Getting This Food Under Control

Fun fact of the day: the incredibly delicious Panera cupcakes have 520 calories in them.  That's right.  Five. Hundred. Twenty.  FIVE HUNDRED TWENTY!!!

I had cut out the carbs and sugar, and while my weight dropped, I got very sick.  More than withdraw, the headaches, body aches, and confusion went on for more than a month.  I'm still breastfeeding, so I have no idea what my body really needs until it makes me eat it.  So, I started eating some lasagna and peanut butter cups.  I got ill from some bad salad a couple of months ago and then stopped taking it to work, so I was confused with what healthy foods I should fill the cracks in my appetite.  I'm pulling teeth to just try to make it through with the little sleep that I get, so I don't have time to be sick.

I gave up on waiting for the weight to come off before shopping for clothes.  I went out and bought a new work wardrobe, none of which was a size larger than I was before pregnancy.

Then, I noticed that I unintentionally stopped eating meat and my weight started to balloon.  Between the easy-to-make cheese lasagna and the broccoli cheese soup at the brand new Panera, I wasn't being the carnivore I know I am.  I went from 168 lbs to 176 lbs really fast.  It was horrible.  None of my new pants fit last week!  Mind you, I was 150 lbs when I got pregnant and gave birth at at least 190 lbs.   I cut down my calories to 2,000 or less per day,.  Before, I was eating probably 3,000 to 4,000 and maintaining a good weight for awhile. But, even at under 2,000 calories per day, I was still gaining weight!

I remembered that I started loosing weight when I was eating meat and veggies for lunch and dinner.  I thought it was the sugar and grains that were causing the stagnation.  Last week, I ate several Indian dinners with naan (bread).  Lots of bread, actually.  And, I started loosing weight again!  By eating meat and veggies, I had also inadvertently cut out dairy, too.  The baby and I also cut dairy out last week to see if that would reduce her night wakings.  She is certainly sleeping better.  And, even though I have no idea how many calories I'm eating, the weight is still dropping.  It's at least under control.

I also cut down on the coffee I was drinking, because I read where one lady said she couldn't even drink decaf after noon without her breastfed child being up all night.  I think Lily's really a lot happier now.  We don't know what is going on with her nap schedule.  Some days, she'll take two naps, but other days, it's just one.  I am not sick by not eating much grain or sugar now, so I think that the large quality of coffee I was drinking to make it through all of the sleepless nights (that was causing some sleepless nights) required a larger amount of grains and sugar to deal. 

Even at 2,000 calories or less per day, I couldn't loose weight when I was eating lots of dairy.   How incredible.  I would not have thought it mattered as much what I ate as long as I didn't eat too much.

Banana Coconut Flour Pancakes

Well, Lily has been an egg champ in the mornings, but she's getting tired of the egg.  I know this, because she'll eat a couple of bites of egg as if she's not hungry.  But, if I give her a banana or something else, she'll devour it.  Sean remembered this recipe for pancakes he used to make:

1. Wisk 2 eggs in a bowl.
2. Mash a banana in the egg.
3. Add a little coconut flour and baking soda.
4. Turn heat up above medium.
5. BAM!  Banana-coconut pancakes, biatches.

Throw some Grade B organic maple syrup on that stuff, and it's the bomb.  Grade B syrup is less refined, so it is supposed to have minerals in it. Grade A is basically sugar.

Happy Lily

Happy Daddy

The Crunchy on Cancer

Avoiding cancer is one of the main motivations to be crunchy.  Cancer pisses me off.  I get all in a tizzy by the pushing of chemo-drugs as the only answer.  I am furious that people with real answers about cancer are shut up by the medical community.  It upsets me that there was this hype about what we call cancer might not even be cancer at all.  You think?  And, this guy.  THIS GUY.  This guy who decided to scam insurance companies by telling people they had cancer when they did not.  THIS GUY is why you always get a second and third opinion.

It angers me, because, from what all I've learned about food and the human body, I believe that we do this to ourselves.  The way we alter our food and the land, we do this to ourselves, and I believe that it's possible to fix it.

Let me tell you a little bit about the some of my crunchy thoughts on cancer:

1. I do believe that we create an environment for cancer to thrive by what we put into our bodies and what we surround our bodies with.  From the chemicals in our beds, in our body products, and in our food, we bombard our bodies with radicals that negatively affect us.  We are surrounded by dead things and we eat things that have no living quality and do not resemble food all of the time. 

2. I believe that there is a life-giving quality to food that 99% of American food is missing.  And, I believe that life-giving food holds a lot of the key towards preventing and curing cancer.  Even in the organic world, this life-giving quality isn't always there.  We need whole food, food that is alive (even if cooked), and food that nourishes us.  This real food is often very hard to find.

3. I do not believe that chemotherapy and surgery are the most effective methods for dealing with cancer.  The body has the amazing ability to heal itself if we give it the right tools to work with.

4. I do believe that doctors and companies make a lot of money from cancer treatment and research, so they would like to keep the system as it is. 

