How do you know you have really changed?

Posted on 8 December, 2012 by Renée

It’s great to have the revelation that you have changed.

I mean we all talk about “lifestyle change” yadda yadda yadda – we KNOW that we have to change so much about ourselves and we THINK we have… until we lose the weight and gain it back again for whatever reason. OR we don’t gain it back but the emotional part of the journey is just starting (I know. I said that word “journey”. I hate it but what else can I say?). The emotional part is probably the hardest part. In fact, it IS the hardest. Anyone can lose weight. To keep it off is a totally different beast all together.

I’m one of those statistics. I lost weight. I gained it back. I lost it again. I gained it back. I’m pretty sure anyone reading this right now knows this scenario very well or at least knows someone who has been there too. We all think that we are not going to be one of “those people” who gain it back. Then we are. That feels like crap. We know it’s happening but we don’t know how to stop it, even though we knew for sure, before it was happening, that we wouldn’t ever let that happen to us. We would overcome. We would beat the odds.

You know what? It’s totally ok if you don’t beat the odds. The odds are an incredible crap shoot that only a small percentage of people are able to achieve. If you have setbacks that’s ok. Seriously, who lives in a bubble where they aren’t affected by things in their life that could trigger old behaviours? Some of us are behaving in these not-so-helpful ways for 30 or 40 or more years. You don’t just suddenly NOT want to binge eat when you are stressed or lonely or angry or tired, just because you don’t want to be one of the statistics. The mind is so much more powerful that we imagine and if this is the way we are wired (incorrectly or not) you have to change that too and that doesn’t happen overnight.

So what exactly am I getting at?

Well. The first weekend of November hubs took me away for the weekend, actually to celebrate my birthday (that was in September). We didn’t go far away, in fact, we just went to Otterlo, a small villiage on the edge of the Hoge Veluwe, which is the largest national park here in the Netherlands. So he “took me away” but this place is just about 20KM from home:

We stayed a spa-boutique hotel, about 500 metres from the entrance to the park, which was absolutely brilliant. We were planning on spending time in the park for sure during the weekend. The best part of it all? At the park there are free bicycles in several areas of the park. You just pick one and you can cycle all over the park, to the museums, or just ride around enjoying the scenery.

The first evening we arrived, we checked in, dropped our stuff and went down to the common area/ restaurant to partake in a glass of wine before dinner. Afterwards we had a quick look around the facilities and knew for sure we would be using the pool in the morning and hubs’ had already made an appointment for me to have a massage as well for Saturday. We walked through the village a bit and decided to have dinner at a place that didn’t look like it was about to be shut down (small village, few places to go, some with zero customers…). Imagine my delight that the menu was FILLED with local/bio choices AND had gluten free dishes as well! AWESOME.

We were both pretty exhausted so were back in our room enjoying another glass of wine before passing out somewhere around 11pm (I know, we’re getting old). We got up the next morning and immediately went to have breakfast so that we could enjoy some swimming before we headed out to the park. I loved the pool and we had it all to ourselves! We talked about how much we loved swimming, we talked about this summer at my dad’s, we talked about how we wanted to more of this together and with the kids. It was extremely uplifting.

In fact it was this swimming morning that made me decide to do that 1.5KM open swim at the Festival of Sport next year in Cornwall… but more on that later…

After swimming we got ourselves together and went to the Kröller-Müller Museum, inside the park. This museum houses one of, if not THE largest, personal collection of original art works by the likes of van Gogh, Mondriaan, Monet, Picasso, etc. Pretty incredible. And outside they have a sculpture “garden”. Kind of surreal to be in a place that has these amazing original works of art. Like just to stand in front of an original Renoir is kind of cool, right? Definitely worth the visit.

After several hours we went back to the hotel as it was time for my massage. O. M. G. Yeah I needed that.

We decided afterwards that we were going to rent bicycles to ride out to Ede for dinner. The plan was to go to Steakhouse Amadeus – this is a sort of “American” style steak house and very, VERY popular with the locals. The ride was about 8KM, wouldn’t take too long. The hotel had bicycles we could rent for just €6 a piece but since we were only using them for a few hours, they only charged us for one! BONUS!! Biking out there was kind of scary though – being out in the middle of nowhere between villages means it’s just extremely dark out. We made it in one piece though and certainly had worked up an appetite!! Coming back didn’t seem as bad or to take as long but by the time we were back we were just ready to hit the sack!

