Holidays!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday! My in laws come to visit and we celebrate all of our November birthdays - mine, my hubby and his two girls. This year we added one more, Brayden James, our brand new grandson was born on Nov. 5th!

We did not have a paleo Thanksgiving and I was ok with that. Thanksgiving is about family and tradition. I did manage to sneak in a paleo side dish - brussel sprouts sauteed with bacon and mushrooms. It was tasty! But, that's where the diet ended for me. I ate lots of non-paleo foods and enjoyed every bite. I'm calling it a cheat day (or 2). Pumpkin pie, pumpkin maple pecan cheesecake, creamy sweet potatoes, white mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce... Mmmmm. The day after I had leftovers. Later I even indulged in some ice cream from Scrumptious. I'd been craving some ice cream from that particular place for a while and now that I've had some, I'm good to go. It didn't sit well but it was worth it.

Today, Saturday, I am getting back on track and trying to clean out my system with exercise and hot tea.

I'd registered for a Turkey Chase on Thursday but decided to skip it. I was pretty tired from three days in a row of CrossFit. And it was nice to sit around and visit and prep for the day. Instead I ran on Friday at Van Bibber. I did 3 miles and was happy to be out. I finished the run with a sprint up the hill. Well, "sprint".

Catching my breathe at the top of the hill.

The hill.

Today is a lazy day. My sister-in-law is leaving today. The parents-in-law leave tomorrow. Shopping? Football? Movies? Relaxing.

Food Challenge Results

It is now more than 20 days beyond the 30 day paleo food challenge. And while I don't agree with the premise behind the diet, I cannot argue with the results.

6.4 lbs lost
3% body fat lost
0.6 lbs muscle gained
1.75 inches lost in my waist
0.75 inches lost in my hips
0.25 inches lost in my neck

WOW! 30 days of eating no sugar, no butter, no processed foods, no legumes, no white potatoes, no dairy, no alcohol. Wow.

I knew I'd been doing well in those last couple of weeks. My clothes weren't as tight. My face and neck wasn't so puffy. I'd been synching my belt a bit tighter. But, seeing the numbers was a rush of emotion. I made a point not to step on the scale during the challenge. I'm glad I did that. I couldn't believe how much weight I'd lost in that short time. And guess what. 20 days later, I'm down another 2 pounds (maybe even 3!). My scale at home is just a typical bathroom scale. I should make an appointment to get weighed and dunked again at the end of the year, or maybe on my one year anniversary at Roots. :-)

I haven't been as strict as I was during the food challenge. But, for the most part, I am sticking to the paleo thing. The weekends are very hard to be focused on food. So, I'm trying not to sweat it too much. Also, the birthdays and holidays are upon us. So, I've had birthday cake a few times. And yet, I have still lost more weight and more inches as well (according to my belt).

I think I may need to buy new clothes. :-)

My food and nutrition plan is to be as strict as I can, especially during the week, eating paleo. Weekends are just whatever right now. Yesterday I bought a nutrition notebook so I can keep track of what I'm eating and how I'm feeling. That really helped a lot during the challenge. That way I can tweak things if I need to. I have noticed that eating sugar really makes me angry. And gives me a headache. So, that's good to know.