Our son....on the Paleo Diet too?

Our son will be 3 next month.   He is a pretty good eater in general.  He started off loving tons of veggies, but we became lazy and started introducing convenience foods because...well, it was convenient.  So guess what?  Now our son who used to love to eat salad, asparagus, raw bell peppers, etc. has developed a taste for bread, crackers, anything salty.  This was something that slowly happened over time.  And when we finally realized what had happened, we knew we needed to change it, but how?

My husband and I have always tried to eat somewhat healthy.  I fell way off the healthy eating train while early pregnant last year and am now just recovering.  I think that was the time that our son began developing a taste for lots of processed junk.  My husband also enjoyed my cravings for Blizzards and other such treats!  And while I don't think anything in moderation is horrible, we were eating WAY too much.

My husband is the one who introduced us to the Paleo Diet by way of Crossfit.  The two seem to go hand in hand!  I bought the book last year sometime and read about it and thought it made sense, but just wasn't ready to dive in.  He's been pretty good about his diet and rarely would eat the pasta or breads in our meals.  He would usually have a big salad every night in addition to what we had.  Something started feeling wrong though when he wouldn't eat pasta, yet we would feed it to our two year old.   Same with all of the "treats" we were giving him.   Once I realized it, I talked to my husband and we agreed we needed to not feed our son what we didn't want to eat (although at this time, I was still scarfing down the bad-for-us foods too).

Timing was perfect because within a week I read about the release of a new book "Everyday Paleo" and thought it was perfect for us to try.  I was talking to my sister in law about it and she ordered it as soon as it was available. She called as soon as she received it and raved about it.  So I ordered one.  I'm glad I did.  It's a great guide to starting the paleo diet as a family.  There are great recipes, a fabulous meal plan and even a starter workout plan.

I liked the philosophy in her book regarding crap foods.  Just don't keep them in the house.  Period.  So we got rid of everything as you see in the photo a couple of posts back.  Guess what?  Everything's OK.  Our son is perfectly fine without bread in the house.  And this is the boy that was eating honey toast two or three times a day just the week before the change.  He's still "picky" about what snacks he wants, but because we only have good snacks around, that's all he has to choose from.  So I really don't care that he wants the same snack every day!   He even tried salad yesterday from my husband's plate.  He had stopped eating lettuce last year and while we encourage him to always try it again, he never wants to.  So to our surprise, he said he wanted daddy's salad and took a big piece of lettuce out and ate it.  Yay!  It was only the one piece but he didn't spit it out!  Hopefully if we can continue, he'll start eating it again.  He ate the lasagna I made last night.  No noodles.  Well, it kind of had noodles....in the form of zucchini strips!  He ate it all.

Yes, if your diet consisted of a lot of bread, processed foods, etc., your child will probably protest - especially if they are older than mine...we are pretty lucky that he's still so young.  But the answer is clear - don't have the junk in the house and they won't eat it.  Yes, they will complain, pout, maybe even cry.  But stick to it and within two weeks, they'll realize you are serious.

Now, like I mentioned before, we aren't going at this hard core.  We will allow some flexibility, but it'll be outside of our house and our normal routine.  For example, we may go to a baseball game tomorrow.  Our son will probably have a hot dog....with the bun.  It'll be OK.   He may even have a juice box.  But because it's not part of his daily or even weekly routine, it'll be just fine!

Our hope is that we can build a foundation that he can come back to.  I know that there may come a time where all he wants to eat is chicken fingers, but so long as we can control what he's offered 90% of the time, we'll do it.  Once he gets into high school and wants to make poor eating choices away from us, that will be his decision.  Hopefully by the time he has a family one day he'll come back to the basics of good, natural, whole foods and pass it on to his children.

Temptation

I was at a restaurant with friends last night and was sooo afraid I was going to cave....especially with the bread basket.  I'm not really craving grains but I LOVE bread and that is always a highlight of dining out for me!  But I didn't and even with the gigantic, wonderful brownie dessert came at the end of the meal, I was able to resist!