The next morning we got up and had a nice breakfast again and it had stopped raining so the plan was to go into the park again and take advantage of the bikes. We spent quite a bit of time just riding around the park, had cake and coffee during a little break and then went to the Museonder – literally a museum under the ground that gives an insight into what exactly goes on underneath our feet and all of the history behind the nature that we can not see. Very cool stuff.

At some point it was just time to go so we headed back to the hotel, packed the car and decided to have one last stop for something to eat before we went home. I didn’t want it to end. Hubs didn’t want it to end, but unfortunately it had to end.

The thing I reflect about this weekend is the change I have made in my life physically. What I mean is, I remember many weekends that we would go away that would be all about a bit of sightseeing and a whole lot of eating and drinking (alcohol). I’m not a teetotaler by any means, but the amount of alcohol I drink now is more about quality than quantity. There are no more hangovers or missing breakfasts so that we would have to go out for some kind of greasy (yet delicious) fry up. The fact that we woke up to eat sensibly and then go for a swim???? Wow. The fact that we rode bikes to go have dinner in a neighboring town? Incredible. This is where you know you’ve changed. Does it guarantee you that you won’t got back to old behaviours? I don’t know. I personally don’t think there is a guarantee. I think life has to be about making conscious decisions ALL The time, even when those decisions AREN’T the best you’ve ever made.

When I gained weight (all of it and then some) a few years ago after maintaining a 27KG / 62lb weight loss for just over 3 years I was not making a conscious choice. I was in a horrible state of mind and my circumstances were pretty bad (for me – I’m sure others have gone through worse hardships) – the only way I knew how to cope was to medicate with food and drink (and cigarettes).

I feel like, even though I still am not exactly where I want to be weight wise, it’s ok. It’s ok because I know that I have actually changed. I know that when I do reach for chocolates out of stress it is a conscious decision, I KNOW exactly why I’m doing it, it is not without thought. Some days are better than others. Those better days sometimes morph into weeks or months and I don’t revert back to those old patterns. I’m human though and there will be setbacks.

Can I honestly say I will “never go back” to that old life again? I would like to say that and mean it, however, I would rather at this point just DO IT every day and let my actions make that statement for me.

Seven Hills and that Pesky Little Problem I have

Posted on 5 December, 2012 by Renée

Some of you may remember when I did this race two years ago…

I desperately wanted to do it the next year but I had that little knee problem and was out of commission for this event in 2011.

So as soon as I could run again (when was that, back in November or December last year?) I knew that the Zevenheuvelenloop would be done in 2012! Oh yes!!

I mentioned a few times this summer that I was training more hilly terrain and to be honest, I’m really glad I did. That, in combination with the stuff I did with the physio and then later at the gym (and at home) really helped me this time around in Nijmegen.

Unfortunately hubs’ was not able to run with me. Though he has tried, he just has too many problems with his hips. We are really not sure what to do – we thought maybe new and proper fitting shoes would help, and it did a little but not enough. We also discovered that he absolutely has to run his own pace to run a minimum of 5KM without pain. Running with me (ie slower) makes the pain come faster. So we knew at some point that a 15KM was definitely not in the cards for him.

I asked my running hero, Marcellus, if he wanted to take hubs’ place and he accepted :) This is a fairly big deal because while I don’t mind going all over the country to do races, most people I know stick to their own area. He’s Dutch, and pretty much lived here his whole life (except for one year in the US) and had never been to Nijmegen! (though this is typical; I, as a foreigner, have been to more places than most Dutch people have been in their own country). Marcellus is the one who encouraged me to keep going through my C25K program and convinced me to skip right over a 5K (and a 10K) for my first race to join the company running team to participate in a 12K. So, yeah, I was pretty excited to have him at least start with me at this race.

we’re actually smiling because it finally stopped raining

Unfortunately it had been raining all morning the day of the race, though this is not something we are not used to, and to be honest I always seem to have my best times when it’s raining so off we went from Arnhem to Nijmegen (a 20 minute train ride). We met M and another colleague at Starbucks before we headed off to our starting corral. It was cold and we weren’t due to start out until about 13:45 (we were in the last corral) but that time came and went with no sign of starting any time soon. Since we arrived around 13:00 I already questioned myself if I should try to use the loo again (I’d been about a 1000 times already) but I thought no, I’ll be fine, we are going to start soon anyway.

