Bloat... could it be the eggs... again?!

I'm jumping full in today!  Since this last 3/5 shift I have been really bloated.  Usually it's just with 3shift and the addition of carbs but it has migrated over into 5shift and I keep my carbs pretty darn low.

So what gives?  I was messaging my friend and told her maybe it's the eggs.  I only brought them back in October, but prior to that it had been 2 years or give or take.

My current state!

So my experiment is a NO EGG day.  It makes me sad but it's just one day, but to make sure I eat nothing with eggs in it!  Holy cats!  This should be a little tough.

Here is what my breakfast looks like this morning.

Coffee with HWC and collagen, avocado, chicken, cheddar and bacon.  All super yummy things (ignore dirty stove!!)  Sadly after this meal I didn't feel any different.  Still bloated.... my other thought is it could be avocado!!  Which I love just as much as my eggs!

I didn't take a picture of my lunch since it was more of a snack then anything.  It was 3 sausage links, cheddar and some mayo and an Oh Yeah One bar - Chocolate Chip (my fav!).  Yes, I know, mayo has eggs.... but I don't think the eggs are the issue.  My other thought is it could be dairy too.  N=1 in full effect until I figure this crazy thing out.  I think when I went off AltShift and just did keto it really threw my system for a loop.  Struggling to get my to a more happy place.

Dinner is from Kalyn's Kitchen.  Green chile chicken mock enchilada Casserole.  Looks SUPER good and it's something different!  I think there is a theme this week.  Mexican inspired - it was Taco Tuesday!  

I added cauliflower to this and a little mexican queso.  Super good and I feel fine after - well besides full!  Recently too I had given up nut butters for about 2 weeks.  Nothing changed there so I added it back in from time to time.  Daily nut butter is crazy and I love it, but trying to scale back!

Tomorrow the eggs are in and the avocado is out!

A new beginning...

So there I am, two "paleo" books and fully diving straight into the bone broth! Ha!  There were so many things that I wanted to "fix".  Horrible acne, bad digestion, heartburn, the list was many.

I may have to interject and come back to the beginning at another time.  I should flash forward quickly to where I am today.  Currently bloated and sitting in my car with my 60 lb. lap dog Jack.  Why bloated you say?  I thought you had this figured out!  Well, it's all about the n=1 experiment.  Granted, I have been feeling better since jumping back to AltShift.  What?  You stopped?  Only for a short time, about 2 weeks I would say where I went full keto, put putting on weight far too quickly cause I just love my protein too much!

Honestly, I think a lot of my bloating is just coming down to stress.  I have been on a serious job hunt lately and working early mornings and every weekend is taking it's toll quickly.  BUT, what else has been my bloating issue?  Starch has been a huge issue.  Sweet potato, potato, banana, plantains.  They are all giving me issues and I'm not trying rice.  I have been trying them at different points in my day to see if the effects are any different and it's all the same - morning, noon and night - just plain bloated!  So, I will finish this shift with my final banana and plantain and next shift will not have them.

I have taken far too long to post this ramble!  I keep changing what I am talking about here.  Only because there has been so much going on lately!  The above is still true - I am on the job hunt!  Honestly I want to work for myself - teaching yoga and becoming an NTP - Food and fitness are really my loves.  Why not do what you love right!  RIGHT!

So I have figured out my food from the last ramble - I know I cannot eat more then one starch per day in my shift.  Done!  SO moving forth.  Let me get back to my beginning!

I read Pratical Paleo and loved it, so much rained true!  I had Liz Wolfe's book too Skintervention Guide and dived in.  I think I did so much so quickly my body FREAKED out!

