Day 60 to Day 53 Recap

(Counting down the days to my Mud Run)

I consistently walked/ran.  I got in 6 walk/runs and went 7.4 miles. Not impressive but I did what I could. I ran a full mile, all the way, no walking, and no stopping. (Actually I did this 2xs.)  Yep, I do realize that that is a pathetic accomplishment.  But it is MY pathetic accomplishment and I am choosing to be happy about it. 

I tracked my food with My Fitness Pal.  I stayed close to my target calories.  I went over a couple of days but once again this is a start and I am going to be happy with it.   

I did not intentionally eat anything with gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs. More importantly I have had a major epiphany that resulted in a new attitude about food.  I am thankful now for the food I do eat.  I am thankful that I know what to feed my children to keep them healthy.  I don’t need processed foods.  I don’t need gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs. They are not good for me. I would rather have healthy children and be healthy myself.  

I do need to change my strength workouts.  I couldn’t find my Jillian M. tapes.  I am really bummed about this.  However, I stopped looking and am moving on.  I am doing the “5 Core Workouts for Stronger Running” that is on the Runner’s World website. They are the basic plank, side plank, superman pose, abdominal crunches, and abdominal crunches with a twist.  My goal is to do these exercises 2xs a week

 

Day 60 weight = 283 

Day 53 weight = 279

Days 60 to 53 were a good start and I built a solid foundation to improve on in the next 52 days.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Made with Almond Milk

The best ice cream EVER!  (It is soy free unlike the store bought almond milk ice cream.)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream Made with Almond Milk

 

3 1/2 cups Almond Milk (unsweetened and no vanilla)

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup Smuckers Peanut Butter

3/4 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips

1 tsp gluten free Vanilla

Place ingredients above in a sauce pan.  Bring to a boil using a medium to high heat.  Stir constantly! 

Boil 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and stir until boiling stops.

Let the mixture sit for a ½ an hour and then refrigerator for a ½ to 1 hour until chilled.  The ingredients will have separated a little.  Just whisk them back together before transferring to the ice cream maker.

Make according to your ice cream makers instructions.

According to My Fitness Pal with the recipe making 6 servings; it has 345 calories per serving.

We think it is the best ice cream we have ever had…..granted this is from a distorted gluten, soy, dairy, and egg of view.  It is the first ice cream Ben has had since before 3/1/2013.  (Zach doesn’t like ice cream.)  I had some ice cream around Christmas.  Yes, I did get really, really sick; 24-48 hours of uncontrollable sneezing with bladder leaking, snot running down my face, dizziness, and fatigue. What can I say? I thought it would be worth it when I ate it.  My mind is really good at justifying why it is a good idea to eat things that will make me sick.  That is why I am determined to not listen to that side of my brain any more.

I have made peace with grocery shopping.

Since we have gone gluten and dairy free grocery shopping has taken many unexpected turns for me. 

 

It started out as gluten and dairy free on April 1^st 2012 (a day I will never forget).  I took a day off work to “go gluten and dairy free”. I went shopping by myself.  I went to 3 different stores and spent over $300 on gluten and dairy free specialty products.  It was the right thing to do at the time.  It was a very hard change for my children and all the wonderful foods helped the transition. 

 

A few months pass before I realized soy was a problem.  So shopping turned into gluten, dairy, and soy free.  There are very few commercial products available that are all three. The products that are gluten, dairy, and soy free are expensive.  I started baking lots.

 

A few more months pass before the realization that eggs are bad.  Baking took a right turn into no-where-ville.

 

I tried my best to find processed foods that were gluten, dairy, soy, and egg free.  I resisted my very best not to go to whole unprocessed foods.  I really didn’t want too.  My children didn’t want to.  Yet everything I tried made someone sick. 

 

Finally in November of 2013 I drew the line in the sand.  I had made my children sick too many times and watched their misery.  I made a list of all the “safe” foods and everything else had to be a whole food. 

 

A whole food diet has been the hardest for me to accept and enforce. It is so hard not to give into a reasonable child that argues rationally to buy something in the store when you really want it too.

 

Even worse are the solo shopping trips when no one is around to see what you buy.  The cake, chocolate, candy, etc is so easy to slip in the compartment of the van on the way home to be eaten in private later. The little voice inside my head that tells me I deserve it and one won’t hurt.  But it will.  It will make me sick.

 

The internal struggle is time consuming and draining.  It takes every bit of my will power not to give in to.  I hating shopping.  I hated the fact that I couldn’t buy what I wanted.  I hated having to choose not to buy something.  I was going to write a whole post about how much I hated it.

 

But then I realized that I hate having to choose not to buy food.  There are so many people in this world that don’t have enough food.  Here I am with an abundance of food around me and the means to obtain it.  And I have the audacity to hate being in this situation. 

 

I am so very blessed. My children are healthy now.  I prayed and prayed for my children to be healthy and now they are.  Yet here I hate what I must sacrifice for them to be healthy. 

 

No.  That is NOT me. 

 

Thank you God!  Thank you!  I will thank you every time I go grocery shopping.  I will buy healthy foods. I will think you for blessing me with knowing what to buy.  I will thank you for blessing me with the means to buy food.  Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!  I cannot thank you enough.

I am doing a Mud Run.

There I said it.  It is official.  I have 60 days left to train.

It is a Dirty Girl Mud Run.  I am hoping this means it will not be hard core.  They say the obstacles are optional.  My sister is doing it with me.  I am VERY glad for this.

My goal is to start and finish.  Starting will be much harder than finishing because once I start there is only one way out….the finish line.  There are so many different paths that lead from here to the starting line.  Each one has an escape route.

I am scared.  I am trying not to freak out.  New things are so hard to do.  But I want this.  I want to be a person that does mud runs.  I want to be a runner.  I want to be healthy. I don’t want to be obese. .

So today I am just training….It is just training…..That’s all….Just a little stroll around the block.  Throw some running in whenever the watch beeps…..Nothing more…..Just a little training….Just today is all I have to worry about.

I have 60 days until my mud run.  These are my commitments for the next 60 days.

1) I will be logging all my foods into My Fitness Pal.  I will eat sensibly and absolutely no gluten, soy, dairy, or eggs for the next 60 days.

2) Tonight I have a date with Jillian and her 90 day body transformation tapes.  I started these before and they are hard.  So fair warning I do not promise to go according to the prescribed schedule.  I will work and do my best but if they are anything like I remember then they are brutal. 

3)  Finally, I will be walking/running.  Right now it is a little more walking than running but I am working on it.  I am hoping for everyday but realistically that isn’t going to happen.  So my goal will be 5 walk/runs a week.

I just got a brilliantly motivational idea. I have been thinking about adding pictures of me to the blog.  So the first picture of me that I will post on this blog will be of me finishing my mud run, covered head to toe in mud.