Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Day 3/33: Five Down and Day 4/33: Momentum

Day 3: My favorite thing about removing carbs from my diet (cause, let's be honest, carbs are delicious and it is a daily struggle to just say NO) is the instant results you see on the scale. After just two days, I'm already showing five pounds down! Woo!

The past few days have been okay. A little stressful at times (I am craving carbs like WHOA) but mostly delicious and encouraging. I managed to workout yesterday and I went to karate tonight. I have decided that 25-28 net carbs/day is actually a good number for a nursing mom, freeing me to eat enough to keep up a solid milk supply.

My water intake is going great and I'm making sure we get plenty of fiber each day with a minimum of artificial sweeteners. R is eating carb-free until dinner each night while I'm taking them in throughout the day. Last night we had lower-carb chicken fajitas from the slow cooker and tonight is beef stew with cauliflower instead of potatoes. I picked up some SF candies to satisfy those random sweet tooth moments. And I figured out that a tablespoon of heavy cream in my smoothie makes up for the lack of banana. Mmm - creamy!

Day 4: Today is a little off track. My carbs/water for the morning are in great shape but conference calls and early release at school has made fitting in a workout difficult. I'm going to try to workout this afternoon around 2:00 PM once Little K is home and Little Buddy has napped. We will see! I don't want to lose momentum.

I made these low-carb biscuits last night to go with out beef stew and they were great! A little bitter but it was SO nice to have a bready treat to dip in the bowl. 8/10 - Would recommend :-)

In other news, Little Buddy is turning 11 Months tomorrow! EEK! Where did my baby go???

Monday, February 2, 2015

Day 2/33: One Day and One Workout

Yesterday brought some cold, harsh reality. R and I weighed ourselves and took body measurements. The last time I stepped on the scale, I was 5-7 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight. yesterday showed 14 pounds over. EEK! I am so disappointed!! And when we took body measurements, several of my measurements were the same as R's. UGH! After that, I had to keep repeating to myself, "This is the starting point, this is the starting point."

Weigh-in and measurements will take place every Sunday morning. I'm hoping to see a difference in my weight after one week.

Day one of the diet went... okay. Here's my day:

Est. 75oz water
8:00 AM: Chai Tea Latte - 3 Net Carbs
11:00 AM: 2 egg omelet with 1/2C broccoli and 1/3C Cheese, 1.5 pieces organic bacon - 1 Net Carb
2:00 PM: Sugar Free PBJ Smoothie - 10 Net Carbs
3:00 PM: Organic Hot Dog (I was so hungry!!) - 0 Net Carbs
6:00 PM: Chicken Marsala with steamed Green Beans - 6 Net Carbs
8:00 PM: Low Carb Ice Cream - 6 Net Carbs

At 26 Net Carbs I'm obviously WAY over the 17 Net Carbs I was aiming for the day. Bleh. I am trying to figure out if that's okay since Little Buddy is still 95% breastfed. I do recognize that I need to keep my supply up and that requires fat, carbs, and calories. I dunno. I'm going to tweak my smoothie and see if I can at least get it down to 8 NC and look up homemade SF treats. I'm going to take 2 Glucocoman with my smoothie to make it to dinnertime without another snack and I need to get up to 100oz water with at least 25oz before my latte in the morning. So, there's improvement to be seen.

On the upside, I did manage to take my vitamins today. Woo!

As far as working out, today was day one. I worked with a personal trainer over the summer so I did one of the workouts he taught me. All told it was 40 minutes of work which I feel is a good start. Today is all rainy but, as long as the rain stops by noon, we are still going to try walking after lunch. I may try doing some jumping jacks and some weights this evening before dinner.

Speaking of dinner, low-carb chicken fajitas are already in the slow cooker. Awesome.

Only 32 days to go!


Sunday, February 1, 2015

Day 1/33: A Whole New Attitude (to food)

Of course, as soon as I decide I'm not going to blog anymore I end up with something to blog about.

Today is February 1st. We are exactly 33 days away from Little Buddy's first birthday. And I'm still not at or under my pre-pregnancy weight. Bleh. And I know exactly why. We have been eating takeout with embarrassing frequency through this first year of Little Buddy's life. So often that I'm going to just skip over the exact number of days per week to avoid the judgement that is sure to reign down on me.

So! It's time for a change. I've been feeling this way for a while lately but the final straw came from R. He went to his yearly physical last week and has gained more weight than he is comfortable with. So here we are. Doing the big D word - Diet.

But, really, it's a lifestyle change. We are removing the whites from our diet (white flour, white rice, white sugar...)  and adding 60-75 minutes of activity into our days. Call it Low Carb, Paleo, or THM, bad carbs are out and lots of movement is in!

R and I each have 20 pounds to lose. The general plan is to stick to a strict(ish) Low Carb diet with a few fruits thrown in until Little Buddy's first birthday. Then, after taking the day to splurge on cake and luau noms, step back and talk about how Low Carb felt for each of us and how we want to move forward.

For exercise, we are going to trade off 30 minute workouts in the morning while the other watches the baby and take a 2 mile family walk at Noon. Plus I have karate 2 nights/week.

To take care of our food, I have prepared 13 low(er) carb freezer meals for the slow cooker. During the day, we have: coffee, eggs, Applegate bacon, cottage cheese, salads, no-sugar smoothies, raw almond butter with celery, and the occasional apple. I'm also picking up frozen burgers for when we are craving fast food (I'm not above making oven baked sweet potato fries to go with 'em on occasion). I have almond flour for breading chicken and tons of veggies to be steamed, roasted, and stir-fried.

We are taking bits from each of the "diet plans" above. Low Carb, of course, reducing the amount of carbohydrates in our diet over all. Paleo by eating whole foods rather than processed. And THM by eating on 3-hour cycles, eating until we are satisfied, and not excluding fruits.

The hope, of course, is that the next 33 days will help us re-learn how to eat and take care of our bodies, as well as turn our family into a healthier and more budget-contentious one.

Sit down, hold on, and here we go!