has sometimes just left me in wonder. I feel so much healthier, and I love that I do not have to be hungry to be healthy. I have focused a lot more energy into planning what I’ve been eating, but it feels like it’s coming from a better place than when I was restricting myself before-always thinking, planning, wondering what to eat next because I was always hungry. I don’t think I have completely healed my relationship with food, and in the next couple of weeks I will face the real test as I won’t have The Rules to lean on in the same way. But I do feel much more emotionally and mentally healthy at the end of this month as well, which was an unexpected but wonderful result.
My cooking increased over threefold this month. Prior to this, I almost always cooked dinner but never breakfast. We often ate out at least once a week, leaving me to cook probably six meals a week. Since this began, I’ve cooked all but four meals that I’ve consumed. That has required me to stay on top of maintenance cleaning like doing dishes daily. It’s not my favorite task, but being able to maintain my kitchen in a ready state has helped my productivity and mindset overall. I’m sleeping better, and have oodles more energy. In the last couple of weekends, my resentment toward my efforts has dissipated-this past weekend, in addition to shopping and cooking, I also walked four miles and did some other housework and ran some errands. I cannot remember the last time I had the energy and motivation for more than a couple of hours of productivity on the weekends, max. I generally feel mentally lighter-it’s easier to enjoy things, and my overall outlook on my life and situation right now is sunnier than it’s been in years. My general stiffness and pain is gone. My headaches have reduced significantly. I’m not as wound up as I felt like I was all the time before. My sleep and digestion have improved by an incredible amount. I no longer need my morning coffee. I’ve been drinking unsweetened chai for the last week, which gives me some warmth and a gentle oomph without all the caffeine from coffee. I haven’t had to battle sugar cravings for the last week or so-I’m planning on some frozen yogurt on Tuesday after dinner and I am genuinely wondering if it’s something I’ll enjoy anymore.
This experience didn’t cure all my ails. I still get migraines when it’s going to rain. My allergies are still present, though much milder than before. I’m a lot more even tempered, but I can’t say I never get frustrated or angry anymore. I’m sleeping very, very well but not perfectly. While my outlook has improved significantly, I would still say I am depressed and am struggling on and off with anxiety. It will be interesting to see how much I’ve truly learned and internalized in this process in the next few weeks as I start navigating life after Whole30. I do feel so much better overall that I am intending to keep eating clean. I will relax the rules some, and I am interested to see how things like dairy, grains, and gluten actually affect my system. I feel like for the first time, my relationship with food is as it should be-I enjoy my meals, savor what I’m eating, but I eat to live now instead of living to eat, or eating in an effort to fulfill myself in some other way.
So, here I sit at the end of my 30 days. Those who created the Whole30 program said that it would be a life-changing experience. I was skeptical at first, but after completing this I can genuinely say that my life has changed in so many positive ways. I feel well, both mentally and physically. I’m sleeping better than I have since I had children. I feel strong. I’ve organized my eating and that’s spilled over into many other areas with positive results. I have energy-not just more, because before I didn’t really have any. I’ve learned much about the way good food makes me feel, and really gotten a handle on my desires to eat the junk. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks treat me, but I do know that I’ve been successful at this endeavor once before so if I do start to lose my grip again, I can just jump back in and do this again to remember how good it feels to feel this good.
I’m currently weighing in at 123 pounds, and wearing a comfortable size two. My measurements are now 34.5″-27.5″-35.5″.
This month I ate beets, sweet potatoes, plantains, duck, coconut milk, spaghetti squash, and so many delicious pastured eggs. I got to experiment in the kitchen with new things and some were more successful than others but I always had fun. I learned that using bacon can make vegetables taste like bacon instead of vegetables when I just really couldn’t eat any more vegetables. I discovered the glory of farmers markets, even in the winter. I learned to stop and savor my meals, eating slowly and stopping when I’m satisfied and I was continually amazed that those meals would carry me for hours without hunger. I learned that I can eat lots of delicious food and still get leaner and be healthier. I made major leaps with my nutrition which helped me take positive steps in the rest of my life. I didn’t fix everything, but this month did a pretty fantastic job of giving me what I was searching for-that One Thing to build on, positive momentum gained that can carry me forward in other areas of my life. I knew it all along, but this month helped me fully realize that It Starts With Food.
