Grain Free Birthday and Solving Eczema

Grain free birthday and solving Eczema

My 35^th birthday was earlier this month.  I could have justified some gluten-free grain filled cake but I really wanted to use my own birthday as an opportunity to experiment with grain-free cake recipes.  My family all LOVE this cake and I usually make it for birthdays—I’d hate to make something sub-par for someone else’s birthday.  I also love that cake but it doesn’t make me feel very good.  We celebrated my birthday twice—the weekend before we got together with my in-laws and I made this cake recipe.  It was good flavor but dry—I think the brand of coconut flour makes a big difference and if I had used the same brand she did it might have been better—my batter looked nothing like hers.  Also I didn’t really make enough frosting (used this recipe).  Later I made a little more to go on the leftovers and that helped with the dryness. 

For my actual birthday I tried this recipe.  The texture was good, it was very light and airy, but there isn’t really enough chocolate in it.  If I could figure out the chocolate intensity of the first one with the texture of the second we might have ourselves a contender for replacing my go to cake mix, but I don’t want to make 37 cakes in a row to figure out the ratio—the ingredients are expensive and I don’t want to eat that much cake!

Speaking of birthdays, baby Marshall is going to be one today!  At two months old he developed severe cradle cap and eczema.  After lots of elimination and experimentation I found that eliminating eggs got rid of 95% of his rash, but all Summer long he had a little bit of rash that wouldn’t go away.  He was also in shorts so he would constantly scratch at the back of his legs where the rash was which kept it irritated. Finally really cleaning up my diet (Whole30), getting back into pants weather, and this cream got him pretty much clear.  I have since tried reintroducing eggs and the eczema is starting to sneak back, so out they go again. *sigh*.  For his birthday I am making him muffins that are dairy, gluten and egg free but not grain free-- so hard to eliminate everything and still have it be "cake".  

More later on my Paleo thanksgiving menu....

Whole 30 while breastfeeding-- Results!

I made it!  30 days without grains, or chocolate (that’s huge for me), or sugar (other than the previously mentioned bit that was in bacon) or even Stevia in my coffee.  What’s funny is I couldn’t wait to get back to sweetening my coffee and this morning even 1/3 of what I used to use was too sweet.   I had the weirdest experience on Sunday though—I hadn’t had serious sugar cravings in a couple of weeks.  My kids are both sick and not sleeping well and I was exhausted and cranky and just done.  THIS is why you clean out your house before you do Whole30 because if I had any chocolate in my house that day I would have probably eaten it.  I really badly wanted treats but since I had none, I didn’t eat any.  We had Thai takeout for dinner and I also could have had grains but stuck to chicken salad.  

Results: I lost 4 pounds and 2.5% bodyfat.  I know some people have crazy amounts of weight loss, but this was amazing for me because I wasn’t really trying to lose weight and am below what I weighed before I had Max. My smallest old pair of jeans I had been optimistically hanging onto forever are now probably a half size too big.  

My challenge now:  to keep treats and sugar to rare occasions (my birthday is coming! And Thanksgiving, and the baby’s birthday and Christmas.  Hmm.) I am also trying to figure out how to eat enough to fuel Crossfit AND breastfeeding which is my new challenge.  I felt like I was barely getting in enough for the breastfeeding and now I’m doing Crossfit three times a week too and my supply has dropped again.  I find it challenging to eat enough carbs—there is only so much sweet potato and squash I can eat.  Speaking of that, I had an early dinner and it is 9pm and I’m starving again so time to eat once more.

Whole 30-- final stretch

I'm 26 days into my whole 30.  I suppose it hasn't been 100% perfect, but I'm going to go with 98% and it's the cleanest I have eaten in years.  For me, avoiding sugar and grains has been a huge deal.  I was reading someone else's blog the other day that said smoothies were not within the "spirit of the thing." Well smoothies are making this possible for me, so forget that.  Other imperfections: my bacon has sugar in it it, and sometimes I run out of ghee and just use butter.  Like I said, not perfect.  I have had one egg a day for the past two days, and I am waiting to see if my baby's eczema flares up again.  His skin has really improved over the past month, I am hoping I can now get away with a little egg. 

This morning I returned to Crossfit after not doing it for 3.5 years.  It was rough-- I am out of shape! And they even went easy on me and it was still rough.  But also great.  I have been trying to work out on my own at the YMCA and it hasn't been going well.  The equipment at the Y is insufficient for lifting any meaningful weight. The trick will be to gain muscle and fitness without completely burning myself out.  With two little kids I rarely get a full night's sleep and so my system is already taxed.  I will not be trying to beat anybody any time soon!

Whole 30 while breastfeeding- Making this work

Let me tell you something about having two kids under three, a job and trying to blog.  It doesn't work very well.  The last 11 months have been an adventure in trying to figure out some food issues both for me and for my baby.  He has chronic eczema.  I eliminated dairy, eggs and nuts months ago.  I determined that eggs cause him to flare, but even with that cut out, he was still having constipation and his eczema was not totally clear.  We had a stressful Summer where we had to move out of our house for three months while some structural work was done and we lived in places that weren't conducive to doing much cooking and the food choices were not great-- too much processed stuff, too much takeout and not enough vegetables.  I was stressed, exhausted and started having difficulty with my breastmilk supply, and Marshall stopped gaining enough weight.  Finally, a couple of weeks ago we moved home and I immediately started a Whole30 challenge.  I have not been 100% truly, completely squeaky clean paleo since before I got pregnant with Max, who is almost three years old.  My previous attempts were too low in calories and carbs and I would quickly crash and burn because I was starving.  FINALLY I seem to have this figured out, for the most part.

So Whole30 + Breastfeeding FOR ME looks like this (your mileage may vary):

1. Breakfast is either leftovers from the night before, or a green smoothie with coconut milk, kale, frozen berries, chia seeds, and grass fed gelatin,  I usually drink half for breakfast and finish it later.  I also have some meat or bacon on the side.  Oh also a lot of coffee with coconut milk.

