Before & After - Total Immersion Wrap Up

This coming Saturday is the last day of my Total Immersion class.  I started taking TI back in December, with little to no previous swim instruction.  My first season of triathlon swimming felt more like what I imagine a hamster would feel like if you threw it in a pool - lots of thrashing around, fear, and not much forward momentum.  Certainly the swim leg of my first two sprints was something that I survived, rather than excelled at.  I've already written one post mid-class extolling the virtues of TI swimming and how it has changed my experience in the water.  Coming to the end of the class I can only repeat the already positive things I've already said.  If pictures paint 1000 words, then videos must be even more illustrative.  So here you go:

BEFORE

AFTER

Some of the big differences should be obvious between my swimming at the beginning of class and end.  Overall, I'm a lot quieter in the water (less splashing).  That's not because I'm moving more slowly. I'm not. My overall stroke count for 25 meters has gone from 30 strokes per length to 19 strokes per length.  That's consistent at most paces for me now, even when I'm stroking pretty quickly (which I'm not in these videos bc of my sore shoulder).  My head position is much better, even though I have room to improve on that while breathing.  My balance in the water is greatly improved.  My legs no longer sink if I'm not kicking vigorously.  I can, in fact, swim without kicking at all and still maintain my position.  These are all huge improvements.

Some differences you cannot see.  That I enjoy swimming much much more now.  That I find it relaxing instead of stressful.  That I look forward to my swimming days instead of dread them.  That I'm looking forward to the open water season in a way I never did before.

There is a certain amount of discord regarding the "right way" to swim.  Total Immersion vs. conventional practice.  I cannot speak with any confidence about right and wrong outside my own experience, which is that TI helped me learn to swim in a way that was right for me.  By breaking down every part of your stroke, teaching me how to relax in the water, teaching balance, swimming has become a completely different sport.  Completely different experience.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who feels like a drowning hamster, is starting their first or second season and is still uncomfortable in the water, or just wants to learn a different way of looking at swimming.

(Side note - do not ever google "drowning hamster" in an attempt to find a funny cartoon for your blog.  It's disturbing.  People are sick)

Loose Ends - Injury / Diet Update:  

I went to physical therapy this afternoon for my shoulder and for a wicked case of TMJ that I seem to have developed.  It happens a few times per year when life gets particularly stressful.  Which it is for me at the moment.  A cocktail of work stress, kid stress, and taper week stress has caused my body to revolt.  I've cried about seven times in the last 24 hours, twice actually at work (which is awesome.  Highly recommended for your career). 

Anyway, the folks at Central Mass Physical Therapy are great.  A large proportion of their practitioners are triathletes, including my therapist Laura who also follows my blog.  The latter is great because they really take a whole-body, whole life approach to your therapy (including keeping you up and training as much as possible).  The latter is great both because she clearly has excellent taste in reading material, and because I never have to fill her in on what I've been up to.

Laura noted (rightly) that I never wrapped up my Clean Eating adventure.  I've alluded to it, but yes, I did drop off the clean eating wagon.  For a multitude of factors.  Cost, my son's utter rejection of all things gluten-free, and general laziness.  Once my running mileage starting topping over 15 miles per week, I switched onto the "Eat Everything in the Refrigerator" plan, with blatant disregard to what I was putting in my mouth, and a complete laziness as to meal planning and organization.  Which you really need to have.  Truthfully, my stomach problems did not seem to improve on the diet.  I may have been a little less moody (Jedi says he couldn't tell), but I believe the sugar was the biggest contributing factor. Maybe I wouldn't be the emotional mess I am right now if I'd stayed on plan.  Who knows. I'm still trying to reduce the amount of sugar I eat.  Despite the presence of these in my house (my Easter favorite):

Do.  Not.  Eat.  Whole.  Bag.  Not carbo-loading!

