I mentioned in my last post that I've been following an eating plan called Trim Healthy Mama, which I'm not the poster child for at all, but it has really helped me lose some overall weight and tummy bloat! I started it last summer and its really the only "diet" that I've stuck with for this long! I don't follow it 100% of the time but try to stay on plan Monday - Friday which means all of our dinners are structured around their eating plan.

Sometimes I need a little variety in our dinners so go searching on pinterest for something that's compliant with THM and recently I found a good one!

We love sweet potatoes here. Mark still loads his up with butter and brown sugar (the way I used to eat them too!) but since THM I've been eating with a small bit of olive and salt and shredded chicken. I still love it, but when I saw this recipe I was definitely willing to try a new way to eat a Sweet Potato.

Soooo....

 I got back on the Whole30 train after my cheat day the Sunday that ended my 3rd week.

And I stayed on it for 5 days.

And then I decided that I was done. We had a lot planned for this weekend including a baby shower lunch with my coworkers to celebrate a baby-to-be, a girls night shopping trip to cheer up my sis and a birthday party for Mark's little cousin who was our flower girl in our wedding. Could I have gone to all of those things and stayed compliant? Yea, probably. But I thought it over and in the end decided I was okay with being done just 4 days short of the goal.

I completed 26 days of the Whole30 and I lost 5 pounds throughout the process.

I'm sort of disappointed that I only lost 5 pounds. Granted, I had a cheat day, but for the other 25 days I was hardcore not eating sugar or any processed foods. AND working out 5 days a week. So yea, I was hoping to drop more than 5 pounds. Especially since most of that was lost the first week and was probably water/bloat weight. BUT weight loss wasn't the only goal (albeit a big one), it was really about restarting my eating habits to continue working towards a fit and healthy life and help me reach my goal of finishing the upcoming 1/2 Marathon with a new personal record.

Here's what I learned while Whole30ing it up in the Month of January...

Self denial is a good thing. We all have innate selfishness that makes us want what we want when we want it. Self denial is the cure. Or maybe more like a step in the right direction. Being aware of what you want, having the ability to have it, but still saying no is hard. But hard is not the same thing as bad.

Eating healthy is expensive - I spent $600 dollars in groceries alone this past month!!! YIKES! I did cut waaaaayyy back on our eating out expenses as I didn't have fast food at all (until my cheat day) and even going to a restaurant wasn't appealing since I knew I'd be restricted so we always opted to come home and make a meal. So while $600 was truly way too much for groceries, it was rewarding to know we were eating at home more.

Read labels - even things that say natural and organic can be total frauds. There are better options and sometimes they aren't even the more or most expensive options. You just have to watch out for those crazy ingredients.

I need more food education - having limited options made me want to take the time to find out what foods were considered healthy fats, what food would fuel my long runs and how much protein I should eat to stay full. Nutrition is an interesting thing and its amazing the way our body needs different types of foods for optimal energy and performance.

Planning ahead is crucial! You know those snack attack urges where you just want to grab some chips out of the pantry? Or those busy days where you've been running around so you just throw a frozen pizza in the oven for dinner? Not an option on the Whole30! I had to sit and plan out each meal for the week, thaw out the meat needed for dinner the night before and pre-package fruits and veggies for quick snacks during the day. I'm not the best at that, but I got better. Having something already planned cuts back on those urges to order take out on busy nights as well. Mark and I love Chinese food. ;)

I use food as comfort - as previously disclosed I did have a cheat day when the stress got overwhelming, but it was an eye opener. I craved something to make me feel happy and content. The other 25 days I had to find it in other things besides food like my husband, my sweet girl, journaling, and reading.

I eat as a habit - every time I walk in to the kitchen I want to grab something to eat, even if I'm not hungry! Just because it's there, doesn't mean I need to eat it. Especially at night before bed!

Trying new recipes is fun! Mark and I found this baked chicken thigh recipe that gets the skin deliciously crispy and the meat so moist. I definitely had a few fails, but failing is learning, yea?

Food affects your skin - I've been lamenting over the last year or so that the dark circles and bags under my eyes are worsening. I can get very upset about this if I'm in a particularly vain mood and I picture myself in ten years with sagging, drooping skin pockets under my eyeballs. But I actually noticed a big difference in the way they looked this month! I wasn't even thinking about the benefits my skin could see! I don't know if its the sugar or the dairy or what, but it definitely motivates me to be more conscious of what I'm eating.

