The Paleo Solution

So yesterday I went for a massage and then had a lovely afternoon at Starbucks/Chapters with my friend Tammy. I was excited because I had a tasty green tea latte with protein (oops, I cheated I’m supposed to be weening myself off dairy, but damn I needed a protein bevy and I didn’t want an iced black coffee!) and we had lots of girl talk.

Tammy and I are like soul sisters because we share a lot of the same neurosis, some of the same stresses and anxieties that only the both of us seem to understand.  To everyone else we are freakin crazy, to each other our issues are completely normal.

One thing I’ve had to accept overtime is I’m naturally a high strung person.  I have high expectations of myself and others and have just an over enthusiasm for life which causes me to take on too much extracurriculars, thus causing me to run around like a chicken with my head cut off.  It’s a vicious cycle I have battled with my whole life.  I do too much then try to bring myself back to reality with a less stressful lifestyle (then I get bored) and do it over and over again.  I’d like to think that over time I’ve become better at knowing my limitations, but I still have exceptionally high expectations of  myself and I need to learn to just relax and realize that my best is good enough, it’s ok to make mistakes and yes it’s also ok to say “NO” because I don’t have to do everything I want to do, I’m only one person and there are only so many hours in the day.

But lets bring this ramble back in, the reason why I’m spilling my guts out about my spazzy nature is that I have realized through various reasons that there is a connection between belly fat aka “the muffin top” and stress.  I know already that loosing this belly fat is going to me my competition challenge, because I know the hardest part of this competition is not going to be following the diet or putting that time in the gym, but rather learning to manage my stress and to not let myself get overwhelmed or stressed about things that are out of my control. When diet and exercise don’t make this muffin top disappear it’s going to be up to be learning to have less stress in order for me to be successful.

So here it goes, the first steps that I’m going to take in this mission to become a more balanced person:

1) I’m going to introduce some yoga into my fitness routine, not only will this help me aid in recovery, but it will increase my flexibility. I’ve had some issues with straining my shoulders and back and I have always had notoriously tight hammies, so it’s time to do some proactive recovery.

2) I’m going to start drinking less coffee (not give it up, but drink less, because I really do drink too much) Apparently coffee raises cortisol levels and lets get real, I don’t need any assistance in that department.

3) Start working my way towards a Paleo Diet.  I’ve been working my way slowly to this type of eating anyway.  At least that is the direction my trainer is taking me in.  The Paleo diet has claimed to help people with depression and anxiety and the recipes fit within my contest prep parameters so why not.

These are the first few little steps that I hope will take me a long way and as a result of all the aforementioned thoughts I’ve been having my Chapters trip resulted in me purchasing two yoga DVD’s and The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf.   The Paleo Solution is an amazing book, I’ve been gobbling it up with great enthusiasm,  I read 70 pages immediately last night and I could have made myself stay awake longer I would have read more.

Yesterday’s Eating:
M1: 1 scoop of protein powder
M2: 1/2 c. oats, 2 tbsp of coconut, 3 pineapple rings and 4 eggs (2 yolk)
M3: 4 strips of bacon and 2 eggs (whole)
M4: 1 green tea latte with protein
M5: 1 cup of ground chicken with 1 cup of green peas
M6: 4 eggs with 1 avocado and salsa
M7: 1 pickle