Even I can't make bloating cute

Okay so I'm checking in with my 1 week progress report for my "I was stupid and gained weight" challenge. And things are going REALLY good! I've lost 3.4 pounds in 8 days but lets face it, most of that is water...actually probably all of it but whatever. I'll take it.

I had Addie take more progress pics of me. She cracks me up because she was my little shadow when I was doing body fat percentage pinching and before and after pics on the sweet members at our old CrossFit box. She says the exact thing I would. "You can smile. And turn. Shoulders back. Turn. Move you hair. One more turn. Alright, hard part is over darling." Seriously...just like that! She cracks me up! So when I get the nerve in June to post these pictures just remember a five year old was taking them.

But I think I kinda see a difference just from day one to day seven. I'm sure it is just lack of bloating. That is really an unfortunate word...bloating. Is puffiness any better? Pouchiness? No. Yuck. That's worse. I just searched "bloating synonyms" and came up with "billowing," "distending," "expanding," "enlarging," "filling," "puffing up," "pumping up" and "swelling up." So yeah, no. Nothing is cuter. Bloating cannot be made cute...ever.

I've had a LOT of people ask what am I eating and what my actual plan of attack is. So I thought I'd give you all the rundown.

Here are my guidelines:

1. No nuts. At ALL. This is really hard for me because almond butter is my go to sweet fix. But just 3 teaspoons is the total amount of fat I should be getting in an entire meal...and I can pretty much guarantee I eat more than 3 teaspoons. I'm also not doing any almond flour. And let me tell you, I have to do all these recipe posts for the Sunshine Shoppe's Facebook page and all I want are those no bake almond flour and heaven cookies. My mouth just watered while typing that.

2. No sugar. Levi is usually on sweets duty on the weekend. He is pretty stinkin amazing in the kitchen and so on the weekends he usually whips up some tasty bit of heaven but he has been super supportive of my little challenge so he has restrained from making any sweets even just for him and the kids...which really helps because I may lose control otherwise. Hey, it happens to the best of us. :)

3. Less fat...not no fat...less fat. So far every day in my myfitnesspal food journal I exceed my fat allowance that apparently some brilliant robot designed for me. I'm not worried at all. But in order to eat less fat I'm draining my meats (I wasn't before in hopes to gain obviously), keeping to 1/2 cup of avocado per day (because I could eat 3 whole avocados a day easy), subbing coconut milk for butter in my coffee (I know...so sad...but I wanted to eliminate ALL dairy bc my skin has been less than lovely), focusing on leaner meats like fish and chicken (which is hard because I want steak like all the time.) That was seriously the longest runon sentence yet...sorry grammar police.

4. Chilling on the sweet potatoes. It sucks.

5. Working out more...if possible. So basically I'm trying to be active twice a day. Granted, I'm a mommy and wife so I'm pretty much running around like a crazy chicken without a head 90% of the day regardless, but for about two hours of that I try to focus the crazy chickeness on something productive like fat burning and muscle building. There is a cool app called MYWOD and on it is a list of different workouts you can do without the typical CrossFit equipment. So I sometimes pick one of those in the morning if I have Addie at home and can't go for a run. I've also been meeting with a friend to walk briskly sometimes...which that totally sounds lame. Imagine speed walkers not mall walkers. And we are also meeting twice a week with an incredible coach to perfect our Olympic weightlifting form. And on top of that I am doing CrossFit as often as I can in the evenings. So yeah...staying pretty active. But it is fun and I love it.

6. Keeping a food journal. I am using myfitnesspal.com. It has the largest database of foods and I have found that it even has really obscure foods such as the paleo mayo that I order from this one tiny little company that is more farm than actual company. The food journal is tedious but it keeps me accountable. Plus it makes me more proactive about what I plan to eat or drink. I'm trying really hard to stick to a Zone Block mentality. So I want 30% protein, 40% carbs and 30% fat. The food journal helps me track that easily which is pretty cool. I can also keep track of my water intake which is really important because I have to FORCE myself to drink water. In fact, it is 10:29am right now and I've had two cups of coffee and one wheat grass drink...no water.

