Day Thirty

Mood: 7/10 - Good!

Energy: 6/10 - Again, need more sleep. 

Withdrawals? Nope.

Ate/Drank:

• Breakfast - Rashers & Saussies
• Lunch - Snack bar & fruit
• Dinner - Chicken stir fry 
• Drank - Water & tea

So here we are. I have done it. The Whole 30. Well, we have done it, speaking properly. Before I move on to less important matters, I want to make mention of my fabulous wife MT, who's 3...erm...24th birthday is on Tuesday. When I first broached the idea of taking sugar out of my diet I did so with trepidation, a lack of conviction, and an absence of self belief. It was a thought, an idea, something which I was determined was a good concept worht exploring but one which I spoke of with no timeframe, no plan and not believing I could actually achieve it. I happened across the Whole 30 purely by mistake. But I am not a believer in coincidence and it spoke to me, and importantly, it spoke to her. Since that point, MT has been amazing. She has been diligent, disciplined and dedicated in keeping to the eating plan. Her belief in and support of me has kept me moving forward when I have had hard moments. I am a hard person to live with at the best of times - emotional bordering on moody & obsessive/compulsive enough in my behaviour that even the best of my friends have felt discarded or taken for granted by me at times. I own that. I am aware that in spite of my best intentions, I can be selfish. So you throw the worst traits of my personality into a blender and mix it up with sugar & caffeine withdrawal along with the accompanying moodswings...I can only imagine how that has been for her. All the while she has remained steadfastly in my corner & been an absolute saint minding the baby who's had a rough month sleep wise. Therefore, one time I just wanted to say publicly, thank you darling. They say behind every great man is a great woman, well sweetie, you have made this deeply flawed man a reasonably good husband & father, which makes you even greater than great in my eyes. You are my homie always & forever, like I promised, and I love you. Thank you. 

Mi ángel & the babs

Back to business. Now we are here, it's important to look back at the goal. The description of the Whole 30 is as follows:

"Certain food groups (like sugar, grains, dairy and legumes) could be having a negative impact on your health without you even realizing it. Are your energy levels inconsistent or non-existent? Do you have aches and pains that can’t be explained? Are you having a hard time losing weight? Do you have skin issues, digestive ailments, seasonal allergies, or chronic pain, that medication hasn’t helped? These symptoms are often directly related to the foods you eat—even the “healthy” stuff. So how do you know if these foods are affecting you?

Strip them from your diet completely. Eliminate the most common craving-inducing, blood sugar disrupting, gut-damaging, inflammatory food groups for a full 30 days. Let your body heal and recover from whatever effects those foods may be causing. Push the reset button with your health, habits, and relationship with food, and the downstream physical and psychological effects of the food choices you’ve been making. Learn how the foods you’ve been eating are actually affecting your day-to-day life, long term health, body composition, and feelings around food. The most important reason to keep reading?

This will change your life."

The first thing to say is that as I sit here 30 days later, I feel very much that it is mission accomplished. This has changed my life. I am sleeping much more soundly. My digestive system has often been erratic but has been much more consistent this month(you're chuffed I'm discussing that, right?). My stomach acid issues for which I take nexium every day have been much more manageable. And my energy feels more consistent. I am not running marathons, nor, put bluntly, am I particularly energetic, but the spikes and crashes are gone. If I wake up on a given day tired, I'll probably be tired most of the day. If I sleep well and wake up with energy, chances are I'll keep that going through till night. It feels more natural, more real. 

There have been other tangible benefits. I have slept more solidly. I have always been a tosser/turner in bed - pulling the duvet left, right and centre to the point that we have two blankets on our bed now, since inevitably I'll leave MT with none. Now, I fall asleep in one position, and wake up in the same one. My back used to ache in the morning, perhaps from the position I slept in, or the constant movement. I thought it was from having to carry all the weight on the front half of my body. Whatever it was, I don't feel that way in the morning now. My skin looks clearer & brighter. Even my eyes, odd as it sounds, look more vibrant when I spy them in the mirror. I believe I've lost some weight too. Several people have commented on how they can see it in my face, and I can feel it in my clothes. My bigger stuff looks baggy on me, and clothes that have been uncomfortably tight are fitting that bit better. I don't know for sure as we have not weighed ourselves since that is not the point of the exercise & to do so would only provide a distraction. But still, the biggest physical difference when I look in the mirror is that I just look less swollen. All that gassy liquid, processed sugar and particularly heavy carbs appeared to combine to bloat me. Removing them has left me feeling more comfortable and I think that reflects in my appearance, although truthfully others will be a better judge of that than me. 

