Paleo Challenge and Busy Winter Months

It's the story of my life -- I'm busy. Geez. I love the ease and convenience of Facebook. People seem more interested in commenting there as well rather than on my blog. I love comments. I realize tho that reading blogs takes discipline and dedication. Facebook, esp since it's a mobile application, is such a clever and easy tool. The past few months for me, like many of you, have been full of the quake and throttle of the holidays.







Phew, I'm glad they are over. We were fortunate to get some snow here in the Chicago area which has been wonderful. It's been quite cold though (single digits yo!). Not great weather for sending out the kids to play in. I've done my best to get out into the fluffy white stuff. I love it. I also like extremely cold temperatures - so long as I'm dressed for it. It's difficult to drive in mittens, especially the big, faux leopard fur "Bear Hands" I indulged myself with. I've tried Isotoner gloves and they are pretty useless. Once your hands get cold, it's difficult to get them warm. This is so true with plein air painting too. It's best to keep your hands warm. Do not allow them to get cold. Even if they are sweating, let them sweat. So long as they stay warm. Because one brief contact with extremely cold air and all their heat escapes faster than greenwashers steal your money. Here's the breakdown: Dec: participated in my very first Olympic Weightlifting competition. It's been month since then, and I have to admit that I am surprised at how much I lifted that day. I must have had a surge of adrenaline. I'm still lifting near that weight. A tad more, but not much. Lifts were Snatch and Clean and Jerk. Both awesome for fitness. Your abs get shredded. A whole body workout. I love efficiency. Especially when it applies to exercise. I was fortunate to enjoy the wonder of my children's Christmas pagaents at school. Aislin (3) was a chick in cute little Christmas story. Myself and 2 other moms busted our tails creating the cutest little animal headbands ever. Everyone had plastic gems for eyes so they would sparkle from the stage. All the girl animals were given long, violet eye lashes. Adorable!

Indigo (6) was a spectacular kid, waving from the stage during her evening performance. She held up a gold star and did a dance with other kids in the aisles of the school's, church sanctuary. Very impressive. Sang loud and proud. We baked, shopped, watched every Dog and Christmas themed movie Redbox had to offer. It was kid time. I laid low, painted, shopped and did a small amount of decorating and staying up late obsessing over Doctor Who. Love it! (I own all of Season 4 if anyone wants) My sister, Sally, her husband Bruce, and their 4 little kids spent Christmas here in Chicago, from Western Nebraska. All the cousins got to hangout and be rowdy. Good times, lots of treats and even some sledding. My girls miss them already. 2010 is upon us. I've created a few goals for myself: 1) 30 days of strict Primal eating. From previous posts, you know that I have slowly altered by diet to be more in line with Paleolithic eating (no refined sugars, or grains. Heathy fats, nuts, lean meats and fruits and veges - organic if you can get it). I cut the grains out in October, but I'm so surprised at how much sugar there is in lunchmeat, bacon, sausage. Sheesh, in everything. It's crazy. So I have broken down and gotten grass fed meats. Sausage from an actual butcher (Gene's in Lincoln Sq rocks). I've also bought organic produce when I can. It is so expensive. I've offset it by eating less. So if I lose a few pounds doing this it's not intentional. I'm just broke ya'll. The only thing I really miss are: my 1/2 cup of dairy in my AM latte and 2) wine. Sigh. It's nice to unwind with a glass or two of red. But all is not lost. It's only one month. I can add those things back after that. I'm just trying to create a baseline to see how this diet affects my exercise (Crossfit) and my energy levels (I used to burn out by 3pm, went Paleo and that moved to about 7pm - on strict paleo it's about the same). I've committed to getting to Olympic lifting class twice a week and then twice a week to Crossfit Workouts of the Day (all take place at WCCF). Problem is that I have to stack some of the workouts close to each other. It's brutal to do two in a day. But I did it before. It just isn't convenient. I am working hard and am NOT as sore as have been in the past. I attribute that to the primal diet. It's a nice perk. I get sore just not debilitatingly so. Especially when we do any gymnastics type of exercise (ring dips, muscle ups, dead hang pull ups). Those just make my armpits sore for weeks. So there are the highlights folks. Sorry to have been gone for so long.

I plan to post some before and after pics of the Paleo challenge. The goal is to see the difference physically rather than on the scale. And most importantly, Feel great!