I am hoping this 30 days of no sugar will really help me change my taste for sugar.  I hope that when I do eat some kind of dessert with sugar again that it'll be super sweet and just a little will satisfy my sweet tooth.  Eating an entire pan of brownies in a day is just too much, you know?  I want to be happy eating just one.

So I am on the hunt for desserts that are sugar and grain free without tasting like cardboard.  Ha, yeah right.  But I am sure I can find one and I've got several recipes to try.  "Everyday Paleo" has a couple that I am super interested in.  The pumpkin pie is something I'll definitely try (especially since I have 6 cans of pumpkin in my pantry) and even her sweet potato recipe from Thanksgiving looks like it would be a treat in itself!

My husband caved last night!  :)  He was slightly freaking out and wanted to get something sweet.  We went to Walgreens and read tons of labels.  I am still shocked at what I see in "healthy" snacks on the shelves.  He ended up getting a pint of ice cream to share with my mom.  It was the only thing that had real ingredients.  He also got some peanut butter...which is a no-no on the Paleo diet.  But honestly, in my opinion, I think that's not too bad of a special treat.  I am really hoping I can make it the full 30 days without caving.  I'm just thinking how great that my special treat will be if I can wait that long!

And so it begins...

I did it.  I gave up sugar.

I want to really keep it out of my system for 30 days so I can truly gauge what I feel like without it.  And at the end of the 30 days, if I do decide to try a little to see how my body reacts, I'm hoping I'll get a clearer picture of how it does affect me.

Here is a photo of what we cleaned out of the pantry (sorry, it's a crappy cell phone photo)

We are only on day 4 of 30.  It's already HARD.  Yesterday I thought I was going to freak out.  I'm not really missing the grains so much (although I think my body is definitely adjusting), but I am craving sugar.  I really didn't like my husband yesterday and I KNOW he didn't like me.  I was reacting very badly to the lack of sugar I am apparently addicted to.

Now, to be fair, I think that the timing of this is quite challenging.  Our 3 month old is apparently going through a growth spurt and has decided that she wants to nurse every couple of hours through the night again.  So combine the sleep deprivation with no sugar and no grains all of sudden AND the reduced caffeine consumption (since there is no sugar in my coffee, I'm drinking less), it's been pretty tough.  Yesterday I could barely keep my eyes open.  I was exhausted.  So I ran up to the newest little coffee shop and got a Queen Bee Latte that's sweetened with, can you guess?  Honey!  Finally something sweet!  It was wonderful...actually it was a little too sweet!  But I completely forgot to ask for it to be half-caff.  Yeah, I was a little overwhelmed a little while later with the caffeine high!

So all in all, it's not been bad.  We've eaten great meals and love cooking at home so it makes it that much better.  I'll list a few of the meals we've eaten:

DAY 1
- Whole chicken in the crockpot with onions (so delicious and gave us plenty of leftovers)
- Red cabbage slaw with cucumber and mango (YUM!)
- BLAT salad - yummy, yummy, yummy, but how can you go wrong when you have bacon and avocado in the same bowl?

DAY 2
- Steak skewers with sweet onions, tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms
- grilled pinapple  (oh so good)
- Cauliflower "rice" - not quite mashed cauliflower, but cooked down to be softer than raw

DAY 3
- Spring mix (from our own garden!) salad with leftover chicken for me and leftover steak for hubby, pears, candied (with pure maple syrup) pecans, red onion and avocado.  Dressing was just squeezed lemon and olive oil.  Sooo yummy.  Not sure if maple syrup is "allowed" in Paleo eating, but honey is and I'm assuming if a caveman found some sticky stuff running of out of tree and tasted it, he'd eat it
- leftovers and tons of them!  I was a bit worried when I saw the grocery shopping list for days 1-5 in the "Everyday Paleo" book, but we've had tons of leftovers and will definitely be stretching the meals out in the future.


