5 steps to losing weight the AP way

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I was a size 6 before I was pregnant. I don’t know what size I was immediately after birth, I just lived in old sweats (hah!) but when Baby was about 8 months old I celebrated getting into size 8 jeans! Now, I am a size 2. That sounds tiny to me. I am one size away from the infamous size 0. How the heck did that happen?!

This is controversial I know. There are two kinds of mamas out there, I reckon, the ones who didn’t lose the baby-weight and don’t want to talk about it and the ones who did lose all the weight and dare not talk about it. Anyway, I am going to break rank and brave the topic even though I am on the skinny-cow side. I am not crazy skinny, so don’t go getting jealous or anything like that. I am actually a flabby (non-toned) size 2 – if that isn’t too much information! And I am spotty and have a big c-scar, remember, if you need it for balance.

I have not dieted (certainly not with the intention of losing weight) and I don’t do any organised exercise… at all. So how did I do it? I credit Attachment Parenting. Here’s the rundown of what worked for me.

Weight loss the AP Way:

1. Breastfeed at will/on cue: if your kid is anything like mine it will be a big challenge to consume as many calories as they are sucking out of us each day – and I, for one, love to eat! If I eat light for even a few days (and by light I don’t mean ‘less’ I just mean better quality/more greens, soups, salads, etc.) I find I automatically lose weight, without trying. This was especially noticeable in the first few weeks as my uterus contracted back into place, magically and seemingly overnight. And now, in the long term, I can see that breastfeeding is definitely linked to my new shape.
2. Co-sleep: … which basically means you continue to do the above – breastfeed on cue – even through the night! Ooops, I just dropped some more calories just thinking about it, I think- and certainly without trying.
3. Baby-wear: I have been pretty much exclusively wearing/carrying my baby since she was born. She is now 18 months old and at the 90% percentile for weight. I still carry her most places – if it is too far for her to walk or just easier to carry her. That has got to help, don’t you think?
4. Walk: not strictly an Attachment Parenting practice but it definitely falls squarely within the Natural Parenting movement, especially if it is used as a greener alternative to driving. I love walking. For the longest time there, especially when Baby was smaller and hated to be in the car seat, I would just go for long walks – sometimes one or two hours at a time – with her in my front pack. I am not super fit, but I can walk and, again, I am sure this really helped the weight drop off.
5. Eat Healthily: I try and eat as green, alkaline and fresh as I can… I am far from perfect, but I don’t eat wheat/gluten, dairy or meat and I limit refined sugar (the almost permanent stash of chocolate doesn’t count, right?!). The couple of times I got the flu, since Anya was born, I did nothing but eat ‘green’ for two or three days: all vegetable soups (with no carbs). I recovered quickly and I lost weight. You gotta be careful with this. You don’t want to lose too much weight when you are breastfeeding as it will affect your supply (it did mine) but eating healthily is always a good thing, to my mind.

So I lost lots of weight. Still, I want to acknowledge the role of luck in all this. This month I am this size, I hope it sticks but my love of eating has got me in trouble before, let’s hope I can keep balance, stay healthy and get way, way fitter so I can keep this trimmer figure which I am so enjoying (even now I don’t have the super-boobs, anymore).

Really this post should be about being healthy, the AP way. It is not about trying to lose weight, it is about doing what feels right for your family, going with the flow and taking care of you, too. If that so happens to bring a more optimised weight for you, hooray! I know plenty of hardcore AP mamas in all sizes and shapes. They nurse and baby-wear, eat healthy and still feel weight-challenged (and/or are happy and celebrating their womanly curves) so this is not a cure-all that works easily on everybody. But it worked for me. I guess now it is about finding what will work for you, but you can’t really go wrong with walking, breastfeeding and eating a diet with lots of fresh, green veg, can you?

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Conscious eating (take II)

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I want my child to grow up to love food. When I think of people who love food I think of Italy and France, of large families eating together, outside under the vines and overlooking green fields. They are gathered together sharing stories, laughter and food made from homecooked, fresh, whole ingredients. I don’t think of people who guzzle their food at such a speed that it needs to be hyped up with artificial flavouring and frankly it doesn’t matter what else is in it ‘cos nobody is going to take the time to enjoy it let alone think about what it is doing to their innards.