5. I believe that once you actually have cancer, it can be cured with food.  However, it takes a monumental effort for a person living the average American life to go from zero to cancer curing.   This lady, Christina Pirello, is my hero and living testament to the power of food. She went from dead-in-a-few-months to cancer-free a year later.  And there are many stories like this guy, who was told he had "incurable" cancer and went on to get a cancer-free bill of health after using food to cure it.

6. At this point, I think that some radical forms of veganism, such as macrobiotics, are necessary to treat cancer, but it is not the answer to prevent cancer.  I do believe there are many vitamins in animal foods that we need.

The capitalistic nature of the world creates this environment where we have to be so aware of everything going on around us.  We have to watch everything from our food, our make up, our sunscreen to our bug spray, our bubbles, and everything else we touch.  It's hard, and sometimes it hurts, because you can't think about everything all of the time, and things slip through the cracks.  I sometimes get upset that I find something about a product I use all of the time is bad and I have to find something else.  Just today, we were reading about how fake olive oil is just as profitable as the cocaine industry.  We can't win them all.  We just have to do it all over again tomorrow.  This time, with feeling.

And, I hope that we can pass some of this happy natural living onto Lily without being militant or pushy about it.  With being a happy, healthy family.   Giving her the best chance that we could possibly give her to have a happy and healthy life.

Finally Loosing Weight

OMFG.  Wow.  I weighed 171 lbs for my low weight this morning.  A month ago, at 8 months postpartum, I had hit 185 lbs again for a high weight.  I gave birth at 190 lbs.  Before I was pregnant, I weighed 150 lbs.  Breast milk production makes my weight fluctuate from 3 to 5 lbs each day. 

You know, I was loosing weight during my maternity leave.  I figured this out a couple of weeks ago.  When I'm at work, I intake a lot of food and drink that I wouldn't otherwise.  I eat out more.  It is easier to eat crappy food at work.  Chipotle and thousand-calorie burritos was a staple for a few months.  And, I needed a snack to get me to work.  Sometimes two.  I also needed a snack to get me into the newscast.  Then, there was a glass of wine to chill out at night.   There were many days where I would have 3 snacks and 2 lunches (along with breakfast and dinner).  Hungry?  Need coffee?  BAM!  Starbucks breakfast sandwich.  There were other days where I'd eat a thousand calories of gluten free pizza, because it was yummy and we were too hungry to figure anything else out.

And, you cannot crash diet while breastfeeding, because loosing weight too quickly will release toxins that will get into the breastmilk.  Additionally, if I am not eating at regular intervals, I am starving, and I will suddenly crash and need to eat 2,000 calories of whatever I can get my hands on first.

I had attempted to cut out grains, sugar, and nuts while focusing on the overall health of my teeth.  Those newborn months were busy, and since the days didn't have distinction between them, there wasn't a clear place to take care of myself.  I noticed during that first round of cutting out grains and sugars that I started dropping pounds.  But, I plateaued and stopped loosing weight, so I got frustrated and gave up.  I chose the food that comforted me.  I did make the switch from Starbucks brownies to organic peanut butter cups.  But, I was back to eating frozen dinners in the microwave.  Something had to give.

homemade chicken tikka masala and broccoli

I do the best on grilled meat and veggies.  But, I have to have hot food, I have to take lunch and dinner to work with me, and I have to use a microwave (which dries out meat).  I realized a few weeks ago that I could simmer the meat in a premade sauce, like the frozen dinners do.  Voila!  I could make healthy, low cost, no grain meals that I could put in glass containers.  These would not dry out in the microwave.  I then went down to one sugar snack a day (before the newscast), and now I am down to ZERO snacks per day.  I had a little chocolate the other day, and it was too sweet.  Win.

What I cut out:

• All sugar (refined sugar, natural sugar, fruit, etc)
• All grains (refined, whole, bread, corn, rice, etc)
• All nuts and seeds

What I eat now:

• Breakfast: Eggs (and sometimes bacon)
• Snack: Salad with cheese and oil and vinegar
• Lunch: chicken/beef and veggies
• Dinner: chicken/beef and veggies
• Water/Coffee

We also started:

• Walking 1.2 to 2.5 miles per day almost every day (now that we're on 2 naps)

And, that's it.  No cookies.  No chocolates.  No peanut butter cups.  Well, there are some situations where I do indulge.  I have a mimosa with my eggs benedict at brunch.  And, you can be damn sure that I'm going to eat cake when it's there.  Damn.  Sure. Holla.  Cake.  Mmm.

Weighing In

News Flash: I can button my pants.  All right, we're getting somewhere.  I refused to size up.  That meant accepting that I was now this size.  Forget it!  I will wear my maternity clothes until I can get back into my jeans.  I could almost button them when I got that stomach flu over New Year's. Thankfully, I remembered to button them before the station meeting last Friday, as I got a surprise award, and as everyone turned to look at me, that would have been embarrassing.

