Loco de Mayo

Okay so it has been a Cray-Cray month of May this year. Where to start... Lets see I started a blog :), I trained for and competed in the Spartan race with my amazing Husband, my sweet little Tanner graduated from preschool and my 7 year old Tristan is wrapping up his first year at public school. And it all went perfectly smooth.... ;) Well not so much. 

I was off to a great start with my little blog and definitely did some premature patting on the back since I cranked out 3 entries in a week. Wooh!! Yeah then I had nothin'. Squat!! I was juggling training and teacher appreciation stuff and birthday stuff and summer planning stuff, oh and cram it all in because your kids are about to be home 24/7 for 3 months stuff of course. I literally made myself sick. This past Saturday I was sooo ready for Spartan... Five miles of running, mud, obstacles and a little fire at the end. My kind of race!! The morning of I felt amazing!! So ready to do this... Then I started the race..... and got sick, disgustingly sick the ENTIRE RACE!!! During these two hours of bliss I threw up not 1 not 2 but 5 TIMES!! I kept thinking this will so pass, it's just the energy drink I had earlier not agreeing with me. Sadly, it did not. :( I soldiered on though, with the support of my wonderful, patient, understanding husband. He could have been annoyed and he could have told me to quit and run it alone but instead he said we are a team and whatever I wanted or needed to do he was on board. I of course being the crazy person that I am just wanted to finish. I truly believed it was going to pass. :) And it did... 4 days later.:(

And so I missed my last week!! My cram it all in fest!! Aaahhhh!!! I have to be honest with you, in retrospect I don't even know what I was trying to cram in but I was SUPER disappointed that it wasn't gonna happen. I'm pretty sure one of the things was gonna be lay by the pool childless but there was definitely some important stuff on that list, surely. :) 

So I am starting to feel myself again after my little "diet" and I am so ready for summer with my boys!! Anywho, that's all for now.

Blessings

Katie 

Motherhood Ain't For Sissy's

NObody said it would be easy and being a Mom is definitely not for the faint of heart. From jam packed schedules to almond butter and jam sandwiches and everything in between we are busy and we are stressed. A survey came out this week about Moms and our stressors. When 7,000 moms were asked who stressed them out the most, 75% percent of them said..... themselves. I can't say that I am surprised. We are so stinkin' hard on ourselves. From Pinterest craft envy to perfectly clean house envy it just always seems like we are comparing ourselves to other Mothers and that is just not a nice thing to do to ourselves. We associate being the "perfect" Mom with almost any other Mom but ourselves. That's just exhausting, right?! We just need to give ourselves some GRACE and remember there are no "perfect" Moms... anywhere. We are all flawed because that is the way God made us. Some of us yell at our kids, some of us let the house get messy, some of us make ugly faces at our kids when they turn around...or so I've heard. ;) The point is if we spend less time thinking about what we are not and more time focusing on are strengths and what we thrive at doing soooo many things would probably change in our lives. Stress is linked to heart disease, asthma, obesity, diabetes, migraines, depression and anxiety, gastrointestinal problems, Alzheimer's Disease, ACCELERATED AGING, oh and premature death. Just to name a few. Yikes!! Aging faster alone convinces me. ;) 

Two other ways we stress ourselves out is with our pride and our desperate need to control circumstances that frankly aren't ours to control. The pride comes in when we don't ask for help when we so obviously need it. Like when we are sick on our deathbed after taking care of sick kiddos for a week and someone offers to bring us food and we say no because we don't want to be an inconvenience to them. Uh hello, it takes a village people. ;) No but seriously in many countries extended families actually dwell together and have very active rolls in eachothers lives. Nowadays we are lucky to live in the same state with our families. So accept the help and if you still feel like an inconvenience just remenber that a lot of people genuinely LOVE to do favors for others and if you don't accept it for yourselves accept it for them. :) BTW I struggle with this one big time. :/ 

And then there is control... The evidence is in the art projects our kids bring in to school. (GUILTY!!) Sure my 4 year old Modpodged this float for the parade, can't you tell?! ;) Relinquish control Moms, the art crafts will only get better if we let them do it themselves. Not to mention, I have a friend who recently told me her 4th grade son, who did his own art project BTW, got a terrible grade on it, so she decided to call the teacher because it was really good for a 4th grader. She discussed with the teacher how it was very apperent that many of the Moms had obviously taken over the project and asked if she was possibly comparing his to those projects and if that was why he got the bad grade. The teacher admitted that that was exactly what happened and that she never stopped to think that some of the Moms were doing the projects for the kids and she said that now that she was thinking about it she was surprised she never realized it before and then she raised his grade. Imagine how many other moms in this situation that didn't know that is why there kiddo got the bad grade. :( 

Lesson learned on this end. 

