Diet, Exercise, and a Budget

For those of you who read my last blog post on postpartum weight loss, you remember that I have finished my year with Lindsey Brin's workouts and moved on to...I did not mention exactly what I moved on to.  To take care of my aching feet I looked into yoga.  I found Jillian Michael's "Yoga Meltdown" level one on youtube, so that is where I started.

This workout is great because it is still challenging even though I have been working on really hard workouts for a year.  There is a small amount of movement to add in some cardio, but not a lot.  I added in the Natalie Portman ballet workout, also on youtube as well.  This covered two days a week, Monday and Wednesday.  Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I either took one of these days off or found a ballet type workout on youtube.  I like Ellen Barrett workouts and I used to do some of the Crunch Fitness pilates, so the "Pilates and Yoga Burn" took over one day of the Tuesday or Thursday workouts.  Then I just did basic ballet bar work from when I used to take class a couple of times a week.  One weekend day I pushed myself to run 3.8 miles and beat my time of 38:50.  I accomplished this.  I cut one minute off this time the first try in two years and another thirty seconds last weekend.  These Lindsey Brin workouts have paid off.  The run I do includes four major steep hills and pretty much none of it is exactly flat.  If you live in Port Townsend, I am talking about running all the loops in Cape George Colony.

The results of these two weeks have been great as far as some rest, some added lean muscles, and some cardio.  I have felt great with lots of energy, but not too tired.  With Lean Out (Lindsey Brin) I needed a quick afternoon sleep by choice or not.  I would sometimes just fall asleep nursing.  I think my body needed a break.

In the weight loss game, I have lost not a pound.  I am testing the theory that I might be at a good weight for me while breastfeeding because I have changed a few things to my diet and see little to no change.  I am not gaining weight so that is great.  I don't depend on super tough workouts to say at one weight.  That is encouraging.

Now diet.  How do I even know what to start with.  In the past I tried calorie count, but after several months of this, one basically knows that the extra helping of something will put you over your calorie budget.  There are several fad diets out there and all kinds of books I could spend money one to try and find the one that might make me shed ten more pounds but our budget does not allow for that.  One could search for stuff on the internet...guilty of this.  There is way too much information out there.  Eat fruit, don't eat fruit.  Cut out honey, eat honey.  This is good and this is bad.  Don't you just want to eat?  I know I do.  All the pictures of yummy food don't help either.

My conclusions, there are traditions from years and years of eating that are important.  Eat lots of veggies.  Eat seasonally.  Having a farm share helps us focus on eating food that is in season in our climate.  Make sure the food you get is grown where the soil is not stripped of it's nutrients.  Think about the meat you eat.  Buy meat from good sources even if it costs more.  We have eight people to feed not and we only get a pound of beef for one meal, half a whole roasted chicken (so I can make the rest into soup, or two pounds of fish.  Yes, this is not that much meat, but for quality meat it is all we can afford and I would rather have some than none in a meal.  Each meal is mostly veggies, some rice, good quality pasta, homemade pizza dough, or once in awhile potatoes.  I cook with coconut oil or butter most of the time.  We soak all our grain in yogurt whey.  I personally cut bread out of my lunches recently, partly because I am too lazy to cook bread everyday and because I don't know if I need a bread, pasta, or rice with every meal (some would say you don't need this everyday, but I don't know about that theory either).  Breakfast is usually steel cut oats because it is cheaper than anything else.  One dozen eggs is one meal.  We have my freshly milled pancakes on one weekend day and eggs the other.  As for snacks, we no longer have crackers unless I make them.  I really like making Paleo crackers with almond flour.  These are more filling and taste amazing!  We have raisins, apple, or some other kind of fruit and nut combination for snacks.  Sometime homemade yogurt and honey is great too.  Now that I make all that I can for scratch, I don't feel the need to mindlessly eat all the time.  I am happy with a few homemade crackers because one batch is only enough for one day.  There usually aren't leftovers to munch on later.

There is a jumbled but brief overview of our diet.  We are not perfect all the time.  I buy bread so my kids can have more bread than I feel like making.  I intend to phase this out, just like the crackers.  The family food budget is tight, so I think the more I make, the less we should be spending eventually.  The next step is to get a garden in our new yard that will actually grow us a decent amount of food.  This is a project for next year or later, but I still have a goal to do this one day. 

I just started Lindsey Brin's "Weight Loss" again to see if I can get rid of five pounds again like I did the first time I did this program.  I am doing the weight loss 10K training, so it is slightly different.  So far after four days not change in weight.  We'll see.  Last time I only lost the weight in the first three weeks.