My face looked like gravel!  SO many tiny white heads - sorry it was disgusting!  So much detox was going on!  I even contacted Liz since I was trying to do the oil cleansing and thought maybe I was doing something wrong.  She suggested that maybe it was one of the oils - so I got rid of Castor oil and it seems to help.  Now I am using Cocokind which I absolutely love!  My skin does the best with this line!  My 2 favorite products are: Organic Facial Oil and the Organic All Purpose Salve.  I tried the No Poo method of hair washing, which didn't work well either for my hair.  So I use minimal products and shampoo maybe once or twice a week.

I then stumbled on to Sarah from The Paleo Mom and Stacey from The Paleo Parents, Robb Wolf then Sarah Fragoso and Jason Seib.  I dove into the autoimmune protocol as I found out I had Hashimoto's.  I was suffering from Adrenal Fatigue, which made my days really hard, yet I continued with the high amount of work I was doing.  Fueled by lots of caffeine!  If I haven't mentioned it.  I was working out in the am, going to my full time desk job, followed by teaching aerobics, bootcamp, yoga/pilates and water aerobics 6+ hours a week.  I probably threw in another part-time job here and there.  I was also under the crazy mind-set that you couldn't eat anything to maintain your ideal weight.  Even if you were working out hard!

This was my train of thought.  It was hard and the results were there, but I was making myself more sick as the days and weeks went by.  It was hard and I was tired BUT there was more hard work to be done, so I did it.  BLARGH!!!  Top all that hard work with eating only 900 to 1200 calories a day!  Now I work out A LOT less and eat 3 times the amount and I'm still at the same weight.  Food for thought!

Till the next post!  I will go into how listening to all the above people on podcasts began to change everything I knew for the better!

The beginning...

So, the beginning will start with the end point of my veganism.  It was later 2009, I was seeing my then boyfriend (now husband).  I really have no explanation for it, I just started craving meat.  I actually craved Whole Foods Turkey sandwich.  If you ever had one then you know it's just plain and simple, YUM!

I ate one every couple days, just so my stomach could "handle" processing meat again.  I had a funny ritual when I ate it too.  I would pull the crusts off and eat them last.  They were chewy and slightly soggy from the mayo, so tasty!  Weird, yeah, but I would never call myself normal!  It didn't take long at all for my stomach to get use to eating meat.  Though, when we would go to his parents house for dinner they still thought I was a vegetarian and wouldn't have enough meat to go around.  I adapted and they slowly remembered I ate meat again.

I weighed more back then (30 lbs.) and was getting more into running.  It was perfect since D was a cyclist.  He would go out to ride and I would go for my run.  I remember running back then use to take me forever!  Now it's nothing for me to go out and run a "quick" 8 miles!  Haha!!

D didn't have the best eating habits.  We would go out and eat pretty healthy, but his idea of meals were cereal in the am, toast with nutella for lunch and a microwaved dinner with spinach in the evening.  So, I began to cook and spoil him rotten!  What girl hasn't done that?!?

We dabbled in gluten free several times, but the products then tasted awful!  They sure have come a long way in not only taste but texture too.  I can't even begin to talk about all the products there are now.  Everyone seems gluten free now, it's almost comical!

So a side note about that.  I work in a upscale market as a bakery manager (funny right!).  The guests that come in will ask about a gluten free muffin and I will explain cross contamination to them.  They say, "Oh" and proceed to get a regular gluten muffin.  WHAT?!?!  Didn't you just ask me for gluten free!!  Oh boy!

I played around with food choices for a while and ended up getting an office job and teaching yoga, bootcamp and pilates.  All this while training every morning for another race.  I restricted my calories so much I was dizzy most of the time and I was surprised that I could even function.  I tried to get the most bang for the fewest calories possible.  By the time I did my workout in the morning, ate breakfast went to work and ate lunch I had maybe 300 total calories.  Then after work I would teach for 2 hours and eat dinner when I got home.  So, I probably was taking in 800 calories, give or take, while doing all of this.  Did I have an eating disorder?  Yeah, I certainly did!  Though I never said it out loud! (Maybe I just did!)  Now I eat 2000 to 3000 per day, lift heavy weights a couple times a week and weigh 110 lbs.  I still run, but not nearly where I use to.  I stopped over training and all my "freak outs"!

