Here I go again, in 2015!

Oh hi, blog... This isn't easy to say so I'm just gonna get straight to the point. That last Whole30 didn't last past day 3. I know it's shocking since I seemed so upbeat and on the right track the last we spoke...

Ok, for real though, no one (myself included) is surprised that I bailed on day 3. Let's move on.

So I thought to myself, what idea is more new and interesting than starting a completely new lifestyle on New Years Day! The answer: Just about every idea is more new and interesting than that. But this is my blog and I never said it was gonna be new and interesting, did I?

I know New Years resolutions are so cliche and rarely achieved, but consider the circumstances... I have a co-worker who has been interested in doing a Whole30 and it just so happens that we've both collided at the same exact time in our willingness to actually do one, and it just so happens it's also the day before January 1st 2015. In addition, 2 days before January 1st my aunt came out of nowhere offering me a ton of Whole30-friendly groceries (coconut flour, oil, & milk), because she bought them and didn't like them.  The universe is double dog daring me to do this Whole30 by 1) making it align perfectly with new years resolution time 2) providing groceries 3) providing the Whole30 buddy system to keep me accountable. Now, this blog also keeps me accountable but as I've learned, I can ignore the blog. If I don't talk to it... sure I feel guilty, but as days go, and the blog guilt dissipates until I forget all about it.

I definitely can't ignore / avoid a co-worker who is over there suffering the same Whole30 beginning pains as I am. I definitely can't lie to her like "oh no, I totally didn't go to Arby's today... Just a whole lot of escarole and nitrate-free chicken over here", because that's how I sound when I try to lie ... like a liar.

So for the past 3 days I've been preparing for this Whole30 in a combo of good ways and bad ways. Good things: I've been making myself eggs in the morning instead of eating cereal bars. Bad things: Yesterday I went to TGI Fridays and ordered some kind of Jack Daniel's sampler / fried mess of goodness with a margarita. Every time I know I'm starting a Whole30 (or a Whole2-3 as it's gone...) I act like it's my last meal at every opportunity beforehand. What a transformation I've made since my last Whole30 where I used to rave about veggie salads. I remember actually feeling anxious about Day 30 like "what if I don't want to stop!?" Now I can't even START!

Well anyway, wish me luck blog. I'll still be using you as Whole30 therapy in the weeks to come. Happy New Year!

Whole 30 Round 2 Day 3

Well here we are at Day 3. The days are really crawling by...

My headache is gone, which is confusing. I read that the amount of "suck" on Day 2 and 3 is directly proportional to how crappy I was eating before I started. I disagree. I deserved way more suck if that were the case.

I was definitely foggy today though.

Joe doesn't work on Thursdays (tomorrow), so we are very tempted to have a drink. I had a hard day at work, and all I wanna do is relax with a beer, ya know? I'm not sure what's gonna happen. It's like, we're only 3 days in, so starting over doesn't feel like we're losing out on that much progress.

OH decisions. I'm 60/40 on it, leaning in the direction of having this beer. I'm only human.

Update on Day 2

I have a horrible headache. My EYES are throbbing. Joe said it's the sugar dragon trying to get in any orifice he can. I feel like I just got mugged in a back alley by the Day 2 thugs.

Joe tried to convince me that because we have beer in the fridge we should drink it tonight because otherwise it will sit in the fridge for a month. Very convincing argument, but I didn't concede.

Also, my sister made chocolate chip cookies. They were sitting in a pan downstairs, and I touched one of them like a big creep.

I can't even sit up while I type this. If someone said I had to get up right now or else I had to lay here for the next 28 days of the Whole 30, I'd go with option 2. It'd be the easiest decision I've made all week.

I just Googled "typical Whole30 Day 2" and found this: http://whole30.com/2013/08/revised-timeline/

I was a little comforted when I saw that during Day 2-3 or "The Hangover" phase, it's typical to get headaches. But then I saw the next TWO phases being "Kill all the things" and "I Just want a nap". Great, something to look forward to. In fact, scrolling through the phases, I really don't see much at all to look forward to. There's a Pants not fitting phase, an I'm so over this phase...