Two o’clock also came and went. Oh my God. Is this rain going to let up? Should I go to the toilet? I think I have to go to the toilet! What if I go and we start? Ugh!

I think it must have been about 14:30, somehow the rain stopped and clouds parted and suddenly the sun was shining! It was glorious! And finally… we were off! But now… I really had to use the loo…

photo courtesy of Loop voor het Leven (http://www.loopvoorleven.nl/loop-voor-leven/)

What I really wanted to accomplish was just beating my original time in 2010 of 1:39:26 and to be honest it was looking pretty good, BUT…

I really needed the loo.

And every time it seemed like I could go, the loos were locked up.

Finally around 9.5KM there was a portapotty that was open. Finally some relief!!

The bad news? I lost about 3 minutes in that damn thing! I did my best to make up some time and had a good couple of KM’s, but it wasn’t going to be my day to break any records. Oh, wait, but I did. My time? 1:39:20. Six seconds faster! Ha!

I seriously need to do something about my bladder!!

Letting Go

Posted on 2 December, 2012 by Renée

So that stuff at work that is going on? I’ve decided to let go of the stress that I’m allowing to take over my normal workday.

There are still things that are going on and decisions waiting to be made but clearly *I* have no influence over those things. So it’s time to let go.

By letting go that means I’m going to be more focusing on my work, my team and my goals. Let’s let the chips land where they may, whenever they are going to land.

With that, let’s move on to some cooler stuff!

It’s DECEMBER!!! WHAT THE ACTUAL BLEEP???? How did this happen??? I wasn’t quite ready for this month yet!

The last few months have been a whirlwind. It pretty much started with my birthday, my trip to Cornwall, my trip to Baltimore, a concert (hey I’m old, this is a big deal now), volunteering at the Amsterdam Marathon, and a quick trip to Brussels. There was also a weekend away in the Veluwe, some massive stress at work, and a 15K that I’d been looking forward to since the first time I did it in 2010!

I haven’t touched on the Marathon volunteering yet – Hubs and I actually signed up for this some months ago, just to see what it was like to be on the other side. I was a part of the starting corral team, in charge of the last corral. We had to try and get people to their correct starting areas but it was amazing how many questions we got as well, including “have you got any safety pins?” “which bus goes downtown?” “where do I leave my stuff?” “have you seen my uncle? we can’t reach him on the phone.” (really) Oh and we were on the Half-Marathon bit of the Marathon. My friend and colleague P was running and I saw another colleague as well as an Expat I know in Amsterdam. Pretty amazing to run into people you know where there are 40,000 participants in total!

We had to hang out for quite some time after the race started and afterwards I was certainly lucky that I have been doing a lot of strength training at the gym – our next task was to break down all the barriers at the start and finish areas of the race, including the entire section around the Olympic stadium. Oh my arms!!! P waited for us to finish up and then we went to celebrate with her by having a few beers and some grub that you don’t generally eat when being quite particular on a certain diet *winks* Conclusion on volunteering: It’s ok. Not sure I would do it again. Depends on the task.

watching the runners coming into the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam was inspiring and awesome!!

hey, you get a free jacket and tee shirt out of the deal, why not volunteer?

PP ready to kick some HM a$$

I also made a very quick trip down to Brussels; my friend Dave had exactly 48 hours on this side of the world and his main purpose (besides getting to hang with two gorgeous ladies) was to visit the Hard Rock Cafe in Brussels. You see, Dave has a thing for HRC. And I can’t say I blame him because I do love to go to HRC much much more now that I’m out of the US than when I was living in the US. This is probably because it does remind me a bit of home but also I’m a sucker for music and nostalgia. Dave’s been to like 1 billion HRC’s in the world and I’m sure he’s not done yet. I missed Dave the last time he was in Amsterdam (I was in Milan) so I had to go, there was no way I was going to miss him again!

it was a cold but absolutely stunning fall day in Brussels!

pinky and dave together again!

one of my favouritest people in the world – Y! aka the DutchBitch

look at that glorious sky!

Next post I will share some good stuff that happened in November – my little weekend away with the hubs just 25 KM from home and my 15K that I ran with my running hero M (he took the place of Hubs, since hubs wasn’t able to participate).

I still have quite some things to update, but let’s leave it at this and hopefully I’ll be back in the swing of blogging again!

Have you had a crazy period recently behind you? How did you cope? What do you have going on this month, besides the holidays?

