Healthy Living Saturdays: Spot Training
Sorry to break it to you, but spot training doesn’t work. What is “spot training” you say? It’s when those late night infomercials try to tell you that their product will make you lose weight specifically in your midsection. Or this new product I just saw on the TV that sends jolts into your tummy and supposedly gives you fantastic abs without working out. Really, I feel bad to be the one to give you this news (don’t kill the messenger).
What does work? Burning fat in general. Numerous studies have shown that you can’t just work on your butt to get fantastic buns. Even tennis pros (who generally have a dominant arm) don’t have less fat/more muscle in one arm than the other.
Sure, you can do weight lifting to get more defined in certain areas, but none of it will work until you get that layer of fat already sitting there off. So if you want those fantastic abs, you’re going to have to do more than 5000 crunches. Maybe go run a mile first?
Starting Weight: 163 lbs
Current Weight: 158 lbs (again)
With Teeth
Peanut waited beyond the “normal” time to get her teeth. Quite honestly, it worried me a bit. Then BOOM! she gets 5 teeth over the span of one month—believe me, it wasn’t fun. Now, while I’m quite enjoying her toothy grins, I’m amazed at how many people expect me to stop breastfeeding.
For some it was the first response. I showed one friend her newly acquired first tooth and she immediately says “I guess your ‘relationship’ is done?” Of course, being the knowledge spewer I am, I go off into an inappropriately long explanation of how breastfeeding with teeth works.
How does it work you say? According to all of the internets I’ve read on the subject (because I was quite afraid of teeth before they started sprouting) your nursling shouldn’t be able to bite you so long as the latch is correct. It makes sense because so much of the nipple is in their mouth that they can’t really bite down (at least not very hard).
Even my mother-in-law has asked me whether or not we’ve had problems with biting. Yes, there have been instances of her starting to unlatch and accidentally biting in an effort to get the nipple back in her mouth. Yes, there are times when it feels a little weird because I can feel her teeth while she’s eating. Yes, there have been a couple times when I shout in pain and have to set her down for a moment.
From what I hear, it’s just another learning experience. We will eventually get used to these new teethies being involved in our breastfeeding relationship and avoid upsetting situations. I bold the word “we” because they’re new to Peanut too. It’s a learning experience for both of us.
I’m sure that teeth is just the beginning of the “Aren’t you going to stop breastfeeding because of (insert event)?” questions. When Peanut was six months old my mother’s friend asked when we planned on stopping. Six. Months. Old. In a month and a half, we’ll get the “Aren’t you going to stop breastfeeding because she can have cows milk now?” When she’s two I’m sure I’ll get “Aren’t you going to stop breastfeeding because you’ve reached the WHO recommendation?”
So a quick answer to all of you out there reading this—we’ll stop when we’re ready. When that will be, I don’t know. So. Stop. Asking.
Blogiversary
I started this blog one year ago today with a post about my dog. I was 7.5 months pregnant and was sitting at home because I was in too much pain to work. I felt like my life was useless. I felt like I didn’t have anything to say to my husband when he came home from work. So I started my blog.
This past year has been a doozy. Most notably, my Peanut was born on March 20, 2009. No, her name is not actually Peanut (I’ve had a few people ask me that on Twitter). Her name is Dea (dee-ah), but we call her Peanut because that was her name when she was in my belly. We’ve really run with the “peanut” theme and now she has every elephant item you can think of—well, at least 15oo stuffed elephants.
With the birth of Peanut, I became a breastfeeding activist. While preparing my birth plan, I knew that I needed to specify that she was to be breastfed exclusively, but I had no idea what we were really up against. While I feel sad that we weren’t able to go to the hospital we planned on (which is Baby Friendly Certified) after Peanut was born, I’m also happy because now I’ve seen the ugly truth.
With the birth of Peanut came the birth of Lactating Girl. Lactating Girl is a superhero for all of the breastfeeding moms out there. She doesn’t just fight for breastfeeding rights, but rights for co-sleeping, babywearing, attachment parenting, gentle disciplining, and everything in-between. With Lactating Girl, this blog became more than just a documentation of my life.
Thank you all for reading. You make me feel like I make a difference.
