Hormones, Ice Cream & Alcohol

by | Sep 5, 2017 | Blog

There’s so much to share with you guys after the holiday weekend! This weekend had a little bit of everything: workouts, walks on the beach, clean eating, indulging, laughing, crying, death & a pregnancy test.

Let’s be clear: I’m not pregnant, nor did I think I was. No clickbait here 🙂

If you’d rather listen to this post than read it, please click here to listen on Anchor.

I don’t usually do weekend recaps, but since I indulged this weekend, I want to share it. I eat clean 90% of the time and I think it’s important to share what it looks like when I don’t.

I left town on Friday morning for a weekend at the beach with my family. I got up around 3am Friday to work for a while before heading to the gym & hitting the road. At the beach, we grilled chicken for lunch. We walked on the beach. We grilled steak tips and romaine for dinner. We walked to the top of the street for ice cream after dinner. It was lovely.

A hard workout, tons of great family time, clean eating & a worthwhile treat. Awesome day.

Saturday morning I got up around 4:30am to work while everyone slept and when my sister woke up, we got in a great workout in the front yard. One at a time, we did 21-15-9 burpees & kettlebell swings and while one was doing that, the other did an AMRAP of pushups, sit-ups and squats. Then we went for a walk on the beach.

We made breakfast salad bowls with bacon, eggs, cabbage & avocado. We walked on the beach, played corn hole, listened to music and had salads for lunch. We walked to dinner and shared roasted brussels sprouts as an appetizer. I had a burger without the bun for dinner. Everyone ordered alcohol but I decided to stick to water. We walked home. My mom & her husband had blueberry pie. I drank sparkling water.

Another fantastic day.

Sunday was not so fantastic, and I am referring to far more than food choices. Food alone doesn’t have the power to make my day not-so-fantastic. It’s just food, after all.

I shared with you guys a few weeks ago that I was beginning the process of freezing my eggs. I don’t want kids right now but I’m in my mid-thirties so this process seems like a prudent move.

It is not, however, free from emotion. There are doubts, financial investments, time investments, uncertainties, needles, risks, hormones, etc, etc.

This was the weekend I was supposed to start my medication cycle. In order for the pharmacy to call in the meds, I had to take a pregnancy test to document that I’m not pregnant. I’m not. There wasn’t any question.

After a long walk to get coffee, my sister and I went to the grocery store for sparkling water & a pregnancy test.

My mom came home from church and shared with us that her aunt died that morning.

That was the backdrop of the morning: hormones, new beginnings, death & coffee….

Serious conversations were had. Tears were shed. Emotions were high.

That is a much greater portion of the “not so fantastic” than the food. The food didn’t help though.

The afternoon/evening included cocktails, turkey nachos over beet chips (instead of tortilla chips), little pie crust bites and ice cream. Some choices that make me feel great & some choices that don’t.

When we were kids, my mom would take the leftover pie dough after making a pie and make this small, 1 inch roll ups of pie dough, cinnamon & sugar, baked in the oven.

Though I didn’t eat her blueberry pie, I absolutely enjoyed a few of the little crust bites and some ice cream.

Were the indulgences worth it? Nope.

Am I mad about it? Nope.

Am I blaming it on emotion? Nope.

Did emotion influence my choices? Yes, it certainly did. However, I was fully in control of all my choices and they were intentional.

I am always fully in control of my choices.

Why am I not mad? Because it wouldn’t change anything.

Getting pissed off about food choices reflects my old (failed) dieting strategies. Over-indulge, get pissed, over restrict, over-indulge.

I avoid any & all strategies that don’t work. Negative emotion over food doesn’t work.

It’s just food!

Life is so much more than food.

I am very much emotional about the egg-freezing process.

I am very much emotional about my time with my family.

I am very much emotional about death and loss.

Food doesn’t have that much power over me.

I woke up on Monday and it was life as usual. Coffee. Foods that make me feel amazing. I made a breakfast bowl of ground turkey, riced cauliflower, bacon & eggs. It was awesome.

No guilt, no drama, no regret. Just objective awareness and a focus on what I can do to make myself feel amazing.

I sipped coffee and sparkling water and ate pili nuts while playing cards with my mom & sister.

I had an early dinner of chicken thighs & salad.

I will not waste my precious energy regretting choices.

I can be pissed about yesterday or I can be in control of today.

I choose today.

That brings us all the way to today, Tuesday. Another great opportunity to focus on making myself proud.

Here’s how today’s workout went down:

“Cement Mixer”
7 Rounds, On the 3:00:
200 Meter Run
10 GHDs

GHD stands for glute-ham developer and you can see a demo here.

On the food front:

A couple hours after my workout I had a cabbage salad bowl with avocado, bacon & eggs.

I brought a couple Keto Kookies with my to my doctor appointment & ate them in the waiting room. It was a pretty busy day so I had an Epic Bar for lunch in between phone calls.

I stopped at Chipotle Mexican Grill for dinner and got a salad without rice & beans – just lettuce, chicken, pico and guacamole.

Wow. Long post, eh? I’m proud of this weekend and that has NOTHING to do with food and everything to do with me, my choices, how I spent my time, how I spent my energy and what matters most to me.

Lots of love! Hope you had a great holiday weekend!

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