It ain't easy but it ain't hard weight loss program: episode 2

The second installment of the series, "It ain't easy but it ain't hard weight loss program."  The first installment can be found here.


So let's rewind.

I mentioned that I was feeling exhausted and spent from my second pregnancy in two years, and that I had already suspected the nutritional information distributed by the government was kinda weird or something.  It didn't line up.  But I suspected this long before I ever got pregnant.  How did I get off track?  What caused me to completely throw in the towel and listen to the FDA and USDA?  Well, in short, a nutritionist and an ever-ballooning body.

My body had already become stretched far enough past my liking with my first pregnancy, and I never touched back down to my pre-pregnancy weight before I was--yes--pregnant again.  By month 6.5 into pregnancy number two, I was larger than I had wanted to be.  Not overtly down on myself, but small inklings of doubt in my body and its ability to take care of itself.  So I won a free month of nutritional advice from an RD and thought this would be the chance I needed to learn what my body needed.  They even included weekly meetings to help with accountability.  She said she would help me not gain too much weight.  Well, they say you get what you pay for...

The nutritionist gave me a website and told me to enter in everything I eat.  I was obsessed with this website.  I would nitpick every single thing I ate, entering it into the website, making little recipes on the website, googleing the fast food places I went to and finding their nutritional information (best thing I learned from this is the tortilla at Chipotle is 280 calories, taking off of which makes a 900-cal meal into 600.  I didn't like that tortilla anyway...).  It was exhausting and took about 3 hours per day.  I found myself changing my diet based more on what was easiest to put into the computer than what my body needed.

The nutritionist came back and said to me, "you are eating too much fat."  She gave me the plan of 50% carbohydrate, 25% protein, 25% fat.  I was eating 30% and that was me eating everything "fat-free."  Wasn't avocado and nut fat okay? Then I had this weird idea that more protein equals more healthy so I would add protein powder to everything.  I had a goal of 150-180 grams of protein per day.  Whole grains were a must-have.  Whole grains and protein.  Some fruit and vegetables.  Then ice cream--or frozen yogurt for healthy twist.

 I became depressed.  I was obsessed with an obligation to a website.  My body was changing constantly and I felt like I had to control every calorie or else face permanent weight gain.  Two pounds per pregnancy. That's what the media had touted.  After six weeks on this plan and tracking my food, I went to my midwife. My weight had leveled off.  I had not gained a pound.  Wait a minute, I thought.  Aren't I supposed to gain weight?  Maybe this isn't useful for right now.  Maybe this is not healthy to my baby.  I stopped tracking my food and just started eating whatever.  It was still sugar and protein powders.  Some vegetables and whole grains.  Her advice was still ringing in my ears...

"It ain't easy but it ain't hard" weight loss program: episode 1

Hi my name is Jaye Anne.

I lost 35 pounds of prepregnancy weight.  I don't know where it went.  It took me about 3 weeks for the first 10, another 4 or 5 for the second 10, and the last few have come off in the subsequent 3 or 4 months.  I just keep losing weight, seemingly by accident.  I have gone from a size 10 or 12 to a size 4 or 2 in jeans.  My skin is the best it has ever been, and so has my digestion and sleep (even with two littluns).  Then I got the best job ever with the greatest benefits the world has ever seen and get a massage once per week on my insurance company.

By now, you are either intrigued or disgusted.  Thanks for keeping on, intriguees.

So here is episode 1.
I had 2 back-to-back pregnancies.  Both of them were uneventful (gold stars in blood pressure and gestational diabetes testing) and ended in wonderful births at the hospital with only minor hospital-induced complaints.  After the birth of my son, I was left feeling pretty drained and quite exhausted.  As if the pregnancies were not draining enough, I was breastfeeding both kids.  With the resurgence of milk supply that comes with birth, my daughter nursed as much as the newly-born... well, newborn.  I desperately needed more energy and searched constantly to increase my internal resources.  I was seriously depleted.  I had always had a certain sense about the general nutritional information of the day being odd (I think mostly because of my being taught to go against the crowd, generally speaking), but had spent a enough time there during the last pregnancy to know I was ready for a change.  I decided on an elimination diet since I knew it was safe for breastfeeding moms. 

The one I tried was vegan and extremely based on grains other than wheat.  It was so minimalist that I couldn't handle it.  I got pretty depressed from the restrictions and was worried about my protein intake.  I mentioned these things to my chiropractor and she handed me the book I have come to find second only to the Bible.  Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon.  As the pages unfolded, there were exciting stories about saturated fat and cholesterol being good for me!  I had always wondered if this might be the case, but here was someone coming out and saying these things and not getting arrested!  My days of just craving fat were over and now I was on to eating it.  I stopped my 28-day diet 21 days into it and started cooking everything in bacon fat and butter.  I was glad to trade sugar for fat.

A Venture into Food...

I get really frustrated when people regurgitate the media and talk about how "fat is bad" and "we need to protect our children from bacteria by bleaching everything."  There is a literal disappearance of whole milk at restaurants now! (and even Michelle Obama and the FDA say I need to give my less-than-two-year-old whole milk... so where is it?)  Meanwhile, those same people want to throw money at finding a cure for the autism/ADHD/[insert degenerative disease here] crises.  Because money is the answer.  In the midst of all that, I need something uplifting. These links below made my day :-)  Enjoy!

Jaye Anne

http://www.mamaeve.com/caring-for-baby-a-toddler/best-baby-food/gaps-diet-embracing-fat-bacteria/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/saturated-fat-healthy/#axzz1sWEep8kh
http://www.springerlink.com/content/5p1348696516v6rl/.
http://calorielab.com/news/2007/06/07/whats-with-the-white-meat-superiority-complex/
http://www.mamaeve.com/caring-for-baby-a-toddler/best-baby-food/gaps-diet-weight-loss-and-weight-gain/