The Truth About Falling Off the Clean Eating Wagon

Here I am blogging again after a brief hiatus. I wish I could say that I have been a clean eating machine since my Whole 30 success. But the truth is I haven't....I know the SACRILEGE!! After all my great results and positive encouragement to others and here I am struggling to get back on track.

The truth is....its EASY. So easy to fall off the wagon. Its EASY eating food other people prepare. Its EASY to not have to make every morsel that goes in your mouth. Saying I will just have this one treat..." I earned it". Drive thrus are easy. Take out is easy. And its SO easy to undo all the hard work and clean eating you did in one month in a matter of a week or two. 

It started out slowly. I didn't go buck wild and drive from Starbucks to Taco Bell to Five Guys and get down and dirty. I had a 'cheat meal" one day and then happy hour a few days later. Then I started packing up my house to move and slowly all my cooking stuff was in boxes so it was EASIER to order take out....And then the downward spiral really took off. Take out, Starbucks for "energy" when I was tired, no sleep, not eating a good meal to start my day...etc etc etc. 

This was NOT me. But I can identify with the idea

So this is a short list of how things got going....

1. Thanksgiving (oh mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie)

2. We packed up our entire house. 

3. We moved.( I lived off Starbucks lattes for #2 and 3 and 4)

4. We unpacked an entire house. 

5. Christmas (why do people give so many cookies?)

Now I didn't eat terribly this whole time. But overall I certainly wasn't eating as cleanly as I could or know I actually want to. I would eat poorly for a day or so and then literally crave salads. I need to refine my ability to eat clean 80% of the time and indulge 20% of the time. Why do I (and a lot of women I think) do the following...."Well I missed breakfast because I was too busy trying to get out the door. So now I will have a Starbucks breakfast sandwich"...fast forward 3 hours "Well I already had that breakfast sandwich so now my clean eating for the day is totally shot" WHAT??? Why does my brain do this? Why don't I say "well you had that breakfast sandwich so you should get back on track and eat a SALAD." Ugh. I want to smack myself. 

And then the guilt of the bad eating becomes a cycle of feeling bad and eating some kind of comfort food to feel better. Its really ridiculous. And the only person I have to blame is me. Not the moving or the packing or the holidays. JUST ME.

Fortunately I have crossfit to keep me somewhat in check. Try going back to a work out after a week or so off due to moving and unpacking and all the while eating take out because all your food and cooking stuff is in transit or in boxes. That first WOD back was a misery. A sweaty, ugly, pathetic misery. I finished last by a large margin and I totally deserved it. Oh and people coming up to me and saying "oh YOU are the Whole 30 girl! I saw your post! You look great". :( oh the GUILT! And I do still look better than before I started but that damn tummy pudge is coming right back....

Here is me in that wod...looks like I'm doing well.
But notice NO ONE else is working out....
Yeah because I was the last one :( Oh reality.

So slowly but surely I am getting back on track. I have started cooking again at home. I will take the time to prep easy, clean snacks and meals. I have stopped going to Starbucks every day. (and even when I go I have figured out how to order a drink I like with significantly less sugar/syrup in it as well) 

Its New Years Resolutions time again...I don't make them. I stopped a few years ago because I didn't follow through and then I would feel bad which is totally counterproductive to the actual purpose of them. I now make GOALS. I type them up and check back every month or so to see how I'm doing. I hit several of my 2013 goals this year. And I succeeded on a few more things I didn't even have as goals (running 5 miles, toes to bar, Whole 30). So one of my goals this year is to continue to learn how to be healthy and have a healthy relationship with food. Its probably going to be a goal on my list every year.

Found this proverb...pretty fitting for this and all things. Might be this years mantra :)

C is for Community...

Gimme a C, Gimme a R, Gimme a OSSFIT! (Ok I was never a cheerleader) Whats that spell...CROSSFIT. But lets focus on the C shall we....

C is for Community.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think going to Crossfit over a year ago would impact my life so greatly. But not in reps or PRs or weight lost. For me the biggest impact is the community. The many awesome people I now call my friends.

I would say that I am perceived by others as outgoing, fun and personable. (Just go with it.... ;) I thrive in social settings and love to interact and meet new people. After having my daughter 3 years ago, I became a stay at home mom. I left the teaching profession after almost 10 years and settled in to mom life. And I was so lonely.

A lot of people don't talk about how sometimes isolating being a stay at home mom can be. And maybe its not for everyone but it was for me. Eventually I went back to work part time but I still had little interaction with many people and because we moved farther away not even with my friends.

