A few weeks ago I published a post about eating more and melting pounds. I have been working out using Lindsey Brin's "Boot Camp 2" for the last four weeks and I feel great! All of a sudden I have energy to clean the things I have not looked at since Bria's birth. I also can make it through the whole day without wanting to curl up on the couch. No Bria is not sleeping perfectly through the night, so I know it is not her sleep habits assisting me with my extra energy. This is the best I have felt six months out of a pregnancy ever, however I have been pregnant around this time in the past.
This month I have learned postpartum nutrition is just as important as pregnancy nutrition. I do not struggle as much with trying to be healthy pregnant because there is a baby inside of me. Plus, food just does not taste as good to me when I am pregnant. I know most people have the opposite opinion of food, but that's just how it is for me. Also when the baby is here I want to remember what everything tasted like before I was pregnant. I want to bake something just about everyday and taste test along the way. It gets addicting to use food as a reward for getting X task done or making through a crazy day with all my kids crying and screaming. When the kids go to bed, I start to eat. (Yes there are many days when I do not feel like I got to enjoy anything I ate when the kids were awake)
Nutrition does not mean starve. I am not trained in nutrition, but I do know that eating right is important. It has nothing to do with officially being on a diet. All I am talking about is cutting out empty calories and foods one should not really be eating much anyway. For example my menu yesterday was:
Breakfast- 1/2 cup of steel cut oats, 1/4 cup of frozen berries, 1 egg omelet, and a small cup of decaf (swiss water processed) coffee.
Snack 1- A pear with 1 TBSP of almond butter
Lunch- Turkey, mozzarella cheese, kale grilled sandwich and some Mary's Gone Crackers
Snack 2- 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1TBSP honey, 1/4 cup of blueberries
Dinner- Bow-tie pasta with sun dried tomatoes, kale, ground turkey, and leeks
3 sliced strawberries and 1/4 cup of blueberries
Nobody is starving here at all. In fact all this food tasted great. All I am really missing in my small cup of chocolate chips, a cookie, or some other kinds of fun sugary food. Those things have been replaced with fruit and some kind of protein.
Does one need to eat so well everyday? I will admit, I did not. One day most weeks I baked something, usually cookies. Instead of tasting the batter, I tried to make as many cookies as possible. I actually measured the cookies with a measuring spoon (they were all 2 TBSP). One of my favorite cookbooks has the calories per cookies, so I added it into the 1800-2000 calories I was eating that day. Unfortunately, eating treats taste good, but my energy level was not as good that day. One gets to eat "more" and actually feel full with the protein fruit combination.
For dinner I eat until I am full and I do not worry a ton about the exact serving size. This helps me stay away from eating everything out of the fridge after the kids go to bed. In our family the main three meals of the day are pretty easy. We always strive to eat healthy meals. I must say it is the snack times I had to plan out more.
The benefits of being slightly more healthy have been weight loss while breastfeeding, something that has never happened to me before, and being able to wear some of my jeans again. Breastfeeding does burn some calories, but not enough to make up for 4 treats a day. Plus, baby and I do not need that much sugar ( I am writing this for me as I daydream about making homemade donuts).
Eating right is not the only thing I am working on. Lindsey Brin's workouts come with a schedule so I have found that to be really helpful. Some days I feel like I did not work out much, but the next day I will feel it. The length of each workout is just enough to lose some weight, but not so much that one is left super tired. The months before this, my diet needed some help and I would workout too much to try and lose weight. The result from my first plan ended in gaining back a lot of my pregnancy weight.
I actually enjoy working out, so it is fun to have a plan mapped out for me and something new to look forward to. I am not following Lindsey Brin's diet, but I am using some of her tips. Overall, I have needed to be accountable for me. After being pregnant for so long it is hard to tell when one is full or just bored. I am not a huge fan of calorie counting because one can miss important nutrients by trying to pick only low calorie options, but it is helpful to know how many calories one might be eating and what positive changes one might make. Recording progress makes it easier to stay on track. I have measured myself according to Lindsey's progress tracker and today I just took my first physical fitness test (one a month). Without measurements I would not feel like I was making much progress at all. Losing weight slowly can feel depressing at times, but so worth it if I don't gain it all back. I look forward to seeing if I will do better a month from now.
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