Start Somewhere: 3/4 Whole30 Update and Next Fitness Moves

My brain, y’all, it is F R I E D. I’m working hard on presentations that I’ll be sharing this coming weekend at AWBU, trying to prepare my household for the time that I’ll be gone, hanging with some awesome friends, trying to keep on top of the normal workload, and planning out the HOW behind some big dreams I’m working on making into a reality. Not a complaint by any means, but I’m tired. So this post? This week’s post is going to have to be in bullet-point format because that’s the only way this brain is going to work right now 🙂

 

Some thoughts on Whole30:

• OMG I’m tired of it. I honestly don’t feel like it’s THAT different from the way that we normally eat, but we miss pasta and bread and pizza and not having to know every minute detail of every food on this planet. I’m all for cutting out added sugars and eating lower carb – that’s all good – but ain’t nobody got time for reading every single nutrition label in the world.
• It’s still expensive, although we’ve started to figure out how to make it less so.
• We’ve “cheated” a little bit because when it comes to community and enjoying food together? I’ll choose the community over Whole30 rules aspect every time.
• We are counting down the days, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to just fall off the wagon at the end. There are definitely some good takeaways that have come from this little experiment, but the biggest one for me is that I do better allowing moderation in my life rather than having to follow hard, fast rules.
• These homemade Larabars are everything. We’ve gone through so many batches of these babies as quick snacks or if we just need a break from all the savory.
• I miss dairy. I love milk and yogurt and cheese, and miss having those things in my life!

Exercise things:

• I’m finishing up the Fitness Blender 8-week challenge next week and I’m both excited and sad. Excited because I’ll have stuck to the plan the entire time and I can feel how much stronger I am, but sad because it’ll be over…
• …which leads me to the “what’s next” portion: Fitness Blender Booty and Abs! They’re two 4-week programs that will focus on lower body and core work, which I’m pumped about!
• I’ve also started incorporating some long walks in once or twice a week for mental health. I need that time outside to just GO and think. I feel so refreshed when I’m able to do that!
• The increase in weight has been good for me. I was starting to plateau a little bit, but I’m feeling the burn again even more and love it!

When I started this series I wanted to focus on changes I was making to improve postpartum existence, and one big thing has been better sleep. After getting A on more of a schedule I’ve been able to have a much more predictable sleep schedule myself, which is fantastic. I am really lucky that I haven’t had postpartum depression with either of my boys, but there for a while the lack of sleep was really starting to wear on me. It’s made a huge difference in my own rest and my confidence as a mother to have Austin on a better sleep schedule.

 

As far as size goes, I have definitely noticed that my clothes are fitting a lot looser these days. I think the combination of super consistent exercise and clean eating are working well for my waistline (duh) and it feels good to feel more confident in my clothes. I have done some before pictures and will likely do some afters, although I’m not sure it they’ll be ones that I share on here. I go back and forth on that kind of thing because I’m just not sure how comfortable I feel putting it all out there like that. But we’ll see!

 

So there you have it – the bullet point version of postpartum health up til now!