Strong yet broken

I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Why do we run, train, and crossfit? To get strong. We are focusing on our bodies, making progress, and building muscles. But does this really make us strong? Just because we are able to lift, endure, and achieve is this where it really counts? What happens when we are injured and unable to train? Our muscles are still there. Our progress is still there. We are just sidelined. And we get depressed and even cry. We don't cry about the physical pain as much as the mental pain. So it's not really about the end result, it is more about the journey. The doctor says no weight bearing activity and it is like having the rug yanked out from under you. You're stuck. You can't go. You hurt from the pain, but even more so you hurt from the inside knowing you cannot keep on trekking right now. You can't get up at 4AM, put on your running shoes, and just go. Your freedom has been taken away. We have found that when we are running (crossfitting, training, dancing) it is those moments in our days that we are free. We begin to soar, we forget about our troubles and the irritants of life. We don't care about our bills or our jobs. Any arguments with our families simply fade to black. We are breathing, step after step, block after block, mile after mile until the air feels like bright beautiful crystals expanding into our lungs and overtaking our hearts. It hurts but it is a beautiful pain that leaves us clean and new again. It clears out all of the darkness that sometimes creeps in our lives and we are left energized and happy. We can shut off our racing thoughts and just be, just focus, just perform, just do it. So back to strength. If we are forced to sit on the sidelines and helplessly watch everyone else it is here that we must be able to dig deeper and find strength. Find mental toughness. Help our bodies recover by negotiations, effort, and never relenting. Constantly pushing forward no matter what little progress or encouragement we may or may not see. This is the tough place. This is the challenging place. This is the place where we find out what type of athletes we truly are. Strong, yet broken. And we will run again God willing. They say that the heart is just too far gone to save, but grace tells us another story. Where glory sends hopelessness away. Oh grace tells us another story. God willing we WILL rise up and be stronger than ever. ~ Paris girl

Unhealthy vegetables? Yup!

Normally I buy fresh produce and wash it off before preparing it.  However this was one of those horrible weeks for me.  My back went out and it exasperated my shin splints.  This in turn caused muscle strains and I was in a lot of pain.  So here I was at the grocery store attempting to buy food and meal plan for my dad who I'm taking care of this week.  I just wanted to stay home and die on my couch but after seeing that there was nothing at all in my parent's house to feed my dad that included fresh vegetables and fruits, I sucked it up and went to Fry's.  That was my first mistake.  I usually shop at Sprouts where there is at least a modicum of healthier choices.  So one of the recipes I wanted to serve called for corn.  And being sick and in pain, I decided to just pick up a can of corn instead of doing all of that work to boil fresh corn.  Being the label reader that I am, I saw that sugar was in the ingredient list.  It's probably been 5+ years since I've attempted to purchase canned veggies.  I was beyond shocked and totally horrified when I concluded my experiment.   Picking up every single can and brand of not only the corn, but every canned vegetable on the shelf and finding sugar in every one of them, I almost screamed out loud.  I'm sure people were eyeing me as they passed by only to see this crazy woman muttering "you've GOT to be kidding me" under her breath.  My face, I'm sure, went way beyond resting bitchy face and probably hit the "I'm gonna kill someone" face.  This is such bullshit!   It is so obvious that CORPORATE AMERICA is trying to fool the average consumer.  Let's face it, a lot of people don't feel they have time to read labels.  They are already overwhelmed in life with running around trying to get kids to school, get to their jobs, work out every now and then, and occasionally do something fun.  They're dealing with friends, parents, bosses, church, sports, house cleaning, and bills.  So why in heaven's name would they want to spend more time at the grocery store scrutinizing every single thing?  They just don't.  I used to be one of those people.  But then I almost died at the age of 43 and it woke me up.  That started my journey to trying to figure out how to eat and what to eat.  But don't let me try to change your mind about your own health if you don't want to.  You might be doing just fine eating the Standard American Diet.  But if you suffer from headaches, stomach aches, fatigue, mental confusion, weakened immune systems, or any other health issue it just might have to do with your diet.  Just a suggestion here.  I'm not a hater of those that want to eat fast food and sugar.  It is your own choice.  What does make me angry is that a lot of you are being fooled as to what healthy even is.  So even when you try to eat healthier, you're really missing the mark through no fault of your own.  You've been brainwashed by the media and you also might think that people who are not eating SAD (standard american diet) insert whatever here, vegan, Paleo, vegetarian etc are just extremists.

Wake up America and DON'T eat your vegetables.  Peace out and love to all!

Bon apre midi!
A bientot!

