Step Away From the Cake

I was just talking to someone about this the other night and I know I touched on it in a post the other day. But, as fate would have it, it was shoved in my face yet again today and I feel the need to expound upon it. Since switching to Paleo, one thing I have found is that I am no longer consumed with the thought of food. When I counted calories or points or whatever, it seems that food was all I ever thought about. I would literally be eating one meal and thinking about the next. I could not go very long without food because my blood sugar would crash and I would become a raging maniac. It was sad. Since starting Paleo, I've discovered a whole new way to eat. I no longer think of food constantly. I no longer need to have food at certain intervals or risk becoming Mr. Hyde, in fact I have forgotten to eat meals and lived to tell the tale. I don't worry about eating before a workout because, even if a little hungry, I know I have fuel for the workout and won't die. Also, b...

There are a number of events that have occurred over the last week or so that really make me feel like I am changing. A while back I connected with an ex-husband on Facebook. I have not spoken to or even heard from this guy in over 30 years. We reconnected and I thought it would be cool. Wrong. Turns out his mental age is about 20. He posts these ridiculously stupid things, many of which are very degrading to women. Now I do not mind a joke at female expense, but these are horrible. I had to block him so that I wouldn't see that stuff anymore. All I could think of was, really? You are 55-56 years old and these are the things you find funny? Also, he's very condescending towards me and Crossfit. He doesn't know me. He has no idea what I have done in the past 30 years and yet he thinks he can tell me that I shouldn't be doing Crossfit? Sorry, that is an attitude of I know what's good for you, typical chauvinistic male. Nope, don't need it. I am smarter than mos...

Just a week ago I thought that some things would be impossible in my near future. I'm beginning to think that is not true. I ran in a WOD this week, actually, I think I ran in two. My knee has not been bothering me at all. Even my shoulder is feeling a lot better. So time to change things up and set some goal. First, I want to run. I love to run, though I hate getting started at it. So running. I can easily run on Sundays and Thursday because those are my days off of Crossfit. But I need at least one more day of running. Maybe Tuesdays since that's poker night. Then I could run Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. It's a good place to start. So next week is the end of January. I think my goal for February will be to run three times every week. At the end of February I will reassess and see where I want to go from there. I also want to ride my bike. I miss riding it and I could ride it around town here. So this weekend I will get out my bike and all the accoutrements and pr...

When you start paleo, or any program where you are eating super clean and removing sugar and wheat, you have ups and down in energy levels. This is the part most people can't survive. There are headaches, exhaustion, cravings, and you generally feel like crap. I have been lucky this time and am avoiding most of those things. I have kind of stuck to paleo so the adjustment isn't as huge as it was the first time. I've gotten into the habit of not eating rice or starchy veggies, and I never went back to wheat. I would have it now and then but I never went back to eating it the way I did before. So I think this has helped me have an easier transition. The energy though is like it's on a roller coaster. On Tuesday I felt great. I PR'd my clean and jerk at Crossfit and I killed the WOD. Last night was like a moving through mud. I had no energy and the WOD was insanely killer. Today, eh, kind of bleh..... No Crossfit tonight, it's a rest day. So that's probably a ...

At the beginning of the year my goal was to just get healthy. Now, having found out that I'm not as broken as I thought, I want to make some new goals. I work better if I have goals. I work better with a focus and something to work towards. So I need some goals. My goals for this nutrition challenge is 25 lbs. and I've already lost 3 - not a bad way to start. But I want some other goals. I want to get a real pull up in this year with no bands. I want to be able to do 10 push ups with no bands. I want to work on getting really strong this year and killing it in the open next year. I want to be extremely athletic and strong and qualify for regionals at least. So I need some real, concrete goals to work towards this year. I'm going to work on that.

I am on day 6 of the 45 day paleo challenge. It is going well. Really, really well. The one thing I absolutely love about Paleo, is that if you follow it and don't cheat, you just don't get hungry. I talked about this the other day . I also don't get cravings. It is amazing how once you stop eating crap you stop craving it. The body knows what it is doing if you give it the right fuel. In spite of all that once in a while I want some treat. Sometimes grapes will do it. A common treat for me is plantains fried in coconut oil, OMG, so good. Yesterday as I was at Whole Foods looking for plantains, not everyone sells them, I found the above items. They are dates and unsweetened coconut. That is all. And they are heaven. Sweet, but naturally so, coconutty, which I love. Just awesome. The perfect small, quick treat. Not only are they completely awesome, I can make them. They are so easy to make it is not even funny. And good for you. Holy moly, don't even get me started. So ...

When you actually devote time to schoolwork and not just cram it in on the last day, it's actually a lot easier to do. Last weekend I had two papers due. I did not even start to look at them until Saturday. They were pretty lengthy papers and one of them, I had no idea how to do. Of course starting them on Saturday left me no time to ask the instructor. So I struggled and struggled and struggled and finally ended up turning something in that was garbage. With a vow that I was not going to do that again, I worked on my assignments a couple of times during the week. I spent a few evenings working on things, reading, looking them over, just to have it in my mind what I needed to do. I sat down to do the one paper that's due and I finished it within an hour. That is awesome. By looking at it during the week and playing around with it, when I sat down to write I pretty much knew what I was going to write. Awesome sauce. That sure takes the stress out of writing a paper. I have to r...