Inner Struggle, Struggle, Struggle

I put the word 'struggle' in the title of this post three times so you can really understand the gravity of my inner struggles.  You're welcome.

One of the core things we were taught at Green Mountain was to live our lives away from diet mentality.   Eat what we want, when we want, but be mindful and stop eating when we are full.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, it is until you start paying closer attention to how certain foods effect you.

I have been quite enjoying the fact that I can have a cupcake at any point in my life.  Never again will they be taken away or forbidden.  The freedom of knowing I can have a cupcake at any time is so wonderful.  It takes the pressure off of me having to eat one that appears in front of me at any moment.  I have the ability to look at that moment and say, "Nope, not hungry. I'll pass."  Or "Heck yeah!  Bring on the personal sized cake of awesomesauce."  Every moment is a choice.  My next one can be a good one.  (Or bad one!  It's my life!)

I have learned that to deprive myself of a type of food is detrimental to my path to health.  If I really want a food, I should just eat it and let it go because otherwise, I won't be satisfied with the 'healthier' option I choose and may continue to overeat to compensate for unsatisfactory choice.  I could save myself unneeded calories and headache if I just ate what my mind wanted.

And there in lies the problem.  What my 'mind' wants.  Not what my body wants or needs.  They didn't quite go over this struggle at Green Mountain (if they did, I don't remember because I was too excited about the 'eat whatever you want' teaching).  Over the last 3.5 months, I have been following my 'mind' a bunch.  I have been enjoying my more fruits and veggies, but I have also been enjoying my natural cookies and cheese and the occasional non-organic, possibly fried treat.

You guys have been with me as I have come to the conclusions about certain foods:

Fried Chicken Fingers = Nausea and Upset Body for 24 hours

Hot Dogs = Severe Stomach Cramps

Cheese = Mucus, Coughing, Death by Toilet

But, but....I REALLY WANT THOSE THINGS!!!  Green Mountain told me I could have them!  I just have to be mindful and stop eating when I am full!  But isn't mindfulness, by definition, the act of paying attention to how my body reacts while I eat?  I have been focusing so much on trying to be mindful to hunger cues that I have unintentionally started paying closer attention to other ways my body reacts.  Stomach cramps, nausea, mucus...

Any smart person, and I really hope to be one some day, would immediately make the connection of the bad side effects and just wouldn't want the items anymore.  But I can't quite seem to do that.  I smell a hot dog and I salivate...I don't grab my stomach thinking about what could become of it once said hot dog is consumed.  As you learned from my blog yesterday, I have been suspicious about dairy for two years now, but have shrugged it off because it is so damn good.  Shouldn't I have stopped cold turkey the moment I made the connection that cheese = death by toilet?  Who wants to suffer like that?  Am I a masochist?  Why would I continue with behaviors that harm my body?

Oh wait...haven't I been overweight my entire life?  Haven't I struggled to keep up with people, breathe properly, and fit into hip clothes?  Why wasn't that enough to make me change my ways?  Am I lazy?  Unmotivated?  Do I secretly hate myself and think I should be punished?  I honestly don't think I can answer 'yes' to any of those last three questions.  So it's got to be something else.  How do I change the way I think to make my 'go to' question to myself always be, "What can I do at this moment to help my body feel great?"

Cheese, hot dogs, and fried foods certainly won't be the answer to that question ever.  I have become so stuck in my ways; entrenched in the Standard American Diet (SAD), that I have allowed myself to overlook basic things like feeling good.  Bloating, gas, mucus, stomach cramps have become my normal.  As I suspect it has for most Americans.  (Did you know that 75% of adults are lactose intolerant?  And that about 80% of them ignore their symptoms?  We only have the lactose enzyme in our bodies as babies.  As we grow, the enzyme goes away and we are no longer able to digest lactose.)

So the answer to my struggle goes something like this: 

1. Constantly ask myself "What can I do at this moment to help my body feel great?"  Repeat often like an affirmation until it becomes part of how I naturally speak to myself.
2. For now, cut out dairy, hot dogs, and fried food completely until I can honestly make the body/mind connection that alerts me these foods are bad.  If I deny myself these foods long enough, my cravings will go away.
3. Make the connection!  Make my mind alert me of these bad foods instinctively.  Such as when I see heroin (okay, I've never actually seen heroin)...my mind immediately sends up a red flashing siren in my brain to stay away.  (Just say no!)  Couldn't it do that with foods that make me feel terrible too?  If I begin a visualization regime (Jon Gabriel has a method in his book to help me with this) then eventually I can make it instinctual.
4. And finally, find alternatives to help me feel satisfied without feeling denied.  As I explore more and more healthy, natural, organic foods, I find myself enjoying them more than my more processed or pesticide-laced counter part.  I no longer want romaine or iceberg lettuce.  I want spinach!  I can't eat non-organic grapes because the pesticides (no matter how much I wash them) make my mouth itch, but the organic ones are heavenly.  I would rather have my homemade chicken nuggets from fresh chicken breast than the mystery, fried food meat that I get at restaurants.