2. Mid-morning I might finish my smoothie or have a handful of almonds, more coffee

3. Lunch is meat, a sweet potato with ghee, some kind of vegetable

4.  In the afternoon I either eat a second lunch or an apple and almonds

5. Dinner is same as lunch

I can not emphasize enough how important having a decent dose of carbs and eating frequently has been for me.  I haven't been working out as much as I hoped because we all came down with some kind of lovely respiratory illness (thanks preschool germs!) I am not sure if it was adjusting to fewer carbs/sugar withdrawal, or being sick but I felt HORRIBLE for the first week or so.  I still sometimes get really tired in the afternoons which I think is adrenal fatigue given that I have a baby still waking up at least twice a night.  When I remember to take my vitamins I also still take a prenatal vitamin, probiotic, extra vitamin C,  adrenal glandular, vitamin D and Fermented Cod Liver Oil.

You are not supposed to weigh yourself during whole30 but I have and I'm already down 4# and weighing less than I have in years.  This stuff works friends.

And here is the absolute key do doing whole30 with a family and a job:  you have to cook ahead.  It's your part-time job.  At a minimum dinner has to make enough for all four of us to eat for lunch the next day too, but ideally I'd get a couple days out of it.  So  I make three pounds of salmon at a time, or an entire chicken, or five steaks.  The four of us eat twenty pounds of sweet potatoes a week! (Not only do I eat them twice a day but both kids absolutely love them).  I make 10# at a time in the oven, and then put them all in the fridge to grab and reheat.  I also will roast large pans full of veggies every couple days.  By doing all of this I don't have to cook a whole meal every day and on days I work I try to make sure there is either something in the crockpot or we have leftovers since I often have to get up at 4:30 am for work and I'm usually too exhausted to think straight when I get home.

I don't make stuff that's complicated.  Baked yams, roasted vegetables, meat that's baked or cooked in the crockpot.  I rarely make things that require standing over the stove or lots of ingredients because I just don't have the time.  Throw it on a pan, put it in the oven or the crockpot-- that I can manage -- stuff I can do with a baby hanging on my pant leg and a toddler begging to help.  It isn't exciting but it works. The whole family isn't paleo yet, but we are working on it.

What I miss: I like a little stevia in my coffee and I will go back to that after my whole30 ends unless it triggers ongoing sugar cravings.  I miss eggs-- I may challenge them again soon and see how he does with them-- the eczema is 90% better most of the time, but it also is never completely gone.  I give him probiotics and sometimes zinc on the recommendation of our ND, and trying to get better about giving him fermented fish oil. I do think his weight and digestion are back on track at least. Not sure what else to do there.  My birthday and Marshall's first birthday are next month and I am hosting a big family Thanksgiving.  I'd like to stick to paleo-fied treats for those and otherwise avoid sugar.  It is my life long nemesis and I'm better off without it, even the healthier kinds like honey.

There it is, my first blog post in months and some real progress.  I'm about to turn 35 and I am feeling good about the track I am taking with my health.  

Elimination diet madness

Clearly I am not finding a lot of time to blog.  Every couple weeks I keep eliminating another food trying to get to the bottom of Marshall's eczema and so far I'm not seeing much improvement, and I am getting cranky.  I started with eliminating dairy, and to be honest, I feel better off that one so I can live without that.  Next I eliminated eggs, which was a lot harder-- I ate them almost every single morning and occasionally for another meal too.  I am not positive whether that has helped yet because even though I have been off them a week, we have to work through the stored breastmilk from when I was eating eggs first, which will take at least through this week.  Last week I also eliminated nuts.  I suppose it would be faster to cut out all of this stuff at once-- that's how an elimination diet is typically done, but it feel so daunting to me, it is easier to cut out one thing at a time.

I'm afraid I am feeling bored with food and deprived and always starving.  I need to find new recipes because I end up eating beef or chicken, sweet potato, and some kind of green vegetable 3 meals a day, with a little sunflower seed butter and allergen free chocolate on the side keeping me sane.

Is anyone out there? Time for a reboot

I haven't posted to this blog for over a year, mainly because it was a whole foods/primal/paleo/grain-free eating blog and I haven't eaten that way in a long time.  Until now.

I had my second baby (Marshall) three months ago.  I had a difficult pregnancy-- I was exhausted, nauseated, lots of back pain and cranky, while wrangling a not quite two year old and a nearly full time job.  It was a lot and I didn't eat as well as I should have and I definitely didn't get enough exercise.  If we have any more kids I do not want to go through pregnancy so broken.

When my second was about 8 weeks old I started really feeling ready to get my life together, stop languishing in the land of too much sugar and grains and get back on track.  I joined a new gym that does only personal training of the high intensity kind-- I like Cross Fit fine but I needed something a little more one on one given my propensity to injure myself.  And at the end of January, after Max's second birthday  I said good bye to all but a tiny bit of sugar (I still have a few bites of very dark chocolate here and there).  

I had been eating dairy for over a year, but Mars is starting to develop eczema so it's a good excuse to ditch it for awhile and see if he improves.  In the week since I've been off it my digestion has been better, so I suspect I'm better off without it. 

What's working?  Planning and cooking ahead a lot.  I work 2 long days a week, and on the other days it's not practical to cook 3+ meals a day with two little kids underfoot.  I plan our dinners on the weekend, shop for most of it, and cook ahead some stuff.  That combined with making extra every time so I don't have to cook every night is helping.  I am still struggling with how many carbs and how much to eat to slowly get this baby weight off but support breast feeding- more on that later.

So this week, here's what we are eating:

Sunday: we had beef taco salad.  No real recipe, just a bunch of cumin and garlic in ground beef, plus lettuce, avocado, salsa and cheese for the guys. Not going to lie-- we also had Phad Thai today.  Sometimes you just need take out.

