We live our lives on a feeling

PaleoBaby

I think I've written this same post 5 or 6 times over the past 8 years I've been blogging.  (8 years!).  I read a post by Cathy Zielske that's been rolling around in my head.  She's struggled with the hard work of losing weight and getting healthier, and her therapist-type person told her that she:

simply keep(s) this a problem in my life because it allows me to act like a child and indulge every whim rather than do what is needed, which is to feed my body healthy, nutrient dense food in appropriate amounts and to exercise.

My first thought was "damn, she's paying someone to say mean things to her?!".  And then my second thought was "Huh, I think that applies to me too."

I'm smart.  I know what I need to do to lose weight (a staggering amount, after this second pregnancy).  I am lucky enough to even know *exactly* how I need to eat, and that I will feel *incredible* when I eat the right things and get just a little bit of exercise.  

For me and my PCOS, diabetes-family-history self, the Paleo diet works best.  Doing the Whole30 back in Oct 2011 was really transformative for me - I had a TON of energy, needed only 7-8 hours of sleep, and felt mentally clear and just *ready* for whatever life was going to bring.

So who wouldn't keep doing it, with those fabulous results? It would be stupid to stop, right?  But I did. It was a gradual process, and I've still kept some good habits, so it's not a total loss.  But it started with just one plate of French toast, and continued down the slippery slope of "I've got 2 little kids now and I'm starving and the Taco Time drive-through is easy."  

I was angry about having a restricted diet and felt that with all the transitions in my life lately, I "deserve" to eat what I want.  But I'm a grownup.  I'm in charge, and making the choices.  I shouldn't feel like "someone" is forcing me to eat healthy against my will.

I'm not a person for whom "everything in moderation" works.  I need ironclad rules.  I also HATE food journaling with a passion.  Whole30 and on a larger scale, Paleo, meets all these needs. No counting, no hunger, and all the (sustainably, humanely sourced) bacon a girl can eat.

I am starting fresh today with my second Whole30.  So if you see me in person, help a girl out.  Don't bring me cake or ask if I want to see the dessert menu.  And most definitely do not order me a diet Coke if we're meeting for lunch.  

I feel good about this.  I'm mentally ready to do what's right for me.  I know it's going to be hard, especially at weekend breakfasts out.  But I do not want to arrive at my 40th birthday (looming!) still fighting with myself about weight and wishing things were different.  So here's to DOING.

The glory of homemade mayonnaise

There are two things I prepare weekly to plan ahead, now that I've committed to eating (more or less) Paleo regularly:  6 hardboiled eggs and homemade mayonnaise.  It sounds crazy, right?  I mean, grocery stores sell HUGE jars of mayo that will last months.

Whole30 advocated making your own mayo so you could use high quality oil and avoid all the mysterious ingredients you find in storebought mayo.  (Stabilizers, emulsifiers, preservatives, sugar, etc etc.)  At first it seemed like a lot of hassle, but once you get it down, it's pretty easy.

But the HUGE payoff was the taste.  *That's* why I continue to make it.  It's so much better - creamy, light, and fluffy.  It makes a mean tuna salad, and I'm usually not a tuna salad kind of person.  It tastes amazing by itself on a baked sweet potato.  In short, it makes eating Paleo a heck of a lot easier.

staring down the barrel of the blender

Shalini says brown people don't like mayo, and totally dissed homemade.  To that I say BOO!  I'm brown and I love me some homemade mayo.  :)

The recipe I use is from Melissa Joulwan's site (also included in her excellent Paleo cookbook Well Fed.)  So far I've made it four times, and only had it fail once.  But when it failed it was EPIC. Nasty looking and all separated.  She says you can still use it, if you stir vigorously, but it was just too gross, so I threw that batch out.  Life is too short and the ingredients too cheap.

Getting the egg-oil emulsion just right is a bit tricky but not as delicate as you might think.  Problem is, if the emulsion breaks, you can't go back, so it's both stressful and rewarding to get it right.

Here are some additional tips, besides the excellent ones on the recipe:

• I've made it successfully with light olive oil as recommended, grapeseed oil, and even canola oil from Costco (I know, a Whole30 no-no but we had a ton of it in the house)

• It's pretty lemony, so use less (or no) lemon juice if you prefer.  Also be careful with the salt - I find that using less works better for me.  **Note:  Melissa (Queen of Mayo, *squee*!) left me a comment indicating that you need some acid to help the emulsion along, so you can sub apple cider vinegar instead.

