Saturday, April 7, 2012

Whole30 Challenge, day 7 -- Did I Really Say Every Day?

so when i first started this last week, i said i would post every day. um, okay, yeah. so here i am again, 3 days later. i don't even remember what i had to eat on wednesday. what i do know is that i wasn't able to exercise wednesday morning before i left for my part time job. my husband said we would exercise after i got home that evening. we did that, and i must say i much prefer exercising in the morning. i did not have a snack before i started, and after i did my weights, we left for our walk as usual. while walking, i started to get shaky, hot and a little light headed. i am pretty sure that was my blood sugar taking a dive. i was ok after we got home and had dinner, but i was very tired that night. even so, i didn't sleep well.

on thursday, i had to work my photography job again. i ate my scrambled eggs and sausage on the road at about 7 am. i got to the school i was working at, and started my day. it was a difficult day from the beginning. we were so busy i was not able to eat anything all day. we finished our day at around 4:30 pm. i was famished. i got back on the road and started eating. over the course of the next hour, i at 2 hard boiled eggs, about 3 ounces of baby carrots, an orange, some sliced cucumber and my 1 ounce of dry roasted almonds. a bit later i ate my apple. my total calories for the day totaled about 1169. my percentage of fat was 58% (77 grams) , protein totaled 21% (59.1 grams), carbs came to 22% (67.5 grams). i took in 17.3 grams of fiber. no exercise today except for an hour of setting up my photography equipment, then standing on my feet for 7 hours, then another hour of tearing down my equipment. and lifting 20 pound cases in and out of my car. oh, and i also whacked my head when i closed the tailgate. ouch.

friday, my husband and i were able to work out in the morning again. it was an arm workout day. i also was able to to 12 sit ups with the assistance of my wonderful husband. we did our walk. we have been able to shave approximately 3 minutes off our previous average walk time every day this week. for breakfast it was the sausage/egg scramble, but this time it was accompanied by a large serving of leftover cooked veggies (cauliflower, onions, peppers, broccoli), about 2 cups worth. it was all very good. i had a late lunch of a big salad topped with a chicken breast and accompanied by some yummy guacamole. i also had an orange and 2 ounces of dry roasted almonds for a snack. i wasn't very hungry when i got home, but i was very tired. i laid down on my bed and fell asleep for about an hour. then i woke up, decided i would skip dinner (which was bbq'd top sirloin steak!), watched some tv and then went back to sleep. did not sleep well again.

today (saturday) was a leg workout day. i also did my run up the stairs and through the house. we did our walk in the daylight today! i much prefer walking in the light to walking in the dark. my wonderful hubby saved me a plate from last night's dinner -- bbq'd steak and grilled veggies (onions, sweet red bell pepper, and asparagus). i ate 8 ounces of steak for breakfast. that is insane! a year ago i would never have considered eating steak for breakfast, although i know lots of other people who don't think twice about it. it was a lot -- i probably won't eat that much steak at one time again! for lunch i had a hard boiled egg and an apple. for my snack later in the day i ate 2 oz of almonds and an orange. for dinner i ate 2 chicken apple sausages. my total calories came to 1646. Total fat came to 56% (103.9 grams), total protein was 28% (113.4 grams), and carbs totaled 17% (74 grams). my total fiber intake was 18.5 grams.

so, after a full week of the whole30 challenge, this is what i think: so far the eating part of it has not been as hard as i thought it would be. there is lots of stuff we can eat. it does take more planning and prep than i thought it would. we are cooking everything at home. there are tons of dishes and pots and pans that get dirty. the good news -- i am not really craving my sweets -- yet. yes, i miss my hot cocoa and dark chocolate, but i am not climbing the walls in dire withdrawal. the extra exercise of lifting weights has made my body very weary. i am not as sore now, but i am tired, and i have not slept well all week. i think the poor sleeping may be attributed to what they call "carb flu". supposedly carb flu occurs when you significantly lower your carb intake, and your body starts to detox a bit. apparently it can cause some people to feel quite ill. i don't feel sick, just tired and very low energy.

i also think there were days this week when i just plain did not eat enough. i am working on changing that. with my photography job it is sometimes hard to get time to even have a snack, let alone sit down for a real lunch. with my big breakfasts, i also don't get hungry for 5-7 hours, so i don't always eat an early enough lunch to feel like eating dinner. i will be tweaking this over the weeks to come. i had a couple days where i ate more fat than i intended. one of the things i like about this diet is that you can eat fat, but for myself i don't like to go much over 50% of my calories from fat. i exceeded that number this week. i have heard other people who eat paleo will sometimes get up to 70% of their calories from fat. this is what the doctor (on the flight back from providence) told me she does for herself. she was 56 years old, weighed 118 pounds, and had barely a wrinkle in her face.

so now you are caught up. tomorrow is Easter. may the hope found in the Resurrection of Jesus bring peace and joy to all our lives.

1 comment:

  1. you are doing great and looking great Cindy. you got this one in the bag. AFter a week doing this I think both of us are seeing the desired results.

    And yes, I'm tired too but not suffering from the carb flu........yet.

    ReplyDelete