A bit of a departure...

...from the oficial blog subject matter. ;)

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

Back on the wagon

Breakfast

Spirutein Shake
Whole Milk
Strawberries
Raspberries - Frozen Fruit

Lunch

Mixed Baby Greens - Organic Specialty Salads
Carrots
Kraft Natural Cube Cheese - Colby & Monterey Jack - Cube Cheese
Full Circle Dressing Organic Goddess - Salad Dressing, Mayonnaise, Sandwich Spreads --okay, so it was actually Annie's All Natural, but they don't have that one in the system, and the calorie division is the same.
Egg, Whole - Cooked, Hard-boiled -2 of them
Total Calories Consumed
843

Plus another 870 for the remainder of last night's 1270 calorie dessert.

That's okay. Dinner is yet to come, and it will be a good one.

Plus, I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill and bike today, and we're planning to go for a walk when DH gets home, as it's just this side of nice. I burned 158 calories with my workout this morning, and later, I walked around the house. And lifted the baby a lot.

______________________________

No walk. I messed up my back picking up the 22 pound baby who will be much easier when he finally learns to walk (13 months and counting....none of his brothers walked before 15 months), so we got a trip to the chiro instead. I love my chiro. My back feels better, and that's good.

But I'm hungry again. I'm noticing that the days I work out leave me ravenous all day. That's frustrating. On the good side, I scratched my leg the other day, and noticed that there was muscle where there hadn't been any before. :D I'll take it!

I need to get into belly binding--even though it's been waaaaaay more than 40 days since I gave birth, I wonder if it would still have an effect. My abs are nowhere near as strong as they need to be. Must. do. more. pilates.

Here's the dinner/afterdinner/dessert/midnight snack breakdown:


Dinner

Beef, Ground, 85% Lean Meat / 15% Fat, Loaf - Cooked, Baked (meatloaf ala DH--tasty)
Broccoli - Cooked, Boiled, Drained, Without Salt
Mixed Baby Greens - Organic Specialty Salads
More Goddess dressing
Ketchup

Snacks

Egg, Yolk - Raw, Fresh
Stop & Shop Sugar Pure Cane Granulated
Cocoa, Dry Powder, Unsweetened
The rest of the Molten Chocolate Cake with chocolate and caramel
Beef, Ground, 85% Lean Meat / 15% Fat, Loaf - Cooked, Baked

Total Calories Consumed
2,299

The above is about right. There isn't a calorie counter that I've been able to find that takes breastfeeding into account. Ollie still nurses quite a bit, in addition to nursing at night still (nightweaning really is just around the corner), and Henry still nurses twice a day. I have a fairly abundant milk supply, so it's a pretty safe bet that I'm burning around 300 calories that way, too.

Wow, that's a lot of food. And now I'm hungry again, so I need a very light snack, and then off to bed. :yawn

Meh

I've done "okay" with calories the last couple of days. It's getting exercise that needs to be the priority right now. I'm going to the gym twice a week (I have noooo idea how that is going to happen once school starts up again and DH is back to work), but I need a little more than that. I keep forgetting to run up and down the stairs (ADD much? Yes, as a matter of fact), and after trying my friend Robin's Wii Fit, um, I want one. Bad.

I will post the official calorie count from the last few days in a bit. For now, I must go wake up the husband (who snuck off to the boys' room and fell asleep as soon as I got up this morning), and then.......we garden.

Stairs suck.

I didn't get to the Y Friday or today. So I ran up and down the stairs at home for a minute and twenty-five seconds. My thighs and calves are screaming at me, and I'm thoroughly winded. I made it up and down 5 times. Go me.

Of course, I also ate 8 freshly made oatmeal cookies. My excuse? I was reading a twin birth story. Birth stories rev up my adrenaline and make me eat whatever I'm eating faster. I'm much more balanced when at a real birth.

In birth news, my current client and I have decided to make her prenatals the Gelato Tour of our city. ;) I think it's a good plan.

Calorie intake: 1,353 calories
Physical activity: Walking around Lowe's, chasing Number One (age 4), and running up and down the basement stairs 5 times (each up and down counts as 1).

Calories burned? 230ish.

Hot Schmot, or, The Head Cold Cometh

I'm sick. :hack :cough

Wed, Jun 11 2008 Grade Grams Cals
Breakfast
Chocolate chocolate chip muffin D 142 490
Lunch
Burrito Supreme - Beef - Burritos C- 248 440
Cheesy Bean & Rice Burrito C- 796 490
Dinner
Chicken, Breast, Meat Only - Cooked, Roasted B 140 231
Total Calories Consumed 1,651

And I'm not hungry. Key here, I haven't been very physically active today at all, and I think that's why I'm full on a little over 1600 calories.

Tomorrow, I should be feeling better, and I intend to take the small people to the zoo, which should get the juices going.

Breakfast...or something like it

Breakfast:
1/2 cup of raspberries (.5)
1 cup of organic whole milk (4 points)
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (1.5 points)
2 eggs (4 points)
2 slices of whole wheat toast (4 points)
2 teaspoons of butter (2 points)

16 points for breakfast. I usually have 3 eggs with two pieces of toast, but figured in the interest of point reduction I'd have only two. I think what I'll do next time is nix one of the pieces of toast. That gets rid of one of the points of butter, too.

I have 21 points left for the rest of the day.

I'm off to the Y with my oldest child, after a night of crappy sleep quality, thanks to a baby who is both teething and on the verge of developmental leaps, and some crazy growth spurt that seems to require him to nurse all night. I see nightweaning in our future.....

