My 21 Day Experiment

On April 1st I started a 21 day experience in hopes of losing a few stubborn pounds I've been trying to lose for about 3 years and to generally look and feel healthier.  Without going into excruciating detail I will say my experiment did not include any pills or crazy diets, it was just the consolidation of several individual efforts into one concerted effort to push past my stalled out weight loss journey.  I ate almost all fruits and vegetables, beans and legumes.  Had kale and fruit smoothies for breakfast and salads for lunch.  Significantly reduced all processed foods and limited my meats and no treats. 

I figured with a limited window of 21 days (note my birthday is April 22nd hence the 21 day time frame) I could accomplish anything.  The biggest change I made was to stop drinking coffee.  I don't drink soda and stopped drinking sweet southern tea (except when I'm home visiting mom and dad) so I thought that kicking coffee would be relatively easy for me.  I only had one cup of coffee a day in the morning.  Why did I stop drinking coffee?  Well, I'd been having trouble with insomnia for quite a while and I really like my coffee sweet and creamy so I figured it couldn't hurt to cut it out and see if I slept better and cut back on a few extra calories at the same time.  I also heard that most find they  have more consistent and prolonged energy off coffee (vs. the spikes of energy) and sleep more soundly throughout the night.  All good right?  It took me a full 3 weeks to kick the caffeine headaches.  It was not fun.

But I kept up with my exercise and I lost a total of 4 lbs.  Four lbs.  Four flipping pounds.  Happy birthday to me.  Around my birthday I eased up on my diet restrictions but generally still made good choices.  Later in the month I had my yearly physical (which was overdue by about 3 years).  By that fourth week I was ill.  Everything I ate gave me stomach cramps, absolutely nothing was safe to consume.  I was miserable, even the simplest foods were upsetting my stomach.  I couldn't believe it, I had made all the right choices, focused on those super nutritious foods that are so good for you and cut out the crap and now suddenly everything made me ill.  I couldn't pinpoint one particular food, foods I'd been eating all along during the experiment were now making me sick and I was so frustrated.  I sat in the doctors office with the nurse practitioner who I had met for the first time that day, describing all of this, all the exercise all the hard work and the complete and total lack of progress and I cried.  I cried in front of a complete stranger.  She said all of the right things, but didn't have any real answers; maybe I tried to change too much at once, maybe I should focus on one change at a time (but that had been my approach for the last few years).  She checked my thyroid and blood sugars and both are great.  I was just so stunned to realize that I had tried so hard to change me that I had made myself sick.

On the drive home a new thought slowly started to occur to me.  Instead of thinking "ok, what should I cut out next?", I started thinking "if this is me, can I accept that?" and I began to realize I can.  "Me" is pretty damn good.  I'm healthy, I'm pretty strong, I can run, I can ride, I can play with my kids.  "Me" may be a little more rounded than I would like, but I'm 4'11" tall for God's sake, with three very active kids and a full time job, who am I kidding?  For the first time since I got pregnant with Loretta, I'm trying out a new frame of mind.  Instead of always waiting and striving and eventually making myself sick for the day when I'm back to my wedding weight (when I did TKD 5 days a week - no pressure there) I'm going to try to be happy with who I am now.  I'm not the same person I was then, I have different priorities and goals.  Will I always wish I was slimmer?  YES!  But I'm not going to kill myself with this anymore.  I'm going to do what I've been doing, exercising because I enjoy it, generally making good food decisions and I'm going to stop looking for the impossible.  I'm going to be happy with myself and let go of the rest. 

Oh, I'm back to drinking coffee too, it's decaf though.  I'm sleeping better and the truth is a great cup of coffee kicks a cup of tea's ass every day of the week.