Primal Journal: Punkgrokgirl Vs. Her Own Fat Butt, Round 1, FIGHT! page 3

[punkgrokgirl]

Ah, well, anyway, bike riding, painting, and NO DRINKING this weekend, that's my plan.

EPIC FAIL.


The bike ride was good, I got a little lost and didn't bring a water bottle, but I ended up in a park, laying on a picnic table and basking in the sun like a happy lizard, which was lovely. The boyfriend then came and rescued me. I could have eventually made my way home, but we had plans and I didn't want to make us late.

His cousin cooked dinner for us and his siblings on Friday and made a lovely vegetable lasagna (his sister is a vegetarian) that neither of us could eat, he's lactose intolerant, and made delicious jerked chicken for us. We're a very difficult crowd to cook for! I had been worried about getting glutened from dinner, but she made sure everything was safe.

AND THEN I GLUTENED MYSELF.

Almost intentionally. WTF self?? Actually, I glutened myself before dinner, and after several glasses of wine. Yeah, no drinkin, huh? Damnit, social lubricant, why you gotta be so delicious and useful?

There was a cheese plate. I shouldn't be eating dairy anyway, as illustrated by the new zit on my chin, and every new zit I get when, and only when, I consume milk or cheese (buttah is still my friend, at least). The cheese plate had some mighty fine brie and jarlsberg on it. There was also a loaf of bread stuffed with kalamata olives. I didn't even blink an eye at the bread ("grumble grumble waste of some perfectly good olives there"), but helped myself to cheesy goodness. That was fine. It was after people started using the cheese knife to spread brie on their bread that I got stupid. I thought to myself, oh, well, I could ask our hostess for a separate knife, but I don't want to be any more of a pain in the ass, or I could stop eating cheese, but what will keep all the wine in my belly company? So I wiped off the knife on the side of the cutting board and continued using it to eat the forbidden cheese.

Now, I know that it's common for celiacs to react to such small amounts of gluten that kitchen cross contamination is a nightmare, and I KNOW that I've reacted to food that's been placed on the same surface as bready things. But, you start convince yourself that maybe, maybe it's kinda in your head, and how could something so small do so much damage.. And it's only a couple of crumbs...

WTF. It's like I was trolling myself. I am my own worst enemy!

So I woke up on Saturday crying with pain, the fibromyalgia crippling me all morning. I finally took a vicodin and went back to sleep til the afternoon, pulled it together because I had a lady date (with my ladies) and headed into the city. By the time I got downtown the drugs were wearing off and I was dreading the rest of the day. Luckily, the lady date took place in NYC's amazing Turkish & Russian Baths, and steaming, saunaing, and jumping into an ice cold pool in between, halted the pain and made me feel incredible. Plus we all got the Platza, where they scrub you, massage you, stretch you and beat you with oak leaves. A little flogging in a 200 degree room goes a long way. Plus, my skin felt amazing after all this, soft as ducky down. I got through the rest of the weekend without resorting to any more pain pills.

On Sunday we had a birthday dinner with a dear friend of mine. Ridiculously good Austrian food, which I'd never had before, but dang, emmental stuffed sausage? Beet and goat cheese and caraway salad? Followed by schnapps! Mmmm. Awesome! And even better, my friend was telling us how he just did the Whole30 and then went on to keep a fully Paleo diet, he's lost 30 pounds in three months, and feels amazing. I'm so happy for him.

On Monday morning my boyfriend told me he thought he needed to do the Whole30, he was ready. He'd previously tried and quit the Primal Challenge when I'd asked him to do it, but I guess when you're ready, you're just ready. I think what convinced him this time was that my friend described it something like, "I have so much energy all the time, and my testosterone is through the roof! I could destroy a village with my bare hands!" I thinking raging like a happy viking is what really sold it to the BF, heh.

Now we're on day 3 of our Whole30, of course I'm joining in, no more crap, no more dairy, no more booze, no more sneaky "cheat" foods. It feels good. There will be 0 chance of me glutening myself like a dumbass. We've also been hitting the gym with semi regularity, but that's gathering steam too. I feel absolutely destroyed, in the good way, by squats and bench presses yesterday, even though we only have access to a Smith machine (boo!) for barbells.

Next step? Convince the boyfriend to leave the gym we're at for the meathead gym down the road, with proper barbells! We checked it out, and it's 45 per month versus the 15 we're paying now, and smells like the mankiest of old locker rooms, but I think it'd be worth it to have access to a better variety of free weights and I ain't afraid to pester the muscley, sweaty dudes over there to check my form and such. Ah well, we'll see.

