The Whole30+1

Now that it's the end of the month I am reflecting over how excited I was on the first to do this diet! How ironically crazy the steps were to obtain. I spent those really hot hot summer nights wishing over a cocktail or treats! Then finally giving in help me not think about such things so much.....I came to realize I eat every healthy, I am gaining speed for my busy life not slowing down any time soon. I don't really need to cut out only a couple of things I really enjoy in my food choices. I lost weight last month due to stress in changes and unpacking. Now I am loosing weight due to gardening and playing with kids. I am not going to do this diet again for a long while, for I have NEVER been a diet person, Changing my over all life style has helped me out more then ever skipping a morning with coffee or an evening with wine and dark, beautiful dark rich chocolate! I have been humbled in sharing all of these moments with you the reader, I am not the super woman I wish I could brag on about saying how the whole30 changed my life! Instead I think it taught me how short life is to not enjoy some of the sweet things out there! Let's say IF I get sick or have cancer then the whole30 would be followed exactly. But for right now though I am not living the rest of my life without a treat here or there. It's hard to change no matter what, I am glad I tried this for a month and failed with my chin steadily facing forward! I know what it is like to have 3 chins actually and so with this only one I currently have, I nod with respect to those who can complete the whole30 and be healthier for it!

Life is beautiful when you are taking care of yourself, knowing what your body can handle and gaining strength for the future! Live strong, Live long!

Day 28

TONIGHT I am drinking a glass of New Age with my dark chocolate squares with NO guilt! (I think the Whole30 is for stronger people then Me quite honestly...:-D) and I WILL enjoy the new age bottle on the covered patio while the dogs all run and play! Life has been changing again lately.....

 It's been a crazy busy month while working the fair, caring over the pets, going to job interviews and I didn't eat any Fair foods also, I did really good over that temptation!

SoOoooO TONIGHT I will REST with drinks and chocolate, Yippy! I really love my summer evenings for such good memories!...It's a New Age world for me once again!

Day 24

This year the Fair feels very well organized and moving right along very fast after all these different games and contests. The Cupcake contest was amazingly creative and fun! Although since I have gone a year gluten free, the taste of cupcakes do not really seem very good anymore. I guess I can NOT have my cake and eat it too! HA! 

I was busily enjoying the show of pretty cupcakes and watching the judges decide while washing the rainbow colors of frosting off tables and plates. If I got a bite I was surprised at how different I am now! I will think more about this fact before I share......Hard to believe 24 days ago I thought I would sail through this diet with no problems. I feel really silly now by how much I may slip up in a bite here or there of things I shouldn't eat! I learned my lesson by how different the foods with sugar don't thrill me anymore! The creative side of me over how cute cupcakes are and fun the decor was this year was thrilled! My taste buds however didn't agree....I love this job no matter what though! It is my big goodbye time to the end of the summer season!

Day 20

     This Whole30 diet has not been the magical month I thought it would be, I had pictured doing this with such ease and calmness that my body would be balanced and normal again after all was said and done. In the last 20 days I have been on a roller coaster of emotion and cravings! I have been super energized doing a hundred things at once or flopped over my couch zoning out in front of the TV wishing for a gin&tonic so desperately bad that I go a bit crazy!

This past weekend was a family reunion in Salt Lake City Utah, my husband's Grandma Beth turned 80 years old and all 7 of her kids came together at the Maddox Steak House for a big weekend celebration. I knew going into the weekend I would be drinking a few red or white wines, I was ready to cheat a bit more in this whole30 for the fun of getting together! BUT I didn't think I would be so tempted to have pie at the steak house like I was! Such fresh local peaches spread over a pie crust with that same glaze my mother use to make made me steal a few bites from the ever so chilled, very cool cousin Laura Jo. When she met up with all of us at the mall earlier that afternoon I knew that I would liked her instantly! My Mother-in-law Jo Anne explained that they were good friends growing up, so I got to tag along beside them as they were chatting away over all the years that brought them back together again. Often I found myself listening and laughing to those ladies thinking just how lucky I am to be apart of this reunion! So I had a few bites of pie in cheating once again and followed my husband's craving for ice cream to a shop. YES I did have ice cream....Finally after 20 days of no dairy I ordered a cherry milkshake! CRAZY I know!  But things like Cherry pie or Cherry ice cream are my favorites so it's hard to not give in! YET as I drank only half of that milkshake I realized it wasn't as good as it use to be in my memory.....JUST like with everything else once you change your taste buds these things change flavor too! My body does NOT want these things like bread or sugar or milk to come back in for a fight anymore, How long have I lived making bad choices in my food and leaving my body to struggle afterwords? I am glad that I tried the ice cream even though I shouldn't have any on this whole30....Because I saw in comparison to how I used to feel and eat before when I was over weight to right now as I'm shrinking down in size, This no dairy time has given my body a rest, a time to heal and feel great again! I can not help but hope by the end of these 30 days I will have all of this figured out in what to eat or how to look at the bigger picture for a long life!

