Whole 30 Failure!

You may have noticed that I have not been updating on my Whole 30 journey so here is my final update covering the last 2 weeks.
Week 3 was rough for me. My mom came for a short visit and I left the house. It’s easy to stick with Whole 30 when I am confined to my house, but going to the movie theater was rough. I was good and sat there with my bottle of water while everyone around me ate their popcorn. Then we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Again I held strong. No fresh baked bread for me. I ordered the sirloin steak, naked, Caesar salad (no croutons, but I did cheat a bit with the cheese and I’m sure the dressing was illegal too) and a baked sweet potato. Aside from my meal out I made it through week 3 okay, and lost another 1.5 pounds, which brought me up to 6.5 pounds in 3 weeks.
Then came week 4. Week 4 was rough start to finish. I tend to either be off or on and with 3 days left in my whole 30 journey I did not simply just fall off the wagon I jumped off that bad boy doing a canon ball into a pit of binge eating and guilty feelings.
It started with yet another disappointing run at the park. After letting the kids play at the splash pad for a bit we decided to pick up lunch at Sonic. There is nothing whole 30 compliant there so I decided to get the spicy popcorn chicken . . . and a shake. Total fail. I can’t do cheats. I just can’t. There is something inside of me that just clicks and once I cheat it’s like it makes it okay to cheat and I just keep doing it so it didn’t stop there. We had pizza for dinner and I just felt gross. It totally wasn’t worth it, but instead of getting back on track I spent the last 3 days eating all the things I worked so hard to resist. Each night I felt gross and horrible, but I still did it day after day.
Today would be my last day of Whole 30 and so I am trying to use that as a new starting point for me. I want to stay mostly paleo, but I also realize that I need to keep it realistic so I am working on a clean eating, paleo style, plan right now. I want to stay mostly grain and dairy free, but not make it a complete no no. I really just need to find something that works for me, but that I can stick with in the long run also. 
So there you have it. I am a Whole 30 failure.

Tinker Bell 10K?? Really?. . . Really?

Rumors of a potential 10k being added to the Tinker Bell Half Marathon weekend lineup are not anything new, but yesterday the very observant eye of a fellow blogger found what appears to be Active.com offering a commemorative pin for the Tinker Bell 10k that does not officially exist. Don’t believe me? You can see for yourself right here. Now what does this mean?? Well one thing is certain Active screwed up once again, but aside from the obvious, it means one of two things. Either there will be a 10k added and Active spilt the beans or they simpley mistakenly added the 10k pin option when there will in fact NOT be a 10k added. Personally I am hoping it is the later.
Now here me out on this. I am not against the 10k option, in fact I would love to run it since I will not be doing the GSC, BUT I think it would be a very bad move on the part of runDisney to add a 10k this late in the game. Personally, I feel they might as well change the name from Tinker Bell Half Marathon, to the Cinderella Half Marathon since she is obviously the under appreciated step sister in the runDisney family.

Not only did runDisney announce the Glass Slipper Challenge months before registration even opened, they also moved PHM registration in front of Tinker Bell registration even though the races are ran in the opposite order. Now if they add a 10k to the Tinker Bell lineup under a month before registration opens it sure makes it feel like an after thought, doesn’t it? Let’s not forget about those who signed up for Tinker Bell along with PHM, what happens to them if a 10k is added? I assume it would have to be a challenge since all the others are challenges, so would they get first dibs on the Pixie Challenge spots leaving even less spots for the poor saps like me who are not running PHM and trying to get in with the general registration crowd??
I guess the only way we will know anything for certain is to wait and see what happens in the next month.
What are your thoughts on a Tinker Bell 10k challenge being added this year? Yay? or Nay? 

Here Ye! Here Ye! Princess Half Marathon

For us common folk Disney’s Princess Half Marathon opens for registration tomorrow at noon ET, 9 am for those like me on the west coast. I am coming to terms with the fact that I will most likely not be doing PHM this year. It just makes more since for me to do Tinker Bell and Wine & Dine and space the Disney trips out a bit more. I was hoping that I might be able to pull off adding Princess back into the mix, but I don’t think it is going to happen unless I get a job real soon.
If you are planning to take on the Glass Slipper Challenge be prepared to register as soon as it opens because the early registration spots did sell out so it will go fast. Even though I will not be running it this year I do plan to keep my eye on the runDisney registration page to see just how fast it does sell out.
Good luck to all of you registering tomorrow and please come back and share what you signed up for!

Week 2 of Whole 30

I am still hanging in there, and down another 1.5 pounds! That bring me to a total of 5 pounds in 2 weeks! That is exciting to me, but now I am back to my *normal* weight so I am sure it will get quite a bit harder from here on out.
The number one thing I learned this week is planning is key. Last week I had a day by day menu plan I just had to follow it. This week I had to wing it and it was a struggle. I found myself falling back to old habits and not being prepared for dinner when the time came around, but I was able to stay on plan and pull it off.
This week I also found myself wanting foods I can’t have a lot more then last week. I won’t say that I craved them, because it wasn’t my body that wanted them, it was my mind. Thankfully I was determined enough to get through it, but it was more of a struggle then last week, and I am so glad that I am at the half way point and then I can ease up a bit.

