2 1/2 Weeks...

So I have made it 2 weeks and 2 days. I am still alive. LOL

Actually it is not that bad anymore. I have settled into the diet and my body isn't screaming at me anymore. Grumbling sometimes maybe but not screaming anymore.

I have to be honest though...I am still kind of disappointed by the whole thing. I went to a doctor's appointment this morning so I was weighed for the first time since I started. I lost 5 pounds. I mean I know that is GOOD but...I don't know, I did a MAJOR overhaul of my entire way of eating. I sort of expected more than 5 pounds. I lost that much the first week I just started counting calories. So...not that big of a thing really. And honestly, I don't really feel great either. I am extremely worn out all the time. Which is normal for me, I am not saying it is because of the diet on any account, but I was sort of hoping the diet would help give me some energy. Maybe 2 weeks is not long enough and I need to give it more time. I will...I am not giving up. I just had hoped for a bit more than I have gotten so far.

Last night I did add exercise into the mix, which I know is also an important part. We have a water aerobics class here at work that meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:45 and I went yesterday. Going to try to make it twice a week - every time. Hopefully I will be able to.

So...that is that. It is going okay. I feel good in the sense that I am proud of myself for doing it, and sticking to it. Otherwise, though, not much to report. As someone said to me, not much to say when I am eating sticks and berries. LOL.I guess I am not feeling much pep about it all today. Once I have a chance to use my new food processor and try some new recipes maybe I will do better :)

Week One....survived

So when my doctor proposed this whole TOTAL change of lifestyle diet change she said (and yes, I quote)
"I think if you will do this for ONE WEEK you will be shocked at how good you feel and how much weight you will lose"

Well...shocked I can give her

Good.....not even close!!!

Last week was HORRIBLE!!! Okay I know that I have a lot of health issues that not everyone has so it was probably worse for me than for normal Joe Smoe AND I had really bad eating habits so that probably made it worse as well but seriously...not one of the bajillion blogs I read about switching to clean eating mentioned how HARD it was going to be?? NOT ONE???....

Thank you Internet.
So let me break it down.

Monday and Tuesday - massive migraine and felt light headed and dizzy the entire time. I truly convinced myself this was all about caffeine and protein loss (and it probably mostly was) and I would be fine. Got me some nuts to eat...the world is better right?

Wednesday....this was like Dday for me. I mean the WORST. I was supposed to be taking the morning off b/c we were getting one house ready for photographs for the realtor and a roofer was coming for the other house. Only problem? I couldn't stay out of bed for more than 30 min at a time. It was horrid. I hurt ALL OVER. My fibromyalgia flared up like someone poked it with a fire stick, I thought I was going to be sick all day...it was TERRIBLE. I mean seriously. Really bad.

Luckily that night my awesome friend Allison (no really, she is in grad school in London and for fun in her spare time she is interning with the London Symphony orchestra chorus....see? awesome...) got online to chat with me and give me some encouragement. She dropped the obvious on me...my body was detoxing....and it was not happy. All the chemicals and toxins and crap it was used to having were missing and it was yelling at me. A lot.

That actually made me feel better. At least I had a reason to be feeling so bad. I went to bed (but didn't sleep b/c I forgot to mention....insomnia also has invaded all week...barely sleeping at all)

Thursday got up feeling a little better so I went to work but...downhill as the day went by. At one point late afternoon I realized I was sitting at my desk in tears. I was just in that much pain that it was making me cry. So....left work a few hours early and went home, back to bed. Was really depressed that night. I HATE when my health interferes with work. It makes me angry and helpless feeling all at once. SO that night I learned a new important lesson.

Stress eating is still possible with health food......yep I ate a whole bag of healthy "clean" trail mix. Guess what? Not so healthy when you eat it like that. So that was important for me to realize. I can't just say well I am eating healthy foods so I can do whatever I want. I still have to change my bad eating habits....ESPECIALLY the stress eating one! I was sick as a dog all night long obviously.

