28 Day TransFORMation Final Thoughts

Well the 28 Day TransFORMation is long past, and for me it's been officially done for a bit longer. I did really well for the first two weeks, and felt great. Kyle and I had plans to go out with one of his best friends and meet his new girlfriend, so I had given myself a pass to enjoy the evening and not worry about the rules. That meant pizza and beer. And then, of course my stomach felt terrible the next day so it spiraled on and on.

I got back on track slightly, but my all or nothing brain couldn't spiral back completely.

The good news is that I was able to learn quite a bit about my body that I haven't been able to pinpoint before.

I learned that sugar is the main cause of my rosacea flare ups. This was HUGE. I've struggled with this for quite a few years now. And I'm thankful that I finally have something to blame it on that I can control. I can now consciously decide if whatever sweet treat I want to eat, is worth some uncomfortable heat in my face and some excessive red face that will linger for days. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it's no. #progress.

Sadly this also means (and I've suspected this before) that alcohol is also a huge trigger for my face flare ups. Sad face. Major sad face. I've yet to determine if certain beers are worse triggers than others, but I may have to take on a scientific study with myself as the test subject to see. ;) Stay tuned.

I also learned that dairy, while it doesn't effect my stomach nearly as much as it used to digestion-wise, it is a huge cause of bloat for me (yuck) and causes excessive mucus (double yuck). When I started eating dairy after the two weeks, all of my nasal and throat membranes filled back up and I've been "snotty" ever since. I'm trying to cut way back on dairy, but this is so incredibly hard for me. Because it takes a few days for the symptoms to clear up, even having it once a day or once every other day causes me to have the symptoms non-stop. Additional sad face.

Finally, I have found the culprit of my GI issues--gluten. Ugh. I also learned that gluten is essentially in every damn thing. So that's been difficult. I did find that while I was eating burgers without a bun I felt full without being gross and uncomfortable (for the first time ever, probably). My re-introductory meals were not as systematic as they could've been, so I'm still uncertain how severe the intolerance is. So I'll have to keep being mindful of things.

I also found that I enjoy prepping and preparing my food at home. I l.o.v.e. going out to eat. I just love food. And I love the experience of going out to eat. And I love looking over every item on the menu in hopes that I found *the* perfect menu item. But Kyle and I actually had a lot of fun spending time in the kitchen together and will definitely try to spend our date nights making up something great in the kitchen and/or on the grill.

I'm glad I did this challenge, even though technically I failed, I did learn a lot, and that was my goal. Ultimately I lost 8 pounds and several inches in the two weeks I was "on" and have continued to keep off, and even lose a couple of more pounds by being more mindful about what I'm putting in my body, and continuing with the heavy water drinking. Knowing that beer makes my face look terrible has allowed me to pass up social night time beers with Kyle 99% of the time, which certainly doesn't hurt. And I've found many awesome healthy dairy-free, gluten-free, sugar-free recipes that I can use as go to's for meals and meal prep.

Ideally I'd like to eat in this manner 80-90% of the time, and that is my goal. But I'm still working on the how to execute that. For those of you that eat like this, feel free to send me any and all of your fave recipes.

28 Day TransFORMation Check-In Week Two

Day 8 

Friday kicked off with being able to have caffiene again! I had a coupon for a $2 grande drink from starbucks, so I thought I'd try their coconut milk latte. It was tasty, but it wasn't until bedtime that I did some research and found that the coconut milk they use has sugar and carrageenan. So that's why I felt off all day. Noted.

I had planned to bring my own almond milk but was sucked in by the deal. Oops.

Friday I had good energy levels and didn't even mind eating two pre-packed salads, as I was at work for lunch and at teacher training for dinner.

Day 9

Saturday I woke up really early to make a big breakfast, since yoga teacher training was going longer for the day. I had my usual awesome sweet potato hash with eggs and a green smoothie, and then struggled with a monster sinus headache all day. I didn't want my lunch, so I only ate one hard boiled egg with my salad, so I was hungry soon after, and then by dinner I just wanted to go and buy something that was made for me. I was feeling lazy. I half-assed some sweet potato lettuce wrap with salsa and guacamole, but it was just... meh.

Day 10

Sunday I didn't get up early enough to make a good satisfying breakfast, but I thought I'd be okay because we only had 3.5 hours of teacher training. Well that would be true if we weren't practicing for 2.5 hours of it. I had a green smoothie and that was not enough. I got lightheaded a lot during practice.

So when I came home from training and Kyle told me that Ollie wanted to take me out for brunch, I had zero will to say no, because I was HUNGRY. We had brunch at CH Patisserie. Yum.

