Starting a new routine!

Let me preface this by saying that I have been having awful headaches, bordering on migraines for the past week or so, and I've also been eating pretty badly. I want to fix that by going paleo for about a month.

I don't want to make it like a diet, but I do want to try rewarding myself for staying paleo every week by doing something paleo/primal, like a nice bike ride or an amazing dessert made with berries and homemade unsweetened whipped cream. Doesn't that sound good? I think this would be a better approach than doing a cheat meal; every time I eat wheat I seem to just go back to eating it, and it makes me feel awful. :( I want to feel good again: energetic and happy, not lazy and headache-y. So paleo! :D

So, readers, I hope some of you will join me, even if it's as little as 2 weeks. Try paleo and see if it makes you feel better, you may be surprised what your body tells you. I will try to document my meals, and stick to paleo as cleanly as possible,not cheating, but rewarding myself for eating well, and I am going to try my hardest!

Hi all! I wanted to write an update about how I have been doing with everything. As you know, I had been cheating pretty bad, and while I felt bad about it, sometimes I just feel like it would be easier to cheat all the time...? But I do care about my goals, so I won't do that! :)

Before yesterday, I was doing decent paleo, but I went to a College Orientation yesterday, and cheated. It was mostly within 80/20 range, just a bun on my hotdog. If I had had a knife and fork, I would've eaten it without the bun, but it would've looked weird without them. :) After that, I was still hungry (go figure!) so my dad took us to Firehouse Subs. I got the meatball sub with cheese and only ate the meatballs out of it. I did have iced tea and Lays sour cream and onion chips, which have canola oil and sunflower oil in them. Bleh!

Do other people cheat this much? I really am motivated (believe it or not) but I just have a hard time eating paleo when there is so much bad stuff in the house. It's not like I can just throw it out, it's my brother's food. I am trying harder this time though.

I think the key this time will be to eat like I did when I blogged about paleo before. All the super flavourful foods, like dark chocolate covered strawberries, sauteed steak and pork chops, etc. It kept me full, which is something that the food I've been eating recently has not done.

Alright, readers, I am leaving you now to go do some little exercise!
Samantha

I feel so bad for not updating in so long! I've been doing fail-eo for the past month or so. I'm addicted to wheat! Arg!

Today is my brother's birthday and we are definitely eating badly tonight, and I've been eating horrible stuff all weekend, some of which has included grocery store donuts and pizza. I have decided that until I have been doing paleo correctly and I feel good, I will not update this blog. Sorry for whoever is reading it, but I really want to get back on track, and I feel like it's super hard for me and I don't want to be complaining all the time! :/

Long time no...blog post? I guess...

So I've been doing a lot since my last blog post. First of all, I have been doing almost a month now with no wheat. I have eaten rice a few times, and corn more than that. I have found that if I don't eat too much of either, that they don't really have an effect on me. I think I've also eaten ice cream in that time. I have definitely eaten yogurt and peanut butter. And Agave! O__o

Also, I got a job and am in my training part of it now. It requires me to walk around a little, but it's mostly standing around. But at least I'm up. I haven't been doing that much exercise from the occasional push-up or squat to show that I can kind of do them.

I have read a few articles about squatting and third world squats which I thought were interesting.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-squat-properly/#axzz2TkaBZ1ii

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_thirdworld_squat

Both links I thought had very good information, as well as how to do the squat. I've been trying to get into a comfortable position when doing this squat, but I still need a little practice. I want to be able to do this squat first so that I can hopefully get more out of an exercise squat.

I have found that our scale is off, so I have no clue how much I actually weigh. :/ I am going to measure myself once I find out where to start. I have to look for a book we have...or might have. After that, I may post my measurements and update them when I lose any inches. Hopefully I'll gain inches some places from working out. The only problem with that, is that my sleeves barely fit now because I have "swimmers shoulders". So If my biceps or arms build muscle I might just have to wear tank tops and tee-shirts all the time. :)

Okay, well I hope everyone enjoyed this blog post! I'm going to measure myself soon and I'll probably make a separate blog post for that.

Samantha

Update! 'Cuz I haven't updated in a long time...

Sorry about that. So since I last updated, I kinda fell off the wagon a bit, having sugar and potatoes and rice. I kept myself away from wheat a lot, but I did have Zebra Cakes last night. They were good and I ate them because they tasted good, without caring how it made me feel afterwards. :/ I am going to remember how I felt, but they were good, so I don't really regret it.

I also had ice cream the other day, and I have reach the conclusion that if I want ice cream, I should have like 2 bites, and no more. After those 2 bites, I usually end up eating the rest of it without really tasting it. So it's mindless eating, which isn't very good. So just a taste, perhaps, then no more.

I have been trying to motivate myself to do more exercise, and I did the Strides for Pride yesterday. It's a 5k here, and it was super fun. They had donuts, but I didn't have any! Instead I had 1/2 a banana after the race. We also went out for brunch afterwards and I got 2 eggs over easy with bacon. I did try some of my mom's potatoes, but only a couple pieces.

I don't like exercise very much. Everyone says I will, but I really can't see how. I mean "sprinting" is fun, I guess, but not for 1/2 an hour.  I guess you're not supposed to do that much. :/ I don't know, I find it hard to get up and do something when I feel so much better just sitting around.

http://choosingtoeat.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/nothing-but-the-best-is-good-enough-for-me/

I found this link on Reddit, and I read it, finding it very interesting. Anyone from r/Paleo will have probably read it already, but I thought I'd post it here for everyone not from there. So basically, this link talks about Orthorexia, a sort of eating disorder that makes you choose quality over quantity, and you eat too little because of it. I haven't done any research except reading this article, so I'm not sure what to make of it, but it's worth reading. :)

I wanted to have more links, but I've been doing other things like trying to get a job, and studying. I will try to get links from other sources as well, but I couldn't not post that one. I really enjoyed reading it.

