What do you mean wrap up? What happened to weeks 2, 3, and 4? Uh, oh yeah. I was going to write about those. :blush:
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, you can get the scoop here .
This was a bad time for me to get involved in a health challenge. My energy level has been wonderful for the past few weeks, and I have been taking the opportunity to work on my monumental to do list that accumulated over the winter and start a few new major projects. Can you say overachiever? (Or does overachiever only apply to those people who actually finish what they start?) It left me little time to concentrate on the challenge and even less time to blog about it. In the end, I did manage to stick it out. I think only because eating clean is part of my lifestyle and my workouts consisted of yoga and a lot of housework. In rereading that, I realize that such a big part of it was the support group we put together. I wouldn’t have been able to keep going if not for the amazing women in our Facebook group!
Here’s what I learned.
My body responds very well to a meat, fat, veggie and moderate/minimal fruit diet. I lost two pounds of water weight and started gaining some nice lean muscle mass even without traditional workouts. That same diet also caused me to crave foods that I shouldn’t eat. I am about ready to go back to only eating the right foods for me, but this time I will earnestly keep my fat content high and plan larger and more frequent meals. I found that high fat content is the key to being satiated when we started the GAPS diet last April to heal our guts and reverse food allergies. I won’t go into why fat is so good for you and why high fat diets are important for health, but Mark Sisson from the Primal Blueprint does a bang up job of telling us why it helps satisfy over at Mark’s Daily Apple here and here . If you want to know more about why fat is so important in our diet, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to write up a post on it!
The other thing I learned is just how much yoga fits into my lifestyle right now. I’ve always been fond of my little yoga DVDs that I’ve done over the years. I used them mainly to stretch out my tighter-than-a-wound-rubber-band leg and muscles. Touch my toes?! …how about my knees? Yeah, it was bad. Funny enough, I have a lot more flexibility since I cut out the allergens and moved to a rotation diet. Now remember that “a lot more flexibility” is totally relative. I can now reach my shins instead of my knees. Yeah yeah, laugh it up. It actually makes me giggle. To be fair to myself, I can almost reach the floor if I’m warmed up and can touch it with my fingertips when I’ve been practicing regularly. I’m also a T-Rex, making it even more difficult. On a side note, being short and a T-Rex makes it almost impossible to go to a drive up ATM.
Thanks to a chance Groupon * visit, I scored a deal on 12 classes at a local yoga studio for $24. WHAT??? I couldn’t believe it either. I’ve been holding on to that bad boy since January, when my energy levels were less than nil and even driving to the studio was more energy that I had available. I now attend Candlelight Yoga twice a month for some Me Time. It’s fabulous. In fact, it’s fantabulous. I’m now plotting ways to get more classes for birthday and Christmas gifts. A nighttime yoga routine was another great addition that left me sleeping like a rock every.single.night. I have fallen away from it recently, and there’s a huge difference in my quantity and quality of sleep. I’m going to start it back up again tonight and make it a nightly family ritual far into the future. Better sleep for all = Happy Family.
The most important thing I learned is that I prefer a challenge to get something done. There are so many things on my to do list that I never know where to start. (Now that I’m sharing such varied content, you get to find out just how many pots I have my hand in.) A challenge lets me pick something out of that list and get a jump start on a new project or renew the commitment to something I’ve let go.
What motivates you? How are you going to pick one of the things on your to do list and get moving on it? *affiliate link
Image Credit http://trextrying.tumblr.com/