Monday, February 24, 2014

Full circle. Nourishing a healthy lifestyle.

It sure has been quite the journey in my life since I started this little blog here. In the beginning I was shopping for mountain bikes and planning spontaneous trips to Georgia to ride. Now I'm shopping for tricycles and balance bikes for 2 children and planning family trips and worried about arranging for pack and plays and high chairs.  

The healthful aspect of the blog had been put on the back burner while I birthed and nursed 2 children. For the past 3 years I've been listening to my body and eating whatever it has told me to. This has usually consisted of snickerdoodles and brownies. The sugar cravings during periods of sleep deprivation are pretty intense for me. But now I've come back around. Now my second and final baby is 3 months old and we are all sleeping better and it's time to get back to my pre first child weight once and for all. 

Being a stay at home mother of a baby and a toddler creates some challenges when it comes to slimming down. First, the 3 month old is still exclusively breastfeeding. He is a big boy and he has yet to start solids or formula, so every calorie he takes in comes from me. So I have to consume those calories. Typically a breastfeeding mother should add 500 calories to her normal diet which puts me at around 2,000 for the day. But in order to feel good those calories all need to be packed with the proper vitamins and mineral required to keep my stores up.  In order to feel good I can't rely on a diet solely consisting of sugar. I gave in to those cravings during the initial 3 months of "survival mode" because my happiness depended on it.  Plus I still have a toddler to take care of and keep up with so I can't deprive myself of anything during this stage.  But now Ben is 3 months old and we're all getting a little more sleep around here (most nights) and it's time to shift my focus back onto nutrition.  

I have a lot of responsibility. I have to keep Amelia healthy. She's a tiny girl, holding strong at the 5th percentile for weight. So she still needs lots of healthy fats in her diet. I, once again, have cholesterol in the 250's so I need to consume a low fat, yet high calorie diet. And my husband works on his feet 60 hours a week so while he's not home for hot meals or to help me in preparing them, he still likes to have satisfying food and leftovers in the fridge. And I need to do all of this on a limited budget because I have stopped working in order to take better care of my family during the first few years of their lives. 

My last challenge in this quest for health is making sure I focus on healthy body images as a roll model for my daughter, and son too for that matter. That means loving my body, or at least not hating it, even with all it's stretch marks and loose skin. That means never ever saying a negative word about the way my body looks. 

So I'll use this blog again to keep up with documenting a positive active and healthy lifestyle for myself and my family. I'll blog about getting my 37 year old body back in shape after having 2 kids in 2 years and I'll blog about the healthy toddler/ baby/ husband/ nursing mother friendly meals I prepare to nourish us.