Chocolate is my love . . .

I haven't been diligent with writing because I've been bingeing on sugar.  Sugar is my enemy. Chocolate, specifically, is my drug.  Due to the insane holiday seasons that introduce candy every month, I've been consuming copious amounts of dark chocolate; but am not immune to milk chocolate (albeit allergic to milk).

I'm still grain free, but I managed to bake some gluten free chocolate cookies that are essentially a big pile of sugar.  They were yummy.  And now I have a sugar coma.  I feel this pressure release when I consume chocolate.  It is like the anxiety and pent up energy and emotions are slowly released in a deep, meditative exhale.  It is weird to even feel calm as I write about chocolate and sugar.

I've not exercised, which caused me to have an anxiety attack last week.  I ended up in urgent care thinking I was having a heart attack.  I've not had one land me in the hospital in a long time, so I was due.  The pressures of parenting, care taking, career, financial issues, all boiled in my pressure cooker, and I thought I would flip my lid.  

I am not 100% better.  I am still working through my issues.  I'm human.  I feel physically better about the changes I've made with going grain free, but now want to focus on giving up sugar again.  Oh, yeah!  I failed to mention that I had an Almond Milk Latte kick.  However, I've been making them at home and saving money.  I haven't had one since Monday.  It was only 3 days of Latte bliss, but I am back on the wagon of going sugary latte free.

I want to finally make the combination of eating and exercise work toward weight loss.  My goal is to do Jillian Michael's DVDs again.  She is due to have another DVD released, which is kickboxing.  You do not know the love I have for kickboxing.  I want to rotate her DVD series to get the best out of her workouts.  Did you see she has now gone the informercial route?  I was a bit peeved, but the gal does have an incredible sense fitness and structure.  

I've been wanting to go the crossfit route, but the gyms locally are very cost prohibitive.  Hubby and I watched a Crossfit competition on ESPN.  We were so awed and impressed.  However, for weights, medicine balls, and cardio, I am not interested in spending $150/mo for fitness.  And hubby did that when he was in college--he says he was tortured while playing football, so he has no interest in co-crossfitting with me.  I am not feeling motivated to workout in my dungeon, despite having all the equipment at my disposal.  But time, money and support are limited and I have to do what is easiest and available.  5 a.m. workouts, here I come!

We all need motivators to work out, what's yours?

Scale Steppin' Saturday--194.3

Lunch today at 3 p.m. because I was not prepare to feed myself.

Well, that weight is a surprise.  Because I am all about full disclosure, I weighed in last Saturday at 195.4, which was .1 lbs less than the previous week's weigh-in.  It wasn't that I wasn't proud of any loss or embarrassed by the minuscule loss, I was just not in the spirit of blogging about anything.  I was lazy and irritable.

I am still going through a lot of stressors.  They are the same stressors that I will have for a long time: 3 kids, Nana, and a full time job out of the home, while hubby is away for most of it.  I am still in therapy, but sometimes a biweekly visit to chat for an hour isn't enough.  But I don't have the time or the energy to do more visits.

These last few days were horrible.  I ate so much chocolate that I could have had my own candy shop.  And to have a loss is remarkable.   While I am proud to keep losing weight, I wish I could contain my sugar addiction.  I did so well the first month, but then I figured dark chocolate can't hurt.  Darn you, Trader Joes and Aldi chocolates with your inexpensive price point.

I've had issues with constipation, it is not due to being Paleo/Primal.  I am eating enough fiber with the salads, veggies and fruit.  My issue is water.  I have to keep drinking a lot of water throughout the day.  I have a multitude of water bottles, but must force myself to refill and sip throughout the day.

Exercise was much better.  Four days of exercise this week.  I got up at 5 a.m. to workout.  I didn't work out on Friday because my daughter has been waking up at 3 a.m. and calling me.  I am a light sleeper and usually can't fall back to sleep within a quick time, so I am exhausted and irritable for the rest of the day.

My goal for the coming week:

1. Drink water throughout the day. 
2. Exercise 5 times this week.
3. Reduce chocolate consumption. 
4. Prepare my food in advance so I don't scramble to get something fixed.  .  

If you can eliminate one bad behavior when you are stressed, what is it?

Will You Ever Eat Grains Again?

My friend and colleague asked me that question today when I showed her my meals for today.  I prepped my breakfast of 1 egg + 1 egg white, which I made into a fritata with kale and leftover meatloaf that I made with parsnips, carrots, onions, garlic, and kale, and a banana.  Lunch was a salad with left over pork chop and french dressing (it was authentic--from a bottle), and grapes.  She marveled at the amount of salad dressing and asked how much I had in a small glass container; probably not more than 2 tablespoons--because that is fattening, she exclaimed.  I also had fruit for snack.  

