Be fat at least once in your lifetime.

It’s official! Well, it’s been official. I’m big. But today I sat on a water bottle cap for 20 some minutes and never even noticed! Apparently the discomfort of sitting on a cap was masked by pain I have other places or it felt the same as sitting on my own cellulite. Either way, I’m sure I’ll soon find a Twinkie or half eaten sandwich between my fat rolls and say, “Hey! How’d that get there?”

A few findings of my own…
1.) When you are fat people think you are lazy.
2.) When you are fat people think you are dumb.
3.) when you are fat people look at your body first, (abdomen), and then your face second.
Now, I don’t have any great research backing this up. All I can tell you is I’m living it. You would have to take the “fat journey” for yourself to get the full flavored treatment.

You say, “Just work out lady!” I say, you’ve never been fat.” The bigger you get the more sedentary you want to become. First, it takes effort to move such “mass” and it’s hot, sweaty, and painful when you are large. Secondly, have you ever seen a turtle trying to get off it’s back? That turtle is me. Most pregnant lady’s have disproportionate bodies by the end of pregnancy. I can’t imagine doing the elliptical in public with a huge belly full of baby right now. Some women have and kudos to them, for they are the “rockstars” of pregnancy. I fully support those efforts.

Research and OB’s are saying it is safe to do most physical activities, (working out), as long as you were doing those activities before pregnancy. In other words, don’t start crossfit in your eight month of pregnancy.

In fact, while I’m writing about this I think it’s sad our society wants to ridicule someone doing their best to stay in shape and have a healthy pregnancy. And other pregnant ladies, (like me), or “the Jabba the Hutts” of pregnancy are smiled upon and accepted for our planet sized figures.

This article is interesting…
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/20/health/pregnant-woman-weightlifter-crossfit/

I wasn’t in shape like that lady before pregnancy. So I’m not going to beat myself up now for not being as fit as I could have been for this kid. Rather, because I’m closer to the end I’m just going to focus on small stuff…walks and some light weights. Maybe I’ll practice less self loathing. After the baby comes I will put more pressure on myself for weight loss and fitness. I’m trying to make small changes I know I can keep for this new year! In the spring I’m going to look like Kelly Ripa! 😉

Boom!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!

Coffee Buttercream Icing and a lazy Saturday.

Hello! It’s me…Haili! This is my Avatar!

Has anyone else noticed the avatar people create for themselves doesn’t look quite accurate? Mine should at least be 50 more pounds! But, since my sister created it and I don’t see a pregnant avatar for a choice I’m not changing a thing! My avatar wears more black than Johnny Cash…which actually is just like me.

I have a house full of chores I’m ignoring today. My roommates, (my daughter and husband), are nestled in for a long winter nap. So I’m blogging quietly on this winter solstice and trying not to crunch my Tums too loud!

Thumbing through Pinterest, (I’m super productive), I wish just once someone would pin something ugly. Or a craft that was a total flop. It would be refreshing to see a sewing project gone terribly wrong. For all those millions of perfectly iced cakes there has to be twice as many bad outcomes. This is what the truth looks like…

It seems like every great cooking or craft idea I’ve had there are many more mediocre outcomes. Some are brilliant successes. But, the cake I made last night wasn’t impressive. There was a crater in the center where the cake had fallen. I filled it with frosting which seemed to exaggerate my mistake further. I still took a pic for you!

On top of everything, I iced it too soon.
The cake was warm and the butter in the frosting melted. Boo!! 😦

On another note, my icing was and is outstanding! It’s a coffee buttercream icing and it is the product of many failed attempts. I had tried many coffee icing recipes before I came up with my own, including Paula Deen’s. All recipes left me with a gloppy weird mess. You just can’t add a bunch of coffee to the butter sugar mix. Fluid and fat aren’t friends…and they will only separate not blend perfectly together! So don’t go trying it thinking you are more amazing than I am! Lol
However, here’s my recipe…

Buttercream Coffee Frosting:
1 1/2 sticks butter softened (not melted!)
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp instant coffee
1tsp vanilla

Not fancy ingredients, but you will have the most fantastic frosting.

