Blogging, personally and professionally?

Now that I've started blogging more regularly it's starting to be catchy and gives me an itch to blog more, even if anyone doesn't read it. It's nice to sometimes just get things out there more than the 140 characters of facebook.

I just started blogging professionally as well. That makes me feel more, naked, so to speak. I'm out of my comfort zone. I'm taking material from my technical expert co-workers and writing short blogs on their material, in more casual tones. I have them quickly review to make sure I didn't interpret anything weird, but I'm still nervous that I've made a huge blunder someone overlooked and I'll look like an idiot!

Plus, if you look at the site, as is with most engineering companies, 90% of the bloggers are men over the age of 50. I'm one of 3 women, only 1 of 2 women engineers, and the youngest person blogging.

Also, since I'm working with my colleagues to blog about technical topics that they are experts on- that they don't have time to blog on themselves- I feel almost like I'm trying to fake it. That isn't the case. I'm for sure not as technical as most of the other bloggers, BUT, I do have an engineering degree and understand a lot of what they are talking about, just not ALL of it- and I"m not an expert.

Check it out--- it's only 500 words. Don't fall asleep... and see what you think;)

http://www.designconcommunity.com/author.asp?section_id=3143&doc_id=261759&

Whole 30, with kids, ALL DONE!

Sort of...

We did it! We completed the Whole30 with no cheats (for adults) and only a few minor ones for the kiddos.  I for sure have more energy than I've had in a long time. I fall asleep easily at night, and wake up easily too. No more groggy, "don't talk to me until I've had my coffee" mornings. It's amazing. I'm a starbucks junky and I haven't even had coffee in days.

I lost a grand total of 6lbs. Doesn't sound like much, but it's the right direction and I did it all just by changing they way I eat. I wasn't working out like crazy or anything. Josh lost more. Punk. Yes I love my husband and am so glad he did this with me, but how in the HECK can guys lose more than women so easily? It's like they just think "lose weight" and it drops off.

Now I know that isn't really true, but it feels that way. Either way---- I'm glad we are all on a healthier way of eating.

We've added back in greek yogurt to make breakfast shakes, oatmeal and honey for the kiddos, and otherwise kept it all the same.  We're going to keep doing this for another 30 days. Yup. So we're done, but we're going to keep going.

Josh gets blood work done every year around his birthday. His doctor told him to wait this year until we'd done this for 60 days to really see a difference in your bloodwork. 30 days is great for creating new habits and "cleansing" the system, but it won't really show up until 60+ days.  So in a month look for an update on Josh's blood work compared to last year, which has always been pretty good.

The cookbooks we used during this journey were:


Both were ok and we found a few golden recipes in them; however, we found just as many we loved online for free!  The well fed book had about 6 recipes we liked that the kids liked and the everyday paleo had maybe 10.   The one thing to know is that in these books they sometimes use things that aren't allowed in the Whole30 first 30 days, like honey.  There was also a lot of "fluff" in the intros of these books like "oh it's so easy" or "My kids love to help me cook" or "kids love this" which was a crock in my humble opinion. The kids didn't love it at first. They hated most of it, as is evidence by my blogging. HOWEVER, that being said, now they are eating fine and eating a lot.  Most of the recipes they said "kids love" though mine still don't like.

We found that simple meals tended to work better for them like grilled chicken, blanched broccoli, and apple slices instead of pork stuffing stuffed acorn squash, for example, which we love.

I think the big take aways for me are this:
- it costs more to eat healthy
- it takes more time cooking to eat healthy
- it makes you feel great though!
- it's worth it.

Right now my book on whole30 is out on loan. I already have one person in line to read it (Jen), but after that I'm happy to loan it out (maybe not to Papa New Guinea though Becca).



You can read a lot about it online at www.whole9life.com

Maybe once I get my book back I'll write a list of what is approved and not, for those of you out there that care to take a gander.

It was hard, very hard at first, and frustrating, but now--- I can see this as a life style with some once in a great while treats, like Chocolate!

Whole30, with kids, what day is it?

I can honestly say that I have no clue how many days we've been trying this new way of eating. I know it's not 30 days yet, but it's our last full week, and I'm doing pretty darn good.

Josh and I have talked to so many people about this and here are a few things I think we can agree upon:

• We are feeling great, and I've had a huge increase in energy.
• I've lost weight. Finally tally to be seen next week.
• The kids have fully accepted it and are eating great. I didn't think they'd last past the first 2 days honestly.
• It's expensive.  It's hard to eat healthy.  There are so many cheaper options out there that will fill you up faster than a salad with chicken on it, but do I really want to feed that to my kids?
• We can't wait to have "special" things again like ice cream, pizza, candy, wine, etc. But we are both worried we won't keep it to "special" times and it will become regular eating again. Dessert every night after dinner, even if it's 1 cookie, is still too often.

That being said, we're looking to the future and how we can incorporate this as much as possible for good.  We're pretty sure we won't go back to cows milk and will limit cheese, sigh. I love cheese.

Here is a good article on cows milk. I have to admit, it does feel "un-American" to not drink cows milk. http://www.waoy.org/9.html Dr. Oski comments, "Being against cow milk is equated with being un-American,"

I think we are going to bring in back Greek yogurt though, for breakfast shakes. We need a quick alternative to eggs every morning. A good fruit shake, with a non-whey protein powder and Greek yogurt, and spinach is very satisfying. With a banana in it, you don't even taste the spinach and have all the added benefits of eating your greens.

We need to determine a cheaper way of doing this, and I'm just not sure how yet. We're going to look into a CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, program here--- and hope that helps.

I know we really want to keep the all-natural meat products because there are just too many hormones in the meat we serve our children and our selves. This is better than just going vegetarian. I'm not sure I could do that.

Josh still misses his breads, a lot.  We're just not sure what to do about that yet. We've started making pancakes and muffins with almond flour and coconut flour- and they are yummy! However, sometimes a meal calls for a tortilla, or chips, or bread for a sandwich---- and we just aren't sure what we're going to do about that yet.

Any thoughts? Anyone still reading this crazy adventure I'm on?  Still think I'm nuts? :)