Love,
Paris girl

What do you mean this is only week 2?

Oh my heavens, I thought I was into the Paleo reset at 3 weeks.  Only to find out that it has actually been just 2 weeks.  At first I was discouraged.  But then I looked at it a different way.  If my stomach can flatten out THAT MUCH in just 2 weeks, imagine what it will do in 4 weeks?  So here we go.  I'm sticking to this!  In 2 weeks, I'm going to literally run up a huge public flight of stairs in baggy sweats and throw my hands up in the air (Rocky).  Gonna fly now.  Flying high now. 

Meanwhile, someone in my office is microwaving fried chicken.  Assholes.....

I must come clean.  I've cheated.  Don't judge lest ye be judged.  During week one I had 1/3 of a sugar cookie.  This only happened after passing by it at least 100 times.  My son left remnants of Paradise bakery in a see through box on the kitchen counter.  What do you expect people?  I'm not that strong.

My second cheat session happened yesterday.  I had a small scoop of low fat frozen vanilla yogurt.  It was in a container in the freezer door.  Ice crystals were covering the top of it and it had definitely seen better days.  Freezer burn taste reminded me of how long that container had actually been in there.  But truly it was delicious and I savored every last bite.  I missed something cold and creamy on a hot day like yesterday.

What do we have to look forward to in the next 14 days?  Time will only tell.  Stay tuned because a better, stronger me is going to be emerging day by day!

My only lingering question is this....what am i going to eat after this 30 day reset is over?  I'm pretty sure I will stay a conscious eater and not give in to falling into the "Standard American Diet"  aka SAD.  Instead, I will be HAPPY - Healthy, Active, Pretty, Peppy, and Young.

Peace out, much love!
Paris girl 197

One week after apocalypse

So here I sit, one week into this Paleo diet thing.  And let me tell you the first few days are really tough.  You feel like there is nothing to eat.  Yet after you eat your protein, veggies and fruits, you really are not that hangry (hungry & angry).  Though I did feel like something was still missing.  It was sort of an empty feeling or a bit of anxiety.  Or something.  The headache that I had for the first 6 days has finally gone away.  And my stomach is definitely a lot flatter.  So I know it is working and this gives me hope.  My insides must be healing and I can tell that my body likes the protein.  I could probably sustain this for awhile.  Didn't think so at first, but now I think I could do this beyond the 30 day reset.  Maybe you just have to get used to feeling full but not full of crap (sugar, carbs, grains).  Don't get me wrong, I think that sugar carbs and grains definitely have their place in this world.  But if you've ever experienced the kinds of stomach issues I've dealt with you would understand why it is that I need to be ever so careful with my food.  In 2006 I had major surgery to remove a large chunk of my intestines.  It just happened quickly, one day I just crashed without warning.  A month later and I was out of the hospital but still alive.  The doctors told me that I could now resume eating anything I wanted to eat.  They also told me (multiple doctors not just the surgeon) that what I consumed ......wait for it......JUST DIDN'T MATTER!  Really?

Well I got sick of being sick.  I was still sick after surgery.  After living with stomach pain almost every day for all of my life, I thought the surgery would have taken care of things.  But it didn't.  The pattern was pretty obvious.  I ate.  I got sick.  I ate.  I felt pain.  I ate.  I literally died in pain.  Wash...rinse.....repeat.
So against the sage advice of medical doctors, I struck out on my own to find my own cure and get to the root cause of my problem.  Food was my problem.  It seemed pretty simple to me.  But the hard part was this.  I had to eat to live.  So what did I have to eliminate to be healthy, and what could I eat?
Step one - get allergy tested.  Voila!  I found out there is a whole long list of foods that I am allergic too.  I eliminated ALL of those foods from my diet.  Or greatly limited the quantities of the lower allergen foods.  This is kind of annoying (mostly to other people) because I'm a bit high maintenance with what I can eat now.  And it is also socially isolating.  Most people don't understand why I am so motivated to eat right for my body.  But then again, they didn't almost die from perotinitis or live in pain all those years.  Or maybe they're afraid that I'm somehow holding myself to some ridiculous higher standard that they won't measure up to.  NO.  That is not it at all.  Boy howdy wouldn't I love to eat at McDonald's once in awhile or even drink a soda, or (see last blog) eat cake with buttercream frosting.  Maybe suck down a red Icee.  God knows, I envy you people.  But this is my situation and I'm gonna deal with it on my own terms.  Boom!
Much love to y'all!
Affectionately - Paris girl 197

Technical and other difficulties

So we resume on blog #2.  I didn't really get a chance to finish the first one but was kicked out instead by Google.  Technical difficulties seem to be following me everywhere I go lately.

