Journey

My childhood was fun. After years of traveling, we ended up near our family in Florida. There, I had a huge yard to get lost in and friends in the neighborhood to play with. My dad grew up on a farm and my mom grew up with a family who took pride in vegetable gardening. That sounds like I would have been set up with an abundance of healthy foods and an emphasis on exercising my body. That was not necessarily the case. My parents were busy. They worked hard at their jobs and family-time. We had many board-game nights and trips and bonding. What wasn't a big deal was the food we ate and the amount of time we spent being active. Our notable "family" meal was barbeque pork chops, boxed macaroni and cheese and canned English peas. The rest came and went. Some meals had more sustenance, while others were whatever was quick, whether that be from a box or from a drive-thru. I took one year of dance and one season of t-ball as a child. I can't say I liked them. Then again, I can't say that I took part in any other physical activity, outside of playing in my yard, until high school. (Even that is questionable-yes, I joined the cross-country team for a year, but I was also one of those people you see in the back of the group walking and knowing that the coach's car was going to come pick me up and take me back to the school because he didn't want to wait around any longer.) I can't say I was an overweight child, but I definitely wasn't a "skinny" kid. To others, I was average. To me, I loved my family and friends, but I was very guarded about letting anyone see what was underneath (hence, I might have dressed to hide what I saw in the mirror). I definitely had low self-confidence when it came to my body and looks. This is not to say that I tried to do anything about it as I got older. I would come home from high school and down some pure sugar, along with a side of Dr. Pepper in the afternoons. I would then wake up the next morning and scarf down a bowl of Lucky Charms (more marshmallow bits than oat-based pieces). As you can see, all of my food decisions and (lack of) actions, led me to be an 18 year old girl/woman who liked herself "just enough". At this age, I met the man who has now been my husband for almost 13 years. He continuously told me that he liked me for me, body and all. I believed him, but I knew that deep down I wanted to feel it for myself. At the age of 20, we got married. Something changed after that moment. Within months after our wedding, a friend asked me if I would accompany her to a Weight Watchers meeting (and even pay for me to join with her). I agreed. We also joined the gym that happened to be a few doors down from WW. Within six months, I dropped 50 pounds, learned more about my food choices, and found that I really liked lifting weights and taking classes at the gym. I followed the program strictly and never had a week without some sort of pound loss. I was happy and had this new found self-confidence. Life was good, but I still hadn't worked on any emotional baggage I might have underneath. Every now and then I would feel incredibly tight in my chest and would be overcome with emotion (the why behind this is for another day). However, the type of person I am, I did my best to hold it all inside. These were the times that I let my emotions control my food choices. This is not to say that I started gaining weight back. That did not happen. I guess with all of the gym days, I was easily able to maintain my new weight for the next two years. Then...

