Whole30, The Afterlife

Whole30 was the first diet that I ever did.  It wasn't about the weight loss (even though that happened and I'm happy about it).  Instead, the diet was about taking my focus off of treating myself with food.  I'm still processing how it changed things for me, and I think that things are still changing.  I can't package up my thoughts about how things are completely different for me, so I'm going to list out some thoughts and talk about them.  Although I would like to draw complete conclusions about my entire journey, I am only able to offer some thoughts on where I've been and where I am now.  Here they are:

Hunting & Gathering.  This little diet was suppose to limit me to the good foods and give me a break from being consumed with thoughts of food.  That was the case, but this diet took a big chunk of my time and effort.  While I wasn't focusing on what I would treat myself to or fun excursions that revolved around food, I focused on hunting and gathering.  It's like what they did in the good ole days, whoever they are and whenever the good ole days were.  I hunted good prices and fresh produce.  Sams had the best prices on avocados and nuts, Aldi had great produce, Publix had the best meat, and that little store in the woods 20 minutes from my house had almond flour for $1.99 a pound.  While I liked the month of supplying my family and me with quality foods, I found that without spending a bulk of my time running around for the best deals I would spend a bulk of our money on fresh foods.   I'm still buying pretty whole foods, but I still wonder what responsible grocery shopping looks like? Spend a lot of money getting the best product out there?  Spend a lot of time and effort running around getting good deals on foods?  Save time and money and stop worrying about getting the most whole and healthy foods out there?  Like most things in my life, I don't think that there is a perfect formula out there for me to base my living on, but the questions still remain.



Day 5. Day 5 of this diet was when I got ugly.  John will tell you that my attitude got really low, and I remember it.  I was not a nice person.  We tried to go out to eat and chose a burrito place.  I got a salad that had lettuce, bland ground chuck, watery salsa, and guacamole.   It was lacking in sustenance, or so I thought.  I was angry that "this is all I could eat."  I was hungry.  Truth is, this was my only low.  The next two days were like the rainbow after the storm, full of promise to last me forever.



Day 6 & 7.  These days were full of revelation and conviction and reality.  I was reading 7 at the time, which is a book about excess.  The author ate only 7 foods for an entire month, crazy.  As she was crawling through that month, I got down there with her.  I fed off of her convictions and added some of mine.  Here's the truth: there are people in this world that die from starvation.  There are people in my city that are hungry.  There are people who live in my city and live in food desserts.  They don't have a car to zip around town, searching for the best deal on avocados and sliced almonds.  No, they spend a few hours of their day off and take the bus to get their groceries.  I had enough money in my budget to fudge a little if the groceries were costly this month.  I had a car and plenty of time to go to all the different stores.  I had options within my diet. 



Freeing.  In my meat-fruit-veggie-nut diet, I found so much freedom.  I was free of having to decide where my next dessert was coming from.  I was free of the guilt after I ate too much.  I was free from questioning if I should eat ____.  I didn't have to question what I was putting in my mouth.  It was all good.  I couldn't make a bad decision.  I was free.
 


Right Now.  I'm longing for a passion for food.  I want to love and enjoy food.  I don't want to depend on it.  I want to be thankful for it.  I don't want to think that I need it.  These days, I still treat myself...to green tea, a Larabar, a handful of almonds, or an apple.  It's a huge improvement on how things were before, but I still wonder why I have this need?  Is it ok?  What are my food goals?  



I'm in a place where I ask a lot of questions.  I think about it.  I get deep and personal with myself.  I'm starting to feel some peace, but I'm still wandering through this new place in my heart.  The four weeks on Whole30 was a refreshing break in my diet and I'm thankful for it.  I might even do it again.  I would highly recommend to anyone who is stuck in a food rut.  It pushed me to think differently, cook differently, and see food in a whole different way, and I'm so thankful for the freedom that I've found.

3 1/2 Things Of Fall

Let me introduce you to Captain Fall.  The President of Autumn.  The Weekend Adventurer.  Those are all little names I just came up with to set the tone for who John was this weekend.  He was all about making this a fall weekend.  Last week, he started coming up with things that he wanted to do as a family, and those things were somewhat fall oriented.  There was a list: make pumpkin pie, buy cider, get a treat from a local bakery, and go on a hike.  We accomplished 3 1/2 of those things.  Here's our weekend rundown:

Friday night, John and I volunteered at a rave.  Boulderave is a night of free climbing at the gym that we love.  (Hey, Chandler!)  We got to participate in a few of the things: best burgers of our life; free chair massages, and I climbed the lead wall (that I never go on!) and took a huge whipper at the end.  It was a great time!  It was kind of like a really fun date to a party.  Even though we love the old movie-and-dinner thing, we have found that doing something different and active is always the better choice.

Source for the picture

Saturday morning was perfectly slow.  After each getting in a run, John and I slowed down with the kids for a bit.  Pumpkin pancakes, playing on the floor, and Curious George ushered us into the day.  

Eventually, we all got ready to run out to two stores to look at couches.  We've been looking for couches for months now and here's our process: John tells me what he wants and doesn't want and I look at 4,000 places and narrow it down to a few options.  We look at them together and he approves or dislikes.  It's perfect, because I loathe asking John to go furniture shopping, and I really dislike making it a family affair.  We don't do it often, but whenever we do I feel awful.  It seems unfair to ask John to spend his free time after working all week to go sit on sofas.  He assured me that we don't do this often, and when it comes down to it he's with his family and that's enough.  I'm sure he would say differently if we went antiquing every weekend.  Then again, I would say differently if that's what our life looked like.  Different strokes for different folks.

