Whole30-Day4

Today started out a little on the rough side. I dared to put spinach in the scrambler this morning instead of the green peppers (which, mind you, the kids complained about the peppers as well), and the kids complained and whined about the spinach. Mary even went as far to barely eat any breakfast because of it.

Oh well. It is bound to happen many more times over the next 26 days. My kids don't eat enough veggies and that's part of why I wanted them to be involved in this. I'm hoping that their taste buds will change a little over the course of 30 days and they will start to like more veggies. Only time will tell.

Breakfast

So every (or almost every) Friday morning I go to breakfast with my neighbor and then we go do our grocery shopping. We started doing this some time last year and it works well for us. Anyway, so we went to breakfast this morning and I stayed as compliant as possible. I asked for them to make my eggs with no butter and got items that I thought wouldn't have added sugar. I did get Cajun sausage in my scrambler so that would be the only thing that maybe had a little sugar in it. I'm not too concerned though.

A yummy breakfast scrambler with spinach, onions, and Cajun sausage with a side of fresh fruit.

Lunch
This breakfast was actually really good at keeping me full. I ate breakfast around 8:30 and didn't eat lunch until about 1:30. I decided I was just going to have some of the chicken salad I made yesterday on top of some greens (romaine lettuce and spinach). It was quite yummy and filling (yes, it was a big salad).

One of the things I actually enjoy about this program is the fact that you don't need to count calories or anything like that. However, they do give you a meal template that you are supposed to follow. So, for each meal you should have 1-2 servings of protein (a serving is the size of your palm) and then fill the rest of your plate with vegetables. They go on to say that you need some healthy fat with each meal as well, 1-2 thumb size portions. So, the chicken salad has the protein, the mayo has the fat and the salad is obviously the veggie. In case you were wondering how I decide how much I should eat.

Dinner

Yum. Wings, green beans and sugar snap peas.

Once again dinner was a huge success! Well, not all the way around. The kids still complain about the veggies (it IS only day 4). But, the main dish was a hit! I made Paleo Glazed Chicken Wings from this website. They were so yummy and filled the house with a wonderful aroma while they cooked. I started the kids each out with 3 wings and Robbie finished his before I could even sit down. He ended up having 9 wings! After he finished the first 3 he said "these are better than bdubs!" (as in Buffalo Wild Wings). Mary ended up having 5. The problem is still the veggies. Robbie ate some of his green beans and then had some raw carrots instead because he didn't like the green beans.

The Lowdown
Today was a good day. I didn't snack at all (although I may have some walnuts and/or fruit tonight after I post this). I did get another headache today but I'm not sure if that's from the food or the weather. I was also tired. But, again, that's because I continue to have a hard time sleeping. This wonderful sleep that they talk about really needs to kick in soon! I was a little worried about today because according to that pesky timeline, days 4 & 5 are "Kill ALL the things"! I actually felt like I had more patience today than other days. Robbie seemed a little more on edge last night than usual so perhaps that was his kill all the things moment. Today has really seemed fine though in our household. We'll see what tomorrow brings! (besides soccer and volleyball)!

Whole30 - Day 3

I did not sleep well last night at all. Not sure what that was about. But, as a result, I did not wake up easily. Hopefully this awesome sleep that they talk about will come sooner rather than later. However, I had no headache today so that's a good thing.

One thing that I did want to discuss falls under the TMI category. However, one of the main reasons I'm doing this is to help my Crohn's disease so these topics are bound to come up. I was super excited yesterday because I did not wake up and immediately need to use the bathroom (and I'm not talking pee). I actually didn't end up using the bathroom in that regard until after lunch. This, my friends, is a pretty big deal. However, today, I find that every time I use the bathroom it's not just loose, but basically water. Hmmmm...potentially not good. But, I don't have any severe stomach cramps or anything like that that usually goes with Crohn's so I'm chalking it up to my body adjusting to all this lovely fiber that I'm ingesting that I don't usually have. I think my body  just needs to figure out how to process it. So, I'm going to keep an eye on that and see what happens.

