About Me

About me eh…

I’m a 35 year old woman who’s trying to find a healthy balance in life.  Over the last year and 1/2 I have lost alot of weight.  I started changing my life in January 2010, I was 247 pounds, on blood pressure medicine and under the threat of being put on cholesterol lowering medicine.  I followed the Medifast plan (a meal replacement plan) for 11 months and 2 weeks until I reached my goal weight of 125 pounds in January 2011.  Upon reaching my goal weight I followed the transition plan from Medifast, slowly reintroducing more whole foods back into my life.

In March 2011, I was diagnosed with gall stones and underwent a cholecystectomy.  In the time building up to my surgery and for several weeks after my surgery I ate alot of foods that were in no way good for me.  I gained 27 pounds post-operatively and decided to go back on the Medifast plan to lose the weight I’d put on since my health issues and surgery.  What I found in the weeks that followed was that I would follow the plan, lose weight, then have a bad day and just go hog wild with bad foods.  This roller coaster ride of on plan = losing weight, off plan = gaining weight, etc etc went on for a few months.

My birthday is the last week of June so I took the last two weeks of the month and seriously pigged out… in 2 weeks time I gained 19 pounds.  I started to recognize that I was heading down a destructive path and possibly developing some sort of eating disorder because when I was off plan, I wasn’t just dabbling in a few off plan treats, I was binge eating.  My stomach was constantly bloated and in pain from all the crap I was stuffing myself with.  I was miserable, yet I was doing it anyway.

After that experience, I came to the realization that I needed to find a way to accept myself as I am and stop trying to define myself by a number on the scale.  While I am fearful that one day I will wake up severely obese again, the alternative of obsessing over my weight was not healthy either.  I began the transition process again.  I decided that for me it was time for me to find a whole food eating plan and work on losing/toning through exercise and being active.

Making peace with the idea of transition was very freeing.  Realizing that while I’m not 125 pounds, I am still wearing a size 6 pants, still running 5K’s and living an active lifestyle.  I wrote out my transition plan, took current weight and measurements (along with a “here I am now” picture).

I had been talking back and forth with a good friend who follows a paleo lifestyle for health reasons.  I was intrigued but I didn’t know if I could give up, grains, dairy, legumes, etc. (which is really odd seeing as I’ve lived without them for the last year and 1/2)  We talked alot about the lifestyle, recipes, etc and after a while I started doing some research myself.

I have had a couple of terrible MSG reactions over the last several months. I guess after so long of not being exposed to MSG foods when I mistakenly get something I am in horrible pain for hours.  I started getting really upset with our food industry for adding such terrible things to our food supply.  I mean if this is the effect it has on me, what in the world is it doing to our children, etc.  This started me thinking even more about whole foods and clean eating.

I wanted more information about Primal/Paleo plans and have since read The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf and am about 1/2 way through the Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson.  I think I will next dive into the Paleo Diet by Dr. Loren Cordain.

I have been eating mostly primal/paleo over the last couple of weeks and to my surprise I haven’t been gaining weight.  Previously I thought the only way I could keep from gaining was by always falling back to the Medifast plan… for the first time in over a year and 1/2 I’m completely Medifast product free.
The other day I reached for a flavor packet for my water and decided I would check some of the ingredients of this water infuser I would use several times a day before.  Holy smokes, it just makes me so much more aware of the processed and chemical junk I was putting into my body.  It pushes me farther and farther toward the idea of primal/paleo whole foods.

While I am still learning about the whole lifestyle and understanding exactly how to implement it into my life, I am making more and more decisions with that lifestyle in mind.  To my surprise my family has jumped on board too and come August 1st we are launching the whole family on the 30 day challenge.  We are going to commit to paleo eating for 30 days and evaluate what benefits we all see as a result.  I am very excited about the possibilities in store for me and my family.

My husband and I have an 8 year old daughter who already eats an alternative eating plan due to some attention issues identified by her teacher last year.  While most people wanted us to medicate our daughter we researched alternatives and have been able to help her focus by eliminating gluten and diary.  We have found that she is most sensitive to dairy and can get away with small amounts of gluten and peanuts (both of which had been previously eliminated).  Since she’s already use to eating a modified plan, we figured we might as well take the whole family down the primal road and see what benefits we might experience as a whole (bye bye grains, dairy and peanuts – legumes).

So here is where the blog title originates…  In an attempt to keep the experience light and fun for all of us… we have approached it as our Caveman plan.  We explained that we are going to eat like cave men did (except I’m going to be cooking my food and buying it from the store..lol)  Our daughter seems pretty excited about this idea.  We might even take some caveman pictures, do some caveman drawings on our fence, who knows… but we want it to stay light and fun… so Dawn of a Cave Woman is born.
I hope to document our journey into the primal/paleo lifestyle, talk about our struggles and what we learn along the way.  I hope to post some pictures of what we eat, how we play, what we learn about ourselves.  It should be a fun learning experience and maybe even life changing too.