Melissa Hartwig has a few quotes that have always stuck with me.  “It is not hard. Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroin is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black. Is. Not. Hard.”  She goes on to say “This is not hard. But we know this is hard.”    I have always found this powerful!  Recently while listening to Food Freedom Forever on Audible, I heard the quote “It is not hard.  Don’t you dare tell us this is hard.  Beating cancer is hard.  Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard.  Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard.  You’ve done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete the program as written.  It’s only 30 days, and it’s for the most important health cause on earth- the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime.  When I heard that, it just spoke to my soul.

It is no secret if you know me how I feel about Whole30.   It honestly changed my life!   It changed the way that I felt about food, related with food and helped me recover from a past of disordered eating.    I know I can bounce from Whole30 eating to non Whole30 and what to expect, how my body reacts and how I am going to feel.   I can eat what I want to eat and not worry about obsessing, counting calories, points or anything else.   Within the constructs of Whole30 I am free to eat as much of what I want.   It is black and white, easy for me to follow and I love it!  In my normal world, I had food freedom!! My body loves it too.  I feel amazing, have crazy energy, sleep great, my face is clear and my mind is fresh.    Once I was finally able to focus on this and less on the scale I 100% saw the benefits of the lifestyle.

Then February 2017 happened.  My world was rocked inside and out.   My mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and I ended up moving home to be there for her and do what needed to be done.   For 2 months, I fought like hell for my mother.  I did things that I never thought I could (or would).  I learned how to handle conformation, I learned how to stand up for myself and how to get done what needed to be done.   I watched my mom struggle, fight, try to give up and fight some more.  Nothing else matter to me except my mom.  I didn’t worry about the missed workouts, or the food I was consuming.  I didn’t eat real meals or on a regular schedule at all.  My sleep was horrible, waking up on a “hospital schedule” every 2 hours.  I sustained life on excessive amounts of black coffee, hospital food and far more sugar than I ever should have consumed.   I didn’t focus on me at all, and I wouldn’t change a single part of those two months.

Mom lost her battle with cancer exactly 2 months to the day after she was diagnosed.  The days that followed were spent in a blur of planning, shock and eating whatever showed up at our door step that day.  It wasn’t until I returned to Raleigh and went back to work that I even considered to focus on me.  THIS WAS HARD, and still is hard!

I came back thinking what was best for me was to jump right on in to my normal routine, working out, meal planning and taking care of me.  I was a pro at this and I totally could do it.  Well I couldn’t have been more wrong!  I could go on and on about how much I have struggled in all areas of my world since I returned to this “new normal” as everyone keeps calling it, but I will spare you.  I will say that the person that LOVES to meal plan has bought groceries multiple times and let them rot in my fridge because cooking for myself didn’t seem important enough.  I decided to start a Whole30 and made it 1.5 days!  New Normal sucks!!!

Unable to actually focus long enough to read a book these days I decided to download Audible on my phone and listen to Food Freedom Forever.  I read the book last fall, but I thought I needed it more than ever now.  Best. Decision. Ever!!! Reminding myself of the reasons why I love Whole30, that it is okay to need ‘black and white” in your life and the realization that I have already done HARD, this shouldn’t be hard is exactly what I needed.  Food Freedom reminded me that I can, and should, make my own rules.  I have done Whole 30 before and I know how food affects me.  I know what my triggers are and I know how to fight that sugar dragon that has currently taken over my body.  So here goes!

Since even Melissa agrees that losing a parent is hard, I have decided that I am doing this in baby steps.  I will only be giving up bread and other gluten grans, added sugar, sweets, beans, cheese and beer.  I am allowing myself to eat non-gluten free grains, for the occasional nights I just can’t bring myself to cook and need to eat oatmeal for dinner, and the occasional glass of wine.  I don’t eat dairy other than cheese, so I don’t have to worry about that one!

I am reminding myself daily to focus on the non-scale victories and the positive side effects.  I am beyond lucky to have what is one of the most supportive group of friends and family a person could ask for in my life to help hold me accountable!  Friends that let me flood their in box with photos of my meals, just to hold myself accountable to not go off plan.  A boyfriend that is excited to go hiking and be active with me, and although he won’t actually eat zoodles with me, he is encouraging and supportive while I eat them!  An amazing trainer that text and sends me recipes all the time.  My old trainer and friend that set me straight and reminded me that I am a badass, and mom would want me to be living my life and not stand idle on her account.  And my family, that without them there is no way I would be able to get the Kathryn that I have come to love and know back.

