Junk Food Run! The End Is Near!

Friday! Friday is the day that the challenge will end. Can you sense the excitement in my writing?  Well if you can't, let me tell you, I'm excited!  What am I most excited for?  Well, let me tell you:

• Cottage Cheese
• String Cheese
• Milk
• Whole grain waffles with butter.  (I can have butter now, but butter without the waffles is just not the same!)
• Not having to score myself everyday.  It's been VERY helpful and I recommend this to people who are looking for some extra accountability, but I'm ready for a break.
• Not stretching every single day.  Yep, this is one thing that I will NOT continue.  Stretching bores me beyond belief.  I know it's good for me.  I've done it every single day for the past 7 1/2 weeks, but I still can not stand it.
• Cereal with cold milk.

I'm so surprised at the foods that I am craving these days.  As you can probably tell, my body wants dairy, in a bad way.  And I fully intend to give it dairy once this challenge is over.  

One thing that I'm not missing is all of the bread and pasta.  I love bread and pasta, who doesn't?!  But I haven't missed it like I though I would.  I thought for sure I would just curl up and die without pasta.  But, here I am, still standing!  I found spaghetti squash and fell in love.

I went on a quick "junk food" run yesterday.  It was actually a "re-stock my kitchen with foods that I can finally eat again run".  Loud and proud.....COTTAGE CHEESE!  You can bet your behind that I'm eating that for breakfast on Saturday morning!  I asked Brian if he wanted anything.  His response....ranch and pizza!  So I got my hubs ranch and pizza.  

Take a look at my "junk food" below.  I'd say I did pretty good!  Behind the yogurt is some cocoa almonds.  They are not approved for the challenge, but I'll be eating them come Saturday!  Almonds with a little cocoa powder on them....Mmmm!!  I would say I did pretty good.  This challenge has really helped me to take a good hard look at my food choices.  I don't want crap constantly going into my body.  Every package that I picked up I turned around and read the ingredient label!

I am so proud of how Brian has done in this challenge.  He is hands down killing it!  His results have been amazing.  He wants to continue with many of the habits and I think that is awesome!  Next Monday we will start 22 Minute Hard Corps together and complete 8 weeks of that together.  We figured if we could make it through 8 weeks of the Whole Life Challenge, 8 weeks of 22 Minute Hard Corps will be easy!  I suppose that will be the focus of my future blogs.  Expect to see lots of family workout updates. 

I've learned a lot about people on this journey as well.  I will leave you with this today.  Your character shines true by how you treat others.  

So many random thoughts. Running Updates. Challenge Updates. And Balls.

The challenge wraps up next Friday.  Let's be honest....I'm pretty excited!  I'm looking forward to being able to eat things without feeling guilty.  And not junk, but healthy foods, foods my body needs for the activities that I am doing.  A low carb, high protein, high fat diet has many benefits.  But it also has drawbacks.  And it surely is not for everyone.  I do like that I have been able to learn a ton about myself through this challenge.  Things my body can handle, things that react differently with my body, foods that fuel my activities and food that do not even come close.  My biggest take away so far, is that I really don't need a ton of bread or pasta.  I thought this would be a huge struggle for me.  But it's been great.  I feel lighter and more refreshed without the bread and pasta.

Overall, all has been going relatively well with the challenge.  I haven't experienced any major set backs lately.  I've recovered from my "free day hell" many weeks ago.  I actually had another free day last weekend.  I approached this free day much differently.  I started the day with a fun coffee (which ended up not being made right, no coffee, only milk and syrup, so I had two drinks and threw it away).  This was someone's way of saying....Don't do it Katie, don't do the junk!  (This is one of those things that I'm looking forward to when the challenge is over....FUN COFFEE! We have a great new coffee shop in town and I love trying out the fun iced coffees and frappe's.  They aren't the healthiest, but they sure are a GREAT treat once in awhile!). I ate well during the day and enjoyed a fun night at my in-laws.  My mother in law always has such delicious food.  There were a lot of healthy options.  Brian stayed compliant all night (Go Brian!), but I enjoyed some crackers and dip, some bread, a cookie and a banana bar with cream cheese frosting.  Mmmm.  So good!  But I didn't over indulge like I did last time.  I woke up feeling good the next morning, not guilty or ill.  So I think I did pretty darn good!

I spent some time Sunday prepping food.  I decided I was only going to eat food in the "ball form" this week.  No, not really, it just happened that I did a lot of rolling this weekend with my foods. Two of my "ball" preps included meatballs made with sausage, beef and bacon.  They turned out AMAZING!  I made enough for Brian and I to eat all week.

My second ball creation was chocolate energy balls.  I've made these in the past, but used honey and chocolate chips.  Since I can't have either of those, I made some substitutions.  I used dates, natural peanut butter, oats, chia seeds, flax seed, bananas and cocoa powder.  They turned out amazing as well!  I thought I made enough of those for the entire week too, but it turns out that Brian and I like them a lot and have eaten quite a few!

I've been doing a lot of reflecting with the challenge and am trying to pick out the positives.  If I focus on the negatives, I will only feel negative.  So, here are some positives:

• Brian and I are still in, 100%.

• The kids are involved and keeping us on track! Two of the three kids love working out with me!

• My pants are significantly looser. BOOM!!

• I'm sleeping great.

• I can complete something if I put my mind to it.

• Healthy brownies do not in fact taste like brownies.  But if you eat 24 of them, they sort of do the trick to help the chocolate craving. (I think that defeats the purpose though...maybe!).

• I've learned a ton from my struggles.

• It's ok to struggle. (Struggle sounds so negative and I thought it was at one point in my life, but it's not negative.  That's where the GROWTH happens! When you can accept this, you will see wonderful things happen!)

• Stretching is becoming one of my favorite things to do.  Ok, no!  No, that was a lie!!!  I still don't really like stretching.  Blah!  But I'm doing it, so that is a positive!
  

• Support is key.  Support has come from places that I didn't think it would have.  

• Small changes can make a big difference.

• Hamburger patties make a great snack.

• People look at you odd when you walk around with a hamburger patty hanging out of your mouth.  

• Spaghetti squash is amazingly delicious.  It is however a BEAST to cut.  Hence the knives....

• Lara bars are delicious.

Running Update:
Remember awhile back I was struggling with my energy, specifically in relation to my running.  Well, the energy is still not quite where it needs to be with my running, but I'm still trucking away.  I will officially start a half marathon training plan on March 22nd.  I'm trying out the plan right now, scaling it back while I'm "challenging", trying to figure out what is going to work for me.  For the plan I will only run three days a week.  Ideally one run will be speed work, one tempo and one long (slower) run.  I'm always open to feedback on my running, so if you have any....bring it on!  I would like to hit a time goal for this spring marathon.  I would need to be about 6 minutes faster than my half last fall.  I think it's doable.  I think!  I'll keep you updated on my progress!