The Day the Energy Died

In order for this series on my Whole30 experience to be complete, I unfortunately need to write about the negative times as well as the good times.   Sure, it was exciting to discover a new food adventure which opened up my imagination to some new meal ideas and recipes, but at the end of the day that isn’t what the experience was all about.  I was signing up for a healthier body, more energy, clearer skin, and better sleep.

I already mentioned that during Week One I really felt my energy wane…like, REALLY wane.  To the point that I was barely making it through a work day before coming home and almost immediately passing out on the couch.  My workouts suffered and my evening sleep suffered.

In reading through the It Starts With Food book and checking the forums on the Whole9 website I learned that this energy zap is not uncommon and was just due to my body adjusting to the extreme clean eating.  Everyone convinced me that more energy was just around the corner.  Great right?!  Since that was one of the reasons I did this in the first place I sucked it up and waited for the fun to begin.

By week three I still wasn’t feeling much better…I wasn’t going to the gym at all…just taking a few longer walks with my dog…and I was still needing a lot of extra sleep.  (Thankfully my sleep had gotten much better by this point.)  After talking to a nutritionally knowledgeable co-worker I decided that the lack of carbs (outside of fruits and veggies) was doing me in.  She suggested that I start adding even more yams, carrots, beets, and other carb dense veggies to all of my meals…in addition to the main daily baked yam at breakfast.  I fully agreed with her and gave that a go. 

I felt like it worked for a couple of days, and while some of my energy returned my mood went down, down, down.  By that third weekend I was SO incredibly cranky, and felt downright blue.  What an awful feeling!  I had definitely hit the ‘wtf am I doing this for’ wall!  I just faked my way through a couple of days, and told Michael that I wasn’t going to be very good company.  When I wasn’t just irritated by life, I felt sad and depressed.  I came thisclose to quitting on Day 21…those feelings sooooo were not worth it.

But…my desire not to quit ended up trumping those blues and I pushed on.  It took a couple of days for that mood to pass, but it did pass.  I never did feel super-duper-awesome after that, but at least I wasn’t ready to cry or kill at the drop of a hat.  It was not a pleasant emotional place to be.

By the time I got to the final days of my Whole30 experience I did start to feel better…and maybe if I’d gone an extra week or two things really would have turned around for me…but maybe not.  As soon as I started off-roading by adding a bit of bread and cheese back into my diet I really felt my energy kick back in.  (Of course, that came with the trade off with the effects of cheese and bread!)

So now, two weeks out of the W30 haze, I do know that there were GREAT things about the program and so much that I do want to incorporate into my life.  I still haven’t brought back legumes, and probably never will…I’m enjoying being relatively pain-free.  And I can tell you that gluten makes my face break out, and too much dairy upsets my tummy.  Those things are certainly worth addressing.

Now that my emotions have levelled out and most of my gym mojo has returned I will be spending some time getting things figured out, so I can do what is right for me and my body.

I’d love to hear from anyone else that had this kind of experience with Whole30, or while transitioning to a Paleo diet.  Drop me a comment or an email, please.

PeaceKeeping

And just like that…a door closes. 

Just Another Wednesday

I guess today is just another hump day.  As opposed to being “the day after Arron left forever”.  Um, since he didn’t leave forever…yet.  Back to business as usual for now.

Yesterday afternoon/evening pretty much fell apart in the healthy thoughts department.  I hadn’t planned any workouts or eats because I thought we were doing the whole sobby airport goodbye situation, and even though we found out pretty early that he wasn’t going I just didn’t have the energy to pull anything together.

I had good intentions.  Snacked on In Snax pita crisps with hummus and cherry tomatoes…

But then started wandering aimlessly about the kitchen after work…eating cookies, drinking chocolate milk, just whatever.  Meh.

Eventually Arron and Mark suggested Chinese take-out.

I may actually be still carrying my Chinese food baby in my belly. 

At least that actually put a stop to the snacking.  Even when the boys broke into the ice cream, I waited and only had a 1/2 cup. 

Anyway…today is a new day.  The emotional roller coaster is back on hold for a week and the sun is shining.  So today is the return to thoughtful, clean eating and taking better care of myself.  (You know, until next Tuesday when we go through this all over again!)

Started the day out right with coffee of course…

And a bigass green smoothie chock full of yummy goodness.

In the KA today: ice, 1/2 frozen banana, 2 HUGE handfuls organic baby spinach, 1/2 scoop Amazing Meal, 1 tbsp natural PB, 2 tsp flax meal, 3/4 cup UVAB.

And water.  Mucho water.  As much water as I can handle.  I think I may have consumed only 3 litres of water in the last five days. 

And…for some more fun today…the winner of my Silver Hills Sprouted Bakery prize pack giveaway!!!

[source]

#37 =  jax553  “I live in London, ON and just found 2 locations where they sell it! I'd love to try them all, but the Squirrelly would be my first choice since I've heard everyone rave about it! :)”

Congrats Jaclyn!!  Shoot me an email with your address for delivery and I’ll get it over to the fine folks at Silver Hills!

And on that note, I think I hear a veggie sammich made on Silver Hills Steady Eddie calling my name from the kitchen. :)

*gulp*

Well, today didn’t quite go the way I thought.

Arron came home from work with his mission papers.  The mission date we’ve been struggling against for the last month because he was supposed to leave at the end of May and we were worried we wouldn’t have all of this house shit taken care of by then.

Um, ya, well now he’s leaving APRIL EFFING 20th!!!  For those of you not good at math…that’s like THREE FREAKING WEEKS.

On a personal level this is bittersweet…

It’s a major milestone and glorious moment for him to finally (after two years) have an itinerary in his hand that guarantees he is indeed going.