So as you can see, I am reforming my mind daily.  It is going to take me a long time to completely institute my four steps above...but I'm getting there.  My path may be rocky at times, but it is long and I am slowly learning how to pave it.

Oh, Cheese.

I have a very complicated Love/Hate relationship with cheese.  I love it, it hates me and that leaves me feeling used and empty.  Why can't it return my love?  I have given it so much time and energy and praise in the last 32 years.  Why must it abuse me so?

About two years ago I made a connection with cheese and my stress.  After much trial and error (over 30 years?) I came to realize that when I was super stressed at work, my body reacted extremely poorly to cheese and dairy.  What does that mean exactly?  Well, without getting too graphic, I have extreme cramps followed by a long horrible visit to the bathroom.  In really bad cases I find myself wondering if this is what death feels like.  It ain't pretty.

So armed with my new connection, I stayed away from all dairy while I was stressed out.  When I wasn't feeling very stressed, I ate away and enjoyed my cheese like normal.  If I got into a habit of eating it and a stressful day came up then BAM! regret would immediately set in and I would be reminded of my 'special' dietary needs.

Since my stressful Tut job ended back in January, I have been living a cheese-loving filled existence.  Almost six months feeling free to eat as much dairy as I want.  Isn't it great that I have figured out my cheese triggers?   Whoopee!  As long as I never have another stressful day in my life, I am good to go.

"Not so fast there, Crawford!" I hear you saying.  "That doesn't quite make sense.  Are you sure you aren't having other symptoms that just aren't as extreme that you may be ignoring?"  "Ha ha!" I scoff. "You don't know what you're <cough, cough> talking <cough> about!"  Sigh...now that I am more in tune with my body and paying attention to how different foods effect me, I am seeing those 'small' symptoms.  And guess what?  They aren't that small!

I am currently reading and enjoying, "Crazy, Sexy Diet" by Kris Carr.  She has a chapter about all animal products and goes into detail about mucus causing dairy.  That's right "mucus causing".  Yuck. As with every new health book I read, I try to take all advice with a grain of salt and slowly come up with my own decisions.  So I read this chapter a few days ago and didn't think much about it except to think about possibly decreasing my cheese intake.

Fast forward to tonight's dinner.  With Joe's sisters in town the last 2 weeks, we have been eating out a lot and I have been neglecting my veggies.  So tonight for dinner I made huge salads.  They had strawberries, mozzarella, sliced almonds, and balsamic vinaigrette.  Joe's salad had turkey as well, but I wasn't feeling it.  The salad was delicious I was feeling good.  Until about an hour after I had finished eating.

It was then I began to feel the mucus rise in my throat.  I started to cough.  My nose began to run.  My stomach cramps returned and I had to book it to the bathroom for one of my old fashioned "Am I going to die?" experiences.  Now, first let me say that I am not stressed.  I am feeling pretty good about life.  So then why the stress-induced lactose intolerance episodes?  I think it was to wake me up to those first three symptoms that I have obviously been ignoring for WAY too long.

The mucus rising, the coughing, and the runny nose.  I have been eating a lot of cheese for the past three weeks and I have been very snotty...not in a snooty sort of way.  I felt great before dinner and with the chance to focus on my food once again without travel and guests to distract me, I was fully aware of what was happening to me.  My stomach reacting as it did was my final wake up call.  My body is not designed to handle dairy.  Boo.

Tomorrow I will continue this thought with my current inner struggle of: How can I live a 'no diet', 'no depriving' lifestyle if what my mind wants is something my body does not?

Baseball=Hot Dogs

I am currently at a Colorado Rockies game having a great time. A challenge I have encountered here is the smell of hot dogs! This while stadium smells delicious! As I've said before, I love hot dogs. I've enjoyed them at many ball games throughout my life. It's become habit. 

