Whole30 Day 14: Almost halfway and an awesome dinner

Tiger blood? Not quite yet, but tomorrow is the halfway point of my Whole30 and I feel pretty good. I can’t say I’m sleeping any better yet, but the cravings for unhealthy food is essentially gone and I do have more energy. 

The bonus is it was a perfectly beautifully day in the Philly ‘burbs so I enjoyed a break from reality. The pool is not yet open, but I lay out in the sun, listened to music, and pretty much let go of everything that stresses me out for a few hours.  

dinner

Whole30 Sunday Night Dinner


Last night I planned dinner for tonight and started making Kalua Pig from Nom Nom Paleo in the slow cooker (the house smelled awesome this morning). Today, I picked up shallots to get the final ingredient for the best Brussels sprouts recipe (also from the same recipe book) called Cavolini al Forno. Added in some steamed broccoli, and dinner was complete. And yummy. And filling. 

Plus, while the Brussels sprouts roasted I made my salads for the week. Boom. 
Next challenge: planning for hosting Mother’s Day next Sunday for my family. On the plus side, having control over the menu makes life easier. Here’s the plan:

  • Fish tray (Jewish style)
  • Cold cuts (for those who don’t eat lox, like my nephew)
  • Big salad (for me) with Tessamae balsamic vinaigrette (SO good)
  • Grilled chicken (for the salad)
  • Fruit 
  • Birthday cake for my dad (that’s gonna be hard to resist, but he’s 81, and birthdays should be properly celebrated!)

Between now and then it should be smooth sailing. I even have a couple of dinners planned ahead for the week. Go, me! 

Facetime with Dad

 One funny anecdote, my technophobic dad (who is also a world-renowned bioengineer and physicist) accidentally butt-Facetimed me yesterday. He was adorably mystified to find himself looking at me. I guess he didn’t realize what I was seeing so he left the phone on his kitchen table, which gave me an awesome view up his nose. I love that man so much. 

Day 12: Turning the corner

Zentangle Labyrinth

Zentangle Labyrinth

I think I understand now why they say so many people quit at days 10 and 11. It gets old. You miss having an easy out for when you don’t want to cook (or think, or really even breathe with much vigor). BUT, I seriously NEVER EVER want to do days 1-5 EVER again (did I say EVER?) so I’m going…and actually I think I might feel different. Not craving things that are sugary or even starchy. OK, I do miss my Friday morning bagel with lox spread and cucumbers, but I did find Whole30 compliant lox (who knew so much lox was cured with SUGAR?) and brought that and a cucumber and a green pepper for lunch, and I’m actually psyched for that. And “tiger blood” must be coming soon, right?

I’ve been drawing a lot to manage my overactive brain during this. Check out ZenHenna for more. I did a challenge this week that included learning to draw a labyrinth, which was perfect since I kind of feel like dietetically speaking, I’m in one…

Onward and upward (or downward, on the scale, hopefully)…

Day 9 Confession

9Travel is hard. I was really really strong on Sunday (travel day), but yesterday I had the hardest time finding a Whole30 compliant breakfast between my hotel and the office building I’m working in while in Boston. By lunchtime, I could have eaten an entire grass-fed cow (possibly not an exaggeration), but managed to stick to a salad and NO BREAD (saying no to bread at Saladworks is not as hard as saying no to bread at Cosi, which I did on Sunday, but was still really freakin’ hard). In the afternoon I was losing it…and one of the people in the workshop I’m in managed to come up with raw almonds and saved the day. BUT, by dinner…again…RAVENOUS. We went out to an Irish bar and I did have a nice compliant dinner–salmon and spinach which I specifically requested to be sauteed in olive oil rather than butter–but I confess I did have a few nacho chips as my colleagues passed their appetizer around the table. I was filled with self-hatred and loathing IMMEDIATELY. It wasn’t the biggest slip, but the Whole30 tough love mantra does not allow for cheats or slips, so if I were being true to the spirit of the program, this would be Day 1. I just can’t do that and keep my shit together. So I’m going to still stick with this being Day 9, but maybe at the end just slow down my reintroduction of food an extra 8 days. I KNOW…SEMANTICS…but this is a mind game as much as a body program, and I have to think of it in a way that works for me. At the moment, I’m thinking, a glass of wine on day 31 (May 19) and then I hold out another 8 days before I add in anything else (May 27, Thing 2’s 14th birthday).

Facetime with Thing 2

Facetime with Spike

I did get to have a really sweet Facetime call with Thing 2 and Spike (my French bulldog) last night, and that boosted my spirits and strengthened my resolve. AND I participated in a Zentangle weekly challenge at the front end of the week, which is good for inspiration, site traffic to ZenHenna, and my personal sense of accomplishment. Check it out.