This diet change for 30 days is hard.  No, I mean really really hard!  The headache came on day 2 and it hasn't left yet.  So I wanted to fill it with food.  And yes, after eating it does feel better but it just comes back.  I figure this is my body doing it's detox thing.  Maybe it is in shock.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not an unhealthy eater.  I usually opt for salads, veggies, fruits, and lean fish/meats.  However, I do like my dairy.  So for four days now I have not had a Double Tall, Sugar Free, Cinnamon Dolce latte with SOY!!!  Yeah, try to say that before you pump 2 shots of Espresso into your body every morning.  So instead, I would just say "Hey can I have my usual?"  After all, everyone at the Bucks knows me.  Even the other regular customers know me.  Wow.  However, I digress.  I do eat pretty healthy.  BUT I know there are bad things in my diet like artificial sweetners (Truvia for the most part at home) but sugar free things like the latte's were being consumed daily.  And I did eat 2 doughnuts at work recently.  Not my fault.  Really, let me explain.  My boss kept putting boxes of donuts on the shelf right outside of my cubicle/enslavement chamber.  It pissed me off.  I had to smell them all day long and walk by them a dozen times.  So if I was at all hungry, I caved and ate one.  Then I felt like crap the rest of the day because my system does NOT like that.  And frankly, I don't even LIKE doughnuts, would never buy them, or seek them out.  So I threatened to complain to HR if he didn't move them somewhere else.  (not really).  I just moved it myself to another empty cubicle and put a sign up saying NO MORE FOOD HERE - GO TO THE CUBICLE AROUND THE CORNER IF YOU WANT TO EAT CRAP!  Once again, just kidding.  I actually said if you WANT TO EAT SHIT.
(kidding....again)
So the whole point is, my body was not completely sugar free.  It certainly was not dairy free or carb free either.  So bring on the detox and get that inflammation out of my abdominal intestines!!   I'm doing this thang!  My stomach is already a lot flatter.  I can tell that this change will make a huge difference.  So call me a follower, call me one who jumps on the bandwagon, or just call me crazy if you want.  I'm gonna do....whatever I want to do.....regardless of what anyone else thinks.  And if this works, then Hallelujah!

Part Deux (yes I like to speak French)
I came home today hoping to eat my prepared Paleo food and make myself feel better in the process.  Only to find that the damn dog somehow got into it and at my almond muffins.  All of them!  So I sat right down on my kitchen floor and cried.  Crying is sort of a new behavior for me because all my life I have never cried.  Now I cry all of the time.  Damn hormones.  Damn Crazy Ovaries.  Anyway...I digress once again.  So through the tears, I whipped up another batch of Paleo almond muffins.  And this time I added my own special Paleo approved ingredients and they turned out even better than the first batch.  So dog be damned!  He got the crappy muffins and he is not getting any of the new batch cuz I'm not sharing with that little poop head.  Sorry Barbell girls, but I can give up a lot of things but you will never catch me without my muffins. 

~ Affectionately yours,  Bisou Bisou!  Paris Girl 197 aka Lisa

Day 4 on Whole 30 - or affectionately referred to as the PALEO THANG!

This is my first blog ever so be kind and gentle with me please.  So I found this group of Barbell babes on facebook because my friend Maggie added me.  Everyone in the group was doing this Paleo reset for 30 days.  So of course I totally caved in to peer pressure and decided to do it too.  Just kidding of course.  I never usually follow the pack, preferring to pioneer my own course of action.  But these girls seemed pretty determined and dedicated and they all were doing it.  So why the heck not?  It is only for 30 days and I needed to try something different to kick start some changes with my body.  You should probably know that after a major disaster in my love life I fell into a terrible depression and gained a bunch of weight.  Sob story over, no more feeling sorry or crying wah wah wah.  I'm over it.  So let's move on.  The first thing I did was to join Weight watchers.  Dropped 30 pounds.  Done.  Check.  Finito!  Next, I started back with cardio and hitting it pretty hard.  Running.  Zumba.  Hip Hop dance.  More running.  Running with the dog and running in the dark at 4:30 and 5:00 AM.  Running all over the streets of Paris mainly to keep warm.  With exercise induced asthma it was a complete shock to me to find out that I could run 5 miles in 63 minutes.  But after all of that running, what do you expect?  I'm at about 11 minutes per mile on a good run day.  That is nothing to brag about, but for me with asthma hindering everything, it is a huge accomplishment.  And (this is said in a hushed voice).....I like to run!  WTF?