EPIPHANIES?

E1: I don't mind cooking. I suck at it but it's getting better. E2: I enjoy food shopping. Trying to find things that I can eat is like playing a game and I love me some games! E3: I think I can eat this way forever. I no longer find the diet limiting, especially with planned cheating. Even then I find myself not wanting to "cheat." E4: I enjoy reading about nutrition. You all have no idea how much time I waste at work reading about this stuff. E5: I miss alcohol. All of it. In a bad way. I want to drink all the time. At least I have discovered I can still have a good time in social situations without it! E6: You can lose weight without feeling hungry. That's the biggest win. I'm not worrying too much about quantity and I'm still losing weight.

Jonathan - I hear your dilemma regarding winning. Remember, that you cannot have more than a perfect score, so think of all of those bonus points as "play points" - I call mine "drinking points" The point is to be balanced with this so you don't "relapse" after. There will be days tat you SHOULD have a drink with a friend you haven't seen in a long time...just make a conscious decision as to when those will take place. Just the thought process of deciding when to make a deviation from Paleo is a powerful learning opportunity itself.

I have been kind of overwhelmed how much spending has reduced with eating out less and not buying wine, even with spending more on expensive groceries. I was so overwhelmed I booked a trip to Vegas at the end of this challenge to celebrate the end of this challenge. At the end of the celebration I will return to eating similar to this challenge during the week, but some wine with some treats will probably follow me back to enjoy the weekend. Between the eating naturally and refraining from alcohol and stretching/exercising more, life is going pretty well.

And a shout out to Mike Mac SB on his B-day WOD today - Happy birthday Mike and Augie!

completed first Rx without mods today- granted it was not shoulder oriented but either way I am stoked... could it be a result of WLC? just saying... and ditto to Travis's comment, Augie Happy Birthday!! you kicked 51's butt!!

I love birthday challenges, or WODs, or any variant thereof. Augie totally killed it today: 5,100 meters of rowing, with 5 wall balls every 2 minutes on the minute. You should have seen how hard he kicked for the last 250! Happy birthday Augie!

I can't say anything has shocked me so far. I knew I'd miss the glass of wine or beer while I'm cooking in the evenings, but sometimes I just go for it anyway. That's definitely mental conditioning. I can say that I've really started paying more attention to labels then I was before. Last night I spent 10min in the spice aisle at Albertson's trying to find something to put on my grilled asparagus that didn't contain monosodium glutamate, corn syrup or any other artificial ingredient. I've also found that supermarkets bring up a mixture of feelings including frustration, enlightenment and even some judging. It's hard to respond to the guy working the butcher area (he's definitely not a butcher) when you ask him if they have grass-fed beef and he responds with "what? gas-fed?" Walking that fine line of not being a food snob, but still caring enough to tactfully educate those around you is very, very difficult. Thanks to TB and Ali, I also realized that Whole Foods actually has some great deals on quality meats if you're willing to be flexible and buy whats on sale that day.

Ephiphany 1: I Am Chronically Dehydrated As evidenced by the 3 days it took me to start peeing regularly during the H20 Challenge week. Turns out coffee really doesn't count as hydration (even if, in my defense, it IS mostly water). Ephiphany 2: Be Well Reasoned Anyone who has had the great misfortune of catching me on one of my more argumentative days will tell you that I can be a frustrating and ruthless opponent. Now take that ruthless person, starve her of chocolate, change her BC pill the day the WLC starts, allow 2 weeks to elapse, and then sit back and watch the mental dialogue unfold. In a battle of Sarah v. Sarah, there is only one winner - who is(paradoxically perhaps) - also the one loser. Trivial denials of consumptive instincts (ex: No, we are not eating that tortilla) demand rational, fact-based explanations, which lead to extensive examinations of the measures by which the term 'fact' was ever even assigned in the first place. Vanity stands no chance against this fiery inquisition. Being well reasoned is the sole bastion of hope for the survival of all parties. Ephiphany 3: Stay Busy Doing every new thing possible to distract from the psychological fist fight described in E2, is the winning strategy. I took a jiu jitsu class. I practiced cart-wheels. I baked 6000 variations of banana "bread" [some of which were absolutely revolting]. I spent most of the Olympics studying to perfect my British accent. I have begun compiling footage for any one of the plethora of brilliant ideas we've generated for the next viral cat video. Bottom line is, at no moment when all that weirdness was occurring, was I thinking about how totally limited and lame my life is (and all other varieties of wah-mbulance style commentary). Ephiphany 4: Usher is really attractive. That's all I have to say about that. Ephiphany 5: Attitude is Everything. Perspective is everything + 1 (or everything++, for the dweebs in the hizzouse).

I am eating a little less that I usually do, and weight is really falling off me. I am often hungry, but it's a low-grade hunger that is easy to deal with, not the ravenous hunger that comes after a carb-heavy meal. I miss wine. Sun-dried tomatoes and jalepenos go with everything. Claw

for me, it's balancing what's psychologically healthy. on one hand, i want to win. i have no desire to cheat or fall behind in the score count. i know it is a slow process and will take time for my number of rounds or amount of weight in workouts to increase but this challenge is something i can do to set myself apart. this is something i can be good at right now. however, it does come with a cost. i find myself thinking that at the end of these 8 weeks i'll be eating EVERYTHING in sight (perhaps this may change over the remainder of the challenge, probably not though). this is not good, nor the purpose of the challenge. so what's more important? being at the top of the score card or balancing it out and having a cheat day/meal? my epiphany is that i need to decide. thoughts?

1. Unless I'm eating a cheat meal at a restaurant I feel like my Paleo cooking tastes much better than eating Paleo at a restaurant. 2. Starting the day with black coffee instead of coffee w/ vanilla creamer isn't so bad anymore and I feel a heck of a lot better after drinking it than I did with the creamer. 3. I don't snack as much since meat & veggies aren't "addicting" and I don't "crave" them like I did with sweets.

Paleo and meeting new people/weekends/traveling...pretty much the entire adult social world...do not mix very well. Proportion should be just as important as quality. Everything has cheese on it. I feel amazing.

Epiphanies: had my first binge last night and hated how I feel today. I too miss beer/wine. It's not the buzz I miss, I just love the flavor of a well done micro-brew or how a great wine will pair with a delicious meal. From Dave: If you're going to eat something terrible, approach it like a night of drinking. You plan it, and you know you're going to feel it in the morning, but you do it because it's a special occasion. Chicken doesn't suck when it's fresh, whole, and free of creepy chemicals (I hadn't been eating chicken for months). The best part of eating Paleo? Eating. I think fish oil is helping my leg...I might try going off of it later to see if the nagging pain comes back.

Without beer and chocolate, salt has become my go to condiment. I wish that Karen was a large slab of salt. I would lick her from sunrise to moonset. Sorry, this Paleo thing has thinned the wall between my internal and external dialouge. Aug

Being off sugar, I appreciate the taste of all food better.