February 13

I am supposed to be heading off to the gym right now but instead I sit here and type. You see I have been delayed today because I had a little girl who refused to get dressed and eat. Oh well. We will get there eventually. Also it is snowing right now - big beautiful flakes, and really is it my place to mess that up! I know, not really an excuse.

I think this blog has been perculating in my head all week. Why? Well, before now I don't think I was ready to face it. You see I have been doing some serious self discovery this week. It came to an ugly head on Thursday when I ate something I truly shouldn't have and know subconsciously that I shouldn't have, but did it anyway.

Let me start at the beginning - Tuesday I found out my friend's mom passed away. This hit me harder than I thought it would and I think it put me in a funk for most of the week thus causing my Thursday eating misadventure. I also wasn't prepared for lunch that day and instead of going home and eating after gym and our playdate, we went for lunch with our friends to a local establishment popular with children (that is all I will say). By mid afternoon I knew I had made a major mistake and that my system was going to punish me for the rest of the day as a result. And rightfully so! Why should it respect me when I had so little respect for it. Still I do not beat myself up for this action, I am using it as a learning opportunity.

As I said earlier, I have been thinking this week about a lot of things - my eating habits, working out, family, death, life, running, what is really important to me. Let's go back even further, to the end of January because that is where this really starts.

At a family visit, I found out that my sister-in-law is pre-diabetic. They called it some other name to cushion the blow, but really, let's call a spade a spade. She does have a family history of diabetes in her family. She was also gestational with my nephew when she was expecting him 16 years ago. I think this has been in the back of my head for the past couple of weeks. I was gestational with Sophie and the Endocrinologist did say that there was a higher chance of me having diabetes down the line because of this. There is also a higher chance of having it again, should we get pregnant. I know I didn't take her seriously at the time. Now I am not saying that I have diabetes or am panicking about getting it - I think this discovery about my sister-in-law has just brought it to the forefront - health wise speaking.

Since the end of the detox, I have been floundering, trying to find my place in all of this. I understand why Clean Eating is a good choice. But is it the right choice for me. I ended up speaking with four friends who have taken their health into their own hands. I respect what each has done for themselves and their bodies and I wanted to get a better understanding of what they were doing. One is all for clean eating, and the other three focus on exercise and diet, watching what they eat but not completely cutting gluten, dairy and sugar from their diets. I have done a lot of reading on top of this and had countless conversations with my husband and my trainer as well.

So what conclusions have I drawn - #1 exercise for me is key these days. With it I definitely feel better, have more energy, get better sleep. My trainer was away in Las Vegas this week so it was a real test to see if I would kick my own butt and get to the gym. I did - I made it three times. I did get there this morning after all - I left an out of sorts girl (who is actually very unwell at the moment) at home with daddy. I felt so much better and happy I had gone.

#2 - What we eat is so important to our everyday health. I realized today that I really need to refocus myself, what and how we eat. As we already have to watch out for Sophie's peanut allergy (yeah I am that mom) and my husband's every other nut allergy (yeah you read right)I am very diligent about reading labels and ingredients trying to make the best possible choices for our family. I find this challenging most days. Thing is with what I have read to date in clean eating recipes, a lot of the substitions they use involve nuts - almonds especially. I love almonds but I refuse to make one meal for me and one for my family. That just won't work!

Now I am sure that I can substitute out for better grain choices from the nuts, but this is going to require more research and time. I know we will get there but just not today, tomorrow or maybe even next week. One of my friends made a very good point. - she likes things that are bad for her, but she doesn't look at them like that anymore. Instead of beating herself for these missteps and continuing to call them bad, she looks at them as learning experiences and moves forward. Mistakes happen though I honestly think she doesn't let these mistakes happen very often. Let's move on.

I have decided to take it one day and week at a time right now. I have lost 14 pounds to date and that is a great accomplishment. I want to see that scale go down again next week so this week I am committing to really watching what I eat and when I eat it. Time to move forward.

P.S. I didn't realize how much of an emotional eater I really was. That is another blog for another day!