Day 1... A Terrible Day To Give Up Caffeine (And Booze)

Today was my first day following the elimination diet and beginning the exercise program that in 30 days will transform my rather frumpy "I have two kids and it shows" body into "Beyonce-Single Ladies video" body. (At this point I would settle for a reasonable facsimile).

As it turns out the diet is not so bad. I've done the diet once before, though I must fess up and say that last time I didn't cut out the caffeine and I indulged in the occasional glass of wine. I know the diet works, and I also know that the first few days are the hardest.

Unfortunately, the start date of the diet could not have come at a worse time. This week is crazy busy for me, and over the weekend my husband and I chaperoned our local high school's all-night senior graduation party, so we are still catching up on sleep. Needless to say, my usual cup (or two or three) of coffee this morning was sorely missed.

Anyway, quite luckily, my in-laws are organic gardeners and have a vegetable garden that takes up most of an entire acre (I know some of you readers may be from the UK, and I'm not sure what the metric conversion of an acre is, but it's the better part of a football field... er, soccer field, maybe? Manchester United!). Anyway, the garden is just starting to come into season so I have unlimited access to literal truckloads of fresh produce, including over 30 varieties of lettuce and cabbage, delicious tomatoes, potatoes, bok choy, peas, you name it. They also raise chickens, so our eggs are fresh as well. Our beef comes from a family friend who raises grass-fed cows, so we are lucky there too, and our community resides on the furthest tip of Washington state's Long Beach Peninsula, so fresh seafood abounds year-round. And right about now you must be wondering, "Why don't you eat better all the time with this kind of abundance in your fridge?" Ha. You are quite astute, Internet. It's for the same reason that I'm terrible with exercise even though my husband is an athletic trainer/physical therapist. What can I say? I'm a non-conformist.

Part of why dieting is always hard to me has nothing to do with food and everything to do with what food represents to me. I'll save the unabridged version for the shrink's couch, but my mother, a rather cold and reserved woman, is a fantastic cook and the way she showed her love for my siblings and I was through her food. Thus, whenever I am feeling blue, I turn to food for comfort.

Part two of my problem with diets is that I love to cook and I'm really good at it. Not to toot my own horn, but TOOT TOOT. To me good cooking often involves lots of butter, cheese, carbs, and gooey-ness, so that will be difficult to part with. I've decided to record what I eat every day, both as a means of keeping track, and also so maybe anyone that reads this can get a few ideas:

Breakfast: Steel-cut oats with cinnamon and raisins, and one hard-boiled egg.
Snack: Apple and a handful of nuts.
Lunch: Tuna with a drizzle of olive oil and black olives, and a green salad.
Snack: Cut up vegetables with hummus.
Dinner: Roasted chicken, asparagus, and roasted red potatoes with garlic and rosemary.

The thing I can appreciate about the elimination diet is that there aren't really any restrictions on portion sizes, so I freely ate as much as I thought was reasonable without feeling guilty, since the food itself is healthy.

Now on to the exercising. Ha ha... ouch! Laughing hurts. I am a dance teacher/cheerleading coach by trade, so I stay in pretty good shape most of the time, but for the last six months or so I have been nursing a knee injury (and the lack of activity helped me pack on a good ten pounds). Many moons ago while dancing on the college dance team I dislocated my knee and it hasn't been right ever since. A while back I re-injured it and have fought condromalacia and tendonitis since. Condromalacia has to do with your cartilage. Normally it should be nice and smooth and shiny and glisteny, but mine looks, for lack of a better term, like crab meat. In fact, I usually just skip the term 'condromalacia' altogether in favor of calling it 'crab-meat knee.'

I completed all the exercising I was supposed to complete, but if I said that I did so with much speed or grace it would be a complete lie. But I finished it, and for that I am proud. At one point during the "rest" after chest presses I actually had to look around on the floor, so sure was I that my arms may have fallen off, but it turns out they're still attached.

I'm fighting the urge to step on the scale. Maybe tomorrow... if I can get out of bed.