Well, I grew up and got a big girl job! I became a teacher of middle school language arts. My school was a 45 minute drive away, but I took the opportunity. Now, I enjoyed the job. It was new and exciting, but I had a LOT to learn. (And with four preps in my first year, I had a lot of planning and work.) The distance away and the stress of the new job caused two things to happen. The first thing was that without the time, I stopped working out. The second thing was that with the stress, I started emotionally eating (and we're not talking about with good food). In the first year, I must have put back on half of the weight I had kept off the past two years (and there's no telling how many vending machine 20 oz. Dr.Peppers were consumed on campus throughout the days). The second year started with another surprise-I was pregnant with my first child (and no, we were not planning for that at the time). I have to say that I didn't do too bad with food choices during my pregnancy. I actually craved meats and fruits, but I was using the school microwave to heat up frozen "diet" entrees. It could have been worse, but looking back on it, I think, "Really?!?!". In this year of new experiences, I started talking to others and researching about births. I had been with my OB/GYN for 5 months of my pregnancy when I realized that when unnecessary, hospital births are very invasive and impersonal. Those are two things I am not. I found a local midwife and switched into her care (and never looked back, as they say). I found through her that alternative ways can be so much better. Not only did I see that I was giving my baby the best possible entrance into this world by foregoing all medication and unnecessary procedures (I had him in a little birth house a few minutes down from my house and was back at home a mere five hours later...my baby never left my side.), but that I was also giving my body the chance to feel and do as it naturally should instead of enduring, once again, unnecessary measures that usually lead to complications and a high percentage of c-sections. I really can't describe the weeks after except to say that you feel unstoppable and like you can conquer the world. After the birth of my son, I stopped working so I could stay at home with him. I was not active in the first few months following his birth, but I did rejoin the gym (that also had child care!) by the time he was six months old. This helped me to remember just how much working out influenced my mood and food choices. It seemed one part led into the other. I pulled out my old WW guides and quickly got back to work. Yes, I lost my pregnancy weight, but that still left me with another 25 pounds to go to get back to my WW Lifetime goal weight I had previously been at. This was not as easy as it was the first time. I was not gaining weight, but I wasn't where I wanted to be either. It was frustrating. It was then that I learned about the visceral weight I lost in my first stint with WW. Since I had not been active for most of my life and I had been filling my body with junk food for so many years, the weight was easy to come off. Throw in a few years of working out and food changes, and it's not so easy. Calorie restriction had only gotten me so far. In the next year, we were met with more changes. My husband landed a job around Atlanta, and we were moving to GA. This happened so fast that I had no time to really wrap my head around it and think everything through. It didn't sink in until after we were moved in to our transition apartment. I remember that day. I was wondering what in the hell we just did. We had moved our son away from his grandparents. We moved away from our family and friends to a place where we pretty much knew no one (aside from Kyle's co-worker who had gotten him the job there). As you might guess, my emotional eating soared. (And I had no gym.) Cue the weight gain and low self-confidence, along with the every-so-often return of the tightness in my chest. A few months in, I found a gym to join. That helped tremendously, but once again, instilling my low-calorie guidelines, I only got so far. I became pregnant with my second baby after we made the move. We had finally bought and moved into our home and were trying to become settled. I had just hired the help of a personal trainer at the gym and decided to continue working with her throughout my pregnancy and beyond. I felt amazing during this pregnancy. I was lifting heavy as I had done in the past and being challenged in new ways. I only gained 21 pounds by the end and felt more muscular than ever. (On a side note, I also went back to Florida to the little birth house to have this baby too. She ended up being born in the water.) When I returned to exercise after the birth of my daughter, I felt focused. All of that came crashing down after I witnessed my grandmother's death when my daughter was only three months old. I have already told you that I don't like to let my emotions out. I try to keep everything in, whether it be to be strong for the rest of my family, or to not let myself fall apart. Upon the return to GA, my chest was almost at its maximum. With the help of my husband, I was able to cry some of that out and proceed on with life, but that also came with a big helping of emotional eating and major weight gain. At the end of this crazy spell in my life, I was back at the weight that I had begun my WW journey. If that's not a slap in the face, I don't know what is. Some how or another, I got myself back together and once again started restricting my calories and working out. This helped for a while. Then, I was once again at a stand still. That was okay for the time being. I had other things to think about. I started feeling like I needed to conquer my emotions. I had to relieve the tightness in my chest and the inability to breathe that came around every few months. This meant that I had to start being honest. I had to be honest with myself and to my husband. I had to let out all of the pent-up feelings that I had held inside for so long. This was hard for me, but I did it. Whenever the feelings would start, I would open up and have him help me cry it out. One by one, the layers of tightness I would feel would lift. That's exactly how it felt. Every open session and every cry would take it down another notch. A few layers into this and I was ready. Ready to stop this emotional roller coaster and start being honest about what got me there in the first place.Over the last two years, I slowly started to see that I wasn't doing anything to help myself. I was merely hindering my own happiness. I decided then that I needed to have complete control over my emotions. To do this, I had to start being real. I had to see my behaviors for what they really were. I had to be willing to keep opening up and say I was having a hard time when I was.(There can never be enough thank-yous to my husband for this.) Next came the food/non-exercise behaviors- I needed to find a way to stop what I had done in the past. I had been into gardening and cooking for a few years by then and enjoyed it, but I never examined how all of this food might be impacting my overall health. Once I started talking with others and reading about  the negative influence grains might be having on me, I ditched them and started grain-free cooking and baking (and started feeling better physically). I had also jump-started running and races. I continued feeling better, but when those feelings would creep back every few months, I would still fall back into some emotional eating (but still was good about talking about it). I noticed pretty good body changes, but I noticed that something else was missing ...I had successfully trained for and run 3 half marathons, along with doing some serious weight training, had kicked grains and with all of that, I felt like I was working so hard to not see even better results. I took a long look at what I was doing. I was doing great for a while, then when those times came, I overindulged on food and drinks. I also noticed that my intake of wine had risen. So, sugars, hidden or known, and my emotional eating were hindering my success. Then, when my emotions were back in check, I worked out and followed a low calorie diet (why I ever thought I could live on a 1500 calorie diet a day, I'll never know.) I came across the Whole30 Program and decided to give it a shot, learn about myself and strip the sugars and other negative foods out. I also was excited to ditch the scale (except just to keep myself in the know every now and then) and to just eat real foods (including good fats) until satiety and to stop counting calories. That all sounded so freeing (and now I know that it is). With that, I found exactly what I lacked. With my results (physical and emotional), I also gained control. This is what I was missing. I thought emotional eating gave me control. I was wrong. It was the opposite. For most of my life, I used this emotional eating as if it was something I had control over. When looking at it, sure, it gave me control, but it also came with negative consequences,including a low self-esteem. Within this journey, more so in the last 16 months, I know now that I control my food and exercise and how I feel from day to day. This control and how I use it now, impacts me in a way I never thought possible.
So, yeah-after my first Whole30, I acheived an 11 pound weight loss, a 2 size loss, energy spike, sleep spike, and an understanding of my food feelings. It was amazing and set me up with a great Paleo-style of eating reset. Every now and then I think it's important to strip everything down to the basics, which is why I went for second round (and a 3rd and have also completed two 21-Day Sugar Detoxes at Level 3 to push that even further).
With all of that said, in my second Whole30, another emotional period crept in (something that did not happen during my first Whole30 ). That was a test, so to speak, but one in which I did not stray, nor did I even want to try to combat it with food choices. I can say that I now control those impulses. I can keep eating things that make me feel good and maintain my exercise (lifting actually makes me happy... I'm a weirdo, I know).