So here goes… my first “new normal” Whole30 reset!

I really don’t know why I can’t shake caring about what people think about me.  It is something that I have struggled with my whole life.   I think it is part of my personality, it’s society, it’s life.  My parents didn’t raise me like this, they tried their hardest to help me become a strong and confident woman.  I finally feel like I am there, but I STILL CARE!

 

I recently had a conversation with my trainer about my arms.   I wasn’t necessarily complaining but just curious. I was just curious if what I was seeing was something that could possibly go away with more muscle definition and weight loss.  Basically, her answer was she didn’t know.  It depends on my body.  It could go away or it could be part of me and I was fine with that answer.  I am a woman and I have cellulite.  I always have and I always will.  That is something that I accepted years ago and little by little have become more and more comfortable with.

 

It was the conversation that came from this that got me thinking.  My response was that’s fine, but I asked if there a way that I could work on muscle definition in my arms.  I told her I feel strong (and know I am strong) and it drives me crazy that I feel like when people look at me they don’t see what I feel!  I see people’s reaction when I pick up my weights for body pump and I am using the same weight for biceps as the muscular guy beside me or I am doing kettle bell swings with a kettle bell twice as heavy as the girl next to me.  I read it all over their face… “she can’t do that! What is she thinking…” but I do and it honestly makes me feel like a badass!

 

What got me really questioning things was the following day when I was talking to my therapist and this conversation came up.  I felt the need to ask permission from her to make sure that this goal was okay.  I know how important it is for everyone, but especially me, to focus on how things make them feel and not on how I look in the mirror.  I know I am strong, even if it isn’t visible to me or others, so why does it matter if I appear strong to others.  If I know I am strong isn’t that enough?

 

I still don’t have a good answer for this.  The result of the conversation was mainly that feeling strong gives me confidence and that is a good thing and there is no reason that I shouldn’t focus on that.  I just wish I could get this desire for others needing to see it as well out of my head.  Who the HELL cares what others think?  Apparently I still do.  I am hopeful that I can get this need and desire out of my head and just be proud of who I am today and know how hard I worked to get there.

I am kinda dreading writing this post, but know at the same time I absolutely have to write this post for myself.  It’s one of the only ways I will get this out of my head and begin to work on me again. 
 I have started and restarted my fitness journey so many times before.  Each time it has been a bit different.   Sometimes was to be skinny, to fit in or wear a certain size or to be happy… because skinny makes you happy right? And like I have said so many times before this never worked for me and I quit or gave up.   Finally about 3 years ago I decided to do it for me and I haven’t once quit or given up.   
I haven’t once said I can’t do that.  My response has been I’ll try.  If I try and I can’t then I modify and know that I damn well will be able to do it one day.   I never once have asked a trainer to end a workout early or have just quit.    Have I felt defeated, yes!  Have I taken breaks, absolutely.  It has been hard coming back from these breaks.   Getting out of my routine makes life hard and I am physically exhausted when I am getting back into things.   
Well the past two and a half months have been an absolute emotional rollercoaster for me!   My mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I moved home, spent a total of a month in a hospital room and the other time in the bed next to her.  I slept like I had an infant, up every 2-3 hours in the night and no naps during  the day.  I ate like complete shit.   I ate when I could and when I got nauseous I stopped.   Rarely were there normal meals or mealtimes.    I functioned on caffeine, adrenaline, love and fear!   I faught every moment for my mom and found some crazy level of strength that I didn’t know I had.   The few times over these two months that I worked out my body responded as I would expect it to.   It was tired, but capable.   