Monday: leftover taco salad
Tuesday: Crock pot pot roast, yams, broccoli
Wednesday: zuchini "noodles" and meat balls
Thursday: sausage/yam/apple bake (recipe soon)
Friday: no bun burgers

What I made ahead:
egg casserole-- I throw some kind of meat (sausage, ham, ground turkey etc), some vegetable (kale/broccoli), and a dozen eggs in a 9x13 pan with some salt and pepper and maybe garlic or basil and bake it.  It was better with cheese but it's still good and it saves me time making breakfast.

yams-- between me and the two year old we go through an insane number of these. I also some times do squash but prefer sweet potato.

roasted vegetables-- I am on a brussels sprouts kick, did some broccoli too.

mushrooms-- this is seriously one of my favorite things.  Incredibly delicious on anything savory

I made some bacon too but ended up snacking on half of it.  I think bacon is my new candy.  Oops.

Lunch is always leftover dinner from the day before (or a couple days if I made tons). 

I have lost somewhere between 2-5 pounds so far-- it seems to vary.  At least it's going in the right direction-- I still have around 15-20 pounds of baby weight to go.  It doesn't come off as easily the second time, in case you are wondering. 

Time to feed the baby and think about bedtime.

Crash and Burn

So I made it half way through the 21 Day Sugar Detox and then fell off the wagon.  Had I done one thing before hand it would have made a big difference;  In the protocol she says to start with 1/2 a cup of sweet potato per meal if you are pregnant/nursing.  You are supposed to be getting around 40 grams of carbs per meal and you might need more.  First of all, 1/2 a cup of sweet potato is around 20 grams of carbs not 40 which I could have looked up.  But I didn't know that I wouldn't be ABLE to tell I needed more until it was too late.  I felt more or less okay the first week-- I was busy with houseguests and a sick baby and wasn't particularly hungry.  I got the sweet potato in mostly two meals out of three, and the one day I went to the gym I could tell I was dragging but when you are chronically sleep deprived and getting over a cold it's difficult to know the source of your fatigue.   I never had physical cravings for sugar.  On day 12 I hit rock bottom.  Not only was I EXHAUSTED but I also hit an emotional wall and started spiraling into an irrational depression.  Carbs = serotonin and I had been inadvertently on a probably less than 75grams of carbs a day diet, while feeding a sick baby who was doing a whole lot of nursing. Some people would probably be fine on this but I do not do well on very low carb even when I am not nursing.    I could have just eaten a bunch more sweet potato, but really how much sweet potato can you eat in one sitting?  So I not only ate carbs, but I ate (gluten-free) cookies.  And I am fine with it.  Less sugar is good, but when you are nursing and busy extra extreme programs can backfire.  I had a little gluten free bread today.  I still don't digest it well and do better off grains but after two days of basically carb loading I feel a lot better.  Lesson learned people.  I did break my excessive chocolate habit, so that was a good thing, and I found I like my coffee with just cream and no sweetener. 

Also, I did discover that grilled portobello mushrooms make the most amazing burger bun.  I like it better than bread.  Try it-- amazing.

21 Day Detox: 7 days in

I am a week into the 21 day sugar detox and things are going well.  I have not had any sweetener or grains at all, or really even any impulse to do so, in spite of a lot of stress, very little sleep and PMS.  First I had a bad cold, and then Max got it.  He was pretty sick last week, and thus having a lot of difficulty sleeping. Then my parents came for a week, which was great, but also busy.  I think actually having the distraction of guests helped keep me on track. 

I suspect I need to eat a lot more carbs.  I am not terribly hungry most of the time, though a couple times I haven't had a substantial lunch and then I'm starving.  But I feel like I am dragging a bit in a familiar, not enough carbs sort of way.  The 21DSD recommends starting with a 1/2 cup of starchy veggies per meal for breastfeeding moms and increasing from there-- I think I have had that two out of three meals most days, due more to convenience then specific carb avoidance.  I went to the gym for the first time in at least a month today and though I took it easy I did not have a lot of energy.  More sweet potatoes for me (Max and I already eat 3+ a day between us so I feel like I am constantly baking sweet potatoes/yams). 

Most frustrating was I made a giant pot of chili yesterday and even though I decreased the chili powder significantly it is still too spicy for me (I REALLY do not like spicy food). I was planning on eating that for lunch for several days and freezing some but now it's almost all going to be for Marc since I can hardly stand to eat it and don't dare give it to Max.

I haven't started trying to get off coffee yet, which is my next goal.  Maybe after the 21 days-- one thing at at time.

Happy New Year

I am kicking off the New Year doing the 21 Day Day Sugar Detox.  I am getting over a cold, which I suspect is blunting my appetite, so it's been so far fairly easy.  Sometime I would like to get off coffee for awhile too but I have a sick baby who is waking up every two hours and I had to get up for work at 4am, so coffee is helping me survive right now.

I know that later in the week things will get tough and I will miss my chocolate, but I can do it! It's just three weeks! Anyone else detoxing in the new year?

Lessons

I think I knew this, but reminded myself this weekend that I need to have meat protein at each meal.  It doesn’t matter if I am otherwise eating good food, if I eat eggs or dairy as my protein more than one meal in a row I do not feel good at all.  Since I cut out sugar and grains I also have been getting random episodes of feeling shakey/jittery, like my blood sugar is bottoming out.  I am sure this is a temporary adjustment but I perhaps need to increase my good carbs for the time being while my body adjusts.  I had friends over this weekend and did have a gluten free cupcake (ok fine, or two) and it did NOT make me feel good.  Always helpful to reinforce good habits!