Before I got pregnant, I weighed 150 lbs.  When I had Lily, I most likely weighed 190 lbs, but I didn't want to look.  The baby just needed to come out and when the baby came out, I would loose all the weight, right?  A good 10 lbs was gained in her being 10 days overdue.  Before I cut out the grains and sugars last week, I was back up to 180 to 185 lbs.  I couldn't button my pants.  Not even the size up I bought when Target didn't have any maternity pants.  I tore a really big hole in the crotch of my last pair while standing in Babies R Us trying to shop with Lily for the first time by myself.

I realized that there is a low weight and a high weight for every day, and as my body is doing many of the incredible things that it's doing, my weight greatly fluctuates.  I have been trying to weigh myself in the morning after Lily nurses and before I eat.  Today, my low weight was 176 lbs with my high at 180 lbs.  And, I am eating like a horse.  At least two salads, multiple servings of chicken and vegetable stew, a couple of spoonfuls of coconut oil, a huge piece of lasagna, a beer for breastmilk, eggs, and kale chips  each day.  Toss in some grass-fed filets and burgers when we've got them on top of that.  My last brownie was 8 days ago.  But, I did go all out and eat whatever I wanted at the vine crawl potluck last Saturday.  No one is starving here.

I had been lying to myself that my body was collecting fat on my thighs, because it needed it for the milk.  My husband and I mused that grains and sugar might just be stored in the production of breast milk.  That when you eat grains and sugar while breastfeeding, it goes straight to your hips while it uses the fat, vitamins, and minerals to support breast milk production.  This is just a theory.  I would like to look into this.   

Anyhow, I am reporting in really because I found this great thing for dessert.  I picked it up at Yes! Organic Market this morning.  I would like something desserty, and coconut oil has really been doing it for me.  However, I wondered if I could melt some chocolate chips in it and if that would be enough.  Well, I found this packet.  It has coconut butter, coconut oil, cacao, cacao butter, and agave syrup.  I really could make this at home, but with trying to pound out a lasagna, kale chips, and a bunch of bone broth stews every week, I probably shouldn't push my luck.

Baby Led Weaning

The local mom email list exploded last week with the conversation of baby-led weaning (BLW). We had been all set to prepare purees, but the BLW concept just seemed right for us, given Lily's reaction to food and spoons.   Here are some of the highlights:

• Feed baby with breastmilk first before offering solids, so that she isn't frustrated and starving while trying to figure out how to eat.
• With BLW, food isn't meant to be a source of nutrition this early.  It is about learning the mechanics of chewing and how to eat, with or without teeth.  Baby might not actually eat much of what's offered for a while. He might smear it all over, smell it or throw it on the floor, but not eat it.
• Foods like applesauce, oatmeal, yogurt, and soup can still be fed with a spoon. 
• Don't have to make special food for the baby.  She can just eat what we eat.
• It is very messy.  Food has the potential to get all over her face, hair, hands, arms, outfit, the high chair, and the floor.  Dogs are good sweepers.
• Parents worry about babies choking, but the parents on the email list didn't have any issues with that.
• You give larger pieces of food at first, and the baby might cough to move food around their mouths.  
• Give her something that is long enough that the baby can hold onto it in his/her grubby little hand and still get a piece in her mouth.
• Can help settle into a routine meal time where the family eats together.
• Spicy food is okay.  It may prevent a picky eater.  Then again, it may not.

Exploring more of this BLW stuff these past two weeks as we continue to experiment with solid food.  So far, Lily has tried banana, avocado, carrot, sweet potato, hasbrowns, chicken, hamburger, and bacon.  It is very much a success with our whole family, and we all love it.  Lily especially loves to feed herself.

Cutting Back on Grains and Sugar

This because I am endlessly starving and my solution was to eat cookies.  And, muffins.  And, brownies.  Yummy.  So, even though breastfeeding is said to make the pounds melt off, my weight had started to creep up and up again.  I was nearing what I weighed when Lily was born.  The advice given by other women in the same situation was to cut out the grains and sugar.  Forget that!

Eventually, I got a cavity (from all the nights of choosing to fall asleep with the baby instead of uncomfortably making time to brush multiple times per day) and decided that while I was waiting for my appointment, I was going to try to heal my tooth a little.  That would require me to stop feeding the bacteria with grains, sugar, and starches.  This as well as reinstating a couple of supplements and foods into my diet, such as vitamin D and bone broth.

So, I stopped eating as much grain and sugar at the beginning of the week.  The weight has already started to come off a little bit, which is good.  We don't want it to come off too fast while breastfeeding, as I've read that can lead to toxins entering the breastmilk.  I am still grumbling about not getting to eat that brownie I really want.  Grumble.  Grumble.  Grumble.  I had the idea today to look up some paleo recipes for desserts, because those should be low in sugar and made with whole foods. 

An unintended effect of cutting back on the grains and sugar is that inflammation in my hip aggrivated by cosleeping has completely disappeared.

It's better that I don't eat as much grain.  It's so difficult to get non-GMO corn anymore, and wheat is up there with GMO junk.  And, I was kidding myself that cane sugar was good for me.  In reality, ODing on sugar in any form isn't good.  While it's better than HFCS, I've read studies that found that lots of cane sugar can also lead to long term health problems.