After mom died I still was running on adrenaline but luckily a little more sleep.   Life slowed down a bit and I returned home.  I was nervous about being here, fears of getting sad and not having my family around, but I was so excited and ready to get back into a routine.   To workout, finally start with my new trainer and cook the way I had become accustomed to eating.  
This has proven to be so much harder than I anticipated.   Last week was the first time ever I look a trainer dead in the eye and said “I can’t do this.”   I then proceed to just say “we have to end the session… I can’t workout anymore.”   I gave up! My body was sore, but it was so much more than that.  I was absolutely exhausted.  My brain hurt!   I was emotionally drained.  I felt like if I lifted that weight one more time I was going to burst into tears and never stop crying.   
I left that session feeling like the biggest failure!   I had just spent the past two months doing  the hardest thing I had ever done in my life and I couldn’t handle an hour workout!!! What was wrong with me?  I didn’t attempt to go to the gym again at all that week.  
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this over this week and processing how hard simple tasks were for me.   I needed a nap after hanging clothes on hangers… not in my closet… just on the hangers!   Meal planning wasn’t even an option.  I went to the store and bought the easiest things in the world to make becaus cooking was and is the last thing I want to do.   
I have come to the realization that it is going to just be different this time.   My body is exhausted, physically and emotionally and that’s okay!    I am grieving.  Not in the way I expected to but again that’s okay!   I gave up at the gym and I am actually okay with that!   I don’t know how to not be.  
Tonight I went to the gym with the plan or doing 15 mins on the elliptical and then bodyflow.  I started getting really angry around the 12 minute mark because my body was hating me.   I pushed myself and finished 20 mins and went into flow.   I was able to do some things the same as before, other better and some not as well.  I took a deep breath, squashed that voice in my head that was trying to tell me that I was a failure and just tried to be proud of myself for finishing the class.   
Tomorrow I have a training session again.  My plan is to walk into it the same way I always have, ready to work and not give up.   If I can’t do it, then I will listen to my body, re-evaluate and move forward.  I don’t think I can look at it as quitting if I end early.  I think I am just looking for what my new normal is and it might take me longer to get there than I thought I would.   I know will get it back–it just might take time and look different this time.   How could it not?? 

I never thought I would post about my pant size when I started this whole journey but here goes nothing! Today for the first time since 2008 I put on l, buttoned, and confidently wore a size 14 jean! Honestly this is probably the first time in my life that I confidently walked out the house wearing that size pants.  
As far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be skinny! I never had any desire to be strong or muscular or athletic. It was more about the pant size and the number I saw on the scale and feeling like I was like everyone else, which in my mind was skinny. It wasn’t until a few years back that I actually cared about my health and wanted to make a change to become healthy not skinny. Through this new mindset I discovered a love for lifting weights, body pump, challenging myself and wanting to be strong! It definitely has been a process and didn’t happen overnight. I still struggle. I still have days I look in the mirror and hate what I see looking back at me, but those days have been growing further and further apart and the confident days more and more frequently!  
I truly believe healthy looks different on everybody! The 2008 version of myself was not healthy wearing that size 14. The 2002 version of myself who wore a size 10 truly was not healthy. The 2011 version of myself wearing the pink pants that I still am not confident enough to share the size of was the epitome of bad health. And although I still have goals the 2017 version of myself wearing a size 14 is the healthiest I’ve ever been in my life both mentally and physically. I’m confident and strong and as this past month has shown me I definitely can take what’s there and at me and not have a setback.   
I weigh a significant amount more than I did in 2008 but I am chalking that up to muscle. Moving forward my goals truly will be focused on making me healthier and stronger not a number. I started this whole thing 3 years ago with the mindset of if I could just get back into a size 14 I would be happy! Well I have done it and luckily gained my confidence and happiness long before I reached this size.  
Hopefully one day I’ll be brave enough and confident enough to share the size of the pink pants but until then I’m celebrating all of my hard work and thanking everyone that has supported me along the way! I know I couldn’t of done this without the people in my life that believed in me, cheered for me and have been there on the days that I wanted to give up.   

Can we say booger snot tears? I will never forget how I was feeling that day– motivated, and finally not defeated. It was the first day in a while that I hadn’t felt sad, stressed or overwhelmed. I was genuinely excited to go to my training session and work out! I even texted Ryan before and asked him to “kick my ass” because I just knew I was in the mood to give it all I had that day.   

