Interview with My Sister Camille! Podcast #45

Hello My Quilting Friends! Today I have a really fun interview with my sister, Camille Gray, about her experience with the Whole 30 diet. Listen or download the episode to your player here:

Or watch and see what I’m stitching during the intro, which happens to be at the end of the video for this episode:

My sister had a radical transformation on the Whole 30 Diet. Here’s her Before Picture, which was a few years ago:

And here’s her After Picture on the beach last summer:

Camille works out to videos from Rebecca Louise Fitness. Click Here to check out her channel.

This is the ab workout that totally beat me to a pulp. Thankfully I can do most of the moves now with only 2 weeks of effort. It really will build quickly if you do it every day!

I am cheating on the Whole 30 Diet with creamer in my coffee. I do add a few spoonfuls of heavy whipping cream to my coffee every morning.

Camille cheats on honey and tequila. LOL! But definitely not together!

Eating out is tough, but you can do it. I’ve found Mexican restaurants very easy to find meals with just meat, usually cooked in salsa. I just have to control myself and not eat the corn chips!

Camille doesn’t obsess about a little sugar in things like mayonnaise, sausage, and when there’s a bit in foods she eats at restaurants. But she has been on the diet for 10 months and is a size 0 now. She does advise sticking with the diet hardcore for the first 30 days.

A typical day for Camille looks like this:

– Larabar for breakfast (look for the ones without peanut butter or chocolate. I like Cherry Pie and Banana Bread the best!)

– Apples and almond butter for snack

– Lunch is scrambled egg, compliant bacon or sausage

– Dinner is usually a big cooked meal and they try to make leftovers so her husband can take it to work the next day for lunch.

They makes a lot of “cheat” meals that are meant to taste close to the real thing, but made healthy and Whole 30 compliant. So really, it’s not a cheat at all!

I’m having a bit more trouble with cooking because Josh and James are not joining me with the diet. So far we’ve had a good experience splitting meals and sometimes I will cook a steak for myself while Josh makes something different.

I have had some hard days. Some days I just feel hungry all day and I’m eating a lot, but it’s like I’m a bottomless pit. I’ve also struggled to let go of the old comfort foods like coffee with sugar and a cookie.

Camille finds her comfort in exercise (what?!) and cracking pistachios with her husband. I think it will take me more time to get to a point (probably never) when exercise replaces a sugary treat. I’m still in the early days and determined to get my sugar addiction under control.

That being said, last week my sister sent me a recipe that is only a cheat if you add the maple syrup. Seriously, these carrot cake bites are divine and you definitely don’t need to add the maple syrup.

I do find that my body will react to these the same way they do a candy bar so I still need to be careful with eating them. I don’t think I’ll be accomplishing much if I continue to chow down on dates instead of dealing with my sugar cravings as they come.

I did try unsweetened chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine’s Day and they were….gross.

Chocolate needs sugar! I added a bit of honey and they were at least edible, but still not great. I’m going to enjoy strawberries without chocolate for the rest of the month instead.

Food Changes, Work Changes

Changing my diet has changed a lot of things beyond just the food I’m eating. I’ve had to slow down and take better care of myself this week. I’ve had to admit that I took on a lot with the Machine Quilting Party and I need to lighten my load.

I struggle with taking time for myself and being kind to myself. Trust me, sharing 3+ videos plus blog posts per week is a lot of work. It’s effort to shoot the videos, get everything organized, and carry the tutorial through to the finish. I want to go, go, go and I expect my body to put up with anything I throw at it.

Well, this past week, my body said “NO!” in a big way and I had to stop, take a nap, rest, and quit pushing so hard. My favorite thing is to take a washcloth and soak it in hot water, wring it out and rest on the couch with it over my eyes. That seriously chills me out and makes me feel really good.

Because I’ve needed to slow down, we’re not going to start the Prism Path quilt immediately. I’m pushing that back to April 2nd which will give me the extra time I need to shoot the videos and have Josh edit them.

We have added Batik Fat Quarter Packs to the quilt shop if you’d like to use the same rainbow color of fabrics to your quilt too.

Come on, Finish it Already!

I’ve realized this week how many unfinished projects I have laying around with just a bit of stitching left and they will be done. The biggest is Dream Goddess, which has been unfinished for 3+ years with only a few days worth of quilting left to be done.

The main reason she’s not finished is the binding technique for the edges as I mentioned in the podcast. Yep, this is on my list for this week to work on this quilt and at least get the quilting done.

I need to stop putting it off just because I’m afraid of the next step.

The same goes for my book, which now has a tentative title! Mally the Maker: The Witch in the Quilt. I have a few other sub-titles I’m thinking about, but this is feeling good right now. This week I hit 75,000 words! My original goal was 70,000 words, so this is huge!

Even more important – I only have a handful of scenes left to write to end the book on a dramatic note. So why haven’t I finished it already?

I’m scared.

When I type “The End” I will not longer be writing this book, I will be diving into a whole new world of editing and polishing to get it into the best shape it can possibly be. That feels like a huge leap, and I don’t know what to expect.

I must stop treading water between previous scenes and knit-picking stuff that will be best left sorted out later. Finish it already Leah!

I did manage to finish one thing, thankfully. During the podcast I finished stitching the quilt tag and hanging sleeve for this Love the Light Wholecloth Quilt.

This is one of the quilts from the book Explore Walking Foot Quilting and was the last bit of stitching to finish up. It feels great that it’s done and now I’m going to channel more Finishing Energy into completing Dream Goddess and the Mally the Maker book too!

I’m still not sure if I can meet these challenges. It’s a tall order to even wrap my brain around these two huge projects being finished in 14 days. But I know it would feel great to have both done by the end of this month.

One last thing I’m challenging myself to pursue is fabric design. I don’t expect this to be finished by the end of February, but I do want to work on it a little bit every day.

I have dabbled a bit with Spoonflower, but I’ve always known I could do a lot more with it, if I only took the time to learn how to design fabric more quickly and build successful collections.

The only way to learn this is jump into it! I’m taking the time to draw every day and watch videos on Illustrator on YouTube. I will never accomplish this goal if I keep sitting on the sidelines, dipping my toes in. I have to jump in face first and just see what happens.

Do you have things like this that you’ve been waiting to pursue? What has been the major stumbling block holding you back? What would push you into action?

Personally I’m tired of waiting. I’m ready to rise to the challenge of my life and do the things I’ve been only thinking about for years. Thinking about it doesn’t get it done! It just keeps me spinning my wheels in place, worrying over the same things I can only answer if I actually make a start.

So it’s February 14th. I have 14 days until the end of the month, a book to write, a quilt to finish quilting, fabric to design, and videos to shoot. Whew! Let’s get started.

Let’s go quilt,

Leah Day