But I don’t live in rural Italy and my family is nowhere near by to come join me at the table for a long afternoon lunch every week. What is more, I don’t live to cook, I cook to live. So how to do this? How can I impart a real, deep love for food to my child in this hectic, modern, urban lifestyle I live?

Honestly I don’t know the answer fully, yet. I have a sense that it starts with me. I need to re-find my own love for food, as I was saying. Knowing too much about nutrition can kill your love for food almost as quickly as not knowing enough about it, I find. Not that I am that knowledgeable but I have studied it a bit and lived and worked with people who know a great deal about this stuff and consequently I have been thinking a lot about these issues, oh, all my life, really. So, while for some the journey is one of learning, of re-gaining some control over what comes onto their plate (rather than handing over those decisions to multi-national food corporations, marketing industrials and supermarket conglomerates) for me the journey may start with letting go a little, relaxing, letting my hair down in the kitchen (metaphorically only, of course).

I need to infuse my own relationship with food with real joy and hope that feeling is contagious. I don’t want to ‘teach’ Anya how to eat but I’d love to inspire her or perhaps better still, I’d love us both to enjoy making and eating food together in the years ahead. Now, that feels like a good start to me. And, in truth, there is a whispering in me that reminds me that you don’t need to make a kid love food, I mean she clearly already does. It is just a question of not standing in the way of that.

The other dada (or: when, oh, when will she call me Mama?)

On the other hand, at 14 months, Anya still doesn’t call me Mama! For the last six months, I have been dada (along with the other dada). She knows the difference, she’ll point at the right one of us in response to our ‘names’ but she calls us both dada. If she sees a photo of the two of us together, she we’ll point at K. and say ‘dada’ and point at me and say ‘dada’ while signing milk. She gets it… she just doesn’t bother using the other title. To be fair she also calls random people on the street dada, quite often. We figure it is just her word for person… although I will say she says it with way more zest and enthusiasm when greeting her dad from work. ‘DAADAAAAA!!!’

This is quite an emotional subject. I mean we all melt (I can only assume) at the sound of our own child calling our name, especially for the first time. Apparently it is common for this to happen, for a baby to pick one name (either mama or dada) and call both parents that for a time. Thankfully I have met plenty of other moms who say the exact same thing happened at their house – it was dadadada all the time. Once, I even ran into somebody I didn’t know at the shop and her kid was saying ‘dada’. I said that is my daughter’s favourite word, too. She got really quite upset as she told me her baby only said ‘dada’ and not ‘mama’ yet. I rambled off something about evolution and the necessity to ensure the baby bonds with the father first, hence why most moms encourage their babies to say ‘dada’ early on, not to mention that in all languages the word for father is composed of some of the first sounds that babies naturally babble by themselves – even deaf ones – such as baba, papa, dada. Most dads I know will gleefully claim any of those as their ‘name’ if they hear the baby saying it… or at least the mom will claim it for them. There is also research that proves (?) first babies look more like their fathers, again, an evolved trait biologically engineered to keep dads around for longer – especially when things get tough and mothers really need their support. Anyway, I digress, the point is it kind of hurts when your kid doesn’t say your name. Does he/she love dada more?  I got over it. I have rationalised it away, as you can tell, and I figure she’ll say mama sooner or later and in the meantime her dada gets to enjoy all the attention, fun and closeness of hearing Anya shout for him when he arrives home from work everyday.

I’ll share an early secret with you, though, Anya has started saying mamamama a lot (a bit like when she was first learning to babble it) and she looks at me for a reaction (maybe ‘cos she knows that sound will get a reaction) but it fills my heart with joy and my spirit with hope. Could it be soon?

How to become a hippy-mama in 20 easy steps!

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The ‘You know you are a hippy-mama (or papa) when…’ post has been updated and now has tons of links to websites with useful information about the various practices referenced from Elimination Communication to Baby Led Weaning, from the advantages of extended breastfeeding (for mother and baby) to the benefits of eating your placenta. So, if you didn’t know what the ‘eck I was going on about before, go here and find explanations for all the weird and wonderful hippy parenting practices of California – perfect for the beginner hippy-mommy!