-Blend your sugar and butter until it looks like frosting.
-In a cup, put tsp of vanilla, then dissolve the instant coffee in the vanilla.

Looks like a dark gooey syrup like this…

Pour instant coffee syrup into the butter/sugar mix and blend again with your hand mixer.

This is your wonderful frosting! Yum!
Enjoy your holiday cooking and your lazy Saturday!

Suck it!

If tonight you are checking back in for the “Holiday Strata” recipe you can suck it! (I will give it to you tomorrow…just in time to get your ingredients last minute. I hope you get stuck in Walmart holiday traffic! Just kidding. But hey, buy the darn book if you want it sooner! Gee whiz!)

This is for all the pregnant mommas, the fitness guru’s, the “wanna be” slender, and the holiday fatties. One of the benefits of my pregnancy has been I’m creative in the kitchen. Although, I really don’t cook a ton. (My hubs is probably nodding with agreement and laughing right now.) But every once in a while, I will concoct something really great that deserves an award. And since I can’t see my private parts to shave them anymore, tonight I’m making a protein shake!

Aww! Don’t be sad! It’s a really great protein shake! My two year old and I like to share a protein shake and watch cartoons. She doesn’t know it’s not ice cream! And it’s hard to get kids to eat sometimes. She even loved it!

This is my “Banana nut bread protein shake” with no bread, no nuts, and no bananas. Okay it has bananas. I’m not that amazing!

In a blender:
1cup ice
1 frozen banana (make it a half if you are really trying to cut calories.)
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1 1/2 cup milk ( or sub almond milk)
1/4 tsp All spice (pumpkin pie spice)
3 shakes cinnamon
-Blend. Drink.

That’s all you need! It’s so easy. You already have those things in your kitchen. A friend of mine, a triathlete, taught me to peel and freeze my bananas before they get too ripe. I hate throwing away bananas! Sometimes you just can’t get to them fast enough, so this is a good solution. And they are always waiting on you when you feel like a protein shake.

Your welcome holiday fatty! 😉

The Snowball Effect

If you’ve ever been tortured by your mom calling and sharing in detail everything she ate that day followed by what she’s purchased for the week at whole foods this blog entry will be similar.

This is not new information, but I’ve noticed a significant decrease in my cravings for sweets if I’m getting enough daily protein. Now, if your a vegetarian I can’t help you. If you’ve been living the vegan or vegetarian life for a while you already know what to eat to boost your protein. Plus, you are probably waify and small already or as I like to say, “size Asian.” You don’t need help. But, for the rest of us who seem to gain the most weight in the first and second trimester of pregnancy it may be useful to start noticing your protein consumption.

If I grab a bagel for breakfast instead of my usual over medium eggs I’m more likely in the afternoon to be hungrier and it’s probable I will make a poor lunch choice. If I make a low protein lunch choice I’m starving by dinner. And assuredly, I will then make a crappy dinner choice. In my mind, I’ve been referring to this as the “protein snow ball effect”. One bad low protein choice leads to another bad food choice. If I can break the cycle something resets my appetite and I feel more satisfied after eating more protein. For example: I ate the raisin bagel for breakfast so I want pizza for lunch. But, instead I chose the chicken breast and veggies. The cravings for sweets have subsided and I feel back to norm. Now I’m more likely to choose a healthy dinner opposed to insatiably scarfing 12 gingerbread cookies.

If you are a man or just a regular non-pregnant person reading this and you are asking yourself, “why is she making this protein thing such a big deal?” All I know is when I’m alone inside this body I have no problem controlling my hunger or saying no to sweets. However, when pregnant I find myself in the checkout at Hobby Lobby fighting cravings for old fashioned cherry candies with the power of a thousand hell horses! The body you knew is gone. In its place are unfamiliar cravings, symptoms and bodily changes.

Think about what you like to eat. Make a list of your fav high protein foods and start from there. If the cafe at work sucks, then pack a lunch. If you don’t have access or you are too busy for a lunch perhaps packing a protein shake is a solution for you. Also, remember in those weak moments a chick-fil-A peppermint shake is not going to nourish your body and feed your growing baby like a protein packed nutritious meal would.

