Weekly Round Up

First week of the Whole30 is in the books.

(Ah, did you notice my not so subtle shift to Whole30 from Whole45? more on that in a minute).

What a week! First, I'm dying to get on the scale and see if anything has changed weight wise. For real. I know, part of this is relinquishing the numbers on the scale, and I have noticed visually that some of the bloat seems to have dissipated, but I want to know. Also, most of this week has seriously been about me wanting to throw in the towel. I'm not going to lie. Maybe it was PMS (that I didn't know was PMS until yesterday), but Friday and Saturday night, all I did was whine and whine and whine as I watched the kid eat her paleo pizza and thought about how much I wanted wine and pizza and how no one would know if I just gave up and restarted on Monday, right? But I didn't and yesterday morning I woke up feeling so fantastic that between 7am and 11am, I had two dinners going in the crock pot, had the veggies for the week prepped, had put stew and spaghetti sauce in the freezer, made breakfast, made homemade mayo, made lunch for the week, and washed and sliced up berries for breakfast and lunch, and got the first round of dishes washed and put away. And I was in a great mood! So that right there was worth not having the wine and pizza in order to get all of that done before we left to go see my Grandma and my Dad for the day.

But one of the things I wanted to talk about today is what I learned from this last week, what surprised me about last week, and what I need to work on.

I'll start with What surprised me:
I honestly don't remember it being this hard. Maybe it's because I've either done it during the summer when I had plenty of rest, less responsibility, more time to cook and prep, more flexibility in when I work out, just more time to relax and be flexible. Or I've done it with my mom when she was here, so the food prep wasn't my responsibility (mom often did it while I was at work during the day or I would do it on the weekends and we had plenty of people to occupy the kid and she would help or I could do food prep and then go nap or something). Often I had help. And someone in the house doing it with me. This time though, even though I'd consider myself a veteran of the Whole30, is much more challenging, and I'm having a hard time getting enough food in me to feel full, which seems utterly ridiculous.

Also, I don't think I've ever had such a rocky start either in terms of both energy and mood swings. Perhaps it's because most of the Whole30s I've done haven't really come after such a sustained and horrific diet. My first Whole30 was after we had been eating primarily paleo for a few months, so it wasn't a huge shock to the system. I periodically did Whole7s throughout my pregnancy to help with energy and aches and pains (it knocked out my sciatic pain in a week and it never came back!). And paleo challenges always seem to come up within just a few months of less than strict eating, so there was never a time like this time when it was like a freaking free for all of indulgence and poor choices. Also, I never had the complicating factor of so much medicine in my system either. I suspect that the fact that it is so hard this time is indicative of how much my body needs this and how much I am mentally resistant to it.

What has also surprised me in a positive way is that my GERD seems to be improving already. My allergies seem to be improving already. My eczema seems to be improving already. My mental clarity is getting better. I do feel a little more focused in my work, so that's good. I also seem to be able, most days already, to accomplish more in terms of housework stuff that needs to be taken care of. And I have been able to work out more (although this morning didn't happen because kid was up at 4:30 and I thought it was going to be one of those mornings where she's crying for me every half hour until it's time to get up, but she went back to sleep, but I did get some work done). Last week was the first week in 8 months that I got four workouts in in one week! That felt good.

What have I learned:
I really need to be more patient with this. I think I was expecting an immediate fix since it's largely been my experience that Whole30s aren't that bad, and I'm anxious to get back to something both performance and health based like flexible eating, but I know that that will be a longer road without a reset first. I have also learned that at this point, a Whole45 or Whole60 or 90 may not be sustainable for me (or the family for that matter), and that a Whole30 may be enough to get to a flexible, sustainable, change. However, what is key here for me, or has been this past week, is getting back into the habit of the 5am CF class and the habit of prepping and cooking and being prepared for the week. It forced me last week NOT to eat pizza or opt for take out when that would have been easier. For the first time in a long time, the fridge was empty at the end of the week. All the food was eaten. Nothing got thrown away. I do need to plan better so that there is still food to eat (we ran out of eggs! Eggs, I tell you!) on the weekends. But we improvised and it was all good.

What I need to work on:
Making sure the meals are planned for the week in such a way that we don't run out of eggs! Ha! And stuff to eat on the weekends. I thought we were going to have enough food , but I guess I was so hungry that I ate more than I was planning to. Better balanced lunches. Snacks. Etc.

The week ahead:
What I need to make sure of this week is getting to the store again before Saturday because the hubs will be gone for drill, and while I don't mind little shopping trips with the kid, large ones can be a bit much. She'll let me prep and stuff, but I'd prefer to have everything on hand before the weekend so that if things get rough, we're prepared for it. Drill weekends can be tough. But at least this isn't an out of town weekend. That's a little easier.

Anyway, there it is for me. Have a great week everyone!