Other than that, I honestly am not feeling any different yet. It is only day 3 so I didn't really expect any dramatic changes quite yet.

Breakfast
Again, same breakfast as yesterday. This morning I only made 6 eggs because yesterday both kids and Drew threw away a little of theirs. However, this morning both kids were complaining of still being hungry and Mary requested more eggs.

Lunch
The kids had the same lunch - 4 deviled eggs, veggies and fruit. I packed my husband a salad with chicken and pecans and forgot to pack his dressing! Ugh! I ate leftovers from the last 2 days. I had meatballs and asparagus.

I spent a good part of today doing some more food prep. I made some chicken salad for lunch over the weekend, made some more homemade mayo, cut up some more carrots, prepped the mashed cauliflower for dinner tonight and washed dishes. One of the things about this diet is there is a lot of dish washing! I told my husband tonight that I think I've done the dishes 4 times today. I took a picture of what my mayo looks like for anyone that might be interested.

Today was a good batch too. Nice and creamy....yum!

Dinner
Tonight's dinner was pork loin roast with mashed cauliflower and green beans  (which were tossed with ghee). The kids weren't crazy about the mashed cauliflower. I thought it was OK. It was very creamy, but there was something I didn't love....maybe the texture, maybe the taste, I'm not sure.

The Lowdown
I'm pretty happy with today overall. I did snack on some walnuts today and those are on the "limit" list, but overall I think I'm doing a good job so far. For some reason I feel like I'm having a hard time planning meals much more than 1 or 2 days in advance. It's really not a huge deal because I don't work so I can go to the store as needed, but I imagine that will get old as well. It's kind of funny because I like planning so I'm not sure why I'm having a mental block with planning the meals for next week. I'll get them planned though and it'll all work out. Perhaps next week I'll start to reintroduce some activity as well. But for now I'm just focusing on the food.

Until tomorrow........

Whole30-Day 2

Well, we made it to day 2! I woke up this morning with a slight headache. Yup. That's about right. According to that "Whole30 Timeline" I was talking about yesterday; days 2-3 is "the hangover". It's your body processing all the junk that you have consumed prior to doing this and getting it all out of its' system. Fun stuff! The headache hasn't been  horrible. My husband said he had a headache as well.

When the kids came home from school I asked how they were feeling today and if they had a headache at all. Robbie said he did, but it wasn't anything bad enough for him to tell me about it until I asked. :)

Today felt relatively "easy" again. I did get hungry this afternoon and even with a snack was hungry by dinner.

And on to today's meals:

Breakfast
Today was a very similar breakfast to yesterday - and will be for the rest of the week. We made a decision to make breakfasts and lunches the same (at least for the kids and hubby who have to have packed lunches) for a week at a time to help make my life a little easier!

So for my family for 4 (kids are 10 and 7), I made 7 eggs, 4 chicken breakfast sausages, 1 small zucchini, probably the equivalent of a small onion (I had already diced it and just poured it in the skillet) and maybe a quarter of a green pepper (again, this was already diced with the onion and there wasn't a lot of it in there). I sauteed the vegetables and sausage in some olive oil and added seasonings (garlic powder, basil, oregano, salt and pepper). Then I added the eggs and made a yummy scrambler. Super easy and even pretty quick even with having to cut the veggies (today I cut the zucchini and sausage as I was making it). I don't divvy it up evenly (obviously) since the kids are little and don't eat nearly as much as we do. But this seemed to be a perfect amount for us. The kids ate almost all of their servings with only a little left on their plates.

Lunch

And no, I did not eat the bread that's in the pic!

I ended up having my lunch a little early today because I wanted to meet a friend for lunch. I was heading out to Whole Foods and she works right near there so it was a perfect excuse! We went to Tommaydo, Tommahdo and I just got the Tom Tom Cobb salad with no cheese. I brought my own olive oil and vinegar in case they didn't have any.