My mostly paleo baby is possibly trying to self-wean.  He REALLY likes food but I was planning on nursing him until 18 months or so—we will see if that happens.  Right now he only is nursing maybe once or twice a day and zero to two times at night (last night I had to get up to pump at 3am because he was still sleeping soundly—a first!) Our ND recommends we both take some cod liver oil and vitamin D so we will work on getting that in, though I do give him tuna and sardines occasionally at least. This morning he tried egg yolk for the first time and loved it (though he likes just about everything!).  He does have a tendency to get a little constipated (oh you so want to know this I’m sure)—I am not sure if it’s hard for him to digest some of the stuff I’m giving him, or he needs some probiotics or something else.  So we are experimenting.  When it gets bad I back off on the protein and give him mostly fruit and a little starchy vegetables for a couple days which seems to help.  Now that he is nursing less I feel like he needs protein though so it’s a guessing game.   He also LOVES bananas which is not helping things move along. 

I made chili with ground beef and a little liver (shhhh, don't tell) and homemade bone broth for dinner.  How have I never made beef bone broth before?  It is unbelievable.  In fact, I might drink some right now before I go to bed.

Paleo Reboot-- week one

As promised I have gotten my act together since Thanksgiving.  I am doing a Paleo  + dairy/weston price-y thing and so far it's great!  Good bye gluten free bread and excessive chocolate (I started buying 88% dark chocolate and it has minimal sugar so I can eat a square and be done).

Stuff I'm eating:

Breakfast: 3 eggs, sweet potato, butter, sauerkraut (I never liked fermented veggies before but I'm starting to get over it-- I gave some to Max this morning with avocado and he LOVED it). A couple times I've made a sausage, sweet potato, apple bake.

Lunch:  leftover dinner or new favorite:  sweet potato, tuna, and kale all mashed together (Max also loves this)

Dinner: meat of some kind (chicken/beef/pork etc), potatoes or sweet potatoes, green vegetables.

Snacks: plain whole milk organic yogurt, almonds

Sometimes I throw a little cheese in there, drink a cup of bone broth, eat a pack of seaweed etc.

I am currently obsessed with the balancedbites podcast, and am loving their take on paleo as being a "nutrient seeker"-- this was what was missing before-- I wasn't working hard at getting the maximum quantity of NUTRIENTS.  Oh, and I'm not at all doing low carb anymore-- nursing requires a lot of calories and carbs.

This weekend we were traveling to visit family and I managed to avoid sugar but there wasn't much variety or nutrient density-- I ate a lot of salami, cheese, and flackers (crackers made of flax seeds), in the car-- when I got home last night I was dying for kale, which we are out of, but I did eat seaweed and a cup of bone broth to get some minerals and nutrients in.

 My little man likes pretty much everything I feed him from meat to vegetables to coconut milk and pumpkin (which is what he had for breakfast). 

Getting it together

One of the downsides to being a professional in the world of nutrition is people in your life expect you to have it all together.  They look to you as an example.  Everyone from my family to my babysitter to my coworkers are interested in what I'm eating, and if I have it in my house, or I eat it once it is seen as an endorsement.  That is a lot of pressure.  And now I am feeding an almost 10 month old, who is interested in everything Mommy and Daddy are eating and I feel overwhelmed by all of it because while I have a lot of information, I don't have all the answers, and I don't even follow my own advice sometimes.

Even more than the fact I don't have a ton of time with a full-time job and a baby, that is what has kept me away from this blog.  But at the same time blogs that are bossy and take the tone that they know everything sometimes irritate the crap out of me.  So here it is-- I eat probably 70% whole foods, paleo-ish, with too much gluten-free bread and way too much chocolate.  I have been experimenting with dairy-- I think I am doing better with cultured dairy than I used to-- yogurt seems ok, and cultured butter, small bits of cheese but too much dairy gives me a stomach ache.  My digestion is not all that good.  My energy is up and down, but I also have a child who is a terrible sleeper, which is the other part of the puzzle-- being chronically exhausted doesn't lead to making the best food choices.  I am still breastfeeding so I need a good dose of calories and carbs, and I realized recently I eat meal portions I would have eaten pre-pregnancy and then I'm still starving an hour later and I eat too much sugar or bread.  Eating MORE real food helps.  Planning ahead, cooking ahead, and being best friends with my crockpot helps.

I do need a reset, a chance to give my body a break from sugar and grains again, so after Thanksgiving (which we are celebrating Friday instead of Thursday) I'm going to do the Whole 30/sugar detox deal until Christmas.  It's not going to be low carb.  Low carb does not work for me even when I'm not nursing.  Though I could stand to drop some body fat it isn't actually about that either-- my main concern is that I am the primary food supply for my kid-- I plan to keep breastfeeding until he's 18 months or so.  But getting more nutrients in and not abusing my poor gut would be a good thing.

Max eats 90% food I make with a little bit of Ella's Kitchen stuff thrown in for convenience.  He mostly gets pureed food-- generally a starchy vegetable (sweet potato/carrots/squash) and or fruit (apples/pears mostly), sometimes greens and usually bone broth. He gets cod liver oil maybe every third day when I remember to put it in his food. In the past couple weeks I've started adding chicken and tomorrow he's getting leftover beef stew, pureed.  He does munch on brown rice puffs, but it's more for him to practice eating then substance-- he probably ends up eating a teaspoon of actual rice as mostly they end up on the floor. I don't otherwise give him much in the way of grains.  He does eat chickpeas a few times a week as I discovered at a party that he adores hummus.  He sometimes will feed himself pears or banana, but so far self-feeding is messy and not very nutritive.  He's an enthusiastic eater and likes everything I've made him so far, though not a fan of the majority of commercial baby food for some reason, other than the Ella's kind.

As he approaches a year, I have to make some decisions about if I will introduce dairy, if so when and what kind (goat? cow? raw? organic? only cultured? etc.) and at what point I will give him a bit of gluten to test for a reaction (I don't anticipate gluten being a big part of his diet, but I need to know what if any reaction to expect if he gets it accidentally.

I would love to get more exercise-- I get to the gym 1-2 days a week.  Less if Max is really sleeping poorly, more if he's doing better.  3-4 days a week would be awesome, but sometimes (most times!) I am just too tired.