With our son, we've decided that we'll do Paleo at the house, but outside of the house we'll be lenient.  For example, his school had an end of the year performance and they had a special cookie as a treat.  Fine with us.  We just don't want to keep it at the house anymore.  We were so good for so long allowing that type of stuff to be special treats, but because we knew the stuff was in the house, it was so easy to just give it to him often.    After the 30 days, we will allow ourselves the same type of flexibility.  I'm not saying I'll never eat another cookie, brownie, etc. again, but for the next few weeks I want to avoid them!


As far as exercise, I was doing great following the workout plan in the back of "Everyday Paleo" which I started the week before.  But once I started the no sugar/grain thing and my exhaustion set in, I couldn't imagine trying to even do one squat.  Just walking around the house is wearing me out!  I hope that my body recovers a bit over the next day or so to be able to add the workouts in.  I have been walking some, so I am not completely being a couch potato!

Oh, and I've lost 3.5 pounds this week.  Which sounds great, but my first thought was that it's too much since I'm breastfeeding.  I want to make sure my supply stays up.  But I think I'm ok since I'm actually eating MUCH better than I was for the first three months of my daughter's life!  I've just cut out the pure crap I was eating and I knew it would probably help me drop weight very quickly initially.  I'm just going to make sure I keep plenty of protein and enough good fats in the daily eating to help keep my supply going strong.

So far, so good!

Yet again...

So it begins yet again.  Another attempt at eating healthier.  This society we have sucks in the fact that we are all geared towards convenience.   We were sucked back into the processed foods again.   And we're tired of it and want to change.  Thankfully we didn't get too far into processed stuff.  We are still mindful at the grocery store and stay on the outer perimeter as much as possible, so I'm hoping this won't be as drastic as a change for us this time.

We will soon be starting a modified Paleo Diet lifestyle.   Basically the Paleo diet is eating "cave man" style.  Lean meats, lots of leafy veggies, fruits, nuts and seeds.  That's it.  No grains, no dairy.  Seriously?  I don't 100% agree with the Paleo Diet, but that's another blog.  I do, however, completely 100% agree with the fact that it's all real food.   To me, that's the ultimate goal.

I'll talk more about it later, but first what's happened here since my last blog post?  A new baby arrived!!!  It's a GIRL!  She is now 3 months old and absolutely wonderful.  She's smiling at everything and everyone.  She was born on my birthday over 2 weeks early!  She was determined to share my birthday with me.  It was a fast and furious birth...I'll have to share the story another time.  It was fabulous.  We did it at the birth center again and left four hours after she was born.  Amazing stuff!

Big brother is very happy to be a big brother.  He's always trying to kiss and hold her.  We'll see how long that lasts!  :)  Her arriving and our son's shift in food preferences has prompted our desire to get back on track.  He was the kid who ate "crazy" stuff that the average child does not, but now, guess what's taken over?  Bread.  The amount of veggies he wants has fallen and it's totally our fault.  We've succumbed to the whole "we don't have time" excuse.  And that's exactly what it is...an excuse.  We are poor planners.  So instead of the good snacks he once got, they now consist of gummy gums (like gummy bears), crackers, chips, etc.  It sucks.  He still does eat veggies, just not as many.  We are ready to get him back to veggies.

So we bought this book by Sarah Fragoso called "Everyday Paleo"   It's a great book.  It has a basic overview of Paleo eating and her own personal experience plus recipes, a menu plan and exercise help.  We are starting the 30 day Paleo challenge next week.  I'm excited.  And nervous.  And completely freaked out about giving up sugar.  I am addicted to sugar.  Seriously.

So again, this blog has been revived to help me put out there what I am doing to get back to a healthier, more natural lifestyle.  I'm not sure what I'll blog about, but maybe writing down things will help me continue on.   I'll write about what I eat, my exercise and my general outlook on life...beware - I will be coming off of sugar and grains.  I cannot be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth during the transition time!

I have a good excuse....

Well, at least it was a good excuse for about 8-10 weeks.  Then I was just lazy to get back to the blog!

