Late night coffee...with half & half

I am going to enjoy a half cup of coffee so I can enjoy my half & half in it before I go 30 days without.  That is truly one thing I know I will miss in this 30-day Paleo challenge.  BUT I know I can do it.  Maybe.

Tomorrow officially begins the challenge.  You know what the worst part is?  I have to get my fat pinched.  Measured.  Yeah...not good.  I will be going to the gym in the a.m. to get the fatness pinched and then do our first challenge which is something called Crossfit Total.  It is the total (weight I'm guessing) of your one-rep max of each of the following: back squat, shoulder press, and deadlift.  Considering I haven't worked out since the baby was born over 7 months ago, this should be interesting.  It's great to have a starting point (and photos...don't forget the horrific "before" photos that must be taken) but honestly this won't really let me know how the Paleo diet affects my workouts since I'm starting it all at once! Haha!  So I only have room to improve, right?

I went grocery shopping today.  I got all of the food for our first week.  Except almond milk.  Not at Publix.  Yes...I do realize they actually do sell almond milk there, however, read the ingredients.  So much crap in those that there is no way it is Paleo.  So I'll try the natural food store tomorrow while we're downtown.  We are still allowing our son to eat cheese but we're not buying anymore milk for the 30 days.  We'll slowly wean him off dairy since he ate so much of it.

Here's what he thought of the new and improved fridge contents:

Haha, just kidding.  He wanted to take a silly photo and this is what I got.  Just happened to be as I was putting the groceries away!  :)  Seriously, after our last challenge, he started eating more of the vegetables he'd gotten away from.  Now he sword fights me with asparagus spears before we eat them. That was one food he used to love and then after we let too many crackers, bread, etc. come into play, he has started losing his taste for veggies.  Slowly but surely we are bringing it back!

Well...off to have my last cup of coffee full of yummy cream and milk.  For 30 days at least!

Enough already

I've had it with these intense sugar cravings.  I'm over it.  I don't think I necessarily want to be over sugar forever, but I'd love not to consume it every day.

I overheard last night at the Paleo Potluck we had at the Crossfit gym where my husband coaches that  craving sugar could be an indicator you aren't getting enough sleep.  Well, that explains it.  Considering both of my children think it's hysterical to start out as newborns sleeping wonderfully and then after 4 months of age decide to mix it up a bit and start waking every 3 hours after going to sleep.  So yeah...sleep deprivation is definitely at play here.  I've never heard of a sugar craving having anything to do with it, so I'm definitely going to ask more.  It makes sense because it's been very strong after the births of each my children.  But...I also love sugar.  So it could just be that!

Anyways, we'll be starting our 30-day Paleo Challenge soon.  Yes...again.  However, this time we are giving up dairy.  One - I want to eliminate it to see if it helps with the congestion/allergies I've suffered from since being a kid.  Two - I've mentioned our daughter's skin issues.  So hopefully this challenge will help see if the dairy is the culprit.  We're getting a little help from the folks over at Paleo Plan.  They seriously make it too easy to NOT at least try Paleo for 30 days.  Such a great site. So very easy to navigate (and it has pretty photos, so that's always a plus in my opinion!).

I am also truly starting to workout again.  A friend of mine is currently doing the intro classes at the gym and she'll be finished next week.  We've already got our twice a week workouts on the calendar.  I really have no excuses.

So here we go.  Again.  I did it for 6 weeks last time...surely I can do another 30 days...with no dairy...which means no cheese.  Ugh.

Must. Focus.

As I sit here and eat straight out of the jar of Nutella with a spoon, I realize I'm not following the diet I started several months ago.

I did awesome on my 30-day challenge. I never cheated.  Not once.  I even made it to 6-weeks before I had something with grains/sugar.  Even after that, it was fine.  We continued to shop for good meats, veggies, and the good fats.  We did allow some grains/sugar back into our diet, but it was outside of our house.  That I didn't mind.  However, now Nutella makes an appearance *at least* once a week. We have snack bars for our son, cookies, ice cream...yeah...we lost focus.

Our son's behavior has also reflected it.  He's not a bad kid by any means.  He's 3, which sometimes makes me want to go hide away for the next year, but all in all, he's actually pretty well behaved.  However, getting the sugar and more grain back into his diet has also brought back the unfocused, poor listening, etc.  He doesn't even ask for bread any more at the house (we still don't have it here), but he is expecting sweet treats a lot.  And, yes, I know I can make sweet Paleo-ish treats, but of course busy lives take over and convenience crap products enter in.

So, we're back to having to refocus.  It's tough because you have it so together...you realize you CAN do this...and then you slip, which is fine, but then you do it again and again.  And then, because you and your husband are trying to work multiple jobs, keep the house at just above the gross level, entertain a 3 year old and a 7 month old, the food becomes back burner and you're back to eating pure crap.  Honestly, we still eat better than the SAD, but it's a noticeable difference when we were eating clean.

Now, we're considering taking dairy out.  At least I am.  Our daughter (7 months) has been battling eczema since she was 2 months old.  It's been awful on her cheeks.  We've realized we have to cover her hands at night to prevent her from scratching her cheeks so that has helped. But in reading, I've realized that much of the skin issues deal with eczema can come from food related issues.  Dairy is one of the major culprits.  So I'm going to try and try and try to remove it from my diet.  I LOVE dairy.  Love it.  It's one of my favorite things ever.  I've cut back on drinking straight milk already.  I am going to have the biggest issue with cheese....and cream in my coffee.  I am already OK with no sugar (thanks to my challenge in the summer of no sugar) in my coffee although I occasionally add a tiny bit of honey to change things up from time to time, so I am hoping to take the cream away may not be as difficult.  I know I can use coconut milk.  We'll see....

So, I don't even have a plan this time.  Basically our plan is to spend at least 30 minutes each week making a complete meal plan (to include all meals and snacks) so we have no room for error.  We've done it before so I know we can do it again.