First Solid Foods

Big. Day. Lily had her first taste of solid food Saturday, and it was a hit!  I wrote earlier about our process figuring out if Lily was ready for solids.  We decided to wait until she was sitting up mostly unsupported at six months.  Well, the week before we were going to give her solids, the local moms email list exploded with a conversation about "baby led weaning," which is where you give baby large pieces of food an allow her to feed herself.  I went into food ready to make purees.  I had tried to feed Lily some slushy breastmilk and breastmilk fat with a spoon in the weeks prior, as suggested by Kellymom.com to stave off a baby clamemering to get real food in her mouth before she is ready, but Lily did not care for that.  She loved to eat the spoon, but did not like eating food off of a spoon.  Lily took one look at the first banana, and put that shiz-nit in her mouth. 

Going into this, we have several beliefs about the food that Lily should eat:

• Organic, non-gmo food.  She will eventually be exposed to crap, but we'd like her digestive system to mature with the best food possible.
• We don't eat cereal.  It's too processed.  We don't eat cereal.
• We may do oatmeal, but I don't want to start feeding her food with a spoon before she can really try to feed herself with it.
• No jarred baby food.
• No frozen food.
• Occasional juice.  Not much.

Bananas, avocados, and carrots are cited as good first whole foods.  Day one was bananas, and we tried some strawberries, because we had them.  We have since learned in conversations with friends that it's recommended that folks wait until later for strawberries, because if a baby is allergic, it could kill them at this age.  That said, many babies eat raw strawberries and have no reaction.  One friend said that if it's something like 1 in 1,000 babies that are allergic, but if you're that one baby, it's best to wait.

Day two was avocados and chicken.  She was so/so about the avocado.  She didn't seem to like the taste, but she loved trying to eat it.  The chicken was probably a bad call.  She really liked the taste, but she could pull off pieces that we felt she might swallow.  We decided it was best to wait until she really got the hang of chewing.

It was obvious by this time that we still had more to read before expanding into more advanced foods.  I had no idea that folks were allergic to strawberries.  We went to a bookstore and picked up the book that my friend had, Super Baby Food, because there was a chart and it laid out foods by month.  It talks about allergies and other stuff that we need to know before going forward, but it basically says to only give purees now and mashed food until a year, which is totally opposite of what we're doing now.  It also says bland is best, but the BLW moms mentioned that spicy early was all right.  All of this parenting stuff is so confusing.  For every piece of advice, there is an equally contradicting piece of advice, and we're all left to sort it out for ourselves.  I think that what is best for Lily is figuring out what foods we can eat with her together and when we're out, because she is very excitedly trying to grab it out of our hands.  If I had let her, she would have eaten bacon, eggs,  and a cheeseburger in the past 24 hours.

And, I have read a few places to introduce a new food every few days, but we totally blew that out of the water.  This because you can better pinpoint an allergic reaction to something.  Maybe it's stupid parenting, but I really don't think it's best for our family to wait a few days.  The thought of the effort to get bananas or avocados that are just the right ripeness in the proper succession is enough to drive me bonkers.  She loves to taste different things, and she's so alert and over ready for solids that I think she'll get bored if we do the same thing too many days in a row.  Reactions to food can happen immediately, within a few hours, within a few days, or within a week or two.  When I was trying to figure out what was making Lily gassy, I had just about driven us nuts.  If she has a reaction to something, then we'll do an elimination diet. 

Day three, this morning, was steamed carrots.  She really liked those, too.  She also has a banana and more avocado for the afternoon.  After watching some BLW videos where different foods are offered every day, I don't feel like such an idiot. We may be giving her strips that are too small.  Instead of quartering the carrots, I should have them, maybe.

She really enjoys feeding herself.  Food is a great experience for us so far.  She is figuring out how to chew the food.  Most of it comes back out of her mouth at this point. But, you put that food down on the tray, and it's in her mouth.

Lactation Cookies

I have what is sometimes an insatiable hunger.  I also crave something sweet every day.  Sometimes, I push it a little too far without eating, and I start to get light-headed.  That is, if I don't eat 3,000 calories per day, I start to get sick.  It makes it hard to loose any baby weight while my body is trying to be a breast milk machine.  Some days, I struggle against it and some days I give in.  Regardless, since I struggled so much with my pumping output in the beginning, I decided that if I was going to eat junk food, it might as well be organic, whole junk food that theoretically helped my milk supply.  So, even though I don't believe these help me all that much, I still bake and eat them each week.  What helps each persons milk supply is different, and while I don't think they had an effect on me, someone else will say that they blew them away.  They do taste yummy.  I started with this recipe here.

And, when the hell do I have time to actually bake cookies?  Well, there is sometimes an hour or so around midnight once a week when Lily is passed the bleep out. 