My husband just ate leftover meatballs and some carrots and sugar snap peas for lunch. The kids had the same lunch as yesterday but we just made some minor tweaks. They each had 4 deviled eggs, veggies and fruit. Robbie decided that he didn't want anything to dip his veggies in and Mary took the cashew butter she didn't finish yesterday.

Snack

I had the same snack as yesterday so I don't think there's a need for a picture. I do not think that my husband had a snack at all. Mary had a deviled egg and Robbie had an apple for a snack. I told them we were having an early dinner tonight so they didn't need a bigger snack. 

Dinner

Dinner was slightly hectic, but that had nothing to do with the whole30. It would have been  hectic no matter what we were eating....perhaps just a bit easier if we would have done fast food! (but a heck of a lot more expensive and way less healthy). Dinner was a team effort tonight. I prepped the asparagus and got the steaks ready to grill. I then took Mary to her meeting at school at 4:30 regarding the end of the year talent show. While I was there Drew grilled the steaks and cooked the veggies. By the time Mary and I got home we were able to sit down to dinner before Robbie's soccer practice at 6 and Mary's volleyball at 6:30! Whew! But, we did it. And it was yummy!

Delmonico steak with green beans and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. OMG, the asparagus was awesome! I made 3 steaks, one for each of the adults and one to split between the kids. Robbie ate his share and took some of mine and Drew's! Robbie also complained about the green beans and asparagus yet not a single one was left on his plate! I love that. I hate that he complains, but I love that he scarfs it down to get it over with (which is what he explained to me today).

The Lowdown
Day 2 wasn't bad at all. I need to figure out a lunch that will actually hold me until dinner. But, I also think that my body has to get used to eating less food in general. My brain might be telling me I'm hungry because it's so used to eating more when I don't really need it. It's gotta take time to rebuild that communication between body and brain. And, even though the point of this is not weight loss,  that is a big part of it for me so I don't want to eat too much. A work in progress though. It is only day 2 so I imagine it'll get easier to determine what serving sizes I need to sustain me.

On to day 3!

What IS the WHOLE30??

I realize that I didn't go in to any detail about what exactly the whole30 is. I thought I'd take a minute to give you a quick rundown of the program in case you're interested and haven't looked into it at all. Of course I do recommend just heading over to the whole30 website and read about it all over there.

I have to laugh that I said "quick rundown"....nothing I do is quick! :)

So whole30 is a program designed to "reset" your system and help you determine what food groups have an effect on your body. I can't stress enough how awesome the book, "It Starts With Food" is. This book goes into so much detail and covers all the science behind what happens in your brain and body when you ingest certain things. It explains it in a way that even I could understand and although I may not be able to recite it to you, it made sense to me while I read it. So the program says to completely eliminate certain food groups that can potentially be having a negative impact on your life. Here are the rules of the program according to the website and the book:

Yes: Eat real food.Eat meat, seafood, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats from fruits, oils, nuts and seeds. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed. Don’t worry… these guidelines are outlined in extensive detail in our free shopping list.
No: Avoid for 30 days.More importantly, here’s what NOT to eat during the duration of your Whole30 program. Omitting all of these foods and beverages will help you regain your healthy metabolism, reduce systemic inflammation, and help you discover how these foods are truly impacting your health, fitness and quality of life.

• Do not consume added sugar of any kind, real or artificial. No maple syrup, honey, agave nectar, coconut sugar, Splenda, Equal, Nutrasweet, xylitol, stevia, etc. Read your labels, because companies sneak sugar into products in ways you might not recognize.

• Do not consume alcohol in any form, not even for cooking. (And it should go without saying, but no tobacco products of any sort, either.)

• Do not eat grains. This includes (but is not limited to) wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, rice, millet, bulgur, sorghum, amaranth, buckwheat, sprouted grains and all of those gluten-free pseudo-grains like quinoa. This also includes all the ways we add wheat, corn and rice into our foods in the form of bran, germ, starch and so on. Again, read your labels.