Overdue

Posted on 25 November, 2012 by Renée

It really has been almost a month since I blogged. With good reason. Seriously it’s been a wild crazy busy couple of months and the stress level has been pretty high.

I meant to update at the end of October – remember I had some goals?

1) I will not only log into MyFitnessPal every day, I will actually log the food I eat as well.
2) if I am out, for whatever reason, and I am unable to log electronically, I will do it the old fashioned way and the enter when I have a chance (I am volunteering at the Amsterdam marathon this month and will be away from the computer at that time)
3) the whole month of October I will be beer-free
4) I will go to the gym twice a week. No excuses.
5) I will run minimum twice a week.
6) I will continue to not eat the chocolates from work, the entire month of October. (not cutting out chocolate in general, just not mindlessly stress-eating from the candy jar.

I did fairly well with MFP – though I keep missing a day here or there and messing up my days in a row. Prior to going to Cornwall in September I was maybe one or two days shy of a year when I forgot to log in. I think the point here though is, logging in at least plants the seed and makes me think about what I’m going to end up entering in my food diary. Food logging isn’t the worst habit to have, in fact, I am sure that it stops people from further damage (if there is damage).

I was not beer-free the whole month, however, there were a lot less excuses for it. I had beer after the Amsterdam Marathon (where I was a volunteer, not a runner) and I had beer when I went to Brussels to the new Hard Rock Cafe with a couple of friends (one who was here for just 48 hours, purposely to go to HRC).

Running – I wanted to run minimum twice a week and it averages out to that – my mileage was 71KM which is amazingly the most I’ve run all year in a one month period.

It looks like I didn’t mention the gym in my goals and I thought I had – I wanted to go at least 2 times a week in October. I didn’t manage this every week but I went way more in October than I did since I joined my new gym earlier in the year.

November was pretty mental. Like really mental. My brain was playing a lot more tricks on me than usual – basically there is something going on at this very moment that I can not share yet (possibly next week) but it’s something that has had me waxing and waning between self-confidence and self-doubt. The times when I’m not feeling super confident seem to be the times that I’m most vulnerable to eating junk or not going to the gym or not sleeping enough. It’s definitely been a rough month yet I still have some running, cycling and gym under my belt. I’m treading water and it’s going ok but eventually I need to do something else…

I’ve got some other things I want to talk about like my weekend away at the spa hotel and the 15K I did last weekend, but those are for the next post.

Losing Steam

Posted on 1 November, 2012 by Renée

I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet lately.

I was really working hard on my goals for October and to be honest I feel like I did pretty good, not 100% consistent, but I really worked hard to get my running and my gym time in. I didn’t log my food on MFP every day and I managed to only stick my head in the candy jar once at work this month. So honestly, I give myself credit for that, for sure.

But I’m losing steam. I am bogged down by stuff that is in my head and I’ll tell you what it is – It’s about being good enough.

I realise I’m not super open and I know I can listen very well and be supportive but I have this thing about opening up either at the wrong time or not at all.

And I’ve done this basically forever.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who feels this way – basically, trying to manage my life in a balanced way means that I am always lacking in one area or another.

Like, for example, if I want to go to the gym or run (commitments to myself), it means less times with friends. There is guilt associated with that. Sometimes it’s just colleagues (but let’s not let that mean that I don’t truly them and definitely miss spending time away from work with them) but other times it’s true friends. I feel like I’m not a good enough friend. How can I be when I don’t spend enough time with them?

So then I try to spend more time with friends, and I don’t go to the gym, or I skip a run. I know, I know, it’s not the end of the freaking world, but then I feel like I failed myself again. Sure. Make sure everyone else around you is happy Pinky and don’t bother with yourself.

I make priorities and others fall by the wayside.
I don’t answer my emails from my family for weeks.
I’m lagging behind on paying bills.
I’m lagging behind on cleaning my house.
I rarely cook for my husband.
When my kids are around I’m stuffing in activities with friends or doing errands or running. So I’m a crappy stepmom as well.
I’m too tired to have any kind of alone time with my husband (yeah you know what I mean), sleep then becomes a priority, ie, crappy wife.

I am trying to push forward in so many areas in my life and work is one of them. Yet I’m dealing with delays and ambiguity and uncertainty and day after day it’s chipping away at my self-esteem.

I feel like I’M JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH. In any area.