1. Mix in a bowl:

• 1 1/2 c. organic stone ground whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp organic cinnamon 

2. Beat until creamy:

• 3/4 c. organic peanut butter
• 1/2 c. organic pastured butter, softened
• 1/2 c. cane sugar
• 1/2 c. turbinado sugar
• 2 tsp organic, fair-trade vanilla
• 1 c. ground flax meal
• 3 T brewer's yeast
• 1/3 c. water

 3. Then add in eggs, chocolate chips, and oats in that order.

• 2 large organic cage free eggs
• 2 c. (12oz) organic, fair-trade chocolate chips
• 1 3/4 c. organic steel cut oats

4. Place balls of dough onto greased baking sheets or baking stones and press down each ball lightly with a fork. Bake 17 minutes at 350 degrees.

Non-Plastic Baby Dishes

We're getting closer to the start of solid foods, and I read somewhere that to distract baby from not yet participating in mealtime, we could start teaching her how to use a cup.  We have also been feeding her bits of slushy breastmilk or the fat from the top of the bottle with a silicone-tipped infant spoon.  She is very interested in chewing on the cup and the spoon, but only interested in the food when it goes into our mouths.  She almost grabbed a slice of bacon out of my hand and she tried to pull my coffee cup over to her mouth to try some this morning.

I realized last week that I hadn't addressed the question of what she is going to eat with. We are a minimal plastic house.  The plastic in our house basically consists of the packaging on our food, beauty products, and electronics.   We have a lot of glassware, but not much of anything we could give a hungry and learning baby.  I wound up purchasing the silicone cups and bowls above.

 When it comes to baby girl, I would prefer that she didn't put anything plastic in her mouth, which is easier said than done.  After I spent months trying to find the best high chair option with a wooden tray, because her food would obviously come into contact with the tray, I also bought a plain walker with a plastic tray.  The first thing she did was put her mouth on the plastic tray and start to suck on it.  In that moment, I knew that it was a loosing battle.  I'm not the kind of mom that freaks out if she ends up chewing on something plastic, but if we weren't paying attention, everything we brought into the house for the baby could easily be plastic.

It is my understanding that silicone is a good alternative to plastic, because it's inert and doesn't leech when changing temperatures.  Some plastics don't leech at room temperature, and my husband and I have differing opinions on their occasional use.  I suppose that we all teeter back and forth around what is the best course of action and the most convenient for our families.

Getting Ready for Solids

Lily is really showing an interest in food.  She is so excited about watching us eat and drink different things.  For the past several weeks, she's been nursing constantly, and it was mentioned that she'd start to sleep through the night a little more once she started solids, if we fed her solids before bedtime.  I thought I would try to breastfeed her exclusively for as long as possible, but I feel like I'm dying here some days.  I was really gunning to start them this week, but she's only 5.5 months old.  She has 2.5 weeks to go before the recommended 6 months.  A recent news article on starting solids too early made us rethink jumping the gun. 

There is a lot of contradicting advice out there. It was said not to start solids before 4 months.  Doctors have been known to recommend rice cereal or other foods for combating different situations to babies younger than 4 months.  The main difference in the advice we considered on a quick-and-dirty, desperate internet search was sitting supported versus unsupported.  Babycenter.com suggested a baby was ready for solids when he/she had good head control and could sit up well while supported.  Kellymom.com said that a baby should be able to sit up well without support. 

The checklist from Kellymom.com: 

• Baby can sit up well without support.
• Baby has lost the tongue-thrust reflex and does not automatically push solids out of his mouth with his tongue.
• Baby is ready and willing to chew.
• Baby is developing a “pincer” grasp, where he picks up food or other objects between thumb and forefinger. Using the fingers and scraping the food into the palm of the hand (palmar grasp) does not substitute for pincer grasp development.
• Baby is eager to participate in mealtime and may try to grab food and put it in his mouth.

Lily is definitely NOT sitting up well without support.  She's very good with support, and she is getting better at sitting up on her own.  I have watched her start to really loose the tongue-thrust reflex, but I think this might still be there a little bit.  She is certainly experimenting with her ability to chew.  She chews on our fingers, on teethers, on clothes, and on my nipple!  She is not using her pincer grasp, but I wouldn't count her out of solids if she was working on this.  She is most certainly curious about mealtime, and she really enjoys watching us eat.  I do expect her to start trying to grab for food and put it into her mouth.  We keep hot things away from her, but is is grabbing for cups and bottles.

In reading about why it's good to wait, the reasons that jumped out at us were:

1. Possibility that her digestive tract isn't ready to handle them.  We won't know when exactly Lily's body is ready for something other than breastmilk, so the recommended 6 month marker is meant to ensure that a baby is ready. 
2. Increased potential of developing food-related allergies.  We've seen how these can affect a person, so it would be great if we could spare Lily from that experience.
3. Increased opportunities for illness once solids start.  One of the main reasons I was so gung-ho to breastfeed was to prevent illness as long as possible.  So, that's one of the reasons to delay solids now.

