Let me tell ya a little story...I'll start in the middle

Well we are at the end of 2016. This year seemed to last forever until October then ZOOM! Here we are knocking on 2017’s door. Craziness. Tonight, me and the hubby leave for Boston. We are going to his cousins wedding. The wedding I am excited for. As much as I loved our wedding and it will forever be the greatest day I could have asked for it is so much more fun being a guest! It’s the weather I am not excited for. How I got roped into going to Boston, in December I will never know. I keep hoping some weather event or work thing comes up so I don’t have to go. Why? I don’t do cold. Cold weather is not my thing. The rest of my family is from up north, I am from Florida. I do warm weather and sunshine. WTF it’s in the 30s and 40s in Boston! I know to them that’s probably not that cold but I’ve got news! UGH! Wish me luck that I come back without hypothermia. I mean the number of layers I’m planning on wearing I’ll look like the stay puff marshmallow man! I’m so anxious about this trip it makes my stomach hurt.

Man, I really tend to get off topic at the beginning of these things but I figured you wouldn’t mind reading what I have going on for the New Year.

So, onto what I was planning on talking about. How many of you are planning on making a New Year’s resolution? Ok, now how many of you think you will stick with that resolution until next New Years? Exactly. It’s ok if you put your hand down for that second part. Resolutions are hard to keep. Mainly because we just set the bar way to high. It’s good to have big goals but you have to be realistic about them.

I have two resolutions this coming year. The first is to take compliments. I am terrible at accepting compliments. I always try to brush them off or give the person a reason why their compliment is wrong. I need to stop it! I need to just say take the compliment, say thank you and move on. It’s crazy how easy it is to take criticism but compliments are so difficult to accept.

My second resolution is to be tired. I mean, I’m always tired with the schedule I keep and don’t get me wrong I’m all about sticking to a regimen and getting my daily recommended 8 hours but I stress about it way more than I should. Its ok to stay up past 9pm every once in a while to enjoy things in life. Man! I have some difficult resolutions to conquer this year.

Now there are plenty of resolutions I could talk about for this post but my focus for this post is going to be about going paleo. I’m focusing on paleo because it’s a journey I’m currently on. I also have spoken with a handful of friends and acquaintances who recently started eating paleo or are planning on starting to eat paleo in the New Year.

As much as I would love to just list a bunch of tips for you on how to make the switch to a paleo lifestyle I thought I would share a little bit of how and why I got started on paleo and how I stick with it in my daily life. I am certainly no expert but maybe you will gain some useful information from my experience.

Queue flashback music…………

Back in 2009 I went on the South Beach diet. Now I had already been doing Weight Watchers for a few years but my boyfriend, now husband, had shown interest in losing some weight. He tried Weight Watchers with me but the points systems and looking everything up just wasn’t for him. As I had previously lost 50lbs on a low carb diet I thought it would be an easier option for him. I turned to the South Beach diet as I had a friend that found success on it and it was recommended to her by her physician. In an effort to be a supportive partner I decided we would do it together. On the South Beach Diet the first 14 days are pretty restrictive on what you can eat. Well, it just so happened it was about 14 days until my company Christmas party. I thought, “great! I’ll be able to lose a few pounds before the Christmas party!”

Prior to starting the SouthBeach diet I ate bread, pasta, muffins etc. all in the points realm of Weight Watchers. Once on the SouthBeach diet all of that went away. During the first 14 days of SouthBeach no carbohydrates are allowed. You can’t even have corn or carrots. It’s like an extreme carb cleansing if you will. I remember feeling super tired and weak. People in my classes at the gym saw how it was affecting me and kept telling me to eat carbs at work or something but I refused. I didn’t want to sneak carbs I was determined to be a supportive partner and if he couldn’t eat carbs for 14 days I was not going to even look at a carb the wrong way for 14 days. I would make through.