I am reaching for chocolates.
I’m not logging my food.
I just skipped a run for pete’s sake. Why? because I’m tired.
I’m losing steam. I feel like I can’t do this anymore. None of it. I can’t do it anymore.

I have the crappiest choice available – SUCK IT UP and carry on trying to find what works or go back to the way things were. You know, when I was smoking and drinking every night and weighed 101KG. Because yeah, I felt like I was good enough back then, for sure. *rolls eyes*

I’m frustrated. I want to have a normal life. Normal relationships. Normal spare time. Nothing in my life right now is normal.

What do you do when you really start to lose it? I feel like a broken record lately, but this is just totally messing with my head right now. I know I don’t have to be perfect, but how do I ever get closer to that balance I so desperately need?

What if there were no prize?

Posted on 9 October, 2012 by Renée

I know what you are going to say.

“The prize is your health”
“The prize is having a long and fit life”

I know.

I really do.

But seriously some days I just think this is so hard.
All this hard work.
All the effort.
Planning, scheduling, running, racing, working out, getting fit, being involved, being the example.

It’s so fucking hard sometimes.

It feels like there’s no prize.

It’s never over. You have to keep going on and on and on and on.

You aren’t “lucky”
You have to work for it. *I* have to work for it.

There will never be one single day in my life where I won’t have to consciously make decisions about what I’m going to do, what I’m going to eat, how am I going to make a difference, today. Just today. And then do it all over again tomorrow.

There’s no prize.

“The prize is your health”

Yeah. OK. I get it.

“But you look so great!”
It’s not about looking great.
It’s not.

It’s about the fact that I can not do ANYTHING without thinking of the consequences.
How many calories?
When am I going to run?
How am I going to get a work out in?
What am I going to eat?

For “my health”

Because that’s really it. The numbers don’t change much. Clothes don’t fit right. I don’t get faster. It’s all the same.

There’s just no prize. There’s just me, currently NOT being fabulous.

Wednesday Food Fail?

Posted on 26 September, 2012 by Renée

Ok not a total fail but as you all know I’ve been jet setting all over the place so I haven’t made a new recipe for nearly two weeks. I’m slowly getting back in my own time zone rhythm and I’ll resume the amazing and wondrous food fest postings next week.

But I want to talk a little bit about a real food fail. It’s making me crazy and I don’t know why I don’t stop it. Notice I don’t say I “can’t” because I CAN I’m just NOT.

It’s been busy and stressful at work as it normally is this time of year and I’m giving in over and over again to the candy jar. My nemesis. My kryptonite. I am consciously walking over to the jar and basically shoving my head in it, consuming as many chocolates that I can get down my gullet. WTAF? I hate this so much – I know it doesn’t help me, not in the slightest so WHY DO I CONTINUE THIS BEHAVIOR?

Why does it take so long to unlearn lifelong consoling habits? Do I need to figure out why I ever did this in the first place? To be honest with you I don’t want to delve into the past – do I need to do that now to fix the present?

You know, I used to smoke cigarettes (have to clarify that since people associate the Netherlands with weed, which I don’t smoke either) and even did for a few years here and a few years there, meaning I did quit and restart but always years after quitting. Each time I quit I just QUIT. Stopped. The last time I quit was 4 years ago nearly and I have no intention of starting again because I just don’t think it would be conducive to my lifestyle now (we all know it’s not healthy and I’m not judging you if you smoke, I’m just saying for me it would be a dumb move to start again).

So why can’t I quit shoving chocolate in my face when I’m stressed? If I had to pay a fine of €1 for every time I put candy in my gob In a stressful situation I’d be really broke. I don’t want to do it anymore! I have discipline in so many areas, why do I insist on sabotaging myself?

I realize only I can answer these questions for myself and come up with solutions, but I would love any feedback as to how others deal with this kind of thing.

In any case, today, I am not going to do it. I need a good food day. I need to feel in control. I need to look at the bigger picture and remember that I only do things that add value to my life. This stress-habit doesn’t so at least today it won’t be happening.

Glory Days

Posted on 28 May, 2012 by Renée

The last few days have been A.MAY.ZING.