After having me go through the usual movement evaluation (bend over touch your toes, look down, touch your chin to your collarbone, etc.) Laura also confirmed what I already guessed.  That the exterior rotator cuff muscles in my right shoulder are quite weak and painful, and not really doing what they are supposed to.  Most likely they haven't been in years, since I first injured that shoulder during martial arts.  Also I have an epic amount of tension in my neck and upper shoulders, which is very likely contributing to the jaw pain.  Pain that, at the moment, is severe enough that I'm nauseous and almost seeing double.  She prescribed some excellent and unbelievably painful tricks with a foam roller and tennis ball, made seven more appointments over the next month, and thinks I'll be fine. Once again leaving me to wish I was a professional athlete who only had to concern themselves with their training, their therapy, and their nutrition, instead of all of the above plus that pesky job/family/bills/life.  Ah well.

Since it's taper week, I'll end this post with my biggest athletic project so far.  Resting.  With my kitty, working on my Boston Strong scarf for the Boston Marathon.

Last minute free advice for taper week?  Hit me!

Look Ma! No Hands!

I hit a bump this week.  Bumps happen in all aspects of life.  This particular bump was the recurrence of the foot injury that had me laid up for weeks last fall.  It messed up what had been feeling like a pretty calm (for me) groove I've had going since starting my Clean Eating program and working with my new tri coach.  Like many funks I get myself into, this one ended with me talking to my mom.  Who basically told me that I was spinning up way too fast and was over-scheduled, doing too much, and dragging the entire family with me. (She said it much nicer than that though).

"But what can I stop?" I wailed in response.  It's not like I can stop working.  The kids lessons are paid for.  I promised to teach them piano and swim - that's important.  I can't stop the cake business cold turkey because I've made commitments and frankly we need the money to cover  barely dent pesky things like the credit card bills from Christmas.  I'm sure as heck not going to stop training for triathlon, because on tough days having already put in a good solid workout is the only thing that makes me feel human.  Often a tired, sore human, but a sane one that isn't likely to scream at her kids or kick the cat.  Just kidding.  I would never kick my cats.

Mom didn't have an answer for me.  I didn't have an answer either.  I gave up trying to finish my work early enough to take the kids swimming that day, wrote an apologetic note to my coach, told me husband I had zero clue what to make for dinner and decided to just hang out and do some yoga after the kids went to bed.

The kids have been on me a lot lately.  Constantly (and literally) wrapped around my legs, demanding to be taken to the bounce park, to the movies, to the spa (yes, we've gone a little overboard lately).  But mostly what I hear is "Mommy I just need more time with you!"  Which is incredibly guy wrenching for me, and also patently ridiculous as I am lucky enough to spend more time with my children that most working parents.  I go to their ice skating lessons, their dance classes.  I work remotely.  I take days off just to spend with them.  All of which still adds up to, in their little minds, not enough.  It kills me.

So last night instead of rushing around like a crazy family, I set up the trampoline in the playroom and let them take turns bouncing their minds out to my workout mixes, and making those rainbow loom bracelets that every child under twelve seems to go for like meth addicts looking for their next fix.  In the midst of a particularly high bounce, my daughter yelled out, "Mommy!  This is the most perfect evening I could ever have with you!!!!"  Huh.  That easy.  She just really does want time with me.

(Notice in this video that she never, ever stops talking.  This is how we know she has never met her anaerobic threshold while exercising.  She has also talked nonstop through both 5ks and the kid triathlon she's done.  Unreal this kid.)

After the kids went to bed, I read a review of Rachel May Stafford's new book, "Hands Free Mama".  And purchased the book immediately.  And read the first two chapters.  Stafford's story rang very true to me - a busy working mom who was always on top of everything, who was constantly asked "how do you do it all?" and yet still felt stressed and disconnected.  In her own words, her solution is:

"If technology is the new addiction, then multi-tasking is the new marching order.  We check our email while cooking dinner, send a text while bathing the kids, and spend more time looking into electronic screens than into the eyes of our loved ones.  With our never-ending to-do lists and jam-packed schedules, it's no wonder we're distracted."

 Stafford simplified her life, and has inspired many more to do so, by implementing small but significant changes to minimize distractions.  Put away the phone.  Turn off email for a portion of each day.  Be truly present for your family, and for yourself.  She also takes a hard look at what she considers meaningful... and what is an unnecessary distraction.  Powerful stuff.