• Do not eat legumes. This includes beans of all kinds (black, red, pinto, navy, white, kidney, lima, fava, etc.), peas, chickpeas, lentils, and peanuts. No peanut butter, either. This also includes all forms of soy – soy sauce, miso, tofu, tempeh, edamame, and all the ways we sneak soy into foods (like lecithin).

• Do not eat dairy. This includes cow, goat or sheep’s milk products such as cream, cheese (hard or soft), kefir, yogurt (even Greek), and sour cream… with the exception of clarified butter or ghee. (See below for details.)

• Do not eat white potatoes. This is somewhat arbitrary, but if we are trying to change your habits (chips and fries) and improve the hormonal impact of your food choices, it’s best to leave white, red, purple, Yukon gold, and fingerling potatoes off your plate.

• Do not consume carrageenan, MSG or sulfites. If these ingredients appear in any form on the label of your processed food or beverage, it’s out for the Whole30.

• No Paleo-ifying baked goods, desserts, or junk foods. Trying to shove your old, unhealthy diet into a shiny new Whole30 mold will ruin your program faster than you can say “Paleo Pop-Tarts.” This means no desserts or junk food made with “approved” ingredients—no banana-egg pancakes, almond-flour muffins, flourless brownies, or coconut milk ice cream. Don’t try to replicate junk food during your 30 days! That misses the point of the Whole30 entirely.

One last and final rule: You are not allowed to step on the scale or take any body measurements for the duration of the program. This is about so much more than just weight loss, and to focus on your body composition means you’ll miss out on the most dramatic and lifelong benefits this plan has to offer. So, no weighing yourself, analyzing body fat or taking comparative measurements during your Whole30. (We do encourage you to weigh yourself before and after, however, so you can see one of the more tangible results of your efforts when your program is over.)
- See more at: http://www.whole30.com/whole30-program-rules/#sthash.B71U9pTH.dpuf

So that's it in a nutshell.

Challenging? Yes.
Impossible? Not at all.

The book goes in to a lot of detail about how eating certain processed, less than healthy foods has interrupted the communication between your brain and your body. Interestingly, the chiropractor that I went to see was saying the same type of thing. He was saying that there is no reason to count calories when you're eating real food because your body knows how much it needs. And, when you eat whole, real, food you get the nutrients you need so your body tells your brain when it has had enough. When you're eating crap (like really bad stuff - fast food, processed food, etc), you may be eating lots and lots of calories, but since your body isn't getting the nutrients it needs it keeps sending signals to the brain that it needs more food. And, because you just get the message of more food, you eat more crappy food. Hence the idea of "empty calories".

A couple of the things I really like about the program are 1) they even say in the book that they don't expect people to be whole365. Meaning, they don't think anyone is going to eliminate all of these things for a lifestyle change. They do say that these 30 days will "change your life" and change the way you see food, etc. I'm hoping that it will help with my unhealthy relationship with food. I'm thinking it may not change for me in 30 days, but I'm also willing and prepared to do more than one whole30 to eventually get to where I want to be. My hope is then I will follow a less strict, whole foods diet. Only time will tell.... 2) The program is actually NOT about losing weight. They (and when I say "they" I mean Dallas and Melissa Hartwig who wrote the book and came up with the program) say they don't really care if we lose weight. As you can see above, one of the rules is to not get on a scale for the full 30 days. But they do recommend before and after pictures so you can see the difference. The program is supposed to focus on resetting your body and therefore if you need to lose weight you will lose, if you need to gain you will gain and if you don't need either you'll maintain. We're testing this in our household. My husband and I both need to lose weight (me, more than him) and our children absolutely do not need to lose weight. We all got on the scale on day 0 (actually I think Robbie may not have) and we will weigh in again on day 31.

So there you have it. That's what we're doing. If nothing else, it should be an interesting 30 days!

