whole30, day 8: kindly hand me my damn medal

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Day 8. DAY MOTHERFUCKING 8. Can you believe this? I certainly can’t. Look at me with all of the follow through! I have made it eight days without coffee creamer, donuts, bagels, bread, potatoes, noodles, beans, peanut, PEANUT BUTTER, flour, added sugar, cheese, milk, yogurt, cream cheese, oatmeal, Cheerios, chips, cookies, toast, red velvet cupcakes, zucchini bread, or rice.

I am awesome slash crazy.

Update: Today I had a piece of chocolate. Fifteen minutes afterwards I had stomach pain and a headache. I wanted to brush my teeth because it was so sickeningly sweet. What the hell is happening to me.

whole30, day 7: some observations

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1.) I am just plain tired of eggs. I have eaten eggs for breakfast for seven days and look forward to day 31 of this challenge when I can have my beloved Cheerios back. You can keep the peanut butter and flour and dairy; just give me the Cheerios. (I did not expect to be wanting Cheerios. I expected to be pissed about the lack of dairy or doughnuts, not the Cheerios, which are basically the most bland food ever. Oh, Cheerios. I miss you.)

2.) Spices make a ton of difference. It’s fun experimenting with different combinations. Tuesday I made tilapia with italian seasoning and chili powder and it was heavenly. I don’t know what I used before I was forced to think outside the box. Salt and pepper, maybe? If I take nothing away from the Whole30 challenge it’s this: spices are good and it’s okay to use them. The drawback: there is no dairy to take the edge off of when someone’s gotten a little heavy-handed with the cayenne pepper.

3.) I’m not hungry throughout the day. I fully expected to be starving during this challenge but that has not been the case at all. I’m still eating about the same number of calories as I was before but these calories are packed with vitamins and minerals and stuff instead of just the calcium from a cheese stick. Does that make a difference? I don’t know. Maybe it’s all mental.

4.) There is a difference between grass-finished beef and regular Albertson’s beef. GRASS-FINISHED BEEF KICKS ASS. I can’t taste much of a difference between organic chicken and regular chicken, but the beef? Pfft. It’s so much better.

5.) My jeans are looser in the thigh and butt. So stinking happy about that.

6.) I quit smoking on January 31st, and holy dang I smell awesome. My hair smells great, and our car smells great, and my laundry detergent smells great. My nose is very happy I quit smoking. Probably my lungs are, too. I don’t know if I’ll start again. That seems like a lot of pressure. One day at a time, okay?

whole30, day 6: what we eat

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I researched the Whole30 about two weeks before I started it to know exactly what I was getting myself into. The bottom line: lots of vegetables. Some fruit. Some meat, mostly grass-fed and organic. Good fats, like those found in nuts (not peanuts, which are technically legumes. The more you know!) and avocado. But yeah. Vegetables. Mass amounts of the green, leafy goodness.

The resources for recipes are plentiful, and while I was a little ambivalent about the lack of grain or legume in anything, the food is great because it’s fresh, well-prepared, and nutritious.

Wednesday, the start of our Whole30 endeavor, I wanted to start with a bang. I made pork shoulder for dinner, which we ate out of bowls like animals. For lunch the next day I packed us a salad with the leftover pork on top of it. Delicious. Dinner that night was fish with veggies; the next night we had a Mexican dish that consisted of ground up chicken and spices on top of a bed of crisp lettuce, topped with yummy guacamole. We eat better now than we did when we before, probably because we’re limited and thus forced to be creative.

We’ll go grocery shopping once a week. Fresh food tends to not have the shelf life of processed food. We’ve already gone through two dozen eggs, four heads of broccoli, six bags of salad, a head of cauliflower, and two bags of mini carrots. Despite both of us being sick we manage to have dinner together every night and talk about our day. I like that part. There’s usually enough left over for lunch the next day, and even though I used to be opposed to leftovers, these aren’t horrible.

