During my first pregnancy I gained 46 lbs. I look back at those pictures with horror now, but I ate what I needed to and when I could. I didn't care...I was growing a life. My sister-in-law tells me that one of her favorite memories of me when I was pregnant with Monk was when she came to visit us and we were having a garage sale. She pulled up into our yard to find us amuck with goods for sale. Then there was me six months pregnant, black pajama pants and black tank top with this trail of white powder down the baby belly in front of me and all over my mouth. What was it? Blue Bird powder doughnuts. I just couldn't get enough of them. It wasn't that I had to have them, it was the whole Lays potato chip concept of "You just can't eat one." Yep confession. But it didn't stop at the doughnuts. Every Friday night and sometimes a couple of other nights during the week it was a fully loaded 1/2 large meat pizza from our local pizzaria. Yep they knew me by name and well confession...still do. But again, it didn't stop at the doughnuts or pizza. That little life I was growing craved prime rib. Not the cheap prime rib that you can just go to Applebee's for. My little monkey wanted $30 prime rib all 10 ounces of it. He caused me to demolish that delicious steak in about 5 minutes.
Some women have the motivation or want to eat healthy throughout their whole pregnancy. They even sell these cookbook geared towards them. I was just not one of them. I was going to eat what I wanted and not worry about it. "They" say that you lose the weight very quickly after the baby is born and nursing will cause it to just fall off even faster.
Well..."They LIED."
It wasn't until Monk was 2 that I finally was back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Talk about being depressed over your jean size. But throughout the whole 2 year 10 month ordeal, Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer said nothing. What a wonderful guy right! Psst. He gained pregnancy weight too! Hey if you had to eat all that pizza and go to all those must have now restaurants with your wife...but he kept his mouth shut.
For 3 wonderful blessed weeks I relished in the fact that I was finally back to normal...
DUN...DUN...DUN...
The flipping stick turned blue again. It was as if God was saying hope you enjoyed being able to wear a bikini to the beach last weekend the first time in almost 3 years, you worked so hard for it, but now I am going to have you be a fat incubator again. Well turns out his sense of humor wasn't as bad a I thought. During my second pregnancy, again I didn't care what I was eating when I was eating. Heck, I resolved my self to the thought of just being pleasantly plump for the rest of my life...well 2 more years, and that was if it wasn't going to take longer this time. But month after month went by and by then 7 months, I was still in normal jeans. Now, not my pre-pregnancy jeans, but my loosing weight jeans. By month 8 I had to put the pregnancy pants on, but then Gator showed up a month early. Phew, all in all I had only gained 18 lbs and I wasn't doing anything different but chasing a 2.5 year old.
Within 2 weeks I finally understood what "They" meant about losing the baby weight. I was back in regular jeans, but not those pre-preggars yet. It took about 4 months for those to cross my heiny.
So what was I doing differently. Nothing. No Gym. I had no time. Adjusting to having two children was a gigantic hurdle I had to overcome. My house chores grew, trying to find the time to play with my almost 3 year old and a newborn was overwhelming. To the coffee maker I went and I still haven't quite left that habit. I still drink coffee until about 4pm. It's hard keeping up with my little rascals. Finding the time to eat when you are changing diapers, taking your child to the potty, up and down the stairs and constantly moving without stopping except for supper started to worry me. Finally we just looked at our budget, convenience was getting the best of us again and that was just not healthy for our 3 year old much less our nursing baby. So we decided that for our benefit we needed to change our habits.
Looking at our pantry and deciding that to be able to afford to eat healthy we needed to find outlets that afforded us this luxury. Not spending the money on take out was fruitful at first, but when you eat a balanced diet you tend to eat more, because you want a variety of flavors.
What were we particularly buying that wasn't good for us? I came to learn through a friend that margarine, something that I had been led to believe my entire life was good for you happened to be one molecule away from plastic. Yes. PLASTIC! It was gone immediately. I couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't going to put anything that remotely resembled plastic even on a molecular level into my mini-human's body. Then we realized that we were living off of soda. Before we got married we went the no-carb diet craze and well it worked for Mr. BBH but not so much for me. I needed my pasta. But the point is we then changed what we were drinking and boom, weight began to fall off. So now, what do we do, soda is out unless it is a treat and tea has replaced it. More and more we changed what we were buying...for the better.
We utilize our farmer's market for our in season fruits and veggies. We step out of our comfort zone and get stuff we have never tried before. Mr. BBH was never a fan of sweet potatoes until we started shopping at our farmer's market. He said they were just too sweet for anything that had the word potato in it. There are white sweet potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, hybrid potatoes. Learning to cook veggies instead of opening them from a can and figuring out different ways to make them more palatable became a quest and now a passion.
Some women have the motivation or want to eat healthy throughout their whole pregnancy. They even sell these cookbook geared towards them. I was just not one of them. I was going to eat what I wanted and not worry about it. "They" say that you lose the weight very quickly after the baby is born and nursing will cause it to just fall off even faster.
Well..."They LIED."