My Whole30 Journey - Day 1

Here it is...Day 1 of my Whole30 challenge. But first, I feel like I need to put a disclaimer in here. So here it goes:

Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with Whole9 (the company who came up with Whole30). When I claim that something is "Whole30 compliant" it is because I have read the book, "It Starts With Food", and believe from what I read that I know what I'm doing. However, I could always be wrong so please check it out for yourself if you plan to complete your own Whole30. This is my account of my personal Whole30 journey.

OK. Now that we got that out of the way.....

According to the whole30 website, the first day is the "So what's the big deal?" day. They basically say that during the first day you're feeling empowered by making good choices and are wondering why anyone would say this is hard. The next part cracks me up. It goes on to say, 

"This delusion is somewhat akin to the first episode of any given reality show on which the contestants are herded together and forced to live in one house." - (See more here)

So, just as they predicted; I'm feeling pretty good today. Here's what today looked like:

Breakfast 
Today's breakfast may not have been 100% compliant because I actually went out to breakfast. But, I tried my best. I got a scramble that had 2 eggs, ham, onions and green pepper. Instead of the toast and home fries that came with it, I got fruit. The ham most likely had added sugar and they may have cooked the eggs in butter. But, it's day 1 and I actually think I'll do this for longer than 30 days so I'm not stressing about it.

The kids and my husband had a scrambler that I made with eggs, onions, green peppers and chicken sausage. Now, I will say that I don't think the chicken sausage is actually compliant but we used it last time and my husband still had really good results so I think I'm not going to worry about it. It has less than 2% of sugar - the sugar would make it non compliant, but I made the choice that for us it is close enough.

Lunch
Breakfast actually kept me satisfied for about 3 to 3.5 hours. Which actually tells me that I should have a bigger breakfast. According to the book, you should eat 3 meals a day and avoid snacks. Your meals are supposed to be satisfying enough to last 4-5 hours. But, it is definitely a learning process so they say it's OK to snack if necessary.

Lunch was canned tuna (this is the tuna I used and it is SO good, but pricey) mixed with homemade mayo (this recipe is amazing and really so easy) and put on top of some lettuce. I then had carrots and sugar snap peas with homemade ranch dressing and grapes.

I did not love the ranch dressing. The recipe used the homemade mayo as a base, but added coconut milk (and other seasonings) to it so it has an obvious coconut flavor. I'm not a huge coconut fan so I didn't care for it. If you like coconut, you would probably love it! Mary (who doesn't like store bought ranch at all) said it was WAY better than store bought, but still just OK. I plan to try another ranch recipe that basically just uses the mayo and then adds seasonings to it to make it "ranch". I think I might like that better. I'll let you know! :)

I packed my husband's lunch to take to work this morning. He had a salad with chicken, pecans and oil/vinegar to dress it. I gave him some raw veggies with cashew butter as well. The kids helped me pack their lunches and were so excited (we'll see how long this lasts). They each had 3 deviled eggs (made with the homemade mayo), carrots and/or sugar snap peas (Mary had both, Robbie only had carrots), ranch (Robbie) or cashew butter (Mary) and grapes. Perhaps tomorrow I'll try to take a picture of their lunch.

Mary came home from school saying that she needs 4 deviled eggs tomorrow. However, it turns out that she only ate 2 little carrot sticks, 2 sugar snap peas and didn't finish her grapes. I knew the transition to eating lots of veggies would be a tough one for her. Robbie also said he needs 4 deviled eggs, but he ate all of his veggies (he also didn't like the ranch, but just ate the veggies plain) and all of his grapes. So I'll tweak their lunches tomorrow.

Snack
I did get hungry between lunch and dinner so I cut up an apple and had it with some cashew butter (in my Scooby Doo bowl).

The kids are very used to having a snack when they get off the bus. They were also hungry today since we're learning how much we really need to eat to keep us satisfied between meals. Robbie ate an apple and then tried a larabar and ended up only eating half. Mary tried the larabar and didn't like it, she had an apple and a deviled egg since she was still hungry.