And there are cookies downstairs. Did I mention that there are freaking cookies downstairs right now?

Well, thanks for rendering me unable to get up and walk down the stairs right now, Day 2. I see what you did there.

Amanda: 2 Sugar Dragon: 28

Probably due to a combination of my stellar blogging and his own encounter with tiny baby pants that don't fit, Joe has agreed to embark on another Whole30 adventure with me. This is big news, because everyone knows how successful The Buddy System is, and the Whole30 Buddy System is no exception.

2 Days ago was a Football Sunday. I drank a beer, which led to more beer, so that couldn't very well be Whole30 day one. Apple juice on ice for the first Steelers game? Who was I kidding.

When Joe and I drink beer together, we make horrible decisions with regard to food. Earlier in the day, I was eating very well. A couple beers later the conversation goes something like:

*Commercial for Pizza Hut occurs during game*

Joe: "So, if we're really doing this Whole30 tomorrow, we should probably order bacon stuffed crust pizza tonight". 

Amanda: "YES DEFINITELY" - orders it.

Joe: So this pizza really isn't that great. Maybe we should also order Pizza Joe's since we know we like that."

Amanda: "OMG YES YES YAAAAASSSS" - doesn't order it. Wants to, but instead enters pizza/grease/beer-induced coma.

I had considered possibly allowing a drink or two during this Whole30, but now I realize that there is no such thing as drinking responsibly, if responsibly means not devouring bacon and cheese stuffed crust pizza, then seriously considering eating another pizza. I just can't be trusted, so this is a 0 modifications Whole30.

So on to better news - as of today, it's not a drill. We're on Day 2 and things are going pretty OK. I hard boiled eggs for breakfast yesterday and today, had a salmon salad / chicken salads for lunches, and yesterday's dinner was a burger (no bread, duh) and brussel sprouts. I'm not sure what tonight's dinner will be but I'm sure we'll think of something sugarless.

I did have a minor screw up today on Day 2. My babysitter came over this morning with a coffee for me from Dunkin Donuts. It was disguised as a "black coffee".  I should have known better when it tasted too delicious to be true. Sure enough, my skepticism got the best of me and I headed over to DunkinDonuts.com for the nutrition info. Turns out their "Black" pumpkin coffee turns into a pumpkin via sugar injection. Dunkin DEVILS, they are!

Anyway, I only had a little bit of it so I'm not counting it as a total failure for Day 2. I'm moving on to Day 3 tomorrow and forgetting all about this little misstep.

Whole30 Pregaming

So today is NOT the first day of my Whole30, but as my earlier post alluded, I'm gettin' real. Part of the gettin' real pregame is food journaling. Without it, I can sneakily eat and drink whatever I want and get away with it (at least until I try on my too tight pants).

So even though I didn't Whole30 today, I did record what I ate. Time to spill the beans:

Breakfast: I woke up and didn't have breakfast because I had to go straight to my grandma's house. When I got there, they had donuts. I wasn't going to eat one, but they started trying to feed donut cream to my baby. The crazy things that people do with babies is a whole different blog, but I can't tell you how many people try to give her cake, cupcakes, cookies, ice cream, pizza -- and they don't ask, they just do it. So that I didn't have to deal with "Why can't she have it?!?! What do you mean?! Look how much she likes it!" I took the freaking donut and I ate it myself. It was a bold move. Not a Whole30 move, but I'm not having a donut-eating, constipated baby. I'm not proud of a donut breakfast, but overall I feel pretty justified in this decision.

Lunch: I took my "Before" pictures around lunch time. I made salmon, green beans and carrots. Later on, I had some meat sauce that Joe made. No spaghetti, just the sauce. Rock on.

Dinner: Joe made chicken and brussel sprouts. All was looking good. UNTIL... I got a text from my mom that said "Just got here with Little Caesar's".

