Like I said, I have lots of stuff I want to write about, but if I wait for the posts about the past to be written before I starting writing about now…well, this blog might go extinct! So I am jumping in with some thoughts about health stuff now.
The first few weeks after I had Alana, I lost weight extremely rapidly. And it’s a good thing, too – I gained more while pregnant than I planned! The reasons for the rapid weight loss were, I think, a combination of the increased calorie burn from breastfeeding and the fact that I had a hard time making time to eat. I know, that probably sounds crazy. But when you have a newborn who wants to eat every two hours (timed from the start of each feeding, not including actual feeding time…i.e., feeding at 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, etc.) and who wants to be held all. the. time. … well, it doesn’t leave much time for anything. Much less something that requires two hands.
At about 6 weeks, though, Alana started becoming a bit easier to handle. She ate less often – every 2-3 hours during the day, but up to 6 hours at night. And yes, she did the coveted “sleeping through the night” thing at 6 weeks, sleeping 6 hours or more almost every night since then. (We’re up to 8 hours most nights now.) We were able to start putting her down for short periods of time (thank God for the swing!). So my ability to eat regularly returned, and with it my appetite. All of a sudden I went from not really *feeling* the appetite many say comes along with the breastfeeding calorie burn, to being ravenous almost constantly.
Since then I’ve struggled (and mostly failed) to eat healthily and in normal portions. And today I realized that I am tired of the negative. You know – instead of wanting to eat something healthy, feeling like I have to “cut out” something unhealthy. And I realized that it works better for me mentally to be proactive – to add things in – to pursue the positives that I want in my life, rather than avoiding the negatives. So here’s what I’m going to do: start setting “positive” goals. New goals each month or so based on what I need to work on. Right now, that means adding things in to my diet that I am lacking, such as lots o’ veggies!
Here are my current goals, which are subject to change without notice blah blah blah:
- Try to eat at least 5 servings of veggies every day.
- Eat breakfast within 2 hours of waking up every day.
- Drink 10+ glasses of milk every day.
- Walk or work out 5 days/week.
I am hoping that adding in the healthy stuff will naturally start to “crowd out” the less healthy stuff.
What do you think?
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