Healthy Living Saturdays: Home Cooking
My biggest goal this week has been eating at home. I love eating out and think it’s great to do on occasion, but it can’t be part of my regular routine. Eating out is reserved for special times. I’m not saying only birthdays and holidays, but not more than a couple times a week.
So as part of this eating at home thing, I’ve been meal planning. This week we have eaten at home every night—except Friday because that was a planned meal out for a concert we were going to—and it feels great! There were days when I had trouble getting the meal on the table at a decent hour. I’ve had struggles with Peanut letting me actually cook. There was one night that my husband decided that rather than the Italian meal I had planned for us, we should make his dad’s famous spaghetti. Honestly, I don’t see a problem with any of these things. It’s going to be a learning experience in the beginning and since I’m trying so many new meals there will be failures, but we’ll just keep going. I’ve even been planning things like casseroles and crock pot meals for the nights that I’m in class during dinner time (Monday and Thursday).
The biggest thing that has surprised me about meal planning is how fun it is! I feel accomplished every time I find a food that will work for a specific day. I’ve been using The Food Nanny cookbook for ideas with planning and recipes that are easy and healthy. While we don’t stick with having a specific type of food on specific days (like Mexican food every Thursdays), the book is still really useful. I’ve also been checking out cookbooks from the library and I have a subscription to Taste of Home: Healthy Cooking.
It’s less stressful to already know what we’re eating that day and know we have the ingredients. I always hated when I would finally decide on something for dinner and we have all of the ingredients except one. So if you haven’t tried meal planning, give it a shot. It seems like a big hassle, but I bet you’ll be surprised too.
I haven’t done so well with exercising this week. I’m still getting into the swing of things with handling a 10 month old and school. Luckily, one of my classes is a (required) work out class, so today I woke up at 6:30 and drove to class. We did kick boxing and weight training. The kick boxing kicked my ass (I had to use my inhaler twice), but felt good. The weight training was more mellow, but still worked me to the point where my arms hurt typing this.
Starting Weight: 163 lbs
Current Weight: 158 lbs (Hrm… whoever said that it’s difficult to lose those last 10 lbs while breastfeeding was right.)
Baby-led Weaning Wednesdays: Navajo Tacos
I have been looking for a good recipe for Navajo tacos since I was pregnant, so when I found one in The Food Nanny cookbook that looked like it could be it, I had to try it out. It. Was. It. OMFG they were so delicious. I ate leftovers for lunch today and was actually happy about it. Surprisingly, Peanut was too.
I love chili—particularly the canned variety. In giving up all of my processed food, that’s one I just haven’t been able to beat. The problem with canned chili (and processed food in general) is that it’s incredibly unhealthy. I’ve actually resorted to midnight chili snacks so that Peanut is asleep. Since she started eating food, she must eat everything I’m eating. She screams bloody murder otherwise. While it’s frequently inconvenient, it’s forced me to live up to my standards for her with myself.
This chili (that goes on the Navajo tacos) tastes really, really close to the same as the canned chili and I know it’s good for us! I used organic beans, hormone-free meat, etc. so I am confident that it is something I’m okay with giving to my Peanut.
Of course, I was worried about it being messy. Oh boy was it messy. If you’re planning on serving chili to your kiddos, don’t put them in their Sunday best—which I would think you would assume anyway.
I was surprised that she was picking up the individual beans and putting them in her mouth. She ate every little piece I gave her! If she were younger and not so pincer-enabled, I probably would have spoon fed individual chunks to her.
She really liked the scones too. We just used Rhodes rolls flattened and fried as the scones. Yet again, this is something that I would have been iffy about giving her in a restaurant for fear of whatever they fry their scones in, but since I did it at home (therefore, I know I used healthy frying oils) I feel great giving it to her!
Here’s the recipe for the chili:
1 (14.5-ounce) can diced [organic] tomatoes, undrained
1 lb [hormone-free, vegetarian-fed] ground beef
1 lb [hormone-free, vegetarian-fed] maple-flavored bulk sausage
1/4 medium [organic] onion
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 (46-ounce) can [organic] tomato juice
1 (15-ounce) can [organic] black beans, undrained
1 (15-ounce) can [organic] pinto beans, undrained
1 (16-ounce) can [organic] kidney beans, undrained
3 tablespoons [organic] chili powder
1/4 cup packed [organic dark] brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (optional-we didn’t use)
2 teaspoons salt (I didn’t omit this like I normally do because it’s such a small amount for how much chili there is in the end)
1 teaspoon [organic] paprika
Brown beef, sausage, and onion in a large pot over medium heat. Drain the fat. Add the vinegar and cook for 1 minute to reduce the liquid. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 1 hour.