• Meyer lemons make it a nice bright yellow, and provide a slightly different taste (YUM!)

• If you have a crappy blender like mine ($30 Target Osterizer), the blender will have a hard time mixing it once the magic emulsion happens.  Have patience and DO NOT crank the blender to top speed - this is what ruined my last batch.   I use it on medium to medium high speed, but once the emulsion forms, I DO NOT change it.

• You may have a bit of oil that doesn't get incorporated.  That's fine.  Better to stop there than try to get it all in, and have it FAIL.  I find that just tipping the blender slightly will help the oil get down to the blades and get incorporated.  Don't shake vigorously or bad things will happen.

• This is good for more than the normal applications for mayo.  You can also use it as a base for salad dressings and sauces, too - Melissa's site has tons of options.

I know there are a bunch of you out there reading this skeptically, like it's way too much work for just *mayo*.  But if you typically like mayonnaise, try this just once, and experience the bliss.  You may never go back.

What I eat really does matter

For about six months, I haven't been eating much in the way of empty carbs:  bread, pasta, cereal, refined sugar.  Mind you, I haven't been anywhere close to perfect - I've gone off the rails in a spectacular ball of fire from time to time, but for whatever reason, this "way of eating" has stuck with me.  I've been refining it a bit, going from Atkins to Whole30 to a more sustainable Paleo gig.  I still have work to do to make it automatic - planning meals, cooking for the week, the usual things I complain about.


Last night, I learned a valuable lesson.  What I eat affects EVERYTHING.  I suspected as much during the past few months, but I'd chalk it up to "experimentation" and order dessert, raid the bread basket, or eat more cheese than could be considered "garnish" (we gave up dairy too).  I wanted to feel like I could "splurge" or "celebrate", or "cheat".  Any small joy I experienced by eating something "unapproved" was completely obliterated a few hours later, when I felt tired, sluggish, or had icky stomach-related symptoms.

This was painfully clear yesterday.  I met a former coworker for Happy Hour at my FAVORITE 21+ bar/restaurant in town.  I ate ancho-chile chicken wings there (not super healthy but not horribly bad either).  I also had a taco, with its tiny bit of cheese and the flour tortilla.  I had a margarita, which I haven't had in AGES.  And believe me, this place does it RIGHT.  Not Paleo-approved, but not ridiculously horrible, or so I thought.

After that, I drove over to the wonderful restaurant Tilth in Seattle, which I've been wanting to try for ages, to meet up with Shalini.  I had a snooty salad, with a bit of cheese. I couldn't resist the (very small) Theo chocolate cake for dessert.  It was tiny, so I figured no harm, right?  It delighted me.  It was rich, and soft and not too sweet, just the way I like it.  I was satisfied with a few bites, so I left some behind.  I inhaled the delicate whipped cream topping and also a bite of S's divine blood orange/pistachio ice cream thing. 

I went home, went to bed, and slept VERY poorly.  My stomach was NOT HAPPY - I woke up feeling like I had a tight rubber band around my midsection.  The diet Cokes I had at Happy Hour made it hard for me to fall asleep.  I KNOW that I can't have caffeine after 2pm or so, but I tend to ignore that when I really want a diet Crack.  Sigh.  I tossed and turned, and even though BabyT obligingly slept until 8am (unheard of in these parts), I felt like garbage when I woke up.

But it wasn't just physical. 

This morning I was in a BAD mood.  That one stinkin' margarita made me wake up feeling gross and dry, despite the umpteen glasses of water I drank through dinner.  I was still tired.  I was ridiculously craving carbs - all I could think about was thick, fresh baked white bread, or hot cereal.  Or even crappy white sandwich bread. It was a demon awakened inside me.  My patience was short, and let me tell you, with a 2 year old, it's already stretched on a GOOD day.

Of course it didn't help that I didn't have time to eat breakfast before running off to Little Gym with BabyT.  I scarfed two hardboiled eggs when I got home and about 15 minutes later, started feeling normal again. 

egg surfin' by wickamoo on Flickr

But all day, those carb cravings plagued me.  Nothing we had in the fridge sounded good.  I ate one of T's granola bars (sigh) under the pretense of "sharing" it with her.  (I ate 98% of it.)  I couldn't stop thinking about a huge plate of pasta, or mac n cheese, or ... you get the idea.  I was tired and sluggish and cranky.  I napped while she napped.  I lounged on the couch all afternoon while she played nearby.  Not a good mama-day, that's for sure.