We found out in the middle of June that we are expecting baby #2.  Due to arrive at the very end of February!  It was not long before the sickness kicked in high gear.  Seriously it was so very awful.  We had to ask my mother in law to fly down to help (ok, to completely take care of our son) while I just moaned and groaned on the couch/bed feeling like death.  As soon as she got here, my husband got a stomach bug. It was the sickest I've seen him ever.  Then I got it.  Then our son got it.  Both my husband and I got dehydrated and had to have IV fluids.  Ugh.  Thank goodness MIL was here to save the month!

So, then I started feeling better.  But I went to Italy with some girlfriends!  For 12 days!  It was absolutely freaking fabulous.  We just visited the Tuscany area with one night in Cinque Terre on the Mediterranean Sea and then an overnight layover in Paris.   There really are no words to describe how great it was.  And the pictures hardly do it justice.

I come home feeling great.  I felt the best on my trip than I have this entire pregnancy.  I was excited to come home and be active with my family for the first time in months.  The morning after I got home, I woke up with a sore throat.  Stupid cold found me on the plane ride back.  So almost a week of congested head/nose and sinus issues kept me down again.  Seriously?  Give me a break!  Then our son got a touch of it.  Thankfully it was just a cold, but still enough to keep us down for a total of two weeks.  Blah.

BUT, I'm feeling much, much better now and decided that since I was, it was a great time to start exercising to prepare for labor. Squats.  Lots of them.  Crossfit loves squats.  I took my final class that I started right when I got pregnant and now I am officially able to do the group exercises.  Well....when I'm able to actually lift my leg without the assistance of grabbing onto my pants leg to do so!

I do plan to get back to this blog.  Obviously we're getting back to natural basics again with planning for this labor and delivery.  Looking back at our last birth and what we loved and what we want to try to plan to change if possible.  So there may be a lot of birth stuff for a while since I'll be preparing and have already been researching several topics that I'd like to write about.

Eating.  Well, the fact that I *can* eat is wonderful right now!  Seriously at the beginning of the pregnancy I lost weight because I could not even get water down.  Stupid acid reflux.   The pain was so bad, I swore that it was a gall bladder attack and since I had mine out a year ago, I knew it wasn't possible.  So, once I was able to eat, I ate whatever sounded good at the time.  And since I didn't cook for over two months for my family (seriously couldn't even stand the smell of the oven/stove turning on), my family has slacked too on eating healthy, whole, natural foods.  We're getting back to it though and have to get rid of some bad habits that were easy to pick up again.

So bear with me.  I'll probably jump around very randomly with my topics.  :)

I'm back with a brand new menu plan :)

I seriously suck.

I have neglected my blog.  I have lots to talk about but just not the time to write it down!  We have also been eating so very poorly because of our lack of planning in our busy lives.  But we know that it's the lack of meal planning that adds to the "busy" of our life.

So, I have this week's menu plan and I had help!  I was visiting my mom last week and she had a Woman's Day magazine.  In the back of it, it has a monthly menu plan for dinner.  And it looked like some good recipes!

So, the beauty of it is, you can go to their website and it has the entire month planned out where you can click on day and it takes you to the recipe!!!  AND it has a shopping list set up by the week.  It's fantastic!

So here are our dinner plans for this week.  We haven't planned lunch this week, but we've got to get back in the groove and if we at least have dinner planned, it helps!


Monday - Pasta Primavera with side salad (or any veggie on sale at store)
Tuesday - leftovers
Wednesday - Homemade fish sticks, corn on cob and coleslaw
Thursday - Korean Beef Bok Coy and brown rice with scallions
Friday - leftovers
Saturday - Stuffed Eggplant with spinach, tomato and feta salad
Sunday - Salman Burger with rice and carrot/scallion salad

Doesn't that sound WONDERFUL?  And it's such a variety which is always my hold up.  I love different things, but I drive myself crazy looking at recipe after recipe and never deciding.