Before we got here, I gave myself a little pep talk and told myself to find options other than hot dogs because when I had a hot dog two weeks ago, I had quite the stomach ache. I figured once I got to my seat and away from the concession stand, I wouldn't be tempted anymore. Little did I know that the whole place would smell so awesome for the whole game!

But I am resisting. I just keep reminding myself that I do not want to spend half of this game doubled over with cramps. So I've had large pretzel and I have my eye on a frozen strawberry lemonade. I will win this hot dog battle today!

Here is a pic of me in my 'L' shirt that I bought yesterday and my new Rockies hat. 

Colorful Colorado

With Joe's sisters in town, we have been quite active exploring Colorful Colorado.  Today we went White Water Rafting on Clear Creek!  We went on Class 4 rapids which are apparently beginner rapids.

The first challenge of the day was getting into a wet suit.  Thankfully, the rafting guides help to pick out what size we should be and warn us that it is hard to get on.  My wet suit was about a foot too long, and I was able to get it over my shoulders easily.  The challenge came when I had to zip it up.  I would get it zipped a little and POP! it would unzip just like that.  Finally, with the assistance of Natalie, I was able to get it fully zipped.

Once the wet suit was on, the wet jacket, life preserver, and helmet were fitted.  I was told that if I could breathe easily then it wasn't correct.  So my lack of breath was a good thing apparently.  After some instruction and boat placement, we were on the rapids.  I'm not going to lie...I was a little scared.  I had been rafting before, but it was 13 years ago and I was much lighter.  When I focused on the commands we were given, it helped me to not be scared.  I knew that if I paddled as hard as I could we would be safer than if I didn't paddle at all.  So I paddled as hard as I could and I was thankful for my strength training because I felt awesome paddling with all my might.

At the end of our run, we had a small window to get our boat to the side of the creek to get out and on the bus before we kept going down the creek to the Advanced rapids.  No thanks.  So when we missed the spot we were supposed to stop, Joe and I pushed our paddles hard in the water to slow our boat down so we could get caught by the other raft guides.  It was exhilarating and a little scary!  I did not want to go down the 10' drop that we were told laid beyond our exit site.

After the run, it was great to get that wet suit off and I think it was grateful to get off me because once I unzipped it, it fell right to my knees!  Before we left the rafting place, I decided to buy a tee shirt to commemorate the event.  I picked out an XL like normal and tried it on over my tank top.  Joe said that it looked too big!  I didn't believe him, but decided to try on the L and it fit!  I couldn't believe it!  I am excited to wear it tomorrow because it makes me feel awesome.  :0)

Old Habits Are Hard to Break

I have been noticing lately that while I am eating healthy and being more active than I was before, some of my old habits are really hard to break.  One of them being overeating.  Eating past the point of full.  When I overeat, I feel terrible.  So one would think that would be enough to make me stop.  I know if I eat too much then I will regret it and feel lethargic and terrible.  So then why do I keep doing it?

Obviously it is a habit that is so ingrained in me that I don't realize I am doing it when I do it.  Where does it come from?  I have never been a person who has ever had a lack of food.  I'm not like my cat who overeats because in the first 3 months of his life he had to fight for food with his greedy kitten brothers.  I was hardly fighting for food growing up...my sisters liked to share.

Here is my theory.  My diet mentality has lead me to be an over-eater.  I think I went on my first 'real' diet when I was in fifth grade.  Diet in the traditional American sense of the word often means restricting the intake of food.  I learned very early on that if there is good food in front of me, I better eat as much as possible because I could be on my next diet soon.  This is a classic example of why diets don't work in general.  I am not alone in my habits.  Many people go on a diet, restrict their calorie intake, deny themselves whole food groups, do great for a few weeks, and then cannot sustain the restrictions, so they 'fall off the wagon'.  What happens when someone has fallen off and the wagon keeps rolling on without them?  They go back to those foods they had been denied for those weeks.  Didn't have any carbs?  Bring them on!  No fats?  Yum!  I want more!  No sugars?  Gimmie that candy bar!  And we start to eat like there is no tomorrow.  We have the euphoric feeling of, "Oh yeah, I am not on a diet at this moment...so I can have WHATEVER I WANT!"  The overeating begins because deep down we know that we will have to start another diet any day now and we may never have that food EVER again because the next diet will be the one we stick too.  Can you imagine never having another cupcake in your life?  Isn't that depressing?  So I better enjoy these 4 cupcakes now before I can never have them again.  I will have to remember these 4 for the rest of my LIFE.