I am absolutely sure now that what I eat DIRECTLY affects my mood as well as my body.  The physical aspect is pretty clear - eating dessert now makes me nauseous about an hour later, exactly like it had when I was taking metformin for baby-making reasons.  (It regulates insulin response and made me really sick if I ate a bunch of sugar or drank wine.)

And eating those empty carbs and sugar just makes me want more of them, and makes me completely uninterested in the stuff I'm "supposed" to eat which starts this vicious spiral of bad food -> feeling crappy->more bad food -> more feeling crappy.


I know a lot of people will think that the way I'm "supposed to eat" is unsustainable.  That we need grains and sugar and pasta, for crying out loud.  But honestly, it's not.  Eating Paleo and keeping it up has been surprisingly easy for me, IF I AM CONSISTENT.  My mood is unbelievably good, I'm never hungry, I eat vegetables and I like it.  As soon as I go too far off the rails, it becomes HARD.  I don't want to do it.  I get back into that resistant, depressed, apathetic mindset.

I've been in that place for half my life - the place where "eating right" is some kind of punishment, where I ignore my hunger and eat rice cakes that taste like cardboard, where I feel like I'm weak-willed and if I could just get it together, I'd lose those 40 extra lbs I've been carrying since I was a teenager. I don't want to be in that place.

I've seen the land of sunshine and fuzzy puppies, where I can eat real food, not be hungry, and feel strong, awake, and energized.  Where nothing seems impossible, I don't crave an afternoon nap, and I feel rested after 7-8 hours of sleep.  Where it's not something I "have to follow", it's just how I eat, and it makes me feel good, both physically and emotionally.  I'm also a lot less fixated on "the number" as a measure of my success, and it's more about how I feel.  Yeah, I feel THAT good when I'm doing it right.  So strange.

I'm ready to go there now.  Again.

Whole30 - All done! Hooray! Woohoo!

I thought I would post more about the Whole30 challenge that we did this past month.  But honestly, after the first couple of difficult weeks, it became sort of...routine.  Like, "this is just the way we eat now."  Which is really, really great, for someone who can't stick to a typical "diet" for more than a few weeks.

So, the wrap-up.  I should have taken my measurements as well as my weight, but I forgot.  But in completely awesome news, I lost 5.5 pounds in 30 days.  Woot!

I know that doesn't sound like much, for such a drastic new way of eating, but this is why I'm so freakin' excited about it:

1.  Losing an average of *more* than a pound per week is unheard-of for me.  I have always lost weight very, very slowly.  Glacially.

2.  I DID NOT HAVE TO BE HUNGRY.  Not once.  I ate until I was satisfied.  Sure, I couldn't stuff my face with everything I wanted, but not being hungry made me far less likely to *really* want things.

3.  I ditched the diet Coke habit.  On the few times I "slipped" and ordered one while eating out, it didn't even taste all that good.  So I think I'm done.  Good riddance. On a related note, I can now drink tea without sweetener, and like the taste of sparkling water.

4.  I proved to myself I *can* adopt a drastic new way of eating and stick to it for more than a couple of weeks.  And not hate every minute of it.  It really helped me to frame it as "I'm *choosing* to do this", not that I *have* to, or someone's *making* me.

5.  I was starting from a better place than most who do this.  I had already given up grains and sugar, so I didn't get the bonus of the huge water loss at the beginning.  All told, I'm down 13 pounds since I started Atkins in July. 
6.  Did I mention I lost nearly 6 pounds?  And the more amazing thing?  I did not exercise ONCE during this whole month. I'm not bragging about that, because it's something I want to get back into once I can figure out how to fit it into our schedule.  But no exercise, no hunger and I lost 6 pounds?  Holy. Crap.

7.  Eating "clean" really agrees with me.  I cannot argue with how *awake* I feel, how I need less sleep, and don't want to nap anymore.

Today BabyT and I had breakfast with friends in Seattle. We went to one of my all time favorite breakfast joints, The 5 Spot.  I gave myself permission to order a non-Whole30 approved breakfast.  When I saw pumpkin pancakes on their menu, I knew it was fate.  But, when they arrived, I only ate one and a little piece of the second.  That was enough for me. I *like* the new way of eating.  So I think I'm going to stick to it.