My stomach paid for brunch almost immediately. Sorry tummy. 

And then I was back on track in time for dinner, and finally treated Kyle to the awesome breakfast hash I've been eating almost daily, but he had mostly been out of town for. He also splurged on some new knives so it doesn't take me days to do food prep. Whoop! Kyle also tried to convince me that we needed dairy queen after dinner, but I held strong.

The work week was hard because I was scheduled to work two evening shifts at the library. Which means two packed lunches each of those days. Which means the same boring "lunch time" salad I've been having. This salad had been the highlight of my meals each day, but when I started eating it 4 times in a three day span.... blech. The greens I picked up went bad quicker than they should have so that didn't help.

I definitely can tell that I didn't have time to prep any food for the week, and I paid for it. Kyle stepped up Tuesday night, and while I was at barre class, made a paleo princess feast. He grilled burgers with a little bit of nitrate/nitrite free bacon in it, and also asparagus and green peppers. I had a very happy belly and taste buds. I ate a LOT of food for dinner, as I had ran to class, taken an hour class, and ran home, and I love that even with feeling like I'm eating a ton of food, I never have that "ugh, I'm so full I'm going to die" feeling that I usually have when eating a lot.

Breakfast hash with white sweet potatoes. yum.

Additionally, Wednesday morning I treated myself to an americano for getting up at 4am for a yoga class. And despite drinking it after having a very filling breakfast, I was a hurting unit all day. I've often wondered if coffee was a digestive trigger for me, but I had assumed it was because I was usually consuming it on an empty stomach. Sad. Luckily, lattes seem to be okay. Just not cow milk lattes for the next couple of weeks.

I took my measurements before we started, and I was interested to see where they were halfway through. We're not allowed to weigh ourselves, and currently our scale's battery is dead, so I can't (I purposefully didn't replace the battery because I knew I wouldn't be able to not weigh myself!) so taking measurements is probably prohibited, but if it helps keep me motivated, cool.

In 14 days, I have lost almost an inch off of both thighs, an inch off of my booty (and that's WITH running added in and many barre classes where we focus on the booty for a good chunk of the class!), and an inch and a half off of my waist. I'm still feeling good, energy levels are good, sleeping well, and no stomach issues (save for the day with coffee, womp). 

Kyle and I talked throughout this week about how nice it is to feel full all of the time, and how we could see ourselves eating in this manner predominantly going forward with some leniency for social events, or date nights. We'll see if I change my tune in another couple of weeks. ;)

There were a lot less pictures of meals this week because there were a lot of repeat meals. So just copy and paste days 1-7 into days 8-14 and you should be set. Hopefully the next week brings some more variety. 

28 Day TransFORMation Check-In Week One

The Prep

To start the challenge, I went to a 90 minute talk to get all the why and how's of the process. Being the book nerd that I am, I also picked up the book It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change  Your Life in Unexpected Ways to do some further reading. Throughout the week leading up to the challenge, I picked up a few of the staples that were mentioned in the talk: ghee, macadamia nuts, and coconut oil. The day before the reset started, I worked until noon, so I knew I had a full day of prep ahead of me. I scoured the book and internet for recipes, made an extensive grocery list and also set out to pick up an egg cooker and a blender. I may have killed my blender a week or two ago (RIP old friend) and an egg cooker. If you're like me, you hadn't heard of an egg cooker prior to two weeks ago. Well it's a genius contraption that cooks perfect hard or soft boiled eggs, omelets, and poached eggs. $40 well spent if you ask me!

Day One

For breakfast I had a 3 egg omelette with red onion, spinach, and mushrooms. I also made a green smoothie for more greens with spinach, coconut milk, a frozen banana and a couple of frozen strawberries. Oh, and the omelette was covered in half an avocado. Mmmmm.

For lunch I struggled a bit, because I went for a run at 11am, so by the time I got home at noon I was starving and needed to shower and eat ASAP. I wanted to make something creative since I'd prefer to save the boring salads for work lunches when I don't have the luxury of cooking something up in the staff break room. I threw together some spinach and mixed greens, half an avocado, some lemon juice, red onion, half an apple, cucumber, and two hard boiled eggs. Ollie approves... I think.

It was also during this time that I realized I had bought a Skor bar and Rolos earlier in the week, intending to eat them prior to the challenge starting, NOT to find them midway through day one. God I love sugar. I hid them and hopefully I can remember where in 27 days.

Dinner was okay. Some walleye baked with ghee, garlic and red onion. I attempted to make some cauliflower roasted with garlic. It almost looks like popcorn. Mmmm popcorn.