Later!
Samantha :)

Thoughts

So now that I've finished my 30 days of (semi) paleo, what do I plan to do next? Well, I definitely don't plan to go back to the way I was eating! I've already known how good paleo makes me feel, and I want to hold on to that feeling, so I'm now going to try to make it a lifestyle that sticks in my life. This means I'm going to still stay off potatoes, rice and other grains, but if I really really want to cheat, I'm going to get it over with. There's no use postponing something that I can quickly get rid of just by eating something carby. That said, I am going to minimize the amount of times I cheat so that I don't get those cravings. And if I do cheat, I'm not going to go on a downward spiral of SAD food.

I also plan to implement exercise into my life, by the way of jumping rope and doing Burpees. I think this will help me get a bit more fit and help me feel better.

As for the blog, I've decided not to update with what I eat everyday, but only do that when I cheat, so that I have to tell everyone. Otherwise, I'm going to post links I've found and other useful information, like recipes.

So, here's what I though of the last 30 days:

I started out weighing 132 lbs, roughly. I weighed myself yesterday morning and I was at 129, so yay! I didn't set a goal for how much weight I wanted to lose, so I'm glad for that. I feel like I may lose inches next, but maybe even gain weight in muscle. But that's okay.

I've found that I don't really crave rice. Maybe some sushi, but I haven't had any so whatever. Rice makes me sleepy for some reason. I'm not actually sure if it's that or the sugar in the dishes I had with rice, but I do feel like it made me sleepy. So it's not really that worth it to eat it, if it's just going to make me sleepy.

But I feel like now I don't even want rice with a lot of the stuff I used to. Like Hibachi Grill. I used to want rice or noodles with that, but I'm perfectly fine with just zucchini and meat. 

I have craved fries a lot! Not necessarily potatoes, but nice crispy fries. I did have some mashed potatoes (not real potatoes even, just flakes!) and they didn't really have any affect on me that I can remember. I also had sweet potato fries, which are good, but don't taste anything like real french fries. They're a good substitute however.

I have craved wheat. I keep thinking about all the amazing stuff I could have, but right now, I don't want to cheat, even though I just finished a challenge. I think that ought to count for something. :)

I also found it easier to keep my carbs under 100g when the only thing really carby was fruit.

I don't know what else to say about the challenge other than I feel good! And that when I think back to how I felt before, I feel gross.

Now, onto the next 30 days:

I am going to keep eating paleo, trying not to eat potatoes or rice, but most of all wheat, and I'd like to go 30 days without cheating once, because I think that'd be cool. However, I don't want to do Whole30. :/ I just don't think it's for me.

So hopefully you're okay with the change. I think it'll be good for this blog, so I can keep it up, but not really post everyday. It will be easier for me, anyway. And who knows, I may post everyday, or every other day. It depends.

Well, I look forward to "seeing" you soon, and I'm off on another 30 days! In 30 days (May 10th) I'll write another summary! :)

Samantha

DAY 30!! :D

So yesterday was Day 30!

I didn't eat anything for breakfast, but for lunch we grilled up some bacon wrapped steaks. I had one of those and some salad.

We got some mangoes so I tried one for a snack and found that I really liked it, so I ate the whole fruit. I wanted to have more for a snack, so I got a mini-snack box of raisins, some pistachios and chocolate, and ate that.

For dinner, we went to the Loop, and I got a salad with a burger, no bun.

I was still hungry later, so I ate some cashews and 85% chocolate. It was weird 'cuz when I when I was about to go to bed, my stomach started hurting and I was shaky. I don't know why that happened. :/ It felt pretty bad.

But that's all I had yesterday, and that ends my month challenge (which I admit, I didn't do very good on :/ )


In my next post, I'll talk about what I thought about everything, and what I plan to do with this blog now. :)

"See" you soon!
Samantha

Days 28 and 29

Before I write my post, I have to say sorry I don't have any pictures! I can't get them off my phone, so I'm going to have to fix that. :/

Anyway, let's get started! :D So on Monday, I started my day off with a banana. I was full for a while, and then my dad went out to lunch, and I intended to eat, but I waited too long, and it was 1:30 before I decided what I wanted. I had gone back and forth between having lunch and not having lunch, when I finally settled on just having green beans. They were okay.

Day 27

Yesterday I had no breakfast again. My dad and brother had like, a super processed lunch of macaroni and cheese, and pizza rolls. I had the left over meatballs from yesterday and an orange. I was going to have salad, but there was no lettuce, so I figured, why not fruit?

Day 26

So yesterday, I started my day with no breakfast.

For lunch, I had 2 grilled pork chops and a salad.

For a snack, I cut up an apple and had some chocolate with it, 4 pieces this time. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to eat nuts, so I didn't put any on my plate.

My dad bought more pre-made meatballs, so I cooked those up for dinner. I feel bad about eating them because I know they've got bad stuff in them, but we keep buying them. I need to do something about that. I had those with salad.

Later, I wasn't going to have a snack because I'm going to try to only eat when I'm hungry, so that I don't eat too much. Plus, I don't need to eat if I'm not hungry, right? But eventually I caved and had a banana and some pistachios.

So that's all I ate yesterday. Sorry it was boring and I didn't have any pictures. :/