The weather has been insanely perfect. Finally we can shed our coats, sweaters and scarves and hey- even socks (yes I live for the first day of the year where I don’t have to wear socks!!!) and actually have some lovely spring weather. I am not one to complain usually about weather and I am not super affected if it is rainy or cold. I know that some people are affected so I do try very hard to not be too simplistic about it – I honestly think (for me) that how you feel has to really come from within and we can’t let the weather dictate “good” or “bad”. For some people this simply isn’t true, they can become very depressed if subjected to too many dark and dreary days. We do live in the Netherlands though and it does rain a lot here, we have to keep the sun shining from our hearts in that case, right?

But anyway…while I *think* I’m not affected I have to say the last couple of days I feel incredibly happy. Like the Bliss-type of happy. Why? Because the last two days I have been out in the sunshine, enjoying the fresh air and the gorgeous surroundings. Even just listening to the birds in the woods is like a symphony in my ears. Truly incredible. So maybe the weather really can do a lot for our mood?

Yesterday we went to my mother-in-law’s with the bike for the first time on our new bike rack for the car. I have the Leontien Ladies Ride coming up next weekend, so I wanted to get a good ride or two in, before doing 70KM in one go. So after a little visit (and some non-paleo ice cream…) with MIL, BIL and SIL, I headed out with my trusty map to go to Ede and then swing back around to Arnhem. Some of the route was twice the same, but most wasn’t. It was truly glorious.

Today was equally incredible, but today I wasn’t alone. Hubs joined me for a planned 36KM ride from Putten to Hardewijk and back. Putten is about 60KM from us, but now that we have the bike rack, it’s a non-issue :) Hubs isn’t as up to speed on fitness as I am (LOL) so we didn’t want to go too far or for too long, just in case. But he did great! We went quite a bit slower than I normally go when I”m alone (my avg pace was 16.3KM/hr alone; today’s was 13.3), and we stopped quite a bit along the way just to enjoy everything around us. I was looking forward to an ICE COLD WHITE BEER (oh yes and oh no not paleo friendly), somewhere along the way after presumably working up a sweat and burning off some calories.

I should mention that I’m still not eating bread and trying as hard as possible to eat paleo where I can. So yesterday AND today I had chopped veggies with me, dried sausage (found some 97% gluten-free in the supermarket) and pickles (as shown above; great to replace electrolytes). Of course we also had plenty of water with us. Since I’m not super strict, you will “hear” me mention beer and other things that aren’t exactly paleo (hello ice cream!), but hey, I’m living life and enjoying everything, many things in moderation :)

So Putten to Hardewijk; I haven’t really been out in this area much, certainly not in Hardewijk and little did I really know there was a lake there! OH EM GEE, seriously the view did not get better! Along the way were farms, sheep, cute little cafes, and lots of forest. Once we hit Hardewijk we stopped to have our lunch, then moved out circling around back through the woods. At about 23KM or so, we stopped literally at this little hut where you could self-serve coffee, tea, cookies, soup and have a little break. You just leave your coins in the little container, totally based on trust. I love this concept SO much. Turns out they are scattered all over, and you can be sure we’ll be locating one of these little places again.

A few kilometers further, we found another little cafe in the woods and it was time for that lovely liquid of life and some bitterballen and to soak up just a few more rays of sunshine.

Sadly it was time to leave, since we didn’t want to be home later than 7pm, so we made our way back to Putten and after about 20 minutes underway we were back at our car.

The bike rack has already been a GREAT investment; I simply can’t WAIT to map out more routes for us to do!

I think after these two days of cycling, I’m definitely ready for the ladies ride next weekend!

********************

Do you love to cycle? how far do you go? Do you use any tools to help you find the best routes or do you just go out there and do it? What’s been one of your most favourite days cycling ever?

Why I’m Still At It

Posted on 28 March, 2012 by Renée

In February I signed up with a personal trainer. To be honest I am not sure that I am a better person for it. But fine, I signed the contract, I’m in for 3 – 4 months.

Part of the deal is that I give a specific diet a try even though I said several times I did not want to diet because I was sick of it being such a focus in my life when nothing ever changed. And, only three days in I was pretty much Bitchy McBitcherson and convinced I would not give it any further time or energy. I spoke to my PT about it, he helped me figure out how to work it into my life and schedule and so I carried on.

It’s something like 6 weeks later and nothing has really changed that much. At least not on the scale. Well, wait, that’s not the truth because I have seen 81.5 KG recently, which is a whopping 700 grams less than when I started the diet :) So, just weight wise, I’m not super convinced. I have NOT been 100% and I’m just putting that out there because I am fully aware that I can not blame the diet, the trainer, the candy jar, or anyone or thing else for ANYTHING except for myself.

