Friday, March 7, 2014

New Discoveries and a Shift in Focus

For the past three years, I’ve been focusing pretty fiercely on my attempt to lose weight. I’ve tried to keep a good, body positive perspective but have never lost sight of that end goal. Since my experience with Intuitive Eating prior to discovering Paleo, I’ve been pretty fearful of letting go and losing control. I did not trust myself to make good decisions for my health so I settled on the prize of weight loss to keep me on the straight and narrow. I also harbored a secret fear that no one would ever take me seriously in the Paleo community if I was still fat.

I don’t know if there is something physically, psychologically, or otherwise holding me back from achieving my desired body composition, but any which way, I’m over it. I am over actively trying to change my body. Here’s a little recap of what I’ve been working on lately to take the very best care of myself without the express goal of weight loss:

I’m in love with this program. I look and feel better than ever and haven’t lost a pound (not that I’ve weighed myself!) I cannot recommend it highly enough for promoting great self-care and expression true to yourself. Life changing.

I’d heard of this before but never thought it would be for me. It was mentioned in one of the DYT videos and I decided to give it a whirl. I feel more toned, energetic, and have gotten lots of compliments from Cute Man since doing this 2-5 times per week. The basic workout takes less than 20 min. Score.

Yes, that again. I’m just eating real, normal food while avoiding nasty oils, processed food, added sugar, and wheat products. The biggest difference is that I’m not doing it to try to diet or lose weight. My only goal is to promote overall health and avoid the acid reflux, psoriasis, headaches and other health problems I dealt with pre-Paleo. I’ve also started incorporating resistant starch, which blunts blood sugar spikes and promotes gut health. It just means that I cook my potatoes and rice a day in advance to allow them to cool down after cooking in order to allow the RS to be formed. My appetite is WAY down and my sugar cravings have diminished a lot. I feel almost incapable of overeating. When I’ve had enough, I have to stop right in my tracks with a feeling of not being able to take even one more bite. I can’t eat even half what I used to for dinner. Very interesting. I am not eating any rice noodles or other gluten free processed foods – those seemed to set me off and gave me acid reflux. I started with the RS after listening to this Latest inPaleo Podcast. More info on Free the Animal (warning – he is very unpolitically correct, so if you’re easily offended, please avoid).


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