Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The Ugly

Tonight I was talking with a friend and we were discussing our eating habits/diets when the discussion turned to bodily functions.

Later I laughed to myself about our conversation. As moms, when our children are little we discuss their bodily functions like it's no big deal. As we grow older, I guess our conversation turns to our own. (Hi friend, I know you are reading this...Haha!)

With that said, if the thought of hearing about bodily functions grosses you out......you may just want to leave right now.

I've shared with you the good and the bad about eating Paleo but today I'm going to share a little bit about the ugly.

After changing my diet my body became accustomed to good food. It now likes good food and does not like the processed food I was giving it before or even some of the foods that we may think are healthy. As I reintroduce certain foods back, some ugly starts happening.

A few weeks ago I was at a lunch meeting at work. We had Chili's delivered in and I was very excited about my choice. It was a new item on the menu, a Fresh-Mex bowl. It actually was a pretty healthy menu choice or at least I thought. Way better than what I would usually order which would be some sort of huge sandwich with a side of French fries.

Well, this healthy option sent me home sicker than any food has ever made me. Since there was so many different things in it, it is hard to narrow it down but since I had eaten all of the items in the bowl except for one I believe that was the culprit. Black beans. My body has never really liked them before and so I was expecting to not feel the best after eating them but I was not prepared for what happened next.

I felt sick to my stomach. I looked in the mirror and my eyes were red and bloodshot. I ended up leaving the office because I couldn't take it anymore. I laid in bed for an hour before my body decided it was a good idea to get rid of whatever it was. Phew, I did feel cleansed after all that! Needless to say, I will never eat a black bean again in my life.

Honestly, as good as I feel when I am eating better, in the last month I have had some days where I feel worse than I have felt in a long time all because of what I've eaten.

I do have reactions to gluten. Not bad but I know what will happen later that day if I eat it and if I eat it too many times in a row, what will happen. Just know that I am sparing you the details :)

I've been cheating more with sugar as well lately which I believe caused the worst PMS this month than I have had in years.

It's been hard to tell with dairy because I don't eat a lot of dairy and when I do eat it, it's usually cheese and accompanies some sort of grain. I have had it a couple times on it's own and it doesn't seem to bother me or have any later side effects.

Brad wants to do a hard core Whole30 again in May, so I might do it just to reintroduce foods again with a little bit more of a plan and see how my body reacts to each thing instead of trying to guess.

In other news, I have gotten down to my goal weight and I did it without starving myself and having to exercise just to be able to eat more food. I still try to exercise 3 times a week but now it's just for physical activity and not to reward myself with food.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Mostly Paleo

Today I made Monster Cookies with the girls. They were delicious. I should know, I ate 4 of them.

It's funny, Brad and I both have our different things that we 'treat' ourselves with. Mine is that random cookie (or 4). We also try to have a meal a week that we 'treat' ourselves with. Saturday night was pizza. I must say, it was so delicious but then 3 hours later I felt sick to my stomach. So now I'm left wondering if those 'treats' are worth it.

Today I thought I would answer the question of what is the difference between Whole30 and Paleo and where exactly do we lie in all of this. If any of my Paleo and Whole30 friends want to add anything to this, please feel free in the comments. I'm always reading more about Paleo and am not an expert.

Whole30 is what we did for the month of February. It's more of a detox. Getting rid of all the sugar, grains, and dairy in your body so that you can see how your body reacts once you introduce them back into your diet. We basically detoxed our body but never did the slowly introducing them back into our diet to see how we react to each thing. I have noticed reactions when eating things I don't normally eat and do think it's gluten I'm reacting to because I don't eat a lot of dairy but I can't really say for sure since there has been gluten and dairy in what I ate. Whole30 is much stricter than Paleo. With Whole30 you completely cut out sweeteners. We were very strict with this for the first 3 weeks. After that I did add in some natural sweeteners like honey and maple syrup. Since they are so expensive it definitely keeps you to having them in moderation.

Paleo is a way of life. This is what we are striving for. Although you still stay away from most of the things that you do not have with the Whole30, you can still have some grains, sweeteners, and some cheeses in moderation. I am still finding my way with some of these things and deciding what we will allow back in our diet.

Rice is one of the things you can have in moderation but our family isn't huge on rice to begin with so it's not a big deal to be without. I was happy to learn that I can sprinkle some Parmesan on my food.

There are a few things that I did give up on. One is sauces. Paleo sauces are costly to make, they don't taste that good and they don't keep very long in the fridge so I end up dumping most of it. Since we don't use condiments, dressings, and sauces that often, I've stopped spinning my wheels on this one and am going to buy them at the store but I will be more diligent about checking the labels.

One of the hardest things about Paleo is having to plan every meal. Although there are plenty of easy meals to make, it's still planning. There aren't those fast, easy convenience meals for those busy days. That's why I decided that corn taco shells would be fine so that we can have tacos again. They are still gluten free. And a small amount of cheese on a taco won't kill us.

So, in the end, Brad and I would probably classify ourselves as about 80% Paleo. We try to stick to it as much as possible because we have seen such a difference in our health but we also want to enjoy some of the things that we have enjoyed for years, within reason and in moderation.

And with the kids, I still don't buy a lot of packaged food for them. They are probably 70% gluten free and I've cut back on a lot of the sugar they eat. I try to bake them something each week to treat them and it is usually gluten free. They love picking out a cookie to make and helping me make it. We've cut out chips and I started making our own trail mixes.

On a different note, I oil pulled for the first time this morning. For those of you who have never heard of this, basically you swish oil around in your mouth for 20 minutes. The bacteria in your mouth sticks to the oil and then you spit it out. I did it for 15 minutes this morning and I used coconut oil. I was amazed at how clean my mouth felt all day. I'm excited to see the results as I continue to do it!