It is Five years ago, almost to the day, that I changed my eating habits. Over one weekend! On the Friday, I decided to follow a Paleo diet plan, on the Sunday I decided that I would start with a month of the Whole30. By Monday morning, the pantry was empty of all non-paleo foods and I had begun the Whole30 diet. I hadn’t even read the book at that point – I was just following the Whole30 food template from the website. I haven’t looked back.
A new start.
Here I am, 18 months after my hip replacement operation. I’m about 95% back to full strength and feel that the time is right to set about losing the remainder of my excess weight.
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It’s been a while but I’m now starting to feel like writing again, in fact I’ve already started with a couple of tentative posts on Instagram. Instagram is so easy: an update just takes a sentence or two whereas writing a full blog post might still be beyond me – we’ll see.
I had the Hip Replacement operation in December, so I’m several months post-op. I’ll try to write about my hip replacement story in more detail at another time, for now it is enough to say that I am recovering. Slowly. Definitely a slower recovery than I expected but overall the improvement is steady.
I have spent a couple of very busy weeks shopping for Christmas gifts for the people closest to me. I now only have a couple of days left to organise myself and get ready for the hospital and my hip replacement operation.
Before I have the operation I wanted to come on the blog and write about how I got here… about why I need a hip replacement.
I think that I’ve mentioned my painful hip before?
Well, in July I found out that I will need a total hip replacement and this totally silenced me. I didn’t know how to talk about it – didn’t really want to talk about it – but since the whole issue has occupied 100% of my brain it has been difficult to talk about anything else.
So there you are. I’ve said it out loud. Lets see if I can re-find my voice now, and continue onwards with this blog.
Does my bum look big in this? (such an odd shaped shadow). The sky was blue, the sun was warm, but when we got to the beach the wind was bitterly ice cold so I was glad of the old fleece jacket I keep in the car for such occasions. It’s only four sizes too big for me now!
Now, getting to the point of this post – do you remember my “Accountability” blog post? Well things didn’t go quite as planned. I enthusiastically started following my new exercise plan, only to hit a brick wall when I had to face up to the fact that my pain isn’t something that I can program into my life. It is too varied, too unpredictable, and sometimes much more painful and disabling than I allow myself to believe (or pamper to).
Added to that, life can just be downright unpredictable, you might have visitors to stay, or maybe you fall and hurt yourself… maybe you get a cold bug and just want to sleep all day. So, the last few weeks haven’t been easy.
I am going to start the habit of accountability here on the blog. Sometimes (like today) this will take up a whole blog post but, because I don’t want it to get too tedious, sometimes I will just add an ‘update’ paragraph or two at the end of other posts.
I became interested in bone broth while researching joint health, before I had heard about Paleo. Although bone broth might appear to be the latest thing, it isn’t anything new, it is simply a stock made from animal bones and vegetables, and cooked for a long time (often in a slow cooker).
I want to follow the last post with a meal recipe that clearly demonstrates the Paleo diet. If you are from the UK, then you should definitely recognise this meal: A traditional roast chicken Sunday lunch.
This is my mum’s roast chicken, I don’t always use this method but I love the way it creates a cosy, warming meal for the winter months.
