For the next 30+ days, I will be eating meat, vegetables, healthy fats, fruits and nuts. I will not be eating processed food, sugar, dairy, grains or legumes, and I won’t be consuming any alcohol.

I’ve done a few Whole30 challenges before, but this time I’m looking for something a little different. I lost touch with my Paleo choices last year and I would like to reconnect with what it means to feel healthy, vibrant, and in tune with my whole self.

If you’re doing a Whole30 or other challenge, if you are living/exploring the Paleo lifestyle, or if you are simply looking for some tasty recipes to add to your repertoire, be sure to leave a comment to let me know you’re out there! I am so glad you stopped by!

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Day 27 is done!

Quote of the Day: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

What an incredible statement: “You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” Those are extremely powerful words. I think it’s hard to figure out sometimes what we actually fear and what we need to overcome. We might have a tendency to barrel through situations or close our eyes and pretend the fear doesn’t exist. I know for me, sometimes I simply don’t want to admit that I’m afraid of something. I might even say to myself that it is petty or ridiculous to fear that thing.

We don’t get to choose our fears, though. Fear is an emotion. It is ours to feel. The thing about emotions is that if we allow them to move through us, they can also move out of us. We can sometimes learn to see them for what they are – an opportunity to learn about ourselves, a situation, a path to our own courage. Like Eleanor Roosevelt said, acknowledging and facing that which we fear can give us strength, courage, and confidence in other moments of our lives.

When I’m struggling with my eating habits, I sometimes feel like I am building a protective layer around myself. I could do it with armor or closed off emotions or seclusion, but I tend to do it with food. When I’m feeling vulnerable, and sometimes not even actually vulnerable, but just potentially vulnerable, when I feel uncertain about my next steps or goals or even what I actually need or desire, I tend to start building that protection around my heart, my insides, all those parts that I want to keep hidden, in case they might get hurt.

The reality, however, is that building that protective shell inhibits me from living life fully, it keeps me from truly embracing the lessons that life has to offer, and it keeps me from looking fear in the face. And if I don’t do that, then I miss the chance to get stronger. The interesting thing about this blogging experience is that I put myself out there, while simultaneously feeling self-conscious about it. I want to find my healthiest self again, but I keep wanting my protective layers so I can avoid being exposed.

And what if what you fear, what I fear, is actually being successful? What a strange thing to fear, right? But I’ve noticed time and again in my life that I stop just short of actually being my most successful, for fear of …something. What, I can not exactly say.

I used the word embrace a few lines back. The moment that I wrote it, I remembered that embrace is my theme for the year. I had let it slip away a little bit. Perhaps it’s time to embrace those things that we fear – big, little, real, or imagined – and take them head on. Learn from them and then let them go. Let the fear move out and our true hearts shine through.

Day 27 – The Details

4:30am – Black coffee

6:15am – 2 eggs, kale, 1/2 tsp. coconut oil, cucumber, 1/4 avocado, sauerkraut

1:30pm – Pepperoncini beef, butternut squash soup, 1 clementine

2:30pm – Hardboiled egg, carrots

4:30pm – Carrots

5:30pm – Handful of nuts

6:30pm – Beef brisket, apple-macadamia nut-date salad

7:00pm – Clementine

Food: Not the timing and distribution that I’d like to see. I also ate more, and more often, than I think I really needed, but I’m all over the place and not really tuned in. This entire 30 days has been a-typical. I think I need another Whole30…

Mood: Emotional. I’m trying to pretend that I’m not, though. Not sure it’s working…

Sleep: 6 hours. I would have woken up early to workout, but I’m already too short on sleep so I’m picking what feels like the right thing for me to do right now.

Activity: If anyone thinks I’m a little emotional or testy, it’s because I haven’t worked out. I’m patient though and I will find the time. A sick kid and a traveling husband along with a short-term time crunch have made it really challenging. And the weather has been beautiful so I’m itching to get outside. Maybe tomorrow!

Focus – No food at the computer: Seriously. I got up, went to the kitchen, took out some carrots, sat down at the table and munched on them wishing I were in front of the computer because I had things to do, but stuck to my plan. The interesting thing was that I realized I probably needed the break in order to take care of the things on my list with more efficiency. It’s funny how that works. Then I took a handful of nuts to the computer because … I just did. I am a work in progress.