Fast forward to the end of the session when we usually just make a plan for the next one and say goodbye. Well…. not today! Ryan looked at me and said “we need to go have a heart to heart.” I looked at him and said “you better not be quitting!” I was serious but really joking because I was 100% not expecting it. As soon as we walked into that office and he shut the door I knew it was coming. He looked at me and told me the news that he was moving back to South Carolina at the end of March.  
I immediately teared up and then pulled myself together and started working through and action plan for who was going to train me. The second my foot stepped out of the gym the tears started welling up in my eyes. I cried for nearly 30 mins.  
Over the next few days I decided to start thinking about what I wanted to get out of my remaining time with Ryan and how I could learn as much as I could for him in that short period of time… little did I know my world would be turned upside down when I found out my mom had cancer and I wouldn’t even get to finish my sessions with him. Luckily the lessons Ryan taught me in the gym transferred outside and I am just as strong if not stronger in life as I am in the gym.  
2 years ago my second trainer quit the gym. I was defeated and not wanting to start over with a new trainer. I knew I had made progress, but the idea of starting over exhausted me just thinking about it. Luckily my trainer passed me off to Ryan.  
Ryan has been my trainer for 2 years. But he is so much more! He has taught me to trust myself again. He has taught me to trust others. He has pushed my body to its limits, but more importantly helped me get past the barriers in my own head that were holding me back. He has helped me reach goals, helped me not beat myself up when I took a step backwards. He has been my cheerleader, therapist, coach and friend! He made me feel comfortable to open up for the first time in years and admit that I had an eating disorder. He has put up with me on my difficult days, he has laughed with, given me a shoulder to cry on.  Most importantly he has believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself and he has taught me to believe in myself! And let’s not forget, he is the one that finally convinced me to throw my scale away– which changed my life!  
Thank you Ryan for everything you have taught me over the past two years. I honestly would not be who I am today without you! My next trainer has insanely large shoes to fill since you have left me with such high standards! I wish you and Amber the best of luck in the future!  

Two months ago I was headed back to Raleigh from Christmas break excited to see the awesome guy I was dating. Well I was tested to my core that day. I still remember reading the word on my phone… “I can’t do this anymore…”  Seriously this amazing guy just ended it with me via text??!!!  Not only is that just completely unacceptable it was 100% not the person I knew. Regardless of how it happened, I was at a crossroads. I immediately did what I always did when I got news that knocked me off my feet. I sank down right where I was in my house sat on the floor and burst into tears.    Then it started… I started to feel it in the pit of my stomach… that’s when I knew I had a choice to make was I going to be strong or was I going to let my inner demons win? Two months ago I had a choice. I went to the bathroom sat, in the floor, removed my Meredith ring and stared down into that toilet bowl like I have so many times before. But something was different. I thought to myself “not this time!!” I hadn’t come as far as I had to let someone or some single event in my life to take me back to that point. I had not worked as hard as I have the past few years to let this one experience to take be back to that dark place. I am not that scared little girl anymore that defined herself by a relationship or a guy. I am a strong woman that knows herself, her support network what she needs. Two months ago I had a choice and I chose to be strong. So I scooped myself up, wiped away the mascara, put my Meredith ring back on prouder than ever and called my “person” and dealt with my shit! 
In the days and weeks to follow I went to the gym when I got pissed off, stressed or sad.  I probably cried on the treadmill, elliptical, in the bathroom or with my trainer 10 times over the next two week, but I was okay with that. I was allowing myself to feel instead of controlling everything in front of the toilet. I didn’t look at food as a way to feel and process my emotions.   Instead I turned to Whole30, to remind myself of what food can do for my body and slowly began to feel amazing again!! 
Fast forward a month… I was in my LAST 24 hours of Whole30. I made it! I survived a break up, New Years and another round of Whole30 and was feeling stronger than ever. Then BAM– I get a call from home. It’s my nephew and all he delivers some scary news from home! Someone I love dearly was in the emergency room and they were not entirely sure what was going on. I was driving at the time and my stomach sank down. I couldn’t fall in the floor or burst into tears this time. I had to stay strong for Wilson who was scared on the other end of the phone. I immediately turned around went home walked into my house and into the bathroom. This time I didn’t even allow myself to sit on the floor or remove my ring. I took one look at that toilet and said “What the fuck Kathryn… you are not that person anymore.” I got myself together, packed a bag and went home. And I damn well finished my last 24 hours on Whole30!! Thank you Melissa Hartwig for creating Whole30. It has 100% changed my relationship with food, made me stronger and helped me learn how to cope with stress.  
So why another round so fast? Well I can’t share the reason just yet, but I know change is coming and it is going to rock my world. I want to make sure I am the best version of myself, strong, energize and full of tiger blood! I feel so much better when I am on Whole30 and shortly after I need that strength come the end of the month. So here goes another round…. and biggest non scale victory yet… NO STARTING WEIGHT or measurements! This time it isn’t about numbers at all!  It’s about what my body can do and my inner strength!! 
** In regards to people that are reading this and know me and my family. Everyone is doing well. They are still running a lot of test and trying to figure out exactly what is going on and what is wrong but as a family we are all strong and working through this all together.   