It wasn't until Monk was 2 that I finally was back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Talk about being depressed over your jean size. But throughout the whole 2 year 10 month ordeal, Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer said nothing. What a wonderful guy right! Psst. He gained pregnancy weight too! Hey if you had to eat all that pizza and go to all those must have now restaurants with your wife...but he kept his mouth shut.
For 3 wonderful blessed weeks I relished in the fact that I was finally back to normal...
DUN...DUN...DUN...
The flipping stick turned blue again. It was as if God was saying hope you enjoyed being able to wear a bikini to the beach last weekend the first time in almost 3 years, you worked so hard for it, but now I am going to have you be a fat incubator again. Well turns out his sense of humor wasn't as bad a I thought. During my second pregnancy, again I didn't care what I was eating when I was eating. Heck, I resolved my self to the thought of just being pleasantly plump for the rest of my life...well 2 more years, and that was if it wasn't going to take longer this time. But month after month went by and by then 7 months, I was still in normal jeans. Now, not my pre-pregnancy jeans, but my loosing weight jeans. By month 8 I had to put the pregnancy pants on, but then Gator showed up a month early. Phew, all in all I had only gained 18 lbs and I wasn't doing anything different but chasing a 2.5 year old.
Within 2 weeks I finally understood what "They" meant about losing the baby weight. I was back in regular jeans, but not those pre-preggars yet. It took about 4 months for those to cross my heiny.
So what was I doing differently. Nothing. No Gym. I had no time. Adjusting to having two children was a gigantic hurdle I had to overcome. My house chores grew, trying to find the time to play with my almost 3 year old and a newborn was overwhelming. To the coffee maker I went and I still haven't quite left that habit. I still drink coffee until about 4pm. It's hard keeping up with my little rascals. Finding the time to eat when you are changing diapers, taking your child to the potty, up and down the stairs and constantly moving without stopping except for supper started to worry me. Finally we just looked at our budget, convenience was getting the best of us again and that was just not healthy for our 3 year old much less our nursing baby. So we decided that for our benefit we needed to change our habits.
Looking at our pantry and deciding that to be able to afford to eat healthy we needed to find outlets that afforded us this luxury. Not spending the money on take out was fruitful at first, but when you eat a balanced diet you tend to eat more, because you want a variety of flavors.
What were we particularly buying that wasn't good for us? I came to learn through a friend that margarine, something that I had been led to believe my entire life was good for you happened to be one molecule away from plastic. Yes. PLASTIC! It was gone immediately. I couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't going to put anything that remotely resembled plastic even on a molecular level into my mini-human's body. Then we realized that we were living off of soda. Before we got married we went the no-carb diet craze and well it worked for Mr. BBH but not so much for me. I needed my pasta. But the point is we then changed what we were drinking and boom, weight began to fall off. So now, what do we do, soda is out unless it is a treat and tea has replaced it. More and more we changed what we were buying...for the better.
We utilize our farmer's market for our in season fruits and veggies. We step out of our comfort zone and get stuff we have never tried before. Mr. BBH was never a fan of sweet potatoes until we started shopping at our farmer's market. He said they were just too sweet for anything that had the word potato in it. There are white sweet potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, hybrid potatoes. Learning to cook veggies instead of opening them from a can and figuring out different ways to make them more palatable became a quest and now a passion.
During our Consumerist Challenge we really took note as to what we were buying. Having to demolish all those hidden places of your pantry and freezer really makes you take notice as to what you have. Still a few month's later, our stand up freezer and pantry(s) are still not restocked completely or even near that. We just took notice as to what we are willing to spend the money on and what we are not.
First things first, I have to save more than I spend at the grocer. It doesn't matter what we need for the particular week or what is on sale. This is just a no-brainer.
Since everything sells in cycles, we can opt out of a lot of food options that are not nutritious for our family. We basically make one big trip every 6 weeks where we still don't spend over $50 for our family of four. This is by necessity rather than want, but our bodies thank us for it. Stock your fridge and freezer from those items that are bought from the perimeter of the grocery store rather than the easy stuff in the middle aisles with lots of shelf life. Now, don't get me wrong, we do have some of that stuff in our house, but that is what we consider quick food and it is better than take out.
Secondly, we don't eat out as often as the average family, this includes lunch. Doing the math, Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer would spend more than we would spend in groceries for a month for our family just eating takeouts and pick-ups for lunch. So 31 days of food for 4 for the same price as 20 days of 1 person eating 1 meal. This is again just a no-brainer.
Thirdly, I eat when my children eat. They eat healthy. Monk is one of the only children we know that eats salad. He eats the same thing we eat. I never finish anything off their plates. We enjoy the same snacks and breakfast foods. Just a few changes and we are all eating better and can eat our favorite powder doughnuts together.
These are just a few things that we have done that I have really taken notice that have made my pre-pregnancy jeans become my "fat" jeans. I am noticing that I am having to eat a little more than usual because I have not plateaued yet at a weight. 2 more pounds and I will start to look sick. I will not rub in the fact that the new jeans I got for Christmas are falling off my non-existent heiny that for the first time in my life I can barely find it. Moving, chasing, eating healthy and doing things outside the house as a family have given us a better attitude and outlook around here at Chez Stoneford and hopefully this helps some of you that have asked.
No comments:
Post a Comment