GULP … HERE THEY ARE
(The featured image in my hat was taken the night before … and is there because I like that photo!!!! … whereas these on the other hand I am very proud of. Quite clear difference (especially in my belly!)…., AND there’s still a way to go.
The table of weight and centimetres lost was in my previous post.
(Note, my belly is more protruding than my boobs in the first photo!!)
OK, the AAR
Three Questions as suggested by Whole30
- What went well
- What could have gone better
- What you’ll do the next time
What went well
- Losing weight and centimetres … when being able to eat such yummy and abundant food.
- Doing something together with Steve – that we both participated in, and supported each other with, and enjoyed the results we created together.
- Learning tasty new recipes
- Seeing my emotions settle down as well as to notice how much I crave food when I am emotional.
- Tapping out some very negative emotional/belief stuff around my food / body relationship.
- Sharing healthy possibilities with friends and even my local cafe staff who were curious, and having it be a way for us to take care of each other.
- The extra energy I feel in my body.
- My fingernails are stronger.
- My skin is shinier and better.
- My mental clarity is second to none.
- My eyesight is better (I can read longer distances much better than prior).
- My awareness about healthy ingrediensts and how to shop has skyrocketed
- My kitchen has streamlined in to a healthy easy to use system and is free of unhealthy ingredients.
- Sweet cravings dramatically diminished, and when I did have them, the degree of sweetness I desired changed dramatically (eg a piece of capsicum of a banana was what I wanted, the thought of chocolate or something sugary was not desirable).
- My overall appetite declined over the days.
- I have a very friendly team at the butcher that love to see me once or twice a week. They even make our chickens for which I have a standing order for every Monday, withe their own special spice mix (free of E numbers as they would normally put on other chickens).
- Learning the venues around Amsterdam that were happy to provide us with info about ingredients, and take care of us with the way we were eating.
- We have been eating at home so much more than we were.
- Learning how to be prepared. Having plenty of groceries, pre-preparing breakfasts, veggies sticks and ingredients to cook with.
What could have gone better?
- My reliance on banana and coconut milk on quite a few days to sate my desire for sweet creaminess
- My desire in the last ten days or so, for dried mango or dates, and nuts as a ‘get me through’ (although these often replaced big meals, so I was eating a lot less.
- Um, or Monday de-skinning of the chickens could have been um, non-existent!! We ‘should’ have been throwing the skin away (or putting it in the stock pot).
- Number twos were a little squishier than should be, and apparently that’s due to having too much fat in the diet (and also capsicum and banana!) … which we had a fair amount of.
- Not sure where this one fits: Mourning the loss of foods that I have had in my life for my entire life!! Wanting, yet not wanting at the same time…. it really is about emotional needs, not physical food needs.
What I’ll do next time?
- Attempt to be better prepared on Sundays with more pre-chopped veggies and quick grab items for Steve’s breakfast.
- Learn more varied dishes in general. We became quite reliant on a few staples.
- Eat more fish.
- Be better prepared with supplements. We didn’t take zinc and we were hit and miss with our vitamin D and magnesium.
- Lower our fat consumption.
- Tap even more.
Steve’s AAR
Steve is yet to write his re-cap … and when he does … I will put his before and after pics with his report.
Whole30 Emotional Adventure 
Well done. I have become an even more excessive chicken stock maker / Asian soup consumer – ticks all my boxes. We grow the chickens too so our life cycle is v healthy 😀 Xxx
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Awesome Lanny. Yes it’s so great to be connected the way you are. We have a regular chicken pick up from the butcher on Mondas now (2), and after de-skinning (our guilty pleasure!), and then removing all the flesh, the bones go straight in the pot and a lovely stock made with celery, carrots and fresh herbs. The bowl of stock usually lasts the week until the next chooks arrive 😉
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Well, BIG CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU BOTH Neeny and Steve!!!!!!! And welcome to the Palaeo club! The whole30 is a very liberating experience and hard to imagine EVER going back to the old food habits. Phil and I like to think of ourselves as 80/20 palaeo for life. We go through patches of 100% and patches of 60%. Funny, after 1-2 weeks of 60% we absolutely crave a healthy restart – a mini whole 30 – more like a whole5 or whole 10. We keep restarting ourselves and allowing ourselves to socialise and enjoy ourselves as much as we want in between. Interestingly, our idea of being excessive and “letting our hair down” in the food department now might involve eating a sauce or gravy on our chicken or beef that we don’t know the ingredients when we are out. We almost never eat dairy anymore and grains have become almost a thing of the past. Oats do occasionally go into our bodies. Soy NEVER enters our bodies and we have largely eliminated processed sugar. Pastries – well – I must confess to eating a famous Tassie scallop pie at the Australian wooden boat festival on the weekend and loved every morsel!! Then there is coffee and alcohol. We now drink coffee on occasion, only when we are out, and we now drink long black in a large cup with only 1 shot and strangely we REALLY like it!! Alcohol – if we have 4 alcohol free days per week we consider ourselves on track. Is proving difficult as times are extremely social at the moment. Our idea of drinking lots has also reduced. 1-2 glasses of wine does the trick, or a Willie Smith Cider. I don’t enjoy G&T anymore because the tonic has so much sugar in it that I just don’t enjoy it like I used to, and the Bombay Saphire gives me headache – GO FIGURE????????.
