Look Good - Feel $hitty....what happened? #truth

As a Coach and Gym Owner it is never easy to admit your faults. Especially admitting those things that are directly correlated to nutrition. I mean if you look at the CrossFit way of life the largest focus has always been on nutrition. My motto has always been....

Learn It. Live it. Believe in it. Preach it.

My most recent struggle has been something I have yet to deal with closely, personally, and I am taking the opportunity to do just that. So I wanted to share it will all of you. 

I have found myself falling into place of insulin resistance the last 6 months. I knew it was happening and just chose to ignore it. Mostly because I am addicted to a lot of the things I had added back into my diet that last 6 months. So if I pulled back on the reins, that meant I had to cut out so many things that I am now addicted to. Why am I addicted you ask? SUGAR. Even though the label says 0 grams of sugar on gluten free oats, rice and a banana is fruit, that doesn't mean that I can stack all of these things together regularly and my gut and soul core of my body be happy. 

HOLD for a second... 

Now for those of you that eat all of those things I am not going against you and/or your way of life. I just need to do what is best  FOR MY BODY. And right now my body isn't good. I can honestly say that I feel I look the most fit I have in my entire life without having to diet down for a figure competition.  I might "look the part" to a lot of you, but as of right now, I do not "feel the part" and it is not an easy thing to admit especially when"Look good...FEEL good" is what I preach.  

Anyways.... Back to what happened.....

I was eating for performance going back into competitive CrossFit training. Sprinkle of GFree Oats, Fruits, Starchy veggies, Rice here and there, and sweet potato.  Keep in mind I am eating very little of these things. no more than 1/3 of a cup at a time, and /my "label sugar" as I like to call it (things that show actual sugar on labels or fruit aka NOT that bastard Stevia) is usually under 55 grams. This is even with my active lifestyle and longer training sessions. I eat out rarely. Once a week is usually the case. And I try to keep track of what I eat and when I eat it, along with keeping my macro breakdown balanced throughout day. So All and all damn clean. BUT that doesn't mean my insulin levels were appropriate for me and my body. So basically if you put all of the above sugars and carbs together along with Stevia in my breakfast pancake daily plus some hidden sugar here and there all added in with some serious doses of stress was just enough REGULARLY to throw my body all out of whack. Instead of taking a step back and lowering what was creating this insulin spike slowly as it happened, I just ignored it and now here I am . I looked better than I ever have... so obviously .... I just needed more sleep. RIGHT? WRONG. I couldn't even get enough as it was. So forcing myself to get more.....IMPOSSIBLE. This is when I realized there was a massive problem. So 2 weeks  ago I visited a site and found this little questionnaire. The results were shocking and huge slap in the face for me. Check out how it went... 

Top 10 signs of Insulin Resistance  

Do you have any of the following symptoms or concerns?

1. Fatigue: Not the everyday, run of the mill fatigue because you’re not getting enough sleep, but chronic can’t seem to get your energy back kind of fatigue. YES and I can't sleep through the night unless using the assistance of a homeopathic sleeping agent. 
2. Brain Fogginess: This one was me for sure! Mental fatigue (your brain just feels tired), an inability to focus, lack of motivation, can’t seem to remembers things. Massive YES! THIS IS way worse than the fatigue lately. 
3. Low blood sugar: Do you feel like you need to eat every few hours or you begin to feel some of the following symptoms?  Crankiness, irritability, loss of energy, jittery and feeling constantly concerned about when you will eat again? YES. Count down the mins till my next meal so often that sometimes I don't eat to try to avoid that feeling. So I feel more in control. This is my classic eating disorder in disguise and I didn't even realize it. 
4. Feeling bloated: gassiness or just intestinal bloating. More than normal the last 6 weeks. 
5. Sleepiness: particularly after a meal containing a lot of carbohydrates. YES. But can't fall asleep even if I wanted to.
6. Increased weight: Really this is excess fat storage. Stomach not as lean as it could be with how I eat and workout. This is where the stress  has always effected my body composition.  
7. Increased Triglyceride levels: This is common in overweight people but often seemingly thin insulin resistant people will have elevated triglyceride levels. Negative on this one. Thank goodness:)
8. High blood pressure: Often a rise in blood pressure goes hand in hand with a rise in blood insulin levels too. Nope. good here too. 
9. Depression: Because starchy or sugary carbohydrate can cause a bit of a serotonin high followed by a crash, some people begin to suffer from a level of depression. As hard as this is to admit yes. This was hard for me to take in. 
10. Carb cravings: Nothing but something starchy or sweet will do. YES. SO over this feeling. I hate feeling trapped by sugar. Time for a change. 

Here is the other truth.... I don't think my insulin levels have ever been TRULY on point. Like LEGIT on point and I am determined to get it there. 

Learn It. Live it. Believe in it. Preach it.

Tomorrow (Dec 1st) I am going to be changing up my macros and testing my diet to reflect over 55% of my calories coming from good sources of fat. No more than 30% protein and all my carbs will be coming from green veggies, carrots and sweet potato post workout. I will be doing it for 3 weeks to get my insulin levels back on track.Throughout this process I am allowing myself 2 occasions to consume any alcohol. 1 because its the holidays and 2 because it's a lifestyle. I need to be realistic here! I am very weary about giving up my morning pancake BUT I truly hate being addicted to it at the same time. There is no looking back now since I have shared this with all of you, which is why I did it! Now that you know, you will be holding me accountable without even knowing it. 

Accountability is a scary but POWERFUL thing that a ache for! Running away from it just PLAIN STUPID and WEAK in my opinion. I LOVE IT!!! So here is to the next 3 weeks and to getting my mind and my body balanced! I will be posting pictures and such keeping everyone up to date with how my challenge is going regularly on my Instagram and FB page! Please feel free to join me on my journey and check in on both of them from time to time! 

3....2....1..... GOOOOOO!!!!