So I am in pursuit of health... a winding road I know nothing about. I spent the first 33 years of my life eating as much, as often and as crappy as I pleased. In my
metabolically deranged body, this was causing a decline in my health. At my heaviest I was 315lb.
My motto had always been "at least I will die fat and happy with a chip in my hand", problem was I wasn't happy at all. I was miserable, tired, sore and majorly depressed.
Weight watchers failed because I would save all my points for a box of Rice'a'Roni broccoli and cheese rice. Body for life, seemed impossible to follow, even if I could have one "eat whatever you want day" a week. Plus weighing and measuring anything makes me want to shoot myself. I'm a food addict. I LOVE to eat. I love to feel full. I love to feed people. It seemed I was doomed... ok so at least I will die fat and miserable with happy taste buds.
But I decided that something had to give, I didn't want to get diabetes (which I was well on my way to achieving as I had already been taking pills for insulin resistance for years) I didn't want to feel so shitty all of the time. I was sick of being so depressed and since I recently started to play Rugby I really needed to have better recovery and loose some of the excess weight to make the game easier for me.
One of my friends suggested the "paleo diet". Eat like a caveman? It seemed too restrictive... no more grains, legumes, dairy or sweeteners. What kind of crack was she smoking? I easily dismissed her comments for months and then one day in March of 2011 I decided to look into this "paleo thing".
So I took my butt over to The Whole 9 Life website and read there
Whole30 Challenge, I started my first whole 30 that night. I think it was this imparticular that edged me to do this "
it is not hard. Don’t you
dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard." along with the "You can do anything for 30 days". What's 30 days, in 30 days when this dang diet doesn't work (because they never do) I can eat whatever I want again.
So the very next day I packed up everything that was non-paleo approved and I set out on my new health adventure. Week 1 sucked. The headaches and exhaustion, my brain screaming for sweets and begging for bread... I made it through to week two which was racked with more cravings than week one. I craved things I don't even really like. My brain was just trying to get me to eat anything that was non-paleo. Week three something amazing happened. I didn't feel so drained, I had tons of energy and I was so happy I would call it euphoric.
My first whole 30 lasted 27 days and then I went with one of my rugby friends to the movies... I HAD TO HAVE popcorn... I didn't get any chemical "butter" on it so how bad could it be? OH MY GOD... I literally had the flu and was on the couch for over 2 hours after the movie lethargic, nose running, wanting to die... really???
3 months through my paleo-ish diet. I had reversed my insulin resistance and no longer needed my medication for it and I had lost about 25lb. By July my total weight loss on the paleo diet was 59lb. (I started paleo weighing in at about 285lb.)
Over the past few months I have been eating like crap again. My diet fell to about 60% paleo and I have been frequently eating Arby's Cheese sticks, Sonic's tater tots and a myriad of other food that I know do not do a body good.
So I'm jumping back on the wagon.
I'm not 100% paleo, I don't always buy nitrate free bacon and grass - fed anything is not very easy to come by in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I'm not always concerned with the quality of my meat at the moment and when it's available and I can afford it, I plan on cleaning that up. Until then I am in a paleo - ish lifestyle. My adventure is not always easy. This past week of coming off of being only about 60% paleo I am going through the cravings and anger that I can't just have "insert crap I want to eat here". However I am determined to improve my health and I know the way to do that is to get the inflammation causing, unhealthy foods out of my diet.
My reason for starting a blog is to let people travel through this adventure to health with me. I plan to post triumphs, eating tragedies and awesome recipes. In the hopes to help keep me on target and share some health with others.
So being paleo means no beans in my chili and since all the ingredients listed above are out as well... I had to figure out how to make an interesting chili. This is my first experiment. My husband named it. He said that each individual flavor smacks you in the face on it's own, yet compliments each other quite nicely. This was a big hit and smells great cooking in the crock pot!