I would say I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight, and back to my pre-paleo, pre-crossfit body but I really could do better and want to do better.  Soon.  Crossfit is not in the budget at the moment and doesn't have childcare, so I'm doing a weights program on my own at a gym with daycare.

So there it is-- the ugly truth.  The dietitian is not perfect. But working on getting better for sure.  

An update and an introduction

First of all, I would like to introduce you all to Max, born January 23 and weighing 9lbs 3 oz. I think he is pretty cute :)


Still, that blog isn't about nutrition and now that I'm out of the throws of pregnancy I have some thoughts on food to share.

I did not have an exclusively paleo/whole foods pregnancy. I would say I ate very healthy meals of mostly protein and vegetables once the first half of my pregnancy was over and I stopped feeling so nauseated, but I also ate a fair amount of sugar and refined (gluten free) junk food too, though I did not overeat-- just could have made overall better choices.

Over the course of my 41 week pregnancy I gained 39 pounds. I admit I was a little panicked about how hard that weight was going to be to lose. By the end I was retaining a LOT of water and was very uncomfortable-- my rings didn't fit, my shoes got tight, my face was puffy, I had cankles-- it was not cute. Exercise was mostly out of the question-- I was just too huge to get around. I did discover swimming towards the end-- if I had started this sooner I probably would have done that a lot more because it really helped.

Here's me at 40 weeks, huge and puffy:


Overall, it was not optimal but in the moment I felt like I was doing the best I could.

For several weeks before I gave birth I went on a crockpot cooking marathon and cooked and froze as many protein-type foods as possible so we would have healthy food available after the baby was born as my husband, who has many other talents, does not cook at all. I also decided that in addition to gluten and dairy, which I always avoid, I was going to cut out eggs and tomatoes. (Originally this was going to be all nightshades, but potatoes have happened). I especially wanted to avoid tomatoes because when I was a baby being breastfed, my mom said every time she ate tomatoes I would scream like crazy. And too many eggs give my mom eczema, plus I tested somewhat sensitive to them in the past, PLUS I ate eggs every day in my third trimester so I thought I probably should take a break from them.

I decided to support my breastfeeding I absolutely need starch in my diet, so in addition to yams and potatoes, I am eating rice, including a little bit of gluten free rice bread. I find I digest rice well (as opposed to most other grains) so I feel fine about this.

My diet now is not exactly paleo, but it is 98% whole foods and high protein. Every morning I have a green smoothie with almond milk, pumpkin seed protein powder, kale, fish oil and frozen fruit. On the side I have two slices of rice bread with nut butter.

Lunch and dinner are some kind of meat, often salad because it's fast or sauteed kale, and potato or yam, very occasionally some rice.

I snack on apples and TONS of trail mix, which I make myself out of the bulk bins at the grocery store of various raw nuts, dried fruit and dark chocolate. I am certain I am getting far too much omega 6 in my diet but honestly I have a 6 week old, it's kind of a miracle I'm eating as well as I am, so eventually I will cut back on that but for now it's sustaining me.

Supplements: still taking my prenatal and fish oil, plus I am taking garlic and grapeseed extract, recommended by my midwife after I had a case of mastitis (basically a breast infection). I also am taking heavy duty doses of probiotics after the aforementioned mastitis required antibiotics.

I don't know if it was because I lost a lot of fluids giving birth to my 9 pound baby good genetics, or my fairly clean diet, but I lost 25 of those 39 pounds in the first two weeks after giving birth and now, at 6 weeks post partum I only have 6 pounds to go to get to my pre-pregnancy weight (though I wouldn't mind losing twice that). I definitely have some work to do in the gym to rebuild a lot of lost muscle and fix the ab situation, but overall I feel like I'm pretty much back to being myself again. (Not that I can get into my favorite jeans, but hopefully I'll get there somewhat soon).

I've been thinking a lot about how I want to raise my son regarding food, paleo or otherwise, how big of a control freak I want to be (lately M has been eating way too much pizza and other crap because I haven't been doing a lot of cooking and that's what happens when he fends for himself-- not sure I want to have gluten in the house at all when Max starts eating solid food). I haven't quite decided yet-- I'm glad I have at least six months before I have to think about real food with the baby.

After several weeks of exhaustion and anemia due to blood loss (which I probably still have-- midwife will do blood work next week) I am finally really feeling ready to start exercising again. (Unfortunately my son will not take a bottle of pumped breastmilk so it's kind of hard to leave him for any length of time, but hopefully we will get there soon so I can hit the gym).

I am not sure how much better I could have really done food wise while pregnant because so much of what I felt was hormonal, but if I had it to do over I really would have worked harder at getting exercise in the second half of my pregnancy. I let my gym membership lapse and the weather didn't cooperate very well with walking outside and honestly I was just tired and kind of lazy about it.

I'll probably post here again occasionally when I have nutrition related thoughts to share, but I post much more often over at Sassy Chicken about mommy things if you are interested.

It's a BOY!!!

I was stunned to find out this morning we are having a little boy! I was sure he was going to be a girl. Surprise! That kind of made it sweet though, to have it be so surprising and M. was THRILLED. He really wanted a boy and had convinced himself it would be a girl, so he was over the moon at getting his wish. We are so excited to meet this guy! M and I look alike (brown hair, blue/green eyes, fair skin) so we know kind of ballpark of what he might look like, but the big family question now is whether he'll have red hair, as we have that recessive gene (my brother, M's mom) on both sides. Finding out the gender weirdly made it feel that much more real-- instead of an abstract baby in there, it's a little boy, whom we named months before he was even conceived. (Sorry, not going to tell you what his name is yet but he does have one). As of Sunday we will be 20 weeks-- half way through, though I'm convinced he will be late (best to believe he won't be on time then be stomping my feet when the due date comes and goes, which is what happened to my friend who recently gave birth and was sure her son would be early and was instead a week late!)

