Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Day 2...

Today was a great day!  I got so much accomplished and stayed on the plan for the post part!  

Sleep - my number one struggle in life.  There is never enough time in the day, and yesterday was no different.  

My days are quite hectic from Monday through Friday because I have four kids.  With four kids comes four different schedules.  

Every day, I am out of the house from approximately 7:45 until 12:30.  I then come home and catch up on things (dishes, laundry, tidying up) until it's time to get the kids at 3pm.  However, today I had to wait for my oldest to get out of Jazz band until 3:40.  We then booked it home, packed Tae Kwon Do and ski bags with snacks and gear.  At 4:30, we left for the mountain where I dropped off the #1 and 3 children.  Then, we drove about 25 minutes to Tae Kwon Do practice for the #2 child.  #4 and I played a variety of 5-year-old friendly card games for an hour while we waited for #2 to finish practice.  Once she was done, we went to the mountain to pick up #3 as his practice was done at 7pm.  We then went home.  ... No, I didn't forget #1!  Not today anyway!  She had already been taken home by my husband because she had an online collaboration project to do at home. 

So - with that busy schedule, I wound up going to bed later than I need to.  10pm!  That's really late for me.  As a result, I didn't sleep very much, although the quality seemed to be quite good.  I don't remember waking up as much as I typically do.  Silver lining, right?  Tonight, the kids have me out until 7:20 or so, so once I get them to bed, I will have my tea and relax by the fire.  I will try to get to bed by 8:30 so I can be sleeping by 9!  

One other hiccup was that I had my husband make sweet apple chicken sausage for dinner with steamed veggies.  I thought I was doing a good thing by having protein and veggies, but then I looked at the ingredients and the number two ingredient is sugar!  Not fake sugar though, so I think that is okay for these first two weeks, but I still want to try avoiding it if I can.  

Overall - kickass day 2, my friends!  :) 

Tuesday, January 15, 2019

Day 1. The journey begins... to a joyful, zenful, healthy and comfortable me!

About three months ago, I had surgery to repair a large aneurysm in my brain.  That's a story for another day, but the whole experience caused me to stress eat like nobody's business!  I was anxious for the entire first month. I was also in an incredible amount of pain from the large hematoma on my leg.  I couldn't walk normally for two weeks after surgery.  
This bruise was so deep and painful.  It took a full month for it to go away completely.
  
I worried... about a lot!  When I worry, I tend to turn to food.  I ate for comfort.  It's not a good thing, but at least I can recognize it before it gets out of control, right?  But, I didn't "catch" it until I had already gained 15 pounds, so it started to affect my confidence.  Nothing fit.  I was still slightly anxious.  

I am ready to make changes.   

I heard about the Fed and Fit Journey put on by Cassy Joy Garcia and Juli Bauer.  I have been following these ladies for a while now as I am a huge fan of the Paleo movement.  In fact, Juli Bauer was the first "Paleo" food blogger I started following.  She cracked me up every time I read her blog and her recipes were to die for!  We still have her sweet potato brownies on repeat in our house.  Our kids request them for birthday snacks at school as they are all gluten free now.  

What was this Journey going to offer that I couldn't replicate on my own?  I can meal plan with the best of them, but what I don't have right now is the community of people going through the same thing as me.  A leader that will be gentle with her approach.  A leader that was going to offer support and guidance to help change my relationship with food and exercise.  I needed a gradual approach.  I need gradual and gentle.  No stress.  No anxiety.  No fear of failing.  

Day one went great!  I tried not to overthink the food and it worked!  

For the first two weeks, we focus on omitting bad fats and fake sugar.  I owned it!!  As far as the fats go, I'm using butter from our local dairy farmer and virgin coconut oil.  These are things we have on hand all the time and not a major adjustment for my lifestyle at this point in time.  Sugar is always an issue with me, but not when it comes to fake sugar.  We don't have any of that stuff in our house, so this part is fairly easy too.  HOWEVER - I chew gum all the time!  It's kind of like a mom staple, right?  You get the kids all ready for school and you start to run out the door... 10 minutes behind already... and wonder... did I brush my teeth this morning?  AHHHHH, just stick a piece of gum in your mouth and brush em' later!  Well, no more, ladies and gentlemen!  No more gum because I'm not even sure what half of the ingredients are in the "good" gum I use (Glee and Pur).  Better safe than sorry, right?  

The only thing I need to work on that is hard for me right now is exercise.  On Sunday, I went for an hour long snowshoe hike and it felt amazing!  
There was a ton of snow on the trails and it was the most gorgeous blue sky winter afternoon, so I got the itch to go and went!  Solo!  Which, for a mom of four can be quite difficult!  It was amazing!  I want my exercise to be like that all the time.  Enjoyable and not strenuous.  I guess that's why I liked Yoga all those years ago.  So, yesterday, I didn't exercise.  I will work on adding that in more consistently and do the best that I can.  For now, focusing on good quality food will be my major focus.  
If I could combine yesterdays food effort with everything else about Sunday, it would have truly been a perfect day!  My beautiful little family enjoying a gorgeous winter day outside.  I want more memories like that, but I want to feel better on the inside too!  
I'm on it!  I can see it.  I know what it feels like and I want to get back there!  I just need to do the work!