DAY 4: SCENTS AND SPICE ARE TWICE AS NICE.

My first thought as I woke up this morning: You mean it's only Thursday? I've only worked out three days this week? It feels like I should be waking up to a Friday or a Saturday with as much as I feel like I've been working out this week. But I am starting day four of my fitness plan, and the soreness has actually eased some, so I'm ready for my next workout.

Speaking of plans, one of the biggest saboteurs of a goal is neglecting to have a plan. I've noticed that when I wake up in the morning with the elusive "I'll do some sort of exercise as some point today," I usually end up spending my day's free time in my PJs with a fluffy throw and a good book (or more accurately, a Grey's Anatomy marathon on Hulu). I will even pile on the sinfulness by baking something sweet from scratch. 

But if I start my morning by deciding which exercise I will do and when, I'm much more likely to actually follow through. So right after I feed my son lunch, I will do 30 minutes of pilates and 10 minutes of punching bag drills.

My punching bag has been the salvation of my workouts. No kidding. I highly recommend one, and you can check mine out here. It doesn't take up much room, and all you need are some training gloves (mine are pink, like these!), but even if you only work on it for five minutes, you will still get a good workout. I do at least 100 each of jabs, backhands (great for triceps!), hooks, cross-jabs (great for abs!), side kicks (works your obliques and hip flexors, among other things), roundhouse kicks (great all-around core exercise), and then some double-jabs, which whittles down my waist. I've lost an inch around my midsection already this week!

My new power food? SALSA! I am a Texas gal, so the spicier my salsa comes, the better. I've been putting it on eggs, eating it with blue corn chips, adding it to guacamole or pasta or chicken fajitas. Salsa can help boost your metabolism and serves up a healthy dose of vitamin C, A, and K, along with some healthy minerals and antioxidants. Read about its health benefits here and here. And any food that makes me temporarily forget my love affair with chocolate is a winner! 

You know what is almost just as good as eating sweet treats? Smelling them! No kidding. My husband and I went to Bass Pro Shop after church on Sunday, and as soon as we walked in we were enchanted by the sweet aroma of cinnamon. It hit us both like love potion number 9. Our shopping trip for gun holsters got derailed by a new mission: find the source of the delicious smell! We were pretty disappointed when we found out it was those candied pecans and not actual cinnamon rolls. Later on, at the mall, we stood in line for 15 minutes at Cindy's Cinnamon Rolls to satisfy our new craving. And you know how those cinnamon rolls are the size of frisbees? Well, we didn't even split one; we each devoured our own like Ethiopian orphans who hadn't eaten in weeks. I actually found some icing stuck to my sweater on the car ride home and shamelessly licked it off. (Ok, now I'm a little ashamed.) After we came down off our sugar high (we were actually high, laughing hysterically over the passenger's elbow in the car next to us), we both regretted our binge and were lethargic for the rest of the day. Never again!


This story isn't exactly supporting my theory, but my baking healthy oatmeal muffins yesterday and smelling them for hours afterwards did help distract from the fact that what I really wanted was to pack up my infant in the car and make a quick run to the store for some candy. Research shows that scents can help curb cravings because they trick your body into thinking you've already eaten the food. (Read some about it here.) Of course, you have to listen to your brain instead of become a mindless robot on the undying search for cinnamon rolls. I have a caramel-scented candle that often does the trick. 

I'm feeling pretty confident today, so I'm going to go ahead and count this one a success.   
 

DAY 3: WITHDRAWALS

I. AM. SO. SORE.

Workout on top of workout on top of workout=major soreness! I hurt in places I didn't know existed. I'm serious. I'm feeling tingly in places I've never noticed before. I can't move without wincing. But, at the end of day three, I am still on track.

I did two workouts today: upper body weight training this morning and Insanity Pure Cardio with my BFF tonight. I'm hoping these workouts will ease some of the soreness come tomorrow.

My third day without sweets has brought on the beginning of withdrawals. I've been a little snappy today, actually. But I eased the withdrawal pangs by baking oatmeal muffins. I also kept busy by making (somewhat) healthy chicken enchiladas with guacamole. Yum!

So that's it. I'm too tired to be witty. Day 3 is officially a success. :)

DAY 2: NOT THIS TIME, MR. FUDGE

I wasn't sure this day was going to go so well. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. to see my husband off, who was catching a plane for his business trip this week. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I stayed up to watch The Bachelor: After the Final Rose on Hulu. Ugh. Don't even get me started.

I did actually get an additional hour of sleep after my blood stopped boiling from the show, but I've been pretty tired today. I was so tempted to spend my son's nap times napping myself instead of working out and cleaning. But, I have a blog to write and accountability to answer to, so I got my butt in gear and completed Insanity Pure Cardio (a 40-minute workout) and P90X Ab Ripper X (a 15-minute workout). There are few feelings greater than being completely drenched after a workout.