I spent weeks reading, researching, plotting, and planning. Talking with friends who had embarked on the same journey, reading books and blogs and cookbooks. A lot of it was intuitive, but a lot of it was not. I threw every bit of energy I had into getting this off the ground for myself, hoping against all hope this would be the One Thing I had been grasping for, the piece I could build on, and succeed at, and let the momentum carry me forward into more positive places across the board. This was taking a huge amount of time and thought and effort and energy, certainly more than I had in the beginning, but I just kept planning, knowing deep inside that It Starts With Food.
I had support from my partner and my best friend. I had apathy from my family. I got a lot of negativity from others in my life. But I knew I needed this, and along with my decision to give up diet soda in an effort to help myself two years ago, I figured it wouldn’t make anything worse. I could only get better. And I needed to get Better.
So on Valentine’s Day, instead of doing anything romantic, I grocery shopped for five hours at six different stores. Then, armed with my tablet and a menu plan and a massive collection bookmarked recipes, I cooked for nearly six more. Chickens, vegetables, a deeply salted pig in the slow cooker. Scrambled eggs and homemade mayo and fritatta muffins and so much good, delicious, whole food that I was sick of this before I even began.
But I had committed to myself that I was going to do this, for myself. Thirty days eating nothing but whole, nutrient-rich foods-high quality proteins, vegetables, fruits, and fats. No dairy, grains, gluten, legumes, sugar, or alcohol. Nothing processed, nothing anti-nutritive, everything real. No snacks, eating breakfast. I’d eaten “well” before, but never had I done a full on elimination diet and never had I eaten CLEAN. I knew this would be good for me, but questioned if it would be worth the difficulties. I had spent the better part of a year spiraling down, stuck in the cycle of feeling like crap so I ate food that I thought made me feel better but it never really did. I ate and I ate and I laid in bed and I couldn’t do anything else. Even with my menus, my recipes, my plans, and my preparation, I doubted if I could work through the negative enough to get to the positive.
But on February 15th, I started it anyway.
When I began, I weighed 132 lbs and was wearing a tight size six. I didn’t take measurements, but in early January for SisterFriend’s wedding, I measured 37″-29″-38″.
And so. Thirty days began. I had physical symptoms ranging from headaches and exhaustion to feeling shaky and skin-crawly-not unlike coming off of cigarettes, actually. I had cravings for things I liked and missed, and things I never ever really enjoyed. For the first couple of weeks, I regularly felt resentful about just how much WORK this whole thing was. Cooking, planning, shopping, DISHES. SO MANY DISHES. My weekends were spent focused on how to continue my quest to eat clean instead of laying in bed, and I spent many conversations acting petulant, expressing frustrations about how I had to cook or clean AGAIN instead of laying in bed wasting away to those closest to me. I hated that my evening cup of mint herbal tea was not ice cream, cereal, wine, ANYTHING but mint herbal tea. I had to explain over and over again to coworkers and casual acquaintances about how I was doing an elimination diet, and I had to keep defending my choice because no, I wasn’t “overweight” and yeah, what I’m eating doesn’t really look like “diet food”. I didn’t explain much, giving just enough detail about health improvement and feeling better to get people to back off.
However, almost immediately, I also noticed a huge number of positive changes. I feared my ability to resist boredom eating at my desk at work, but eating 3 full, nourishing, sustaining meals every day meant that I didn’t care to snack. I started sleeping better within a couple of days, and being able to get out of bed when the alarm went off THE FIRST TIME became easy. All my belly problems vanished. I had solid, sustained energy throughout the day and focusing on work became so much easier. I was expanding my palate and flexing my culinary muscles. I wasn’t eating pizza and ice cream, but I was eating a lot of really damn delicious food.
Over the course of the thirty days, my cravings shifted and changed. I figured I wouldn’t go back to eating like I was last month, but that I also would regularly consume most of the “whole” foods I’d cut out-rice, bread, corn, cereal, milk, cheese, etc. I was mostly using this as a way to break the reliance on processed comfort foods and junk, not so much as a way to reexamine my relationship with dairy, rice, or bread. But as the month went on, I found myself losing interest in those things-I would occasionally crave a pizza or cookies or a bagel and cream cheese, but I didn’t feel like my meals were missing something without them anymore. I began to really think hard about what I foods I’d eliminated that I would like to have again and couldn’t really come up with much besides dairy. I never thought I wouldn’t consistently miss cookies or breadsticks or booze.