Sugar is an addiction - on a spiritual note, I realized I am way too judge-mental towards those who can't break a serious addiction like smoking or alcohol. I struggled to give up sugar for 26 days - just SUGAR, and the day after I decided the fast was over, I had ice cream. Just like an addict who is sober for a few weeks but goes right back to whatever his vice is even though he was doing so well without it. This whole experience has changed the way I look at people that I see smoking. (I'm just using that as an example because I admit, I hate smelling the cigarette smoke). Whenever I go out for a run early in the morning, there is always a lady who sits out on her front porch and smoke a cigarette. On Saturday it was 39 degrees out while I was running and sure enough, there she was all bundled up and sitting on her little bench with a cigarette. I'm a little ashamed to admit, but after 2-3 years of seeing this lady off an on when I go running, I prayed for her for the first time. A prayer that she would allow God to loose the chains of her addiction. Not that I know now what its like to be addicted, I'm not trying to make that claim, but I think a log has been removed from my eye.


So there you have it. 10 main things I learned. My overall Whole30 Whole26 experience was challenging, expensive and despite only losing 5 pounds, it really was rewarding.

I do feel motivated to eat healthy through out the week, I'm still staying away from soda at least until after my 1/2 marathon, and I'm settling into a nice pattern of working out during the week. After 4 weeks of consistent exercising I am starting to see more definition in my legs and arms and that is motivating me to continue!

I think doing a cleanse or restricting yourself to a "clean" diet for a specific amount of time is beneficial as it helps refocus your mind and body. You have to be careful not to binge after coming off of something like this and look at it as kickstart to healthier eating overall. There's no way I could stick to the Whole30 every day of my life - but it's helped me take a step back, shake out some of the junk that my body was craving and say going forward we're going to allow some not so good stuff back in but only in moderation. Eventually I would like to get to the point where we're eating clean 75-80% of the time and allowing the other 20-25% to be room for convenience and treats. Healthy living is a lifelong process and I think you need to give yourself grace but also give yourself goals. I don't want to look back at my life and remember how I was always on a dieting/binging cycle trying to achieve unrealistic goals, but I also want to look back and know that I didn't waste a perfectly healthy body by feeding it junk and not taking care of it.



What about you? Have you stuck to your New Years goals of getting healthier? What have you learned along the way? 

Week 2 came and went and I'm still pressing on. There were a few days this week where I was extremely aware of all of the things I'm choosing not to eat right now... Like on Friday night when my grandma was in town and we all went shopping and out to dinner. *sigh* I ended up having a salad at Panera with just some lemon juice squeezed on it. Surprisingly, it didn't taste bad with just the lemon juice so I'm tucking that little trick in the back of my mind. But I may have been drooling a bit watching everyone else eat their baguettes and scrumptious soups and sandwiches! I will always love bread. The end.

I only lost 1/2 a pound this week too! I weighed in at the end of the second week at 148. That was a bit discouraging. But they say on their website that the second week you might feel some bloating and other intestinal discomforts due to your gut healing... so if your jeans are feeling tighter not to be discouraged! Here's hoping Week 3 I start seeing a bit more magic.

I worked out 5 of 7 days this week too! Yay me! I did P90x workouts 3 days and then went on 2 runs, including a 7 miler at the end of the week. I ate a Lara Bar before my run and I felt much better this week than last. I'll test it out again this weekend for another long run.

Here are some of my favorite meals from the week:




So that was week 2! I'm already 2 days into a week 3 and doing okay. Pretty excited that after this week I can start a count down to the finish line!!

I made it through my first week of this Whole30 thing! It wasn't too bad, but then, I've done a week of clean eating before so I was never too worried about the first week, its the 3 weeks thereafter that concerns me. Haha But I'm feeling good and committed to finishing this so I'm just taking it one week at a time and not thinking about how many more days I have left. (*cough*23*cough*)

My family even came over to watch the Redskins lose the playoff game and Mark made everyone homemade pizza and I even whipped up some brownies for them and didn't have a bite of any of it! I just ate a sweet potato. Talk about self control.



