The Adventures of Lactating Girl

Prior to my interest in slow food and clean food, we had a real problem with eating out. There was one month that we spent over 350 dollars—on top of groceries—on going out to eat. Yeah, I know that’s a lot.

Of course we still go out to eat now, but we have a budget and we try to use it for going to restaurants instead of fast food. Meal planning has helped curb the eating out, but when we have friends over on weekends, it’s really difficult to not go to Burger King with them. So I’ve been doing “variations” of out favorite fast foods on weekends.

For instance, tonight I did pizza pasta. Yes, it has many of the bad things that pizza from Papa John’s does, but you’d be amazed at how much better the same foods are for you when you prepare them yourself. Restaurants just cook differently than you do at home (maybe that’s part of the reason it tastes so goooood). They cook their veggies in fat and add preservatives and I have yet to find a fast food chain that serves organic anything. So my pizza pasta uses organic beef, mushrooms, sauce, herbs, and pasta. I also chose to not put as much meat in it as the recipe called for. My breadsticks were made from (mostly) wheat. You would be surprised at how much healthier this meal is for you than a pizza from one of those chains. And it’s delicious too!!!

What variations do you make at home to simulate your favorite fast food? How do you make it healthier?

Also does anyone know of a recipe for whole wheat breadsticks?

No, I’m not talking about the store. Whole foods meaning foods that are whole. My goal this week has been to each almost everything made from whole foods. I realize there will be the occasional processed food that makes it into my diet, but I’ve been avoiding it as much as possible.

So what is considered a whole food? Obviously, I’ve been making dinners that don’t use condensed soup as an ingredient (which is surprisingly difficult by the way), but it goes beyond that. It’s not just processed and unprocessed—there’s a lot of gray area.

I obviously use fresh organic produce and fresh hormone-free meat. Technically the organic dried herbs I use are processed, but I would consider drying and grinding minimal processing.

We’ve been trying not to use refined sugar, but it’s in everything and I can’t substitute with honey yet because Peanut isn’t old enough. I’m still figuring out substituting other things for sugar like pure maple syrup. What about corn starch? I’ve been listening to The Omnivore’s Dilemma audio book lately and I am beginning to question that corn starch I use to make gravy. What do you even use instead of corn starch?

I feel like I’m cooking “from scratch” when I use things like canned beans and chicken bullion cubes. How “from scratch” is that really? I checked out the ingredient list of my chicken bullion cubes today and was appalled at how much stuff there is in one of those cubes. So do I need to make all of my chicken broth from boiling bones? I don’t even know how to do that.

So when I say I’ve been trying to eat whole foods, what I really mean is I’ve started the process of getting rid of processed foods. One day I would love to be one of those people who buy their meat from the farm and make mayonnaise rather than just buying a bottle, but it’s all in steps. So for now, I won’t use things like condensed soup in my dinner. I won’t buy frozen pizza and packaged cookies. I will take small steps to start eating whole foods and maybe one day I’ll be one of those people who don’t crave pop-tarts.

Starting Weight: 163 lbs

Current Weight: 158 lbs (still)

Photo Credit: Hart Healing Arts

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)

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.)

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.

I realize I have disappeared from the blogosphere for the past five days… the dog ate my homework? No really, everyone was sick. I mean Everyone. Was. Sick. We took Peanut to urgent care on Wednesday night because she had obvious stomach pain and vomited so the nurse told us to bring her in. Pediatrician said it was just a stomach virus going around. Oh, was it going around. Friday day my husband started vomiting (the first time in 15 years) and by Saturday I was sick too. We spend Saturday and Sunday being taken care of by my wonderful mother. I was luckily feeling better Sunday, but spent all day trying to re-establish my milk supply that had dissipated from the dehydration. Now that things are (kind of) back to normal, I figured I’d post my Healthy Living Saturdays update… two days late.

Without further ado: Healthy Living Not-Saturdays!