I vacuumed, dusted, and cleaned my bathrooms, and even fit in an hour-long nap to refresh. And my bestie, who is staying with me while my husband is out of town, agreed to a night of veggie pizza and a Pure Barre workout (another 35 minutes). So far, so good!

This morning, I went grocery shopping, and guess what weekly sale was staring me in the face? Yep, E.L. Fudge cookies. Of course. My biggest guilty pleasure. But did I cave? Absolutely not! Nor did I buy the new white chocolate Easter M&Ms or wine for girls' night. You all would be proud of me.

This is the new Courtney, and Day 2 is officially a success. 
 

So, I've decided to get serious about losing the rest of my baby/back injury weight. Not that I wasn't serious; I've been very seriously thinking about it while I've laid on the couch watching the entire Grey's Anatomy series and popping back M&Ms. (Boy, those cravings just don't ever go away, do they??) But I have a spring/summer wardrobe that I adore, and I refuse to buy new clothes for warmer weather just because I've lacked the motivation and energy to get my butt in gear and back into my short shorts.


THE GOAL
I want to lose 8 pounds by Easter. When I did the quick math and realized that was 2 pounds a week, I got an ego boost. Certainly I could pull that off without even having to end things with Mr. E.L. Fudge. But then I decided that not only did I want to lose weight, but I need to lose about 5 inches from my waist (and about everywhere else, but I'll start there). Ok, to be fair, I have been exercising about 3-4 days a week, and housework and taking care of an infant do count for something. But if I was going to do this, I had to go all in. I'd been stuck at DEF-CON 1; it was time to raise the stakes.


THE PLAN:
There's really no secret to weight loss: more calories out than calories in. But, since I am still nursing my six-month-old, I can't restrict calories and still have to eat a balanced diet, so cutting out all carbs isn't possible, either. And to be honest, besides my raging sweets addiction, I eat pretty healthy. So what I will cut out is sweets. So long, you cute little elf-shaped, fudge-filled cookies! So long peanut butter M&Ms! So long icing out of the can, peppermints from my purse, or anything else that I would scrounge up to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Then there's exercise. I'm a stay-at-home mom, so a gym membership is not in our budget. However, our roomy basement has afforded me the space for a home gym, and I have in my arsenal just about every workout DVD you could imagine: Pure Barre, Jillian Michaels, Insanity, P90X, postnatal boot camp, 10-minute Pilates Solutions, just to name a few. Not to mention a punching bag, jump rope, exercise ball, a weight bench and dumbbells, and a jogging stroller for arguably one of the hilliest neighborhoods in Birmingham. I have workouts for when I only have 10 minutes, and workouts for when I want to slave over my dumbbells for an hour or more. Workouts for when I need to tote our little tyke with me, and ones for when I'm flying solo. The only thing I don't have...is an excuse.

And since I'm still pumping and nursing, I can count the 300-500 calories a day that I burn from that...I just can't replenish that deficit with candy or chocolate.

DAY 1:
So I got off to a great start today: Insanity Cardio Power and Resistance for 40 minutes and punching bag drills for 10 minutes. I also had no sweets. (Granted, I've eaten most of them out of our house...but I did throw away the icing can, and that was the last item.) I intended to do a second workout, a Pure Barre DVD, this evening, but I ended up rocking my sweet, teething son instead. It was a nice trade-off.

Even though it's been six months since I gave birth, my joints are still a little wobbly, and my herniated disc is waiting in the shadows, eager to rear its ugly head. But I WILL do this. I will be back into my regular, fabulous warm-weather clothes soon enough!




  

Don't cry over spilled milk.

Whoever said don’t cry over spilled milk apparently never breastfed. Or used a breast pump. 

This was supposed to be a blog post providing clever advice on troubleshooting your breastfeeding woes, but tonight, I’m not feeling like I have all the answers (just tonight; I usually do have all the answers, of course).

I’d really like to know the name and address of the person who painted this picture of a Gisele look-a-like—her hair perfectly coiffed and makeup flawless, no bags under her eyes and all her baby weight vanished, no pooch in her tummy—caressing a perfectly calm newborn in a cradle hold, nursing contentedly, both smiling as a cool breeze gently floats through the open window in the spotless nursery that’s frosted in lace and pastels and stuffed zoo animals.

Pffffff. On what planet does that actually happen? Here’s the real picture: I’m completely topless (and not in a good way) because I’m too tired to figure out this contraption of a nursing bra, spraying milk in every direction, soaking not only the brand new off-white glider we’re sitting in but my baby boy‘s face as well. Of course, he doesn’t notice because he’s out cold, even though we’ve tried everything (except those things that would earn us a visit from Child Services), from patting his back with a cold washcloth to tickling his toes to my husband slamming a book shut and ringing our MSU cowbell several feet away, to try to keep him awake so he’ll take in a full feeding. He sleeps through it all. My hair’s a mess, I have no idea where my makeup bag even is, my suitcase from the hospital still isn’t unpacked. I have a bath towel in my lap, and a burp cloth covering each breast, all three getting soaked as I plead with my son to wake up and nurse. And when he actually latches on, he does so with such force that I’m afraid I’m going to lose a nipple.