Onward and upward, I found breakfast this morning at the mall in Cambridge (across the street from the office I’m working in today) via Au Bon Pain, ironically, where the guy was willing to make and sell me just an egg. Steamed. And some fruit. So today I’m doing well and I’m sticking with that.

And, I still haven’t had any Diet Pepsi and THAT is a victory in and of itself. So there.

Travel challenges…and hilarity

 Whole30 Day 7!

Last night I surmounted my first big challenge: Dinner out with the parents. We went to Outback because people on the Whole30 forum said they found them to be accommodating to special requests. So, I had salad (no croutons or cheese, brought my own Tessamae dressing), flame grilled sirloin (just salt and pepper, no butter), steamed broccoli (no butter) and a dry baked potato. I did not love being “that person” but the server was polite about it and the meal was decent (though the steak was overcooked).

Today, another big challenge–travel. I am off to Cambridge, MA for work. Being “that person” for several days in front of work colleagues and superiors I don’t know especially well is scary for this introvert, but I am committed to making it happen. Note: I am sitting in the airport eating hard-boiled eggs that I had the presence of mind to grab at 7 AM on a Sunday morning. I’d call that a minor victory.

And the hilarity: A TSA agent with an adorable Aussie accent reiterating instructions that nobody listens to, without breaking stride or tone, adds in (think a dispassionate tone),

If you want to be my lover, you’ve got to get with my friends, make it last forever, friendship never ends.

When I cracked up and a few people looked up he said,

“Now I know who’s paying attention!”

I appreciate someone who has a monotonous job breaking it up with some humor. Especially on a Sunday morning.

Didn’t see this coming (a Whole30 update)

The best laid plans of mice and men…right?

I kinda knew I was getting sick last weekend, but it wasn’t like I was going to delay my Whole30 for it. So, I muddled through the caffeine withdrawal headache and the tummy troubles…only to find myself home from work with a very sore throat, major congestion and very little appetite.

On the plus side, I was way too sick and tired to feel the “kill every thing” phase, but I had a hard time forcing myself to eat to keep from getting to a bad place, metabolically speaking.

Al things considered, I am wrapping up Day 5 and I managed to stay true to the plan, even eschewing the throat lozenges I desperately wanted.

5 days = 16.7% and counting. Hopefully the “tiger blood” phase is coming sooner rather than later.

A Whole Lot of Whole30 and a New Blog

I was toying with discontinuing this blog, but I’ve put so much history into it, I can’t bear to shut it down.

See, I started a new blog. Or a new website, more precisely, to showcase my Zentangle and henna artwork, classes, and journey to become a Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT). If you want to see what that’s all about, head on over to ZenHenna and let me know what you think. Because I’m so focused on that currently, I thought maintaining two blogs might be more than I could manage with a full time job, a family, and…well…life.

But then I started this Whole30 thing. Bear with me, I’ll explain. The short version of the blog story is that I can’t write about my LIFE on ZenHenna, at least not as much as I could here, and I still need that outlet. So, Raw & Random lives on.

Now, the Whole30 thing. I’ve been feeling pretty awful for a long time now. Carrying extra weight, feeling aches and pains beyond my years, tired all the time but not sleeping well…Need I say more? So I decided to focus on food rather than medicine. I considered about a dozen different elimination diets and cleanses, and then my nephew Ben recommended this book:

It Starts With Food

What an eye-opener. I’m not going to go into the science–frankly, I can’t keep it all straight to do it justice, but suffice it to say that the way we (I) eat normally is making us (me) sick as hell. Challenging our bodies to cope with chemical compounds meant to confuse our brains into eating “food with no brakes” leads to a slippery slope of immune system decline. If you have any sense that your food choices are beyond your control, or you feel sluggish, achy, or have any number of immunological issues from allergies to asthma, Crohn’s to cancer, try this nutritional reset button and learn for yourself what triggers your body’s systemic inflammation triggers. It’s not a diet, it’s a science experiment on yourself to identify what foods make you feel good and which make you sick. You start by eliminating all possible allergens like legumes, wheat, gluten, dairy, along with added sugars, bad fats, carbs, etc. Essentially that leaves you with healthy meats and seafood, veggies, fruits in moderation, and healthy fats. Truthfully, it’s quite simple.

I’m not going to lie, this is not easy. They tell you this is not hard–you’ve done harder things, like giving birth, fighting cancer, losing a loved one–and it’s true by comparison. But the entry is rough. Here’s a little timeline that shows what the first week is like and so far (I’m on day 3), it’s quite true.

Whole30 Timeline

I had a massive headache yesterday (enhanced by the caffeine withdrawal from giving up Diet Pepsi, my love, my nemesis) and a stomachache today. Expecting to want to kill all things tomorrow and Friday, and then be exhausted by the weekend. And THEN…I expect to start feeling a whole lot better. Better than now, better than before, probably better than ever. One day at a time.