The person who should *really* be blogging about Whole30?  My fabulous husband, who surprised me by even agreeing to do this in the first place, and who was instrumental in keeping me on track.  Just knowing that he was doing it made me choose better food.  He was starting from a more difficult place than I did - tons of sugar, Coke and lots of white bread products.  He lost a jaw-dropping 22.5 pounds in 30 days.  Yeah, you read that right.

I'll admit to a slight bit of envy when he told me that, but more than that, I am so darn proud of what we both accomplished in a short 30 days.  The next thing I want to tackle is consciously eating more vegetables.  We did better, because of all the cooking, but I found myself eating a lot of protein and nuts, and not as many veggies as I could have.

Yay!!!

Whole30: Whoa, we're halfway there!

We're on day 18 of our Whole30 Paleo/whole foods challenge.  TJ is a lot less cranky now, and mostly just sad and resigned.  I caught him eating an orange the other day, so it must be really bad.  (This is a man who believes fruits and vegetables are what his real food eats.)  He was also eyeing Trillian's soy yogurt, which is even worse.

I feel good.  I have energy, I don't need naps and I don't have that massive tiredness in the afternoon after eating a big lunch.  In fact, I haven't felt that "overly full" feeling in AGES, which I think means that all this protein and fat is helping me realize when I'm full so I don't overeat.  What's not to love about that?

The challenge stipulates that we only weigh ourselves at the beginning and the end so I have no idea if I've lost any weight.  I'm sure I'll have lost a bit, but I almost don't care, because I just feel so much better eating this way. 

Another interesting side effect of eating *no* added sugar?  Sparkling water actually tastes good to me now.  I used to hate it, because it had a bad "salty" taste, even when there was NO sodium in it.  I think it's because I always drank artificially sweetened drinks and ate a lot of sugar. 

Also, I can now drink tea with no sweetener and I *like* it.  (As long as it's good tea, not the crap Lipton.)  Speaking of which, the Trader Joe's Jasmine Pearls tea is like a gift from heaven.  Holy crap, that tea is gooooood.

But, there are a few things not to love.  When I don't plan every meal in advance or we're at the end of our shopping cycle, there's very little left in the house that we can eat.  No more mindless snacking on crackers to fill up. Then we get truly hungry and cranky.   I actually need to *cook* stuff for breakfast - no instant oatmeal or cereal + milk. So it's a little more work to eat this way.

And to be honest, I've had a couple of slip ups.  I've gone out to lunch with friends and ordered diet Coke on autopilot and didn't have the willpower to send it away.  The handful of times I've eaten out, I didn't do extensive research on what kind of oils they were using, and I have even had a bit of barbecue sauce with sugar in it.  I will neither confirm nor deny that I ate a homemade peanut butter cookie at the all-day crafty event I attended on Saturday.  (And let me tell you, it made me feel like CRAP.  So not worth it.)

But I'm still eating WAY better than I have been for the past 6+ years or more, so I figure those are small concessions.  They've also taught me that eating out is kind of a pain when I'm trying to do things "right" so I'm actually more inclined to *choose* to eat at home.  And that in itself, was worth the price of admission.

So, only 12 days left on the super-strict path.  And then we'll slowly evaluate what to bring back into our diets.  I also need to figure out how to carve out a time for some regular exercise even if that's just walking on our treadmill.  But, those are challenges for later.  Now, I need to get cracking on the steak and chorizo chili I'm making for dinner :)

Whole30 - Days 1-3

We've survived an entire weekend of the Whole30 challenge I mentioned on Friday.

It hasn't been too difficult for me at all, and I know it's because I sat down on Thursday night and planned out every single meal and snack through tomorrow, and bought all the ingredients. I LOVE not having to track anything. I even made it through a Crafty Night with a bunch of junk food. Since I wasn't hungry, I wasn't tempted.

TJ has not fared so well. He's going through that awful "detox" that happens when you give up sugar and most carbs. It's pretty horrible - when I went through this a few months ago, I was super-tired, had a huge headache and was *really* irritable. So we're trying to give him some space.

I miss cheese. It'll be the first thing I try to add back on Day 31, that's for sure. But I'm eating well. Last night's dinner was a sausage, sweet potato and apple hash with some peppers and onions. Nice warm comfort food for our changing fall weather. T even tried a little bit, which is about as good as I can hope for these days.

So it's clear that in order for me to be successful, I need to plan every detail of what I'm eating so that I have the ingredients I need.