Alright single ladies I am curious how you handle dating while on Whole30 or even just living a Whole30 lifestyle. I have never done a round of Whole30 and dated. I didn’t plan to do that in January. I thought I was going to have a partner by my side that already knew all my weird shit and I could just cruise through my 30 days. Well insert plot twist– that didn’t happen. I know myself well enough that I needed to just get back out there but wasn’t willing to postpone Whole30. So Whole30 dating it is! Dating is hard enough but throwing something like Whole30 into the mix really made things interesting.  

Let’s be honest for a minute, Whole30 is weird! Sorry Melissa Hartwig, I love your program and will probably follow it for the rest of my life, but it is weird to people that don’t understand it. I have a hard enough time explaining it to people that know me. Most of the time I get blank stares or “why on earth would you give up cheese and alcohol?” But having this conversation with someone that you are just meeting and doesn’t know your story it is just downright bizarre. Half the time I felt like they looked at me like I was an alien with two heads. Either that or they thought I was in a cult.   
Passing on chips and salsa at the Mexican restaurant blew one dudes mind! Other dates, drinks and listening to music– I was a real cheep date for that dude. Lunch– “I’ll have a salad with grilled chicken and no dressing please. Oh and can you hold the cheese and croutons too, thanks.” Italian restaurant (in hindsight I should have made another suggestion) but– I got the grilled chicken and sub the pasta for veggies and passed on bread. Then one dude suggested going for a walk. Well I though this was weird, but was like “hell yeah I don’t have to tell him anything about Whole30 works for me.” Well damned if he didn’t suggest drinks after our walk ended (that lasted all of eleven minutes).  
Honestly I wasn’t expecting a love connection so I really didn’t care what these gentlemen thought about me. It made for a good experiment and some pretty good stories. I tried my hardest to explain that Whole30 isn’t a diet but I am just not sure I ever got that point across. No one can fully understand tiger blood unless you have lived it… I get it, I accept it.  
But moving forward how does one handle this? Do you just eat like a weirdo… “yes I would like the cheeseburger, hold the cheese and the bun and can I get some guacamole on that? Oh and instead of fries can I will have a side salad with just oil and vinegar if you have it and if not I will pass on the dressing all together. And to drink I would like a sparking water with lime please, thank you.”  

Or do you try and explain it to a date and hope that they understand? I guess in the long run the right person isn’t going to care if you order like a freak, don’t eat cheese or pass on the drinks from time to time… so maybe I should just look at this as a lesson in self confidence building and continue to rack up the amazing stories!   

Gosh– it is really hard to say when my eating disorder started and why it started. I think the biggest reason it is so hard to know when it started is because I think for so long I didn’t even consider myself as having an eating disorder. How could I? I was never the smallest of my friends, I never wore below an 8, I always have had hips and a butt, I can’t remember a time I weighed less than 150lbs and I never had enough “self control” to stick with it long enough for it to really make me skinny! I have so many reasons why what I had wasn’t an eating disorder.   
I remember being in 6th grade and having to weigh ourselves and take height measurements. I remember so many girls being concerned about what they weighed and being guarding that number. I remember my guy friends asking us all and I happily shared my weight and height. Why not! It seemed so silly– it is just a number. I clearly remember 8th grade doing the same thing. I know I stated sixth grade at 4’11” and wearing clothes from the juniors dept. By 8th grade I was 5’8″ and wearing a women’s 10. I clearly remember being so ashamed of that number on the scale. It was no longer just a number that I could speak freely about. It was a number that defined me. It was a number that caused me to think less of myself. It was a number that represented every negative thought I had.  

I continued through high school as the shy cheerleader who always wanted a longer skirt to hide herself. I strived to be as thin as others. I longed for the days of my chicken legs and prayed to not have hips and would have given anything to have a chest bigger than the A cup that I had.   

