GUILTY.

I’m married to a personal trainer. I, myself, try to live a healthy lifestyle, at least during the week, by finding the time to exercise on my lunch hour and trying to stick to eating protein and veggies. Being health conscious is a top priority for my husband and I.

When Skyler was starting to transition from the bottle to solid foods, I attempted to make a lot of her baby food. I pureed & froze green beans, squash, and sweet potatoes mostly. I attempted chicken and ground beef, but I could never get the consistency right unless I added a jar of gravy, which to me, kind of defeated the purpose. So I bought the jarred baby food meats.

I will admit that I got very lazy at times and bought jarred veggies too – especially the blends of veggies that had DHA added – it seemed to have more calories and nutrition than what I was making at home, and back then, I was so concerned about getting her to gain weight since she had lost so much in the hospital, I actually chose some of the most calorie-dense foods for her. She was always a good eater – never too picky about any of the pureed foods she ate. It took her a bit when we started table foods as she wasn’t into things with texture. But eventually, she’d eat just about anything I gave her.

Fast forward to the last few months. It’s just her and me in the evenings at dinnertime since Ronnie doesn’t get home till late. The rides home from daycare have been generally stressful (despite us test driving the awesome Chevy Traverse). She’s tired, hot, whiny and hungry, and by the time we get home, she’s crying for dinner. Everything healthy takes a bit of preparation, and by that point in the evening, my patience is nowhere to be found. When she screams “hot doooooggg” I make a hot dog. When she screams “cheeeeeeeese” I get out cheese. When she yells “coooookie,” I give her five cookies. And most of the time, she doesn’t eat whatever she was wailing for in the first place! Sometimes, her dinnertime eating just ends up next to nothing, and I wonder how she’s even growing?

Her nutrition at home has gone straight out the window. We basically just try to survive at home. At least her daycare says she eats really well there!

Our Baby Bodybuilder

Skyler had her 1 year visit to the doctor last week. Besides the fact that she was furious the entire time, it otherwise went good. She got the typical rundown: weight/length check, ear check, and shots. At our previous visit, (around 10 and 1/2 months), the doctor did not want us to rush in getting Skyler off the bottle yet. She wanted her to continue drinking lots of formula along with her other solid foods to help keep her weight on track since she was still barely on the growth charts. This time, when she saw all Skyler’s teeth, she said the bottle needed to go. However, she said we should continue to feed her formula from a cup, or whole milk with a protein supplement from a cup. I asked her where to get a protein supplement and she said “go to the health food/pharmacy section of the grocery store, and you can buy those big bags or tubs of whey protein.”

Oh, whey protein. Like the ten tubs of Muscle Milk we have sitting on the top of our fridge? Yep, that’s exactly what she was talking about. So, like her Mommy and Daddy, Skyler gets to start drinking protein shakes! This should be no problem at all as her Daddy has been giving her sips of his for months now, and she loves them. Sure enough, I mixed her a strawberry flavored one the other day, and she drank it from a real cup until it was gone, with barely a break. This is a big sigh of relief for me – no more stinky formula!!!

In other news, we have Skyler’s 1 year photo session coming up on Tuesday afternoon. Right now the weatherman is calling for rain, and I really hope he is wrong! We really want to go to the park for some nice outdoor shots. One way or another, I’m sure Rebecca will have no problem getting some great shots!

Catching up – Part I

Thank you, Amy, for the reminder to publicize my weight loss progress! Overall, my nutrition has been pretty darn good. I will admit to two meals over the weekend that were far from healthy, though. One happened at a couple’s wedding shower we attended on Saturday, involving bbq, cole slaw, breads and chips and dip, and one rich piece of chocolate cake. On the bright side, I made a conscious effort to eat one serving of fresh veggies, hoping they’d help fill me up and at least get some good vitamins in there. It didn’t, however, keep me from overeating that meal! Then the next day was Skyler’s birthday, which we had all kinds of yummy food, actually very similar to the prior night! I attempted the same strategy with veggies but again, it didn’t work. I still ate way too much of the bad stuff!

However, two bad meals out of a week and a half since my last post, I think is not too shabby. I’ve also been fitting in more workouts. Sunday I actually ran seven miles! It was a gorgeous evening and had it not gotten dark, I could have gone further, but seven was my goal and I fit it in just before sunset. I ran and did push-ups yesterday on my lunch hour as well, and tonight I did a workout video targeting lower body. I don’t remember last week’s workouts but I know I fit in a couple, but could’ve done better.

I’m now down 1 pounds, to 134. It doesn’t seem like much but after Saturday and Sunday I was up to 137 for a couple days, so at least I’m headed back in the right direction.

I also have several friends at work who are working on weight loss goals as well, so we’ve been trying to keep each other accountable. Some of us try to workout at lunch a few times a week, and another friend and I exchange daily emails with each other listing what we ate the day before, as well as our weight. She calls it being “accountabili-buddies,” which I think is hilarious. It does help planning my meals knowing that I’ll have to owe up to them on paper the next day.