On a snowy day hot soup is delish! I love this loaded baked potato soup idea from skinny taste. It replaces some of the potato with cauliflower. I suggest using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream to up the protein factor. 🙂

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/02/baked-potato-soup.html?m=1

Probed in Oklahoma City

I’m in a new city. So I find myself needing to switch my OB in the middle of this pregnancy. This has not been an easy task!! You are automatically flagged as a difficult patient. They say they want your old patient records from your previous doctor for the quality of your care but really it’s to make sure your not fucking crazy.

The first “new” OB/Gyn visit in OKC my husband and I went together. We had our 2 yr old in tow which was probably a bad idea! She’s a very busy little girl! But we didn’t arrange a sitter and the hubs wanted to meet the new doc so there we were.

For the sake of not putting you to sleep I felt totally palpated by my new healthcare provider by the time my 2 hour appointment was complete. Because I was a new patient to this office I was swabbed, poked, and looked at from every angle. I’m a nurse so I understand most of this may be necessary. However, I felt like…”hey lady, could you make sure my baby is ok instead of making my annual breast exam the main priority today?”

Exhausted with a screaming toddler my slow as molasses appointment was finally coming to a close. Discussing a possible c-section date with my new OB posed the question of when would she be available to slice on me. “Oh no!” She says, ” I’m on spring break with my kids that week and we are out of town!”

Oh goody! Did I really endure this long ass appointment with this doctor to find she can’t deliver my baby? And the cherry on top her partner in the group doesn’t practice OB anymore only GYN. So there is no one to cover her OB practice from her own office. What the hell did we just do here today?

Learning from this experience that will be my first question to the next OB with whom I will soon be scheduling my next appointment. “Will you be available for a C-section in March?” My rule of thumb is always get pissed about the situation first then try to learn from it! 🙂

Today instead of a recipe I’m posting this awesome blog entry on “looking good while pregnant.” It’s a super cute guide on how to dress for each growing stage of pregnancy. Hope you enjoy!!

http://walkingwithdancers.blogspot.com/2012/03/looking-good-while-pregnant.html?m=0

Potato Preggo

Is it possible a regular gal like me could end up in the best shape of my life by my due date? This is my journey. With my first pregnancy I wondered if it was possible for someone to make a fitness transformation during pregnancy. I looked for information, but found little. Now, I’m six months pregnant with my second baby and I find I’m in the same situation of overeating and lack of exercise as my first pregnancy. At work today my scrub pants actually felt tighter and I considered bumping up a size. Grrrr. I’ve decided to clean up my act and document my progress.
I’m doing this for several reasons. I want to prove to myself I can do it. At nine months with my first baby I had gained so much weight it was difficult to move. And when I was moving I was short of breath! After the fact, I decided I could have done things differently. And this time around I wanted so badly to focus on great nutrition for my baby and staying healthfully active. The start was strong, but my good intentions flopped somewhere around moving to a new city, finding a new job, chasing around a two year old, the holidays….etc. Or should I just blame it on pregnancy fatigue? Either way, one cookie has led to another and I find myself already 30 pounds plus at exactly 6 months through my pregnancy. Today is one day post Thanksgiving holiday and I’m hating myself for not doing better. This is not the “fit” pregnancy I wanted for myself this second time.
Another reason I’m willing to expose myself are for women, (like me), who have looked for something to reference and never found it. Some may think going from “flab to fab” during pregnancy is taboo. I say, “why not?” Is gaining so much weight during a pregnancy that you are short of breath really enjoying a pregnancy? I don’t think so. Maybe this will be a bit of inspiration to someone in the same boat. I must mention this is not a diet. I plan on the appropriate amount of nutrition, calories, and probably occasional chocolate indulgences. It’s important to be realistic! I’m doing it all with exercise and regular visits to my OB. Will I fail? Admittedly, I’m curious if I’m strong enough. What am I capable of achieving? Is it possible to get fit after already gaining weight during pregnancy? Let’s see what happens. Right now, all I can think of is the left over banana pudding in the fridge!