In her first chapter, she says that honesty hurts.  It hurts me to admit that I could do much better in this area.  I live with my cell phone - it's practically an appendage.  I spend way too much time on Facebook.  As much as the habit of constantly watching phones drives me crazy in others (the other night I talked to the Jedi for a good two minutes about something I felt was really hard and meaningful, only to have him eventually look up and say "What?  I thought you were talking to the cat...."), I do it too.  Two night ago I was texting with my coach while putting my son to bed.  My son had to actually ask me to stop texting because the phone buzzing was keeping him awake.  Shameful.  So so shameful.

My New Pledge - to be a Hands Free Mama

• When I get home from work / shut down from work, I will put my phone away in my bedroom and not use it again until after the kids go to bed.
• I will not check anything on my phone until after my first cup of coffee in the morning (which occurs after working out and/or showering)
• I will only look at Facebook twice per day - once around lunchtime, once after kids go to bed.  Limited to a few minutes only.  (I've already failed this one today.  More shame).
• Non-work emails will be returned only after the kids are in bed.
• Even if he is watching football or Dr. Who, I will make and effort to sit with and talk to my husband in the evenings.

Things That Are Meaningful to Me

• Health of my family.  A big part of this is nutrition, so the clean eating and switching my son to gluten-free will continue
• Being creative.  Whether it be crocheting hats for the kids, sewing quilts, painting, or decorating cakes, I need the act of creation in my life
• Being a role model for my children.  I want them to look at me and see a hard-working, kind, healthy person who has her life and priorities in balance
• My personal health.  This includes triathlon training, what I put in my body, but also my mental and emotional health.  An ongoing project.
• Inspiring others.  Egotistical?  Maybe.  But I love writing, and if even one person gets something out of this blog and some of the other places I write then I'm going to keep it up.
• Having meaningful friendships & relationships.  Involving actually seeing people in person, calling them, and being there for them when it is important.

So my friends, if I am a little harder to get a hold of in the future, I apologize.  Please call me instead, or wait until after bedtime.  I'd love to see you and hear your voice.  If anyone sees me posting anything on Facebook other than lunchtime or evenings, please call me on it.  If something is actually burning down or you need to talk to me right now, I will of course answer.  But otherwise, I ask your support in my new project.

I can't give up any of the big things in my crazy chaotic life, but I can try to take control of all the little moments in between.  

Quick Clean Eats Update

In my haste to toss up last night's post about our weekend's accomplishments before Downton Abby came on, I completely forgot to update everyone on this Clean Eating project of mine.  So I'm checking now at Day 16 of 30 in the project, which was to eliminate gluten, dairy, refined sugar, and alcohol from my diet.

My freezer - half frozen cupcakes and cake balls for pops,
half veggies, lean meats, fish, etc.  Mixed messages??

When last I checked in, I was having major nutrition-related training problems.  Not eating enough calories to support my increasing training volume.  After a few days of tracking my nutrition, I corrected by eating more, and by adding back in cheese and plain Greek yogurt into my mix. Actually, that's not true.  I retroactively tracked 2 days worth of food, made a decision, told myself I'd continue tracking to be sure, and then only logged breakfast the next day.  You see, I dearly hate tracking my food.  I track everything else down to the nanosecond, but for me entering everything I eat into my phone sends me back two years to when losing weight was my main goal.  When the scale got to predict what kind of mood I was going to be in that day.  I'm just not in that place anymore.  Losing weight is not a goal for me.  Being healthy, happy, calm, and training well is my goal.  But I seem to forget that when I've counting calories (or macro nutrients) and go to the bad place where I can make myself feel physically ill deciding if I really need/want a snack because it might not fit in my calorie budget on my phone.  So - I am non-compliant in the food tracking category.  And I plan to stay that way.

