One Inedible Salad Can't Stop Me!

Today is a day that I hope to remember for a long, long time. Today is the day Jacob and I are committing 100% to transforming our eating habits. We have been talking about it for several months, but today, we actually started the Whole30 challenge!

For those unfamiliar, the Whole30 challenge is a clean eating program that lasts 30 complete days and involves eliminating possible allergens and some generally bad food choices from your diet. The overall idea is that in 30 days, the body/brain can form a habit, so after the 30 days are over, the healthy habits will continue. Also after the 30 days, you can reintroduce whatever foods you want back into your diet (paying attention to reactions as you introduce them) and leave out whatever foods you have learned not to want.

For more info, check out the Whole30 website: http://whole30.com

Ever since I can remember, I have been addicted to pizza, chips, cheese, cheesecake, Belgian waffles, chocolate chip cookies, fake Chinese food, and the list goes on. Anything fatty, salty, and sweet. When I was in high school, I would eat almost nothing during the day at school and then come home and make two Belgian waffles. In middle school, I made two batches of chocolate chip cookies every week. I knew I should have been eating differently, but I just didn't. I didn't realize the long term effects and habits I was creating that I would struggle to break to this day.

I believe these addictions are physiological and also psychological. Something in me craves them, and until this point, I have not had the conviction to firmly reject them. I am beyond ecstatic to have finally reached this point!

The program consists of completely removing added sugar and sweeteners, dairy, grains (including pseudo-grains like quinoa), soy in all forms, artificial preservatives, certain types of fats, and legumes. That leaves meats, eggs, vegetables, fruits, some types of fats (olive oil, ghee, coconut oil), herbs and spices as long as they are compliant.

Breaking addictions is hard. Jacob and I stayed up late "whole30 proofing" the kitchen and preparing a variety of sauces and dressings to use throughout the week. We both took chicken salads for lunch with carrots, apples, and our homemade dressing. I was pumped to have a hearty breakfast before leaving for work. When lunchtime rolled around, I dug into my salad and realized that the dressing we made last night was awful. It was almost inedible. I was pissed! I was hungry and irritated and frustrated. I choked down as much as I could stomach and ate the carrots. It was a terrible first Whole30 lunch, but we tried again for dinner. I admit, I had a pretty bad attitude about how dinner was going to turn out, but it actually wasn't too bad!

I honestly believe I need to retrain my tastebuds to appreciate natural flavors, and that retaining is going to be one hell of a process. I am not giving up for the entire 30 days as prove to myself that I can put my health first.

If any of you have tried the Whole30 challenge or something similar, how did it go for you? I am definitely looking for taste-tested compliant recipes!

Wish me luck!

Its Okay That I'm Not The One Going to India

Ever since Jacob and I got back from New Orleans, we have listened to nothing but Louis Armstrong's greatest hits. Something about that trumpet and those mellow lyrics have captured us. We are still high from feeling the wind tangle through our hair as we tipped our heads out the windows of the streetcars. It truly is a mesmerizing city, one of mystery and intoxicating creepiness. I feel evermore connected to Jacob and thrilled that we are making the memories we want to make with each other.  

When we arrived in the city, it was pouring rain and hot, and I can get kind of nasty when I'm hot. We were lugging our suit cases from this bus to that street car and trying to find our hotel after sleeping only an hour the night before while also dodging other people on bustling Canal Street. Both of us were tired, and both of us stepped in toxic-looking puddles several times between the bus to the hotel. 

And then finally we made it. We both crashed in the hotel for what we thought would be a power nap but that actually turned into three-hours of luxurious rest. When we woke up, we decided to order pizza and see what we felt like doing afterwards. I felt pressure to see everything and do everything in a city with so much history and reputation, but I forced myself to listen to my body and what Jacob and I wanted to do instead of what we "should" do. This "see what we feel like doing" would not have been O.K. with me in the past. I would have insisted that we stick to our power nap plan and then run ourselves ragged pounding pavement into the night so we could see everything. This moment in New Orleans, when I valued Jacob's and my desires over what I felt pressured to do, was a victory for me. 