So, again, a super boring post.  I promise I'll get better.  I've got tons of things to talk about, just like the recipes, I can't pick just one!  Maybe I'll put the topics in a hat and draw out one!

My birth story...

Two years ago yesterday.  It's already and only been two years ago since my son made his grand appearance into this world!  What a wonderful experience it has been so far to be a mother to this little guy.  He is amazing and has my my family even more amazing.  I love his father more each day because of the man he is with his son.  I could not have DREAMED for a more perfect husband.

I have decided to share my birth story in remembrance of the amazing day/night he arrived.  Like I mentioned in the previous post, I did not have the most enjoyable pregnancy.  But, the birth was amazing.  It was still painful, believe me.  Unfortunately I was not one of the ones who experienced a pain-free birth.  But I would do it all over again tomorrow to have my little guy with us!  I wish more women got to experience childbirth the way our bodies were designed to handle it without the intervention and scare tactics of doctors.

Oh, and it's very long.  Very.  Warming - there are also pictures at the end.  Nothing graphic, but you'll see some of my skin, so watch out!  :)  Lots of pictures!

I was due Sunday, June 8^th, 2008.  It came….and went. 

I only went “overdue” 2 days.  Labor began Tuesday, June 10^th at 3:30 p.m.  The day began like usual.  I finally hoisted myself out of the mountain of pillows (I think we counted 11 at one point) and got up for the day.

My friend called and said she was coming by to take me to breakfast – yay, the outside world!  So she, my husband and I went to breakfast.

When we got back to the house, my friend gave me a little bag with some DVD’s to watch along with some brownies.  So of course I scarfed down two brownies immediately.  This was probably around 11 a.m.   I then had a little bathroom visit soon after breakfast and now looking back my body was definitely preparing for labor!  

My husband and I went to a friend’s house to get in the pool for some relief from my heavy belly.  Right when we walked in her front door (3:30 p.m.), my first contraction came.  I instantly knew it was real.  It wasn’t painful…just a mild version of the horrible menstrual cramps I used to have.  The Braxton-Hicks I’d been having for months were definitely more uncomfortable. I didn’t say anything though because I don’t want anyone to freak out.

We get in the pool... I know what most of you are thinking.  “WHAT?  Why aren’t you  headed to the hospital immediately?”  That’s another blog for another day!  I’d prepared myself to know labor is a normal, natural thing that is usually not an emergency.

There were only a few people there – my husband, friend, her daughter and my friend’s parents.  I tell my husband quietly that I was having contractions and I needed his watch to time them.  They were about 10 minutes apart for an hour.  The water was amazing.  I’m not sure if it was the water or if my contractions were just that mild.  They never hurt.  There was definitely a lot of pressure, but not painful at all.   We stay at my friend’s house for about an hour and a half.  Then I felt the need to empty my bladder, but I didn’t want to do it there.  Somehow I just had a feeling that I needed to get home!

I got home and immediately headed to the bathroom and had a lot of mucus plug/bloody show happening.  Very exciting and scary!  I hop in the shower – contractions are about 8 minutes apart.  Get out, decided to lie down – because that’s what I read – lie down and if contractions continue, it’s active (although I already knew it was at this point!)

I got on the couch and WHOA….something happened and my back started to feel as though it were breaking!  I guess he turned somehow.  It was instantly painful and there was no break between contractions.  (Um, hello?  Why didn’t I get those minutes in between peaks?)  

I leaned over my exercise ball on the bed to take pressure off my back but it didn’t help at all.  My husband was trying to time contractions – they were very sporadic.  Sometimes 2 minutes apart – sometimes 7.  Lasting different times.  Although because the pain never stopped, I’m not sure how accurate we were in timing them.  I still have the piece of paper from where my husband tried to keep up with my contractions and me!

I then called the birth center and told the midwife that I was definitely in labor, feeling pain and having contractions.  She said to continue on my hands and knees and wait until there was a more definite pattern.  Oh, and she made sure to demand that I eat!  I tried a leftover hamburger but could only eat half.  I then totally regretted not eating as soon as I felt that first contraction earlier in the day!