Emotionally, I feel a couple of relatively disparate sensations which might seem to contradict each other. On one hand, I feel more stable. But at the same time, there is a sense that the scabs & wounds that I've picked at in the space provided by being relatively addiction free for a month and going through everything in therapy are now open, and with that there are strong emotions bubbling right beneath the surface, at a level which quite frankly catches even me offguard. When people have engaged me in conversations around my blog, it has led to discussions around many of the bigger issues, the defining events in my life, largely when I was young and around my fathers last few years and passing. These are things I've touched off in conversation many times over the past two decades, but now the emotion shadows the words, very raw. And just today I was walloped over the head with how sensitive I am at the moment. UFC Light Heavyweight Jon Jones dethroned incumbent champion Daniel Cormier at UFC214 last night. Cormier, known better as 'DC' is a sympathetic figure who's life has been marked by tragedy, most notably the death of his one year old daughter in a car crash, something which resonated deeply with me as a young father myself and as such I have always kept a close eye on how he does. The fight was a back and forth war, ending when Jones headkicked DC into the middle of next week and finished him off with punches on the ground leaving the beaten champion completely unconscious in what was particularly brutal, even in this most brutal sport. Despite having engaged in verbal & physical warfare in what had become an intensely personal rivalry over the years, Jones was magnanimous in victory, putting over strong just how much he admired DC as a man and a fighter. As he spoke, the camera cut to DC. Blubbering. I mean just sobbing. Like a baby. And guess what? Suddenly I was too. I don't mean I got choked up. I didn't get teary eyed. I mean I started sobbing. I have no idea why. My heart just fucking broke for the guy. He's not even one of my favourite fighters. Loss, whether it be sporting or otherwise, is a universal sensation. One loss touches another. His pain touched my pain at whatever level. Trust me when I tell you, this doesn't happen to me every time I watch a fight. 

DC experiencing the agony of defeat

However, for all that emotional vulnerability is there and I'm palpably aware of it, there's a stability too, and that was borne out today with my kids. We visited my sis and while we were there, Bayley spent the majority of the 90 minutes roaring crying, making strange. And Carra just wouldn't behave herself, which eventually resulted in a blowup between her and MT. Carra in full on tantrum mode is quite a sight. Roaring, kicking, stomping, shouting, punching, crying. MT had told her to go to her room and she refused, blowing her stack. I stepped in. About 6 weeks ago, a not dissimilar situation happened when we left Tracey's house, and I blew a fuse at Carra. Today I got her upstairs and onto her bed. She roared. She punched the walls. She kicked things. I calmly told her for every misdeed, I was going to take a toy from her. She continued. I took a toy. She reacted and got even worse. I took another toy. She exploded with rage. One more toy, along with it the ultimatum repeated - keep doing this Carra, and I'll keep taking things. She went quiet. Then silent. She lay in her bed. Minutes passed. She approached me and snuggled into me, weeping. I hugged her and kissed her, then sat her on my knee. I asked her why she thought she was in trouble. We discussed it. She told me she knew she had to apologise to her mom. I smothered her with affection to let her know all was forgiven, and I told her that no matter how bold she is, I always love her and think well of her. She went down and hugged her Mom, apologised, had a bath and went to bed. Through all the anarchy, I didn't lose my temper, and I didn't roar at her. That's my energy & mood at work. Were I experiencing a crash 2 hours after a pizza or a big coffee 5 weeks ago, I probably would have blown and roared her head off, leaving me feeling guilt riddled and her traumatised in the short term. That would sit with me all evening. But that didn't happen and I really believe what I put into my body helped.

Best buds even if we don't always see eye to eye!

That awareness around how sugar and caffeine affect my serotonin and dopamine levels is really strong now. I can see when I have some fruit how I feel a little pick me up. God knows what it was like when I was putting aspartame and fake sugar into my system every 90 minutes or so. 

Of course, all this learning, and all this change is for naught if in 30 more days I am back where I was - munching frozen pizza on a Wednesday night, grabbing Maccy D's drive thru when I'm feeling low, driving past and the mood strikes a couple times a week, pumping myself with sickly sweet sugar laced foods every evening before bed, coffee & coke for breakfast, the same for lunch and then a coke before bed. It is just as vital I get the next 30 days right as the last. I won't be blogging every single day, simply because I don't have that much to say and even toward the final third of this it has been a slog to get a blog done every day. But I do believe it keeps me honest to know other people are reading, and being introspective and examining my behaviours and motivations every day has been worthwhile. No-one lights their first cigarette hoping to be a lifelong addict, and no-one has their first drink hoping they'll end up depending on it to get them through life for the next however many decades. These things happen because the behaviour becomes habit and all the while you are behaving without an awareness of why you're doing what you're doing, nor a concern for where todays action take you in 6 months, 6 years or 6 decade. That is how I allowed myself get so damn far out of shape, physically and mentally. I allowed it to slide. I was complacent. I took the external - good job, nice home, wonderful family - and I allowed that to be what dictated how my life was going. Once that stuff is good, so am I. But it doesn't work like that. At least not for me. I need to be vigilant and wary at all times of how my tendency to take my foot off the gas or my eye off the ball can lead me away from where and who I want to be. I need to look inward. Once that's ok, everything else is better.

On day 19, I wrote about the struggle I have with being me - the sensation that I believe I am successful in slotting into many roles in life, be it husband, dad, friend, employee, brother, but I am lacking a sense of identity, bamboozled from a lifetime spent playing catch up on my development since my tragedy riddled teens, stunting myself with dependencies all the while, unsure of just who I am when everything and everyone external is removed. 11 days later, I haven't put that puzzle together just yet. However, reflecting on the month gone by, just in this moment, I really do feel like the best version of me. I'm proud of who I am today.