Week 7 PP: The week to celebrate!

**edit, I was mistaken on my size. Double checked after a lot of folks were asking how I was in an 8 when they are of a similar weight and a larger size. Oops! I believe in integrity and that I corrected this post!**
Tada! Size 10 jeans! I weighed in at 170, 5 pounds from my first goal of 165! I initially grabbed my 12s and then chucked them to the side for my 10s. When I fit in them, I kept them on. I would burn those 12s if I could!

Lil Miss and I had mother/daughter Bunco time again. This time we got to dress up:

She is sporting the Cinderella costume one of my best friends got her. It fits perfectly! Sadly, the shoes I got to go with it are far too large despite being 0-6mo.

My outfit I threw together last minute. It all spawned from my black nursing dress. Then I thought of the apron I bought a few years ago and my knee high boots. All I needed to get to pull off the witch look was the hat. Gamer Dad found it for $3! Not bad, not bad! Plus, we all get to dress up again for Trunk or Treat in a week and a half! $20 is what we spent to decorate the trunk of our SUV. 🙂

Candy can be a weakness for me, but I have found that I cannot tolerate my Halloween favorites like candy corn and mallow pumpkins. They are way too sweet and make my teeth itch. Sounds strange, but I really feel that way!

This week I also made pumpkin apple muffins with whole wheat flour, YUM! Gamer Dad helped make over 8 quarts of home made spaghetti sauce. He wanted to see if it was more cost effective than buying the jars from the store. $17 to make 8.5 quarts of sauce and I do believe a typical quart from the store is around $2. So it is only slightly less to make it yourself and there is a LOT of chopping! I think of it as calories burned with all the chopping and stirring. 🙂

God bless!

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Week 6 PP weight loss

I have lost a half pound since last week. It is better than nothing and I am not hung up on it. Why? Well, my size 10s are feeling a wee bit loose! I am thrilled! Just a bit more and I will be in my 8s!

I have actually found it difficult to consume enough calories this week. Yesterday I was over 800 calories under my “budget”. It was a wear baby girl around for 4 hours kind of day and heavy on the cooking side too. I did not cram in the 800+ calories because I wasn’t hungry.

Even at meals I try and slow down. I think I want more and drink some water and wait. After 10 minutes, if my tummy feels even a tiny bit full, I stop. Many of us just eat and eat and eat without really noticing we are already full. Our brains are slow to catch the message from our stomachs.

Our oldest son seemingly takes ages to eat (45 min or more). However, it reminds me to slow my pace down and I find myself laying my fork down a lot sooner than before. No wonder he is such a beanpole!

This week’s message, slow down! As parents time flies on by and we swear our kids were smaller just a second ago. We wonder where time ran off to and wished it’d slow down so we can savor our kids before it is time to send them off. The same goes for food, savor it, take your time, don’t be in a rush.

God bless!

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Week 5 of post baby weight loss

I am 8 pounds from my first mini goal as of this morning! Yep, I am 173!! I was shocked that I lost an extra half pound this week!

I haven’t done anything special to keep it off. Food seems to alway be in my mouth, but I seem to always be moving.

My husband is still convincing me that I need to hit a gym so I can be more than “skinny fat” and become “skinny toned.” I keep telling him that I can accomplish that at home. Yet, he thinks we’d need a home gym system for that.

My dear readers, please help me prove him wrong and give me work out ideas that can be done in my home with the kids around. Yes, I am frugal and I hate wasting money, time, and space.

God bless!

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Pumpkin White Chocolate Lactation Cookies

Yes, I bring you pumpkin again! This time in the form of lactation cookies that boost the supply of nursing mamas.

I simply took this recipe and put in a bag of my purée (see previous post on how to do that). One bag of 1 1/2C is about one can of the stuff you get at the store. To compensate for the moisture of the pumpkin, I added 1/2C more wheat flour and 1C more rolled oats. The extra yummies I added in are white chocolate chips and pecans. I did not measure them out, but it was probably 1/3C each. Of course, the go-to pumpkin-y spices were added too (cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves). I was tempted to toss in some ginger but decided not to.