Not 30 minutes went by and I called the midwife back and told her I couldn’t take it any longer.  So she said she’d meet me at the center  – 40 minute drive.  I had to hold onto my husband’s shoulders to get out of the house and into the truck. I can only imagine what we looked like to passing cars!  He called our parents and my cousin who was supposed to come take pictures.  It was about 8:30 or so at this point, so very short from the time my first contraction started.  Sitting down was not pleasant to my back, however, the ride didn’t seem long, surprisingly. 

I'm checked and then heard the midwife say, “Oh, we’re definitely having a baby tonight, you’re 7 centimeters dilated!”  This was just after 9 p.m.  So not quite 6 hours past first contraction.  Thank goodness!  I could hear my husband breathe a huge sigh of relief!  

I go to the wonderfully large queen sized bed and strip off my shirt – I never understood why women always seem to get naked during natural births, but I get it now!  I had to lie down on my side; it’s the only thing that helped my back somewhat. 

I got a shot of nubaine, although now, looking back, I so wish I would have tried something first – tub, shower, etc.   It took the edge off and although it was still very painful, allowed my back to take a break between the contractions.

I think I was there for about an hour when our midwife suggested the tub.  She checked me first and I was 9 centimeters, so she wanted to break my water since I was so close and wanted to check for meconium (couldn’t deliver in tub if there was any present). 

Into the tub I went and I still remember how wonderful that felt.  Instant pain relief! I was full dilated in no time and began to feel the slight urge to push.  I started pushing when I felt like it, but didn’t feel quite right.  I was checked and still had lip of cervix, so that’s why it didn’t feel right. 

I started pushing again soon, but the tub wasn’t feeling great to push because of my back labor.  So I got back in bed.  I tried to push, but again, not quite right.  My wonderful midwife told me to just relax and rest and try to nap. I rested for about an hour!  It was so wonderful, I’m sure if I were with an OB in a hospital, they would have forced me to push immediately when I was fully dilated and I would have ended up with a horrible tear or worse!

I began feeling this incredible urge to push and it felt better this time!  It was a welcome relief!  I could feel a weird pressure in the front of my pelvis while pushing though.  It took me several pushes to finally get it right.  The best thing our midwife told me was to try to push him up to the ceiling.  When I tried it that way, I felt him move so much with each push!!!  Very motivating!

I was so exhausted though – due to my lack of food that day (really wish I would have chowed down immediately when I went into labor!) so between each push I would fall back down on the bed.  My husband and cousin had to hold each leg back during a push and the midwife knotted a sheet on two ends and she and I each pulled during my contraction.  It was so helpful because I was thoroughly exhausted!

After 42 minutes of pushing, my son was born at 2:00 a.m. on June 11. We realized why I had the front pressure/pain during pushing and why I had back labor.  He wasn’t quite posterior, but just cocked slightly.  His poor little cone head was waay off to the side and back!  

I held him for an hour!  Then the proud father finally received a chance to hold him. No one took him away, he stayed with us, we made the rules! My little family all got in bed and slept for several hours together.  We were so comfy, that we didn’t leave until 5:00 that afternoon!  I'd wanted to leave earlier and definitely felt fine, but I was just sleeping so wonderfully there!

Best experience ever!  

Oh, and remember my last blog entry about suspected "large" babies?  Well, I had a "large" baby of 9 pounds, 4 oz. and believe it or not, my pelvis is still in tact!  Not only did I "survive" but I went home the very same day and had a very easy recovery.  Thank goodness I was with a care provider that knew that birth was normal and not something to intervene in.  The midwives knew not to say ridiculous things like, "Wow, you've got a big one.  Hopefully we can get him out."  No estimates were ever made.  No fear was ever in my mind about a large baby.  My labor started and I pushed him out.  I knew I could do it.  My body was made to birth him!

Happy Birthday to my sweet little boy who is more charming each day and has brought more joy to my life than I could have ever imagined!