Lunch, and then I'm off to work:
1 cup of red beans and rice (5 points)
2 cups of salad (0 points)
2 T green goddess dressing, which I did not realize until afterwards has 4 points.
3 Jolly Ranchers (1 point)

Dinner:
1.5 cups green beans (0 points)
1 cup red beans and rice (5 points)
2T green goddess dressing (4 points)

Snack:
2 carrots (0 points)

That killed my point allowance for the day, but I was still starving. So I added up the calories for all of that instead, and came up with 1620. 1500 is the bare minimum recommended by LLL for a nursing mother. Yeah, I'd lose on that amount, but that's a pretty drastic reduction, combined with a marked increase in physical activity. I think I'm going to have to rethink my strategy. Not ditch it, mind you, just rethink it a little. I will probably use some calorie counting, which I have avoided in the past due to a tendency to obsess, although I've never directly obsessed over calories before (PF Chang's Great Wall of Chocolate aside), and keep up the increased physical activity.

Dinner

Bleh. 2 cups of red beans and rice with 2T sour cream with broccoli and cauliflower. I can see that portion control is now on the menu.

Dinner:
-Red beans and rice (5 points/serving, 2 servings, 10 points)
-Sour Cream (1 point per Tablespoon, 2T, 2 points).
-Steamed broccoli and cauliflower (0 points)

That's 12 points for dinner.

Now, if I want dessert, I can dip into my flex points and have a zabaglione (discovered thanks to a thread on GCM) with a teensy bit of chocolate syrup for 5 points. I'm debating.

I think I'm also going to make myself a visual aid. I have some leftover cardstock cuttings from work, and I think I'll make 37 little strips and 35 strips (I have yellow and white), and transfer them from pocket to pocket, and let the flex strips stay all week. Sunday (today) is my start day. I can do this.


Aaaaaaaaaaaand 5 flex points for dessert. Yum. That is all.

Hi.

My name is Lindsay. I have three children. I had never had any need to actively try to lose weight, as my gerbil-like metabolism combined with breastfeeding seemed to take care of that for me.

Exactly 1 year after giving birth to my first son, I weighed 20 pounds less than I did when I conceived him. I had lost the weight solely by breastfeeding. Then I got pregnant with my second son. I gained 73 pounds, had a nice, big, healthy baby, and had weight that was harder to get rid of the second time, but again, it came off only with breastfeeding. I had lost down to about 8 pounds above my goal weight (140) when my third son was conceived. I gained around 65 pounds, once again had a nice, big, healthy baby, and then struggled with postpartum thyroiditis, a self-limiting form of hyperthyroidism, which can cause weight loss, after his birth. Unfortunately, that happens to be the one side effect I can't seem to manage.

I am currently on Zoloft to manage the out of control anxiety that came with the thyroid disorder. As evidence suggests a lower chance of reoccurence of depression when the drug is taken for 1-2 years, I plan on remaining on it for about another year. Thankfully, my last two thyroid bloodwork levels have come back as normal, meaning I have 5 months of healthy thyroid so far, and will probably not have to deal with hypothyroid as a result.

Now here I am, 13 months after the birth of my third child, with 50 of the 65 pounds still hanging on, and 10 of those 65 pounds was the baby alone. I'm 5 feet, 8 inches, and weigh 190 pounds. I would like to weigh about 137. An odd number, I know, but I think somewhere between 137-140 will be where I look best. I have fine, small bones, and should not weigh more than 145-150 to look great.

My hope, is that combining exercise with a reasonable weight loss plan will encourage my body to get with it, and get me looking what I feel to be hot again.

This is my first before picture:



I think my face looks fat, and I will post a full-body before picture after I get a shower and smell decent again. ;)

I am doing a modified Weight Watchers program. Modified, because I'm poor and can't afford to join.

I don't eat artificial sweeteners, reduced fat foods, or low-cal anything. I believe foods are best eaten in as close to their natural state as possible, and when we can, we buy organic. I also have a fiendish sweet tooth, and I am trying to wean down the insane amount of sugar I usually consume, as well as curb my emotional eating.

I am allowed 37 points per day, with 35 flex points weekly. I'm starting this blog in hopes that having it all out there will give me some accountability.

There is a tiny, tiny, tiny chance that we may try to conceive around October. My short-term goal is to lose enough that I weigh less than I did when I got pregnant with my first (I weighed 155 then), if not reach my goal weight. The plan is to keep a better eye on my weight during pregnancy, and while I might still gain 40ish pounds, I want to stay under the 200 mark.

But, first things first. I have to lose to get there, so that's where I start.

Today, I have eaten:

Breakfast
A smoothie with:
-Raspberries (1/3 cup for 1 point)
-Mango (1/3 cup for 1 point)
-Dannon All Natural Vanilla (1 cup for 3 points)
-Organic Whole Milk (1 cup for 4 points)

Oatmeal (1 cup, 3 points) with 2 teaspoons of butter (2 points), 2 tablespoons of sugar (2 points), and 1/4 cup of organic whole milk (1 point)

and holy cow that's an 18 point breakfast. I can see I'll need to dial that back a bit. Ack. Okay then.

Lunch
A grilled cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread: 8 points.

This leaves me with 11 points for dinner. Hopefully I can do this tonight without cracking into my precious flex points. I'm a doula, and I have an appointment with a client this week for coffee. I'm going to need every one of those 35....