A bit part of the Primal/Paleo lifestyle is living a more simple, well-managed life. In some ways, this is funny to me as my husband and I moved to the PNW to start a small, sustainable farm and 'simplify'. Unfortunately, trying to run a farm while both working full-time is insane and not even a little bit 'simple'. But I'm getting ahead of myself. This is not the beginning...let me take a few million steps backwards in time first...
I was always a bit of an over-achiever. I'm not sure why, as I don't think I really have a 'type-A' personality. I think that my need to do well stemmed more from a need to 1) prove myself and 2) competitiveness. As a child, we moved...a LOT. I was in 10 schools by the time I was in 10th grade. Until my current house, I never lived anywhere longer than 3 years. I was always the new kid, trying to be accepted, trying to prove myself. A lot of my self-image problems stemmed from this time in my life but I won't get into that here. What I do want to highlight was a developing need for constant change and constant challenges. I learned to live with it and it became a part of me.
When I graduated from HS, I went directly to college. I picked a good school, a few hours from home and went happily, excited to not be the new kid for the first time in my life. EVERYONE was new! It was a novel concept for me. I thrived. I loved it. I majored in Sociology because I had zero idea what I wanted to do with my life and sociology seemed to apply to everything. Humans are social creatures after all, right?
I graduated and got into a training program for a retail department store chain. 6 months later, I was running a couple of departments with visions of being a buyer. I mean, I loved shopping, right? Buying was just shopping, wasn't it? No. After a few months in an assistant buyer training program, I realized it was not for me. I went back to store-line and spent the next 7 years working my way upward. I loved the busy, thriving work environment. I loved the constant challenge. I loved the stress. I felt like I thrived on it, but in retrospect, the only reason I survived was that my home-life was extremely quiet and relaxed. Everything revolved around my store and my home was where I recharged/escaped.
I eventually felt like I was capable of more. I didn't know what more was, but I felt like I needed to challenge my brain and not just my patience. I quit my job, moved into the apartment over my parents garage 2000 miles away and started over. I bar tended (got a licence and everything!) while taking classes and one thing led to another and I ended up with two more degrees. Now I had a BSEE and an MSEE (electrical engineering).
My final year in school involved writing and defending my master's thesis, planning and executing my own wedding and successfully searching for my first engineering career related position. Oh, and we also bought our first house. To say we were busy that year is a mind-boggling understatement. I thrived on it.
My first job wasn't what I'd hoped it would be (it was boring), so we relocated a year later. Selling a house, buying another one, starting a new job in a totally new position, 1500 miles away (again), and picking up a new sport (cycling). More stress, more thriving.
After three years in that location, we decided that our social life deserved more, so my husband and I relocated once again to the Pacific Northwest. We picked our location first this time and then found jobs. We moved across the country, sold our house, shopped for a new one (this time, a small farm), started new jobs and all the time, keeping an eye on the tanking economy. This was in mid-2008. Financially, it was a tough move for us at first, so it was stressful. Cutting corners, scrimping on money, giving up stuff and wondering if we would both lose our jobs as the stock market plummeted. We also were learning to farm. Learning to milk goats, grow stuff, harvest other stuff, can, dehydrate, preserve, care for chickens, house bees, etc. I remember having a breakdown on the phone with my mother (now 5000 miles away) because my husband was at the vet with a sick, pregnant goat and the apple cider press we'd rented wasn't working and the 10 bushels of apples I'd picked were going to go to waste. It was a difficult time.
I also discovered that I didn't enjoy being an engineer. More stress.
Since then (that was 4 years ago), we've gotten into a much better place financially. We've gotten better at farming (or at learning our limits). We've both been promoted to positions we like much better than our original ones I am no longer an engineer yet I still get to use my engineering degree and connections in my current job. We have a great group of friends. I've picked up and learned to really enjoy triathlon. My husband has started motorcycling on trails in his free time. Things are good, but we are still living in a constant state of stress.
Running a farm while working full time is difficult. We also would like to travel this gorgeous area in which we live a little more but are limited by farm responsibilities. We take a few weekends a year away and get a farm sitter, but we can't just take off on a whim and we can't travel as much as we'd like.
Our plans are to sell the farm. We will list the place next May. I'd wanted to do it this year, but I was injured in March and with limited mobility (and limited funds) we decided that waiting a year would be best. Until then, we are going to scale back quite a bit on the farm. I want to be able to get more sleep. I want to be able to travel. I want to be able to exercise and play more than I can fit into my schedule right now.