My friend has enrolled herself in a weight loss program at one of the local hospitals.  She has been struggling with her weight for many years.  She credits me with inspiring her to workout and eat better.  However, she is doing "conventional dieting" through this nutrition program.  She asked the physician at her meeting last night what he thought about going grain free.  As a cardiologist, he didn't recommend it.  He said it wasn't sustainable if there weren't any medical reason to be off of grains, then one shouldn't.  Maybe gluten can be eliminated, but other grains were impossible to remove totally because we need them in our diet.  He stated that we needed grains in our diet.  My friend noted that he didn't promote a high carbohydrate diet either.  

I've been reading about Dr. William Davis, a cardiologist and author of Wheat Belly.  I've read several articles in which he was interviewed about his theory on gluten.  Everything I've read in his interviews, without reading his book, resonated with me.  Essentially, grains (most specifically gluten) are genetically modified and do not add any real nutritive value and can actually harm us.  Dr. Davis' patients, upon removing gluten from their diet, recovered from many of their illnesses, such as diabetes, asthma, arthritis.  Those recoveries also supported their heart health.  Patients who did not stick to the diet had reoccurring heart attacks.  Patients who followed the "no gluten diet", did significantly better.

When I first got into Paleo, I wanted to lose weight.  It was my way of losing this fat and getting out of a rut that I physically and psychological couldn't get out of.  But when I realized the added benefit of not adding a steroid into my lungs twice a day everyday, which I'd done for the last 9 years, I was pleased that I could save my lungs and save so much money.

I gave up dairy 2 years ago because it did more harm to my body than good.  Once I got medical confirmation that I am actually allergic to dairy, I also confirmed within myself that I made the right call.  I listened to myself and went with my "gut" instinct.  I am doing the same with grains because it has caused more harm to my body than good.  I am planning on doing some food allergy testing and get confirmation that I am gluten intolerant.  Once I do, I will share on the blog.  However, I do feel so good mentally and physically, that I may keep this up indefinitely even if the results prove negative.

How do you deal with people who doubt your weight loss method?

Scale Steppin Saturday--195.5

I am down a smidge more in weight.  I weighed in this morning at 195.5 lbs.  I am happy and giddy.

This week was a bit rough.  I had PMS and my TOM and tons of cravings for chocolate, which I satisfied every night with a couple of pieces of dark chocolate.  However, last night I did a bit of a chocolate binge having half a bar.  And Trader Joe's definitely betrayed me by having dark chocolate bars for $1.59, so I bought two. No, I didn't rip into those, but they were bought in a "just-in-case-haze" while getting more coconut oil.  

I am feeling well and definitely proud of having a loss.  I worked out 5 times this week.  I may workout today when I can steal away a bit of a break from the kids.  But I have a ton of things to get to this weekend.    Laundry, cleaning bathrooms, and all that lovely stuff.  

Goals for the week:

• Eat grain free
• No sugar--yeah, Trader Joe's, let's see about those dark chocolate bars.
• Workout 5 times a week.
• Manage my home life so I can reduce the feelings of overwhelming-ness.
• Drink tons of water.

This week has been hard because I get to a point where I feel overwhelmed.  Having a full time job out of the house keeps me extremely busy and then when I am home, I have limited time to do everything I need to do before wanting to crash.  I know that the stress of my home life and work is contributing to my stress, which keeps a body inflamed and retaining fat.  But I am doing pretty good.   I am looking forward to getting to 190 lbs, which is my next goal.  

How do you deal with stress?

Running, again?

I've been exercising this week.  Three days of 30 minutes of cardio with some strength training afterwards.  This is a pic of me at my first 5K in October of 2009.  I've been saying that I was at 207 lbs, but I think it was more like 212 lbs.  Now that I am below 200, I'd like to give running a try again.  

I started running on a treadmill in Summer of 2009 because I thought it would help get rid of the baby weight from having #3.  I remember that while running this race, I was feeling so out of shape despite 5 months of training.  I was shocked because I could run a 5K on the treadmill; no problems.  I failed to realize that the impact on the body of the concrete and the wind against your body makes for a different running experience than on the treadmill.  I was in so much physical pain.  While in the middle of the race, I wanted to stop running.  I thought I would die.  

Obviously, I didn't die.  I did a second 5K in January of 2010 when I made the halfhearted commitment to run a race a month for 2010.  Yeah, one race in January with the slush and the freezing rain, and I got over that immediately.  However, right now, I am feeling that I never gave running my all.  I always wanted to go back to the October race to compare my time.  Heck, what was that time?  But I need time to train.  I also want to lose weight during training because I know the less pounds, the faster I'll be.  

I know my limitations in running.  I want to do 5Ks and 10Ks, but the thought of a half marathon or a full marathon is daunting and just plain old crazy.  I am not that competitive.  I'll consider my life being full despite not running a marathon.  But I didn't complete my 5Ks, and that nags me.