And the recipe for the actual Navajo tacos:
1/2 recipe of the chili or 1 (40-ounce) can chili with beans
2 cups canola oil
12 Rhodes rolls (thawed according to package) or 8-ounces of bread dough
Toppings:
[hormone-free] Cheddar cheese
[organic] tomatoes
black olives
[organic] romaine lettuce
[organic] sour cream
salsa
Flatten, stretch, and deep-fry the rolls (on both sides until they’re brown) in the canola oil to make scones. Top with chili and other toppings. Be forwarded that this recipe takes a lot of time (1 hour for chili to simmer and 3-4 hours for dough to rise) so start preparation way ahead of time. Don’t make the same mistake that I did! We ate at 10pm. :-/
Healthy Living Saturdays: Boring Week
This is going to be short and sweet because honestly, I didn’t do much. I don’t think I ran a single time this last week. I’ve been taking the dog for a (mostly) daily walk, but 20 minutes walking once a day isn’t going to do much.
Where I am improving is with portions. Before I started actively trying to lose weight I didn’t care if I ate one cookie or twenty. Now I’m not going to do anything drastic like no cookies at all, but I am paying attention to how many I eat. Sharing meals with my husband when we go out has helped a lot too.
Starting Weight: 163
Current Weight: 158
I’m not too surprised that I didn’t lose weight since last week, but I’m happy that I didn’t gain more. I’m going to start off this week right by jogging on the treadmill tonight.
Newsletter – 10 Months
Hello Ms. Dea,
This past month has been an exciting one. Last newsletter I said you finally had a tooth, now you’re at almost four (I say almost because it’s obviously about to irrupt).
Luckily these new teeth haven’t causes any pain with breastfeeding—though most of our friends don’t understand why I’m still breastfeeding you now that you have teeth. To them I say why would we stop when we’re enjoying it so? Even if your new pearly whites caused me pain we would work around it.
Remember a couple months ago when I urged you not to do this walking thing? Yeah, you didn’t listen. Though you’re still using crawling as your main mode of transportation, you’re able to walk. Mama was amazed when she set you in front of her just trying to get you to stand unsupported (which you kept doing while not paying attention and then would fall over the second you realized it) and you took steps towards her! Now how will we keep you away from the dog?!
When you were younger—as it is with most babies—you used your mouth as a form of exploration. Mouthing things still plays an important part in your scientific method, but you’ve come up with a new test—stepping. When you find a new toy it will inevitably be dropped on the ground so you see how it is for walking upon. Can I balance? Does it move? Is it painful? Every time I watch you use the stepping test with amusement I become more convinced of your brilliance.
Lastly, I wanted to mention your dancing skills. While you still don’t really bust a move, you can move to the beat. Sometimes you rock so hard that you almost fall over. You’re ridiculously cute.
Mommy loves you!
Baby-led Weaning Wednesdays: Spinach
Recently in an effort to eat healthier, I decided to cook chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and ham. I was not only surprised by how good they were, but also how Peanut reacted to spinach.Baby-led Weaning Wednesdays: Spinach
I love spinach and we’ve had it before, but never really as a separate thing. No, it wasn’t supposed to be separate in this dish, but it quickly fell out of the chicken when she started playing was very intrigued.
Spinach is for smacking, right?
Also for pinching and rubbing together.
After she got past the initial weird feeling, she decided it was quite tasty. She ate it all up and when it got stuck on her hand she even did her new cutesy maneuver to get it into her mouth. She holds the hand with the food she can’t get by her mouth and uses the other hand to push the food off of the first hand. I’m truly amazed at the innovation she shows when trying to get food in her mouth.
Nom nom nom!
We plan on making spinach one of our go-to foods. It’s incredibly easy to heat up some olive oil and toss around the spinach until it wilts then add some pepper (no salt because Peanut—honestly, I don’t really miss it). It’s also incredibly healthy for you!