The funny thing is, that injury I mentioned above is part of my reason for starting this blog and for continuing with our plans to move. I was forced to stop. I was forced to take almost a whole week off and do nothing but lie on the couch, read or watch TV. I slept a lot of hours. I had to let my husband do my farm chores. It was weird. I was frustrated but because I had no choice, I was sort of forced to relax and accept it. And the thing is, except for the pain in my foot, I felt really good. I felt strong despite no exercise. I felt vibrant despite little exposure to outside. The only thing I can really attribute it to was a lack of stress and abundance of sleep. I want that back. I want that to be a part of my every day life. I want to feel strong, vibrant and energized all the time. This journey will take me there....
Friday, June 15, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
The Beginning - Activity
I've always been active and even as a child, I kind of prided myself on being an athlete since I was too muscular to be a model or a dancer or any other 'girly' thing that pre-teen girls might dream of...
As a child, I played tennis, soccer, swam on the swim team, got picked first for kickball and dodgeball and generally loved to beat the boys at anything I could. This was a good thing since much of this was pre-title 9 and the only soccer team I could play on was with the boys. As I matured, I learned that boys didn't like the girls who always beat them, so I learned to tone it down some. And when college came around, I opted for rugby over soccer since I was strong and tough. I loved it!
I played rugby for a few years after graduation (even coached a college team for a season) but eventually, career aspirations got in the way and I had to give it up. That's about the time I took up skiing, hiking and mountain biking for most of my active pursuits. When I moved out of New England a lack of local friends and a lack of decent mountains kind of changed my focus a bit. I started spending more time working (particularly on the weekends) so I needed an activity that I could do on MY schedule. Enter home video workouts. I collected a very large library of them (starting with The Firm Volume 2 for those in the know) and found it a great way to stay in good shape. I was also working a lot of long hours in retail on my feet all day (and slinging shipment boxes a couple of times a week), so staying fit and at a healthy weight was fairly easy.
Then I left retail, moved to Florida, went back to school for engineering and took up bar tending in the evenings to pay the bills. I gained a bunch of weight and wasn't able to get it all under control despite numerous attempts. At one point, I was doing over 800 minutes of vigorous activity a week, eating less than 1000 calories per day and not losing weight. Go figure. I was also enjoying heavy lifting at a gym and running on a treadmill or doing videos for cardio. It was insane how hard I was working. I was fit, but I was not lean. Not by a long shot.
When I moved to North Carolina for my career, my new husband and I took up bicycling. I was having foot trouble making running difficult, so biking made sense. And it was a great area for it! That was in the summer of 2005 and that was also the last time that I followed any type of structured and consistent weight training program. I'd become a cardio junky! Cycling eventually lead to triathlon which I found to be great fun. I loved having three sports to train and I loved the races. My old competitive self came racing to the surface and I got hooked very quickly!
In March of this year (2012), I destroyed my lisfranc joint (in my foot) in an accident with my dogs out on the farm. I had surgery and today am still working to recover from it. I'm still limited mobility but things are improving every day. I will be restricted from any impact for months yet, but I'm pleased to at least be done with the crutches.
As I've gone through this recovery period, I've questioned my choice of sport. If you saw me, you'd know why. I'm kind of like an old, out of shape, Mary Lou Retton. I'm stocky, muscular and clearly not built for endurance races. I find myself thinking that if I chose a sport more suited to my skills and body type (strength and coordination), that I might have more success and more fun.
Tomorrow, I will be attending an open house for a new crossfit gym in my area. Who knows, maybe it'll entice me? I'll be sure to post how it goes...
As a child, I played tennis, soccer, swam on the swim team, got picked first for kickball and dodgeball and generally loved to beat the boys at anything I could. This was a good thing since much of this was pre-title 9 and the only soccer team I could play on was with the boys. As I matured, I learned that boys didn't like the girls who always beat them, so I learned to tone it down some. And when college came around, I opted for rugby over soccer since I was strong and tough. I loved it!
I played rugby for a few years after graduation (even coached a college team for a season) but eventually, career aspirations got in the way and I had to give it up. That's about the time I took up skiing, hiking and mountain biking for most of my active pursuits. When I moved out of New England a lack of local friends and a lack of decent mountains kind of changed my focus a bit. I started spending more time working (particularly on the weekends) so I needed an activity that I could do on MY schedule. Enter home video workouts. I collected a very large library of them (starting with The Firm Volume 2 for those in the know) and found it a great way to stay in good shape. I was also working a lot of long hours in retail on my feet all day (and slinging shipment boxes a couple of times a week), so staying fit and at a healthy weight was fairly easy.
