Hurdles

Greetings Yogi, 

May you be wonderfully blessed today. 

It's been 4 days since starting "Your Personal Paleo Code", the nutritional journey developed by Chris Kresser.  During the 30 day reset phase, or in my case the 40 days of Lent, one is to refrain from eating any sugars (that includes anything made with sugars such as ketchup, hot sauce, salad dressings, wine), dairy, grains, beans/legumes or industrial seed oils such as soy/corn/canola/ vegetable/sesame, etc.  In a word, DETOX.  He recommends eating at home, because seriously, it's difficult to find a restaurant meal with those restrictions.  And he was right. 

That has been fully impractical in my life already!  I'm proud of the fact that we do very little eating out, but with a busy lifestyle, working a full time office job, teaching yoga classes 2-3 times a week, active in 3 church ministries, sometimes you gotta grab a meal on the run.  Even yesterday, Rich's friends invited us to join them for breakfast at a restaurant on Carson Street.  Can I bring along a jar of coconut oil with which to ask the chef to prepare my paleo-friendly eggs? 

So as you can see, it's been an imperfect few days.  I ordered an egg over easy, which served as my dressing for the side salad.  Later, after a morning full of running chores and meetings, I lunched out with a ministry leader,  and had a splash of commercial salad dressing on the SECOND salad of the day, at a family-friendly restaurant which uses no olive oil.  Some people can use just vinegar, I ain't on of 'em.  Reminder, this is a plan, not a religion.

Even with those infractions, my diet has been completely overhauled.  Even the occasional pretzel, tortilla chip, diet Pepsi or dollop of peanut butter, must have wreaked havoc because I'm feeling the burn baby.  In fact, this fast has taken me right over into the spiritual realm, for real.  Thoughts of pastors speaking and teaching about reasons to fast, using hunger pains as reminders to pray, remembering and honoring sacrifices of Christ. 

On the other hand, at this stage, it's still difficult to distinguish between hunger and craving, but one or both is ever present.  I'm still feeling joint pain, sleep issues, brain fog, cranky.  On the other hand, I'm also experiencing feelings of strength, empowerment and determination.

All this in less than a week.  The goal for this week is to obsess less about food, riiight!  For a very nice explanation of Lent, check out this site, from Emmanuel Episcopal Church, the host of one of my yoga classes,   http://www.emmanuelpgh.org/lent-2014/what-is-lent/

Thank you for checking out this post. 

Peace, love a grace to y'all...

myrna
YogaNuvo