The big difference in our diet is we now eat loads of fish, and the quantity of salad and vegies compared to the meat (chicken and beef mostly) is gigantic. The absence of grains requires something of substance in its place and we are keen to not overeat meat. I love avocado and nuts (nuts save me when the need for a snack will not be denied!). We eat a lot of eggs, spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes for breakfast. Kaelan and Jess love my green chicken veggie curries. Where I used to use 4 breasts of chicken, 4 handfuls of rice, green curry spices and 4 handfulls of beans or zucchini, now I use between 2-3 chicken breasts, no rice, same green curry spices (except brands with no numbers or soy), 6 carrots, 1/2 sweet potatoe, 4 handfuls beens, a mass of spinnach, fresh parsley and fresh corriander plus the usual garlic, ginger and onion – all purchased from the health store in Huonville where we buy our veggies by the box at the beginning of the week – all in season and nearly all freshly plucked from a local garden that day! We now have coconut in our lives – this is a huge change from before. We love coconut milk and coconut oil. I buy gluten free bread for the kids (have only found one worth having) but don’t eat it myself, although an occasional mountain bread wrap with no preservatives is nice (usually when out). Is hard to buy any bread that is free of soy. Funnily when I look in the gluten free aisle at the supermarket I notice more numbers and indecipherable ingredients than in many normal food aisles, the absence of gluten seems to give a license to fill the rest of the food with complete shit!
My weight is fairly constant around 77-78Kg. I was 77.8kg this morning. So Generally speaking I am 11kg lighter than August last year. My next goal is to re-enter my healthy weight range on the Body Mass Index – a number that will be achieved when I get below 74Kg.
Emotionally I feel more resilliant, and generally lighter of heart. I have received no end of comment on my hair and skin and recently, when I was registered to row in the FWWA team at the St Ayles Skiff Regatta, the organisers guessed my age in the early 40’s!!!!! Needless to say that lady is now my new best friend!!
I have greater powers of concentration, for which I am very grateful, and I feel extremely motivated!! This is manifest in lots of windsurfing!!!!!! Also boating and rowing. I recently acquired the art of the “windsufing water start” and also planing very fast whilst in the harness and the footstraps. I have enlisted my friend Hilary who is keen as mustard and now sails my old go board. Phil is re-motivated and is sailing my old Roberto Ricci Board and I have a new JP-xcite 135l. Our new sails are unbelievable!! New technology is a good thing every once in a while and lets face it – I might as well spend it on healthy pursuits. I also like having things to do that do not involve socialising at a cafe, restaurant or bar. With fun activity at the max the sedentary socialising has a healthier context in which to exist.
All in all I feel less stressed, more relaxed, happier, brighter, more on task, and generally more at ease. Life has never been more uncertain and my family is so much more grown up that my role has completely changed. Instead of feeling melancholy I feel energized and able to let go and embrace change. I feel better able to deal with my feelings around the kids and how they are going. I guess once you are a parent the job is for life and you never really let go completely but it is nice to feel more “in my own life” and more like I am sharing a healthy and positive space together with my family no matter what life challenges are coming our way. My back chucks in the towel once a year on average and I seem to have effective ways of dealing with that. My eye sight is still sliding through levels of magnification and this is slowing down (thank goodness!). My idea of menopause is now very different to what it was. The hot flushes still happen but they are so much less severe. A night on the alcohol will soon be regretted at 2am when the sweats wake me up for hours on end. One no longer risks throwing up on alcohol like in our youth, only how much of a price to pay with lack of sleep and night sweats. More than two glasses is guaranteed to achieve that. A price one is willing to pay on occasion.
Dr Schwartz suggested I adopt a more 5/2 way of life. He also suggested that grains should remain out of my life – although I might experiment with Quinoa.
I have been focusing on my core strength as a means of reducing back issues. My last plank challenge with Hilary saw me achieve 3 minutes. I am also capable of doing 100 situps and a range of squats, bridges and strength related activities. Yoga has been taking a back seat over summer but this will be addressed when the weather turns and the days darken. My next exercise goal is to place a 4km walk in each day.
Life is long and yet, not long enough!! Wouldn’t be dead for quids. So much to do………. soooo little time.
Gotta go
Love you Neeny
Shel xx
ps – the naked baths sound fun.
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Awwww so great to hear all that! you weren’t kidding about your comment being epic 😉 love you too sis.
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