Then I left retail, moved to Florida, went back to school for engineering and took up bar tending in the evenings to pay the bills. I gained a bunch of weight and wasn't able to get it all under control despite numerous attempts. At one point, I was doing over 800 minutes of vigorous activity a week, eating less than 1000 calories per day and not losing weight. Go figure. I was also enjoying heavy lifting at a gym and running on a treadmill or doing videos for cardio. It was insane how hard I was working. I was fit, but I was not lean. Not by a long shot.
When I moved to North Carolina for my career, my new husband and I took up bicycling. I was having foot trouble making running difficult, so biking made sense. And it was a great area for it! That was in the summer of 2005 and that was also the last time that I followed any type of structured and consistent weight training program. I'd become a cardio junky! Cycling eventually lead to triathlon which I found to be great fun. I loved having three sports to train and I loved the races. My old competitive self came racing to the surface and I got hooked very quickly!
In March of this year (2012), I destroyed my lisfranc joint (in my foot) in an accident with my dogs out on the farm. I had surgery and today am still working to recover from it. I'm still limited mobility but things are improving every day. I will be restricted from any impact for months yet, but I'm pleased to at least be done with the crutches.
As I've gone through this recovery period, I've questioned my choice of sport. If you saw me, you'd know why. I'm kind of like an old, out of shape, Mary Lou Retton. I'm stocky, muscular and clearly not built for endurance races. I find myself thinking that if I chose a sport more suited to my skills and body type (strength and coordination), that I might have more success and more fun.
Tomorrow, I will be attending an open house for a new crossfit gym in my area. Who knows, maybe it'll entice me? I'll be sure to post how it goes...
The Beginning - Nutrition
I've been debating about starting this blog for about 10 months now. That's how long I've been following the paleo bent on nutrition. I started the paleo diet as a way to lose a quick amount of bloat before I had to take photos for a weight loss competition. I knew it was too late to make major changes (only 10 days from photo day!) but I wanted to at least lean out a little in the middle and when I'd followed paleo previously, that's exactly what I got. I jumped right in nutritionally using what I already knew from having read Neatherthin, The Paleo Diet and The Paleo Diet for Athletes, years ago. Then I found some blogs and ordered two books - Everyday Paleo (my first paleo cookbook!) and The Paleo Solution. I did a little research to see who this Robb Wolf character was before ordering and found it interesting that he worked so closely with Loren Cordain. I devoured his book and was hooked. I felt great, I was eating great and I wanted more.... so I ordered Paleo Comfort Foods and then Make It Paleo and I was on my way. Those two books and all their gorgeous photography (plus a few good meals from all three books) helped me convince my husband to join me on my journey. That and the fact that I did most of the cooking anyway.... ;-) But this decision on his part was HUGE for me. This meant that I was free to comb through our pantry, freezer and cupboards and rid ourselves of all unhealthy foods! It also gave me a lot of comfort knowing that when he was snacking while working from home all day, at least he was snacking on healthy things.
We own a small (ok, tiny) farm where we produce our own raw goats milk, raw cheeses, pastured eggs, raw honey and organic produce, so we were well on our way before dropping grains from the diet. We also live in a place where buying local is kind of a way of life, so it was really easy to find good sources of grass-fed beef, pork and pastured chickens.
When I tried paleo years ago, there were no published cookbooks, no blogs and no crossift (a huge factor in the visibility of the paleo diet these days). The only 'recipes' I had back then were those at the back of the Paleo books and of course, they were without tempting photos! I also was well entrenched in the idea that fat was bad for me, so I tried to take my 'body building' diet of lean meats, veggies and whole grains and just drop the grains. Needless to say, I was starving. I was miserable. It was not sustainable...at all. This time, I wanted to do it differently so I embraced the whole thing...fat included. I ate fatty cuts of meat (it took some getting used to!) if they were from grass-fed cows, I used whole raw goats milk (upwards of 6% fat for the breed we raise), I ate whole eggs. I switched to olive oil and coconut oil. I literally taught myself to like both avocado and bacon - both foods that I could not stomach previously due to the fat content and texture issues. And once I did all these things, I found myself really, really satisfied on the diet. I was truly amazed.