Dinner
I found a recipe for meatballs and was eager to try it knowing that there's no way it could compete with my mom's meatballs! I also made spaghetti squash for the first time for a meatballs and spaghetti dinner. The consensus of dinner was YUMMO! The kids and the husband all had 5 meatballs (I had 4). The kids were not crazy about the squash (and to be completely honest neither am I), but they ate it. They made sure to take each bite of meatball with squash on it. There were no complaints of being hungry between dinner and bed (and dinner was early - before 5:30). But the kids don't usually eat after dinner so this isn't a huge adjustment.

The Lowdown of Day 1
All in all we had a very successful day 1. Mary told me that it was her friends birthday at school and doughnuts were brought in and she didn't even have one! She also said that all of her friends had Easter candy in their lunches and were teasing her (jealous, Mary?!?!) and she was still compliant! I LOVE it!

The biggest hurdle today was what to drink at dinner. The kids wanted something other than water, but there really isn't much you can drink during the whole30. I would like to try flavoring water with some fruits, but I just haven't done it yet. I also think I ate a little more fruit than they recommend (and I know the kids did, but I don't care about that). They recommend something like 1-2 servings of fruit a day and I think I had about 3 - so really not bad.

It's a good thing that day 1 was such a success because looking at the timeline, things are going to get a little rocky from  here until about day 16!

A Tough Choice

Well, I guess I lied! My last post (WAY back in January) talked about how I thought my new approach to eating and exercising was working. Yea, we all know how this goes with me. It didn't last long. I probably jinxed it right after I wrote the blog post.

I suppose the good news is that I "only" weigh 3 pounds more than I did on January 6th. This is actually a very big deal and I'm going to be quite happy about that...considering. Clearly, I have struggled with getting back on track. Considering how off track I've been, I'm amazed and happy that I've only done 3 more pounds worth of damage. And it ends NOW!

Back in March I decided to meet with a chiropractor who apparently does a lot with nutrition and how food affects your overall health (including things like Crohn's disease). I have always been hesitant about any "holistic" medicine. I don't necessarily have a good reason for being hesitant about it other than;  it could be expensive since insurance won't pay for it, and then what if it doesn't work anyway.

My mom said that when she was talking to this doctor about me he was so excited to work with me because working with "cases" like me are his passion. I was impressed when I met with him and he spent an hour and twenty minutes talking to me. He said that he believes he can help me if I'm willing to do what is necessary. He went through all the science behind what happens to your body when you eat certain foods like refined carbohydrates and other processed food. He basically told me that he thinks he could help me, but only if I'm willing to do what is necessary. He said that we could take baby steps, but that I would likely have to give up certain things (like refined carbs and processed foods).

I don't know if I blogged about it at all (I don't think I did), but back in August 2013, my husband and I tried the Whole30. He did it for almost the entire 30 days, but I wasn't able to last because I was too sick to eat anything, let alone a bunch of veggies and meat. I was also overly stressed because of how sick I was feeling and just couldn't deal with it. However, my husband had wonderful results. He would have kept going, but I stopped cooking for him after his doctor's appointment. In just 24 days he lost 17lbs (and losing that weight probably put him within 10lbs of his goal weight) and all of his numbers (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc) were within normal range.

So, the tough choice was to embark on another Whole30 journey. Starting tomorrow, my entire family is going to start a Whole30 challenge. I plan to blog my experience daily so anyone who is interested can read and learn more about it. This way of eating tends to be a little controversial because you're eliminating basically everything but lean proteins (meat, seafood, chicken, turkey, etc), veggies, fruit, healthy fats (olive oil, avocado's, coconut oil, etc) and nuts and seeds. I am sure it will be challenging, but we are actually all looking forward to it. The website has a lot of great information and even gives a timeline of things you can expect to experience while your body goes through withdrawal of things like sugar.

The hope is that through this I'll re-start my journey to a healthier me and work on everything from my Crohn's disease to my weight problems to my unhealthy relationship with food. Wish me luck!

