Since my last post, life has changed a lot! I am now a mommy to a 3 year old (she will be 4 next month, though!) and a 1 year old. About a month after my last post, I found out I was pregnant. I came here to write a few times, but the inspiration escaped me. Like so many people I know, life took hold and there never seemed to be time or energy to document it. I do have to laugh, though, because life has a funny way of cycling back around. I guess blogs do, too. :)
To catch everyone up, when I left off, I was still in a recovery period from my competition prep. My metabolism was just a bit screwed up, so try to imagine what pregnancy looked like in that state! It is funny how time & age give you a different perspective. I was bigger in my second pregnancy than my first, even though I was smaller in size when I started. In the beginning my diet and exercise stayed on point, but I expanded anyway (again, screwed up metabolism). Once that started happening, I kind of adopted a "f&*k it" attitude, especially around eating. I worked out for a while, but it got to the point where I was big and tired, so training in the gym went by the wayside, too. Although, as a side note, it was humorous to be very obviously pregnant and still lifting heavy weights. That was funny!
Long story short - I had a long way to come back from. There were some major differences from last time, though. For starters, having a second baby just changed my perspective on things. I just did not worry or care about my size. I was focused on taking care of the girls, which left little time or energy to get caught up in self-analysis. Here is a picture of our family 3 weeks after Julia was born:
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At that time, I was probably in a size 20/22, but had just gotten cleared to be able to go up and down stairs and drive, so my priorities were just different. That was the largest I have ever been. I did lose some weight naturally, settling around a size 18 without any real changes, but knew that I didn't want to stay there.
I tried to get back into the gym, but getting there was a struggle when I had to pick both of the girls up from 2 different schools after work. We started outfitting the a gym in our garage, which I used to start with. I would change my eating and work out for a period of time, lose a little weight, then lapse back into not working out and eating like crap, yo-yoing between a size 16 and a size 18. Having small children, along with everything else, just left me drained, so motivation to stay with changes just wasn't there. That coupled with a sense of hopelessness about my ability to lose weight without insane amounts of time and energy led me to have a bit of a defeatist attitude about making changes.
Going back a year or two ago, someone introduced the idea of Whole 30 to me. I researched it then and felt it was pretty extreme. Over time I have given up a number of things that I thought would be challenging with doing a Whole 30, but by the summer of this past year, I had cut some of the more challenging things from my general diet and came back to the idea of a Whole 30. I finally decided to give it a try. When I was 3 weeks into my Whole 30, I sent the following in an email to a friend. I really think it gives a good snapshot of my relationship to food and why Whole 30 was appealing to me:
"I wanted to follow up re: our across the room convo from last night (lol). I totally get what you mean about jumping on and off board with different things and how that has been detrimental to you. I absolutely believe this is why I struggle with being able to take off weight, as the long term consequences have wreaked havoc on my hormones. I also know that I have been doing some variation of what I am doing now, off and on, for the last 4-5 years, and it has been progressive learning. When I first started, I had to learn to let go of grains and pastas. Now, even when I eat off kilter, I almost never eat pasta and I am very aware of how unsatisfying bread is. I also feel the same way about rice, quinoa and white potatoes (even though I still love some fries and chips sometimes!). Then I let go of diet coke (and sodas in general). Then artificial sweeteners. Then diary (save for some feta and goat cheese, but I'm not even doing these right now). And now the big thing is seeing how much sugar and sugar derivatives are in EVERYTHING (even "sugar free" items). I have even given up gum. For example, I was eating bacon almost everyday. When I went on Whole30, I realized that bacon has tons of sugar in it. So I started getting pork belly cut at Old Timey Meat Market and cook it. It's the same cut as bacon but not cured in sugar. And it tastes better. The "unsweetened" almond milk? Still has sweetener? Well....basically everything processed has some form of sugar. It's insane. So, although I was eating Paleo/Primal, I was still eating tons of sugar by the way of "healthier" or "all natural" versions of processed foods. Same with Paleo fake baking with Agave, honey or other "natural" sweeteners (which the Whole30 people call Sex With Your Pants On! lol). When I fearlessly looked at the labels and did research and cut these items out, all of my cravings disappeared. It's nuts. I have a week left on my Whole30 and I genuinely can't think of a thing I want when I am through the 30 days. This is truly different than any other time and I have intentionally made my focus about health - focusing on how different I feel (like having energy even when the baby keeps us up all night and not having the emotional ups and downs of sugar highs and lows), how I feel fulfilled after eating and how I rarely feel insanely hungry, even if I engage in intermittent fasting. I also threw out my scale. How liberating! I know I have leaned out, but the fact that a scale isn't involved gives me the freedom to just feel good (and not mind-f^&k myself over a number that doesn't reflect my self-worth anyway)."
