Oh, hi there.

My mom just asked for the link to my blog and I realized I haven't touched it in 7 months. Ooops.

We decided to not do GAPS. GAPS is a little intense for our needs, and we aren't having some of the really intense issues that GAPS seems to address. That being said, I discovered Paleo. Which is basically GAPS minus the high doses of probiotics and intro stages. We focus on grassfed meat, lots of vegetables, healthy fats (olive oil, coconut oil, grassfed butter/ghee, leftover bacon fat from my farmer's bacon), and no grains, legumes, sugar, seed oils, or dairy (you can do some limited in the case of raw).

In early August I signed up with the local Gold's Gym. When I went in I discovered they had built out this new training center that included CROSSFIT. Now, I've read about Crossfit. It's inspiring. I have a friend who did it for a while. I thought it might be something to strive for, but I went up there to investigate and met Anya. She urged me to sign up and I discovered that it's not just for the athletic elite. Crossfit is for every body and I've been doing it at least once a week since then (coming up on 5 months next week). Today I noticed that I was getting my chin above the bar on pullups with less effort than even last week, I was pushing through my pushups and air squats way more than 5 months ago (I can get through about 35 air squats in one round if I want), and I can do full motion situps now whereas before I had to just reach for my calves and was lucky if I could get touch the backs of them. I can run about 250 meters without stopping, and am able to alternate between about 200m running and 100m walking. Today's workout was called Cindy, and it was as many rounds as possible of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 air squats. I did 12 rounds.

Getting on board with Paleo has been tricky. I have two very picky eaters in my house, and when you take away the filler foods of grains they're left with very little option as they're not crazy about vegetables. That being said, I told my husband that what I wanted from him for Christmas was a 30 day commit to eating Paleo (80/20, I think a Whole30 is out of the question for right now). We're going to start on January 8th after our first paycheck of the month (oh how I miss paychecks that hit on the 1st and 15th). I'm still gearing up and making what paleo meals I can. Today I made Paleo Apple Muffins from Everyday Paleo for breakfasts for the pickies while I eat scrambled eggs and spinach and sausage. Dinner was Whole9's stuffed squash. Paul made chili yesterday, so we at least have gluten free meals.

Together we picked out 4 chicken breast, 4 chicken leg/thigh, 4 ground beef and 4 fish recipes for each week, some of which we'll double up on in order to have for lunches/leftovers. I also snagged a recipe from thefoodee.com for a roasted vegetable salad that I can serve alongside everything else we're making. Tomorrow will be my first day sans coffee.

I can't guarantee I'll keep up to date on this blog but I'll see what I can do. I need to take a before picture (which won't go up here haha) and take measurements tonight (though maybe I should do it tomorrow since I just ate ;)).