So, the night of the Christmas party came. We had both lost a significant amount of weight in those 14 days and were excited to have a night out to let loose and eat what we wanted. Although we had decided to cheat that night I ate grouper for dinner and green beans. I did dive into that bread though and it was open bar so HELLO!

We had a great time at the party and then just vegged out on Sunday.

Monday morning I got up to go for my morning run.  My legs felt tight but I didn’t think anything of it.

I got dressed and headed downstairs from our apartment. I couldn’t even make it half way down before my thighs cramped up so bad I could barely move them. I was in such pain it brought tears to my eyes. I went back into the apartment and tried to walk it off. I stretched out my legs even though the pain was excruciating. I couldn’t’ t figure out what was wrong.  I hobbled around slowly that morning and got ready to go because I had to go to work. It took me forever to get down the stairs to leave and then at work my legs just continued to swell. I felt awful. Even my co-workers commented I looked swollen. I couldn’t disagree as my pants fit tight when they hadn’t felt that way in years.

My initial thought was maybe it was the Grouper. I never eat grouper, maybe I was having a reaction. The next day I was still pretty swollen and cramping so I went to the walk-in clinic. They couldn't diagnose me so they sent me for blood work.  Once the lab results came back they told me my liver enzymes were elevated. I thought for sure that was the cause of my swelling. I clearly drank too much at the Christmas party and it had caught up to me. Little did I know that was just the beginning.

It happened again the next weekend. Come Monday morning I was swollen from the top of my legs to my ankles and my quads would cramp more and more with each step. This became a regular thing. There were some Mondays I would miss work because the pain was unbearable not to mention I couldn’t wear my work pants because they didn’t fit. I would go to the walk-in clinic and they would have no answer. I saw different doctors, no answer. I was sent for ultrasounds of my legs to look for clots. No clots.  My primary physician even shrugged his shoulders at me. Finally, I decided it had to be some sort of allergy so I went to an allergist. She refused to do an allergy test on me as she said it wasn’t an allergy I just ate to much salt. I then went to a liver specialist due to my elevated enzymes. He just kept sending me for blood work and ultrasounds. I begged him to do a biopsy but he refused.

The last time I had a terrible “reaction”, I went back to the walk-in clinic. I went because the swelling was not just in my legs but my abdomen as well.  The doctor there then tried to point the finger at my birth control. They did an EKG as they were concerned about my low heart rate. I guess they were really alarmed by my low resting heart rate so they sent me to the ER. Apparently, that’s not normal and perhaps that was to blame. I sat in the ER for 4 hours. They had me hooked up to all of these machines and they took a chest x-ray. My heart was fine. We also discussed my swelling. I was provided with no answer other than I should eat watermelon because it reduces swelling. He also told me when the swelling occurs I need to elevate my feet above my heart. How can I work like that!?  Yah…. that diagnosis, if you want to call it that, cost me $800. It was then I decided no more doctors’ I was just going to deal with it. 

I dealt with it for 3 ½ years. I bought sun dresses I could wear to work when I had swelling, I brought in a box to keep under my desk so I could elevate my legs and I just dealt with it.  I could just feel that my body was shutting down. It was under so much stress. I also started retaining weight. No matter how little I ate or how much I exercised I continued to gain weight. For someone recovering from an eating disorder that was devastating.

In order to help take some of the weight off I thought I would try a different form of exercise. CrossFit was new to the scene and I had heard great things about it and how intense it was. I thought it would be a great way to shake up my workout routine and help me lose some weight. I found a Groupon for one month at a CrossFit gym that had just opened in the area. After the first class I was in love! It was fast paced, competitive and left me exhausted. A couple of classes in, the instructor was talking about the Paleo diet. Before the next class I went up to another instructor at the gym and inquired about it. She gave me a little run down and asked me to bring her my diet log. I brought her what I typically ate and she showed me what I would need to eliminate and what I could add to make it paleo. I decided I was going to give it a try. It wasn’t far from how I had been eating so I didn’t think it would be a hard transition, plus I was desperate to find something that would work.  I printed off a basic list of how to eat paleo and put it on the fridge. After the first week, I felt significantly better. I didn’t have any swelling. I thought to myself, “this could actually work.” I stuck pretty strict to it for a couple weeks.