Looking back at this, I have to laugh. Food IS a drug for me. My relationship with it is exactly like my relationship was with alcohol and drugs. I am powerless, especially over sugar, flour & wheat products, and attempting to make room for them in my life creates unmanageability. After I completed my Whole 30, I felt great! I didn't eat off of the plan for a few days after I surpassed the 30 days. I had read over and over again on the Whole 30 forums where people had gone out to engage in one thing that had been a no-no on their Whole 30, and in turn ended up binging. That has already been my experience, so I knew it would happen if I gave into the lie that I could just have one ______ (fill in the blank with any number of things). But like a drink, attempts to resist continuing are futile once I have reintroduced the _______ back into my diet. And so it went with this, too. I had one this with no real cravings or issues, so then I had another that. The this and that's snowballed back into full blown crappy eating. And thus, like drinking, I found myself in a dance with food where I was either all good or all bad, but nothing in between. Truth is between no longer exists for me with certain food items. I am without power against it.
Knowing this still doesn't change it. In this sense, knowledge is not power. I can know what to do all day long, but knowledge is also not motivation. Professionally I have been training more in Motivational Interviewing. One thing I have come to understand through this process is that ambivalence is normal to the human condition. (Ambivalence: the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.) So many people experience ambivalence around things that are unhealthy - and this was no exception. I knew something needed to give - I was aware that I no longer experienced a reward for the unhealthy behavior, specifically I was very aware that I did not enjoy the foods I was eating - but in the end I could not find the power to stop. In early November, I sat in a training doing Motivational Interviewing techniques with a partner. The facilitator asked us to share something we have honestly been ambivalent about and we did a role play using a script. This process somehow flipped a switch in my head and I knew at that moment that something had to give. I came home and put a plan together and on November 10th, I again gave up sugar and wheat. I did not go as strict as a Whole 30, but largely kept to that outline. Within a month, I had gone from a size 18 to a size 14. I was experiencing all of the same things I experienced during my Whole 30 - lots of clean energy, eating in moderation, no cravings. It felt good. I stayed on this plan through Thanksgiving and put together a plan for Christmas. Then came the week of Christmas...or rather should I say...instead of sticking to the plan, I started looking ahead to New Year's.
New Year's week is the week of both JP and I's birthdays (12/30 for him and 12/31 for me). Our tradition, rather than presents, has been for me to get him an ice cream cake on his birthday and he gets me a cookie cake on mine. We have done this for the majority of the time we have been married. In regards to my plan for Christmas, my thoughts jumped to New Year's (and ice cream and cookie cake), and the thought came to mind that I would eat on target up to then, but would indulge in those items...it is our birthdays and this is tradition, right? This was my thought for a day or two, then the thought changed to: I might as well enjoy Christmas, then our birthdays, and I will just get back on track on the 1st of January. And so I used that as my rational to eat pizza, then this and then that. And I am off again.
It has occurred to me that beating myself up for this is as beneficial as calling myself fat and burning with shame when I get dressed. It only serves to keep me in the pattern of behavior that supports continuing this insanity. So, somewhere during the week of New Year's my brain just stopped. I just stopped, took a breath, and owned my ambivalence. I stopped making resolutions to do it differently tomorrow. I stopped and looked at what good, sustainable change has happened in the last 5 years since I really started focusing on what I eat.
I have a goal to work toward. I understand the futility of it. I am aware that I honestly and genuinely no longer enjoy the foods that wreak havoc on me. I did not enjoy even one thing I ate during the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, including the cookie cake. And the insanity of it is, even knowing this, I still ate it. And I am over it.
