21 day challenge

 

 

So, on the 29th I have my one year post-baby check-up.  Funny, since by then, Sophia will be 15+ months old.  :) 

 

 

 

Anyway, I had a goal number(weight) that I wanted to be at that check-up.  I HATED that scale.  I HATED that no matter what I did, how healthy I ate, it seemed to go up at least 8 lbs. each monthly check-up during my pregnancy.  So, I made a vow to beat that blasted scale and be ten lbs. lighter at this check-up than I was before I got pregnant with Sophia.  I want to have at least one triumph over it and NOT walk away with tears in my eyes. 

Well, if I’d had that check-up at the one-year mark like you’re supposed to, I’d have done it.  I lost ten extra pounds – YEAH!! – but now I’ve somehow found three more.   I blame Halloween and a major slowdown in my running.  Monday I decided that I was still going to have my victory, so I’m going to lose three pounds in three weeks. 

It shouldn’t be that hard.  If I stop eating 3-4 pieces of Halloween candy/day (sure, no problem), stop eating my nightly small-handful of chocolate chips and even stop drinking Diet Coke and pound even more water than usual I think I can do it. 

Yesterday was my first day trying to beat the Diet Coke beast.  Someone said to me yesterday that it’s like crack-cocaine, and I completely agree, but I made it all day!!




I’ve also been to the gym twice already this week and am enjoying getting my shape back, even after just two days!!  I love quick results.

My next step was to replace the chocolate chips with something healthy, but really, let’s take baby steps (a girl can only handle so much at once!), so I got these:

If you haven’t tried these yet, you NEED to!  They will fix any chocolate cure, and you can have more of these with ZERO guilt than any chocolate substitute – YUM!

The Halloween candy will be hard.  The oldest of the children that I nanny has severe peanut allergies, so most of the chocolate candy he got from trick-or-treating is off limits to him, but all of the grown-ups in the house have a green light to eat it at will.  And eat it I have.  Unfortunately for me, most of the candy that is unsafe for him are my favorites.  And in case you were thinking of suggesting it, putting it on the top shelf of the cabinet is not helping.

I think it’s possible, after all, I’m only asking for three little pounds to go back to where-ever it is that they came from!

Cross your fingers!!

 

 

 

(Oh, and don’t worry, Dad – cute baby pictures are on their way.  I promise!!)

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Soph's new fav

Have you ever tried Sturdiwheat? It's SO good and MN made. I like healthy options for Sophia, but I don't always have time to make her breakfast from scratch. The kids I nanny love the original Sturdiwheat pancakes and for something different, I thought we'd try the buckwheat ones at home.

I'll be honest, I did not think they looked good - not while I was mixing them, or flipping them, or cutting them...but they are delicious. The sodium content is pretty high, but every once in a while convenience wins out! We both love them and I love that I can make breakfast just by adding water. Top with a little butter and cinnamon, and you're good to go!

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Help, Please!

Alright - so I've been through formula feeding with many a baby, but apparently I've got a VERY short memory, because I can't remember at all how much I should be feeding Sophia.

She's just nursing early am and before bedtime, so every other feeding is formula, but I'm reading a lot of conflicting information about how much I should be giving her. At the moment it's 4 oz every 3 hours and then more before bedtime. But then I read something that said 24-32 oz. during only 3 or 4 feedings total (that seems like too few in my opinion). Another nutritionist we know from church said 30 oz., which was helpful, but I forgot to ask how many times a day I should feed her.

SO - to make this easier on myself, I'd love to hear what you are doing or did with your own baby. Unfortunately, in case you've noticed my comments aren't working right now. Bummer...

Not to worry, I have a solution! Please take a look at the polls on the side of the blog and let me know what you did. I know a lot of my friends have nursed exclusively, but I'm hoping that those who did and worked while doing so may have some advice in this area too.

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Breakfast

One thing I really like about my work schedule is that I don't work until 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And since Sophia comes to work with me on Tuesdays, we don't have to leave until 8:25 (but somehow we always end up leaving at 8:28 - huh...). That means, we have time for a really good breakfast.

Most mornings, I have a little bag of Smart Start and a berry smoothie on the way to work, which I actually really like, but variety is nice too.

This was one of our recent breakfasts - omelet with turkey sausage, spinach and cheddar for me & banana and oatmeal with applesauce for her. Not a bad way to start the day. And, the better my breakfast, the better I eat all day long - always a plus!

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Food Revolution

I fell in love with a new TV show this year - Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution! I already had one of his cookbooks and use to watch him when he was on food network. His cooking is based on whole ingredients and fresh food so that you end up eating a fairly healthy diet, with less processed food than we're all used to. I LOVE his cookbook and would love to get another one sometime in the future.

ANYWAY - the show was about getting fresher food into America's schools because most of what is served to kids at school is super processed and full of c-r-a-p. I was so excited about the show and it was really good - we actually still need to watch the finale - it's in our DVR. He went into one of the most unhealthy areas of the country and had an opportunity to change what they were serving the kids.

Things that might shock you about school lunch:

The people who were overseeing his experiment told him the pasta sauce he made with SEVEN vegetables in it didn't count as a veggie serving, but that a plate full of french fries did! WHAT?!

He also went into a classroom, just to see what the kids knew about food, and couldn't believe it when he held up normal veggies and they couldn't name them. One of them thought a tomato was a potato. Seriously...

Many schools ALWAYS offer kids strawberry milk (which, EWW, is SO wrong in the first place) and chocolate milk, both of which have more sugar in them than soda.

_______

I think treats for kids are fine and fun and necessary sometimes - hello, that's why I love treating myself to my peppermint mochas at Starbucks!

But, wouldn't you rather that your kids are eating the most healthy stuff they can get, especially at school? I would prefer to be the one to give my kids the treats and enjoy them together and make sure that school lunch is healthy.