What’s so great about these? Well, first there’s the pumpkin, duh! 😉 The best part for my readers who hate the taste of beer from the brewer’s yeast (who are you?!) will find the taste is minimized/gone completely. I was hoping for a pumpkin beer flavor but the yeast got over powered by pumpkin. FYI, 4T of the yeast was put in this batch too.

Happy Baking!

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Week 4 post partum weight loss

Today marks four weeks since we welcomed our daughter into our arms. I am in denial about that. Up there, that’s me, frumpy, but me.

Most days, I feel like Lynette from Desperate Housewives. You know, kid clinging to one leg, nursing baby in arm, spots of spit-up all over, frazzled hair, and a tired face. I love it though. Besides, chasing the kids around and nursing burns calories.

I do not know what the scale says today, but last Friday I was 10.5 pounds from my first goal. Wahoo! I have also joined my fellow BBC mamas on a weight loss challenge. A great deal of us are using LoseIt and keeping each other motivated.

It has been difficult taming down my love for pumpkin. I bought five pie pumpkins and puréed them. Next came pumpkin lactation cookies and plain ol’ pumpkin cookies for the boys since I seem to always make “milk cookies.” Blog posts to follow with those bits too. Moderation is key. Pumpkin tummies are well and good, but nomming on half a batch of lactation cookies is not ok! No, I haven’t gone that far, but half a dozen…yep, a weakness!! Time to tame the nursing cravings (it is true, cravings still occur after baby is in your arms) and show them I am in control.

God bless!

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Adios Baby Weight Week 3

No photo this week because I look like a zombie. It has been a few days (I lost count) of cluster feeding. This means I get sleep in very small chunks at a time. Coffee was also given up this week. I decided it was time to say adios all the way to drinks that aren’t water. That velvety and dark beverage was my only non-water drink every day. No, I never added sugar or cream.

What’s my progress? I am down to 179 now! It feels so good to see that number! It is only 14 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight and my first goal weight. I felt stuck at 180, so I was stunned to see 179.

What am I doing to shed it off? Babywearing has to be my largest calorie burner these days. Whenever we leave the house, I have my Moby on and wear her. At home, since GamerDad is back to work, I wear her in the Moby so I can get stuff done and not have an over tired baby. She refuses to sleep in the crib during the day. Having my baby close and having both arms free is great! It means I can spend more time with my boys too!!!

No, Moby did not pay me to say any of the above, it is all my personal opinion. If I could wear her, breast feed, and get things done around the house, it’d get 5 stars from me, but BFing in it requires you to go down to one arm.

I do plan to do a post on our adventures in cloth diapering and how homeschooling is going with this new dynamic too. Stay tuned!

God Bless!

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Week 2 of the Post Partum farewell to baby weight

Tada! Two weeks down and last I was on a scale was 3 days ago (having a hungry nursling and hungry eveyone else first thing in the morning takes priority). I was 180 then. I am probably a bit less now as my size 10s fit without me muffintoppin’ it. I feel great! LoseIt is back to being used on my phone to track my calories.

I have read that breast feeding mamas need to intake at least 1800 calories a day. For me to lose a safe weight of a pound a week, I have an 1805 calorie budget. Nursing can burn 200-500 of those a day! I estimate 350 for me since I really have no clue. It probably is closer to 500 as I swear Lil Miss is at the boob all the time…and when she is not, I feel it! Speaking of her, she has nearly gained a pound since her birth just two weeks ago. Most babies are just getting back to their birth weight at this point.

Once it finally cools off a tad more, we will go on walks more often as a family. We enjoyed a few of those during GamerDad’s paternity leave. He likes to push the stroller, I’d much rather use the Ergo carrier. 🙂

GamerDad also wants to join a gym to get fit again and he is trying to drag me kicking and screaming to said gym. I don’t do gyms…I just don’t. I do not like them. Give me a workout DVD or the great outdoors and I will get my fit in. Anyone else like me and just cannot do gyms? Who out in the blogosphere thinks I should do the gym thing?

God bless!

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