My school (final) semester started this week and oh boy is weight loss more difficult when busy! When trying to organize everything before leaving to class it’s hard to make eating healthy and exercising a priority. I need to make it a priority. So I’m taking this week and using it as the example of what not to do. Even when I’m only gone for three hours, there’s a lot of temptation when out and about by myself. So here’s my new plan.

Take healthy snacks every day—no matter how long I’m going to be gone. Considering that I’m already preparing snacks for my husband to give Peanut before I go, this one should be easy. Cutting cheese sticks? Pack a few for myself. Cutting apple slices? Cut an apple for myself! I also should always bring my water bottle with me. Water fountains don’t agree with my sensitive teeth and I almost gave in and bought a water bottle from the machine—bad for my wallet and the environment!

Exercise. Is. A. Priority. You see the four periods in that sentence? That means I’m serious! Really, I need to think of exercise as something that must be done rather than a little bonus. Something that will help this is the fact that I’ve been “assigned” by the dog trainer to take Kerri for a 20 minute walk every day. To be honest, we didn’t go over Saturday or Sunday because we were all so sick, but we went today and it felt fantastic! I also need to do some sort of heart pumping thing at least 3 times a week.

Starting weight: 163 lbs

Current weight: 158 lbs (to be honest, most of this was probably the illness)

Does anyone have good tips for keeping motivated while busy? I’m sure it’s just going to get more difficult as the semester goes on.

I suck at New Year’s Resolutions. Every year I’ll make a resolution to be something like more patient, less emotional, more outgoing, but every year I also say I’m going to lose weight. I said it when I was a skinny vegan, I said it when I got chubby. I think the first year I didn’t say it since before my tweens was last year when I was pregnant. Every year I make the resolution and start some diet and exercise plan or take some pill and I mess up less than a month later and give up. This year I’m not making any resolutions, but I’m still going to lose weight.

Healthy living isn’t something I need to do once a year for a few weeks. Healthy living isn’t something that should only be important when trying to look better. I want to lose weight—my BMI is 27.1—because it is healthy for me. Heck, not looking 4 months pregnant would be nice too. I want to eat healthy because it should be my lifestyle.

My pre-pregnancy weight was 150-ish. Though I was never entirely happy with my body (who is?), I felt alright. My BMI was 25, which is technically the very bottom of overweight. I didn’t feel overweight, but I didn’t really try to exercise or eat particularly healthy. I would like to get back down to 150 (eventually lower), but I want it to be an active, healthy 150.

First things first—fast food. I took a personal finance class last semester and I had to add up everything I spent. In the month of November, we spent over 350 dollars eating out. This includes fast food and restaurant eating. Though it’s partially because we were in the city so much (about 11 hours 3 days a week), it’s still an outrageous number. The first step we’ve taken is to limit our eating out expenses to 175 dollars a month. In December we spent 159 dollars.

MamaFit. I, along with about 15 other moms, are using the #mamafit hashtag on Twitter to help each other lose weight. Just last night I was having problems eating all of the cookies I baked for my Christmas party and Blacktating just told me to stop. That was all it took. Almost like someone smacking my hand and telling me no.

Weight Watchers. I’ve started my 1 week online trial. Keeping track of what I eat makes me realize what and how much I actually eat. Also, I feel like I don’t have a full grasp of what food is healthy. I’m hoping that the points system will help me make better choices with what types of food I eat.

Lastly, exercise. I finally set up the treadmill in the back room and have gone running on it 4-5 times. I would like to do it at least 3 times a week. I would prefer to do it first thing in the morning, but I’m still figuring out how to exercise for 20 minutes and have Peanut be entertained so I’ve only done it at night after she’s in bed. I also signed up for a 1 credit hour stepping class on Saturday mornings.

I’m going to try to post my progress every Saturday on here. Hopefully I’ll also come across some tips for other mamas trying to lose weight. I realize that weekends are when most people slack off with their healthy living, but I want to be held fully accountable*. So here starts Healthy Living Saturdays.

*Speaking of accountability, please comment. I think knowing people are reading this will help me.