Several summers ago, I went to china with a group of graduate students to teach English for a month. Three of them were hardcore travelers with agendas for continuing on through China after our teaching month was over. At some point during that month, one of my fellow teachers explained this phenomenon of feeling intense pressure to do and see everything, which can turn into a serious source of stress. She called it F.O.M.O. or Fear of Missing Out. I'm not sure if that is her name for it or it's official name, but it made a lot of sense. I had never heard of it before but knew instantly that I suffered from it. I was always wishing I was somewhere else or that I was the one going to India. F.O.M.O. has lead me to frustration and ignoring  the countless joys in my life. It made me forget all the wonderful things I had going for me. I was going to graduate school. I was working and able to live comfortably. I had friends and a fabulous boyfriend at the time. Still, I wanted to be the one with the picture of myself drinking red wine on a Greek island. 

Recently, I have focused on showing gratitude for what I have in my life and appreciating the experiences others get to have. I know now that I can make anything happen in my life, and it is up to me to do it. This has lead to careful consideration of what Jacob and I actually want in life and in each situation. It turns out, most of the things I so desperately wanted are not actually that important to me. And, this has made it possible to do the things that are. 

I am continuing to challenge myself to make the memories that I want to make and not the memories that someone else or the world says I should make. I am reminding myself that every day of life is memory-worthy, good or bad. Watching insane lightning shows on the front porch or listening to the neighbor outline his idea for a celebrity-studded public radio show, all of it is memory-worthy because it is a part of the life Jacob and I have designed. 

I still fall into F.O.M.O. sometimes. I still get frustrated. It is a work in progress, but I think it is a worthy one. 

I'm Never Going to Prom Without Makeup Again

Self-care is not something that has ever come easily to me. I come from a family that values practicality, frugality, and efficiency, and painting my toe nails or doing a face mask really has never been a top priority. I went to prom without doing my hair or wearing any makeup whatsoever. It just wasn't on my radar.

In college, however, my dear friend and roommate taught me about looking pretty and feeling put together. We would joke about how people from Idaho (she is from Idaho) always look put together because they have nothing else to do. She probably doesn't know it to this day, but she was really the first glimpse I had into the world of pampering myself, looking how I wanted to look, and feeling how I wanted to feel about myself. She even let me wear her necklaces and use her hair dryer once in a while.

It was my sophomore year in college that I first bought my own hair dryer and actually used it. I painted my nails on a regular basis. I bought frilly underwear. I took long showers with expensive body wash and shampoo. I explored this world of what I saw as luxury, but I was never really able to master it and incorporate new self-care routines into my daily life. They all felt like once-in-a-while skip-class-and-slurge kinds of things.

For a while, after college, I kind of abandoned self-care all together. I found time for just the basics. My hair was clean, but it wasn't styled most days. My outfits weren't wrinkly and stained, but they weren't anything to be proud of either. They didn't inspire confidence. I think this shift happened as I continued to gain weight after college and began not fitting into the clothes I had once loved. I also didn't have the money I thought I needed to buy hair products and pay for pedicures. More than that, on some level, I didn't feel like I deserved them. I was working two jobs and feeling completely stagnant in my career. I was comfortable, but I wasn't working towards anything, towards bettering myself. After four years of constantly working towards something and taking opportunity after opportunity, this sudden stand still was completely foreign.

This slump continued for several years. I continued doing the same daily grind, often not waking up in time to pamper myself in the mornings and not having the energy to do anything in the evenings.
Up until about January of this year, there was no change. I was doing the minimum to look half-way presentable at work, but nothing else.

When I started this health journey, I decided I had to change the way my body functioned, but I also had to change value that I place on myself. I had to begin considering my body a valuable piece of equipment that deserves care and maintenance. This has taken, and still takes, quite a bit of conscious effort. Its not that I hate myself or anything like that. It is just that doing self-care activities is not a first priority. I just often don't think about it, but when I do, when I make time for even small self-care activities, I reap the benefits for days. I feel comfortable in my skin and empowered to face the day. I feel like I am prepared for anything that I encounter, and I'm going to look good doing it.

As a way of trying to make self-care a part of my everyday life, I have found some simple yet powerful practices that have been working for me. I don't pay for pedicures, and I don't spend hours everyday lounging in the tub. In fact, I don't even have a bathtub. A few minutes a few times a week has given me confidence that I have never really had before in who I am and what I am ready to face.