Oh, and before I move on from this topic, I must post a review of what I think is a very interesting food product: Amy’s California Veggie Burger. I’ve been trying to get more veggies in my diet, so I thought this might be an easy lunch option. Believe me, I was skeptical. It’s made of mushrooms, grains, veggies, and nuts. I don’t even like mushrooms! But I tried it, and while it tastes NOTHING like a beef burger, it actually is quite tasty. It’s also nothing like other veggie burgers I’ve tried that have a heavy soy flavor (i.e. – elementary school burgers). I can’t even really describe the flavor but it was very wholesome and good, and I will definitely purchase these again!

Rocky start

I haven’t had the best start to my ten pound goal, but it hasn’t been awful either. But I need to admit to a few things so I can lose the guilt and move on. The last two days my lunches have been less than healthy. On Thursday a coworker brought me over a plate that consisted of a chicken fajita (flour tortilla, seasoned chicken, cheese and salsa – not too bad, though the tortilla is pretty much worthless calories) and some espinaca dip with chips. Oops! I didn’t have a large quantity, but the quality was not good for weight loss, for sure. Then I got busy and didn’t even snack the rest of the day. Basic omelet & cheese for dinner, natural granola bar for dessert, so at least I ended the day decent.

Yesterday started off fine until a couple girls I work with wanted to go get sushi for lunch. I haven’t had sushi since January, I think, so I couldn’t say no to that! We did get edamame as an appetizer, which is basically soybeans, so that was healthy. But then the four sushi rolls that we shared were fairly loaded up with calories. I will say it was a nutritious set of calories, with seafood, cucumbers, and avocadoes. Not the worst, but not the best. Last night we got Applebee’s takeout, and I behaved and got a yummy grilled chicken salad with sliced avocadoes. I managed not to workout Thursday or Friday, but as soon as Skyler laid down for her nap today, I got out a full body sculpting video and spent 40 minutes working out. Oh, and my breakfast today consisted of Cocoa Puffs. NOT HEALTHY.

Okay, I got it out there. Things could’ve been much worse, but also much better. Basically my progress so far has been good enough to maintain, but that is not my goal. The hardest part is the weekend, when we tend to eat out more, and typically one meal involves pizza, so hopefully I can limit myself and get another good workout in tomorrow!

Holy Guacamole!

Yesterday I attended a 1 hour class that was offered through my employer’s Wellness Incentive Program. Experts will volunteer their time to come in and teach on one of various wellness-related topics, and just for attending, we get 10 points, which we can add up along with logging regular exercise points, fruit/veggie points, and other healthy things like that. At the end of a certain time period, if I’ve got a minimum of 1,200 points, I earn an extra PTO day! The class was on Holistic Nutrition. I will be completely honest that I signed up for the class merely to earn points, and had no burning interest in what I thought would be a human granola bar teaching a class telling me I need to meditate before every meal of tofu and tea or else my soul would burn in an unbalanced hell.

To my surprise, the teacher was a small, preppy looking woman in her late fifties, with a warm smile and gracious attitude. She defined holistic nutrition simply, told us her story, and then spent a little time educating us on “whole foods”, and finally talking about the kinds of gradual changes we could make to start living and eating more holistically. It wasn’t weird or overly spiritual, but actually very practical, and it inspired me to try and eat more “fresh and whole” rather than processed foods.

This brings back the old veggie issue that I have. Urghhh. Must eat more veggies! So I went to the store in a quest for edible raw veggies (so I could easily snack on them at work) and something not too unhealthy and processed to dip them in. I opted for the pre-cut tub of broccoli, cauliflour, carrots, and celery. I know it’s expensive, but every other time I’ve bought actual heads of broccoli or sticks of carrots and celery with intentions of preparing them at home, 90% of the time they just end up rotting in my crisper drawer. Now that’s a waste of money! Next challenge: dip. Ranch, dill, or spinach dip might be tasty, but probably not the kind of healthy, wholesome thing I was looking for. But then I saw it: Wholly Guacamole, which came in these amazing four 100 calorie packets, perfect for dipping veggies! And, the guacamole is all natural and nutrient-packed, so in and of itself, it’s quite wholesome. Best of all, avocados and guacamole have been an addiction of mine lately, so this was right up my alley! I tried my new healthy snack today and was actually sad when the packet of guacamole ran out. I’d eaten half the tub of veggies with it, and enjoyed every bite.

Paired with my new inspiration to eat more “wholly,” I also recently picked up the magazine “body + soul” because I thought it looked interesting. Turns out, it’s got the same holistic/wellness theme to it, with tons of great recipes, exercises, and information about maintaining a healthy body, mind, and environment. Lots of good, practical stuff there!

While all this is inspiring and interesting to me, I am not turning into some weirdo-hippie-shaman-holier-than-thou holistic pracitioner. I’m just taking what makes sense in my life and trying to make some healthy changes, and most importantly, share my fantastic store-bought natural guacamole discovery with my fellow guac-lovers!