You know you are a hippy-mama (or papa) when…

• you rent a birthing pool
• you are intent on using hypno-birthing over an epidural
• you have a doula or a homebirthing midwife
• you secretely wish Ina May could be with you at your child’s birth
• you know how to tie a moby
• you regularly wake up with a kick to the stomach or a baby ‘self-serving’ from your left boob
• your doctor speaks to you slowly (like you must be from a foreign planet) when you decline their vaccination schedule
• you have been carrying around a potty since your child was a newborn
• your baby’s first food is a big ol’ chunk of veg (not a puree)
• you have a pail full of stinky (cloth or compostable) diapers in your house
• you do a dance for joy when your kid does their first sign
• your child’s toys are Waldorf approved
• your back aches from carrying your one year old round in a sling
• you are always being told how cute your kid looks in that amber necklace
• you are breastfeeding a child who can speak in whole sentences
• you teach your kid that gluten is yucky
• you find yourself singing along to the ‘hello song‘… even though there is nobody else in the car
• you think Mayim Bialik rocks and that tiger-mom is a bit doolaley
• you think exposing your kid to germs is good for him but pesticides are hazmat
• you eat your placenta

How many of these can you tick? Frankly, two or more and you are a hippy-mamma! I know, I know, you don’t think of  yourself as a hippy… the question is ‘do other people?’

For the record, I am not the hippiest hippy in the valley, I tick 14 out of 20 of those. Now, fess up and leave a message if any of these sound like you :p  Feel free to add your own on, too!

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Edit [Jan/6/2013]: Yes, I went for sillyness here rather than full acuracy. My back never ached wearing my baby – who I continued to carry in an ergo until she was past 2, for example…

Blossoming as a mother – Mayim Bialik (aka ‘Blossom’) is not a kid anymore. She is all grown up with a kid of her own.

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This is one of those ‘I wish I had written that’ moments. Below is a link to a simple and clear outline of why responsive (or ‘attachment’) parenting makes sense to so many of us… written by none other than ‘Blossom’ (remember her, from the TV series?): TODAYMoms – Meet the newest TODAY Moms blogger: Mayim Bialik.

I actually saw her a few weeks back on ‘What not to Wear’ (yep I watched that). I missed the beginning but had this nagging feeling I knew this woman they were making over. So I googled her and lo and behold it was Blossom. That got me curious so I ended up on her blog which blew me away – she writes very passionately and articulately about both parenting and judaism – two things close to her heart. Thanks to Lisa for pointing me towards this particular article, I am inspired as both a blogger and a barefoot mama.

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Having a conversation

Yesterday I had the first conversation with my daughter. It went like this:

Me: ‘Anya, it is time to go out, now’
Anya is super excited, smiles and bounces up and down.
Mom puts on Ergo and pulls baby into carrier.
Baby: ‘Aa-Aa’ (her word for dog – ão-ão means woof woof in Portuguese)
Mom: ‘Oh, you want to go see the doggy, when we are out? Sorry, right now we are going to the car. We can go visit the doggy on our way back.’

Sweetest thing ever. She knows that we are going out and knows that out there is the dog she loves to go see and, most exciting of all, she is now able to tell me (ahead of time, note) that is what she wants to do. Man, I love her so much!

We are having more and more of these incipient dialogues. She has ‘asked me’ for food (her word for food is ‘mmm’) in the car. Today she asked for water (‘aia’ – Anya’s attempt at ‘agua’). So sweet. Add to this her signs and we are definitely away. She signs ‘more’ with great enthusiasm when she wants me to read the book again or sing a song again (she likes my voice, bless her) or to bounce her on the ball again. So cool!

She now has a vocab (yeah, I am calling it that!) of about 30 ‘words’. She has over 20 signs and nearly ten verbal words – mostly sounds like ‘blah-blah’ for phone (my personal favourite) or rrrrrrrrrr (which stands in for ‘vroom-vroom’ for tractor or car. But it is clear, verifiable and repeatable that she uses those sounds for those objects or actions, so they count :)

Here is the flip-side, though. When she started using signs that were not just descriptive (like duck) but also prescriptive, if you will, like ‘milk’ or ‘all done’ I noticed she started having more tantrums. I checked with other mums and quite a few remember experiencing the same thing: more signs = more tantrums, at the start. This is what I put it down to: I reckon she got a taste for power. With first words and the ability to say what she wanted came Anya’s first realisation that she could ask for what she wanted and with that an expectation that she would get it (’cause at the start, she often did). She was developing a sense of self, an ego or an identity are forming. She realises she is a separate being with separate wants … and with that came demands for her wants to be met. She communicates that through not so cute screaming with occasional back arching. This was mostly about expressing her will: ‘I want to go to the swings’; ‘I don’t want to get into the car seat’, that kind of thing.

