Day 156 - Losing Steam

I've been unmotivated lately.  Still exercising, but my eating could use improvement.  Over the past couple of weeks, I've eaten paleo about 60% of the time.  More meals are paleo than are not, but I have eaten peanut butter cups, ice cream, french fries and other foods that are high in sugar or simple carbs.  I could feel it.  When there's a lot of sugar in my diet, my right hand tingles every once in a while and my sleep is interupted. 

I know I feel and am healthier when I stick to a paleo diet, but lately I've felt overwhelmed by the effor required to eat paleo the majority of the time.  Although I do not as a rule buy or eat processed food, preparing three meals a day without starch or grains takes focus.  It takes time. 

I've hit a weight loss plateau.  I am rarely sore, so I suspect my exercises routine(s) aren't challenging my muscles as they once were.  Couple that with three weeks of an only moderately paleo diet, and the scale isn't moving.  I know this is about more than the scale.  That I am losing weight for my health and for my happiness.  But I do get discouraged by how slow the weight loss is in comparison to how much effort I am putting out in the gym and in the kitchen.

My sciatica was getting better with a few trips to the chiropractor/physical therapist and a couple massages.  Then it got worse.  Much worse.  I was thinking about what I had done that might have made it worse, and then it occured to me that I had incorporated sit ups into my circuit training, which I have never done before.  I do lots of core work, but never sit ups.  So I googled "sit ups and low back pain" and discovered multiple warnings that people with any sort of low back pain or injury (including sciatica hip pain) should never perform sit ups.  Never ever. 

I'm tired of hurting.  I have to sit two or three times during a half hour walk to releive the nerve pain in my hip.  I can't run.  I can't hike.  I hate this sciatica.