Food, Fat And Freaking Out

Today’s weight: 66kg/145.2 pounds (9kg/19.8 pounds down; 8/17.6 to go)

Two major things are happening this morning. Firstly, I’m about to have my start of week 5 measurements taken. I didn’t report on last week’s measurements because they’d dropped quite dramatically. You might think I’d be proud to get this news out there as soon as possible, but the truth is that the quite significant decrease left me terrified I’d be facing a plateau or – God forbid – an increase this week. I’m now realizing (okay, admitting) that this sort of selective journalism pretty much flies in the face of everything I planned for this blog. My bad. So in the interest of truth and imparting all – last week’s measurements showed a 2.3% decrease in body fat although my scale weight had stayed the same. As I whinged to my friend L over Facebook there’s nothing I hate more than to see the scales stay stubbornly the same and it really doesn’t matter how illogical I know this to be. Nor that a vast chunk of my career has been based around teaching people to ignore the scales and focus on measurements. Hey, what can I say? I’m a woman. I know you understand. But – I have decided it’s best not to fuel that particular obsession any further and am now restricting myself to once a week measuring. Just another reason I’m nervously anticipating this morning’s session.

Anyway, enough blathering on about that. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have the hard data. But now to the second thing – today also marks the first day of my elimination diet. I’d say I’ve been eating about 80% ‘good’ since Alyssa was born 4 weeks and 3 days ago (actually, it was pretty much 100% crap in hospital what with shocking food plus yummy gifts, but 80% since then). I’ve been shopping and cooking organic, have kept my fruit to a minimum, and have even cut out what was looking like a well-developed juice addiction.

A typical day’s food

When it comes to breaky, I’m a protein girl at heart. I love the idea of oatmeal, or pancakes, or french toast, but I just can’t come to terms with carbing it up when I know how much better I feel on good protein and fat. Standard for me is eggs with some form of other protein (bacon, beef sausages, sometimes a little leftover steak or lamb), plus some green veg such as spinach. I have been sneaking the odd bit of toast here and there as a side – not an entire piece, just a few naughty bites.

As I eat a big breaky, and often precede it with a post-workout organic protein shake, lunch is usually quite small. I’ll often have some form of leftover meat, and always accompany it with raw veg of some kind. Lately my favorite mix is raw celery, cauliflower, green beans, and some legumes mixed through. I keep a bowl of it in the fridge and I add olive oil and balsamic vinegar before serving.

Dinner is usually tip-top – some kind of green veg and plenty of protein, always grass-fed, always organic. I make a lot of stir-frys (served without rice or noodles, just veg as carbs), and aside from that we tend to BBQ most of our meat. Sometimes I make bolognaise, although I eat only a few strands of the pasta.

The plan for the next few weeks (at least) is to take things to a whole new level from Monday-Saturday, with Sundays being a ’sort-of’ cheat day. I’m not looking forward to it one bit (the Mon-Sat part, that is!) The truth is that I’ve always managed to maintain a very lean physique without cutting out all my treats. My success has been based in consistent exercise, and in a 90/10 approach to eating on a day-to-day basis – 90% of the time ‘perfect’ with 10, maybe max 20% indulgence. I haven’t done a seriously strict regime for some years now, which is an expected outcome of having honed my metabolism over a long period. It seems that pregnancy hormones have undone much of this ‘well-trained’ effect!

Moment of truth – today’s measurements

Because unfortunately the 90/10  or 80/20 approach doesn’t seem to be cutting it at the moment – a fact driven home to me even more so as I just entered the data from this morning’s session and found I’ve gone UP 2.4%. I knew it! My scale weight is the same, give or take 100grams, butt measurement is the same, and waist and chest have decreased by 0.5cm each. Ho-hum. So overall my body fat is now only 0.2% less than my first post-baby measurement. Of course, as you can see, the pictures do tell a more reassuring (if strange, given that my weight AND body fat is actually the same in all 3 pics) story. The first is from 6 days after birth, the second is 2 weeks after that, and the third is this morning. So. I guess I should be happy. And truth be told I didn’t really believe I was only 15.3% last week – that’s lower than I was in the first month of pregnancy in my skinny Diesel’s!

Still, part of me was hoping today’s figures would give me an excuse to put off the super-strict eating plan but it looks like it’s a case of starch-free life, here I come

Stay tuned …

Body plus baby? Easy!*

Kat

*(We hope)

Are you currently on your own ‘body after bump’ journey? I’d love to hear from you. One of my main reasons for starting this blog (aside from keeping myself accountable) was to form a community of like-minded women. Women who refuse to become a dowdy mother figure and instead choose to embrace their new role with the exceptional health and energy that comes from being in control of their body from the inside out. If this is you then make sure you drop me a line in the comments section below!

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