We were fast.  We were back home in an hour.  The kids went to bed for some solid three-hour naps while John and I ate soup out of mugs and waited for our babes.  They woke up, we fed them lunch, and headed up the mountain for some fall hiking.  

By the time we got to the top of the mountain, it was 3:15.  We had planned to stop at a local bakery for our fall treats, but the places we found closed at 2 and 3.  We ended up grabbing some Oatmeal Cream Pies at the supermarket for less than $2.  We thought that was hilarious.

This might be the most awkward family picture ever.  We were so excited to hit the trail, so it didn't matter.  Here's our hike in pictures: 

It was awesome.  Everyone who lives in this town will tell you that the hiking is awesome and we don't do it nearly enough as we want.  We live in a valley surrounded by awesome mountains and trails and every time we get out there we're reminded of how great a hike can be.  We hope to make it a regular part of our lives instead of the occasional activity that we see it as.  The more we do it, the easier and more natural it gets and the less of an ordeal it seems.  

Highlights: Burl wanting a walking stick just like John's, finding a cave (like on Curious George) that Burl could explore, water so clear we almost jumped in, sitting by the creek & shoving cookies into the kids' mouths, watching Burl throw rocks in the creek, seeing Fern come alive and wiggle like crazy when I sat her in a leaf pile, standing with my family as we take in a little waterfall.  

After the the hike, we ate at John's parents', brought the kids home for baths and bed, and I went to do my little cleaning job.  

Burl's photography skills are pretty good.  Too bad my high bun started sprouting 

His bit stack of firewood for camping.

Sunday the kids were too snotty to go to the church nursery, but John sent me anyways.  By myself.  He was happy to stay home and wipe noses and play Hide-n-seek, and I was happy to get to go since we haven't been there in a few weeks.  After that, I hit Oktoberfest for burgers and cider and took them home to John.  Besides a little visit from Joseph, the rest of the day was pretty chill.  

After the kids went to bed, John and I talked about the same things over and over.  We say the same things we always do, but we say them like we've never said them before.  They are so sweet.  I can't believe they're real.  Aren't they the best?  Could you ever imagine this?  She's getting more playful.  He's getting so big, but he's still so little.  I love our life.

This Week's Menu

I'm not one for the cool weather, but I do like the sign of simple traditions that signal a change in the air.  This weekend was full of fall activities.  Cider, colorful hike, socks, and soups eaten out of mugs!  As I write my menu, I'm craving a better, more balanced way of cooking for my family.  Here's what I'm making:

Cilantro Lime Tilapia Tacos, fruit smoothies

Chopped sirloin with mushroom marsala sauce over angel hair

Mulligatawny reboot

Crockpot BBQ, coleslaw, sweet potato fries

The Whole30 Diet

Let's talk about this Whole30 diet that I've mentioned before.   I was first introduced to it by Em Loerke when she did it back in April, and I was very interested.  Basically, it's a diet for 30 days that sticks to meats, nuts, fruits, veggies, and oils/vinegars/etc, and it excludes grains, sugars, dairy, legumes (beans and peanuts), alcohol, and soy.  Full details can be found here.  I was interested in doing it, but I decided that I would wait until after I was done nursing Fern, because I wasn't sure how it would affect my milk supply.  

Then, I read a great book about eating and exercising.  This book really wiped the fog off my glasses.  This is where I'm going to be brave and really honest and share how I felt after I read the book: I felt exposed.  I felt like I had finally realized that my obsession with food was not good.  It was bad, and I am ashamed to say that it was really sinful.  Even though sinful is a religious word, I'm still going to use it because I think it was truly a hindrance in my relationship with the Lord. Sure, I was exercising regularly and slowly losing weight, but it felt like I was exercising just to eat.  I was focused on treating myself.  For example, I was out running errands with the kids, went to Starbucks.  I was out by myself, got a little cookie.  I was at a party, indulged in chips and dip.  The kids were napping, I got a treat and relaxed.  I wasn't binge eating, yet I still felt entitled to treat myself to food.  This may be ok in some instances, but for me it was chronic and destructive.  It felt very much like an addiction.  

Unlike other addictions, I couldn't stop eating food.  I had to continue.  The appeal to the Whole30 was it was the most limiting diet that I came across.  It cut out a lot of the things that are easy to eat, and focused simply on pure, healthy foods.  I was eager to try something that got me unfocused on treats and refocused on eating to live (not living to eat).  

One Sunday morning in July, I woke up and realized that most of my favorite fruits and veggies were in season.  I was craving change and limitations and a new direction, so I started the diet.  Right then and there.  I decided that I would try it for 2-3 weeks since I was nursing.  (During that time, I experienced some problems nursing, but I didn't want to stop my new diet.  I talked to my pediatrician, friends, and a nursing specialist.  What it boiled down to was this: as long as I was eating enough calories, then I was ok.  Fern's problem was that she was becoming more aware of her brother and was less interested in nursing.  Once I solved that problem, I was great.  In fact, I've not had any problems since the diet.)  Things were going so well and I was feeling so free that I decided to do it for four full weeks.  

There is no part of me that regrets the decision to do the Whole30 diet.  Everything about it was amazing.  I would suggest it to friends.  Well, actually some of my friends did it and I continue suggest it to a lot of people when we talk about food.  Next week, I'm going to share more about my time on Whole30 and what the afterlife looks like.  

For questions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll reply.  
My email is abarefootday@gmail.com if the comment section is too public to ask a question or leave a comment.