Side note - Joe and I have been living in the upstairs of my parents house now for about 5 months. I would gain 3 pounds just coming home for a weekend, no problem. So you can imagine what 5 months later is like. 

When I went downstairs, not only were there 2 delicious Hot n' Readys, but also a pan of chocolate chip cookies and 2 pans of heavenly looking chocolate muffins. Un-freaking-believable. So, I had a piece of pizza. I justified it in my head by thinking about how I didn't have any beer and how I wouldn't eat a muffin OR a cookie. So if I just had ONE out of FOUR bad things, it's only 25% bad. On top of that, I would only have a little bit of pizza, and Amanda yesterday totally would have had way more than that. I don't know, it made sense while I was eating the pizza.

So on the negative side... I had half a donut and some pizza today. On the positive side, I didn't have any alcohol and I did eat some veggies. I'll say I broke even.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of football season. I know there is always an excuse for drinking and eating crappy but football Sunday is among the best excuses I can think of. Wings, Pizza, and Beer...! If I don't have a drink, how am I gonna relax a little and not refresh my fantasy football score every 20 seconds?

Last year, I was pregnant during football season, so I definitely didn't partake in the drinking aspect of it. I guess missing only a month isn't as bad as missing the whole season, eh? *sigh*.

Joe told me that I should put some apple juice in a whisky glass on ice so that I still have something to sip on. He said that as he was drinking a Yeungling right in front of my face. Apple juice on ice while I watch football... what am I a 12 year old boy? *sigh again*. I'll probably end up trying it.

Missing: Amanda's Whole30 Wagon. Please return if found.

Getting back on the wagon is not nearly as easy as it sounds. You see, once you fall off the wagon, you roll several hundred yards away from the wagon as the wagon continues along. Then you lie there a little while succumbing to the injuries you incurred from falling off of the wagon. By the time you're ready to get back on, the wagon is hopelessly out of reach. By now, my wagon is probably somewhere on the west coast with a family and kids of his own. I don't know if I'd recognize my wagon if it ran me over.

The other day, I was at a festival when I checked my phone and saw an email from someone who found my blog. Among other really encouraging things, it said "Put down the cookie". I didn't have a cookie right at that time, but I did have a metaphorical cookie in the form of a 24 oz Mike's Hard Lemonade (who even drinks those??). The reader also said she had done a second Whole30, and that the second WAS harder than the first. So I'm not crazy? and someone else has done this? I think that was the kick in the ass I needed to go searching for my wayward wagon.

It's been a week since I saw that comment. I'm certainly not cruising along in my wagon yet, but I'm hot on its trail.  One day, I went for a jog. Another day, I chose two hard boiled eggs instead of a fast food breakfast sandwich. And today, I took the a step from which there is no return-- I snapped some "Before" pictures. OHHH the "Before" pictures. Is there anything worse than when "Before" is "Today"?

So, I had a pair of *oh so tight* skinny black pants. They were always tight, but it didn't matter because they were goooood lookin'.

Today, as my prop for Picture Day, they are so far from good. It sorta looks like there is no way I actually pulled them up, so someone must have sewed them around me. Also, the seamstress underestimated how much fabric was needed, so she had someone else squeeze me together while she finished everything up. Then she had a great laugh about it later because I look RIDICULOUS.

Honestly though, I'm not that down on my appearance. I'm definitely not the biggest or heaviest I've ever been. I don't think I look too bad (when I'm not squeezing into tiny baby pants). But I'm not being healthy, and I don't feel great. I don't remember how fantastic I felt when I was Whole30ing... Fortunately, I wrote it down and it sounds incredible. I want to be back to that me. It's time for my hard reset.

I want to say thanks to the person who commented. I write this blog for myself because it keeps me accountable. With your help, it found a way to hold me accountable even when I was ignoring it. That's pretty cool :)

Amanda 30 Day 2

So yesterday was my second day, and I'm starting to think that the instant gratification of eating whatever I want trumps the guilt that I feel having to tell my blog about it. Here's what I mean:

Breakfast: piece of bread with pb&j on it
Lunch: hamburger, sweet potato, cole slaw
Dinner: a lot of Doritos, some chips + salsa, some steak + mashed potatoes + corn
Snack: A kit kat bar, 2 beers

This is pretty deplorable, and I know I'm missing some random snacks that I just forget about.

