Things have been pretty quiet here lately on the blog – not that things haven’t been going a mile a minute in our lives! After the fantastic birthday week of giveaways, celebrations, and Easter (HE IS RISEN!), the girls got hammered with the flu :0( The boys were fine, though they’d had some chest congestion and coughing for a few weeks before. Today we thought we were out of the woods, however The Boy woke up with a fever and headache. Here we go again! I’m buried under laundry and party planning (my sister’s getting married, woo hoo!), homeschool scheduling, teaching, and researching.
For a while now I’ve been wanting to start running. A few years ago you couldn’t pay me to run, and I had zero desire to. While I was at Capernwray New Zealand, in the adventure program, we HAD to run. I chugged, huffed, puffed and cramped my way along, liking the adrenaline rush at the end, but hating the general process. Over the past year I’ve been reading Erin’s blog where she’s talked a lot about getting into running. I’ve watched a lot of my friends take it up, and end up loving it. Their testimonies are so inspiring I’ve decided to tackle it! I even got my brother to get my Vibram 5 Fingers for my Christmas present, because I’m convinced barefoot running is the way to go to avoid the strain that running can put on your body. I’ve done my reading (Run Like a Mother is PHENOMENAL, very funny, practical and inspiring!), read up on how to stride, land, breathe, etc, bought some comfortable running gear, and downloaded the tracking apps to my phone. I’m planning on using Couch to 5K and Another Mother Runner’s 5K Finish It plan. After one more week of consistent walking, I think I’ll be ready to go! I’ll try to chronicle my experiences here on the blog, let you know what I learn and how I progress. If any of you have tips or encouragement for beginning runners, I’m all ears!
The other project I’ve been working on is looking into Whole 30, Paleo, clean eating, the whole shebang. I’ve been toying with the idea of Whole 30 for a while, but after a lot of research, I don’t think it’s a good fit for us. A, I’m still Miss E’s source of food, and I’ve read that milk supply can decrease a lot while on Whole 30 (though there are things you can do to combat it). B, neither my hubby nor I have any major health issues or concerns, reasons for doing an extreme elimination diet – other than needing to cut back on unhealthy grains and exposure to sugars. So, after a ton of research and going back and forth, today we are starting something of a Paleo/Primal, whole/clean -ish eating plan.
Our goals? Cutting back on sugar is one – SUGAR IS EVERYWHERE! YIKE! Even where you wouldn’t expect it to be. Like in bacon. No joke. I’d also like to limit and change our wheat/gluten products. I am convinced that if we followed all the rules of every idea of healthy eating out there, we’d not be able to eat anything. For Paleo, grains are totally out – and there are some good reasons to avoid them if you have issues with your stomach. But I really do not like the idea of cutting them out totally, at least not forever, but rather modifying what we’re eating and how we’re preparing them. There’s so much to learn about our food and diets, health, etc. It’s totally overwhelming! Ill be sharing some of what I’m learning along the way, hopefully sharing some recipes and meal plans.
I signed up with e-meals a few weeks ago when they had a Groupon deal going, and they have Paleo meal plans! They also have clean eating, gluten free, etc. and you can change up the plans every term. Without these plans I don’t think I could do it, they save me so much time and energy, though I’m still doing a lot of research for breakfast and snack ideas so we don’t end up cheating!
I don’t know that this will be a long term diet for us, but hopefully a healthy change in lifestyle and reading more labels, making better food choices for the whole family.
I’ll keep you posted along the way and I’d love to hear from you your favourite healthy recipes and how you maintain a healthy lifestyle.