No-Boil Cheese Lasagna

Oh. My. Goodness. It was the best cheese lasagna I had ever made.  So good, I almost ate it before I took a picture of it to show you.  It's made from whole grains, has lots of omega 3 fatty acids from the grass-fed ricotta cheese, and it's high in fat, protein, and calcium to boot.  Because we accidentally bought these no-boil noodles, it only took 5 minutes to put together.  What?  No-boil noodles?  That's right, my mom read the instructions on how to prepare the noodles and found out that there's such a thing.  Who reads instructions on pasta?  Not this girl.  Thank goodness someone in our house reads instructions.

Lasagna is usually better reheated, because of all of the water in the noodles and the pasta sauce.  However, these no-boil noodles soak up the excess water from the pasta sauce, and it comes out of the oven perfect.  I sort of threw a couple of recipes together.  We kinda used this linked recipe to help with the no-boil noodles and came up with this:

• 9 x 9 dish
• 6 organic, whole-grain no-boil lasagna noodles
• 15 oz organic, grass-fed, whole milk ricotta chese
• 8 oz organic, shredded mozzarella cheese (but, save a little for the top)
• 1/4 grated parmesan cheese (plus some extra for the top)
• 2 organic, free-range, vegetarian-fed eggs
• 1 jar organic tomato basil pasta sauce

Mix the mozerella cheese (saving a little for the top), ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, and eggs in a bowl.  Place two dry lasagna noodles on the bottom of the 9 x 9 dish, and completely coat the noodles with about 1/4 to 1/3 of the jar of pasta sauce.  Layer on 1/2 of the cheese mix.  Layer with two more dry lasagna noodles, 1/4 to 1/3 of the pasta sauce, then the rest of the cheese mix.  Top the dish off with the last two dry lasagna noodles and 1/4 to 1/3 of the pasta sauce.  Then, sprinkle any mozzarella cheese that you saved, plus some extra parmesan cheese.

Toss in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour (or until the cheese on top starts to brown).

Whole Grain Blueberry Muffins

So, I found a new snack.  Some of my recent pre-work trips to Whole Foods have included a fresh-baked, whole grain blueberry muffin.  Food can almost always be made healthier at home, so my mom and I trolled the internet for a simple recipe.  And, we picked this one to try first.

Topping

2 tablespoons packed organic, unrefined, fair trade brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon organic ground cinnamon

Muffins

3/4 cup organic, grass-fed, whole milk

1/4 cup grapeseed oil

1/4 cup organic honey

1 organic, free-range, vegetarian-fed egg

2 cups organic, stone-ground, whole wheat flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

2 cups LOTS! of organic frozen organic blueberries (do not thaw)

Bacon and Cheese Quiche

Meats, cheeses, eggs, and whole grains are foods that are good for pregnant ladies.  So, for a weekend potluck for said pregnant ladies, I googled a bacon and cheese quiche recipe, and Mom and I whipped us up a couple.  Whole Foods has some organic, whole grain pie crusts in the freezer section, but if you want to make your own crust, the recipe I chose includes directions.

• 1 whole grain, organic pie crust
• 8 strips lean nitrate-free bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 4 large organic, pasture-raised eggs
• 1 1/2 cups grass-fed, organic whole milk
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup shredded, organic sharp cheddar cheese

Whisk together the eggs, milk, and pepper. Pour into the prepared pie crust. Crumble bacon over the top with the shredded cheese. Bake at 375° for about 30 minutes, or until quiche filling is set and top is lightly browned. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

It was a hit! And, the dads liked it, too.

Cortney's Green Smoothie

I've been needing to get more vegetables into my daily routine.  Cortney, my birth coach and doula, makes these green smoothies, so she made me one and taught me how to do it.  At first, I was like, "Ewwwwww, get that green thing away from me." But, they are actually really yummy.  It's much better than trying to eat raw kale, for sure.

Today's Smoothie:

• Handful of Kale, Chard, and Spinach (she buys a lettuce mix)
• 1 Apple
• 1 Peach
• Chia seeds (presoaked)
• Flax seeds
• Ice

Yesterday's Smoothie:

• Handful of Kale, Chard, and Spinach
• 1 Apple
• Vanilla

Thanks, Cortney!

Feeding the Preggo

Baked Pot

Highlighting some of the foods from this week:

All right, so I don't eat many potatoes, because they are nightshade vegetables and my joints do better without them, and when I read that potatoes were recommended by the Bradley natural birth method (three per week!), I thought to myself "Yeah right."  But, as you can tell by the picture, I've gone to the dark side a few times.  And yes, there's pastured, organic butter, organic cheddar cheese, and organic sour cream slathered all over it.  I've got my major pregnancy food groups in: fat and protein. 

I've been craving them bad lately, and I almost had to bake one while writing this blog post!  Kali keeps telling me that if you microwave the potato for 30 seconds or three minutes (whatever) and then put it in the oven for 30 minutes, that I could have my potato faster.  I tell her to get my potato away from that microwave!  Agh!

Gasp, I know there's a picture of Horizon sour cream, and I stopped buying Horizon ten years ago when the milk tasted as if it wasn't really organic.  There weren't any other organic sour cream options, and since it's now verified organic by an additional third-party organization, I took a chance.  And, it actually taste pretty good!  It doesn't taste like the chemicals the circa 2002 Horizon milk tasted like.  You can tell that a product is certified by another third-party if it lists another certifying company on the back.  Only the USDA certification goes on the front, and their has been some question as to their regulation or standards in recent years.  If there's another organic option, I would opt for that instead.