I never did anything other than workout with cheerleading and occasionally workout alone. I never once thought of not eating, taking diet pills or throwing up. I knew this was wrong and never would I do that. I had a dear friend at the time struggle with an eating disorder and I watched her. Not a single part of me could comprehend how someone could do that to themselves. I didn’t like what I looked like and I had zero self confidence but never me!   

Enter freshman year second semester extreme depression. My self hatred had reached a new low. I was extremely unhappy, drank constantly, began taking diet pills to help me lose some of the beer weight which didn’t work. Sometime during this timeframe something changed in me. I gave up on myself and threw up my food for the first time. I have no concept of when it was, what caused it or why I did it. All I know is how it made me feel. In my crazy depressed state I felt like for the first time in a long time I had control over something in my life. I felt amazing after, but this was followed by extreme guilt! The high in the moment that I took control of my life and made the decision to stick my fingers down my throat and watch everything come up gave me a feeling that I can’t explain. But the immediate low right after of sitting there with tears coming down my cheeks, food all over my fingers and hands and staring into a toilet bowl of my half digested lunch was a new low I hadn’t experienced.   

This trend continued throughout the semester. It wasn’t every day or even every week I don’t think but more in phases. I learned what foods to eat and throw up. What hurt and what was easy. TMI- I know, but that’s where I was. I no longer thought about food that tasted good. I thought about my food in terms of how it would feel coming back up. 

This continued on and for the duration of my college experience. Sometimes for months at a time then other times I wouldn’t have a single episode in what seemed like forever. I was treated during this time for depression but never once did I admit to anyone what I was doing. Control continued to drive the majority of the spontaneous binges while the continuous months in a row were brought on by the hopes that this would allow me to lose weight and finally be skinny.    

I think the biggest I was in college was a size 12-14 and the smallest was a size 6-8. I still hated my body. I had hips, I had a butt and no chest. Why couldn’t I just be a stick like the rest of my friends? I still do not think I classified myself as having an eating disorder. I never stuck with it for longer than 4-5 months at a time and I never ever got to the place that other people expressed concern. If i wasn’t super skinny then it wasn’t an eating disorder right? 

After college not much changed I still phased in and out of good and bad times. The only thing that did change was my lifestyle and metabolism. I gradually began gaining weight. I had a series of bad relationships and I found comfort in the control that I gained from purging after fighting or purging when I felt like I was unloveable. It is amazing how self hatred in the form of purging could make a person feel better from the self hatred and dysfunctional relationship but it did just that for me. During this time my purging became just as much if not more about having control over myself than it was about weight loss.   

Then the turning point! I was finally in a better spot. I didn’t feel the need to control every little thing. I met a guy that I thought was a good one. I was happy and didn’t need the control anymore. I let a guy define my happiness and place in life which was a huge mistake. Because when this one crashed and burned it went down with a bigger blaze of fire than any other relationship. It tested me to my core and back and changed the corse of my life. I shut down after.  

I turned myself off. I gave up. I unconsciously decided that I was unloveable and what better way to ensure that this was true but to completely destroy my body. I no longer sought control in the form of throwing up but now I just kept it all down. I ate when I was happy. I ate when I was sad. I ate when I was mad, when I was stressed and depressed. Any feeling I had I ate it and I ate a shit ton of it all! I want to stress this was not a conscious decision. It wasn’t until years later that I even connected the two.  

I shifted my eating disorder (although I still hadn’t admitted to myself that I had one) to a new and just as destructive one. I gained over 100 lbs! I finally got that chest I wanted but I also got a giant ass, thunder thighs, arms that should have never seen daylight and a gut that I still can’t get rid of.   

I did this to myself without even realizing it! There were occasional times when I still felt like throwing up but they were so few and far between I knew I had finally done it. I had shaken my nonexistent eating disorder. I cured myself (of something I never had) without help. I succeeded! I did it on my own!  

I don’t know why or how but Something clicked in my brain sometime at the end of 2013. I woke up one morning and thought I am done with this… enough is enough! I think for the first time I actually recognized that I had a problem. What I had was an eating disorder that morphed into another eating disorder. Just because it wasn’t defined by societies version of an eating disorder it was mine. I owned it. I accepted it and I finally was ready to do something about it.  

