Results of the Cleanse

Sooo… I was planning on sharing my results from the cleanse, but I was NOT planning on sharing my before and after pics.  After some back and forth with my insecurity, I thought, 'what the heck! who cares anyway!' Throughout the process I wanted to be completely honest and open, to encourage others who are struggling with their own health issues to begin healing themselves with food.  I truly believe that food is one of the most powerful tools to heal yourself of most of our emotional, mental, and physical ailments. Eating right, moving mindfully, and listening to yourself are crucial to triggering your HAPPY.

Making changes is tough though, and I think the biggest hurdle is the mental part.  We have to shed our emotional attachment to the food we eat, how we eat, and why we eat.  Again, it's TOUGH.  It's not supposed to be a cake walk, and you're definitely not allowed to eat cake.

So, in an effort to be honest and open, let me start with the beginning.  The VERY beginning.

This was me a year ago. I was about a year into marriage and was loving beers with dinner, sweets, late night snacks, etc.  The next day I started a challenge, which centered around a strict Paleo diet, which meant that I cut out all grains, dairy, sugar, alcohol, legumes (beans), etc.  I lasted a month before I started cheating. It was such a strict diet that I found when I cheated, I cheated HARD.  Plus knowing the challenge was 2 months long was really tough mentally to get through.  It was more about what I couldn't eat verses, what I could.

I knew I wasn't officially overweight, but I felt overweight for me.  I felt heavy, sluggish, and not-sexy.  So, trying the challenge was a good first start.  But it wasn't successful. In January, my father-in-law offered us to try Isagenix, and we did, but again it wasn't successful because it was about eating/drinking shakes for meals.  It didn't fit our lifestyle and didn't make me feel good.  I wanted to eat real food and get my energy back.






So, through our very stressful winter, my eating habits were quite bad.  Not eating until 2pm, snacking at night, emotional eating/not-eating, etc. In June I decided to do my first cleanse with Liz.  It was about listening to my body and it changed the way I look at food.

I don't have any pictures from that, but the results are pretty much the same as below.  I decided to the SECOND cleanse because I had a really fun summer, with lots of travel, parties, weddings, etc.  I knew I had gotten out of the habit of cooking and I thought it would help.  And it did!

So here I am 3 weeks ago:

The very next day I cut out all the junk. I felt fine on Monday.  In fact, I felt great.  Tuesday, I felt like I was walking through a fog.  I had slow, tired thoughts.  I took a nap (which I never do) and stumbled over my words.  Wednesday was worse! I had crazy headaches, more tired and was SO HUNGRY.  I kept eating all day.  By Thursday I felt fine and continued to feel fine.

The following Monday I cut out animal protein.  It was supposed to be for the full week, but I shortened it to 5 days because I do CrossFit and coach it, and teach yoga, and practice it, all day long.  All of this had been discussed with Liz the first time around, so I knew I could do it.  Without the animal protein I was feeling like I had hardly any energy and my job requires I had energy!  But aside from that, I kept at it.

What did I eat?  A TON of nuts--borderline too much nuts--and fruit and beans and rice and spinach and broccoli and dried fruit (no sugar added) and tea and tea and tea and tea.  (Can you tell I missed coffee!?!?)  I worked out 4-5 times a week (my usual) and went to bed at 9:30pm when I had to wake up at 4am.  I ate 3 meals a day and allowed myself as many snacks as I wanted.

I completed 2 weeks without any "cheats" or changes to the cleanse.  Then this week, I added back in eggs for breakfast, as I had done the cleanse before and know that my body can handle 2 hard-boiled eggs in the morning.  Then, last night, my husband and I split a pumpkin beer.  I completed 18 full days of the 21-day cleanse.

What I continue to keep out of my diet (90% of the time) dairy, processed foods and sugar, nightshades, soy, gluten products, red meat, corn, and artificial sweeteners (I do like Stevia, so I have that.)  I am human, so there are times when I have gluten (beer) or dairy (ice cream) or sugar (chocolate) but I keep these to a minimum, as I know that a "treat" doesn't feel like a treat to my body.

Here are my results:

I wore the same swimsuit because that's what you do, right?!  Also, my weight-loss was not going to be major, so wearing clothes wouldn't have been effective to show change.  I also took the last pic in a different light to show that it's not the lighting.

Like I said, its not a MAJOR change in 3 weeks, but it IS major progress from my picture a year ago.

This is a year worth of work to not only find my food-happy, but find my LIFE happy.  It's not just removing the internal stress from the food we put in our bodies, it's also about figuring out what outside factors are causing us emotional or mental stress.  Learning to cope, to fight, to conquer, to listen, to love is what I attribute my major changes too.

Movement is medicine, food is medicine. Love is a cure all.


Interested in more information?  Reach out to me!