Shopping for food was a tad on the expensive side (grass-fed beef, wild-caught seafood, responsibly raised chickens and eggs, organic veggies), but on the flip-side, I’m not spending $3-5 a day on soda and we haven’t gone out to eat at all, which is not normal for us, so I think it will balance out. Plus…you know…FEELING better. Worth it. But if money is tight you can still do this…you do the best you can for the quality of your food with what you can afford. McDonald’s is NOT cheaper than eating whole foods.

I made a whole week’s worth of salads with homemade dressing (olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard and seasonings) in mason jars for the week, which so far I am enjoying and I am totally full:

Mason Jar Salads

The first night I made a huge veggie and chicken stir-fry with olive oil and seasonings (it was awesome), and the second night I made spaghetti squash with meat sauce (grass-fed ground beef, Trader Joe’s Marinara, Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes and Whole30-compliant chicken sausage. SO good. And enough for 2 nights–YAY!

Next week I have to travel for business so that will be a challenge…I’m going to start thinking through what I can have and how I’m going to resist what I can’t have. I am NOT going through this Day 2-3 thing again. Ever. I hope.

Let me know if you want to learn more. I have no financial interest in this, just sharing what I’ve learned! You can also learn more about Whole30 here.

My very first Zentangle challenge

Each week, the talented Certified Zentangle Teacher (CZT) I am the diva posts a weekly challenge to inspire new ideas in the Zentangle community. This week is the first one I’ve submitted work to–overcoming fear of criticism and whatnot–because the theme “K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, silly!)” is my favorite so far.

This was my submission: The Impossible Triangle

The Impossible Triangle

Will I do more challenges in the future? Well…time will tell.

*%&$ Bipolar Disorder (and Depression, and other Mental Illness)

robin-williamsRobin Williams’ death is a blow to just about everyone I know. Young or old, black or white, Jewish, Christian, athiest… I have yet to hear one person say they were not touched, saddened, or outright devastated by the news that at 63 years of age, this beloved actor, comedian, entertainer extraordinaire took his own life after a long struggle with bipolar disorder, a mental illness where a person vacillates between periods of extreme energy, creativity, focus and productivity (the manic end of the spectrum) and periods of severe depression. Suicide is not uncommon for sufferers of bipolar disorder when they succumb to a depressive state, and Robin Williams–as great as he was–was but human and was unable to win his battle with the demons that haunted him.

I know so many people who will judge his suicide as a selfish choice. They’ll see only that he deprived the world of his genius, his wife of his companionship, his family of his love. This only underscores how insidious bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses really are. Mental illness still carries with it a stigma of choice, as if we have more control over our brain chemistry than we do over the functionality of our other organs–lungs, hearts, livers, kidneys. You see posts all over Facebook that raise awareness for cancer (e.g. *%&# Cancer posts) or ALS (ice bucket challenges), but how often do you see people raising awareness for diseases of the brain? There is no cure for bipolar disorder which requires lifelong treatment with medication, therapy, and careful life choices. Medications make the sufferer feel like they live in a fog, robbed of their creativity and productivity. The absence of the medication may cause risky behavior or dangerous depressive cycles. Thoughts of suicide is the most severe “symptom” of severe clinical depression and yet we decry successful (or even unsuccessful) suicide attempts as a selfish choice.

From the outside looking in, we may think Robin Williams had everything to be happy about and live for. Success. Fame. Worldwide admiration and adoration. A family who loved him. But we can’t know the demons that plagued him and we still have very little medical research to begin to understand the physiology behind the disease from which he suffered.

I hope that his death helps people who suffer from mental illness, or suspect they might, come forward and talk to their doctors. Elevate the conversation to a medical level, not a shameful failing of personality. Make it important enough for big pharma to want to study the brain (after all, they’re in business to make money, so they need to see a pathway to profit) or for government agencies to sponsor the research and remove the stigma so we can get people help, develop treatments that help people not only cope but thrive with mental illness.

Suicide is not the choice of a healthy brain. It’s a symptom of serious illnesses that desperately needs funding, discussion, and elevation to medical status alongside cancer, ALS, and others that affect so many in such devastating ways. Let’s talk about it. Let’s remove the stigma. It’s time.

Update:

Read this article from The Guardian. Just do it.

What? You haven’t clicked yet?

Here’s the teaser, and I quote:

News of Robin Williams’s death due to apparent suicide, said to be a result of suffering severe depression, is terribly sad. But to say taking your own life because of such an illness is a ‘selfish’ act does nothing but insult the deceased, potentially cause more harm and reveal a staggering ignorance of mental health problems.

It’s especially important to read if you’re scratching your head and wondering how you might see suicide as anything but selfish. This might help you understand.