I come from a background of disordered eating and conventional “diets” rooted in weight loss. They always proved effective but the combination of tracking and limiting myself often left me behaving obsessively, fixating on what I could and couldn’t have in an effort to find the magic combination that left me satisfied but still within my limits. Whenever I would try to “make better choices” by cataloging what I was eating, or limiting calories, I would end up resentful and ravenous a few days in. This month, I have not been hungry. I’ve reduced the groups I’ve been eating from, but the quantity and sustaining quality of the food I *can* have has sometimes just left me in wonder. I feel so much healthier, and I love that I do not have to be hungry to be healthy. I have focused a lot more energy into planning what I’ve been eating, but it feels like it’s coming from a better place than when I was restricting myself before-always thinking, planning, wondering what to eat next because I was always hungry. I don’t think I have completely healed my relationship with food, and in the next couple of weeks I will face the real test as I won’t have The Rules to lean on in the same way. But I do feel much more emotionally and mentally healthy at the end of this month as well, which was an unexpected but wonderful result.
My cooking increased over threefold this month. Prior to this, I almost always cooked dinner but never breakfast. We often ate out at least once a week, leaving me to cook probably six meals a week. Since this began, I’ve cooked all but four meals that I’ve consumed. That has required me to stay on top of maintenance cleaning like doing dishes daily. It’s not my favorite task, but being able to maintain my kitchen in a ready state has helped my productivity and mindset overall. I’m sleeping better, and have oodles more energy. In the last couple of weekends, my resentment toward my efforts has dissipated-this past weekend, in addition to shopping and cooking, I also walked four miles and did some other housework and ran some errands. I cannot remember the last time I had the energy and motivation for more than a couple of hours of productivity on the weekends, max. I generally feel mentally lighter-it’s easier to enjoy things, and my overall outlook on my life and situation right now is sunnier than it’s been in years. My general stiffness and pain is gone. My headaches have reduced significantly. I’m not as wound up as I felt like I was all the time before. My sleep and digestion have improved by an incredible amount. I no longer need my morning coffee. I’ve been drinking unsweetened chai for the last week, which gives me some warmth and a gentle oomph without all the caffeine from coffee. I haven’t had to battle sugar cravings for the last week or so-I’m planning on some frozen yogurt on Tuesday after dinner and I am genuinely wondering if it’s something I’ll enjoy anymore.
This experience didn’t cure all my ails. I still get migraines when it’s going to rain. My allergies are still present, though much milder than before. I’m a lot more even tempered, but I can’t say I never get frustrated or angry anymore. I’m sleeping very, very well but not perfectly. While my outlook has improved significantly, I would still say I am depressed and am struggling on and off with anxiety. It will be interesting to see how much I’ve truly learned and internalized in this process in the next few weeks as I start navigating life after Whole30. I do feel so much better overall that I am intending to keep eating clean. I will relax the rules some, and I am interested to see how things like dairy, grains, and gluten actually affect my system. I feel like for the first time, my relationship with food is as it should be-I enjoy my meals, savor what I’m eating, but I eat to live now instead of living to eat, or eating in an effort to fulfill myself in some other way.
So, here I sit at the end of my 30 days. Those who created the Whole30 program said that it would be a life-changing experience. I was skeptical at first, but after completing this I can genuinely say that my life has changed in so many positive ways. I feel well, both mentally and physically. I’m sleeping better than I have since I had children. I feel strong. I’ve organized my eating and that’s spilled over into many other areas with positive results. I have energy-not just more, because before I didn’t really have any. I’ve learned much about the way good food makes me feel, and really gotten a handle on my desires to eat the junk. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of weeks treat me, but I do know that I’ve been successful at this endeavor once before so if I do start to lose my grip again, I can just jump back in and do this again to remember how good it feels to feel this good.
I’m currently weighing in at 123 pounds, and wearing a comfortable size two. My measurements are now 34.5″-27.5″-35.5″.
This month I ate beets, sweet potatoes, plantains, duck, coconut milk, spaghetti squash, and so many delicious pastured eggs. I got to experiment in the kitchen with new things and some were more successful than others but I always had fun. I learned that using bacon can make vegetables taste like bacon instead of vegetables when I just really couldn’t eat any more vegetables. I discovered the glory of farmers markets, even in the winter. I learned to stop and savor my meals, eating slowly and stopping when I’m satisfied and I was continually amazed that those meals would carry me for hours without hunger. I learned that I can eat lots of delicious food and still get leaner and be healthier. I made major leaps with my nutrition which helped me take positive steps in the rest of my life. I didn’t fix everything, but this month did a pretty fantastic job of giving me what I was searching for-that One Thing to build on, positive momentum gained that can carry me forward in other areas of my life. I knew it all along, but this month helped me fully realize that It Starts With Food.