I want to take a 2012 race picture and compare it with this one and see how far I've gotten: time wise and body wise.  I think that I will check into the race information for October, and think about it for the next few weeks.  If I register, I will let you know.

What goals have you yet to accomplish that you are hoping to conquer?

Back to Cardio . . .

From Weight Loss

I got up early this morning to do cardio.  I am getting back into working out, and today was the day.  I realized a long time ago that I seem to have a disconnect between my eating plan and workout plan.  I'll start working out and can't make myself eat better or less, or I'll eat better, but not work out enough or hard enough to make a loss on the scale.

I am hoping that because I eliminated grains and have been losing pounds, I'll be able to put this whole lifestyle change together.  My plan for this morning was just to walk on the treadmill.  However, I was to walk faster and vary the grade so that I work harder in a shorter period of time.  The walk was only 30 minutes.  I got off the machine and did 2 sets of 15 repetitions of the Kettlebell Swing, 12kgs = 26 lbs.  I would have done 5 total, but I want to actually walk tomorrow.  I am building up slowly.

The plan is to do 30 minutes of hard exercise during the weekday.  I will get up at 5 a.m. and workout for 30 minutes and then supplement with 4 days of strength training or a Tabata.

I am PMSing and bought some dark chocolate from Aldi.  Let me just say that I am now an Aldi convert.  I was a snob and refused to buy there. When I learned that Trader Joes and Aldi are owned by the same parent company, I changed my tune; I am still somewhat of a food snob. But with 6 people to feed, I have to save money somehow.  I bought quite a bit of their fresh veggies and some spices that I use often.  I will go back on Sunday (food shopping day) to stock up on food stuff we need at home.  If you've never been to Aldi and want to try it, please take 25 cents for the shopping cart, and take some reusable shopping bags to use for your purchases--rookie mistake by not have either.

I have not just gone grain free, but I've gone white stuff free, so no potatoes.  This weekend, I made mashed cauliflower.  Mashed cauliflower is a revelation.  I bought a couple of small heads of cauliflower from Aldi that I hope to make garlic mashed cauliflower--yum!  Hubby has gone grain free for our dinners.  That is a step in the right direction.

How well do you put exercise and eating well together?  What are some of your tips and tricks?

1/21/12--Scale Steppin' Saturday--196.3

I lost weight again. Slightly. But a loss nonetheless. I am happy because this week was a rough week.

I've been running around all week with crazy obligations at work. After work I have to race to get 3 kids at two different places during snowstorms. I've been battling a cold. And since last Sunday, I've had a very painful toothache. I bit into a sliver of bone from ribs that I made last Sunday. I went to the dentist and he said I had a bruised tooth; a crown that had been replaced over a year ago. Advil has been my friend.

I believe I would have had more of a loss but for the running around messed up my eating schedule. On Wednesday, I didn't drink water and feeling hungry despite eating quite well. I also wanted something sweet. I believe that the stress and the missed routine messed with my usually full and uncraving belly. I decided to satisfy the craving by buying two pieces of dark chocolate from Walgreens and water.  That was on Wednesday.  While I thought about getting more chocolate and more desserts, snickers preferably, I made sure to just fill my belly with water until I could eat a great meal that was cooking in the slow cooker. Thank goodness for that thing.  As far as sweet tooth cravings since Wednesday, I have eaten some mini semi sweet chocolate chips that I combine with coconut flakes and slivered almonds.  It is a nice treat and I don't go overboard. It is not completely Paleo.  Dark chocolate would be better.  But better yet, no sugar at all.  I will work on it.

No workout because of the illness.  This is supposed to be the year of no excuses, but that is my excuse.  I was sick.  However, I read an article that talked about daily physical activity such as walking or cycling will hold off the early symptoms of Alzheimer's.  My new mission is to keep Alzheimer's at bay because I can't conceive of working so hard in my life working, raising children, taking care of my Mom, being a wife to my husband, and suffering from Alzheimer's during the time in my life where I am to relax and enjoy the fruits of my labor.  We all need a purpose for changing our lifestyle for the better.  What is yours?

Goal For This Week:

• Keep on Paleo because it truly works.  Even the smallest of losses means it is working.  I am full at each meal and I feel a lot brighter mentally.  Even hubby who has gone grain free at night has commented that he feels more mentally alert.
• Drink my water.  Lots of water.  Important for my "fullness" throughout the day.  I also get really cranky when I am dehydrated.  Really, cranky.
• Workout 4 times this week.  My students get back to work Monday, and so do I.  Back to 5 a.m. workouts.  Uuugghh.  It is all about burning this fat.  I have to work at making that happen.
• Change my mindset about exercise.  No more "uuugghh" feelings.  It is important for my health and mind.

How do you feel about slow and small losses?  Do they keep you motivated?  Do you feel discouraged?