Guess what?

You can help!

Go here: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution Petition and sign your name. If they get enough signatures they can take it to Congress and get some new guidelines passed.

You may not have a child who is in school yet, but if you are a parent they will be there at some point. Who knows - if they passed new guidelines than they may be in place by the time your little munchkin starts Kindergarten!

It will only take a second...

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Made with Love

Now that Sophia actually cares to swallow her food (finally!) I feel like all my hard work is paying off. I started making baby food about two weeks before she could start eating. I was so excited about feeding and then when it started, all she did was spit it all over us!

I've always had a lot of fun trying to introduce kids to lots and lots of fruits and veggies, but I never really thought I would be so picky about what my own kids ate (okay, Dan would say that he knew I would be this picky). I feel really strongly about feeding her mostly organic foods and am feeling really good about making her baby food from scratch. Now, who knows if our next child will be so lucky, but for now, this is what I find is best for Sophia.

I've been reading a lot about how the packaged baby food is nutritional just fine, but tastes a lot like the canned version of the food, rather than tasting fresh, so this is what I'm doing so far. Not to mention, it's SUPER economical!

Tonight, I made apples. And after making them, I may not EVER do it again. I HATE peeling fruits and veggies and apples are the worst. However, for about $4.00 I made 32 servings (ice cube size) of organic applesauce. Not bad!


We've also had homemade sweet potatoes (which tasted great, but were not orange - does that mean they weren't sweet potatoes?), peas, carrots and blueberries. Most of the blueberries actually ended up in my morning smoothie when I found out she couldn't eat them yet. She's also had avocado and banana but mashing food with a fork doesn't really count as "cooking."

Something else that I've been surprised by is how over the past couple of years, I've started to feel very strongly about recycling and not being wasteful. Because of that, I really like that by using plastic bags to store the baby food in the freezer I can re-use each bag when I run out and make a new batch.

But, the best part is that when I feed S the food I've made it actually smells good enough to eat, which I guess means I'm doing a good job!

I found a lot of great information and recipes at: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

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Motivation meets temptation

Question 1: What happens when you have to buy new jeans because you need to go DOWN a size from the pre-pregnancy jeans?

Answer: You get really excited and super happy and find a renewed motivation for eating healthy. I never have time for breakfast and end up shaking and cranky around 9:30, then eat a bagel or something else unhealthy and end up hungry again an hour later. So, I decided to have a smoothie on the way to work every morning and even found a travel smoothie cup! So fun and so good for you. Having a fun drink on the way to work every morning will also eliminate my being tempted to stop at Caribou or Starbucks.

Question 2: What happens day one of said smoothie breakfast?

Answer: I show up to work to find my BIGGEST temptation - Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. Ugh! Everyone cross your fingers for me!

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Apple Waffles and Pumpkin Pancakes

Another food discovery! After making blueberry waffles last week, I've been wanting to make them again. We're out of Bisquick, so I was looking for a recipe online and found this:

Whole Grain Apple Waffles

I actually had all the ingredients I needed for these so I went ahead and tried them and they are AMAZING! I don't usually like waffles because most of the time they need syrup to taste okay, and I'm not a huge fan of syrup, but these don't really need anything. I sprinkled cinnamon on them and they were really good. The nutritional information says that they are 500 calories each, but that's if you use 1 1/4 c. of batter. I used 1/3 c. because we have a small waffle maker and each one is about 134 calories.

I did want to try this recipe for pumpkin pancakes, but didn't have the yogurt needed for them. They look easy and really good. I think I'll try these next week after we get back from our Thanksgiving trip.

Sometime, I'm not sure how people made it without the Internet. I love cookbooks, but it's so easy to just type what you're looking for into a search engine and find a handful of recipes to choose from.

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Healthy Discoveries

Lately, Dan and I have been pretty focused on eating healthy. Partly because of baby weight and trying to keep those numbers going down. Partly, because eating out costs too much money and isn't good for you anyway. But, we've also always wanted to be a healthy example for our kids, and now that Sophia is here we realize we need to make that more of a reality than a "Someday..." kind of thing.

One thing I never imagined would be making a spinach and chicken salad and Dan letting me call it a meal, but we've been eating them for dinner pretty regularly. I'd like to keep adding a veggie on top of it here and there - carrots were a good addition, but it would be fun if we could learn to like peppers or something fun and more colorful! I know that if we don't eat more than a few veggies in front of our kids, they'll end up picky like us. :)

It's also been fun to rediscover cooking. I took about 9 months off from cooking - can you guess which 9 months?? I'm now addicted to my grill pan - it makes dinner so good and it's so easy. Last night we had such a nice meal - grilled pork medallions, spinach salad, corn and french bread and it only took about 15 minutes!

This is my newest discovery:

I know blueberries aren't a new discovery, but they are to me. I bought a couple packs at Target yesterday because they were on sale for such a good price and I figured I could freeze them until Sophia was ready to eat solids. I tried a few this morning, and they're not the best thing I've ever had, but I do like them. All that matters is that I won't have to fake liking them in front of my kids!

I'm hoping these new patterns just become normal for our family.

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If this is dieting...

then count me in!

This is one of my favorite salads, Greek Chicken - I ate it all the time last summer and have recently rediscovered it while trying to eat healthier to lose that baby weight.

You pick whatever your favorite lettuce is - usually I chose baby romaine, but this is spinach. I put chicken on it, grilled with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can also add feta and tomatoes, but it's great plain too. Kraft has a really great low fat Greek Vinaigrette dressing that makes pretty much anything taste good.

The pita just has a tiny bit of olive oil on it, then salt and pepper, and sometimes rosemary. Just throw it in the oven for 5 minutes at about 400.

I could easily eat this every day!

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