Day Two

Breakfast looks essentially the same, but a much more rushed presentation as I was heading off to work. Can I already be sick of eggs? I'm already sick of eggs.

I get to work and someone has brought cotton candy to share! And homemade bread and jam! Jerks, the whole lot. ;)

Lunch was a monsterous salad similar to day one, but with approved turkey lunch meat (nitrate/nitrite free). 

Dinner was awesome. I made some mushrooms sauteed with garlic and red onions and threw in some turkey breast that Kyle had grilled the night before. He neglected to season the chicken IN ANY WAY so some extra flavor was necessary. I made some guacamole and had some lettuce wraps. I will say that the best part was making a salad with the same ingredients but assembled IN the bowl with the remainder of the guac. Heaven.

Day Three

The third day was a little bit of a struggle, as we've been warned. I had some poached eggs for breakfast along with a green smoothie. I didn't blend the smoothie enough so it was chunky and gross.

I had a yoga class in the morning, so after I had some macadamian nuts and coconut flakes to refuel.

For lunch i had another huge salad, and for dinner I cut up some of Kyle's grilled chicken and covered it in my homemade salsa thinking I could have a delicious repeat of the night before with a new protein. Blech. The chicken tasted gross. But the guacamole was still good.

Day Four

I worked late so I had time to prep a good breakfast. Thank goodness, because the last 24 hours have been one big queso/sugar/beer craving after another. I found a recipe that didn't involve eggs that I had all the ingredients for and made a sweet potato, apple, and bacon hash. And because of the sweet and salty goodness, I knew I could handle an egg for extra protein.

Best meal yet!

Lunch and dinner were carbon copy salads. Giant ones. 

Day Five

Happy Cinco de Mayo. :( Yes I thought about queso and margaritas all day, thank you for asking.

As predicted, this was a hard day. I woke up with a headache, and a back ache, and all over aches thanks to fun womanly events. I'm sure all of these were made worse by the dreaded day five of this program. My meals were pretty boring, and I almost caved and had a chocolate covered blueberry while I was making dinner, but I didn't.  I repeated my stellar breakfast for dinner. Yum.

Today I made the comment that I miss sugar, cheese, and carbs. BUT it is so nice to not be starving all of the time. I swear that outside of the previous five days, I am hungry all day every day. There are many times a day that I feel like I'm STARVING, despite eating a lot, dear god I love food. But based on what we're told to do, I'm really not hungry until my next meal rolls around. It's such a nice change.

Day Six

I woke up feeling like a new woman. I slept well and hard, and felt well rested. I had some hard boiled eggs and turkey for breakfast along with a green smoothie. I had my regular lunch salad and for dinner I treated myself to two of the things on the sushi menu that are okay--a salad and special cucumber rolls. Yum.

I texted Kyle this morning. It read: one more morning without coffee in my life. Followed by a trillion emojis. 

Day Seven

I had my delicious sweet potato hash breakfast before work, and had to send a picture of my perfect eggs to Kyle (confession, I'm not the best at making eggs).

I made up some tuna salad with apples and onions and avocado to curb my boredom with lunch meat on my salads since I had to pack two lunches. It was tasty.

And then a book club member announced she was moving away and brought chocolates to ease the pain. So I had to deal with the pain of the book club member leaving AND not having the chocolate. So I had tea with Ollie later.

One week down! Three to go!

28 Day TransFORMation Challenge

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a nutrition workshop at the yoga studio I'm a member of. My co-worker mentioned it to me, and it was the little push I needed to go. I have often struggled with lots of stomach issues, and have suspected numerous food allergies, but anyone who knows me, knows I will avoid the doctor at all costs.

The reset plan is loosely based on Whole 30 for those who are familiar for that, except this isn't meant to be long term plan, but more of a reset for your body. I've often wanted to try to remove the various "triggers" that I suspected were making me feel like crap and reintroduce them to see how it makes me feel, but let's face it, I have zero will power with food. I'm hoping that with the community of folks that are doing this (plus Kyle being on board!) I'll be able to stick with it and get some answers about what is causing my stomach to revolt.

So starting today, I'm saying goodbye to dairy (insert open sobs here), grains, sugar, and artificial sweeteners for the next 28 days. The first three weeks will be without legumes, as lesser folks have issues and sensitivities with these, the first two weeks without alcohol, only adding in clear alcohol with soda after that (good bye delicious beers), and caffeine for the first week. At each re-introduction of a food group back in the diet, we're advised to journal how it makes us feel.

It's going to be incredibly hard. Apparently must people want to commit murder by day three. But after that it gets easier.

Wish me luck! And if you bring sweet treats into the breakroom over the next month, I might unfriend you! :) jk... kinda.