Over the corse if the next three years I decided to fix me for me. I decided that yes I wanted to lose weight but more than anything I wanted to be healthy and let go of the demons that I had been fighting my whole adult life. I wanted to love me for me. I wanted confidence. I wanted muscle. I wanted to be strong and and be a fighter and shine like I knew that i could. I fought like hell. I found people in my life to help me along the way. I struggled and cried and celebrated and cried some more. I found out exercise can be fun and the best stress release there was for me. I discovered Whole30 and learned to look at food in a whole new way. And I began to have confidence and like who I was becoming.  

It took a really long, but I finally reached a point in May of 2016 that I could look in the mirror and say to myself with confidence that I liked the woman looking back at me. This was HUGE success. But it also came with a giant weight on my shoulders. Since I reached that place in May I have struggled with not sharing my story. Finally liking the woman I am and not being honest about how I got there began to eat away at me. I felt like I was being dishonest and the eating disorder was still defining me in a sense. My eating disorder is a part of who I am. It doesn’t define me and I am sick of letting it! So I share this not for sympathy, not for a reaction, not for attention but because without sharing it I am still hiding… And my eating disorder still has control over me. When I push post on this blog… I finally will tell the world (my family included, because I have never shared this with them) that I am strong and confident and flawed all at the same time. I still struggle, sometimes daily, with urges and control issues but luckily through the help of an amazing trainer I have learned to trust again. And with the help of a recently added therapist I am tackling the deep rooted control issues. And oddly enough during my first meeting with my therapist in January as I was telling her my story I still had to ask her, so is this an eating disorder or not? Well I officially got my diagnosis… yes Kathryn, your eating history is quite disordered! 

 

January Whole30 results-

Total weight lost- 7lbs

Body fat lost- 4.4%

Total inches- 10

Pants size lost- 1

 

It might not be the most weight I have lost on a Whole 30, but it is the most body fat and total inches.  Also the smallest size I have worn in years and smallest my waist and hips have measured.  Proof the scale doesn’t always tell the truth.

I wish I had reached the point in my journey that I just didn’t care about the weight loss during Whole30, but I am just not there.  So on the eve of completing this round of Whole30 I wanted to reflect on the Non Scale Victories (NSV) I have noticed this time instead of the weight loss and measurements.

The biggest NSV this round in my opinion has been completing these 30 days immediately following a break up. In some ways I think it made it easier to do Whole30 while healing from a broken heart, but in other ways it made it so much more difficult.  In the first few days it gave me something to control, focus on and put all my energy into instead of thinking about or processing my feelings and emotions.  As the days went on it became much, much harder as I knew I needed to process and “feel” again.  At times I didn’t think at all about the food I was eating or not eating and other times all I wanted to do was comfort myself with that cupcake or cheese, or beer (yes—icing, cheese and beer are my comfort foods!)  I guess the best thing that came out of this round and the timing of it would be the fact that I have rarely focused on weight loss at all.  I just haven’t had the mental space to think about the fact that my body is changing and that I am probably losing weight and inches.  To put it in perspective, the first time I did Whole30 I still had a scale and would weigh myself daily.  Other rounds I didn’t weigh myself, but always had a “goal” of how much I wanted to lose.  And I would constantly look in the mirror to see the changes and take a guess of how much I was losing.

As I near the end I am quite curious about this.   I wonder if putting it out of my mind all together if it has made a difference on the results or if they will be similar to other rounds of Whole30.  If I was a stronger person, or someone that had learned to never focus on numbers I would allow my trainer to weigh me blindly tomorrow, but I know I am just not there yet… and that’s okay!  Maybe one day!

Other notable NSV this round include:

* Having a Whole30 New Year’s Eve

* Learning to use exercise as my stress release again

* Feeling strong!

*My asthma not getting in the way of cardio and my workouts anymore

* Staying Whole30 during the Women’s March on Washington

* Going on a series of first dates while doing Whole30 (**this point will be receiving its own blog post real soon!  Dating is hard and weird but dating and doing Whole30 has been a brand new experience!!)

* Beginning to find my balance in life again

* Graciously accepting the compliment that coworkers have given me over the past week regarding how I look and my weight loss (This is a big one for me!!)

* Giving myself some grace and not trying a ton of new recipes.  I stuck with what I know and made it easy.

* Fitting back into the pants that I bought in August and September and putting the pants that were bought in November in a bag to get altered!

* All my bra’s are too big!

* Crazy Tiger Blood levels of energy!

* Sleeping through the night

* My nails are strong and actually growing, which has never happened before!