That was just the newborn phase.

To be fair, we had a couple of pretty easy months. I figured out the nursing bra and my milk supply stabilized. My son learned how to latch on after a couple of days and grew alert enough to be an efficient eater, taking in a full feeding each time.

Now he’s almost four months old, and he’s obsessed with his curtains. Seriously. They are right behind the glider, and he will, in mid-suck, pull away to stare at his curtains. I will shift him around so his back is to the window, but then he throws his head back to stare at them upside down. So I wait. On his way back to the breast, he’ll stop to stare at his ceiling fan. Then back at the curtains. Then back to the ceiling fan.

Two sucks and he’ll look up at me and grin, mllk dribbling down his neck, past his bib, and onto his brand new Baby Gap onesie. Or, he’ll take in too much at once and break away, panicking, until I burp him. Sometimes he’ll smile and talk baby gibberish to me with his mouth full, which will spray milk all over my nursing bra.

To top it off, he’s starting to need more than I have been able to provide by exclusively nursing. So I’ve had to supplement with stored, bottled breast milk until I can increase my milk supply. Only, he won’t take a bottle after he’s nursed, so I have to give it to him first. Then he doesn’t nurse as long, which perpetuates the problem of keeping my supply up.

So I pump. Which let me tell you is SEXY. There is nothing more attractive to a man than to witness his wife getting milked like a heifer (this is, of course, after he’s witnessed her pushing out a human being through her lady parts). And then there’s the washing all the attachments and bottles. And doing it all over again in two to three hours.

No wonder so many women give it up! It’s exhausting. And frustrating. And it hardly seems worth it when I’m constantly worrying if my baby’s getting enough to eat. Breast milk is arguably the most ideal food for our babies, but they don’t tell us how close to the edge of our sanity we’ll tiptoe should we choose to breastfeed.

My goal that I set while I was pregnant was to breastfeed for a year. Then that goal became nine months. I shortly revised it to six months. Now I’m almost to four months, and my goal is to make it to New Year’s. Which is in a week and a half.

Ok, so I’m being a little dramatic. I don’t know how long I’ll breastfeed, and a friend wisely warned me not to quit on a bad day. But that’s not really the point.

The point is, you’re not alone if you’re torturing yourself with mind games and guilt trips over whether you do or don’t breastfeed. We all have that one friend that exclusively nursed all of her five children until their second birthdays with no hiccups or bumps along the way, never pumped, ate only the freshest organic foods and took extra vitamins, drank gallons of water a day and proudly wears a World’s Best Mom tattoo on her forehead. And that is the standard to which we constantly compare ourselves. And at least for me personally, I don’t quite measure up.

I’m not saying we should give up because it’s hard. That’s not my style anyway. Parenthood is hard, period. Having it easy is not in the forecast. If it’s not breastfeeding, it’s sleep training. If it’s not sleep training, it will be potty training. Solid-food training. Discipline. Math homework. First dates with upperclassmen. We shouldn’t quit just because it’s challenging.

But we can develop the right perspective. This won’t last forever. Our babies will soon, right before our eyes, start eating solid foods and eventually have no need for breast milk. Breastfeeding is a fleeting opportunity to provide our babies a great start to a healthy life. And it will get easier.

Or, it won’t, and you’ll have to stop breastfeeding. That’s okay, too. Formula is not the devil’s spit, and feeding your baby formula is certainly not the unpardonable sin. However long you are able to breastfeed is time well spent, even if it’s a few short weeks.

If breastfeeding is a priority for you, then stick to your beliefs and make it work to the extent you’re willing to sacrifice for it. But let’s give ourselves a break and keep it in context. Breastfeeding is not the only way to produce a healthy child. It’s not the only way to bond with our babies or prove our love for them. There will be countless other opportunities for that. And we won’t screw them up for life with this one decision.

There will be countless opportunities for that, too. :)

HypnoBirthing: My birthing preferences

Several of you have asked me to post a copy of my birthing preferences that I gave to our nursing staff, so I've included them at the bottom of this blog post.

A few thoughts about birthing preferences: You need to discuss these with your doctor, nurse practitioner, midwife, doula—whoever is going to be involved in your labor and delivery—well ahead of your due date. DO NOT walk into the hospital when your contractions are two minutes apart and bark your orders to the nursing staff between breaths and expect them to happily comply. In fact, the earlier you disclose them the better, because if you and your physician heavily disagree, you may need to find someone else to deliver your baby. I was very blessed to work with my doctor, Dr. Chris Radpour, and the nursing staff at Erlanger East in Chattanooga, who were super supportive of our decision to have a HypnoBirthing birth. 