No longer were my days plagued by thoughts of 'what do I get to eat next'? I stopped thinking about food all the time! My digestive track regulated like nobody's business. I never thought I had digestive issues at all, but once I saw what truly 'regular' meant, I realized that what I was experiencing before was no where near as healthy! My skin improved. I've been plagued with acne troubles since I was a pre-teen. Now it's gone. My energy stabilized. My memory improved. My sleep deepened. All things that I never expected to be affected by my diet. And NONE of these things were really problems before...just things I thought were part of my genetic makeup. Wow.
Then, once we'd gotten into a nice groove, I decided to make my first paleo 'treat'. I think I started with pancakes and then tried coco balls made with dates. All of a sudden, I had a source of dessert that wouldn't cause digestive distress! Unfortunately, that was a slippery slope. It kept me on the paleo bandwagon through the holidays (which was a huge plus), but it also brought my weight loss to a screeching halt. I wasn't gaining because I was still quite active (see my exercise story here), but I was no longer losing and I still had plenty of fat to lose.
On Saturday, March 3rd, I was tripped up by my dogs (we have three 70lb+ dogs) and I slipped in the mud and managed to destroy my lisfranc joint in my right foot (and fractured my 4th metatarsal). On March 15th, I had surgery to repair it and today, May 30th, I'm still in a boot. I'm pleased that at least I am now walking without crutches, but my activity is still extremely limited. I've remained paleo, but with all those treats still a big part of my diet, I've actually managed to gain some weight in the past 3 months.
I'm now out of shape, overweight, and feeling really blue about myself (physically). It's time to change.
We own a small (ok, tiny) farm where we produce our own raw goats milk, raw cheeses, pastured eggs, raw honey and organic produce, so we were well on our way before dropping grains from the diet. We also live in a place where buying local is kind of a way of life, so it was really easy to find good sources of grass-fed beef, pork and pastured chickens.
When I tried paleo years ago, there were no published cookbooks, no blogs and no crossift (a huge factor in the visibility of the paleo diet these days). The only 'recipes' I had back then were those at the back of the Paleo books and of course, they were without tempting photos! I also was well entrenched in the idea that fat was bad for me, so I tried to take my 'body building' diet of lean meats, veggies and whole grains and just drop the grains. Needless to say, I was starving. I was miserable. It was not sustainable...at all. This time, I wanted to do it differently so I embraced the whole thing...fat included. I ate fatty cuts of meat (it took some getting used to!) if they were from grass-fed cows, I used whole raw goats milk (upwards of 6% fat for the breed we raise), I ate whole eggs. I switched to olive oil and coconut oil. I literally taught myself to like both avocado and bacon - both foods that I could not stomach previously due to the fat content and texture issues. And once I did all these things, I found myself really, really satisfied on the diet. I was truly amazed.
No longer were my days plagued by thoughts of 'what do I get to eat next'? I stopped thinking about food all the time! My digestive track regulated like nobody's business. I never thought I had digestive issues at all, but once I saw what truly 'regular' meant, I realized that what I was experiencing before was no where near as healthy! My skin improved. I've been plagued with acne troubles since I was a pre-teen. Now it's gone. My energy stabilized. My memory improved. My sleep deepened. All things that I never expected to be affected by my diet. And NONE of these things were really problems before...just things I thought were part of my genetic makeup. Wow.
Then, once we'd gotten into a nice groove, I decided to make my first paleo 'treat'. I think I started with pancakes and then tried coco balls made with dates. All of a sudden, I had a source of dessert that wouldn't cause digestive distress! Unfortunately, that was a slippery slope. It kept me on the paleo bandwagon through the holidays (which was a huge plus), but it also brought my weight loss to a screeching halt. I wasn't gaining because I was still quite active (see my exercise story here), but I was no longer losing and I still had plenty of fat to lose.
On Saturday, March 3rd, I was tripped up by my dogs (we have three 70lb+ dogs) and I slipped in the mud and managed to destroy my lisfranc joint in my right foot (and fractured my 4th metatarsal). On March 15th, I had surgery to repair it and today, May 30th, I'm still in a boot. I'm pleased that at least I am now walking without crutches, but my activity is still extremely limited. I've remained paleo, but with all those treats still a big part of my diet, I've actually managed to gain some weight in the past 3 months.
I'm now out of shape, overweight, and feeling really blue about myself (physically). It's time to change.
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