Category: Weight / Excercise (Page 4 of 4)

“Other Stuff” Day 1:  Chia Seeds and Flax seeds.

I had heard of flax seed before and I might have even had it years ago, but it didn’t leave much of an impression on me.  So I thought it was time to give it another shot.  After some research I discovered that it’s best to buy it in it’s whole form and then grind it when you need it.  It helps preserve more of the nutrients (apparently).

Flax Seed

I use a coffee grinder to make a week or two’s worth at a time and then store it in the fridge.  Flax seed has a bunch of really good things for you like Omega-3 and fiber.  It also has benefits beyond that like lowering your risk of heart disease and cancer and diabetes.   Now I’m not an expert (at all!) and I’ve only started reading up on it–but I figured from all the good stuff I was finding it was worth trying to add it to my diet.  Plus a small bag will last a LONG time since I’m grinding it up.  I now add it to my morning oatmeal or to my crustless pumpkin pie (I’ll come back to that one tomorrow… yum). It really doesn’t have much flavor (maybe slightly nutty) so I can add it to a lot of things if I wanted to.

And then onto Chia seeds.

Chia Seeds

I hadn’t ever heard of these before but I ran across them in a new recipe for “overnight no cook oatmeal” (I’ll come back to this one as well, don’t worry)  so my interest was sparked.  Here’s a blurp from the original website that I found the recipe and what she says about Chia seeds:

ch-ch-ch-CHIA seeds. I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about the nutritional powerhouse in these teensie little seeds, and this is a great way to sneak them into your diet. Chia seeds:

• have more Omega 3 fatty acids than flax seed (important for heart health)
• are the richest non-marine whole food source of Omega-3 (better than salmon)
• absorb 10 times their weight in water and transform into a gel-like substance–great for athletes for maintaining hydration and helps with weight loss by making you feel full longer
• are as high in protein as quinoa
• are loaded with calcium, potassium, Vitamin B, and anti-oxidants
• help balance blood sugar via the gelling action of the seed and it’s unique combination of soluble and insoluble fiber that slow down your body’s conversion of starches into sugars
• have a neutral taste so they will take on the other flavors in a recipe
• can be eaten whole (unlike flax seed); they don’t have to be ground before adding them to food in order to digest them and benefit from their nutrients.

Interesting, huh?  I thought so!  In fact I was most intrigued by the idea of the “gel-like substance” part.  Do they really form a gel when added to a liquid?  And I liked the idea that I could just eat them whole instead of having to remember to grind them.  So again, after reading up on them some more I thought it was worth a try to add them to my diet as well.   And the gel-thing.  Yes.  It does form a gel.  It’s weird.  Crazy weird.  I’ll show you more when I post my overnight-no-cook-oatmeal recipe.  So the only downfall is if you don’t want the substance you added them to to get thick you need to eat it quickly.  Usually it’s not a problem–lots of people like to add them to soup to help fill them feel more full.  I read the illustration of drinking a glass of chocolate milk vs. drinking a chocolate milk shake.  The thicker one makes you feel more full.  Makes sense to me.

However I did discover what I will NOT add them to.  V8.  I’m not a big fan of V8 but I’ve grown to tolerate it as a part of my morning routine and I really want to up my veggie intake.  Plus, I can get the low sodium kind which significantly lowers the sodium in normal V8.  Well, I normally just guzzle it down.  The other day I thought I would try adding Chia seeds to that and then I forgot about it for about 15 min.  That’s the amount of time it takes for it to form a gel.  Yup, you can see this coming, can’t you?  I had to drink my V8 as a super thick gel with little chunks of seeds which felt like bugs going down my throat.  NOT something I’ll be doing again.  Bleck!

But other than that, I’ve had a general success with both seeds.  I haven’t noticed any type of dramatic difference but it’s nice to know I’m putting good stuff in my body.  🙂

After much consideration and debate I finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and do it.

So I joined.

Weight Watchers that is.  🙂

I have heard success story after story about the system but I had to come to a point where I was mentally ready to join.  It’s not free and somehow I was determined to do this “on my own… for FREE!” But now, rounding up on 3/4 of a year past Josiah’s birth, it was OBVIOUSLY not working according to my plan.  My “for free and on my own” system had successfully kept me holding steady at my undesired weight.  So I guess I was successfully failing.

After looking I decided that Weight Watchers Online was my best bet.  I can’t commit to going to meetings or  weighing in anywhere.  So I now get my own little profile to keep track of what I eat.  It also helps me keep track of what types of things I’m eating (fruits & veggies, water, vitamins, dairy and healthy oils).

I love it.

It’s so satisfying to check off those little boxes and earn smiley faces for reaching my goals every day.  They also put together progress reports so I can look at my weight loss in a chart or inches lost in a grid or even see where I’m eating the most food throughout the day.  I think it’s nifty.

As of right now I’ve lost 12 pounds.  And for me that’s significant.  Any weight lost is a step closer in the right direction, right!  😀

What’s that feeling?

Oh, right.  It’s hunger.

By the end of my pregnancy I was eating a lot–and throughout most of the day.  Mostly because I was bored and it gave me something to do, but also because I know I’m an emotional eater and I was quite emotional.  So now that I’m not pregnant anymore and I’m slowly returning to my “normal” self I find myself re-evaluating when and what I’m eating.  It goes without saying, but it’s a necessary part of getting my weight back under control.

So, when I reach to eat something during the day, I have to actually stop and really concentrate to decide if I’m actually hungry or just have the munchies.   And believe it or not, it’s been difficult for me to tell if I’m hungry or not!  It’s been so long since I’ve been truly hungry!  During pregnancy I would get nauseous if I got hungry, so I kept it at bay by just eating around the clock… so I felt great but gained a lot of weight.

I’m also trying to make a conscious effort to eat more of the good stuff.  More fruits and veggies–less baked goodies.  I discovered a renewed love of spinach salads, so I’m enjoying that as well as baby carrots (which I really like because I can’t eat them too fast and I can pretty much eat as many as I want!)  I haven’t convinced Chloe that she likes carrots yet, but I figure the more she sees me eating them the better.

It’s been just over 4 weeks since I had JD and I’m about 30 pounds down.  Which… well… isn’t all that great since he was almost 10 pounds himself!  But I’m also not exercising yet so I’m not at all worried.  We have, however, started taking walks to get myself easing back into being active again (with a double stroller that Kristen graciously let me borrow–which is awesome but also a bit heavy and bulky, so that’s a good workout just by pushing it!).  Anyway, I figure I have a good 30 pounds to go to where all my really great clothes fit again and I’m back below my pre-pregnancy weight.

My goal this time around is to get moving on this whole baby weight loss thing sooner than I did last time.  It took me a year and 3 months to lose the weight last time, so I’m hoping I can do it faster than that this time!

Being able to wear my wedding ring again!!!!

I have “de-swelled” enough that my rings actually fit again.  It’s so wonderful to be able to look down and see my real ring again and not those gaudy costume rings.  Plus it’s fun to see my fingers look less and less like sausages!

Yippie for returning to a non-pregnant size!