There is lots of prep work involved. I’m taking food from close to its main state and trying to coerce dinner out of it, and that’s kind of difficult when there is no packaged mix telling me exactly which methods to employ. I have found many recipes online (thanks, Google) but I’m not used to using recipes for every. single. dinner I prepare. It’s a big adjustment, but hopefully an adjustment that’s worth it.

whole30, day 3: it’s not hard (yet)

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The biggest adjustment is breakfast. I’m not enthusiastic about breakfast time. Breakfast food is my favorite and has been for a very long time. Now I just eat eggs. It’s very uninspired. I suppose that’s my own fault.

* * * * * *

I’ve been sick for the past ten days with some viral sinus infection that won’t leave me the hell alone. The doctors I work with have assured me I’m not dying and this is perfectly normal but I’m really hesitant to believe them. I know they went to med school and stuff but my head of chock full of snot. That has to mean something, right?
“Yes. It means you have a viral sinus infection.”

I highly recommend starting a Whole30 when you’re sick. You can sleep right through the “I-feel-so-deprived-without-my-coffee-creamer” part and emerge on the “What-is-in-that-bowl-it-doesn’t-matter-put-it-in-my-mouth-hole” part. In that way you can easily consume a dinner of nothing but shredded pork and be completely satisfied.

whole30, day 2: things my husband has said

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My dear, sweet husband. So supportive and nurturing, big-hearted and kind and freaked the hell out when I told him about the Whole30 program.

“So… no grains? At all?
“No.”
“What about potatoes?”
“No. Well. No WHITE potatoes.”
“NO POTATOES? Pasta?”
“No.”
“…”
“…”
“Fine.”

He’s not without his reservations and I cannot say that I blame him. Since we’ve been married I have tried Weight Watchers, Atkins, and vegetarianism without any long-term commitment. He goes along for the ride, quietly eating his green beans and keeping his grumblings to himself (kind of). We’ve been together for five years, married for three, and each time I say “We’re going to get healthy!” he is supportive and gung-ho. I believe that he wants to be healthier; we talk about the rest of our lives kind of frequently, like what kind of parents we’ll be and the things that we’ll do, like we’ll suddenly morph into these super active versions of ourselves once there’s a baby in the picture.

We won’t. He knows that and I know that, but it’s difficult to take the steps to do anything about it. Changing is difficult when we’re so comfortable with the way we’re living. “If it ain’t broke…” right? Except what if it is broken and we won’t know it until it’s too late? What if we could do something about our lack of energy, our chronic sinus issues, our trouble sleeping, and various other sundry issues right now before it turns into heart disease or clogged up arteries or cancer?

Maybe we can. I’m not saying that this Whole30 is the answer, but right now I don’t have a better idea. I know that nutrition is linked to health and is far more intertwined than we realize, and I’ve read a lot about what people have said about this program and decided that it was worth trying. If, in thirty days, we hate our lives, then fine. We’re no worse for the wear. But hopefully we’ll both be able to take something away from this, whether it’s the love for new vegetables or a different attitude towards what we put in our bodies and how it works within us.

whole30, day 1: my story

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I was a happy sort of fat. I grew quickly when I was young, and by age 13 I was the tallest I was ever going to be. This was a curse in middle school: always at the back of the class during pictures, always paired with the tall, strange boys with peach fuzz facial hair. Boys did not like me, and those who did were neither interested nor courageous enough to say anything about it. I quickly realized that I had the gift of being funny, and if I couldn’t make these boys want to kiss me, I could at least make them laugh.

I didn’t mind, really. I had a great group of friends and we did many things together, so it wasn’t like I was some chubby social outcast. I wasn’t. I wasn’t even really overly chubby until college, which is when “chubby” became just a polite way of saying “fatter than average, but not point-and-stare fat.” There are definitely degrees of fatness. I know what I’m talking about here.