***Went and got water.

7. Taking a cleanse. Okay, so I'm going to attempt to handle this part delicately. Pooing is kinda important. Like really really. And after my four day stint of fried Oreos and waffles I think my whole body just needed a good cleansing.  And well, if you and I haven't had a conversation about your poo experiences we will someday because I apparently bring those lovely little conversational gems out of people so you are going to just have to deal with this awkward paragraph about my pooing issues. So here goes...I take one tablet at lunch (which has chromium to help with sugar cravings and it really is very helpful) and then at dinner I take another tablet and a capsule that works as a laxative (another unlovely word.) I did that for three days. Then I increased by one of each at each meal. You are supposed to keep increasing every three days until your poo is mushy. Well...let's just say I'm staying right where I am because mushy isn't even the correct word. I noticed around days 4 and 5 I felt kinda puny. That is normal. I wasn't alarmed because I have done this before. But one thing that did kinda catch me off guard was I started twitching. My eye was twitching so badly you could see it! It was really noticeable and I would get so embarrassed because when I was talking to people and my eye would twitch they would do this weird glance away quickly and then when they would look back up it was like they couldn't decide where to look on my face. The twitching was because I wasn't absorbing enough B-Vitamins so I have double up on my multi and I'm taking an extra B Complex just to cover my bases and it has made the twitching go away. But just a quick note: If you are wanting to try a cleanse but are on important meds that your body needs to keep you or others around you alive then you should definitely talk to your doc.

8. Drinking wheat grass drink daily. This helps with my energy levels a lot! Plus it give the above mentioned subject matter a boost and lovely shade of green. ;) I drink the Amazing Grass Wheat Grass powder in the Orange Dreamscicle flavor. Do you remember those Flintstone PushPops? It tastes like that. Well, if you dropped it in freshly mowed grass. But still, the BEST GRASS YOU HAVE EVER EATEN. It's good. Try it.

9. This is the most important one...Bought new workout clothes and shoes. Listen, it inspires me. I get excited to get to wear them so it kinda helps me stay focused on working out daily.

So that list was longer than I had anticipated this little update to be. But I wanted to mention what I've struggled with real quick...I know I'm wordy...just hold on a bit longer.

So here are the things that I'm dealing with...

1. I can make great food choices until I'm hungry. I have a threshold of hunger where I don't care what is in front of me, if it is remotely edible, it WILL be going into my mouth as quickly as possible. So Wednesdays we take the kids to church in the evening and then we totally bail and go have a dinner date. (Listen, God is cool with it.) We went to Applebees because well, this is Greenville Texas and options are limited. I am famished at this point because we had just gotten done at CrossFit Downtown and I'm fairly certain the coaches there are taking out some pent up aggression on us with these 30 minute killer WODs. But whatever...I felt like a super hero. So anyways, I'm starving and our waitress s l o w l y makes her way over to our table. "Can I get you something to drink?" she says. "Yes. Lots of water, a glass of Merlot and I need you to bring out a side salad asap with oil and vinegar. Wait...what kind of oil do ya'll have?" She doesn't know. Says it's pink. PINK! I have no nice response to that and apparently I'm being a bit abrupt because I'm hungry and Levi is trying to use The Force to make me shut up. "Will you please go look at the container of oil and let me know?" I say sweetly because The Force is strong with Levi. She comes back and says, "It says 'Salad Oil'...that is all it said." Well great. WTH is salad oil? Did they squeeze some lettuce and magically produce oil? Probably not so I just order the salad anyways because I'm about to start pouring the ketchup down my throat. Then when she finally gets around to bringing my salad it is literally finely shredded cheese with like 8 brown Romaine hearts and some croutons!  So I did what any crazy starving paleo obsessed retard would do. I got out my napkin and cleaned each piece of precious lettuce and ate it as it my life depended on it. Didn't even care that people were watching.

2. I want to weigh myself a lot! Every day. Several times a day. What is that? And then when the weight goes up .25 pounds I freak! And I KNOW BETTER! So I took the scale to the shoppe. This isn't about weight anyways...

3. Because I am sticking to the Zone blocks thingy I am not eating as much protein as I was used to. So I am not getting as full as quickly. I have had to reconfigure our meals and double the veggies so that I am eating enough to feel full.

Hopefully next week's update will be shorter and is going to go something like, "Still progressing toward my goal, still struggling, still pooing, still green." :)