Sore throat popsicles - coconut milk, banana,
cocoa powder and honey

So anyway, I do feel much better now.  I've added my trusty PocketFuel back in as my main source of pre- and post-workout fuel, even though it has sugar in it.  Der - sugar is fuel.  It's ok to have for workouts!  I have a little cheese now and then, and I don't feel badly about it.  Dessert can be fruit yogurt and granola with a little honey.  Yummy.

Over the weekend Jedi and I went out to a movie while my saintly parents watched the kids.  Jedi bought pizza at the Whole Foods next door to the theatre. I had a  few bites. I won't call it a slip-up, because it was intentional.  It was that or divorce, as Jedi knew how badly I'd been craving pizza.  I mean, we just came from the freezer isle pricing out GF dough, for crissakes.  Jedi is unfailing patient and supportive of whatever wacky ideas I get in my head to try to myself, but he will not change.  Period.  He wants pizza - he gets pizza.  He will not run with me.  Ever.  Nor will he swim with the kids just because I pushed for a family membership at the Y.  Clear boundaries - it's how it is.  I also got myself a small bag of dark chocolate covered raisins for the show.  I enjoyed my treats.

Me to Legos - don't eat bread and butter

I enjoyed the headache I got later while at my parent's for dinner a lot less, however.  I'm not sure if the wheat and the sugar were to blame, or the three hours of dragon roaring and fighting scenes (yes we saw  The Hobbit, and yes it was awesome) immediately followed by my incredibly loud and excited children.  I'm guessing some combination of both.  But certainly, the sugar and wheat didn't help.

Cravings-wise, I'm doing ok.  I miss things that are crunchy the most.  Much of this diet has the same consistency.  Legos and I have a near nightly ritual of texting each other to talk ourselves out of whatever evening craving we are threatening to devour.  Thanks to a steady supply of treat recipes from Cara's Cravings, my sweet tooth is in check.  I'm down to one cup of coffee, which makes afternoons tough.  Especially afternoons following early morning workouts.  But I'm finding listening to my coach's spin playlists on Spotify is as good as coffee.

Legos to me - don't eat the ice cream!!

Overall, my jury is still out.  My main goals were to see if this diet would positively affect my mood, my migraines, and my stomach issues.  My stomach is the same or worse.  This could also be attributed to my much higher running volume over the last 2 weeks than I've had previously.  I'd like to try my little guy on a GF diet, as celiac runs in the Jedi's side of the family.  My son is quite small for his age and currently is on medication for reflux - I do think it would be worth it to try to eliminate gluten and take him off his meds.  See how he does.

I will say that I feel much calmer and more joyful since Christmas.  I am less reactive to the Monday morning annoying emails from work.  I'm having more quiet moments of fun with my kids without my mind being distracted by worries.  Again, this could be due to a lessening of stress post-holidays, my increased training volume... but knowing myself I think it's that my blood sugar is much more level.

My plans going forward are to keep gluten free past the 30 day mark (though I might have to designate all pizza gluten-free to do it), and keep refined sugar to a minimum.  I'm looking forward to adding back in a glass of wine now and then.  I don't think dairy is something I'll eliminate long term.  But so far I've learned a lot of great recipes, and am willing to call this a partial success.  If it manages to help my son, so much the better.

Clean Eat BONK

BONK - a technical term in endurance racing for the feeling when you've expended all the glucose in your blood and your body can't pull glycogen fast enough, resulting in sudden weakness, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, and falling off whatever piece of training equipment you happen to be on at the time.  To be avoided.

Checking in at Day 10 of my Clean Eating Challenge.  In terms of compliance, I have been quite a good girl.  I even made it through hosting a New Years Brunch drinking seltzer mimosas and crust-less quiche.  A few choice recipes for sweet snacks from my new favorite food blog Cara's Cravings has tamed the sweet tooth. (seriously - you need to go read her blog right now.  Her chocolate mint patties will change your life). I've mastered the art of the gluten-free dinner....

Lemon chicken, tricolor quinoa and veggies veggies veggies

The dairy free lunchbox...