Chicken and stew in a crockpot.

On Friday night, Kali stuck a whole, organic, free-range chicken in a crock pot.  She had some organic vegetable broth that she threw in there with potatoes and carrots.  She salt and peppered that baby, because that's the only seasoning this pregnant lady can eat right now.  And, that green stuff is kombu, a seaweed that is a left over habit of mine from macrobiotic days.  Usually, I just pull that kombu out after the nutrients soak into the water of whatever I am cooking.  However, we slow cooked this dish so long that the kombu wasn't even noticeable.  I've been taking leftovers for lunch. 

Whole Grain Artisan Bre

I've been eating whole grain toast and using bread to create sandwiches and instead of buns on burgers.  So, Kali whipped out her cookbooks and whipped me up the bread of my choice.  I picked the first standard whole grain loaf that came up.  The recipe looked something like this one.  It is wonderful.  It is one of the healthy items that she can out-do me on.  Even though I can find a fresh-baked, organic, whole grain loaf at Whole Foods that doesn't have a lot of junk it it, it still comes with some ingredients that bread can do without.  So, since Kali loves to bake, she is overjoyed to have a hungry pregnant lady in the house who will gobble up her tasty creations.

Kali brought home some homemade elderberry jam from a friends' house the other night, and that goes wonderfully with this bread. 

Daily Fruit Bowl

Then, there's this wondrous monstrosity to the right.  It's one orange, a handful of grapes, half of a container of strawberries, and two carrots.  If I never have to eat another damn carrot after Lily is born, then I will be a happy woman.  I wish that I'd remember to buy the bananas, and when I do that, I wish I'd remember to take them to work, and then I wish I'd remember to eat them.  I start chowing on this bowl of fruit once I get to work and keep going throughout the whole day. 

Lily is getting bigger every week, so Kali and I are doing a good job of feeding her. Yay!

Protein, Greens, and Orange

Kali, the good friend with whom I am living, has adopted me like her own child and treats the coming of Lily as the coming of one of her own grandchildren.  I am blessed to have such wonderful support so close to home.  When we are both going to be home for dinner, we make a point to create something yummy that is full of protein, fat, and veggies.  It's my job to buy the groceries and Kali's job to whip up something yummy.  Kali is trying to give me simple cooking ideas, so that when I move out, I can make more than just eggs and turkey sandwiches.

This plate is last night's creation: baked chicken, glazed carrots, and spring mix.  Kali humored the crunchy pregnant lady by picking up an organic, pasture-raised, grass-fed, antibiotic-free chicken.  Seasoning it with salt and pepper (still all I can handle as far as seasoning) and rubbing it with olive oil, she stuck two pats of organic, pastured butter under the skin.  Kali was telling me that the butter under the skin makes the meat moist, and that it did.  She sliced and sauteed carrots in butter and the organic, fair trade brown sugar that she picked up (to humor me).  And, then we piled a bunch of salad on our plates.  It was all so very yummy!  We're building us a baby!

Bradley Birth Class #2 - Nutrition

My doula and birth coach, Cortney, and I went to our second Bradley birth class.  Today's topics included nutrition and breastfeeding.  The Bradley method focuses Dr. Brewer's recommendations for a healthy pregnancy.  This includes milk products, eggs, protein, greens, whole grains, citrus, fats and oils, yellow and orange fruits and veggies, salt to taste, and lots of water.  Some items reinforced about nutrition:

• Good nutrition can almost eliminate risk of pre-eclampsia. 
• Pre-eclampsia is signified by high blood pressure and protein in the urine during pregnancy.  The only way to stop pre-eclampsia is to deliver the baby, no matter when the condition sets on.  The choice is to deliver the baby or the mother will die, even at 20 weeks, 28 weeks, 37 weeks...whenever.
• Make sure to take in 80 to 100 grams of protein per day.  One doctor (I forget his name) did a few studies and women to hit this number were sure not to have pre-eclampsia.
• Getting enough fat in your diet will make your skin stretchy.  This lessons stretch marks and makes the body more able to stretch for delivery.  Even a little fat goes a long way.  And, there are many fat-soluable vitamins that we absorb better when paired with fat.
• Pay attention to nutrient pairings for best absorption.  Calcium is best absorbed with fat.  So, even if drinking skim milk, that needs to be consumed with maybe some buttered toast to best absorb the calcium in the milk.  Either that or switch to a fattier milk.
• Our Bradley instructor emphasized the importance of buying some foods organic, such as the "dirty dozen" and the "clean 15."

Teas for Pregnancy

Baby daddy would love to open a shop where one of the features were healing teas to improve the quality of people's lives.  I didn't realize until I got pregnant just how healing herbal teas can be.  I'm now beginning to understand that like massage, tea is not a luxury, but a requirement to live our healthiest lives.  Just look at the benefits of a few cups of tea per day for you and baby, and then tell me if you could go through pregnancy without drinking them regularly.  And then, imagine what other herbal teas could do for your life.  Wow!