[punkgrokgirl]

And since I ran my mouth in the Beautiful Body thread, it's time to post these. The boyfriend helped me take the WORST pictures, my "just about before" pictures, because I have lost some weight being primal and definitely gained some muscle in the last couple of months. I put on my sparkly derby girl shorts, in which you can see my ass from space, and embraced the muffin top, which makes my waist look way bigger than it measures, and hell, after this, any "after" pictures will look great! I blurred out my tattoos because I ain't blurring out the cellulite, and the internets is a very small place after all. Once I'm all slimmed down and buffed up, I'll post whole pics, tattoos and face and all, but meanwhile, I'm gonna be a pussy about it.


And just cause the boy was goading me into some SheHulk posing:


Man, if I could just get rid of some of this fat, I'd have killer abs, I just know it! That stupid Mirena screwed me so hard, I really did used to have very little stomach fat, even at 20 pounds heavier. Grrr.

Ah, yeah, here's me at 175, 4 years ago, lookin' like a TART, but still, just getting back there (minus the tartiness, and obvious lack of sunlight, I worked at a bar and slept til 4 every day) would be a great victory.

D'oh! Looks like I messed something up back there, no one but me could see those pictures! Well, here they are, in all their glory, ahem. For those that needed a real good eyeball searing in their lives.

Anyway, day 4 of the Whole30 was mighty fine. I'm back to work, and I realized how much I missed it. Just bullshitting with the guys at the studio, hanging out, doing something other than staring at the internet while I procrastinate going outside because it's cold out and I'm being a brat... Yeah.

My stomach is feeling a lot better but my muscles are still brutally sore, the glutening either makes DOMS worse or lowers my pain tolerance (wait, I know it does this) or both. Still, kicked my own ass in the gym tonight and felt damn good about it.

Next week, I'm bringing IF back into the picture, probably close to Lean Gains style, with the 16 hour daily fast. It's just so easy for me and really felt like it helped shift the fat. The fat hasn't really gone anywhere at all in a couple of weeks. The scale has gone up this week, but the tape measure hasn't, so I'm not worried. I'll just keep on keeping on and check in next week.

I'm really hoping I get my period in a couple of days, it'll really feel like a victory to keep up having a regular cycle. Still, for the majority of my life I never once thought I'd be hoping to get the Red Menace. Hah. We change...

Ugh, so tired, and working a 12 hour day tomorrow. That, that I didn't miss so much. I'm hoping I don't have any weird, Whole30 Fail dreams tonight, like I've been having the past 3 nights. I much prefer the ones in which I have ultimate cosmic power and am on grand adventures, or the zombie apocalypse ones, those are always fun.

[DarthFriendly]

What? How dare you ma'dam! The world needs MORE tartiness, not less.

MORE. Not less. (I almost had a shouting match with a classmate about this last week, just because he's a short fat little married troll doesn't mean that the rest of us should be denied tits.)

[punkgrokgirl]

Ah, you're right, Darth! I take it all back, it's not the tartiness I'm against, it's just the old, slightly embarrassing photos. Far be it from me to deny anyone tits, I'm a huge fan of them myself.

Oh man, it's been a long couple of weeks, and every time I start writing a new post it just trickles off.
Still plugging away on the Whole30, but by now there's been a number of cheats, so it has turned into the HalfAssed30. Ah well. They've been seriously small. Cooking wine (how the hell can I cook without wine?), a dash of gluten free tamari with sashimi, accidentally buying almond butter with "evaporated cane juice" (such a bullshit term!), etc. On the whole, myself and the boy have been better than ever. \

And apparently I'm in ketosis. I didn't think it would happen because I'd made cole slaw with raisins and a little grated apple in it and have eaten sooo much, but I'm pretty sure that it is in fact the metallic taste that's been haunting my mouth for three days and driving me nuts. I hadn't throught much about it, but I tend to focus more on meat/egg/fat based foods with some veg, but things like, oh, eating a metric fuckton of (delicious, glorious) homemade coleslaw doesn't agree with my guts at all. I was gonna try to up my carby-ness, but then I figured, why? I did a bit of poking around thanks to reddit.com/r/keto and figure that one work out days, if I really feel I need it, I can always chow on a bunch of turnips or sweet potatoes. I'll just see where this ketosis thing takes me. I really feel like I haven't lost any more fat though, but my scale is borked, so who knows.

Ahh, too tired, back to work tomorrow after a brutal, and yet alcohol free, weekend.

[punkgrokgirl]

Oh creamed coconut, what would I do without you? Caaaandy for my overly sensitive tastebuds. Seriously, since cutting out all sweetner on our HalfAssed30, everything tastes like I've been munching Miracle berries. Gahhhh, it's gross. Then I go and over salt things to try to cut the sweet. At least creamed coconut tastes good sweet, unlike, say, sardines and mustard (WTF, mouth??!?!).

After getting glutened a couple of weeks ago I've been having vicious reoccurrences of the fibro pain. I panic because I don't know if it's just lingering symptoms from last time, or if I've gone and fucked myself up afresh. It should be nearly impossible, but, ah, the roommates that act like breadcrumb fairies ("And a sprinkle here, and a sprinkle there!"), and eating out, plain sashimi, but when the pain hits, so does the paranoia!