So in conclusion stop beating yourself up, you're an amzing Mom!!! You do more things in one day than some people who are not Mommies do in a week, heck a month!! Accept help, you are only human. Drop the pride and take the Grace. :)

Blessings,

Katie

The Scale is LYING Just ask your Pants

I do not own a scale. In fact the only time I actually know my exact weight is when I go to the doctor or when we do a performance challenge at bootcamp and we have to weigh in.  My reason for not owning a scale is this. You know how they say that self talk is important and that we should only speak positive things to and about ourselves? Well that is sooooo true and I feel like the scale is just another voice telling us that we aren't doing it right or that we are failing and I just don't think we need that an annoying voice like that in our heads. 

So ask your pants!! When you are going through the fitness improvement process designate a pair of pants or a dress or whatever to be how you measure yourself. The last few times I went through the process of getting back in shape usually began because I put on a pair of jeans that either didn't fit quite the same or I just couldn't button them and realized it was that time again to buckle down (seriously no pun intended) and get back to the shape that I know I can be in. So this last time around I got serious and started with my usual 21 Day Sugar Detox plus bootcamp 4 times a week and  running at least 6 miles per week. This is the system that works best for me. After being only about 80% Paleo during the "holidays" Nov-February (YIKES) I had started to slowly gain weight, definitely slow down during a WOD (workout of the day) and I wasn't feeling as strong. After finishing the detox and increasing my running I feel amazing, much faster and stronger. I increased the weight in both my hands weights and my kettle bell. My designated "pants" are a little too big for me and I feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be. YET the scale barely moved and my fat % went up. SO... I lost 2 sizes and still no positive talk from the scale or that little BMI machine. You know why?? Because they are liars. ;) Throw away your scales people!! They don't love you and they certainly aren't going to pat you on the back for gaining a pound because you increased muscle mass. I'm just sayin'. :)
Blessings
Katie

Hail Merry Full of Yumm!!

Okay so I want to tell y'all about this super yummy company that makes paleo friendly treats called

Hail Merry!!

So I have raved about them to a bunch of my friends for the last few weeks. My favorites being the Coconut Vanilla Cream Tart and the Caramel Sea Salt Macaroons. They are even more delicious than they sound!!! The tarts are like mini pies and the macaroons are yummy little cookies. I think it's important to have small paleo sweet treats on hand for when you have a sweet tooth AND for when you have an event where you know there will be cake or cupcakes like bday parties. That way you don't feel left out when all the other Mommy's are indulging. :) And you get your sweet fix without the guilt and the pain in my case. :/ 
Okay so super weird funny thing happened to me last week while on a plane to Boston. Like I stated before I had been gushing for weeks about my new discovery (Hail Merry treats) and I was on my second flight and I noticed the woman sitting next to me had a Gluten Free book in her seat back pocket. Sooo... I asked her if she was going gluten free and she explained to me she worked for a company that made gluten free products. A little company called HAIL MERRY!!! Then before she could finish talking I blurted out SHUT UP!! Naturally. :) I explained to her how I had been going on and on about her products to all my friends and how I was basically a "junkie" for her products. ;) She then told me she was on her way to a conference to promote Hail Merry and her book (the one in the seat back pocket) The Gluten Free Good Health Cookbook and she had some extra goodies if I would like some. I have no idea what my facial expression must have looked like but she looked a little scared. ;) That is when I had my first encounter with the caramel sea salt macaroons. MMMMMMMMMMM!!! Anywho, I picked her brain about what stores currently carry their products and which ones they are working on. HEB and Whole Foods carry them down in Texas and for my Yankee friends Hannaford now carries most of their products. We discussed the quality of the products and why they sweeten with Coconut Palm Sugar and Maple Syrup as opposed to Agave and Honey. Coconut Palm Sugar not only has a low glycemic index but it actually regulates blood sugar levels and blood pressure because of its naturally occurring magnesium and nitrogen. It is also a great source for zinc, potassium, calcium and 16 vital amino acids. So it's yummy and nutritious!! :) I buy Big Tree Farms Organic Coconut Palm Sugar Blonde which I buy at Greenfields in Stone Oak but they have a huge variety on their website. Maple syrup, specifically Grade B Maple Syrup also has a low glycemic index and is a great source for calcium, iron, manganese, potassium and zinc. Honey has a slightly lower glycemic index than maple syrup but it is a more common food allergen. For those of you who have not heard the bad news about agave... It's not good. Agave has a 15% higher fructose level than.. wait for it... HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!!! It is 70% fructose which is REALLY bad!! And it lacks nutritional content. It is not even natural but it is highly refined. YUCK!! 
Moving on... It turns out the amazing smart, informative woman I was speaking to on the plane was Dr Claudia Pillow, the Chief Nutrition Officer and Director of Marketing for Hail Merry. No wonder she was so smart. ;) I should have asked her for a job!! ;) 
Okay so I love this company and their products and I hope you run out and buy some and tell me how much you love them too. 
Blessing, Katie

Wish you could hear me...