So...here I am. Putting it out there. This is me. This is my journey. Not at the end, when things look pretty. Right in the heart of it.
And please, don't take this as sad, or me as depressed. I am far from it. I am realistic, honest with myself, willing to shine a light on it. And I started Crossfit this week, so I am going to write about that some, too, which is exciting. We have been following the development of Crossfit since the movie 300 - long before it became mainstream - but never could work it out to participate. This week we just decided to do it. And. we. love. it! But more of that to come.
Thanks for letting me work my thoughts out with you, whoever you may be. :)
I tried to get back into the gym, but getting there was a struggle when I had to pick both of the girls up from 2 different schools after work. We started outfitting the a gym in our garage, which I used to start with. I would change my eating and work out for a period of time, lose a little weight, then lapse back into not working out and eating like crap, yo-yoing between a size 16 and a size 18. Having small children, along with everything else, just left me drained, so motivation to stay with changes just wasn't there. That coupled with a sense of hopelessness about my ability to lose weight without insane amounts of time and energy led me to have a bit of a defeatist attitude about making changes.
Going back a year or two ago, someone introduced the idea of Whole 30 to me. I researched it then and felt it was pretty extreme. Over time I have given up a number of things that I thought would be challenging with doing a Whole 30, but by the summer of this past year, I had cut some of the more challenging things from my general diet and came back to the idea of a Whole 30. I finally decided to give it a try. When I was 3 weeks into my Whole 30, I sent the following in an email to a friend. I really think it gives a good snapshot of my relationship to food and why Whole 30 was appealing to me:
"I wanted to follow up re: our across the room convo from last night (lol). I totally get what you mean about jumping on and off board with different things and how that has been detrimental to you. I absolutely believe this is why I struggle with being able to take off weight, as the long term consequences have wreaked havoc on my hormones. I also know that I have been doing some variation of what I am doing now, off and on, for the last 4-5 years, and it has been progressive learning. When I first started, I had to learn to let go of grains and pastas. Now, even when I eat off kilter, I almost never eat pasta and I am very aware of how unsatisfying bread is. I also feel the same way about rice, quinoa and white potatoes (even though I still love some fries and chips sometimes!). Then I let go of diet coke (and sodas in general). Then artificial sweeteners. Then diary (save for some feta and goat cheese, but I'm not even doing these right now). And now the big thing is seeing how much sugar and sugar derivatives are in EVERYTHING (even "sugar free" items). I have even given up gum. For example, I was eating bacon almost everyday. When I went on Whole30, I realized that bacon has tons of sugar in it. So I started getting pork belly cut at Old Timey Meat Market and cook it. It's the same cut as bacon but not cured in sugar. And it tastes better. The "unsweetened" almond milk? Still has sweetener? Well....basically everything processed has some form of sugar. It's insane. So, although I was eating Paleo/Primal, I was still eating tons of sugar by the way of "healthier" or "all natural" versions of processed foods. Same with Paleo fake baking with Agave, honey or other "natural" sweeteners (which the Whole30 people call Sex With Your Pants On! lol). When I fearlessly looked at the labels and did research and cut these items out, all of my cravings disappeared. It's nuts. I have a week left on my Whole30 and I genuinely can't think of a thing I want when I am through the 30 days. This is truly different than any other time and I have intentionally made my focus about health - focusing on how different I feel (like having energy even when the baby keeps us up all night and not having the emotional ups and downs of sugar highs and lows), how I feel fulfilled after eating and how I rarely feel insanely hungry, even if I engage in intermittent fasting. I also threw out my scale. How liberating! I know I have leaned out, but the fact that a scale isn't involved gives me the freedom to just feel good (and not mind-f^&k myself over a number that doesn't reflect my self-worth anyway)."