I wanted to feel heathy again.  I was stressed at work and having side effects from the food choices I was making, not to mention chowing down a bunch of tums on a daily basis!  Something had to change!  I was working with a nutritionist and it was helping.  I kept a food log and she would review and make suggestions and encourage me.  It was still hard to get my weight up because my exercise intensity never changed.  It was December 2012 when I stumbled upon Practical Paleo on the Purely Twins website (December 27, 2012).  This is right around 2 years from trying to gluten free and spiraling into a eating disorder that I was trying to bounce back from.

I bought the book and was talking to the nutritionist at my gym about paleo.  It was hard to wrap my head around the fact that I just didn't need to count calories.  There just wasn't any counting at all.  WHAT?!?!  I couldn't deal, but I wanted to feel better!  So I jumped in!

That brings us to the beginning!  Until next post..... your moment of Zen!

Kaat Van Nostrand

A beginning in the middle....

Today is another start... a start of something I keep meaning to do.  We have all been there.  We have the grand idea and we have these big plans and then.... (Yes, I love to use ....).  Life, jobs, other projects or activities get in the way of the best intentions and before you know it, it's a year later.

I started a blog a long while ago, the last post was 3 years ago.  I don't think it was going where I really wanted it to go, but ultimately I'm not sure about this one either.

Here is my thought.  I want to talk about being healthy, that's not too hard.  I have learned so much from where I began over 4 years ago when I stumbled onto Diane Sanfilippo and Practical Paleo.  I was/am following Purely Twins and were talking about her new book.  I had tried so many things in the past (not that I was looking to lose weight.... maybe?) and wanted to finally get healthy.  I believe I started to search around about this person and soon bought the book as well as Liz Wolfe's skin care guide.  4 years later, I am still Paleo, though I would have to say more Primal and following Jason Seib's AltShift.

Ok, so who am I and why does any of this matter?  Well, maybe it's to document the process I have gone through from the beginning in hope's that others will learn from my mishaps.  Maybe it's to show what a healthy, strong lifestyle can be.  Of course, I am not saying I am perfect and know everything.  I'm still learning something new everyday.  I want to document that, as well as anything super tasty I make in the kitchen!.  I'm also hoping to become a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, like those that I currently follow are.

I almost forgot to say who I am!  My name is Heather and currently 40 years old.  I don't mind stating my age since I never "felt" my age.  Unless many are lying to me, I have been told I look much younger.  Yay for my husband, right!  I am a former marathoner.  I qualified for Boston during my second marathon.  I ran Boston the year after the bombings and I have to say what a euphoric experience it was.  I also did a half Ironman (70.3) almost 2 years ago now.  I run now, but mostly just to enjoy the feeling.  2 months after my Ironman I developed a hip fracture.  I went all out too!  My fracture was in the femoral neck of my right hip, worse place ever!  I was diagnosed with osteopenia and have been in the process of building my bone mass.  I have also been diagnosed with Hashimoto's.  I'm blaming the years of being a vegetarian.  I certainly was not healthy during those 10 years!  I can get into all that at another time.  I also have been a yogi for about 16 years and been teaching for 7 years.  I started following Yoga with Adriene in October to get back into morning yoga and more flexibility.

So flash to now.  I'm sitting in my living room, in a small chair typing with my 55 lb. German Shorthaired Pointer Jack, smashed in next to me and my ever loyal Vizsla Stryker across from us on the couch.  It's a freezing rain here in Michigan, I'm waiting for the snow to begin.  It's the 3rd snow-pocalypse here (I work in a upscale market, that's how these things are treated).

So until next post.... here are a few pictures.

Boodles (19 years old - aka - Old Man)

Jack - 8 year old GSP

Stryker - 9.5 year old Vizsla