12-Weeks to a Happier and Healthier Life | Weeks 3 & 4
I feel like it’s been longer than two weeks since we had a check-in but it hasn’t and here I am with a big one. I have so much to share with you about my diet, goals and where I am now. Keep reading!
Goals In Review:
- (Dietary Goal) Diligently follow my 28 week transformation program. I wish I could say that I did but I had a few off days but overall I found that I was pretty successful and that the program helped me to focus on eating more intuitively (more about this in my review below)
- (Physical Goal) Do 10+ minutes of barre3 online each day. Huge fail. I don’t know why but I just didn’t. This is going back on my goals again for weeks 5 & 6.
- (Mental Goal) Spend 15 minutes per day reading a book. Okay so I didn’t read a book for 15 minutes everyday but I did read The Starch Solution by Dr. John McDougall.
Goals for Weeks 5 & 6:
- (Dietary Goal) Drink 64oz of water everyday. I had been drinking close to a gallon of water everyday for a few weeks but in the past two weeks I haven’t been filing my water jar as frequently as I should. So cheers to drinking more water.
- (Physical Goal) Do 10+ minutes of barre3 online each day. Let’s try this again. Anyone want to be my accountability partner?
- (Mental Goal) Read and start The Orange Rhino Challenge. Being a stay-at-home mom of two little ones can be rewarding and fun but also exhausting and frustrating (usually all in the same day). If you know me you know I have a bit of a fiery personality and while my goals is be a gentle and warm parent I have my moments where I can be short and lose my patience. The thing is I don’t want to be short or lose my patience. I want to be calm, warm and in control of my emotions. You can read more about the challenge here.
Review of The Past Two Weeks:
I had a bit of a break through in the past two weeks regarding my diet. I had been following my 28 Day Transformation plan which called for five meals with certain portioned out components to each meal. Following the plan I found myself craving a lot of sweets and other junk foods but overall I just wanted more starches (brown rice, sweet potato, white potatoes, beans). I left many meals feeling full but not satisfied which would cause me to seek out other foods. This isn’t to say that the meal plan design for this program doesn’t work it just didn’t work for me. Besides not feeling satisfied with meals I also had a hard time fitting in the two snack meals because life just gets busy and for me three meals works best most of the time.
Finally after about 18 days of following the plan 80% of the time I decided to give into my craving and I had a huge bowl of rice at lunch. After that meal I felt super satisfied and more energetic. So I ended up increasing my starches by adding in more brown rice, whole grain pasta, potatoes and sweet potatoes. I did stick with keeping things low fat; the 28 Day Transformation program allowed for 2-3 servings of fat per day. Once I started listening to my body I found that within a few days my cravings decreased, my energy increased and my digestion improved.
So for now I am focusing on eating a bit more of starch based, low fat vegan diet because it is working for me. I haven’t given up oils and such but I plan to keep my diet mostly starches(oats, brown rice, sweet potato, winter squash, white potatoes, beans, legumes and occasionally whole grain pasta), fruits and veggies with a little bit of fat. If you’d like me to discuss this further in a separate post let me know!
Workouts as you saw above just haven’t been going well. I have been getting out most days with the kids for a walk or two during the day but as for focused workouts they just haven’t been happening. I have been spending more time focusing my diet and now that I am in a good spot I feel ready and excited to take on regular non-walking workouts such as barre3, running (!!) and hopefully try out some new classes in Portland.
Overall I am feeling like I am in a good place. I learned a lot over the past few weeks and I am feeling more positive, more energetic, and excited for the next 8 weeks and beyond.
How are you doing with your goals?