I have so far mostly dealt with it by, well, ignoring it. This was the best momma advice I got on the subject. Nobody had much else to offer on the subject. I guess the main thing is to be clear that screaming does not get you what you want nor does it get you more attention.

So far… so far it seems to be a little better. Meanwhile, I got over the ‘I don’t want to get in the car thing’ by giving her a treat once she sat compliantly in the seat (yep, bribes – another piece of mommy advice gold). I just had to do that a couple of times and now she has made friends with the seat again. Phew (otherwise I’d be virtually housebound). Nobody told me the terrible twos actually start at ten months (or perhaps around 15 months when non-signing babies get first prescriptive/request-oriented words?)!

But, overall, more language means more fun, more communication and exchange and I am really enjoying finding out about what Anya gets, what she likes and what she wants and I am ready (or getting ready…) to show her where the limits, the boundaries to her new powers lie. Mommyhood, real mommyhood, here I come.

Building myself back up

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This is the protein shake I ended up going for to help re-build my reserves and get me back to tip-top condition. It is vegan (and hence dairy free) and soy free. It is pricey but all the ingredients are of the highest quality and include rice protein, spirulina, flax and lots of sprouted grains, herbs and antioxidants. Yumm!…

Almost as impressive as the list of fabulous ingredients is what is not in it: no sweeteners other than stevia, no colours, no synthetic preservatives, etc. Almost all protein shakes out there (the ones I looked at, anyway) were essentially dairy (whey) or soy based and sweetened to the hilt, often with artificial sweeteners, too. None of that for baby and me, thank you very much (she’ll be getting some through my milk).

I wanted to share the info with you ‘cos I do believe it is a good product, although full benefits are still to be seen – as it is early days. I will say it doesn’t dissolve very well and it doesn’t taste all that great. They know that (on both counts) which is why they tell us to blend it in with a banana and half an apple. I had neither at hand so have had it once with plain rice milk and once blended in with strawberries and sharon fruit. Hmm… good thing I regard it as medicine and was not hoping for a tasty, happy-shake.  But hey, may it be another step on that road to wellness :)

Super mom meets her match: ‘not quite together but just about doing it’ mum

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I met super-mom the other day. Actually, I met a bunch of them. Scary thing. I finally made it to a different mother-and-me group I have been meaning to check out only to feel frankly intimidated by the level of togetherness of some of these mothers.

It was 9am and their hair was set, their make-up perfect, their clothes cute and ironed… one of them even baked cookies! I, on the other hand, turned up late with avocado stains on my trousers (from my baby’s breakfast), a smudge of food still on Anya’s face, and having forgotten to bring toys to entertain her while we talk! But hey, I was just happy to be out of the house.

Nothing changes. It is a grown-up version of high school. There are still super people and the rest of us. I still feel inadequate when I compare myself to the popular people, it is just that now they are mums rather than teenagers. It struck me that these super moms were probably cheerleaders, in their day. Nothing changes. As I look around this group of moms I realise that just because we are adults doesn’t mean we have grown up all that much, that we are all confident, with it, organised (as parents used to look, when we were kids). Yes, there are super confident, beautiful yummy-mummies… and there are others that are struggling to get by; some who seamlessly juggle career and kids, others who are picking spaghetti out of their hair 4 hours after the last meal. We are not all cut from the same cloth.

… Slowly, it also occurs to me that mothering is a skill that benefits from experience. I am beating myself up here, but, the moms I admire and learn from the most are usually second (or third or fourth) time moms. By the second child a talent for not sweating the little stuff, taking the rough with the smooth and riding the wave seems to have emerged even with the least confident-seeming mums.

I look again… how many of the ‘super mums’ are second time mums or have super-support-systems? Hard to tell for sure. But lines get more blurred.