Fast forward half a dozen years to present day. I’m still fattish (I’ve got a BMI of 31.6, which is technically obese, and I wear a size 14 pant, which is the national average [not a lot to be proud of, but whatever]) but not unattractive, married, and unsatisfied with myself. I’ve lost twenty pounds by way of counting calories, but still feel unhealthy. I have acne, terrible acid reflux, trouble sleeping, fuzzy-headedness, and a general lack of energy. My once roller-coastery periods are more normal thanks to the recent weight loss, so that’s a start, but there has to be more. I do not want to take a zillion medications to be healthy. It has to be simpler than that.

Enter Whole30. I do not know how I found it and I guess that’s not important. For the next thirty days, my husband and I will be doing this program. We will fill our plates with fresh fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats. I will record my findings right here with the hope that this helps reset my attitude towards food and what I find to be delicious. I’m optimistic but not naive. Twenty-seven years of bad habits isn’t going to go away in thirty days, but I have to start somewhere.

affirmative

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I was in a pretty dark place the past few weeks, specifically with regard to adoption. Maybe dark is the wrong word. I was in a dimly-lit place. And there was pointy furniture everywhere that I kept ramming my shins into. Maybe there scary noises involved. My point: I was overwhelmed and not the most positive person. We had met with two agencies (one domestic, one international) and were no closer to deciding how to go about procuring a baby as when we first began.

And the money! And the time! I felt so outnumbered by the variety of factors that stood in our way. Should we sign with an agency? Should we adopt from Korea? Should we just wait a little longer to see if Jason’s sperm comes back? Is that a viable option or am I just in denial? Pregnancy had to be better than what we were going through. I could barely talk about adoption without dissolving into a puddle of tears.

Then I met Alyson. Our meeting was spontaneous and random, and we crammed more adoption talk into five minutes than I’ve ever talked about with my friends. She got what I was going through–all the frustration and negative feelings and high hopes–and it was a relief to not have to explain everything. It felt kind of affirming, like I was supposed to meet this woman for whatever reason.

I still get asked how adoption is going, and the answer is that there is no answer. We’re still in a holding pattern: waiting to choose an agency, saving money in the mean time. In the same breath, we’re enjoying our child-free lives. I will never take these days for granted. As much as I want to have children, I know that we’re not meant to have them right now. And that’s becoming more and more okay every day.

our professional bed

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We built a bed, folks. Specifically, we built this bed. Specificallyer, Jason built the bed and I stood around and constantly asked him if he needed help. He didn’t, and I’m not sure the result would be so great if I had so much as picked up a paintbrush.

Done.

It started because Garrett and Emily were coming and needed a place to sleep while they visited. Instead of getting a whole new bed and frame for a guests, we got a new bed for ourselves and we put our old bed in the guest room. We’re very generous.

We looked around for a bed and frame for our new bed, but that stuff is really expensive. If it were made out of gold then fine, spend $1600 for a new bed frame. Or maybe if we’d had some more money to throw towards new furniture. It would have been easier, that’s for sure. Instead, we opted to buy a mattress and box spring and make the bed.

We began by finding plans online. We read them and reread them, then read them just once more to make sure this was within the scope of our knowledge. Because we didn’t a saw, we took the cut list to Home Depot and they made all of the cuts for us. We also picked up some things we didn’t have, such as wood putty and finishing screws.

It cost us about $160 in materials (we already had the paint) to make the bed. That’s it. Jason was out in the garage for a while when we got off of work, and spent a few hours there on the weekends. While we didn’t get it up in time for Garrett and Emily’s visit, it’s up now. And it’s beautiful. Upon seeing it, I squealed “It’s a professional bed!” As if our bed had been at amateur status just to give the Olympics a whirl. What I meant was that it looked like a professional bed maker had made the bed instead of my husband. I mean, he’s an Eagle Scout so I should have known it would all be alright.

Things To Note:
1) Wood is super porous. There are two coats of primer and four coats of paint on the bed. There was a treatment (the wood conditioner, I believe) that we could have done to the wood to make it less porous but because we were all gung-ho and thought we would have it done by the end of December, we didn’t do it. I kind of wish we had.