Tuna salad in egg and flax seed wrap with granola, apples and peanut butter

I've even started reading Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD - a truly eye-opening book about the metabolic and physiological impact of modern-day hybridized wheat on the body.  For example, did you know that wheat, in any form - even whole wheat), has a glycemic index significantly higher than that of table sugar?  In other words, eating two slices of bread spikes your blood sugar higher and faster than a candy bar.  That the result of these repeated blood sugar spikes and drops is the deposition of visceral fat, which in turn functions as an endocrine gland, flooding your system with estrogen and other hormones?  That there is a protein in wheat that actually physically damages the lining of your small intestine, allowing materials to pass into your blood stream that have no business being there?  It really is amazing how widespread wheat consumption is, considering the effects on your body.

So based on everything I've read, and everything I'm doing in terms of learning new recipes and planning, preparing, stocking and stuffing I should be feeling great, right?  Turns out.... NO.  Wrong.  Not at all.  Not one little bit.

Which is pretty frustrating.  This morning I tried a smoothie with sweet potato and peanut butter for my preworkout grab.  Halfway through my strength class I almost had to run out to worship the porcelain throne.  My run afterwards was pretty terrible. I was dizzy the whole time and walked the end.  I very nearly became part of this video:

I have been consistently tired, spacey, stupid, and generally loopy since I started this plan.  Plus my stomach problems (both sides) are worse than ever.  What's a girl got to do???

Turns out a girl's got to EAT.  At the urging of the Clean in 2014 group, I went back and tracked my calorie intake over the last few days.  Guess what?  Not even close to enough.  Not with my training load increasing in prep for my longer running races, upping my distances in the pool, and all my other shenanigans.

So I'm adding back in cheese and plain unsweetened yogurt.  Plus milk in my coffee at the office because they don't stock almond milk.  No, I haven't given up coffee yet, but I am down to one cup a day.  A battle in itself.  I'm going to actually track my calories for a while (a practice I hate because it makes me even more obsessive than usual) and try to choke down more calories.  I mean, there are only so many eggs and avocados I can stomach.  Good Lord.  But I am not giving up.  At the same time, I would be very stupid to keep at what I've been doing.  I truly believe that eliminating gluten will have benefits eventually.  Hopefully soon.  Part of training, and life, is constantly re-evaluating what you are doing.  So I'm re-evaluating.

What's your favorite go-to preworkout snack?  Bonus points for it being grab-able in 2 minutes or less and being able to consume while driving.

New Year's Thingy - Let It Go

We just celebrated New Year's Eve at my house tonight.  Yes, it's January 2nd.  I'm a little behind.  But really, it's kind of an arbitrary holiday anyway.  On the actual evening of December 31st we stayed in and went to bed early because I had a race the next day, and last night I had a horrible migraine that forced me into a dark room by 7 pm.  So... Happy New Year from the Cupcake Triathlete gang!

Yes those are cups on their heads.
Cheaper and more fun to make than party hats.

I have only one real New Years Resolution this year, and Disney was nice enough to make a movie with a great theme song to signify it.  Bonus, a great song for a cold weather running, which I seem to be doing a lot of lately.  If you have not yet seen Frozen, you really should.  Go to your local mall and kidnap a random child if you don't have one of your own to justify your presence in this movie.  Don't worry - their parents won't be mad - they will thank you.

LET IT GO

Let it go, let it GOOOO, turn away and slam the door!  Let it go, let it go-ooooo, the cold never bothered me anyway!!!

Specifically, letting things go in my professional life.  Now most people, including me, don't usually blog about their work, because it's unprofessional as well as being esoteric boring crap that no one wants to read about.  No difference here.  BUT for whatever reason, I have this running list in my head of all arguments, disagreements, slights, and personal conflicts I've had in my professional career, who was involved, etc. that I have not put down yet.  I remember and rehash things endlessly.  Not so much in real life, just career life.  My company went through several rounds of layoffs, one of which I was cut in, and I still take it personally.  This is doing me absolutely no good.  Constantly worrying if today is the day I'll be fired and looking for nuance in a coworker's straightforward request to grab coffee when they said something hurtful to me two years ago is doing me NO GOOD.  Especially if I ever want to move up and along, I need to be ok with the fact that not everyone is going to like me.  When I told my Boss Scarecrow about my resolution this morning he took the obvious jab that most people aren't gonna like me.  Har har.  That's ok.  Disagreeing with people is ok.  I am actually pretty smart and good at my job, and part of that is disagreeing with people. This is gonna be a huge challenge for me, as shedding 15+ years of meticulously up-kept emotional baggage will take a lot of effort.  A big enough challenge that I felt I had to write about it here, since triathlon is my model for doing so.  I don't obsess and hold onto bad workouts, so why hold on to bad conversations?