Fast forward to my situation now.  I am no longer dieting.  I am eating what I want when I want.  I have learned the value of no longer eating fried, processed, sugary foods because for some reason, those ideas have stuck in my head quite clearly and I don't want to deal with the ramifications of my stomach being mad at me.  I really enjoy what I eat these days.  I do not feel deprived at all, but when I get a plateful of good food in front of me, I still have that instinct to eat it all up as fast as I can.  The other day, I put together a bowl of strawberries and grapes and I was kind of hungry, so I made a huge bowl.  Half way through I think I realized I'd had enough, but for some reason I couldn't stop!  I had to finish off the whole bowl until my stomach really hurt.  Now I know what you are saying, "Well, Beth...it was just fruit.  Don't beat yourself up about it!"  I don't beat myself up about it, it just worried me that I can so easily ignore my full signals.  What was wrong with covering that fruit up and eating it later when I was hungry again?  I don't know.  At the time it didn't seem to be an option.

This morning I went to get brunch at a place called Dozens.  They often have big portions, so I built my own meal.  I had a warm cinnamon scone, two eggs scrambled, and a side of fruit.  I noticed my fullness signal after half the scone, one egg, and half of the fruit...but did I stop?  No!  I just thought, "Oh man, this scone is delicious!  I have to eat it all!"  And honestly, the thought of, "I can take this home and enjoy it later" crossed my mind, but I ignored it and kept eating.  After we left the restaurant, I think I said out loud, "Ugh, I am so full" more than once.  Annoying to those who were with me and annoying to my too stuffed stomach.

I really need to slow down my eating and focus on my hunger signals.  Any delicious food can be saved.  There is no rule stating that I can't eat that food as soon as an hour later when I decide I am hungry again, right?  What can I do to stop myself defaulting on my overeating habit?  Because let's be honest, I love food!  And I want to eat all the time!  But if I do that, I feel terrible.  How do I enjoy perfect portions for me?  I think when I go out to eat, I need to start asking for a second plate or a to go box right away.  At brunch today, I totally could have put half of the scone, fruit, and one egg, in a box, closed it up and would have been totally satisfied with the food in front of me.  Then if later in the day my stomach said it could use that half of the scone I saved, then I could have enjoyed it!  Really, I would have loved to have saved that half of the meal until tomorrow and I would have been really excited to have a scone tomorrow morning.

So my focus this week:  SLOW DOWN while eating.  DECIDE what I won't likely eat before I start eating and get it out of my sight so I don't pick at it and mindlessly eat it.  FOCUS on my hunger signals.

Should I write these on the back of my hand so I can keep them in the fore front of my mind?  Maybe I will put an alarm on my phone with these rules that will go off when it is time to eat....

Feels Good to be Home

Though I have a bit of a cold, I feel great being back home.  I had my groceries delivered early Wednesday morning so I could start my week out right.  Joe's sisters are staying with us for two weeks, so we are getting some great exercise touring around the city and mountains.  While this means we will tend to eat out more these two weeks, I have been finding some really great salads at the restaurants and I am going to try to cook at home most nights.

This morning, I pulled out my jeans and thought they were looking pretty bad.  They are close to being completely worn out, so I pulled a suitcase out of my closet and sorted through some old jeans.  I tried on a pair that are a size smaller than my other pair and they fit great!  There is also a pair of black jeans that are two sizes down that I might be able to fit into soon!  It's pretty awesome to go 'shopping' in my old pile of clothes!

Now, these new jeans are a bit out of style and have a wicked flare at the bottom, but that's alright.  I have never been much of a fashionista.  And who knows, I may not be wearing them for long anyway!

Also, I bought the book, "Crazy, Sexy, Diet" by Kris Carr, another expert from "Hungry for Change". The book looks pretty awesome, so I am excited to get into it.  I look forward to reviewing it for you! I love reading all of these books because each one energizes me in a different way.  My momentum is continuing and I don't see any turn back in sight.

Winding Down

My trip home to Indianapolis is winding down and I am spending a day with my Dad relaxing in Mulberry, IN.  It's so peaceful up here.  We've been alternating naps and reading.  It's the perfect end to the very busy trip home.  I am happy to say that I was able to see everyone (with a few exceptions, of course) that I had hoped too.  Plus because we arrived into town early, we got to fit in some people we weren't expecting to see, which was a nice surprise.

