Day 30!

Today is Day 30 of my first Whole30. Drumroll please! I have lost....

I don't know how many pounds. I'm not interested in getting on the scale.

I know I've lost 3.5" underbust, 2" waist, and 2" hips. I only knew those measurements because I was looking for a dress pattern size sometime in the first week, they're not "official start measurements". But whatever, close enough.

I have GAINED:

*Absolutely glowing skin. When multiple people who do not know each other mention it to you, you know it's true.
*SLEEEEEEP. I'm sleeping like a baby. I have fought sleep issues for EIGHTEEN YEARS, since the accident. I would get up 5 or 6 times a night to go to the bathroom and I constantly tossed and turned. I wear an eye mask and earplugs and I STILL would wake up that much. Now I sleep in solid 4-hour blocks, and I wake up once in the middle of the night. It's life changing. I feel so much better with sleeping! The only challenge is that now I want to sleep all the time. ;)
*I am happier, more energetic, and more enthusiastic. I've never been a pessimist, despite my love of sarcasm. I'm a generally cheerful person. But very shortly I expect my boxmates to start slapping me at 5:30am when I'm trilling and happy and energetic and they're bleery-eyed and barely awake.
*Money! My bank account is so much better off! My husband and I only went out once this month, and I looked at my bank account in shock. Seriously, did I forget a bill? What? Um...oh dear. Well if THAT isn't a wake-up for the budget then I don't know what is.
*Confidence and security in my choices. There's so much information out there regarding diets and "health". So many new gimmicks, so many seemingly well-reasoned arguments for why X approach is better than Y, why Y fails in comparison to Z. I'm listening to none of it. I'm questioning myself NOT AT ALL. My body feels amazing. I'm getting signals that tell me that this is RIGHT, this feels good, my body is happy. I am secure in my choices. I am not panicking in the back of my mind, "what if this doesn't work? What do I not know yet? Do I need to study this more? What does this book/diet over here have to offer?" I am confident that this is right for my body, and emotional stress has melted away.

But the most significant change, the change that I am chasing, is in healing my brain. Oh, please. Oh please pleasepleaseplease. I've never wanted anything more. I would give anything, ANYTHING, to have that. When I woke up from the coma, after the accident, I had no idea how badly I was hurt. For two months I had no idea as I gradually healed. But then one day...

It was April. I remember in great detail, because there was so much emotional trauma. So much pain. I was in my room with my journal, and I was idly flipping pages, trying to stir up memories here and there, musing over how much I didn't remember. I picked up a book. Still couldn't read. I knew what the words meant, but couldn't comprehend how they threaded together into a coherent thought. I couldn't remember the first sentence of the paragraph by the time I got to the last sentence. Me, an English major! Who had never wanted anything more than to write, be a writer, be published, tell my stories to the world. In a split second I realized what I had lost. I realized how badly I was hurt. I realized that I had changed on such a fundamental level, that my dreams were dead to me. I still remember, word for word, what I picked up my journal and wrote:

"Anything but my brain. Anything. I would have given my arm. Anything but my brain." 

Right there, in that moment, I made the decision to turn from my writing dreams and everything I thought I'd become. I made the decision to pick myself up and carry on, fight on, on a completely different path. Realizing how badly my brain was injured was by far the most traumatizing thing that has ever happened to me, and in some ways I am still reeling from that blow.

But there is a suggestion here, in this way of eating. Coupled with Crossfit and the neural changes detailed in Learning to Breathe Fire, this way of eating has the potential to help heal some of the damage and stimulate parts that are, while not dormant, sluggish. If I can heal my brain and focus on executive function, planning tasks and completing them, I'm all in. 

This does not end tonight. I'm healing my brain, and I want that more than anything. I'm all in.