The Case of the Yoga Selfie

So, I am launching my first Instagram Challenge, starting on the first day of August and I am a mix of excited, nervous, and apprehensive.  There are many reasons I decided to do this, which I will get into soon, but before I do I have to address the selfie.  First of all, I loathe the word selfie.  I think it embodies all the stupid, narcissistic, spoiled, self-centered characteristics of a first world nation concerned only about ourselves.  Namely, our image, thus the #selfie.
Then while coaching CrossFit, the song that puts it all out there, the #selfie song came on and a few of our members started groaning in agony.  (I know, I know, it's a terrible song, but it also happens to be catchy, so I kept it on.)  While it droned on in the background, we talked about how pathetic the song is, how I feel like my brain cells commit suicide while it plays, how the whole song is representative of a much bigger, more horrible trend in humanity, how we're all doomed.  Oh, the horror.

But then, a member said, "Yea, but Rachael you're like the queen of selfies."

#selfie

(Gasp!)

I was mortified.  I never considered myself a repeat selfie offender.  Primarily because I am hardly ever at clubs, I never remember to take pictures at parties (or maybe I forget to attend parties?) I don't take duck face pictures with my girlfriends, and I never take pictures in public bathrooms.  But then it hit me, he was talking about my yoga selfies.

Over the past couple of months as I made a shift in my life, my career, I started documenting my yoga practice.  In truth, I had originally been inspired by some of the amazingly beautiful photos I found on instagram of some wonderfully bendy, flexy, strong yogis.  (This trend sparked a great article denouncing the yoga selfie, a must read. )  Either way, it was fantastic to see these yogis doing inspiring things with their body, but it wast truly representative of my own practice.  My yoga practice has never been showy and still isn't.  I've worked hard to be flexible, to try the more challenging poses, but I pretty much do the same yoga poses when someone is watching, as I do when I am all alone.  This means lots of sun salutations, strong warrior series, lots of hip openers, some yin, some yang, etc.  So, knowing that my photos were never going to look "as cool" as some of these talented folks, it didn't occur to me to put my yoga photos or videos on there to share.

What really started my #yoga #selfie journey was my cat, Weezy (aka #weezus) Every time I whipped out my yoga mat, Weezy would come into the room and stay by my side the entire practice.  It was so adorable, I could barely stand it.  I started to send pictures to my husband, then to my friends.  Then I decided to just share it on Instagram, because everyone found them so entertaining.  The fact that I was doing yoga in there seemed like an afterthought.

Getting all zen-like with my maine man. (get it, he's a maine coon.)

As I shared in my last post, it's been an interesting journey lately, one that took me away from my mat for some time.  Now that I am starting over, when I see the photos I took in the beginning with Weezy, I see how hesitant and vulnerable I really was.  As the days, weeks, and months have passed, I am beginning to see some changes in the way I approach my practice and it shows in the photos.  I'm trying new things, I'm having more fun with it, etc.  However, more than just that, I am happy to hear from people who have been inspired by my photo story in some way.  I love knowing that someone saw my photo and chuckled, smiled, maybe rolled out their mat, or went to a yoga class.  While I am not perfect, I too am working towards being less critical and more accepting of each practice, each photo.  Being content with getting on my mat each day and not being worried about how I look is a daily reminder, because that's the essence of yoga anyway.

#fatcat #longhairdontcare

Even though I had no direction when I started taking them, I now see my #yoga #selfies as a photo journal. I want it to be a testament to my dedication, my journey, and my commitment to living my life open, free, and full of love. Do I need to take pictures to prove this?  No.  But I love photos, and always have.  And this is nothing new, not for me and not for human kind throughout time.  The Egyptians made #selfie coffins to sleep in for all eternity.  In the early centuries, people sat and posed for hours for a single #selfie.  Then, when Kodak created film, people didn't take pictures of beautiful mountains and lakes, they took pictures of themselves.  #RevolutionaryWarSelfie.  When we invented the handheld video camera, we used it to document our own lives, our families, our memories.  Call it a memorial, call it a portrait, call it a selfie.  Whatever it is, we've always wanted to document and record our lives.

Just like in yoga, when it comes to selfies, the most important thing is our intention.  If our intention is kind, both to ourselves and others, then I see no harm in the selfie.  If it's used to inspire, to share, to connect, then go for it.  If we find its about approval, about comparison, about showing off, then we know we're on the wrong track.  When the Instagram yoga challenge launches, I want people to recognize their own intention. Perhaps you want to challenge yourself to try something new, maybe you want to hold yourself accountable to practice everyday.  Maybe you want something fun to look forward to each day.  Perhaps you want to share your lifestyle with friends and family. Perhaps it's just for you.

In the end, its about putting love out there and not worrying about what comes back.  More smiles, the better.  So, selfie on.