Enough about work...

Back to triathlete stuff.  Back to "the cold never bothered me anyway".  New Years Day dawned for me with a horrific migraine.  Why can't I have a hangover like a normal person?  I attribute the migraine to detoxing on my clean eating diet - it was bound to happen between Days 3 and 5.  Too bad I had a race then.  But after some coffee (no I haven't quit caffeine yet despite my daughter's daily admonishments to do so), breakfast, and encouragement from Sheriff and friends, I did make it to the starting line.

It was cold

It was cold, and bright bright bright sunny.  It always is on migraine days.  But I found my friends, bumped into some teammates from CMMS, waited around in the nice warm gym for the start, and just hoped I'd finish under 12 minute miles and without throwing up.

Clean eating race breakfast.  Hard cooked egg,
steel cut oatmeal with walnuts and raspberries

What happened next I still have not figured out.  I ran the race with a 49:47 finish - under 10:00 per mile.  I NEVER run that fast, and certainly not for that long on a course of rolling hills.  Moreover, I didn't leave my breakfast in a snowbank to do it.  In fact, I had none of the tummy troubles that usually plague me when I run.  Afterwards I talked to Sheriff about what happened, and he said that these kind of jumps in performance are going to happen in the first couple of years of training.  Hmm.  I guess that makes sense, but I'm also wondering if clean eating helped my normally messed up GI tract from slowing me down.  Or if my migraine medicine somehow numbed the pain in my legs.  Or if someone sprinkled magic fairy dust on my sneakers. Disney music is magic.....  Time will tell I guess.

Me and my kickass tri friend Jess that I met at a swim
clinic last summer, at the starting line

So what is next?  Lots of not freaking out at work, since January is our toughest month.  Since we're in the middle of a snowstorm and the Jedi cancelled our plow service, I'm guessing some shoveling.  Several friends are doing a ten mile race in 6 weeks - I asked Sheriff if I could join and he said sure.

Ten miles.  That's like, twice as far....  Get ready....

How did you celebrate New Year's?  With a hangover, a run, or both?

No More Cupcakes....

Having done my blogger's due diligence by recapping this past year, now it's time to look forward to 2014.  I've already got my big races scheduled, so not a lot of new available there.  But as I look forward to my gym being flooded by "resolutioners" who will take up all the treadmills for the month of January, I did decide to start my own little challenge.

No more cupcakes.

I know - now I'm just a random triathlete.  A very mediocre one at that.  Boo.  Jokes aside, I decided to try this Clean Eating thing that everyone is raving about.  It seems like the last couple of years everyone is eschewing gluten, grains, sugar, alcohol, caffeine (in other words, everything fun) and reaping huge benefits in terms of energy, health, and overall bad-assedness.  So I jumped on the "What is Cool Now" bandwagon, in the hopes to redeem myself for never being cool a day in my life so far.  

Cookie Monster so has the right idea....

In all seriousness, I am giving up gluten, dairy, refined sugar, alcohol, and maaaaaaybe caffeine for the next 30 days, starting yesterday.  (The caffeine wasn't on the list until my five-year-old piped up and told me that caffeine was bad for me too so I should try to cut that out as well.  Who teaches her this stuff?  My goodness I am creating monsters.....)  My personal goals are to see if this eating plan will positively impact the number of migraines I get, and if it will help with the constant stomach woes that I have while training hard (aka running 3-4 times per week).