Finally, as my inner teenager stops screaming, an old adage comes to me: ‘perfection is the enemy of good’. As I look at other mums and judge them to be flawless I remember that when you get to know people a little bit more you tend to find that everybody has their strengths and their weaknesses, their insecurities, their human foibles. That which looks perfect from afar may well turn out to be cracked if you get up close enough to see it. It is true that people tell me I look like a ‘natural’ at this parenting thing, all the time. Hahahah!… if only they knew.

And in truth, I don’t want to be perfect, I just want to be ‘good’. I just want to love and be loved. I want to be perfect for my daughter, even in my imperfection. I want to be happy and proud of the kind of mother I become. I am ready to let go of (my idea of) perfect in order to work on the attainable: being as good as I can be, given my current knowledge, confidence and skills… and keep learning and growing. Maybe that is the secret of happiness.

Maybe it is not the ‘super moms’ I should be comparing myself to, but the ‘happy mums’… and maybe those are the ones who turn up with spagetti in their hair and a smile on their face as they remember their child having the time to explore and experiment freely and gleefully with their food. Maybe, I just need to ‘compare’ myself to me, let the inner me, the joy in my heart be compass. Heart full of joy: good day. Heart constricted and held tight (even if I look outwardly super, on-time, clean, tidy, beautiful, etc): not so good day. Phew. Exhale… Perhaps that is what our kids would want for us, too, not to be ‘super’ but to be happy. And don’t you just know those happy mums also have the happy, confident, outgoing, engaged kids? It has got to be that way, no?

Super-mom move over, an army of happy, relaxed, bumbling-through-it and learning-as-you-go mums are marching through with their dirty but smart, sassy kids, joyful as pigs in mud.

Weak… my child has anemia

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I just found out my daughter is anemic. This sucks. Okay, it is only mild anemia (10.1 where normal is 11 and 10.5 is considered on the low end of ‘normal’). Worst is she probably got it from me, I mean I was anemic through pregnancy and try as I might to correct it I kept being slightly bellow optimum. Actually at the hospital when I was ready to deliver they said my level was 11, so perhaps I just got there, in the end but all through the pregnancy it was a bit dodgy.

So here I am, having studied Nutrition, with a Naturopath for a dad and with an anemic daughter. It is pretty serious stuff in kids, too, or it can be so you gotta watch out if you think your kid is at risk.

I am already looking out to make sure I/we get enough protein, vitamin D, water, I avoid all the stuff either of us in sensitive to (which includes dairy, gluten, eggs and soy!) and now I got to build iron back in, re-doubled. I love people who just eat naturally, in both senses: from nature and intuitively, without over-thinking it. Yet for me it is clearly not to be.

The first thing anyone says if I say Anya is anemic is ‘give her beef’. Okay… first, beef has less iron in it than red beans according to the shiny new sheet I have from our pediatrician. But I know, though one can do it without meat by eating plenty of green veg and legumes the question is am I doing it? The answer so far is no. It is hard to eat a super green, alkalising diet with plenty of raw foods, water and whole grains when I am at home chasing after a wanna-be-toddler (ie she wants to toddle but is more at the crawling stage for now). I am beat by the end of the day with little energy to prepare super foods.

All veteran mums give the same tip: cook batches both for you and the baby, live on leftovers essentially. Yet even this takes great organisation and commitment and I am still working my way up to doing it all the time. I have salads or grains and greens for lunch, usually (with seeds and beans tossed in for protein and some yummy oils for good fats). For dinner we do quite well, too… but often I am tired and go for the easy route. Today I had chips and a veggie burger with salad. That probably happens once a week or so (not necessarily this meal, but something equally lazy). Anya often eats roughly what I eat, although she always has iron-fortified cereal in the morning, then I’ll often give her some of whatever grain I am doing mixed in with some veg like squash or peas. She also has avocados, sweet potatoes and the like.

Man, this is tough. Not rocket-science-tough, more daily-trek-up-the-mountain-to-get-water-tough… but without the hardship or the poverty. Hmm…

For now Anya is on an iron supplement. I put her on that (well, technically the doctor did) while I investigate other options, as I don’t at all like the ingredients in this. Gonna find a kid-friendly naturally derived one (probably something like Floradix) and look at the green food supplements again.

I am a bit frustrated with it all and I was quite shaken by it (when I started reading and reminding myself of possible consequences and worst case scenarios) but hopefully this will serve as a gentle reminder to stay green and clean, to have fun with food while keeping it light and natural. Phew…