2) Caulk is our best friend. We painted our bed white, and because of the aforementioned paint-sucking issue that the wood had, there were a few places, namely between the planks, where the paint just kind of disappeared. Enter caulk. We caulked between the boards, let it dry, and then put another coat of paint on. There are no longer any gaps.

3) This was our first project and we still have a lot to learn. We had no idea it would take this long. Maybe if we had conditioned the wood the process could have been a little less time consuming, especially with regard to the zillion layers of primer and paint.

4) I have said this about a million times, but take some pictures of the process. We took none (surprise, surprise). Even though the building of the bed isn’t necessarily difficult (those plans are so straight forward), it would have been nice to look at the whole thing taking shape. Alas.

Building the bed has started a DIY fever within us. We now have plans for floor-to-ceiling bookcases, end tables, and crown moulding that we’re dreaming of building, as well as repainting and reknobing a dresser we bought. It’s fun, and the pride Jason feels over having built the bed makes me want to go build something now. I won’t, though. I will need constant supervision. Power tools scare the crap out of me.

dairy phase-out

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When I was younger my brother used to get pissed at me for pouring milk into my cereal, stirring it around, and then pouring a majority of the milk down the drain.

I’ve never been a milk fan. I have been a dairy fan–ice cream, butter, cottage cheese, yogurt–but am starting to realize that perhaps my body is having adverse effects to dairy. I always blamed the symptoms on something else, which is easy to do since the main symptoms were gas and bloating. So if I felt bad after eating Mexican food (which was just a taco salad – not even the shell!), I blamed the meat. If we went to Mucho Gusto (the Oregon equivalent of Moe’s), I would get a meatless burrito, just beans and rice and lettuce and cheese and sour cream and salsa. When I felt sick afterwards, I blamed it on myself for eating too much (note: I felt the same amount of sickness whether I ate the whole thing or only half, so perhaps I was unconsciously aware of what was going on and did not want to face it).

The decision to phase out dairy as part of my regular diet has very much to do with the way it makes me feel. We made the switch from milk to almond milk about a year ago, though when we have company I always buy regular milk for them. When Garrett and Emily were here I got a carton of organic milk, and when we ran out of almond milk on Thursday, I used the regular milk in my trusty Cheerios.

That was a mistake. It was also the kind of definitive proof that I needed to stop consuming dairy products. Gassy and bloated are the only two adjectives I feel comfortable using right this moment, but there were others and they rhymed with “quitting.” I feel it important to point out that Cheerios are a fairly innoccuious breakfast cereal. I thought about that when I was on the toilet (for the third time). I thought “Cheerios! How banal! The have made me so full with their fiber and the whole grains help my heart. No. WAIT. WAIT A SECOND! I HAD MILK TODAY! Milk in the bowl, and then we swung by Human Bean so I could get a sugar-free chai with nonfat milk. MILK.

An aside: I find it strange that people drink the breast milk of another species, and the measures the dairy industry goes through to ensure that their cows are at top milk production means keeping the cows pregnant for a majority of her life, just so they can separate her from her calf and then suck the milk out of her udders. There is much much more that happens after that so it would not be incorrect of me to say that I’m going dairy-free as much for the animals as I am for myself.

I don’t know if eliminating lactose will stop my break outs or problems falling asleep or weight gain. It will for sure help with the bloated uncomfortableness that happens whenever I eat cheese. If there are other benefits, I will let you know. I’ll make my husband write his down, too. We’re doing this together.

We know how we want to eventually be eating, but stopping our bad habits cold turkey and assuming new ones would probably make us cranky and hate our lives. There would be very little follow through because it’s all too new. Instead, we’re going to do it in stages. Dairy is the first stage because we’re already kind of there. There is no yogurt or sour cream in the fridge, no ice cream in the freezer. We do have some coffee creamer that will have to be disposed of, but that shouldn’t be an issue.

We will reevaluate after ten days of being dairy-free to see whether we’ve noticed anything different and if it’s worth keeping up. Onward!