As we have had a fairly rough start (he’s been ill and cancelled many appointments) I also don’t see a huge change in my body shape or fitness level. On Monday I went to my appointment and basically said “I want to get fit. I want to work out. I don’t want to diet.” However, I promised I would give it another 30 days with the weekdays being full on and shooting for under 1500 calories and the weekends being a bit more free and having bread if I want it (and I don’t eat much bread but Hubs makes it fresh and damn if that is not hard to pass up!), for example.

I did notice that after 3 weeks of no pasta, one night I decided I was just going to have it, I totally felt a difference in my digestion! My stomach was working VERY hard to process it! This was even whole wheat pasta, you know the stuff that is supposed to be good for you! Now I’m not going to tell anyone to throw out their pasta and rice but honestly, had I not gone without it, I wouldn’t have known. I also had rice a couple of times and noticed a slight tinge, but not as bad. As for dairy, I still have a wee bit, but again I never really had much milk for example, and was limited on cheese. I tried coconut milk on my cereal (well muesli – and on this plan I have TWO carb meals a day and FOUR protein/veg/fat meals) and I LOVED it! So, score on replacing some dairy. Goat’s cheese is fine, cottage cheese is fine, kwark and greek yoghurt is fine too (as a protein though, so NO fruit or sugars with it, I’ll pass thanks). Yoghurt is fine but it’s a carb, so I have it with fruit (preferably berries, totally skipping my banana for the time being).

The change we’ve now made is to have only ONE carb meal a day and replace the other with or a little protein or just munching on veggies. That’s fine, I am prepping a load of veggies on the weekend and then just taking little baggies with me. I’m eating so many vegetables, it’s kind of insane. Like at least a kilo. I feel LESS hungry than before I was eating this way.

I am getting a little bit bored with what I have so I’ve actually bought a cook book called Well Fed and I’ve been listening to Robb Wolf‘s Podcasts of the Paleo Solution. I like the science behind the solution, but I do not think I could fully avoid grains, dairy, legumes and potatoes the rest of my life. I do think I could sustain quite a lot of the plan, simply because I feel pretty good at the moment.

I also feel good because Operation Get Enough Sleep is actually working out quite well and that has a lot to do with the supplements that my PT recommended – namely Magnesium Citrate and Melatonin. I am also going to be picking up some Vitamin D soon (even with sun you can be deficient) and I take Valerian from time to time when I feel my stress levels rising. So actually food, plus exercise, plus sleep, plus less stress actually is not a bad deal. It really shouldn’t be able the scale, even though I am still officially overweight. I’m going to say it again, I don’t want it to be my focus, it doesn’t create a good feeling for me.

More food on the paleo front:
Chicken jalfreezi with sauteed courgette

Chicken sausage with mushrooms and spinach

And look I’m still running, in fact hubs started running with me again!

Oh happy day!

Posted on 26 March, 2012 by Renée

What a month it’s been! In my quest to find balance one thing that’s fallen by the wayside is the trusty blog. It wasn’t my intention to not update but one has to have priorities, right?

As you know I have been seeing a personal trainer and been on a different duet than “normal” and honestly it’s going all right but sometimes I wish I had never made the decision to do so. I can do the diet and have adapted mostly to it but I don’t find it sustainable or practical for the rest of my life. Suddenly I am the difficult one at home and in social situations and I’m just not a fan of that.

I have lost a bit of weight but am still not celebrating yet. Call me cautious but it honestly could be the exercise and not the food. Don’t worry though if for some reason I break through the 80kg mark you’ll be the first to know :-)

My PT has also cancelled on me several times, all for good reason I guess but I haven’t got that rhythm with him that I would have expected by now.

Anyway we shall see how the next 2 months work out!

I got a new phone and can now blog from the phone! So for your viewing pleasure, here’s what a bit of paleo looks like:

Breakfast, after having tea and a hard boiled egg at the house; cottage cheese, cherry tomatoes, celery and a bit of olive oil

Lunch; spinach tomatoes onions courgette and shrimps

Spinach mushrooms leeks chicken and goat’s cheese

Snack of cucumber and red and yellow peppers

So nothing hugely different than before just no grains.

I’m going to talk a bit more about paleo and what I’m learning in the next post. It’s pretty interesting stuff!

{run} {laugh} {eat pie}

amazing what changes when you start to run

Tag Archives: Life