Almost to the end. I was having a chat with my mom about the challenge today – she said we failed, and I was angry at that remark. The whole point is to challenge yourself, so technically there is no failing because you should always be able to learn and grow from it.
As far as this being a perfect challenge – absolutely not, and far from it! I’d say I was 80% paleo throughout this challenge. However, I definitely feel better now than when I started.
I didn’t blog last night because my mom’s plane got delayed from California, so she missed her connector in Philly. She called me and asked me to drive to Philly to pick her up – a little over 3 hours, one way. I happily went on my merry little road trip.
I stopped and got a soy coffee (not paleo) and felt very, very sick after. But I still ate a few starbursts and some of the special California chocolates she brought home. Did not feel good, went straight to sleep, with no gym either.
Today we had a little family emergency and my mom had to take her man to the hospital. All is well with him, but it was worrisome at first. She was at the hospital, and with the care most of the day, so I didn’t have transportation. I can’t find a job that I even want, and am starting to feel like everything is getting so far away from me, so I wanted junk food.
I was SO. SO. tempted to order take out. Partly just for the luxury of ordering takeout, partly because no one was here for dinner and I just couldn’t and partly because I wanted to eat myself into a shame spiral. It’s horribly, horribly fucked up the way it works.
When my mom got home and asked if I wanted to go to the gym, I just shrugged. I’ve felt lazy all day. My brother called and asked how I was, I responded “I feel fat.” He said he did too, so that made two of us. It’s like no matter what I eat I don’t feel nutritionally fulfilled or satisfied. Mom thinks it’s because I haven’t been eating enough leafy greens. I held back reminding her that “leafy greens” only just became a health food thing recently. Before KALE was a household world, people were fine with broccoli.
Last time I did paleo I ate chicken and broccoli 4 nights a week, salmon and asparagus 3 nights a week and then cooked whatever I wanted the odd night out. I never got tired of it, always felt full and satisfied, lost weight and felt great.
I didn’t realize today was day 28, which means this was really day 29 of paleo, as I started the blogging a day later.
Maybe I will go out for pancakes on Weds morning.
At least I’ve realized what I really just can’t eat – dairy. It just doesn’t work. Heavy carbs and grains don’t either. I said to mom today, I think there’s something in Paleo that I’ve been eating that doesn’t agree with me, but I can’t figure out what I consistently eat that could make me feel this gross. I posed it may be too much oils. She thinks that’s impossible, but everything that’s cooked is cooked in coconut, olive or avocado oil. Everything feels greasy. My other thought is I wonder if I’m not eating enough.
Whilst traveling I got into the bad habit of only eating 1-2 times a day. I was broke and couldn’t afford to buy a lot of food or didn’t have the convenience to stop and prepare food. When I worked in the outback one of the guys in staff quarters used to do meal prep once a week. Everyone hated it because he would be in our kitchen for hours and it was annoying for everyone else. Then, he would fill our fridge with his damn tupperware containers and we had no where to put our things.
However, that would be a good idea here, if I prepped and made my own meals and no one else touched them, so I had reliable food sources and ready made snacks to encourage both timely eating as well as nutrition management.
Adventures of the untoward 