I ran this idea by my tri-friend Kate, who will now known as "Spark", due to her insistence that Spark energy drink is better than coffee.  Yeah right.  She did a 10 day eating clean challenge in December and loved it.  She must have, because even when her little guy was in the hospital she kept it up.  I would have been living out of the vending machine and coffee carts like all hospital parents.  Go Spark!

So Spark agreed to be my buddy, then suggested that we start a Facebook group to help support each other and a few other friends we knew who were prone to this sort of behavior.  Six hours later we had 59 people signed up.  48 hours later we have over 70 people.  As Jedi said to me, casually and with one raised eyebrow, "Well, now you really have to do this...".  Yikes.

Day 1 was yesterday - the day after the last of my family Christmas celebrations.  Our New Year's tradition is to actually NOT drink and instead rock New Year's Day with something outdoors and preferable athletic that will represent how we want the coming year to be.  In the past we've gone hiking, snowshoeing, skiing, and when the kids were really small maybe to a museum or other fun activity.  This year I'll be racing the Sterling Freezer 5 Miler, a local road race with a reputation for being exceptionally hilly.  Bring it.

Anyway, I started up the challenge with some cooking, and some shopping.  I made hard boiled eggs, as well as crustless quiches (really just veggies and sausage baked with eggs in muffin tins) for breakfast.  Packed a bag of walnuts and raisins for the gym, and stuffed the kiddos into their coats and into the car.  We headed out for a mile plus swim workout for me, kid gym for them, then swimming for all.  Next stop was the local Wegmans for lunch and to stock up on supplies.

Lunch Day 1 - salad with veg and chicken plus coconut water.

Naturally the kids ate all my post-workout walnuts and raisins.  I really must pack better.  But I dutifully ate my salad while they had pizza and mac'n'cheese and I tried to not push them onto the floor and steal their lunches.  Then we hit the produce department for sweet potatoes, spaghetti squash, kale and the bulk aisle for all the ingredients for home-made granola.

Eating clean grocery munchkins

Last night I made the granola and we had homemade ham and split pea soup for dinner.  Kids and Jedi got rolls and cheese to go with it.  I did not.

This morning after a pre-run snack of granola, a few miles with Gypsy, and some of the quiches for breakfast, I baked a whole spaghetti squash, some yams, and a giant batch of quinoa.  Then divided it all into packets in the freezer and fridge so I have things to grab.  

Lunch Day 2 - tricolor quinoa, tuna and tomatoes over greens,
with lemon juice, olive oil and pepper

Dinner tonight after an afternoon of skating with the kiddos (which takes a surprising amount of energy) was spaghetti squash with tomato sauce and sausage.  Side note: you may be wondering how I justify ham and sausage as clean eating.  I don't.  But we seem to have killed an entire pig judging by the Christmas leftovers in my fridge, I'm just too poor to waste them.  I'll be salmon-ing up soon.

The leftovers of this did me in - my dad's retirement cake

I have to admit that so far, I hate this.  I have a rampant, angry sweet tooth that is totally pissed off by this process.  Which is why I caved this evening and had a piece of cake.  In about 10 seconds, with my hands... while no one was watching.  Oh yeah.  

My daughter firmly scolded me for this when I confessed at story-time, which frankly I felt was a little hypocritical coming from a munchkin who ate half a gingerbread house for dessert while I had to watch not an hour previous.  Even now I'm having a tough time summoning up any guilt, because it was really good.  Though how much calmer I feel after wolfing down cake does point to a rather troubling sugar addiction.  Hmm....

It is also well touted that the first few days/week of any clean eating program are the worst.  That it is normal to have no energy, headaches, and be a rampant bitch that hates the world at first.  Check, check, aaaaand check.  I can only hope that it does get better soon and that the urges to devour baked goods and candy subside.  Or at the very least, that my family eat the last of the damn Christmas goodies and stop waving them in my face. Failing that, Spark, Hummingbird and most of the Clean in 2014 group are starting New Year's Day, so at least I'll have company soon.

You know what misery loves, so if you'd like to come along on this challenge join us!  I'll be checking in soon.