I still have to force my mouth to open up with words to describe my feelings (once again, thanks to the husband), but I make it happen, knowing that when it's over, another layer will lift off of my chest and I can go on feeling better than before.  I can finally say that during my second Whole30 I experienced the same amazing results as the first (including shedding another 5 pounds-lowest I've been since middle school), but more so than that I also managed to get the best results the program says it has to offer (one that I thought I got after my first, but now I'm sure)- a healthy relationship with food.

Wow....that's a heck of a story.

I created this site to advocate the power of eating real food and to emphasize the impact of exercising our bodies. I feel that by eating whole foods such as good-quality, humanely-raised meats and fish, along with an abundance of colorful vegetables and some fruit, paves the way for a healthy and satisfying life. I have even gotten my family on board with me and am seeing great results from them as well.  (This even includes my parents, who in the last few years have gotten back to their roots and turned their backyard into a mega-vegetable garden.) I do not want to categorize  myself as Paleo, Primal, or even just "grain-free". I would like to say that I eat real food (and what I eat just so happens to fall into one or more of those lifestyles). I am constantly searching for new recipes to try, as well as some to come up with on my own, that work for me and my family. I like to make food fun, but without any health consequences. I also understand that some recipes need a lot of time, while others can be thrown together in a few minutes. I think there is a time and a place for both. This site will include recipes, insight, struggles, gardening information, workout/fitness talk, life/family/kids in general, links to some sites I have found helpful along this journey, and easy meal plans for the Whole30 program, as well as some meal plans that fit the 21DSD or Paleo, Primal or just "Grain-Free" living. I just want to be as informational, simplistic, realistic, and personal as I possibly can.  

Throughout my journey, I found what I had been looking for for so long. I hope you guys find what you're looking for too.