I've been having major allergies or maybe a bit of a cold, causing me a runny nose, sore throat and congested lungs, and increasing my nausea-- I threw up this morning making M eggs because I cracked an egg that had gone bad. Just recounting it here makes me gag.

A lot of food things still sound bad-- the "good" kind of sausage from my local co-op is the most palatable protein and I just finished the best batch of nectarines so far this year. Lunch was ground beef and beans in a brown rice tortilla, which did not digest very well-- bread based stuff really sits in my stomach in an acid kind of way. We are having chicken salad for dinner-- hopefully I can get that down as I could definitely use some veggies. I actually keep craving soup, probably because I've fallen off the wagon with my chicken stock consumption (I have some that's been in my fridge for over a week with the bones still in it-- wonder if it's still good?), but it's 80 degrees outside!

Pretzels, Potential and Puking

We are in a state of controlled chaos around here. Because what else would rational people do at nearly 5 months pregnant, but buy a property that needs a lot of work and try and sell a house? We are currently in an inspection process for a property that has two very small houses on it in Seattle. Both need work to be livable, but the plan being we will live in one and rent out the other once they are finished. We have been running around like mad getting our current house clean and organized to put on the market ASAP, meeting with Real Estate Agents, meeting with architects and inspectors and generally doing 18 things at once. M. says if it all falls through at least we'll have the cleanest house ever! It really never has been this organized-- all but one closet left to do are completely clean. I had a vague plan of getting more organized before the baby comes but this put that plan on fast forward-- my office is now officially a baby room after I spent all weekend cleaning out old school stuff and boxing everything else up.

I've also unfortunately had a resurgence of a lot of foods sounding bad, especially the protein ones. I've tried several times to explain to baby that eggs are good for us and free but he or she is not interested. I also seem to still be averaging once a week of either throwing up or near misses and THAT is getting very old.

Baby seems to have had a growth spurt in the past week or so. After gaining a pound a week for several weeks I suddenly gained 3 practically overnight which was kind of scary, but my bump got a lot bigger in that time too so I think it's all baby. I thought my bump was pretty obvious, but with all these realtors we've been meeting they have either been surprised that I'm pregnant (wearing looser shirts seems to confuse people) or else not quite sure if I'm pregnant or just have a little pot belly. Weird how depending on what I have on it changes completely. But since I lost so much weight in the beginning, technically I've only gained 6 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight (though I lost and regained another 6 and can't decide how that counts in the total-- it either puts me on the high end or low end of normal--before the 3 pound surge I was hanging out slightly below the charts if you don't include weight re-gain, so maybe we were just catching up). The whole process is very fascinating to me. On Friday we have an ultrasound, and will hopefully find out the gender! I can't wait.

The other annoying thing is I really don't have a lot of stamina. I'm not as constantly tired as I was in the first trimester, but I also get worn out pretty easily. Doing all this massive cleaning in our house has knocked me out-- I tried to work out yesterday but it was kind of half-hearted. Today I went to the mall to buy new towels for staging our house and after an hour or so I just came home empty handed because I was too tired to do any more. I'm also constantly either hungry, too full, or grossed out by food-- sometimes all three at once. Unfortunately I discovered these gluten free pretzels that are really good-- all refined garbage but they go down so nicely. I think I might ask the midwife to check my iron levels-- perhaps I'm becoming anemic.

At any rate big things are happening around here. Cross your fingers for us our house sells quickly... I really hope to move before the baby comes, but it's all very much up in the air.

18 weeks: I'm not sure I know how to do Paleo + Pregnant

I really have been trying to eat paleo, and I'm definitely eating better than I did during the first trimester, but I can't say it's 100% Paleo, and I am not sure I can get there. One of the reasons that paleo is so great for losing weight is eating vegetables and protein as your primary meal is very self-limiting in terms of calories. Most people can't significantly overeat chicken salad. The problem is that during pregnancy, your body naturally wants less meat-- the kidneys process urea (a by-product of protein breakdown) more slowly, and so excess just is unappealing for most people-- I can eat a smallish portion three meals a day, but I just can't get down more than about a palm sized amount. That leaves vegetables, mainly salad for me at the moment since it's summer and I have more lettuce than I know what to do with in the garden, and tomatoes are in season so I'm taking advantage of that. I do eat fruit, probably 2-3 pieces a day-- peaches, grapes and cherries especially. At dinner most nights we have potatoes or yams. But all of that rarely adds up to more than about 1600 calories a day, which is just not enough and I find myself eating handfuls of chocolate covered almonds or occasionally worse treats instead of more nutrient dense food. Grains really don't agree with me all that well, so I don't want to add those back in-- I really wish I could tolerate dairy as I'd love to eat yogurt, but that's out. It ends up being very limiting and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I often find myself very tired mid-day and often it is because I haven't eaten enough.

Exercise is not as consistent as I'd hoped either-- I only seem to find the energy a couple times a week, and a workout wipes me out. Today I walked about 2 miles and while it was nice to get outside, I was for one thing very slow (I usually walk the whole 3 miles of this particular trail and I only did about 3/4 and it still took me longer than the whole thing usually does!) I do a bit of weight work when I make it to the gym too, but it's pretty inconsistent.

Besides all that, we are discussing selling our house and moving closer to work. Our original plan was to do that next summer, but it is possible we could do it earlier if a bunch of things fall into place, but it adds a whole other element of stress and complexity to our impending parenthood as we ponder not only moving, but moving to a much smaller house!

A week from Friday we get our first real ultrasound-- I am hoping baby wants to show us whether it's a he or a she-- I have had a very definitive feeling about it since very early on, and I will be really thrown for a loop if my intuition was wrong! But either way I'm looking forward to making sure everything is going well.