Many challenges arise when coming back to Indianapolis for such a short amount of time.  First of which is my sleeping.  It's always hard to sleep in places that aren't my bed, but on these trips, I magnify that difficulty by only sleeping in one location for two nights max.  I am the ultimate bed hopper (get your mind out of the gutter) and will spend 2 nights on a air mattress in a basement, one night on a twin bed, two nights in my sister's old room, and then back to the air mattress, etc.  It's the difficulty that arose when my parents moved out of Indianapolis leaving me to find alternate beds while in Indy and Mulberry.  I am so thankful that I have so many hosts willing to put me up at any time.  Especially when I don't tend to have much of a plan and just kind of show up with bags in hand.  The really only bad side to all of this bed hopping is the destruction of my sleep patterns and trying to figure out where the bathroom is when I try to find it in my sleep.  Sleep is extremely important in our health.  It is that time when our bodies can shut down many functions and focus on repair.  And because I haven't been eating as I would normally like, my body needs repair.  I feel that this is one reason I don't feel refreshed in the mornings.  My body is trying to process my days here and it just isn't given the chance to work at it's best.  So I am often tired throughout my days.

Obviously the other main factor in my tiredness is my lack of exercise and my food intake.  I really miss my hikes and aquatics and my afternoon spinach and juices.  My time here is often spent driving from one location to the next so I can see everyone and have quality time with my friends and family.  Don't get me wrong, I am in no way complaining about this.  I love it.  It's just good to know that I am more aware of how this lifestyle differs from my new way of living and I can clearly see how much better I feel when I am eating properly and exercising.  This just makes me more and more anxious to get back on track and to be honest, that is a new and terrific feeling.

When I have strayed from 'diets' in the past, I have been able to say, "Well, I haven't followed my plan and I didn't really enjoy being on that plan, so I am not going to go back to it when I go home."  This is the first time in my life where I am so excited to get back on my path.  I think I may run back to it!  I don't like feeling lethargic and semi-nauseous all day.  I have seen the light and know now what it feels like to be doing things correctly.

Finally, I just want to say how thankful I am to my friends and family here who have congratulated me on my successes thus far.  I love being able to connect to everyone through this blog and to then hear from so many people who are reading it and cheering me on.  It's just further inspiration to keep going because I know I have so many people on my side.  It's also so much fun to talk to others about changes they are making and to learn new ideas from them.  Plus, I have some pretty awesome people in my life who have made it a point to serve me organic foods and bowls of fruits and veggies.  After eating out so many times, it was great to have some meals and snacks that really energized me again.

I know I said, "finally" in the last paragraph, but I have remembered another point I wanted to make.  I said in my last post that one reason this trip is difficult it the going out to my favorite restaurants here and finding out that foods I once loved don't love me back.  (Did they ever?)  Two examples stick out clearly in my mind because I wanted to pay close attention to them.  The first I mentioned in the last post was Chicken Tenders.  I grew up on these.  There was a time in my life when my parents couldn't get me to eat anything else.  I had ratings for them and knew where the best ones in town were.  I was excited to have them again.  That is no longer the case.  If you recall, I honestly thought I was going to throw up after I had (what I would have classifies as) top quality tenders (in the past).  I feel like I felt the repercussions of that meal for a minimum of 24 hours.  Goodbye, Chicken Tenders. I will think of you fondly, but our time has come to an end.

The other food item is the hot dog.  Oh man do I love hot dogs.  Especially around this time of year.  One evening my sister, Meg, made me an organic hot dog that was 'nitrate free'.  Now I don't know much about nitrates and the difference between naturally occurring nitrates and those added to meats, but after a quick Google search, I see that it is a much debated topic that I really don't feel like researching at this moment.  All I know is that after I ate that organic hot dog, I didn't feel bad at all.  It was tasty and it didn't seem to upset my stomach.  On Friday night, I went to a great cookout and had a regular hot dog...and well the story was different.  The rest of my plate that night was fruit, spinach salad, and pasta salad, and I was only drinking water, so when I began to feel nauseous, I knew the culprit was likely the hot dog, sadly.  Goodbye, hot dog.  We've had some good times.

Another food I have always loved and tested a few times on this trip was my beloved grilled cheese sandwich.  Thankfully no adverse reactions occurred and I will continue to enjoy them in moderation.

Tomorrow I will head to the store to stock up on food for our drive back to Denver.  I hope to order some groceries online tonight as well so they arrive at my door Wednesday morning so I may be able to get right back on track.  Can't wait!