I started at Titan Crossfit to battle my post baby body (that battle is more like a war that I am still waging a year later). I had no idea that anything would change in my life other than my pants size. I didn't know that the people who I at first envied for their ability to do pull ups or run when I could barely jog would become my friends. Good friends. Friends who constantly push me to achieve and try harder. Friends who keep the pessimist in me feeling positive. Friends who don't let me give up. Friends who constantly inspire, strengthen and support me.

I don't have a day that goes by where I don't talk to or text with many of my Titan friends. Yes mostly with things like "Whats the WOD??" or "I am so SORE" or "I hate running"....but also about our lives. These people have become like family to me. I look forward to going to Titan Crossfit not just to see if I can survive the WOD but to check in with my friends. To share stories, talk trash, high five and laugh.

Crossfit athletes are such a diverse group. Fire fighters, police officers, accountants, stay at home moms, college kids, trainers, nurses, musicians etc... And on paper I may have little in common with all of these people. And what started as just having Crossfit in common has grown into so much more. Happy hours, birthday celebrations, beach weekends, destination weddings, house warmings, laughs, smiles and friendships.

So when people ask me "how's that Crossfit thing going?" I smile. I answer and explain how much better I feel and how empowering being able to lift heavy weight as a female is. But to me "that Crossfit thing" is my more than that. Its family. A big, strong, awesome family :)

Here are just a few of those awesome people.... :) 

Falling On Your Face In Public and Other Cult Related Things

Yes I did in fact fall on my face in public. Well to be more exact I fell on my ass in a room full of approximately 100 people who were at the time watching me (and many other athletes) compete.

Before I get into how that happened, let me first point out that I referred to myself as an "Athlete". Not only did I refer to myself as such, I truly do think of myself as an athlete, at almost 35 years old. How did this happen? Pretty sure a year and a half ago, all I was doing was an occasional "yog" (thats my version of a jog) and some Jillian Michaels DVDs in my  basement.

Its funny how things change. I was indeed suffering through those DVDs last winter. And then I started training with a friend of mine, who also happens to be a kick ass trainer. She is amazing at what she does and was very good about NOT letting me make excuses and teaching me how to be accountable for my health both in the gym and in the kitchen. To date I can honestly say that Anna taught me more about how to eat properly than anyone else. I distinctly hear her voice in my head at night when I "need" a snack saying "If you aren't willing to eat fruit or nuts, then you aren't hungry". And she is right. I can never repay her for helping me reprogram my own thoughts about food and also the scale (she got me to throw that m-effer OUT!!)

Fast forward to this time last year and I went to a CrossFit competition that my husband was competing in. To be totally honest, I thought Crossfit and all the wackos that did it (including Bill) had to be truly disturbed to torture themselves in the name of fitness. Seriously. But I went to be a supportive wife. For the record, Bill did awesome and thus began him turning into a Crossfit super beast. And I got totally and instantaneously sucked in to the supportive and competitive Crossfit atmosphere. I pondered it for about 3 days and then told Bill it as time I "drank the Koolaid" and thats a direct quote.

A week later I strolled into Titan Crossfit and did my first WOD. It had snatches or overhead squats and burpees and some other horrible movements in it. All I wanted to do was survive....and I did! And then Nick, our coach, said there was dessert which only in Crossfit is something you DON'T want to hear. Dessert was 200m runs (gag) and handstand holds....say what?? I literally laughed out loud because there was NO way I was going to get my ass inverted on a wall. HA HA! Yeah well Nick had other ideas and basically had me kick up and pushed my legs at the wall until they stuck. And there I was almost 34 years old, upside down and being cheered on by a wall full of other upside down people. I was hooked. Signed up and never looked back. Its been almost exactly a year and I can truly say that is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I'm not going to preach Crossfit here...although I TOTALLY could :) But will I am going to say is that what I have gained from Crossfit are all the intangible things that I hadn't even realized I had lost. Confidence, strength both mental and physical, determination, grit, commraderie, sense of self and a whole group of new friends who feel the same way I do.

So fast forward another year and here I am a Crossfit athlete.
 Athlete: (n) a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.
Yup that is me. I have now competed in 2 regional competitions and 3 local/in house competitions of my own volition. And in the most recent one, I fell hard on my ass in front of a group of 100+ of my peers while doing a VERY simple jumping movement. And it HURT. And it was EMBARASSSING. And you know what? I got up and kept going. I kept going through the shame and the pain and I didn't stop until I was done. I wish I could say my performance helped us to a win but it did not :( However in some ways it was a win for me because I didn't give up, I didn't give in, I believed in myself and kept going....
And trust me the girl I was a year and a half ago would not have.