16.5 weeks-- update

This picture is from last Friday, at not quite 16 weeks. I definitely have a bit of a bump going on now, and I swear it popped out there in a matter of days last week! I've regained the 6-7 pounds I lost in the first trimester, and no more yet, so I'm not sure whether to say I've gained 6 pounds or zero. It's definitely distributed differently then it was 16 weeks ago!

I've been trying to eat mostly paleo now that I've been in the second tri-- but I can't say it's going all that well. Last weekend M. and I took a little road trip to Portland and back and I twice, in two separate restaurants ordered cobb salad without cheese (my go-to food choice) and twice had HORRIBLE meals. The first one I got a massive gluten contamination-- I was coughing and wheezing for a half hour afterwards-- I might as well have eaten a sandwich for how bad I felt afterwards (it also wasn't a very good salad). The next day I ordered a cobb salad again at a deli, and despite the 90 degree weather it came with big chunks of hot, unseasoned chicken on it. It was gross. (But as a bonus it didn't make me sick, but I couldn't eat much of it. I think they were relying on the blue cheese to provide all the flavor, but since I got it without, it was pretty bland.).

Yesterday morning I had my usual breakfast of chicken sausages and a peach, but unfortunately, I think the sausages were bad (I had bought them and then did errands in a hot car for 1-2 hours) and back up they came about in a hour later. Oops. The rest of the day was kind of starchy because I couldn't face more meat after the vomit fest. As a result I was exhausted all day.



I did just switch to a more comprehensive supplement routine. Previously the only thing I was taking was my Thorne prenatal vitamin, and for awhile in the first trimester I even gave that up because of the nausea. Now I'm phasing out the Thorne for Innate, which is a food based vitamin and has a few more fun things like probiotics in it (though the Thorne is a perfectly good supplement). Also I am taking a high DHA fish oil supplement, which I bought in strawberry flavored capsules since I can not get down liquid fish oil anymore. DHA is particularly important for baby's brain development, which is why I got the highest DHA per capsule I could find. (These ProDHA supplements from Nordic Naturals have 900 mg in two capsules. I'm taking two for now-- in the third trimester and while breastfeeding I'll probably double that.) I'm still taking 5000 IU of vitamin D most days- I'm working on a whole post on D I'll share soon.

Other than that I'm eating a lot of chicken/chicken sausages, drinking lots of bone broth (I just ran out! I need to make more tomorrow), and having steak or burgers every few days, with mostly salad for veggies, and lots of peaches and cherries. I'm trying to mostly avoid grains- my vices are dark chocolate covered almonds and coconut ice cream, which have a fair amount of sugar, but at least no grain. I'm taking things one day at a time, sometimes, like yesterday and the day before I'm really tired and other days, like today I have energy (I cleaned my whole house top to bottom today!).

At least we are finally getting sunshine and pleasant temperatures most days-- better late then never! (And I infinitely prefer our 75-80 degrees to the rest of the country's 95+ degrees!)

A mountain adventure

Rocky Mountain State Park

I'm home after a hot weekend in Boulder, CO. I went to see my two good friends from graduate school, Ryah & Laura. It was so much fun to see my friends-- I hadn't seen Laura in two years, and Ryah in one year so it was great to spend some time together instead of a rushed phone call every couple of weeks. Laura and I were virtually inseparable when she lived in Seattle and I miss her all the time. What was also fantastic is that Boulder has some amazing local food, especially meat and my friends cooked for me just about every meal, which was a wonderful break from being the sole cook and food shopper at my house! Both Ryah & Laura are getting into a Paleo-ish slant, partly because of my proselytizing, so we were all on the same page. I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures of our meals, but we had steak, chicken, amazing sausages, eggs, and bacon all at various meals that were all local and fantastic. We added salad or kale, yam or fruit and on a couple of nights a few not so paleo treats of coconut milk ice cream or a few chocolate covered almonds to finish it off. The only 100% not paleo meal I had was the only one I took a picture of! On my last day L and I had brunch at a restaurant called Tangerine that had a gluten free option for almost everything on the menu. I had buttermilk pancakes, gluten free of course, and a side of chicken sausage. L had a sample platter of the different pancakes (hers weren't gf) and also chicken sausage, but it was way too much food, though really yummy.


We drove through Rocky Mountain State Park and saw the beautiful mountains, some elk, many stupid tourists parking their cars in dangerous places to get pictures, and the best part was-- we drove so high we found snow and 65 degree temperatures. Why was this so exciting? Because every day I was there it was between 95-100 degrees. When you are used to less than 70 degrees that is a bit of a shock. Add to that the altitude and pregnancy and I found myself often hot and tired and occasionally (especially on top of the mountain at 12000 feet) headachey. Thank goodness both L's car and her apartment had air conditioning or I might have melted into a puddle. I admit I have never been so glad to see rain and 65 degrees when I got back to Seattle!

The other really fun thing we did was tour the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory. It is a huge and impressive operation, and while the tea ingredients are sourced from all over the world, they are all processed and packaged in Boulder. The whole place smells amazing, like a big mix of herbs and fruit, though our favorite might have been the mint room, which was a bit like walking into a tub of vic's vaporub or a vat of toothpaste- it was really strong, but also refreshing. (The mint is so strong they have to keep it in a separate, double walled room, or everything in the whole place would be minty!) We also got to taste some teas, and we each bought one of CS's new Kombucha lines-- it was really good, but it has added prebiotics in it and my stomach felt a little funny so I didn't drink it all (plus I had to throw the rest away when I got to the airport anyway).
Here we are with our lovely hairnets. Sorry it's a little blurry....

Lately I've been having vague milk cravings which are surprising since I'm pretty sensitive to dairy and haven't had milk in probably 7 years, though I can get away with a couple bites of cheese or butter in something. This morning I tried a half cup of goat yogurt and it was a no go. I was coughing and wheezing within 5 minutes. So much for that. So instead I made a big cup of chicken stock (figuring what I'm craving is calcium). It's a little bit not paleo because I made it Japanese style, adding Ume Plum Vinegar, based on a suggestion from my friend Katrina (so handy to be friends with so many great nutritionists!) and a spoonful of miso because I love miso soup and because I could use some good friendly bacteria in there (miso is made from fermented soybeans, hence the not so paleo-ness of it). But it is very satisfying on this cool, feels like autumn morning.

