I've been really bad to myself over the past two months or so. Stress and anxiety are not good foundation for a healthy living. I witnessed a come back of depressive moods, which I was able to keep at bay for a long time. Now I finally now where I am going, which is back home, to Poland. The stress is not over - I have to suddenly wrap up all my life here, sell or ship all my possessions, deal with whatever has to be done. But I know where I am going. Now I have to pull myself together and get back on track. I am actually looking forward to take care for my mom, cook for her better foods so she could drop the grains. I need to cook for myself as well, as eating franks, some ready meat mixed with fruit and chocolate is not really the way to go. Oh well.
I haven't been also exercising in a very long time... Now I will have some "lift heavy things" workout ready - in a few minutes I am going to bring a few boxes with books from my work. Then there will be more boxes and my favorite VT-gym: clearing field from wood, brush, branches. That's a real workout!

me and veggies

I have a very strange relationship with veggies. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I forget they exist. Sometimes I reach for them out of guilt or sudden caprice. Sometimes I buy them and then forget, throwing them away with pinch of remorse. I know they are important, but the same time I know they don't have to be the main part of my diet.

Yesterday I roasted some beets, sweet potato and broccoli (saved before they would completely expire). Yesterday I ate them with some left over beef, today with eggs for breakfast. Some hours later I started to have pinching pain in guts, typical of gas. I am guessing it was the broccoli, but am not sure. I feel totally free to not eat veggies for a while now ;-)

I also caved in and got dark godiva chocolate with my coffee at barnes&nobles. The ingredients weren't that bad, but still - too much sugar. It wasn't even that good... but at least wan't bad. It was around 20g for the whole thing (a small narrow bar). I did a good workout at home later, so I hope no lasting damage was done ;-) I finished with delicious chicken leg.

I tried to find some new workouts on netflix, but they have very limited collection for instant streaming. I like simple, boot camp-style routines, I can't fallow anything too complicated. I found one I liked so I tried and it kicked my butt (or rather abs!), it's called "Trainer's Edge". I can recommend for good mixture of cardio (boxing) and a lot of abs. arms and legs are working as support.
Earlier on I took "Billy's Boot camp" by Billy Blanks from my local library and I really like it. I find workouts based on martial arts perfect for me, my low coordination and difficulties with following movements. They kick butt, are simple and focus on strength and stamina. Just what I need!

almost a week

I "officially" started my Whole30 challenge on Sunday, so it's been almost a week. I am surprised how easy it's been. I was afraid I would have much stronger sugar cravings, after a period of over-the-top consumption of chocolate, fruits and other semi-Paleo food.
I am eating mainly meat (in various beef,lamb and chicken versions) with some veggies like spinach, kale, broccoli and cauliflower. To ease my snack cravings (as I got accustomed to it), I've mixed coconut oil with a lot of shredded coconut and cooled, to make it kind of a bar. It's very lightly sweet, when cold not that oily, and I think it should help in the meantime.

I've made finally my own mayonnaise, but I am not sure it's all that great. I will have experiment... coconut oil gives too strong a flavor.
I even managed to do one 12-h fast and fasted workout! I am proud of myself :) Next day I skipped lunch as well, but had dinner earlier, so only about 9-10h fast.
I am also surprised how well I switched to a black coffee. I thought I would have to use coconut milk, but nope, all good. This is great not only for the dairy-free challenge, but for my wallet ;-)
I am working on including a workout more often and also on my sleep. For whatever reason it's been difficult for me to get up in the morning, even after almost 8h sleep, and on weekends without alarm clock I was waking up by myself only after almost 11h of sleep! That's really too much.

I took all my body measurements even though I don't really expect some significant body fat changes. Of course it would be nice to drop the muffin top, especially as it grew on the extra sugar provided by yours truly, but that's not the goal. The goal is to get back on healthy track and stay there.

painful return to a workout routine

I've had quite a break in working out. There were many factors that contributed - a lot of work, mild cold/sinus infection, cold weather which made me change fast into warm fleece instead of shorts... and simple old-style laziness. But today I finally did some basic body-weight workout. Boy, am I weak! it's scary. I will have to work steadily to get back in shape... And I am afraid tomorrow will be painful as well! It's good I have to walk to work anyway, it's a good, mild, form of warming up.

I found that generally the cold, dark weather makes it more difficult to keep healthy. I am more tempted to eat chocolate, snuggle in warm robe and watch Buffy or Bones. I haven't fasted in a while as well... But at least I didn't fell of the wagon (other than eating too much dark chocolate), I just got lazy and haven't been much creative in preparing meals, so there has been a lot of hard boiled eggs, slow-cooker beef, beef franks and similar. But it's ok, I fine with that. Maybe I just need to get used to the change in seasons, or simply accept that in the winter it's time to hibernate, slow down, relax...

dealing with heavy workload

I work a lot. This year I teach one extra course, which really made a huge difference. While at school I often have no spare time to even make a cup of coffee. I use each and every minute for prep. And even though I have great kids who cause much less stress than some of the last year's students, I am stressed all the time about slipping. I worry I forget something crucial, I fall behind with grading, prepare day by day, with very blurred vision of big picture of each class.
All of that drains me. I come back home tired, don't feel like doing anything. Often I have something extra to do anyway... All of that caused me to slip with my healthy lifestyle. In the past month I worked out maybe.. three times? I started to have cravings for chocolate, and because there is somewhat of a soft spot for dark chocolate among the primal community, I let myself indulge... too much.
I am trying to get back at least with eating right. But I feel I need to get back on the wagon with exercising. I just... don't feel like. *sigh*. Maybe it's a winter thing?