Here is what has been working for me so far:

At home pedicures: I have really rough feet. I always have. And I also live in Texas where it feels like I am crawling around on the surface of the sun during the summer months. I live in my Birkenstocks. To help keep me comfortable wearing sandals all summer, and even in the winter having soft touchable feet is a plus, I do a pedicure at home once a week. I have found that hot water, a simple pumice stone, a gentle foot scrub (which you can make at home), a rich lotion, and a classy polish color do the trick for me. It only takes about 10 minutes, but the difference it brings to my attitude is astounding.

Lotion Breaks: I take 30 seconds, even when I am running late, to lather my whole body in lotion after I get out of the shower. This not only gives me a few seconds to honor my whole body, it has also radically improved the condition of my skin. In the summer heat and the winter cold, my skin gets dry, flaky, and red in some areas. Before I started doing these lotion breaks, I would get to work and realize that the skin on my arms was so dry I was embarrassed to let anyone see it. It would be on my mind all day! I no longer have this problem, and it is one less worry I have to deal with.

Eyebrows and Lips: I don't wear makeup on a regular basis, and I have no desire to start. I have found though that two small changes to my morning routine have boosted my confidence in my appearance more than I could have imagined. I was reading an article about looking good with glasses somewhere online, and it mentioned paying attention to your eyebrows since the frames of glasses draw the eye to the eyebrow. I started shaping my eyebrows and instantly felt more put together. I also started wearing a neutral/slightly rosy shade of lip stick every day. This finishing touch is exactly what I was looking for to look polished and put together. This together takes about one minute in the morning but completely changes the outlook for my day.

As I continue on this path of total health, I will be adding to my list!
Obviously, these three self-care activities won't be what everyone is looking for, but they are representative of the simple, quick changes in self-care that can transform the way you look and feel about yourself.

Changes: 
Placing value on my body and the maintenance it requires
Finding small, manageable changes that buy a lot of confidence for me
Taking the time to do self-care activities every week

Killing the Worry Wart

I think I can safely say I am a worry wart. As much as I hate it, the title is very fitting, and I think I have always been that way to some degree. Its mostly because I pay close attention to details. I often foresee trouble based on predictions of small oversights colliding at precisely the wrong moment and ending in catastrophe. This usually doesn't even happen, but once I have an thought of what could happen if everything that can go wrong does, I am off. 

 For the last several months, I have been battling with a destructive habit of worrying myself into oblivion about problems that aren't even mine to worry about. It has been happening at work, at home, at school, everywhere. I notice something small that I believe will likely go wrong and focus on it so intently that I can focus on almost nothing else. The anxiety stemming from one of these small possible catastrophes can last for several days, until the event passes or I can consciously pry myself from the thoughts. I believe now that this habit has only aggravated the health issues I have been struggling with recently. 

This infographic does a nice job of outlining the effects that anxiety can have on the body, and has definitely opened my eyes to the harm that I have been causing myself simply through my thoughts and the resulting physiological changes in the body that are triggered by the "fight or flight" response. 

Graphic borrowed from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/20/your-body-on-anxiety_n_5352548.html

As I continue to do research on the impact that the mind has on the body, I am continuously shocked and amazed. The brain is a powerful entity in the body and can make the difference between health and illness. 

This week, I have been trying to identify the moments I begin to obsess over the possibility of a mishap or at least to become conscious of the worry as soon as I can as a way of reducing the amount of stress I place on myself. Once the worry has been identified, I ask myself whether it is something that I need to worry about. Usually the answer is no. I have been focusing on clearing my mind and reminding myself "It is not my problem to worry about." I have already felt a deeper sense of relaxation in the evenings, when I normally can not release all the possible debacles from the day. I plan to experiment with aromatherapy as support for my process of conscious de-stressing my life in the weeks and months to come. 

I can't wait to feel the benefits of this self-challenge!

Counting Sheep Seriously Doesn't Work

Sleep has been the most underrated element of health in my life since I stopped having nap time in elementary school. I would fill my days so full that only a few hours were left for sleep each night. In college, this, like most of my other bad habits, got worse. I would go to sleep around 2am every morning and wake up usually at about 6 or 7 for class or sleep all the way until noon or later. There was no consistency, and I had a completely sporadic sleep rhythm, but I didn't think anything of it.

My junior and senior years of college, I started taking naps in the afternoon only to wake up several hours later groggy and unable to fall asleep at a reasonable hour for the night. I figured naps would help fill in the gaps in my sleeping patterns, but I was exacerbating the problem. I just always thought I was a night owl.