Day 16

It's not easy working the Fair with so many breads, muffins and donuts laying around to snack on as we work the setup! Honestly I was doing to good at first but THEN I was sent to the famous bakery down the road called Pastry Perfection.......Instantly I wanted a whipped cream croissant! So instead I had a few bites of a doughnut and got an instant head ache! 

This is such a fun hard working job, I'm racing around the building and carrying things up and down the shelves. I love each and every minuet of it all, So eating something sugary became amazingly hard for me not to do! It's good most everyone knows I don't eat gluten things so this helps me not sneak or cheat BUT that doughnut with the glazed frosting and chewy centered stay with me a long time after seeing in the bakery rows of goodies! I kept saying to myself that it looks good all those pastries BUT they make me feel so bad afterwords....and as I stood there ordering my co-workers a dozen donuts I smiled to myself at how ironic the moment was! I'm HALF way through the whole30 and it's not been anything like I thought it would be, although I do feel really healthy through out all these crazy moments of cheating, LIKE standing in the center of a bakery! What a different world it all seems to me now these cakes and pies, one bite is no free treat anymore and my body will protest! So even if I wanted to go back to those days of scones and apple fritters nothing will taste quite right or be the true delight I use to think!  This is progress, This is day 16!

Day 12

How amazing to discover I really enjoy hard ciders! Now on day 12 in this Whole30 diet I am shrinking in size but can't keep from drinking a hard cider after hard yard work or a hot hot summer night! I really don't want to be all that skinny so I need to bring back a small amount of alcohol:-) I just hope to maintain my body structure with this new strength!
My focus is on how I feel and in these busy days I will be giving in a little on the whole30.......I have excepted this and will not think of myself as a failure. I feel like Life is so full of new adventures and new people right now that I am NOT a couch potato!  

My new favorite dessert will simply be a bottle of Angry Orchard hard cider in these evenings as a part of my diet not a fight against it! I love how this bottle of zesty bubbles with the sweet taste of fruit and alcohol mixed together make me at peace! Cooling me down in such hot temperatures!

This has actually calm me down from eating so much fruit lately too and now I think I'm doing really good balancing out in these 30 days...my focus is much better on what is healthy too! Knock on wood that I don't get distracted as I feel confident to face the Fair foods in the next few weeks, just grab an angry orchard with a smile!

Day 8

It isn't easy doing this Whole30 diet and I have already cheated! YES I have not kept every rule from day one to currently day 8:-}
NOW let me explain;
No coffee, was killing me on the very first morning, I decide to not let that rule go on since it is just black coffee 1 or 2 cups a morning only....the head aches are not worth cutting it out:-}

No dark chocolate, I did good until day 6, I was craving and thinking about a piece of dark chocolate the WHOLE time but when my husband brought some home I cheated happily! A few bites then my craving was gone and now I don't touch the stuff even though it's at the ready in the frig! Talk about all of it being mental in my head!

No Dairy, I'm amazed at how hard this is even after reading the whole chapter in the book "It Starts with Foods". That chapter explains the damage we are doing everyday to our insides having milk. YET I have loved, truly enjoyed, such heavy real cream now for a year! Which heavy cream is the very best option for milk, it still isn't safe to drink by the gallons. How amazed I am that milk isn't the super food we've been told our whole life to be?!?.....

   I decided on day 6 to make ice cream from coconut milk; and oh boy! What a mess THAT was! Not to mention how gross too! Coconut milk from the can into the ice cream maker created this Gray in color frozen clump of weirdness! So as I swallowed that first bite I choked in true disappointment!  It felt like cold sand going down the throat, with an after taste that was MUCH worse! These summer evenings are extremely hot with only a ceiling fan in the living room we were craving something to cool us down! The idea of coconut ice cream sounded paleo friendly BUT the quality of the milk was so poor too! The after taste of frozen coconut milk was long lasting that it drove my husband out to buy some cold hard cider bottles to save our taste buds! AND I loved that chilled cider in the late hot night....It just meant I was breaking another rule for the day in these 22 days ahead:-}

