Saturday, April 4, 2009

Breastfeeding Diet ~ My Goals

It is almost time...time for me to focus my body entirely on the health of her. I know pregnancy is that too, but for me personally breastfeeding takes it to a whole new level for many reasons.
  1. HER health, as I know everything I put into my body enters hers through my breastmilk.
  2. MY health, as I desire to get back into shape in the fastest and healthiest way possible. With K I just waited around and didn't kick myself into gear until he was around 7 months old. I can't do that this time. With 3 kids who need me this summer, I want to be back to *ME* as fast as possible and possibly be an even better, healthier me.

So, here come my lofty goals. Hopefully by writing them down and sharing them I might be more motivated to actually reach my goals!!! I am going to give myself a couple of weeks with out totally obsessing over health, although I have actually begun many of these things. With family here cooking for us, it is just to hard to be 100% committed.

Before I dive into this, I want to share my goals from January 2007, when I kicked things into gear to finally get in shape after Krash was born. Let me say...IT WORKED. I followed my plan entirely for 30 days and noticed a HUGE change in almost every aspect of my life.

This is copied directly form my personal blog, January 4, 2007...

  • EAT breakfast (I am making myself a smoothie with fat-free plain yogurt, OJ, frozen berries, a banana, flax seed, and psyllium seed husks)
  • Drink ALL of my water
  • NO sugar in my coffee (I am a sugar-aholic so this is a huge change for me)
  • Walk 30 minutes every day (I had been doing this at least 3 times a week)
  • NO eating after 9:30pm (I am a evening snacker because I wasn't eating during my busy day)
  • ALL 100% whole grain products (bread, tortillas, rice, pasta, etc)
  • Eliminating almost everything that has high-fructose corn syrup or the equivalent (Bye Bye my favorite honey mustard dressing, I am now using balsamic vinegar and olive oil)
  • Eating to stay full throughout the day by adding snacks in BEFORE I even get hungry (things like: avocado, clementines, pumpkin seeds, almonds, whole-grain crackers, apples, cheese, fruit leathers)
  • Eating the SAME thing for lunch each day (I have chosen a turkey wrap on a whole grain tortilla with hummus, and spinach or Lean Cuisine if I am in too much of a hurry)
  • NO candy or sweets (again a tough one since I am a candy freak!)
  • Trying to get enough SLEEP (this is a tough one though)

And now, for my modified version, to begin within the first month...

  • 100% Whole Grain products
  • As 100% Organic as I can possibly eat, within options and budget
  • Avoid GM foods, as MUCH as possible
  • Drink tons of water
  • Drink Organic Milk
  • Veggies: Spinach, Carrot sticks, Celery Sticks...on a daily basis
  • Fruits: banana, berries (organic frozen combo, and fresh), kiwi, apples, etc.
  • Yogurt: 100% Organic, from the big tub
  • Flax Seeds: ground up whole, or flaxseed meal (if I am feeling lazy)
  • Protein: Eggs, Organic PB, meat at dinner
  • Grains: WW bagel, WW bread, WW pasta
  • NO: high fructose, candy, sweets, etc.
  • Switch my coffee creamer to an organic kind (gotta find this), try to find a natural sweetener to replace the sugar I use, or learn to do without. Coffee is one thing I am not giving up though :). I gotta make it as healthy as possible and that's it!!
  • Begin walking on my treadmill when I recover from the surgery. I will set a walking/exercising goal then.

Things I am still researching to make a decision on:

  • Vitamins/Supplements
  • Teas for health
  • Cheese and other dairy products-how to make the best decision

What will be MOST difficult for me:

  • No sweets: I am over candy for the most part, but I love brownies, cookies, etc. This aspect will be hard, but I need to do it.
  • Remembering to actually eat. I often get going and forget to eat, then I am starving, and grab something quickly.
  • Taking the time: I am often lazy when it comes to prepping healthier foods. I want something fast and if I don't cut up fruits and veggies the night before, I often won't do it the next day. I need to think in advance.
  • When I am not home: I really struggle at restaurants, on vacations, etc. I am going to let myself off the hook a bit on these occasions, so I don't feel overwhelmed. I want these goals to carry on longer than a month this time, so I need to be realistic.

Here we go...praying for a healthy me and a healthy baby in the coming months ahead!!!!

5 comments:

Shannon said...

I need to e-mail you my goals and then we can keep each other accountable. Going organic is going to be tough as far as the budget is concerned. Maybe if we find things in bulk we could split the cost of things - something to think about.

Christy Killoran said...

I make my own salad dressing - 1 tsp whole grain mustard, 1 TBSP honey, splash of apple cider vinegar, and 1/4 cup of olive oil. It's really good on spinach salad. HFCS is probably the most important thing to eliminate from your house. My oldest son had a lot of gastrointestinal problems and the GI dr recommended eliminating HFCS. Within weeks, all of my son's problems went away. HFCS is in a lot of breads so you have to read the labels!

Mallory's Mommy said...

I researched some of the problems associated with these "natural sweeteners" and decided that in our household we much rather would have all natural real sugar than the fake stuff. I know a lot of moms who are concerned about HFCS feel the same. theres plenty of info on the web! Good luck!

Kelly said...

Don't cut yourself short on the vitamins and supplements. I take Nutrilite vitamins and supplements which are all natural. http://www.nutrilite.com/ Email me if you are interested and I can tell you how to get some.

Anonymous said...

i agree with mallory's mom!! real sugar IS healthy as long as you don't eat to much of it. what i have done, is to avoid everything that contains cow milk. the best thing is to eat goat yogurt, cheese and milk. that helps babies to sleep (so you got much sleep also). I avoid everything with cow milk for my girl the 2 first years (it means also from my diet as long as she was breastfeeded).