I posted last week about eating intentionally, and I’m happy to say so far so good! I’ve been following the meal plans I made up for myself pretty well, and it has made day-to-day life so much easier when I’m lazy and don’t want to think about what to eat. I wrote down meals for breakfast, lunch, and a few dinners (my mom and I take turns cooking), along with cookbooks and page numbers, and then went shopping for everything I would need for those meals. So there’s no mindlessly searching through my cookbooks or the fridge and not having ingredients or feeling too lazy to whip something up.
My snacking instincts have dropped considerably; I no longer crave food while watching TV, which is a big one, and I rarely snack unless I’m actually hungry — in which case I grab a bit of protein and some veggies instead of reaching for whatever junk is available.
Excitingly, I lost almost five pounds last week. I wasn’t actually focused on losing weight, but it is a nice side effect of eating healthy, for sure! I was surprised to have lost so much, because I started my first post-pregnancy period — usually, you gain weight around that time — and I haven’t been doing a super strict Paleo diet at all. Meaning, while I’m sticking to the no dairy, sugar, legumes, or grains, I’ve had Paleo chocolate chip cookies and Chunky Monkey muffins, and on Sunday because it was Father’s day, I made Mr. Owl waffles for breakfast and had some myself. And then later had some BBQ chips and some potato salad. None of which was Paleo.
But I didn’t let that derail my healthy choices, and I feel pretty good!
I also took bike rides four days last week, and every ride got easier– it’s amazing to feel your body getting stronger!
We live in the country/seaside area (it’s hard to categorize; we’re near to an ocean inlet, yet there’s also woods, yet there’s also farm area– here’s a snippet of a bike ride so you can see the different scenery), so my husband or my brother and I can take this one long loop that has a few hard hills and ends with a killingly long hill up to our house. The first day, I had to walk up all of the hills. The second day, I walked all of the hills but made myself get up the last, longest one. The third day, my husband and I took a shorter ride around another loop, and I made it up all the hills (but they weren’t as intense!).
And the fourth day, much to my happiness, I made it up all but one hill, and didn’t get off the bike on the last and hardest one.
I think the best thing about these rides is that every time we go, the hills get easier! They still wind me, and my legs feel like jelly at the end, but the hills feel shorter and shorter, and my stamina for getting up them is getting stronger and stronger. I love it!
Another thing I’ve noticed in this last week is that I no longer feel like I have to have coffee in the morning. Before last week, I was heading straight for coffee and drinking 2+ cups a day because I had no energy. But in the last few days, I’ve only had one cup. And two days ago I woke up and thought “Eh, I don’t need coffee today!” So that’s good!
I think the only thing I’m still struggling with is drinking enough water. I just forget. I have a water bottle to take everywhere with me, but some days I realize I haven’t been reaching for it and I actually crave water. Which is probably not a good thing, haha! But I’m working on it!
I still haven’t come up with rewards or goals, other than the goal of weighing less than my husband, but I’ll work on coming up with those this week.
If you want to keep up with my semi-daily health updates, you can check Instagram (you can even check it from the web via that link, whether you have Insta or not!). I’ll be trying to share some Paleo recipes soon, for those of you that want to try some delicious dairy/grain/legume/sugar free food!
Happy Wednesday!
