Day 23 of starting again. The ups, the downs, the challenges, the lessons, the intolerances.

It's Wednesday. A damp, cloudy, grey Wednesday in Autumn. I look out the window and sigh. Yup, another **fun-filled day skipping through the leaves, doing what I love, and taking care of myself**. Well, maybe.

I have a full day ahead of me with work and appointments, and more work. And that's pretty much every day on repeat. For those that don't know, I work a part time job teaching yoga as well as own a full time (plus more time) business in primarily wedding & family photography. I'm not actually complaining (I really do love what I do), though I would absolutely love to claim a month (or a year) off and just do what I want instead of attacking the immense to-do pile that's in front of me every day. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished but I'm sure everyone feels that way. And on top of all the time I spend doing "normal" things every day, one thing that always amazes me is how time-consuming getting healthy is.

Honestly, I forget when I fall off the wagon because it's one less thing to think about -- it's easy to go grab food out, to buy pre-made just-throw-in-the-oven food. But no, that's not an option anymore because not only am I trying to eat well, AND calorie count, BUT I also (thanks to my elimination diet I did earlier this year) have a multitude of food intolerances that make eating out or buying pre-prepped meals almost impossible. So this is what I've discovered in the last 23 days.



I DON'T MISS BREAD (OR CAKE, OR GRAINS)

Me. The bread addict. I don't miss it. Well, that's not exactly true. I miss the ease of it. The throw a sandwich together in under 3 minutes ease of it. But I don't miss the taste, or the amount of calories I mindlessly ate while I had it in the house. And I don't crave it. Go figure. Something is working.

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CALORIE COUNTING ISN'T ALL BAD

The numbers actually fascinate me. I like to watch them add up throughout the day and be categorized in different sections. Also, it's almost no extra work to measure what goes on my plate. It is awkward when eating outside of my own kitchen mind you, I just guesstimate when I get home. And when you're sharing meals with someone else it's not always easy to figure out how much of it they took and what's left over, but I'm not worried about exact counts. Just enough to know that i'm not eating more than I burn each day. Also, now that the bread/grains are gone, it's actually challenging to eat my full calorie allotment which strikes me as rather bizarre.

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VEGETABLES ARE NOT ALWAYS MY FRIEND

So I am intolerant to certain kinds of lettuce. Or the sprays they put on lettuce. I haven't tested them all yet but salads, which were once my "safe" meal out, are no longer and things have gotten one step more challenging. My body may hate chicory and abhors spinach. Also, I avoid broccoli and cauliflower and kale and onion because they cause abdominal bloating and gas, and garlic because it causes gastrointestinal explosions and double-me-over-and-punch-me-in
-the-stomach pain. I'm avoiding potatoes which also makes eating out challenging (do you know how many meals restaurants include potatoes with?? - a LOT.)

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I CAN'T EAT ENOUGH PROTEIN

I want to, I really do, but as much as I love meat and nuts and cheese and eggs and protein smoothies, I can't seem to get enough to hit the 25% mark of my diet (which I am told is a great way to reduce belly fat -- see: authoritynutrition.com/6
-proven-ways-to-lose-belly
-fat/ ). Also, I'm totally intolerant to legumes and now, most dark leafy greens, so that really doesn't help my mission.

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FIBRE? WHAT FIBRE?

Someone said that once you switch to healthy eating you are getting TONS of fibre from fruit and vegetables, um, really? At least 60% of EVERY MEAL is veggies or fruit and my fibre numbers are sooooooo low as to where they should be. And it's, ahem, creating obvious issues. I'm going to go out and buy flax seed today to sprinkle on my food to try to up my fibre count but man, how do people do it? Will I have to add back in rice to my diet just to get some fibre?

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BOUNCING WEIGHT

How I can seemingly lose or gain 2-3 pounds in a day is beyond me. Every morning I step on the scale and it's like playing roulette. I'm assuming it's because I'm still not managing to quite drink enough water consistently throughout the day that there are days that i'm retaining water from eating certain foods. Yesterday i was 256.8. This morning I'm 258.4. Tomorrow I could either be 260 or 255. I can't even guess. I'm trying to ignore it but i'm guessing it's tied to my low fibre amounts? I'd really love to watch the scale go down on a consistent basis instead of ping-ponging all over the place. It's damn annoying.

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TIME IN THE KITCHEN - UP BY 600%

Yeah. I love to cook. LOVE. TO. COOK. But this is getting a bit silly... A lot of my once-work-day now is spent prepping, cooking, measuring, calculating, and figuring out what the heck to make that both I, as well as my partner-in-crime, can/will eat. I'm getting creative though as I do love to experiment. Squashes are currently my friend. As well as turkey. So much so, after the holidays this weekend (Canadian Thanksgiving), I picked up two more turkeys because they are on amazing sales right now and also because I can never have enough turkey. Never.



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I FEEL BETTER

I do. I've dropped upwards of 10 pounds (depending on the ping-ponging) and things are feeling better. I made it through Thanksgiving. Jeans are fitting better and I'm appreciating what's on my plate more. (Probably because I've been slaving over it and paying attention to it far more than I used to.) There are days I still feel exhausted but I'm sure that's just either me, the weather, my body adapting, or the fact that I don't have a thyroid anymore. All in all, it's good. Challenging, but good. And challenging is okay. Because better is good.