I haven't really been getting out for walks either. My morning routine is basically wake up and rush to the computer to get started with work, which isn't too satisfying. Overall, not much to be proud of in my lifestyle.

 If at first you don't succeed, try try again, eh? I think its definitely safe to say that at first, I've not succeeded.

The Amanda30 - Day 1

If Joe can invent the Joe30, then I can invent the Amanda30. Here's what I want to do:

I will write in this blog to record my goals, successes, failures, food diary, workouts, and generally what's on my mind for 30 days. I'll do this 5 days a week for the next month. I'm giving myself two days off because... everyone needs 2 days off. What if my internet goes down? It could happen.

I honestly thing that the mere act of recording what I eat will cause me to make better decisions. I already know what are good & bad decisions, but right now I make them with no consequence. Believe it or not, having to write down that I ate a whole bag of Doritos is a consequence. If I know I have to reflect back on that later and "own up to it"... I'll probably just steer clear of those Doritos altogether.

I'm going to record my progress and see if writing it down really makes a difference. Even if I allow some cheats here and there, will I still be better overall? I'll record my weight, analyze my average # bad choices per day / week, and maybe some other fun things. I don't have "before" numbers for things like that, but that's ok with me.

For every week that goes by without 5 entries -- I go 1 week without Facebook (!!) For every week that goes by with 5 entries, I get a special treat of my choosing for the week. I don't know what yet, but I am sure that I'll think of something.

This week, I'm thinking about food. I absolutely hate cooking. I don't even enjoy eating what I cook afterward because 1) It usually doesn't taste that great and 2) I am so bitter about having cooked that I can't be satisfied. I want to try to find ways that I can cook as little as possible, with as few messy dishes, and the smallest time commitment -- but still be healthy. The easiest thing to do is resort to cereal or some kind of snack bar, but there have got to be other things that I can get in the habit of doing.

This week, I'm also thinking about $dollars$. I don't want to spend a small fortune Whole30'ing again. I need ways to save on things that I might be spending too much on now so that maybe I would have a little extra for Whole30-like options.

I'm going to ruminate on these topics. In the meantime, here's my food journal for the day:

Breakfast: 2 Eggs
Lunch: Hamburger without bun, sweet potato, coleslaw
Dinner: broccoli, chicken, & rice
Snack: half a cupcake, the other half of the cupcake, tuna, labat blue light (3?)

* Items in red are things to be ashamed of.

Shametastic

If you don't have something nice to say then don't say anything, right? So here's a compliment for me: I am sooo great at breaking promises to myself!

Clearly, I have not been tracking my diet (and I totally promised, cross my heart, pinky swore that I would!). All it takes is another Monday after a weekend of bad decisions, and I'm back to feeling guilty.

You know what sucks about considering The Whole 30 Round 2? In round 1, I was all "how bad could it be?! I'll try anything once!" In Round 2... I know exactly how bad it can be. I know how broke I can be, how hungry I can be, how nothing is ever convenient anymore. I know *exactly* what it's like, and this is one time when the devil you know is *not* better than the devil you don't. I'd rather go on a 30 day cleanse drinking pomegranate juice all day every day than start another Whole 30 right now -- because there's a chance that it won't be as annoying, hard, and inconvenient.

I guess I shouldn't bash the Whole 30 so much... After all, I did write this blog and was singing its praises by the end. But, as I sit here eating my 2nd cookie of the day, I'm like...who even wrote this blog and where did she get all that arugula?  Nobody has that much arugula.

*Sigh* I need something to motivate me... Something positive, or maybe a consequence? Here is what I'm thinking: I will track my diet every day, as evidenced by my blog posts, or else I have to _____.

