The baby diet
posted in Beauty Tips, Mom Rants |
So my mom has been in town staying with us since last Friday because with all the traveling I’ve been doing, we needed a little help around the house with junior. When she visits (which is always welcomed, but is not infrequent), the conversation typically begins with, “oh, junior got so big!” and then inevitably turns to, “I’ve just started this new [fill in the blank] diet, can’t you tell?”
I usually can’t tell the difference - my mom always looks the same to me - and that’s a good thing. But as a new mom, I can say without a doubt, the topic of losing weight post-baby is always top of mind. Now, I must admit, I got lucky in the genetic lottery. I gained a whopping 45 pounds during my pregnancy and have shed nearly all of it. But it was not without hard work. The hard work of taking care of my baby.
At first, my mom was a non-believer of my lose-weight strategy. “You eat too much sugar. You eat too many carbs. You need to eat breakfast every morning.” (Actually, the truth is she suggests you eat the same breakfast every morning of egg whites on oatmeal with soy milk. Yuck, I’d rather down 6 oz. of formula.)
The reality is, from what I’ve found, having a baby and eating are mutually exclusive. There is no time to actually do both. Or do both well.
A typical day of meals for me when I’m home on my days off (this doesn’t count when I go to work, because I do eat there) is this:
- Breakfast:
- Dragging junior to Starbucks for a Chai Tea Latte breakfast of champions
- Eating the Cheerios off the floor that junior discards while playing with Baby Tad
- Lunch:
- Leftover mac and cheese from our lunch date
- Remnants of Veggie Booty, Veggie Sausage, Veggie Corn Dog, Veggie anything
- Dinner: (here’s where I spoil myself)
- A whole mini pizza
- A bowl of cereal because I’m too tired to deal with dinner
- Haribo gummi bears (where I get my fruit for the day)
This leaves my mother in a state of constant “I must cook for you guys” anguish (it doesn’t help that she’s also Jewish, which means of course that she’s neurotic.) When she comes to stay with us, she’s constantly cooking and finds time to have 3 square meals a day. And she’s always horrified about what we eat (what’s wrong with “toasted cheese”?) Thing is, we’re usually around when she’s here to pitch in with child care; she has the time to cook AND eat. So when I left her alone for 3 days this past week, I put her to the test. I tested her to actually find time to eat - or better yet - cook meals. Here’s how it went, according to my mom:
- Breakfast:
- Oatmeal and egg white breakfast - “I ate it at noon. But by then, it was lunch so I scarfed down baby graham crackers with peanut butter to fill the void.”
- Lunch:
- See breakfast
- Snack:
- “I have to have my snack!” (Yes, snack time deserves an exclamation point!!) “I tried to put junior in the Exersaucer with a biscuit so I could dig into an apple, but he managed to smear the biscuit on the Exersaucer and the floor, rendering it inedible and I was worried the house would be too messy when you came home, so I cleaned up instead of eating.” (Yes, I run a tight ship here.)
- Dinner:
- “It was nice out so I managed to walk to Whole Foods. I ate dinner, finally.” But I challenge her - “Mom, it was food prepared by someone else, so, does it count?”
My point of all this? It’s hard to eat while chasing after a baby. And guess how many pounds she’s lost since Friday? Enough to make a difference. Weight Watchers, watch out.
Tags: diet, losing weight after baby, mom diet tips
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