Which means we'll have another trip to Whole Foods tomorrow to get more sustainably fished tuna for tuna salad, which I forgot I love so much when I make it with fresh veggies and high quality mayo. And it got me to thinking that I could make a mean sweet potato salad with that homemade mayo I made today.

I had to use Trader Joe's Wasabi Mayo in a pinch because I hadn't made the "Whole30-approved" mayo yet, and OMG is it HOT. Another discovery - I don't hate kale, when it's oven roasted until it's crunchy.

I'm excited about food again, and cooking. This is a good thing, for sure! Only 27 more days to go! Piece of cake. Or, uh, kale.

Whole30 - holy crap! Handcrafted Life Plan, Part VI

As I mentioned before, I had been following the new Atkins plan, which was a radically different way for me to eat. I'd always been stuck in the high-carb/low fat mode of dieting and it sort of worked when I was *really* strict about it, but mostly didn't.

Atkins worked great when I was focused on counting and tracking carbs, and not making small allowances for breading on chicken, or a little sugar in BBQ sauce, etc. I lost about 10 lbs and have kept it off, but have completely fallen off the wagon with respect to tracking my carb intake online.

And a few times, I have completely crashed and burned by eating horrible sugary or bread things I didn't even want in the first place. I'm all for consciously eating treats as a once-in-a-while special occasion gig, but eating the rest of the organic Ritz-like crackers left over from T's birthday party? *So* not necessary.

I've been floundering along for the past couple of weeks, still doing pretty well about not eating empty white carbs and focusing on protein and salads. Not awesome, but still, much better than I was doing pre-Atkins.
But my Starbucks chai (Sugar City) habit has caught up with me again (and I'm guessing even the 1-pump, whole milk option is not really doing me any favors.)

This week I was struggling with what to cook for dinner. BabyT is pretty adventurous when she wants to be, so I don't like to deliberately cook something she can't eat due to her dairy allergy. I've been leafing through my cookbooks in an uninspired way, looking for something that doesn't have dairy, but also isn't pasta, potato or bread-based.

I posted my dilemma on Google+, and got a most excellent suggestion to look into the Paleo diet. Personally, I don't give a rats ass about what our caveman ancestors ate - I think that's a handy gimmick to market this way of eating. It's very similar to many of the "low/slow/no empty carb" diets. But upon looking closer, it addresses some of the things I wasn't really comfortable with about Atkins:
1. No fake sweeteners
2. No marketing of shakes, bars, and other fakey diet foods
3. No need to count or track anything, as long as you keep to decent portion sizes.
4. Fruit is ok to eat daily, in small portions (Atkins suggests eliminating it entirely for the first phase and only introducing a tiny bit of berries later.)
5. Sweet potatoes are ok.  Carrots are ok.  I miss those things.

What scared me about it?

1. No more Splenda or stevia in my tea.
2. No more cheese (wah!). No dairy at all, actually.
3. It requires a LOT of cooking. All whole foods, nothing from a mix or a box or prepared by the grocery store.
4. No legumes (including soy). I'm not yet convinced about this one but I understand their rationale about getting more protein from high quality animal sources.

Since I'm already halfway there, having dropped the empty carbs and sugar from my diet, I figured the transition might not be too rough. And then I found this:



It's a 30 day challenge to eat only whole foods. No grains, no dairy, no sugar, no fake sugar. I'm a sucker for short challenges, because after doing Atkins Induction phase successfully for 14 days, I know I can do this. Then I can re-evaluate after the 30 days, right? And the site discusses introducing some of the restricted things back into your diet, like cheese (yay!).

Even better, I convinced TJ to give it a try. Which makes it easier for me to justify all that cooking. And since it's no dairy, T can eat everything I'm making, which is awesome.

I know I'm going to feel really good once I get into this style of eating. About 2 weeks into Atkins, I felt AMAZING. Seriously, this is not an infomercial. I didn't need to nap mid-day anymore. I slept well at night. I felt more clear-headed than usual, and with tons of energy. But once I started to slip and let in more little carbs here and there, that awesomeness went away :(
Last night, I made up a huge grocery list of what we'd need to get us through the next week or so. I knew I'd need to go to at least 2 stores to find everything, but I remembered my old friend Amazon Fresh, and placed an order for most of it online. Now I just need to make another short trip to Whole Foods to get some of the remaining items and I'll be ready to go! (And $100 poorer, I suspect.)

So, as T says, "here we go mama!". Wish us luck.