Red Raspberry leaves contains many vitamins and minerals beneficial for pregnancy, including vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin B, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium.  In Wise Women's Herbal for the Childbearing Years (pages 18-19), Susun Weed talks about raspberry leaves extensively, and that made as a tea or infusion, it is said to have the following attributes:

• Increased fertility in men and women
• Gives tone to uterine muscles
• Prevents miscarriage and hemorrhage
• Reduces pain during labor and after birth
• Facilitates delivery of the placenta
• Assists in breast milk production
• Contains calcium in it's most absorbable form, especially in conjunction with other vitamins and minerals
• Relieves morning sickness
• Calms emotions
• Can aid in preventing hypertension
• According to What to Expect When You're Expecting, it may encourage labor to begin.
  
  

According to Wise Women's Herbal for the Childbearing Years, nettle leaves include "nearly every vitamin and mineral known to be necessary for human health and growth," which includes "vitamins A, C, D, and K, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, iron, and sulphur" (pages 20-21).  Made as a tea or infusion, the attributes of nettle leaves include:

• Increases fertility in men and women
• Aids the kidneys, even when they are in disrepair or have stones
• And help protects against bladder infections
• Nourishes mother and baby
• Eases leg cramps and spasms
• Lessens pain after birth
• Prevents postpartum hemorrhage
• Reduces hemorrhoids, 
• Improves breast milk quality
• Helps alleviate varicose veins
• Guards against hypertension

Wise Woman's Herbal recommends drinking 2 to 4 cups of these teas per day..  The book mentions that you could drink raspberry tea one week and nettle tea the next week. Or, it suggests to stick with raspberry leaves until the end and then switch to nettle to prepare for labor.  I've found a few different "pregnancy teas" that combine raspberry leaf, nettle leaf, and a few other herbs.  I like these blends for just mixing up my options.  Traditional Medicinals makes a version that's I've been drinking.  My birth center sells an organic brew that is made for them.  And, I just bought a red raspberry brew that is mixed with nettles, peppermint, and alfalfa from the Bulk Herb Store, which is family-run.  I also just purchased red raspberry leaves and nettle leaves from the Bulk Herb Store.

Peppermint tea and ginger tea have booth been recommended to sooth morning sickness.

Raw Honey: Secret Acne Weapon

For some women, the hormonal changes of pregnancy come with unwanted breakouts.   I've been using raw honey on my face this week, which has drastically improved it's quality.  Raw honey has antibacterial and anti inflammatory properties and contains enzymes that make it effective for some folks.  They sell this brand of local (to DC), raw honey from Baltimore at Whole Foods, though you have to get through the honey comb at the top to get to the fluid honey:

I didn't have acne until I went away to college.  A combination of stress, a horrible water supply, and unhealthy food likely contributed to the problem.  I started washing my face with harsh cleansers, which would work for a few months, but then I'd have to find something else that worked.  A couple of years ago, I read an article about over-washing your face.  I realized that I washed my face two to three times per day, which was likely irritating my skin and stripping my it of natural oils that it needed to create a healthy balance. So, I stopped washing my face so much, aiming to only wash my face to get the makeup off at night or in the morning.  My acne immediately went away and I only broke out in conjunction with my menstrual cycle before I got pregnant.

So, I was disappointed when I started to breakout again, as I can imagine anyone would be.  Sean mentioned that peeing a lot is good, because every time I drink water and pee, it balances my hormones.  My first acne remedy was to then drink as much water as possible in hopes that it would balance my hormones and relieve some acne.  I was already drinking 80 ounces of fluid per day, mostly water, so I bumped it up to 100 ounces of fluids per day, and I really can't make myself drink anymore. And while things were starting to even out, I was still breaking out.

Two weeks ago, Sean told me the story of his coworker who started putting raw honey on her face to get rid of her acne, and that it was working for her.  I sat on that a couple of days.  We were out of raw honey and needed to order some.  I put it off and put it off, until I finally picked up a small jar of local, raw honey from Whole Foods.  Again, I put off using the honey again and again.  There just wasn't enough time to sit around with honey on my face.  But, last Saturday, I had a fancy dress party to go through and there was a huge zit on my temple, so I grabbed the raw honey and slathered it all over my face for 5 to 10 minutes.  When I washed it off, my face looked clearer and the big zit on my temple wasn't so scary.

My friend, Cortney, had come over to get ready for the fancy dress party, and she mentioned that she's a fan of this gal on youtube who has been using honey on her face for awhile.  She had really bad acne under the skin, and after trying everything with nothing working, she put raw honey on her face.  Voila!  Her face is now acne-free and baby-smooth.  I asked Cortney how long she leaves it on her face, and she said a couple of times per day as long as she can, sometimes having more time than others.

Every since I started to use it, my face has been clearer and smoother.  It's so soft! So, I'm definitely going to keep working with the raw honey as a possible natural remedy for these pregnancy breakouts.