The weekend was actually much better. I was tired, still am but everyday has been better than the last. I think maybe my body is finally starting to calm down a bit and accept what is going on. But I just gotta say, this was NO easy thing. Last week was hell. I haven't felt that bad in a really long time. and I still don't feel great. I am sure long term this is going to be a positive change but...either my doctor is clueless about the process or she just didn't tell me. It takes some work to get there!!!

Hoping for a better......

Eating Clean: Prep and Start

So it is Tuesday, which means I have made it through ONE DAY of eating clean so far. I'm not gonna lie, it hasn't been easy! But, to be fair...I have had extenuating circumstances. On Sunday night I got a migraine which stayed with me all through Monday (day 1). For whatever reason when I have a migraine I always feel like if I eat something it will be better (it almost never works FYI) so I did have an extra desire to eat all day but other than that...I did okay. I actually had more than enough food and it was all good. However, Monday night I took Migraine medicine. It didn't work so, still fighting with the migraine today (day 2) AND now fighting with the heavily medicated feeling I always get after taking that kind of medicine. What do I usually do? Kill my body with sugar....literally...I eat so much it shocks me back to normal. So I am struggling today to not give in and do that. But...I haven't and I refuse to. I will just be over here feeling like crap...I am sure it will pass! The truth is I knew this would be the hard part. When I am sick is when I eat the worst and care the least. If I can do it now...I can do it anytime!

So...here is the skinny on what I did....

I actually went shopping on Saturday night, which was a good idea. Shopping is tough on me and always wears me out so it was good to do that one day, and the cooking the next. I will have to remember that for future weekends. I was NOT happy at how much everything COST. No wonder people who eat "clean" are skinny...it's b/c they can't afford enough food! That wasn't a great start to my journey BUT I did have to admit that I bought more than just food. I also had to invest in a cutting board, some new knives, some Tupperware etc. so hopefully in the future it won't be AS bad. Here is my very small amount of groceries for way too big of a bill!

 

I sound very disgruntled. I was actually pretty excited about it all. Very colorful and pretty! I was ready to go on Sunday afternoon!

Sunday - first things first....I cut up a million veggies. I am NOT a  good cutter. I had to look up what kind of knife to use to cut what things. Some of the things I had to guess the correct way to cut them. I am fairly certain I probably guessed wrong on some of them. Might need some lessons with my sister-in-law and/or Sylvia sometime soon!  Here is the proof I did it though....and to be honest, it was a blast! :) Also here is my pretty new cutting board from Big Lots. I love it!

So I decided to make two main dishes for dinners. One was a chicken/veggie bake and the other was a whole wheat pasta with veggies. They both were super easy. Here are pictures and a link to the recipes I used to make them. (the pasta is almost nothing like what I ended up doing though, I sort of just used her idea and improvised with what I had/liked...)

 

                                      Chicken/Veggie Bake                            Pasta w/ Veggies

 I really kind of wanted to dive right in and eat them immediately, especially the Chicken Bake but I stuck to the plan and (after a taste test obviously) I doled them out into dinner containers. I ended up with ten ready made meals for my future! 

See how the one bowl on top of the red ones is different? That would be b/c my 4th red bowl had a HOLE in it and all the juice ran out of it onto my floor before I realized it! Agggh!

I am not going to lie, I was praying for 14, but I was also scared to death I would end up with 7 so...10 was a good compromise. I cleaned everything up - froze all the veggies I didn't use (except the ones I planned to eat for lunches through this week) and called Sunday done!

Monday, as I said, was a rough day, but really it wasn't about the diet. I followed the plan of breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner and lots of water though the day, plus I had 2 cups of my organic hot tea thrown in and I was very satisfied hunger wise. And it was all very good!!

 

So in case you are worried, no I am not going to post like this every day. It would be ridiculous since I will pretty much be eating the same thing every day (well my dinners will alternate every other day). BUT, I might post when I try new recipes on Sundays. I don't know yet. I do know I found the blogs of people who had done it before to be very helpful so, if I can help others, I might do it. We shall see. No Internet at home does make it harder. I had to do this post on my lunch break at work (yes I am eating my veggies as I type!)

Overall....day 1 a success! If I can make it through this migraine I think this week will be a cinch!