Since I didn’t follow a menu plan this week I am going to have to do a recap based on memory. Again breakfast was some kind of combination of fruit, eggs and bacon. One of my favorites was pineapple, strawberries, and organic coconut flakes. I would love to eat it every day. Lunches were a combination of leftovers, which is so convenient. These were my dinners, as far as I can remember.
Monday: Coconut curry chicken that I adapted from one of my weight watchers cookbooks, I just omitted the brown sugar. w/ asparagus
Tuesday: Walnut crusted chicken tenders that was adapted from a family favorite recipe in Light & Delish magazine from 2010. I just added more walnuts and omitted the panko, with roasted carrots.
Wednesday: Baked chicken tenders sprinkled with poultry seasoning & roasted asparagus
Thursday: Shrimp scampi & prosciutto wrapped asparagus
Friday: Taco salad w/ guacamole
Saturday: I had leftovers while the rest of the family had fried chicken. That was a little rough.
I’m liking the results so far, but it is getting harder and harder to stick with the program. Especially with a husband who is not supportive and brings things I can’t eat into the house, but I will get through it.
How do you deal with people who are not supportive of your efforts? Do you take it personally, do you feel they are trying to sabotage you?

#PoweredByBits? What Does it Mean?

Recently I saw the hashtag #PoweredByBits popping up all over my Twitter feed, but what the heck did it mean? I soon found out it was the hashtag used by @energybits to promote their new line of bits.

That’s great Summer, but what ARE bits you ask? Well, your in luck because I am going to tell you. Simply put they are algae. Yes, like that green stuff that grows in your fish tank if you don’t clean it, but don’t worry this algae was not grown in a fish tank. I promise.

But Summer, why would I want to eat algae?

Good question. If you were to do a quick internet search for spirulina, the algae used in energybits, you would quickly find that it is a super food packed with all kinds of good for you stuff like protein, vitamins, minerals, Omega 3, and antioxidants. It has also been used as a food source in many Asian countries for quite some time now. If you would like to know more of the science-y stuff (that’s the technical term) you can check out the Energybits website to find out everything you could possibly want to know and then some. 

Still not enough to convince you? How about you go and grab one of your favorite Gu, Gel, or whatever it is you use to fuel your runs. What are the ingredients in them? I’ll make it easy for you, I happen to have 2 different brands in my pantry right now. Both have caffeine added to them. Brand A has: organic maltodextrin,organic cane syrup, water, organic cocoa, coffee extract, sea salt, green tea extract and potassium citrate. While Brand B has: maltodextrin, fructose, water, sodium chloride, sodium citrate, potassium chloride, citric acid, green tea extract and caffeine from tea, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate. On the other hand these are the ingredients in Energybits.

 

Which would you rather put in your body?

I was quite intrigued by these little bits of food so you can imagine how excited I was to be given a sample to review. I will say I was quite skeptical, as I usually am, since they make some pretty big claims. Once my bits arrived in the mail I couldn’t wait to try them out. I really wanted to test them out on a run, but since I am on a self imposed running hiatus that didn’t happen. Instead I used them to get me through a pretty standard day as a Stay at Home Mom to 4.

It was the night before Disneyland Half Marathon volunteer registration opened and I had seen conflicting reports of when it would open up. One said 11pm PT and another said 6am PT. Those who know me know I am a night owl so the 11 pm would be no problem, but that 6am would be killer. Of course 11pm rolled around and registration was not open so I went to bed about midnight, which is pretty typical for me. Come 4:30 in the morning The Boy finds his way into my bed. I toss and turn, unable to go back to sleep and then 6am rolls around. Well since I was awake anyway I figured I might as well see if I can sign up, and I could! Good news I was able to sign up for the exact shifts I wanted to work, the bad news? I now had to face the day and my kids with 4:30 hours of sleep. Normally I would just lay around like a slug and complain about how tired I was, but not this time. Bits to the rescue!! I popped my bits mid morning and not only did I get through the day with energy to spare, I also completed my workout for that day that I would have otherwise skipped. That was enough to turn my skepticism right around and become a bits believer!
 
The only downside I found was the price. With me home teaching the kids our family of 6 is living on Officer P’s “officer” salary. I have to plan ahead and save up for any and every race I want to run so increasing our grocery budget by $100+ a  month is just not doable for us at this time.

While Energybits is their name those are not the only bits they offer. They also have skinnybits to eliminate hunger and fatigue, recoverybits to prevent colds and vitalitybits to promote longevity, so really they have a bit for everyone.

Great story Summer, but how I can I try these bits for myself?

I’m glad you asked! Since my sample came with more than one serving of bits I have decided to pass the love along and do a giveaway that will allow one of my readers the opportunity to try Energybits for their self.