At the close of the first week I weighed 148.5 - 4 pounds down! I can already tell a difference in the way my jeans are fitting and my stomach feels a bit flatter. Technically I'm not supposed to be weighing myself because this Whole30 thing isn't about weight loss as much as it is changing your eating habits, but lets me honest...Weight loss is good motivation! So I'm keeping track! I've also been being super consistent with a workout routine. I did 3 p90x workouts and ended the week with a 6 mile run on Saturday. Which is also the official kick off of my 2016 Shamrock 1/2 Marathon training.

The first couple of days I got a bad headache in the evenings, not sure if I just wasn't drinking enough water or if it was a side affect of not having any caffeine, but those have faded away now! I've had pretty good energy over all, my only other issue has been feeling a little blah during my run. I've got to find some good whole foods to fuel my body for long runs because I'm totally used to having a few slices of pizza the night before a run to "Carb load."

Here were some of my favorite meals of the week:




We also had taco salad, spaghetti squash and baked chicken for dinner that I forgot to take pictures of.

I already have my menu planned for this week and did my grocery shopping this morning to replenish the produce drawers in my fridge. Hoping for another solid week!

Day 2 is complete! 

I've been playing around with the idea of doing a Whole 30 for a few months now but haven't committed to doing it because 1.) it would be super hard and I'm not sure if I have that much determination and self control and 2.) my anti-veggie/fruit eating husband would definitely not be on board to do it with me so it would be extra hard to do it by myself and have to make different dinners and I'm not sure I have that much determination and self control!

Over Labor Day weekend when we were with family, we were talking about clean eating with my Aunt Beth who had just finished a Whole 30. I started thinking more seriously about doing it and asked if anyone wanted to do it with me. My mom and sister are both dealing with health issues that we think clean eating could help with and well, theres always the desire to shed a few pounds right? I was ready to commit but 30 days seemed daunting. Thats when we read over on M is for Mama that she was doing a 14 Day Clean Eating Challenge! 14 days seemed a lot more reasonable to us, so we decided to go with that! Ha.

My aunt had a great idea to create a facebook page for our challenge so I invited my aunts and female cousins around the country - Virginia, Massachusetts, Alabama, Texas, California and Oregon - to participate! The facebook page has already made it fun! We've talked about recipes, grocery shopping and today posted pictures of our last minute sugary indulgences before starting our clean eating tomorrow!


We are starting tomorrow, the 14th, and will end on Sunday the 27th.

Our rules are the same as M is for Mama -

• No processed food (no canned soup, no fast food, no chips, no pre-made salad dressings, etc.)
• No sugar
• No dairy/limited dairy 
• No simple carbs (basically a reiteration of no sugar)
• No bread/tortillas/pasta/oats (with the exception of steel-cut oats) 
• Nothing to drink but water

Okay guys, I wasn't sure if I was going to share this one here or not because I'll admit that every once in a while I like to jump on some crazy "cleanse" or "detox" band wagon and try to lose some weight and feel like I'm getting all of the yuckiness out of my body...Unfortunately it doesn't usually work and I never really feel any different. But this time I have sort of a different goal in mind so I figured I'd give myself some accountability for sticking with this thing. I just started Day 1 of the 21 Day Sugar Detox.

Yes it is called the a sugar "detox" and yes I would love to lose a little poundage in the process, but after I read up on it I realized its probably something I should be doing anyways! It basically has you avoid all processed foods and sugar like the plague (including sugary carbs - and man do I love my carbs!) and it is Paleo based. If you've never heard of a Paleo diet, it's a school of thought that pretty much says if it didn't exist 3,000 years ago you shouldn't eat it. I don't necessarily agree with all of the Paleo diet and I am by no means an expert on nutrition, but I do like the idea of getting back to whole, natural foods! So that's why I'm doing the 21DSD. I'm hoping to curb my sugar cravings a bit and learn new ways to cook veggies and meat using natural ingredients and not a seasoning packet that has a bazillion ingredients that I can't even pronounce... you know? I know after the 21 Days I'll be looking forward to having some Papa Johns pizza, so I'm not trying to change my entire lifestyle forever through this, I'm just hoping to tip the scale on the side of "we eat natural foods 80% of the time and other foods 20% of the time" instead of the other way around.



So how did I do today? Well, let me tell you I had an 11.5 hour work day today so I was pretty hungry and wanted to munch on some chips or cookies when I got home! But I stayed strong. (its not a good sign if you give up on the first day!) As soon as I got home I pulled out a recipe for apple muffins and got those in the oven right away - I had one for a snack with some whole milk and plan on using them as my breakfast muffins for the rest of the week.