Looking back at this, I have to laugh. Food IS a drug for me. My relationship with it is exactly like my relationship was with alcohol and drugs. I am powerless, especially over sugar, flour & wheat products, and attempting to make room for them in my life creates unmanageability. After I completed my Whole 30, I felt great! I didn't eat off of the plan for a few days after I surpassed the 30 days. I had read over and over again on the Whole 30 forums where people had gone out to engage in one thing that had been a no-no on their Whole 30, and in turn ended up binging. That has already been my experience, so I knew it would happen if I gave into the lie that I could just have one ______ (fill in the blank with any number of things). But like a drink, attempts to resist continuing are futile once I have reintroduced the _______ back into my diet. And so it went with this, too. I had one this with no real cravings or issues, so then I had another that. The this and that's snowballed back into full blown crappy eating. And thus, like drinking, I found myself in a dance with food where I was either all good or all bad, but nothing in between. Truth is between no longer exists for me with certain food items. I am without power against it.
Knowing this still doesn't change it. In this sense, knowledge is not power. I can know what to do all day long, but knowledge is also not motivation. Professionally I have been training more in Motivational Interviewing. One thing I have come to understand through this process is that ambivalence is normal to the human condition. (Ambivalence: the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.) So many people experience ambivalence around things that are unhealthy - and this was no exception. I knew something needed to give - I was aware that I no longer experienced a reward for the unhealthy behavior, specifically I was very aware that I did not enjoy the foods I was eating - but in the end I could not find the power to stop. In early November, I sat in a training doing Motivational Interviewing techniques with a partner. The facilitator asked us to share something we have honestly been ambivalent about and we did a role play using a script. This process somehow flipped a switch in my head and I knew at that moment that something had to give. I came home and put a plan together and on November 10th, I again gave up sugar and wheat. I did not go as strict as a Whole 30, but largely kept to that outline. Within a month, I had gone from a size 18 to a size 14. I was experiencing all of the same things I experienced during my Whole 30 - lots of clean energy, eating in moderation, no cravings. It felt good. I stayed on this plan through Thanksgiving and put together a plan for Christmas. Then came the week of Christmas...or rather should I say...instead of sticking to the plan, I started looking ahead to New Year's.
New Year's week is the week of both JP and I's birthdays (12/30 for him and 12/31 for me). Our tradition, rather than presents, has been for me to get him an ice cream cake on his birthday and he gets me a cookie cake on mine. We have done this for the majority of the time we have been married. In regards to my plan for Christmas, my thoughts jumped to New Year's (and ice cream and cookie cake), and the thought came to mind that I would eat on target up to then, but would indulge in those items...it is our birthdays and this is tradition, right? This was my thought for a day or two, then the thought changed to: I might as well enjoy Christmas, then our birthdays, and I will just get back on track on the 1st of January. And so I used that as my rational to eat pizza, then this and then that. And I am off again.
It has occurred to me that beating myself up for this is as beneficial as calling myself fat and burning with shame when I get dressed. It only serves to keep me in the pattern of behavior that supports continuing this insanity. So, somewhere during the week of New Year's my brain just stopped. I just stopped, took a breath, and owned my ambivalence. I stopped making resolutions to do it differently tomorrow. I stopped and looked at what good, sustainable change has happened in the last 5 years since I really started focusing on what I eat.
- I have given up Diet Coke
- I have given up artificial sweeteners
- I have given up chewing gum
- I rarely eat pasta
- I rarely eat condiments like salad dressing, ketchup, etc.
- I have reduced the grains I eat to almost nothing
- I have reduced the amounts of processed dairy I eat to almost nothing
- I have reduced the amounts of processed foods I eat to almost nothing
- I have learned how to make all of the things I love without any of the above ingredients in them
I have a goal to work toward. I understand the futility of it. I am aware that I honestly and genuinely no longer enjoy the foods that wreak havoc on me. I did not enjoy even one thing I ate during the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, including the cookie cake. And the insanity of it is, even knowing this, I still ate it. And I am over it.
So...here I am. Putting it out there. This is me. This is my journey. Not at the end, when things look pretty. Right in the heart of it.
And please, don't take this as sad, or me as depressed. I am far from it. I am realistic, honest with myself, willing to shine a light on it. And I started Crossfit this week, so I am going to write about that some, too, which is exciting. We have been following the development of Crossfit since the movie 300 - long before it became mainstream - but never could work it out to participate. This week we just decided to do it. And. we. love. it! But more of that to come.
Thanks for letting me work my thoughts out with you, whoever you may be. :)