I'll try and take a picture of my little bump this weekend-- at 15.5 weeks pregnant I've got a bit of a bump, but still don't really need maternity clothes yet. It's the sort of thing where, depending on what I'm wearing, you might or might not even be able to tell. Apparently after the first time you are pregnant, subsequent pregnancies pop right out there much faster, or so I'm told.

Chipotle Chicken Stew

I apologize if you are reading this from somewhere other than the Northern West Coast-- I realize that for most of America soup is not exactly something you want to contemplate. To you I say file this away until Fall. Here in Seattle where we are lucky if we top 68 degrees and see the sun at all so far this summer, it feels more like September. I have been thinking about making this soup for a couple of weeks, but didn't have the energy until now (fair warning, there is a lot of chopping involved). This soup is adapted from this recipe at Nourishing Meals. Ali does an amazing job of coming up with delicious recipes with whole food ingredients-- I also have her cookbook and absolutely every recipe I've tried of hers has been delicious. However, while gluten free, her recipes are not at all paleo, in fact this recipe started out as a vegetarian stew-- I started adding chicken and kale to it long ago, but this is the first time I also omitted the beans and it was just as yummy.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
3 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano (I used 1 Tablespoon of fresh oregano since I had it handy)
3/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1 Tablespoon sea salt
2 medium yams, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2-3 pounds chicken breasts or thighs, diced into bite sized pieces
1 head kale, de-stemmed and chopped small
other veggies as desired (I used a couple chopped zucchini)
6 cups water or chicken stock
1 medium red bell pepper, diced


Heat a large 6 or 8-quart pot over medium heat. Add olive oil then add onions and saute for 5 to 7 minutes.

Then add the chicken and continue to cook until chicken starts to brown. Add spices, and vegetables and saute a minute or two more. Add the water/chicken stock (I used half and half of each). Simmer covered for 20 to 30 minutes or until yams are tender and chicken is fully cooked.


Top with Cabbage-Slaw (this recipe is fully Ali's except I use parsley instead of cilantro)

Cilantro-Cabbage Slaw

4 to 5 cups thinly sliced Napa cabbage
2 cups chopped cilantro
2 to 3 green onions, sliced into thin rounds
the juice of one lime
1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place all ingredients into a medium-sized mixing bowl and toss together. Be sure to make only what you will eat with you meal. Otherwise it will become soggy and unappealing for your next bowl of stew. (The stew gets better as it ages, this doesn't).

14 weeks: transition

After an awesome energy day last Sunday, I spent most of the week back on the couch barely able to move (either that or at my desk at work watching the clock until I could go home to the couch). This weekend my energy has returned again-- hopefully for good, as at 14 weeks I am now by all calendars in the second trimester. I am definitely in a transitional period. Food wise, I am doing better eating more protein, but overall still eating too much sugar and processed things I don't need. The problem in part seems to be that I can't eat more than a few bites at a time of real food-- I likely shrunk my stomach during the seven or so weeks I wasn't really eating. Add to that, if I can eat a real meal, it sits in my stomach like a rock for HOURS which is very uncomfortable. I have tried my trusty Super Enzymes, but really all that works is to eat small amounts every few hours which I find annoying. When I was a teenager and in college I was definitely one of those 5-6 meals a day people, but somewhere in the last 4 or 5 years I realized it is much more satisfying and satiating for me to eat until I'm full 3 or 4 times a day. It is unsatisfying to switch back to eating smaller meals and it's been an adjustment-- really processed stuff (we had gluten free cookies around for awhile-- I know! bad) goes down easily and I am not used to being hungry all the time-- I just need to plan better.

Because I'm not eating as well as I should, I found myself in a pregnancy hormone induced panic yesterday. After weeks of my weight dropping, it has been steadily coming back up (as it should-- I'm growing a person!) But my overindulgence in the wrong kind of calories has me a little panicked that I'm gaining the wrong kind of weight (mind you, I'm still down 4 pounds from pre-pregnancy weight so it's a rather irrational concern). The solution is simple-- stop eating the crap! I'm working on that-- if my energy remains it will help a lot with food prep. Also what will help is some exercise, which I haven't had in over two months. Tomorrow my Crossfit trainer extraordinaire, Jesse at Lynnwood Crossfit is going to come up with a pregnancy routine for me because I'm not comfortable attempting even modified WODs given my inexperience and how long I've been away from the gym-- getting into a regular routine of activity will be very important in keeping me to a healthy weight gain and strong enough for what lies ahead. (My friend told me to look at pregnancy as training for the marathon of birth and months of sleepless baby care-- I think that's a good attitude).

I am at that funny stage where I'm getting a bit of a bump, but don't quite look pregnant-- just like I'm gaining weight (though when I gain weight it normally isn't all in my stomach!) I bought some maternity capris on Friday and they are so comfortable! Elastic waist bands are miraculous. Both M. and I are just in awe of this process-- I swear my belly gets bigger every day and it's extraordinary. I'm trying as much as possible to savor these moments-- I only expect to be pregnant two, maybe three times in my life and next time I'm pregnant I'll be busy with a toddler, so it's kind of amazing to just sit back and experience it.

Everyone pretty much knows now as I told my office this week-- it's nice to have it out in the open. My good friend that works with me has a one year old and she's become kind of a mentor to me-- it's nice not to have to sit in the corner and whisper about it at work now.

Meanwhile, Seattle seems to be skipping summer this year. It is currently 57 degrees and pouring down rain at my house. Next weekend I'm escaping to Boulder to see the sun and two dear friends. I can't wait!