You and your partner (or whoever is going to be in the room with you) really need to talk about what's important to you and what you can be flexible about, and know how to pick your battles. DO NOT be a momzilla. Birth is not the time to tap into your inner diva. While you should make decisions based on what you're comfortable with, you may also be paired with your nursing staff for a while, and it serves your best interest not to make enemies with the nursing staff. (I actually baked cookies and delivered them, along with thank-you notes, to my doctor's office and the nursing staff at the hospital afterwards. Those nurses stay up on their feet all night long and tend to your every need for hours on end; it certainly wouldn't hurt to show a little appreciation.)

Remember, you are paying A LOT of money to have this baby; as long as you're not putting your health or the health of your baby in jeopardy, it's your call how you deliver your child. Within reason (please use common sense, ladies), you cannot be forced into anything you don't want to do. Fight for what's important to you, and (again, barring emergencies) don't take no for an answer. The nursing staff and doctor work for you, not the other way around.

Speaking of special circumstances, know that these are not the Ten Commandments. If a special circumstance arises, please be flexible. At least listen to what the doctor has to say and make an informed decision. Do not be so married to these preferences that you panic if something doesn't go your way. The point is to be confident and in control.

Birth preferences for natural labor 
Courtney and Kelley Thompson, baby Liam 

People

• I would like my husband to stay with me at all times
• Please, no students or hospital staff other than doctor/practitioner/nurse in the room
• Visitors will only be allowed in room after birth 

 
Monitoring

• Self-hydrate with clear fluids, no IV or IV port if not medically necessary 
• Intermittent rather than continual blood pressure and heart/fetal monitoring

 Anesthesia/Pain Relief/Intervention

• Avoid artificial induction 
• Allow membranes to release naturally  
• Please do not offer pain medication or ask about pain level  
• Avoid episiotomy; I have been doing Kegels and perineal massage to minimize tearing 

 

Labor

• Quiet, calm, dimly lit labor and delivery room 
• Use of labor ball if needed 
• Freedom to move around or try different positions if needed  
• Mother-directed birth breathing, rather than forceful pushing   
• I would like to wear contact lenses or glasses 

 

After Birth

• Immediate skin-to-skin contact with mom
• Wait reasonable amount of time for cord to stop pulsing before cutting
• Dad to assist with cord-cutting
• Allow for natural placenta delivery
• Mom or dad to hold baby during routine vital check/eye drops, etc.
• Mom or dad to be present for circumcision
• Breastfeeding exclusively soon after birth, then every 2 ½-3 hours—no bottles/pacifiers

We have chosen Dr. Chris Radpour and the staff at Women’s East because we feel confident in their abilities and trust their experience and professionalism. In the event that a deviation from these preferences is medically necessary for the health of the mom and/or baby, we are open to your advice and recommendations and will be happy to cooperate.

We would like to create as serene a birthing environment as possible, with only the most necessary assistance. We feel that if this birthing process does not exactly follow the charting system, it is not necessarily cause for medical intervention. We would appreciate the opportunity to try natural methods to maintain labor progress.

Please feel free to message me or comment below if you have any questions!

Spice things up: hot and healthy jambalaya recipe

Being that I'm originally from Texas, I can't get enough of spicy foods. I like my food like I like bubble baths and men (or man, since I'm married): the hotter the better.

This jambalaya recipe that I got from my aunt is both delicious and pretty healthy, and since the temperature is dropping outside it's time to warm things up in the kitchen. This is super easy to make, and it can easily be toned down to your own tolerance level.

Ingredients:

White meat from a whole rotisserie chicken (I use traditional flavored), torn into chunks
1 package smoked turkey sausage (I use Oscar Mayer or Butterball)
1/2 stick butter, divided
1 can Rotel tomatoes and green chilies
1 can French onion soup (I use Campbell's Select; it's 18 ounces)
about 12 ounces of beef broth (I use 1/2 a container of Swanson's all natural)
Tabasco sauce
3 cups Uncle Ben's converted parboiled rice

In a large skillet, brown turkey sausage in 1 Tbsp butter on medium heat. Add chicken and heat well. Add tomatoes and chilies, stir and heat one minute. Add French onion soup, beef broth, and as much Tabasco sauce as you'd like; bring to a boil. Mix in rice. Bring to a boil again. Let simmer for about 15 minutes, or until rice is tender.

Pour into a 9x13 casserole dish. Slice remaining butter and scatter slices over the top of jambalaya. Cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Let stand for 5 minutes. Serve and enjoy.

My husband and I can eat a pan of this over several days. It's one of our favorite recipes!