It's a New Year!

Hello lovelies! I hope everyone is doing well.

Wow... I haven't updated this blog in nearly 2 years, I think? I figured I would sort of share what I've been doing recently and how I've been eating. (Spoilers: Not Well.)

Here are two pictures of me, one from 2014, and the other from 2016. It just occurs to me how much better phone camera are now...

On the left, I was getting ready to walk a 5K. On the right, I was at a Tiny House festival here in Jax.

The comparison really shows how much weight I've gained in the last two years. Obviously I've gotten older too, which probably means I won't look exactly as I did 2 years ago, but that's okay.

Looking at these pictures makes me realize that I really need to take control of my diet again and actually eat healthy foods. Not the crap that I eat every day.

Recently, my mom and I have been discussing all the foods that make me sick. Almost every meal I eat now affects me negatively in some way. Chinese food gives me a headache, I think it's the msg or something. Pizza gives me stomachaches (bad ones) and I think it's because I'm probably lactose intolerant. A tiny bit of cheese isn't a problem, but once it's on pizza it makes it hard to gauge just how much I'm eating. And I've also been getting heartburn, which I never used to have.

I'm only 22! I should feel great and energetic but instead I always feel sluggish and get out of breath walking up stairs.

So I've decided to make a change. Along with my dad and my grandma, we're going to start eating healthier. I'm going paleo/primal because I'm most comfortable with it. Save for a few changes.

I'm going paleo basically, but I am allowing myself a serving of rice, once a week. While technically I could have rice on a Sunday and then a Monday, because those are two different weeks, it's not in my best interest. But it's there if I need it.

I'm also going to allow myself one serving of gluten free noodles, once a week, but I haven't decided if I'm going to count that as my rice that week, as the gf noodles I like are made with rice. I know it's not the healthiest thing, but I really don't want to give up spaghetti. So I'm going to try to make it healthier by either removing the noodles or just having LESS gf noodles.

I also need some exercise, as I'm doing nothing right now. So I'm going to start off by walking 3 times a week. Probably Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I might have to tweak that once I start school again.

I need to look up more exercises that I can do, and some that are fun to do/easy for me to do at home because if not I know I won't keep up with them.

Since I'm doing this with my grandma, I want to make sure it's fun and easy to keep up. I told her that if one of us cheats, it's not the end of the world. Just to make sure that it doesn't ruin the rest of our day. The next meal after a cheat meal should be healthy. I feel like this is the best way to do it because then it's just about putting the stuff into your body that makes you feel good, and if you cheat it isn't like your whole diet is ruined. I definitely want to make sure I'm as good as I can be, but just know that I may occasionally cheat. It's not making a habit of it that is tough for me.

I'm also trying to work on portion control. So far, I've never really been able to control my eating. I always end up eating too much. If something tastes good, I will eat it until I'm sick. Since paleo has a lot of vegetables and meats, I don't think this will be a problem for me, but when I do have rice or pasta, I need to make sure I only eat a serving. No more.

Finally, I just want to say that I'm doing this diet for me. I don't like how my clothes fit and I don't want to struggle to take a good picture. I want to lose the fat around my gut so that I'm healthier too. One of my goals is to live to 100, and that's not gonna happen if I keep eating the way I do.

Oh, and we're starting on the 26 of December, but I wanted to write this ahead of time.

I'd love to hear from y'all, so leave a comment and let me know if you're starting paleo too! Or if you've been doing it. Maybe it'll help keep everyone on track, especially in the first few weeks of the New Year.

Good luck, and be excellent to each other!
Peace, Sam

New Beginnings ;)

It sounded like a good title.

Hi, I know it's been like over a year since I updated, and I'm sorry. I have not been very good about eating well over the past few months, and as a consequence of that, I've gained about 20 pounds. :(

I want to start eating well again. I want to feel healthy because I'm putting good food into my body. I don't want to feel dizzy because I am eating wheat.

I've been inspired by some people on Facebook who are super fit, and I want to be able to do that too. So I've written some stuff down about what I want to change in the next few months in terms of eating and exercising.

Eating:
Here are some things I will do with my diet:

- No wheat (NO PIZZA, no spaghetti, etc.) [This is a hard one for me because even though it makes me feel awful, I still eat it because this stuff tastes good.]

-Only eat rice at restaurants, or I can allow myself a 1/2 cup cooked at home [I usually only eat rice at Moe's, so it wouldn't be that often anyway (or only like twice a week).]

-Try to limit Chinese food. [It makes me dizzy and gives me a headache and stomachache.]

-Have some veggies at least once a day. [I have been bad about eating vegetables. I can't remember what veggie I ate last!]

>Make meals for the week on the weekend so I don't have to cook when I come home for lunch. [I usually only have 20 minutes to eat at home so I don't want to waste any of that cooking]

>Have a protein shake in the morning and don't eat until lunch. [This may be a bit tricky because I had been making them with Hershey's syrup and peanut butter, but I'm going to try to make it healthier by using cocoa powder. Maybe a sub for the peanut butter.]

Fitness:

-Do as many pushups, sit-ups, and squats as I want. [I can't do that many, so I'm just going to do as many as I feel comfortable doing while keeping my form]

-Maybe add in walking or sprinting a little while later.

I am going to try to write about it as much as possible on this blog and post to Facebook whenever I do, but don't count on it being often.

Be excellent to each other,
Sam.

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 :)