30 Day Cleanse

Warning: Only read if you are interested in strict dieting and digestive issues.  Remember, I tried to warn you!

Yesterday I posted a picture of celery and peanut butter on Facebook  with the caption, “Day 6 of clean eating (no dairy, gluten or sugar) and I have reverted back to kindergarten snacks. Surprisingly awesome!” and received a handful of requests to blog about my newly prescribed “diet.” Unfortunately, this is not a diet of choice, it is one that has been made out of a necessity to make my body not feel like it’s been stuck in a bouncy house with a dozen gorillas.  If this feeling sounds familiar to you, I have so so much empathy for your belly!

If you know me (even in the slightest bit!) than you know that I have had digestion issues for as long as I can remember. When I was at sleepovers in middle school I was always so embarrassed of the noises my stomach made as well as um, some other things (my apologies for that comment). To say that it is time to do something about it is the understatement of my life time. In the past I have gone to doctors and specialists to no avail. The good news is that they have ruled out anything serious and have diagnosed me with the rather (unfortunately) common irritable bowel syndrome. So that is my wickedly awesome gut history, I am so sorry that I felt like it was okay to share that with you!

Now we skip ahead to the present time and there are some serious issues going on. I sought out the help of holistic nutritionist, Rachel Gerlach of Nutrition Works.  With her incredibly patient listening and intuition, she came up with a 30 day nutrition plan to help my body out of the distress that it has been in.  This about sums it up, “no gluten, no dairy, no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol and nothing spicy.”   On top of that she gave me lots of vitamins to help regulate my digestive system.  If you are interested in learning more about that, please contact Rachel (I am nowhere near educated enough to give you accurate information about how those vitamins can help).

When I first heard what I was not allowed to eat I freaked out a bit.  What the heck could I eat?!  No pizza for an entire month?  That does not sound like a diet, that sounds like hell.   Dramatics were allowed for only a few minutes.  I eventually cleaned up my attitude and stocked my cart at Sprouts with approved food.  A week has gone by that I have been strictly adhering to the diet and I no longer miss the sugar or the carbs.  I can almost guarantee that part of the reason I do not feel like I am missing out on food is because I feel better.  When I feel better, I do not want the crap that made me feel like I was hit by a stampede of elephants.

If you are anything like me, then hearing what people actually do eat when their diet is very restrictive is more interesting than hearing about the diet.  Here is what my I am putting in my body today:

• Breakfast:  gluten-free oatmeal with sliced almonds, almond milk, banana
• Snack:  sliced vegetables with hummus
• Lunch: green smoothie (apple, spinach, cucumber, carrots, mint, water and protein powder)
• Snack:  celery with natural peanut butter
• Dinner:  mushroom risotto with shrimp
• 80-100 ounces of water (including peppermint tea and hot water with lemon to spice it up)

And this is what I ate yesterday:

• Breakfast:  protein smoothie with vanilla soy protein powder, banana and almond milk
• Snack:  Kind bar
• Lunch:  rice, veggie burger and olives
• Snack: celery with peanut butter
• Dinner:  spaghetti squash with vegan meatballs and broccoli
• Same amounts of water and tea

Honestly, I can admit that I do not feel like anything has been taken out of my diet and it is way easier than my dramatic self anticipated.   If you are looking to clean up your eating habits a bit- whether it is medically needed or for other reasons, I highly encourage you to do it.  Get over whatever fear you have of missing out on certain foods and allow yourself to be fulfilled with other things in life.    If you try it out, let me know how it goes or drop me an email with your favorite recipe!  This newly converted strict diet(er) will appreciate it greatly!

 

New Year, New Workout

Wowsers, it has been way too long since I have logged on and I apologize. The good news is, I bet that everyone has been so busy creating their goals for 2013 that you might not have noticed my hiatus. Maybe that is just wishful thinking! Regardless, happy new year and I hope you’ve set some powerful intentions for the year!

The last few weeks I had to take a hiatus from working out. I had a minor surgery that required me to sit on the sidelines for a few weeks. This happened a few days before Christmas and I am definitely not complaining. I could not think of a better time of the year for a doctor to tell me to “take it easy.” Although I cut out yoga and running, I stuck to at least a 30 minute walk with Journey everyday.

Now that I am able to do whatever my body would like, I decided to try something really challenging. 365 days of working out was challenging in the endurance sense, but I wanted something to push my physical limits in a new way. My husband kept hearing me talk about the Insanity workout videos and got them for me for Christmas. Bless him/curse him! I was able to start them three days ago…OH MY DARN GOODNESS! I’d add in some expletives, but I do not think WordPress would think highly of that.

The first day was the “fitness test.” I almost gave up two minutes into it, figuring I was never going to be able to do these workouts. The only thing that kept me going was a facebook comment from a friend that said, “get through day three of it and you will love it.” I was really holding onto that comment like it was the holy word!

After I was done with the fitness test I went for a run. The next day, my legs felt like jello. I liked that feeling and I wanted more of it. I decided that I will stick to the 60 day Insanity program and add in 3 days of yoga per week, along with a walk with Journey for at least 30 minutes per day. To keep track of this, I have created a spreadsheet that I will hang in the basement to keep me motivated.  It sounds like a lot when I write it out, but in actuality, Insanity takes place in our basement for 30-40  minutes and the walks are just for fun. The yoga is added in there to keep my mind clear and to stay centered.

Today I had a huge realization that made me run to my computer when I was done insaning. The first two days of Insanity I felt like I looked like a baboon trying to Zumba. The image I was creating of myself working out was not pretty. It was actually so bad that it was making me slack in fear of what I looked like. It sounds so silly to write, but my hunch is that you so know what I am talking about. After two days of allowing that negative thinking to affect my body physically, I decided to change my tune.

For my workout today, I decided I was going to act like I was one of the buff chicks in the video. Not only did I not feel like a Zumba’ing baboon, I felt like I belonged with the people in the video. It was still insanely challenging, however, I was able to power through with a lot more stamina when I let go of the negative thoughts.

This same mentality can be applied to every aspect of life. I know that I did not just stumble across something that no one has ever heard before. I just saw the result of it play out in my life in such a potent way that I knew I had to share it. Try it out on your next workout, client call, first date, conversations with strangers, etc. Replace your negative thought with something empowering and see what happens.

If it works, send me a line and let me know how it goes. Happy new year, happy thoughts!