It means he has to drop absolutely everything and get on a plane this weekend to go visit his son before he leaves the country for six months.  That eats up pretty much all of the time between now and the deployment date.

Which means that between now and FOREVER I will only see him for maybe FOUR more days TOTAL.  I mean, we knew that once he left, then I moved, we might not see each other again…but I thought I had two more months to come to terms with that.  :(

This also means our mortgage company needs to get off their ass and get our paperwork freaking processed so we can ensure everything is going the way we need it to.  Like yesterday!!

Bloody hell.  

Oddly enough I actually got hungry once this news settled.  I put together a quick salad and topped it with a Sweet Potato & Black Bean pattie…

Spinach, carrots, tomatoes, a drizzle of Ranch, a scoop of TJ’s habanero lime salsa…and added light cheddar…

Yum!

Then my tax paper sorting evening was cancelled in lieu of a much needed Starbucks visit with my friend Sarah.

Grande non-fat half-sweet vanilla rooibos tea latte…

And yes, an amazingly deeeeelish super-glazed apple fritter.  If this isn’t an emotional food band-aid I don’t know what is, but it was totally worth every single bite.

Thanks for sticking with me through the drama y’all.  I swear I had no idea my life could be this interesting.  I’d give my left arm for it to go right back to boring any time now.  *sigh*

At First Slight

Today started out on the right foot.  Finally ran out of our regular Starbucks brew and got to bust into this AMAZING coffee that Krista sent me…

Dazbog Coffee – From Colorado Russia with Love.

I do love a good Sumatra and this one did not let me down.  Bold and rich.  Deeeelish.

I wasn’t hungry AT ALL.  As the morning ticked on I figured I should eat, so I settled on a simple bowl of fruit and yogurt.

Cantaloupe, strawberry, and Lemon Liberte.

I am feeling anxious today.  This explains the lack of hunger. We were waiting to hear from a friend about a lawyer…didn’t hear…which just makes shiz drag on over the weekend.  I’m not a fan.

To top it off, my cordless mouse kept disconnecting itself every 30 seconds.  ANNOYING. I decided I needed a break and went out to buy a new one.

This made an immense difference in my productivity!

When I got home I was starving but Arron was in the kitchen cooking up a storm so I just grabbed my bag of banana chips and got the heck outta there…

 

Thankfully he was out of there in short order so I was able to throw together a bigass salad…

Leafy greens, carrots, tomatoes, light cheddar, hummus and a drizzle of EVOO.  It sat like lead in my tummy afterwards.

Highlight of the day:  Best Stoopy pic ever.

What a handsome boy.  My classy little man.

After work I headed out to get some air, decompress, take some photos and just chill out.  Arron’s folks sent a postcard minus my name, so that hurt.  Felt like I’d been slapped.

Once it got too cold to be outside I took myself to the gym.  I thought my workout would suck because of my mood, but it actually turned out pretty good.  All about the strength training.

Rowing machine	5 minute warm-up
Overhead Press	all exercises 3 sets x 12 reps
Leg Press
Calf Press
Lat Pulldowns
21s
Back Extensions
Side Extensions
Eagle Crunches
Hammer Curls
Plie Squats
Regular Squats
Tricep Pulldowns
Treadmill Incline Walk	10 minute cool down
Mucho stretching

Afterwards, I tried for the 3rd time to get my car washed, but after sitting in line for 20 minutes I realized I’d probably be there for an hour and I still needed groceries.  I was sweaty, hungry and cold…so I left.  My poor dirty car.  Ew.

Ate this Clif Kid Zbar so I could get through grocery shopping without eating my own arm…

At home I was quite glad to reheat some leftover Chicken Pot Pasta…

And bust into the cookies and milk after a long, hot shower.

For store bought, PC makes a damn fine cookie…

Looking forward to meeting up a few of the girlies tomorrow morning.  I have Girl Scout Cookies in my future. 

That’s gotta help kick the funk, eh?

Marching On

Month ends are certainly reminders of goals, plans and life aren’t they? 

For me, it’s mainly a time to look at financial goals, personal objectives, and my fitness achievements and endeavours.

Finances are pretty much always certain. This month there have been a few personal pieces of news that really threw a wrench into the pot, but the clean slate of a new month helped to clear away the fuzz and see things with a fresh eye.  In the end, it’s only money. 

Fitness on the other hand is something that I can and should keep up with no matter what the finances or the personal issues say.  Right?

February came out OK.  I lost a few workouts due to whatever it is that I’ve done to my back.  Funny, some of those days I skipped I was in far less pain than I am now.  So as I see it, staying home didn’t help.  So I guess I can’t use that excuse for March!

For March I’ve outlined days that I should be at the gym (black asterisks) and days that I should be tackling a smaller at-home fit session (pink asterisks) of yoga or Booty Camp DVD.

Sundays I have left blank as a rest day or a do-what-I-feel day.  At the end of the month I don’t want to see any asterisks because each one should be covered by a sticker.  Hefty goal?  Yes, but I think I can do it.  Emotional distress is no reason to sit on my ass.  (If I typed it here it must be true!)

Sorry for the cryptic emotion references…sometimes the bloggy just isn’t the landing pad for personal junk.  In due time.

I would however like to thank the blog for making me eat.  I can often be an emotional eater, but certain situations I become a non-eater.  That’s how these past few days have been…but I’ve sucked it up and made a few healthy meals just because I know I need (want) to blog it.  And for that I thank you all! 

Keep that inner smart and healthy girl alive and well!!

Now if you could all support me in my desire to drink mass quantities of red wine and to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes that would be swell.  (I jest!… um, sorta!)

I suppose that would probably work against my plan for 26 fit-filled days now wouldn’t it?