Whole30: Day 20 - A Very Average Time

Wake Up: 8:30am Whew, I slept quite a bit last night, 9.5 hours.

Breakfast: 10:10am

I really took my time getting out of bed this morning. I laid there for like 90 minutes. Just didn't want to get up really. But finally my tummy started growling and I got up to attend to it. Sweet Potato/Onion/Kale veggies with 2 eggs and avocado on top. Just makes me happy every darn time. My favorite breakfast!

Lunch: 1:45pm

I sautéed up 2 Chicken Apple Sausages with a huge zucchini, a ton of kale, and some tomatoes. I just used salt and pepper and some Coconut Aminos on it. I need to do stir-fry like this more often, it's so quick and tasty.

Dinner: 6:00pm

I started on the spaghetti sauce at about 3:30pm. It needed two hours to cook. I went with the Old School Italian Meat Sauce from Well Fed 2 on page 94. It's got meatballs in it and pork sausage and pork in it as well. I basically got it to the "needs to simmer" part and then took Annie to her reading tutor. Troy actually followed the rest of the recipe without me there making the meatballs, and roasting a spaghetti squash. I was stoked for him. I think it's the fist time in 20 days he's cooked. Thank you Troy! This sauce is amazing. It's really flavorful and good, and would it absolutely rock over some of my homemade egg noodles...yes, yes it would. Did it rock over spaghetti squash...yes, it did, just a little less of a rock, but more rewarding in a way too.

Homework: Body Image

Todays email talked a bit about advertising, and how products, and women are portrayed from a visual standpoint. This is such a hot button. I have to admit, when I see the images on Facebook or what not that say "go big or go home" overlaid on some super lean, yet totally muscular chick, I get inspired and fired up. I get that I'm not supposed to compare myself. I'm not suppose to get down on myself for not looking all perfect and airbrushed. It's a conundrum and most the time, my reaction to stuff like that depends on where I am in my life. I totally get that marketing has gotten to a whole new level (lies...lots of lies), heck, that's why we don't own a TV, but I'm also a big fan of personal responsibility.

Yes, I get that marketing is trying to make us feel like shit so that we buy products and spend money on trying to feel better. I just think that we kinda know that too. I think that if you are constantly blaming the system, then you are putting the responsibility for correcting it elsewhere. I like to take responsibility for what I choose to look at and what I choose to buy, that way, if I don't like it, I have the power to change it. I can sell my TV, I can delete my Facebook account or just not buy the stuff it's selling. I like to think I'm in control of these things. I don't like to give away my power.

Okay, enough of that rant. Body Image! Here's what I think. Even in the most secure relationship, when your job and home life, and athletic life, and friend life, and mom life, and eating life are all going fantastic, we women still like to judge our bodies. No matter how thin or muscular, how tall or short, we all have those areas that we just aren't going to like. To this I say: We have never arrived. Until we are in the grave, we are each a work in progress. Physically, spiritually, emotionally, the more we become, the more work we have to do. Accept the fact that you will never arrive, and work on making the journey a true adventure.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”

-Hunter S. Thompson