It might be working....

One of the things I did want to do this year was to blog more. As you can see, I haven't really succeeded in that endeavor. I can't seem to get past the feeling that no one wants to read my ramblings. But, I suppose if they don't want to, they don't have to and I can just write for myself...and anyone who does want to read about my journey of life!

So I left you in December bidding farewell to 2013 and welcoming 2014 with open arms. I set some pretty specific and small (but important) goals for 2014.

My first goal was to work on being accountable, but not too hard on myself and the second goal was to lose 50lbs between Jan 1st and Dec. 31st. Well, I didn't really "start" until Jan. 6th. And I decided that as long as the scale is moving down each week I will be happy. I also decided to track my food and it will be what it is; there will be some days that I eat within my calorie range and they'll be days I go over it.

It's only been a little over 3 weeks, but I almost think this might be working. This might be the trick for me to not get totally crazy about losing weight. The first week wasn't great. I tracked my food and stayed within my calorie range for about 3 days. But, I weighed myself the next week and was down .8lbs. It was what it was. I honestly felt pretty indifferent about it. I was happy that the number was down and was determined to just keep going. I recorded my weight and moved on. I was hoping to have a better week than the previous one, but I wasn't stressing myself about it.

Week 2 starts and again I do well for about 3.5 days. My hubby found out on Thursday that he passed a big test he had taken in December so we went out to dinner to celebrate. I thought about staying within my calorie range, but decided that I really wanted the steak and loaded baked potato that I usually get at Longhorn so I made the conscious decision and, again, was fine with it. I didn't really track the rest of the week, but when Monday rolled around I still weighed in and recorded my weight (gain or loss) for the week. I was down .6lbs this time. Again, I did not let this bother me (amazing!) and just kept trucking along. I was happy that the scale was down and not up and decided that I would simply continue to try to do better.

Last week was week 3. This time I tracked all 7 days. I stayed within my calorie range 4 days and went over by about 200 calories each day for 3 days (the weekend...ugh). But what is so great about this is that from that first week up until last week, the way I have FELT hasn't really changed. It is what it is and I'm OK with that. When I got on the scale on Monday I was down 3.4lbs, for a total of 4.8lbs in 3 weeks. I would usually be overly excited about the 3.4lb loss, especially on a week that I went over my calories for 3 days; BUT, I was pretty indifferent. Happy? Yes. Overly excited? No. Over analyzing about how many calories my body must actually need or can handle and still lose weight?? Nope. Just re-started a new week with the same thoughts as the previous 3 - keep going. Track my food, try my best to stay within my calories and move on.

The other goal was to exercise at least 3 days a week. I'm killing this goal! Again, nothing really started until January 6th, but since then I've exercised 16 days. That amounts to 4 days the first and second weeks, 6 days last week and already 2 for 2 this week! The exercising is coming so easily because I'm putting no pressure on myself. Last week I just kept getting on the treadmill or my bike trainer every day because I decided I could burn some calories while watching an episode of Lost on Netflix instead of just sitting on my butt watching it. I even did my first brick workout of the year! I rode on my bike trainer for 30 minutes and then decided to walk on the treadmill for another 30 minutes.

I DO find myself getting a little insane about how many calories I'm burning. There are SO many different calorie burning calculators out there that it's impossible to know what's "right". However, I try to stop myself from over analyzing and I choose a number in between that I think seems "reasonable". I must not be too far off since I AM losing some weight. However, it does tempt me to indulge in something like the Fitbit Flex so "I'll know", but then I realize that it's just another thing and if I don't like the number that gives me perhaps I'll question it too.

Now come on, you didn't really think I could change THAT much in 3 weeks, did you?? But, the good news is that I'm not (yet) totally driving myself crazy over this weight loss. I'm tracking, eating mostly good but still what I want and exercising almost daily.

And the best news of all?? My Crohn's continues to stay at bay. I feel really good and am hopeful it will only continue to get better as I lose this weight and regain my fitness!