Intuitve Eating = Winning

• Whole wheat English muffin w/ organic butter and strawberry spread, 2 sausage patties, coffee w/ a little bit of sugar and organic half-and-half
• Almonds w/ a banana
• Leftover spinach feta “cheesy bread” w/ mixed greens salad (greens, carrots, Caesar dressing)
• A few pretzels
• Baked ziti (full-fat mozzarella and ricotta, whole grain pasta, tomato basil sauce) w/ mixed greens salad (same as above), homemade garlic bread using fresh Italian bread, a glass of whole milk
• Post-workout fruit smoothie w/ vanilla protein powder, frozen strawberries
• Homemade brownie w/ small scoop of cookies and cream ice cream
• Lots of water throughout the day

^This is what I ate Monday. I didn’t log any of those food items into my calorie tracker. It killed me a little bit not to log any of those food items into my calorie tracker… to the point where I did the math in my head at one point while catching up on some tv. And then I realize that’s kind of crazy. Why does it matter?! It doesn’t matter. Because I’ve been doing this for so long that I know how to do just fine, how to stay within my goals/limits. I know what all those food values are. I know what a serving size is/looks like. But that’s not the point – the point is to stop obsessing about those values, and to eat if I’m hungry, to eat quality food when I’m hungry (most of the time), and to eat the type of food I’m hungry for (protein or carb, fruit or veggie, whatever).

Somewhat surprisingly, I found it much easier to make more whole food choices throughout the day instead of immediately going for the taquitos in my freezer, or the leftover birthday cake in the Tupperware on top of the fridge. While I obviously had some dessert at the end of the day, it was a small portion.

I don’t eat terrible things all the time. This is something else I need to remind myself. If I’m eating 5-6 times a day, averaging anywhere from 2000-2500 calories, and 500 of those calories come from “junk”, I’m still doing pretty well. I’m doing a lot better than most.

Tuesday was also a good food day. I had a homemade full-fat greek yogurt strawberry/blueberry/granola parfait-type-dealie for breakfast, some apples w/ raw almonds for a snack, Qdoba bowl for lunch w/ black beans/chicken/veggies/salsa/sour cream/cheese and guacamole and a glass of water (where I normally would have gone for the soda), and a repeat of Monday’s ziti dinner. As a nightcap, I had a tall vanilla rooibus latte while visiting with a friend. I felt a little hungry right around bedtime, but drank some water and was able to sleep just fine.

Wednesday was a bit different. While I enjoyed healthy breakfast and snack,  lunch ended up at Taco Bell when I was really just hungry for a salad or something from home, and then I botched dinner by trying to fit in a run after work and ended up eating those frozen taquitos mentioned above (actually they’re southwest eggrolls, but what’s the diff, right? Junk is junk) following by half of a small blizzard from Dairy Queen. There was a quick milk/protein powder shake somewhere in there, as well. Overall, not a good food day.

But I learned something: over the last few days I’ve found it much easier to identify proper hunger and fullness cues. Normally I would have just pounded that blizzard because ICE CREAM DELICIOUS! But I no longer felt hungry halfway through, so I stopped. I did the same thing with my lunch over the last couple days - ate about two-thirds or three-fourths of my meal, no longer felt hungry, and just left the rest.

I’m recognizing better what type of food I’m actually hungry for, recognizing and acknowledging my feelings of “this was a poor food choice” (my exact words to my husband at Taco Bell on Weds lol) and sort of storing that in my mind for the future (ie: if you’re hungry for a salad with maybe some lunch meat or chicken and you eat a Taco Bell crunchwrap instead, it’s probably not going to be as satisfying or make you feel as good), and recognizing when I’m no longer hungry much easier. But most importantly: I’m no longer going through the day constantly wondering, “What and when will I eat next?” or feeling hungry all the time. I’ve been really good this week about always having healthy and filling snacks with me at work and making sure I’m stocked at home, as well. If I get hungry in between big meals, I eat those snacks. Sometimes it’s a lot, sometimes just a couple bites. 

So, yay! That's all well and good and working out better than expected and all that jazz... however, I completely dropped the ball on Female Body Breakthrough this week. While I've been "active", getting my 10,000 steps in (or within just a few hundred of 10k), yoga, runs, walks, etc. - FBB workouts have fallen to the wayside. I think I really did a number on my body last Saturday by eating next-to-nothing, working out hard, and then drinking a lot of beer and staying up pretty late. Monday's workout was really difficult and I was really lacking energy and focus. I didn't really push myself because I just couldn't, and took longer rests between circuits than I normally would. Tuesday I did some restorative yoga, which felt pretty good, but it was also much more difficult than it normally would be. I was also having some lower back issues which I think were/are stemming from lack of abdominal focus/over-arching during squats and that was definitely effecting my yoga poses. As I said above, Wednesday I attempted to run after work. I had both kids with me, which was fine though slightly distracting, but the actual "run" part was really hard, and honestly I mostly just walked at a decent clip most of the time. Even that wore me out! I tried to do just a quick round of circuits (not FBB) when I got home, just trying to keep somewhat on-schedule for strength.. but I just couldn't. My legs were NOT cooperating. I had so much muscle fatigue. So Thursday night, even though I felt INCREDIBLY guilty about it, I decided to for-real rest - no yoga, no running, just normal walking around during the day, etc. While I'm not entirely sure I'll have the chance to fit my regular FBB workout in tonight, due to the fact that I'm going out to enjoy some live music (YAY!!!), I definitely plan on getting something in on Saturday whether that be FBB, a run, or maybe both depending on how I'm feeling. It's supposed to be nice weather this weekend before another polar vortex comes through Monday night and starts ruining everything. It's almost MARCH! Can't we be done with this crap already?! ...I digress. 

My plan is to restart Week 3 of FBB on Monday to make sure I get those 3 workouts in and hopefully the "metabolic circuits" next Saturday or Sunday. But I'm really not stressing myself on the metabolic extras right now since I'm trying to fit some runs in to hopefully be somewhat prepped for the 5k in April.

This week has been much better in terms of sleep and taking proper "wind down" time before lights out, although I've slacked a bit on housework. My mood hasn't been quite as stable as I would have liked and I've had some pretty terrible mini breakdowns which have mostly been spurned by my demon spawn children. Having an autism-spectrum/gifted/hyper-sensitive 8 year old who lacks general common sense in all things, and a toddler in the most turbulent throes of the Terrible Twos who is so goddamn smart I don't even know what I'm going to do with him, makes me feel like running away to Fiji, faking my death or some other equally hyperbolic yet appropriate escape. AHHH!!! why couldn't my children just be AVERAGE?! This is NOT NOT NOT a humblebrag -- this is a very serious, difficult thing that makes me constantly question whether or not I am cut out to be a mother and worry about if my subpar parenting will lead to my terrifyingly brilliant children becoming terrifyingly brilliant axe-murderers. Plus some general mom/wife feelings of being under-appreciated and over-worked. But, then, who doesn't feel that way? I'm trying to acknowledge and move forward without saying to myself, "These are stupid feelings that only stupid people feel and you should stop being stupid" and then shoving them all down to just having them rear larger, uglier heads later. Heads that will bite me in the ass. 

So yeah. That's what's up.