If you don’t want to wait for the giveaway, or are like me and never win them anyway you can use the code “ BLOG “ to get 10% off your order on the Energybits website. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My First Week of Whole 30

I will say my expectations going into Whole 30 were pretty low, but I was hopeful. In the past I have only had mediocre results with any program I have tried, so you can imagine my surprise when this first week on Whole 30 I lost 3.6 pounds! That never happens, like ever. I meant to take before pics, but unfortunately it just didn’t happen. I will say, though, I must have had some major bloating or something because my stomach already looks much flatter and firmer. Of course I am also still doing Julie’s 30 day squat, crunch and plank challenger, which I am sure helped as well.  

So far sticking with the program has been really easy. Sure I will see a pizza commercial and declare that I would really like a slice, but I know that that would not sit well and will only make me feel sick so it is just not worth it.  As of right now I do plan to stick with a paleo lifestyle after my Whole 30 has ended, but I will “paleofy” some things, like ice cream. I just can’t go all summer without ice cream, it’s unAmerican.

 

Overall I feel lighter, as in less sluggish and tired. I am sure that was the sugar, which has been easier than expected to give up. I also feel better all around. I feel more awake and much more alert, which I honestly did not expect. I read all the claims before starting the program, but did not expect to actually experience them for myself. 

I had a few people express an interest in what I would be eating this week so here is my recap. For breakfast I alternated between bacon and egg cup muffins and the banana pancake both with a side of fruit. Lunch I generally ate a fruit or vegetable with left over meat from a previous dinner. Most of my dinners came from pinterest, I linked to the site that I got the recipe from, which may or may not be the original source. 

Monday: Taco Salad I just winged this meal. I browned ground beef with this taco seasoning, added it to baby spinach and topped it with guacamole.

Tuesday: Roasted Whole Chicken with roasted sugar snap peas and baby carrots. Again I didn’t have a recipe for this one. Just used some spices from the pantry and some ghee.

Wednesday: was suppose to be pecan crusted chicken tenders, but I forgot to get pecans so I made them almond crusted instead. With this I cubed up some sweet potatoes, tossed them with coconut oil and sprinkled them with apple pie spice. They were a hit with the kids. 

Thursday: Sundried tomato meatballs this was not my favorite pesto recipe, but it was alright. I served these over spaghetti squash.

Friday: Bacon wrapped tender (I made it without the glaze) and roasted carrots. This meal was a huge success.

Saturday: Turkey burgers (no bun of course) and sweet potato chips. My chips tasted good, but did not turn out like chips. I could not get them cooked right, either they were still soft, or they burnt. I’ll have to work on that.

Sunday: Grilled steak and roasted carrots. The steak was marinated in olive oil and seasoned with some adobo powder and I had the hubby grill it on the BBQ. It turned out great!

They say to try and not snack but there were a few times when I was really hungry so I would grab a fruit or a handful of nuts. I need to work on turning to veggies more since honestly I don’t really care for most of them. So that is something I am going to focus on next week. 

I really found my menu plan to be so helpful. It was nice to just look at it and know what I was making that night. Not having to deicide what I was going to make made it so much easier. Plus I kept the meals really simple since a big complaint I often saw was that it was very time consuming. I am sure I will venture to more complicated meals as time goes on, but so far I am pretty happy with what I am doing. 

What are some of your favorite paleo friendly recipes? or recipes I could try and paleofy? I especially need ideas for breakfast as I see it getting old pretty quickly.

Why I am Losing the runDisney Love

Let me start by saying I LOVE Disney. I grew up on Disney, so when I first started running and discovered the Princess Half Marathon I was ecstatic. Nothing could keep me running like the promise of a trip to Disney as the reward.

The 2011 Princess Half Marathon was my first race ever. I loved it. I felt it was so magical that I was the only one of my friends who said that same day that I was definitely doing it again the next year. Three years later 3 out of the 4 of us were still running it. I also added Tink in the last 2 years and have planned several more runDisney races in the years to come. You can safely say I was bitten by the runDisney bug.

As the popularity of these races have grown they are selling out faster and faster, can anyone say Dumbo Double Dare? Which I am sure led to the Dopey Challenge selling out almost as quickly. Then runDisney adds in more challenges like a pink Coast to Coast medal, the Glass Slipper Challenge and the rumored, and semi confirmed, Tinker Bell weekend 10k and the internet is in a frenzy.

Now people are trying to find ways to cheat the system, and succeeding! Where I once was blissfully ignorant to the dirty and deceptive side of race registration, I am now seeing it flaunted all over the internet. Yes, that is right there are people out there that have found a “backdoor” link and are reporting that they have already signed up for the highly anticipated Glass Slipper Challenge using said link. Which has now lead to others searching out and finding the same link and registering as well, because they don’t want to miss out either. That link is reportedly also allowing people to sign up for Tink at the same time as Princess, thus causing more of a frenzy that Tinker Bell will sell out before ever opening to the general public.

Personally I don’t see runDisney allowing that to happen, but with the perception being there it is likely to feed the frenzy even more, thus causing a panic and a rush to register for Tink as well. I am not saying that this is runDisney’s fault, per se, but none the less it is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many loyal runDisney fans, myself included.