I forget why but one weekend after I had started on paleo, we went out and I got nachos. All of the progress I had made vanished in that one meal. That Monday I was back to square one. I went to CrossFit that night and dragged myself through the work out. I had to modify a lot of the movements because my legs were so swollen and would cramp so bad. It was awful. I swore I would not do that to myself anymore. No more cheat meals like that. I stopped drinking beer, stopped eating all grains, beans, white potatoes. Stopped eating chips, pretzels, muffins, corn. I started eating a lot more green veggies and just more veggies in general. I think it was a harder transition for the people around me because they didn’t understand it. Quite frankly neither did I. All I knew was that eating this way made my body feel better. But how could my body change literally overnight? The only good information the Allergist gave me was that your body chemistry changes every 7 years. Maybe for me that night in 2009 was when my body chemistry changed. I have never been tested or diagnosed with celiac or a gluten intolerance.  I diagnosed and treated myself. I treated myself with regular, unprocessed, fresh food.

I still find things now and then that I can’t tolerate. I used to enjoy M & Ms as a treat at the end of the week as they are gluten free but recently I started having swelling from them so I can’t eat them anymore. Also, from time to time my husband I enjoy going for frozen yogurt but the last two times we have gone I have woken up the next morning with a puffy face and runny nose. I’ll have to stop treating myself to frozen yogurt as well. Does it suck? Yes! But not nearly as bad as how It makes me feel. I rather feel a little sad that I can’t eat those things than not feel comfortable in my own skin. The trick to making it easier and more bearable, especially when others around you are just eating and drinking whatever they want, is to find items you can make. Go on Pinterest, invest in some good cook books, follow a couple of good blogs. You’ll be surprised that you can still eat cookies occasionally, you can have toast with your breakfast, you can make chicken fingers. You can eat the same it’s just made different and you will feel different. You will feel better, have more energy, have more clarity.

So here are the paleo basics that answer the question, what can I eat?

Some great people to follow for recipes:

PaleOMG.com

AgainstAllGrains.com

BrittneyAngell.com

And now a yummy recipe from The Paleo Kitchen cook book

Twice Baked Stuffed Butternut Squash

Ingredients:

1 Butternut squash (Approx 2 lbs) cut in half length wise

1 Tablespoon coconut oil

½ small yellow onion, diced

1 apple, cored and diced (I omit the apple, pretty much because I never have them in the house)

1 pound ground pork (I use ground turkey)

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

1 Tablespoon almond flour

Directions:

1.       Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper

2.       Place the butternut squash cut side down on the prepared baking sheet. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes., or until squash is soft to the touch. Remove from oven and let squash cool. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees

3.       While the butternut squash cools, heat the coconut oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the diced onion and apple (if using) and sauté until onion is translucent. Add the ground meat, parsley, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Cook, breaking apart the meat with a spatula, until no pink remains, about 10 minutes.

4.       Remove and discard the seeds from the butternut squash, then scoop out the flesh and place in a bowl, leave behind ¼ inch of flesh to keep from tearing the skin. Mash the squash with a fork and place it in the pan with the ground meat. Mix until well combined.

5.       Place the hollowed-out squash in a large baking dish. Fill with the meat mixture and sprinkle with almond flour on top. Bake for 10 minutes. Serve immediately.

I am ADDICTED to this recipe! It is a yummy, hearty take on comfort food. It uses a season vegetable and works well with any ground meat i.e turkey, chicken or pork.

Enjoy!

As always:

Don’t forget to follow the blog in the upper right hand corner of the page.

(If you are viewing this on your phone you may need to switch to web view)

-Also, follow the blog on Instagram at Instagram.com/barbellsandboyshorts

** I'll be posting chilly pics from Boston!

-And comment below if you have any comments, suggestions or questions!