So there's a question... What do I not want to do, BUT will actually make myself do if I don't follow my own rules? Here are some ideas:

• Donate some large amount of money to a charity. It has to be big enough that I will miss it, but not so much that I won't be able to make my bills (of course). Maybe a charity that I don't even care to support? Maybe I'll just donate it to the government? (lolz)
• Deactivate my Facebook account for 1 month. Including Candy Crush -- yikes. I kind of like this one because it'll probably actually be a good thing for me to do.
• A Whole 30 - This one might not pass the test of "will actually make myself do"...

That's all I got. I'll sleep on it tonight and decide what it's gonna be tomorrow.

For shame...

OK so I haven't been writing every day as promised, but I have been *thinking* about it and feeling bad about it, so that's gotta count for something :)

I'd like to commit to a few more goals here. Joe mentioned to me that we keep on saying that "If we did ..... we'd be so much better off", but every time we say it, its a different thing. That got me thinking that I need more than a fluffy commitment every Sunday to remind me what my daily / weekly / monthly goals are. So here's what I'd like to start with:

1) Write in my blog daily to track my compliance to these rules, er.... "goals" :)
2) Record what I eat in the blog daily
3) Get outside for a 30 minute walk once a day, 5 days / week. -- This is a really important one for me, because working from home has essentially eliminated all required daily activity.There is really no reason for me to ever even stand up, if I don't make myself.
4) Alcohol is limited to 3x / week. That might sound like a lot, but in comparison to now... it's not. I've gotten in the habit of having a beer after work / after the baby goes to bed, and it's too much.
5) No diet soda except on Sundays. Cause I love diet soda, and if I don't have at least one day where I can drink it, I'll just give up and drink it every day.
6) 8 Glasses of water a day -- I'm thinking of just getting an app to track this throughout the day.
7) two "desserts" per week e.g. ice cream / cake / muffin / donut. I'll really have to track this because I think I have more dessert than regular food...

This sounds good for now. 1,2,3 will be my top priorities for now -- Cheers!

Day 1 of Something.

Well, it's been over a year (closing in on 2?) since my last whole30 and WOW did I ever fall off the wagon! To be fair, I was very Whole30, even up to 6 months after we officially ended. But as time went on... I should be ashamed!

I think I have some pretty good excuses for my wayward behavior. 1) I got pregnant. While I ate pretty healthy throughout my pregnancy and gained the right amount of weight, there was no way I wasn't giving into those chocolate cravings. 2) I had a baby which makes cooking the absolute bottom of my priorities. 3) Breastfeeding made me SO FREAKING HUNGRY ALL THE TIME! Even more so than when I was pregnant. Now, that's not a a GREAT excuse to eat junk, but ... it was MY excuse.

Anyway, due to my semi-ingrained Whole30 habbits, I haven't slid back into a big weight gain or anything, but I know that if I don't do something soon, I'm gonna have to buy ANOTHER new wardrobe, and this time it's not gonna be fun. I'm still wearing the same clothes, but my jeans are starting to feel just a *little* on the tight side. That's the worst!

I'm still debating on what to do. Should I Whole30 again? I can't seem to muster the same motivation that I had when I was without a baby to take care of. I can't imagine all the cooking and more messes ALL over again!! Just typing all these "I can'ts" is kind of embarrassing me already. Ok Ok, I can... I just don't want to enough!!

The past 5-6 Sundays I've said "tomorrow is the Whole30". Joe just laughs at me now, but I have to be serious one of these times! Today is Monday and so far I've eaten 2 bowls of cereal, green beans, sausage links, and some mixed nuts. Not TERRIBLE except the cereal...

I think the biggest thing about this blog is that I need something to be accountable to. So before I make any rules or decisions about Whole30ing, I know my first rule -- I'm going to record my habits - eating, exercise, whatever -- in this blog -- every day without fail. Maybe knowing that I have to admit to my bad habits every day will make me a little less likely to give into those temptations. Here's hoping! I'll be back later tonight with the first day of record :)