Paleo and Nakey Baby

I hate counting calories. I've done it since Cruz was born. It's how I lost 65 pounds (with very few exercise). When I did p90x I gained about 8 pounds (of muscle). Then when Peter came to Maui over the summer we ate at all our old haunts and we went back to Austin and I was too busy and too stressed to count calories. I put on a little more weight. And then I found myself in a rut because good quality food has more calories than crappy food. So I was stuffing my face with cereal and I felt like CRAP and I wasn't losing any weight anymore.

In desperation, I tried two diets. The first was Tracy Anderson's diet (her exercises are actually really great) and it's got a lot of pureed foods and the calories are LOW. She says it's normal to feel like you have the flu for up to a week as your body "adjusts". Ok that was a huge warning sign for me and after the first day I felt even more like crap and abandoned it. That just couldn't be healthy. Then I tried the Dukan diet, which stresses high protein with NO fat and a tablespoon of Oat bran per day. Once you go through A WHOLE WEEK of just protein (no veggies or fruit or carbs) you can introduce Veggies only. And again no fat. After the first day I felt like I was going to vomit. And my breath stank. RED FLAG! Warning! Warning! STOP!

I felt like a failure. This has been such a HUGE journey for me. I honestly feel like a completely different person than the hormonally imbalanced person I was in my 20's. While I am happy at my current weight, I am still considered "obese" according to my BMI. I would really, really like to be in the normal category here.

There just HAD TO BE a way for me to be healthy and still feel satisfied.

I was driving home a few weeks ago and saw a Cross Fit sign in Haliimaile. I didn't know what that was so I came home and looked it up on the internet. It's kinda p90x style exercise - pretty hard core. I don't know if my knees or my arm could handle that (I have a bad rotator cuff) - BUT - on their website they were talking about their food philosophy and it was called Paleo. What is that??? I did some online research. Everything about this made sense to me.

Three weeks ago I dropped all sugar, grains, beans & legumes, and unhealthy fats. I feel AMAZING. I have tons of energy and have been loving cooking things for myself. I also cook this for Peter but he's not ready to go paleo yet. The kids are also not on board with this. But once the bread in the house runs out and they get hungry enough they'll have to eat what I make them *evil laugh*.  So with zero exercise and no calorie counting and eating until I'm full and content, I've lost 5 pounds. This week I'm incorporating dancing back into my repertoire along with a tabata workout twice a week and a sprint once a week.

This is something I am now very passionate about. I feel so incredibly balanced and healthy and like I have the energy to chase my three Littles. Do I still cheat? Yes I do. Occasionally. I do have my coffee mate in my coffee every day. That's about the only daily cheat I have. I did have a friend's homemade cinnamon roll yesterday and there was dinner at Mama's the other night. So I guess you could say I'm about 95% paleo. Super proud of myself. Lower BMI here I come! Want to see other people's success? This site has a thread where a bunch of people posted their before & afters. I found it to be really inspiring.

This is an example of breakfast (though this would be perfect any time of day).

Cabbage, Spinach, Cilantro, Sunflower Sprouts, Portuguese Sausage, Garlic, and Shrimp sauteed in butter with two fried eggs on top

Want to learn more about eating this way? This is a good place to start.

And I promised a nakey baby. Both boys love being naked. Not so much a problem with Kai since he's potty trained, but Cruz isn't quite there yet. He asks to go occasionally but he's not really ready yet. But he's now figured out that if he hides under the table, I can't get to him very fast. So he'll go under there naked and play with toys. It's really, really funny.

And though this house has been crazy, crazy and there have been what feels like a million photo shoots this week, I wanted to get some pictures hung in the living room. My vision is for this big wall to be FULL of important images and sayings. It's getting there!