Whole30: Day 7 - Stressball of Fire
Wake Up: 6:45am I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night. I tossed and turned and just had a lot on my mind. There was a lot to do today including packing my bike up and packing my bags for Ironman. I woke up at 6:45 from the munchkin coming in to say hi. She is definitely becoming my alarm clock, and she is definitely sleeping in her own bed now. Thank goodness!
Breakfast: 7:35am
The last two eggs (gasp) with spinach and sun dried tomatoes. Sun dried tomatoes are my new best friend. I love them, so much flavor. On the side I had 1/2 a cucumber and some slices of mango. The morning sun was peeking in my window and it made my food look pretty.
Lunch: 10:35am
We had just come back from Annies parent teacher conference and this caused a lot of anxiety for me. I was really stressed from this and my tummy was in knots and not feeling well. I felt like I was hungry even though I knew that my breakfast should be holding me until lunch. I warmed up some sweet potato soup and put some avocado cream on it. Then I dropped the bowl of avocado cream on the floor and it shattered. What a day.
Snack: 3:50pm
At noon we had a two hour meeting with Childrens Hospital about some learning difficulties our daughter is having. I had a lot of anxiety going into this meeting since we hadn't been treated very well by them in a past meeting where they tested our daughter. My mama bear was in full effect and this meeting was causing me a lot of angst. Getting out of the meeting I was a mess. I could feel the stress coursing through my body. More on that later. But in a nutshell, when I got home, I just had to take a timeout from life for a little bit. I curled up on the couch with a little bowl of my trail mix and snacked while watching some Americas Next Top Model. Mac nuts, pineapple, mango, coconut flakes. Everything unsweetened.
Dinner 5:00pm
I had offered to have my best friends kids over while she went to work this evening so I knew that I didn't have time or resources to make a perfect healthy dinner for everyone. I knew if I suggested pizza that everyone would get excited. But I knew I couldn't eat pizza. So I sautéed up some chicken and roasted some veggies. I ate this:
and they ate this:
Run: 7:00pm
I went to gym to get in my last tempo run and Troy watched the gaggle of girls at the house. He's so great. My run went horrible but I forced it. I probably shouldn't have, but I made myself do every last interval as my stomach felt worse and worse and worse. Afterwards I just stood in the shower bent over for 20 minutes feeling like I could lose my lunch at any moment. Even now writing this an hour later, I'm still feeling ill. I've also had a headache....grade 5-6 since 8am this morning.
Stress Response:
I learned a ton today, and I learned something that I don't think I would have learned had it not been for the Whole30, so I'll explain. Today was really stressful. Anytime you are talking to teachers and medical professionals about your daughter, about her learning, about her being behind, it's stressful. We have been doing so much to help her and have been trying to get answers, but it's a very hard process. Today was one of the harder days of that process. At the end of our meetings Troy and I were driving out, and I looked at him and said "I just want a large plate of nachos, and a pint of ice cream" We both laughed, he said he wanted a slurpee and a 6 pack of beer. Both of our first reaction was to go out to eat and drench our feelings in good "tasting" food. But of course we didn't, we drove home and I cried.
Earlier in the day when I was feeling the stress after the parent teacher conference I came home and I had all the symptoms of being hungry. I was "feeling" hungry. But I was not hungry. And I knew that because this breakfast had held me over day after day after day when I wasn't stressed. So my ahh-hah today was that my stress response presents just like my hunger response. At least for now it does. I had all the feelings that I have when my blood sugar is low....but I knew my blood sugar wasn't low, I knew it was stress this time.
So that's something I'm really going to have to add to the questions I ask myself..."Are you hungry or are you feeling stress and anxiety about something"
Because they feel exactly the same to me.
That's an AH-HAH!
On a brighter note, my mood today was so much better than it would have been two weeks ago. I handled the stress so much better in that I didn't take it out on others (my husband) and I remained a good mommy which is so important to me. I'm really proud of being able to hold my shit together and I am stoked that when I turned to food I kept it healthy, I put boundaries on it, and I kept in control. I allowed it with restraint, which is probably a first. Oh and I successfully negotiated my first pizza encounter. That was pretty fantastic.
Lastly, super happy that my goodies arrived today. I ordered these to help during my AZ trip (I leave tomorrow morning) and I thought they might not get here in time, hens the snack run lat night. When they arrived today I was super happy. I'm excited to try them, just have to make sure I keep up my liquid intake so there are no repercussions during Ironman from this much dehydrated food.