I have wanted to start blogging ever since I first heard about it. Ask anyone who knows me I am quite the jabber jaw and love to share my opinion about everything. The only frustrating thing about blogging is that I am such a visual person and I talk with my hands and facial expressions more that my words. Although I do talk a LOT with my words. ;) Anywho, now that that is out of the way...

I have been a paleo girl for almost two years now. My quest for paleo began after I had my second bouncing baby boy, Tanner, who is now almost 5. Man, they say having babies changes everything but I think they could have been a little more specific ;). I suffered some pretty crippling postpartum depression after I had my sweet Tanner. Not at first but right about the time I had to wean him from breastfeeding. You see I had big plans to BF at least a year just like I had his older brother Tristan, BUT Tanner was sensitive to EVERYTHING. I had already given up dairy while breast feeding my first because if I even ate butter on my bread he would scream, but Tanner couldn't tolerate dairy, wheat, eggs, soy, gluten and just about anything else that I was eating on a regular basis except the bare bones. :) I did it though. For six months I gave it all up... Unfortunately I was a workout junkie and between that and the mega modified meals I was eating, my milk supply diminished to a mere drizzle. :( I had no idea at the time that my vigorous exercising was a contributing factor or I would have gladly toned it down. Anyway, the doctor insisted that I start supplementing formula. :( And not just any formula, Nutramagin! Stinky, wallet draining Nutramagin. He was a much happier boy for it but the whole process tore me apart. Between the drastic change in hormones that I experienced from weaning him and the whirl wind, horrific changes that came when I reintroced the foods I had cut out of my diet, I thought I would never be sane or the same again.

What a lot of people don't know and what I certainly did not know at that time is that the best way to find out what your food sensitivities are is to cut them out of your diet completely and reintroduce them one at a time to see which ones you react to... So.... I, having missed my sandwiches and cereal and milk and pizza and so on, jumped right back on them like it was nobody's business. That is when I began to fall apart. I was officially a crazy person. Over the next several months I had diagnoses of IBS, Depression, General Anxiety Disorder, ADHD and the beginning of Hypothyroidism. Man, did having babies change everything? No having undiagnosed food sensitivities changed everything. You see my body had gotten used to these foods over the few decades that I was ingesting them, but when I cut them out and added them back in the mild if any side effects that I had experienced my whole life were magnified my a million.

After many many many many trials with both naturopathic and pharmaceutical medications that failed me miserably I started to research food sensitivities. This was another long road. Figuring out the difference between food allergies and food sensitivities and how testing for food allergies won't do you any good if you have food sensitivities because they are not one in the same was truly an eye opening experience. One that I am sure left my dear loving husband Brian thinking I was a complete wacko. :) But I soldiered on. God was in the back of my head telling me keep moving forward you are not crazy and you are on the right path. So I did. He, God, placed many people in my path to show me the way. I went on a women's retreat for my Church and ended up rooming with a naturopathic doctor who specialized in healing people through food. Thank you JESUS!! She laid it out for me and I came home from retreat and began eliminating all the foods that I had cut out while breastfeeding and more. After a long journey I realized I could no longer eat gluten, grains, wheat, corn, soy, dairy, eggs, honey, legumes and most importantly SUGAR!!! And that is where my Paleo journey began. :)

I began paleo in the summer of 2011 and within a couple of months I was a new person. Better than I have ever been before. Happier, more balanced, stronger, faster, more alert, less moody, more comfortable all over. I had always experienced arthritic pain in my hands that I just chalked up to genetics... GONE!! I had never been able to read a book from cover to cover and tell you what I read... GONE!! I LOVE PALEO!!!! Paleo led me to one of the other loves of my life and that is my aMAZEn Bootcamp family. I was searching for accountability in my area for Paleo and this aMAZEn Bootcamp blog kept coming up and ironically this was the same bootcamp my neighbor and now dear friend, Michelle Lyell had just started coaching at. So I went and fell in love!!! I fell in love with people and workout and the PALEO ACCOUNTABILITY BABY!!!

I am not perfectly paleo, I cheat and I suffer the consequences but I rest at ease knowing that getting back on track the next day will help me feel myself again. And a HUGE bonus... After begging my hubby for months to get on the Paleo Wagon.... He was convinced by a fellow bootcamper and is now going paleo!!! Hallelujah!!

So that is my story and if it helped even one person the journey was totally worth it. Thanks!!

• Katie Allbritton