A Postscript and a Resurrection

So I've been away for a while. We had a baby, life got busy... you know how it is.

The baby is interesting, though, from the point of this blog. He's the reason for this postscript (and partially the resurrection, but I'll get to that.) We didn't share much of our journey to have children with people, but suffice it to say that it wasn't an easy journey. It took two years and some medical interventions to have Lauren. When she was six months old, we started trying for another, knowing it may take a while. After about three years and more interventions, we gave up. One day in a gorgeous park in Edmonds, Jeremy and I looked at each other over Lauren's head and just knew we were done. It was the most peaceful and yet gut-wrenching moment of my life.

So how did we get another baby and how in the world does it relate to this blog? Well, after that day in the park, I threw myself into getting in shape and eating right. I hired a trainer and worked out at least three times a week. I ran, lifted weights, stair-mastered, lifted more weights... you get the idea. I also worked hard to eat right. I was still blogging then and even when I stopped, I was still eating well. (We just won't talk about that trip to NC over Christmas, okay?) Anyway, I was doing my best to do everything right. If we couldn't have another baby, I was going to take the time to get in the best health I could.

And then in January, after our trip to NC, I started to feel... odd. After much angst and trying to talk myself out of getting excited, I took a test and found out we were expecting Andrew. There's not a word in the English language that conveys my shock. Happily, he was born healthy nine months later and is a love and joy in our lives.

So, the blog. Now, I'm not implying causation at all, but I can't help but think it's odd? funny? telling? that we tried and tried for six years to have children and had a terrible time. I then spend six to eight months getting myself in the best shape of my life, eating healthy, eating organic, and I suddenly get pregnant? Can I call it a correlation? Something more than just a coincidence? Even if it wasn't, all that working out and healthy eating let me have an easy pregnancy, so I'm thankful for that.

The resurrection part is this: Now that Andrew is six months old and I'm finally getting to sleep more and getting a schedule down, I'm hoping to focus more on our eating. While we haven't been doing badly, I want to refocus and do it right. I still want to work on Lauren's eating (no change there) and now have the added wrinkle of having two kids and much less time. We'll see how I do.

I'll be back tomorrow with the menu for the week!

Seven Days a Week

So, I'll be honest: I struggle with food quite a bit. I don't know where it comes from, and it certainly hasn't always been there, but I have terrible willpower in the face of food. If I'm at a party or buffet or if some food baddie has made it into the house, I just want to eat and eat, totally forgetting about all my beliefs around food. Even simply eating out can be a challenge: I have a tough time saying no to french fries.

Now, to be sure, doing this blogging and thinking more about where my food comes from has helped immensely. Having a set of criteria by which to analyze my food has helped keep my on track, to some extent. Even so, I find it too easy to slip back into old ways of eating absolute junk.

Weekends are the worst for me. During the week, I can be a total paragon of healthy living eating only whole foods and eschewing sugar. I feel so high and mighty on those days, it's really a little embarrassing. Then, the weekend rolls around and I find myself pawing through the cupboards in search of chocolate or taking seconds at the party buffet. It's a little Jekyll and Hyde-ish to tell you the truth.

So, my goal for the next few weeks is to make it a seven-day-a-week goal to eat better. Less sugar and white flour (which I'm already way down on). More water. Continuing the fruits and veggies. Less eating out and definitely less Starbucks. I can do it, I'm sure, and I'll feel much better about myself. My body still looks and feels great, but I need to snap out of the cycle of low willpower-bad eating-lower willpower.

Sorry this got so personal, but this has been a struggle for me lately and I want to surface it. I'm working so hard in the gym and I really want to see the results, and being so Type A, I'd like to get this one area of life under control.

So, if you see me out and I'm reaching for seconds at the buffett, I give you permission to smack the plate out of my hand!

Resurfacing

Things are starting to calm down a bit and I found myself with the urge to blog today, so here I am!

The good news is that since I've been taking my hiatus, I've really been sticking to the principles of healthy eating that I've learned in the last six months. It's really just become part of who I am and how I cook. I'm enjoying eating this way and I definitely feel better!

Several things I've learned in the last few months:

1. That, for all intents and purposes, I'm a pescetarian at heart. I'm barely eating any meat these days and when I do, it's fish nine times out of ten. Part of it is just not desiring meat, part of it is just not being clear on where it comes from.

2. That buying all organic fruits and veggies really isn't any more expensive than buying traditionally grown. I think the main thing is that we're not buying meat, which has shrunk the grocery bill.

3. That I can make a mean stirfry combining pretty much whatever I have on hand.

4. That I don't get tired of eating stirfy.

I haven't lost any weight with this new way of eating, but I always find the summer months difficult with all the barbecues and other events. Plus, even though I've been eating healthier foods, that portion control is still and issue and I have a huge sweet tooth. This is something I'm going to be focusing on in the next few weeks. Just in time for the holidays.