No Alcohol, Just for a month really I can do THAT I said on day one with such a smug smile! NOW I am humble in realizing I do not want to live without alcohol EVER....Yet not having it so much is important too! These first 8 days without it has been a challenge for the heat is on in full force even way past 10pm the heat is still there! So instead of having ice cream, because I really need to cut back on my dairy the cold hard cider bottle is comforting the cravings for gin and tonics or sangria! One drink a night has been working out for me just find right now and soon I will be able to avoid the cocktails better.....I hope!
I am sure it will ALL get easier as I get into the weeks ahead but how ironic to start this diet JUST as my Fair job comes on! I won't be able to eat everything I see from those venders anymore and some how that is not such a tragic thought as it was a year ago when loaded fries and me had such passion shared!
I will keep running towards the finish line saying not "I think I can, I think I can..." But instead saying "I KNOW I can, I know I can." Making mistakes and cheating will teach me how to avoid those powerful desires or at least control what they mean in me!
I believe I will make it!....even if I'm crawling to Day 30!

Day 4

Day 4 in this diet, the whole30 re-start to healthy living is rather hard to do! In all honesty it is VERY hard to cut out some of my food pleasures like dark chocolate, heavy cream and alcohol! First night I ate all the jerky in the house, drank 3 cans of sparkling water at once wishing it was a gin and tonic!

Then the second day I rushed over to the fruit stand and bought 50 bucks of fruits and berries, to help me not go crazy in missing my dark chocolate. Oh that beautiful rich deep almost bitter chocolate! How I miss it so much and I guess that just tells me it was in my everyday life way to much?!? But it is so rich, dark, deeply creamy that it satisfies my sweet tooth! FRUIT was the only qualified sugary food on our Whole30 diet. I am not stupid I know sugar is poison, but the lesser sugar in dark chocolate has become one of my main evening treats paired with some red wine!

No alcohol was no big deal....until today and now I am craving a gin and tonic in this heat! I want to drown in the sweet bubbles and chew on limes! BUT I am determined to do this, for the last year or so alcohol has been creeping up into my life more. Suddenly one drink on the weekend is more like a couple of drinks every night, realizing why is the first step and the second is cutting it out altogether in this Whole30. I might be surprise at how much weight those cocktails give me!

Heavy cream is all I drink for milk, I love the smooth way to goes down and a small cup of it goes such a long way. Mixing that heavy cream in with vanilla in the ice cream maker was a very night dessert for the first of the summer. No added sugar made me feel healthier but it was that frozen cream I loved so much (As it's flaming hot outside right now....torture to talk about it)

SO How am I doing so far?

I'm struggling greatly, I am always hungry, I eat eggs, bacon, steaks, saute veggies and go back to eat it all again! Then I make a fruit salad telling myself what is missing are those perfect shaved dark chocolate shavings! Nope fruit all cut up together in the salad is as good as it gets and I am only 26 more days away from reaching this goal.

The goal, MY goal is to do this so that I can  re-start my eating habits and not be so consumed with sugary foods.....

Like those dark chocolate truffles with that soft gooey cool center melting on the warmth of your tongue as it softly dissolves between your finger tips and your lips! 

OoooooOooooooh Such Perfect hand made dark chocolates, they are so completely wonderful you will crave nothing else afterwards!

I am doomed!

The Whole30

Since it is the first of the month, we are doing the diet changes suggested from this great book "It starts with Food." Called the Whole30. Being primal over this last year I was eating basic proteins and real true fat, but still had my dark chocolate or alcohol, even my heavy whip cream for milk or ice cream...But in this diet restart I am giving those things up over the 30 days! I am excited and think it will be GREAT to see how healthy my body gets cleaning out all these "cheats" that I have enjoyed. My husband and I have read this book and are now inspired to be more dedicated in how we eat!  We live happily strong, relaxed and balance lives being primal and reading everything on Paleo, but to jump start our life style it is good to clean out all our bad habits. We have discovered amazing good changes before in doing this kind of food changes! Things like Coconut oil which makes our skin now clear and our brains really sharp!

or discovering that amazing grilled perfect Steak with eggs for breakfast helps us live strong and balanced!

It is a very true statement, that it ALL starts with FOOD!

The best part of life is knowing how to live, how to eat while in it and such things as a long life or happiness will be the gifts that come from such peaceful understanding......

I will keep you posted over this month of my time in The Whole30.

(Food can change your life in unexpected ways.

It Starts With Food will show you how.

It Starts With Food outlines a clear, balanced, sustainable plan to change the way you eat forever--and transform your life in unexpected ways. Your success story begins with "The Whole30," Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's powerful 30-day nutritional reset.

Since 2009, their underground Whole30 program has quietly led tens of thousands of people to weight loss, improved quality of life and a healthier relationship with food - accompanied by stunning improvements in sleep, energy levels, mood and self-esteem. More significantly, many people have reported the "magical" elimination of a variety of symptoms, diseases and conditions - in just 30 days.)