And even though I don't feel like I've lost any weight recently, I did have a victory! I bought a 50# and a 75# resistance band, so I could do pull ups, and I've been using them both together. On Saturday I was showing my boyfriend that I had finally gotten up to 9 in a row with both bands, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had leveled up! So I took the 50# band off and did a truly excellent pull up with just the 75#! Hell yes! And since then I've been able to do one or two pull or chin ups at time, with a third one just barely missing the mark. Signs of progress are exciting!

And now, I have a duck to roast. Mmm.

[winencandy]

Oh creamed coconut, what would I do without you? Caaaandy for my overly sensitive tastebuds.

iLove creamed coconut!
This is what I do with mine:

[punkgrokgirl]

Ahhhh! Those are adorable! And so much easier than my approach of hacking a chunk off with a knife every time. Are you using a silicon mold? I really want to get some for all sorts of things.

So, duck a l'orange last night, omg. So good. Definitely not the most primal friendly thing ever, the sauce had a little sugar, plus some triple sec in it, but it was fantastically good and my boyfriend and I ate most of a whole duck (well, duckling) between us. No regrets. Mmm. I don't know what the carb content looked like, but I've been hovering around zero for the whole day up til that point, so it probably doesn't matter much.

I also discovered that when you make bone broth that sets like thick gelatin in the fridge, maybe freezing it in ice cube trays is not the best idea. Even when frozen it was kinda wobbly and I had to scrape each cube out. Oops. Oh well, another reason to get some silicon molds. Hah! I'd love to have little hearts of stock, or duck fat! Mmm, speaking of duck fat, I can't wait to cook some greens in the left over fat tonight.

[eira]

' I'm a low brow art kinda girl, tattoos, pin ups, monsters'

yoooo that's where it's @

[punkgrokgirl]

I sure did fall of the planet with this thing. Wow. Oh well. Let's try that again.

So after the last post, after our HalfAssed30, in which I ran myself ragged and started having nightly panic attacks again.. I fell off in a big way. like, 60/40 way. Like, oh, corn chips and sugar and gluten free cupcakes, oh my! I was having horrible anxiety from the end of the HalfAssed30 on, and finally I hunted down a naturopath who was within my minuscule price range and talked to him. He was a nice, smart guy with a lot of insight, but not really too much that I hadn't already figured out. He did some tests and confirmed what I'd already feared, vicious Adrenal Fatigue. He offered me some supplements and some homeopathics, and I said, I don't really buy that homeopathic stuff, but it's only a month, I'll give it a try. I didn't really notice a difference, so I bought a book on adrenal fatigue and devoured it and started doing some things differently, upping the carbs, really trying to go easy on myself, quit the gym, sleep more, take deep belly breaths, and just relax. The panicky stuff tapered a bit, but I gained 12 pounds immediately, not just water weight either. Ouch.

I finally figured that maybe I needed to bring in the big guns, since pussyfooting around trying to balance my system wasn't working. I feel like all of the techniques I tried could have been successful for someone who was less damaged to begin with. My problems went too deep, had been going on for too long. I came across a thread on here that talked about estrogen dominance, and everything clicked into place. I ordered a natural progesterone cream and some DIM (cruciferous vegetable concentrate that helps your liver process and dispose of excess estrogen).

My god. The difference was amazing. I got two periods within a three week span, but I think what had happened was I was dealing with so much stress and not using *enough* progesterone, my still wobbly adrenals were burning it all up, the total levels dropped and brought on menstruation. Ahhh, hah! More progesterone, better stress mitigation. I think I'm getting the hang of it.

Couple that with being REALLY on top of my primal diet, and bam, 8 pounds lost in two weeks. I'm down to a definite 183.4 (we bought a new actually accurate scale), 30 inch waist, 45 inch hips, 34.2% body fat! I think this is the secret to kicking that body fat set point in the ass! I didn't get down that low during the Whole30, with all of the working out and being mostly very good, and now I'm hardly thinking about it, and while my diet is pretty darn good, I'll still eat some dairy, rice and what should be too many macadamia nuts. Not a problem! My energy levels are also amazing, my mood is fantastic (nary a panic attack or night terror), my skin is downright glowy, and stress can't phase me.

I'm in the middle of opening a store, having no place to live by September, and the possible winding down of my nearly 5 year relationship, and while I think two months ago I would have been in tears every day, I'm actually pretty optimistic and have absolute faith that I can handle this. So, yeah, all the pieces have finally come together. Life is tough, but I'm finally tough enough to fight back.

[IcarianVX]

I was wondering where the hell you went (it was awhile ago tho). I always liked your avatar because it reminds me of one of my Christian Death albums.
I had adrenal fatigue once and it was a bitch to recover from, but it sounds like you are on your way out of it. Good to hear that you are back at it. Keep us updated.