When I graduated from college, I started working two part-time jobs and was out of the house from 8 am - 9:30 pm most days of the week. Naps were no longer an option, but I still did not give myself the hours of sleep I needed. It was some sort of sick inner competition to see how much I could get done in a day. I was late for work almost every morning because I was physically unable to wake up to one, two, three.... seven alarms. I would wake up not remembering turning off all those alarms and shoot out of bed in a state of utter panic at the time I was supposed to be leaving the house. I never had the chance to eat breakfast or put myself together before leaving. I never felt presentable, and I was groggy all the way until lunchtime. When I got home, I would finally feel awake and comfortable and proceed to say up until I couldn't keep my eyes open.

For two years I did this with occasional days of just sleeping all day to "make up" for late nights. When I moved to Texas, I started graduate school and the terrible cycle continued. At this point, I decided to start trying to go to bed earlier. I was working and going to school and doing homework, and I was tired all the time, so this was a fantastic decision, except that it didn't work. I couldn't fall asleep earlier. I would just lay in bed for sometimes a couple hours before finally drifting off to sleep at my normal ridiculous hour.

While this felt like a hopeless situation, I have found three things so far that have helped my commit to going to sleep and waking up at a reasonable hour everyday, even weekends. Since it has become a priority, I can't even imagine how I made it all those years on as little sleep as I did.

1. Knowledge of the dangers of sleep deprivation: Sleep deprivation is directly connected to weight gain and inability to lose weight, high blood pressure, impaired blood sugar management, increased stress, and overall increased inflammation. That list is pretty nasty, and that isn't everything! Lack of sleep impacts the whole body, brain, and attitude. Realizing the harm that my sleeping pattern was doing to my body, I added sleep to the top of the list of elements of health that I had to turn around in my life.
(Harvard University's Page on the Connection Between Sleep and Health)

2. Lavender essential oil: I began using lavender oil some time ago, but I was never consistent with it. I would use it for a couple days, and then I would start feeling a little more refreshed, so I would forget about it. Recently, in the last couple months, I have been diffusing lavender oil in my bedroom every night, and my husband, Jacob, and I have both been amazed with the benefits. I fall asleep within 10 minutes every night, and I feel rested when I wake up! I also find that it has dramatically decreased the worries (sensation of not being able to "turn my mind off") at night.

Lavender has been used for a really long time for relaxation and as a sleep aid.
For more info:
University of Maryland Medical Center's Page on Lavender

The best part, though, is that it is a natural remedy rather than a synthetic/manufactured one.
I use Doterra Lavender Oil because it is high grade and responsibly sourced.
For more info: Doterra lavender oil product sheet

If you want to try using lavender oil as a natural sleep aid or as a general relaxation enhancer, consider the following methods.

--Diffuser: I use a diffuser at night that I turn on before going to bed and turn off when I wake up. If you are not familiar, a diffuser uses a cool water mist to disperse the oils throughout the air at regular intervals. Here is the diffuser that I have (Aromatherapy Essential Oil Diffuser). Really any cool mist diffuser that is made for essential is fine.

--Linen Spray: If you don't have a diffuser and are not ready to purchase one, a lavender linen spray can bring the benefits to you while you sleep, but it won't last as long since you will just spray it on your bed/pillow before falling asleep.

To make a lavender linen spray: In a 4 oz. glass spray bottle, mix 6-10 drops of lavender essential oil and 4 oz. of witch hazel or vodka. Shake and spray!

(Since oil and water don't mix, the witch hazel or vodka mix with the oil and act as a carrier)

--Topical application: The foot is a great place for essential oils to be absorbed and used by the body. To use this method, simply mix 1 Tbsp. of organic coconut oil with 1-2 drops of lavender essential oil. Rub a finger-full of this mixture on the ball of the feet and on the bottom of the big toe. Pay special attention to the skin between the big toe and the second toe. Then, put on a pair of cotton socks, and relax! I had great success with this method before I got a diffuser!

3. Plexus Triplex: I know my last post was all about Plexus, but I had to mention it again since it has played a major part in my being able to wake up in the morning. The combination of the three different products that I take has enabled to wake up to my first alarm, feel refreshed, and not long to crawl back in bed.

So, where am I today? I now go to sleep at around 9:00 pm and wake up at around 4:30-5:00 am every day, and  I am more productive than I used to be by a long shot!

If you struggle with similar sleep issues, I would love to hear what works for you or if the methods suggested above work for you!