Speaking of which, we're coming up on Halloween and I'm trying to decide what to do about all the candy I know will be around. I'm of two minds about it:

1) It's only once a year, right?
2) Yeah, but only once a year still contains quite a bit of sugar, HFCS, and other things we don't need. Especially my three year old, who has energy in spades.

And not only am I conflicted in this way, but then I have to decide not only what to do for Lauren, but for the candy we hand out to trick-or-treaters. I have to do some thinking on this, but found one convincing article on the Spoonfed blog last week. More on this later.

Hiatus

Not that anyone is waiting with bated breath to see when I'll write next, but I figured it was only fair to go ahead and take an official hiatus. Things are getting crazy with work and I just can't devote the time to blogging that I'd like. I'll continue to read and cook good things, and I might pop in now and again to share things, but for now, blogging is on hold. Thanks for your support, and I'm sure I'll be back before too long!

Veggie Week suits me...

... and so it's turning into Veggie Two-Weeks! Jeremy is out of town again this week, which means that I don't have to worry about making things that he will eat. So, more veggies and whole grains it is!

This week has actually been a breeze. During the week, I just ate the stir-fry and eggplant parmesan leftovers that I had, and I had A LOT! This weekend was a bit of a test, with going out to restaurants twice. I was nervous I wouldn't find something to eat, or that I'd have to settle for something really lame. At the first place, I ate nachos that I had ordered without the chili, which aren't the healthiest, but boy, were they delicious. Today I ordered the Caprese sandwich and had them leave off the chicken and proscuitto. Again, delicious. Actually, both were way more delicious without the meat, I think.

I felt really great this week too, which adds to my enthusiasm about all of it. I just felt clear-headed and clear-stomached, if there is such a thing. I just find meat heavy. The only blockade I ran into was when I way overdid eating the peanut butter cookies Lauren and I made together: I suffered the most epic sugar crash. It really does affect your body badly, especially when you're not used to it! So, no sugar for me this week. As soon as I finish this cookie...

I ran across an article that makes me angry, one about a family farm that's being sold after 378 years. Essentially, the 11th generation of this family can no longer support themselves with this farm due to the proliferation of large factory farms and U-pick-type businesses, and so they are selling their farm that their ancestors have lived on since the 1600s. Instead of subsidizing the large farms that keep pumping out more and more corn (and therefore HFCS), why not support the little guys just trying to make a living? Sadly, the small family farm seems to be a dying art form.

Close Call

I am a stress eater. Whenever I get nervous or overwhelmed, I tend to head to the kitchen, or worse. I tend to eat whatever's closest and usually, the worst for me. I'm also a boredom eater to some extent, but I've managed to keep that in control by not having crappy food around the house. It's the stress eating that really gets me.

This week, we had quite a scare at home. Lauren had a febrile seizure, one triggered by a high fever. I spent Tuesday afternoon with her in the ER after a trip in the ambulance. She's fine, but took a little longer than I would like to come out of it and so the trip to the hospital. Once we got discharged and were headed home, I had a terrible, terrible urge to stop at McDonald's. I was starving and knew I had food at home, but really wanted to have something salty and bad for me. I was literally driving down the street to McD's and I had major second thoughts. I don't need the salt. I don't need the grease. I don't know where the meat came from. I don't need it. I thought all those things and still kept driving. At the last minute, my conscience won out, and I turned around and drove home. I felt good about that; I am making changes!

Veggie Week is going well. I'm enjoying the yummy things I'm eating and just feeling good about sticking with it.

Veggie Week

I'm back, trying to get slowly back on the horse. I'm finding that my interest in the topic isn't waning at all; it's really more that my desire to blog about it has waned. I think I need to cook something pretty and colorful and it'll be all love and excitement again.

Jeremy is out of town this week, so I've decided to go vegetarian while he's gone. I'm not a big meat eater anyway and I have a ton of veggies in the fridge, so I think this will be pretty tasty and easy to do. I'm also trying to stick to eating whole foods. Yesterday, I made a gorgeous stifry with onions, bok choy, purple cabbage, carrots, and celery with tofu that was heavenly. I had that over brown rice. Tomorrow I'm planning on making an Eggplant Parmesan that's really delicious and healthy. So, Veggie Week is starting off well!

One interesting development on the Lauren front: she dug in and ate some of the tofu yesterday as I was prepping it and seemed to really like it. She called it cheese. Of course, once I cooked it, she'd have nothing to do with it, but it was a start!

I've been continuing to read In Defense of Food and have been doing some good learning and thinking. I'll share that later in the week. Baby steps!