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Nursing and Clean Eating

           Time to get back at it! At 6 weeks pp I tried going back to my diet and just didnt think my babe was getting enough milk due to not enough calories so I have kinda been making it up on my own. I am finally back to working out and pretty happy about it! I am already 3lbs down from 10 days ago.

What my meals are looking like-

Breakfast- 3 eggs, 1/2 cup of Brown Cow vanilla yogurt (I need to find one with less sugar) with a few berries, Advocare Rehydrate and Vivace shake which is completely organic/non gmo/grass fed.

Lunch is usually 3 chicken tenderloins (a pack at Sams Club for 2.18lb) I have stored in my fridge for eat day. I usually season with this Rosemary seasoning

Dinner is one of the frozen meals usually turkey burgers/meatballs or chicken with veggies. I snack on a Kashi chia seed granola bar- so yum! It is more sugar than I would like to have but I make sure I only have one a day. Cuties clementines are delish and I will have usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I also snack on a good peanut butter- almond butter is better for you but Im just not a fan. I now even get a bag of chocolate covered almonds (less than a pound) from Sprouts(aka best grocery store ever) and I share that with my hunny for the week so just 2-3 a day when I get that sugar low.

   I have also found, as weird as it may sound, organic black bean pasta is delish!!! We love it! Great for meatless Friday meal!


Once you're off the strict diet it gets a lot easier/better... when you eat out you find yourself ordering a burger with veggies(not fries) and you take off the bread or even only take off the top bun.You eventually pick or battles and think "will I have mashed potatoes or dessert?'' Trust me it does get better!

Pregnant and on the Candida diet

OLDER POST   

As I awoke and crept to step on the scale before my dear husband stirred and saw the numbers that made me feel as if I were an elephant, I ran to my mirror and noticed my face had blown up like a balloon....Over the course of just a few days...how does that happen? I ran back to my bed and searched "pregnant on the candida diet" for well over an hour. My DH was awoken to "honey I'm going back on my candida diet" I couldn't handle it and DIDN'T want to deal with all my weight after this little man arrives. I told him I was making a grocery list and my dear man is so patient with his shortlived enthusiastic wifey.... Sams club here we come!!!! My grocery list was short and sweet-

Lettuce
Carrots
Peppers
Asparagus
Cucumbers
Almond milk
Frozen berries
Avocados
Bananas
Eggs
Chicken
Spinach
Green apples

I knew I was going to have to modify the diet due to being in my 2nd trimester. So I'm not following it as strictly as before and was simply curious as to what would happen. The best part of the diet is that there is no such this as portion control and can eat 20x a day if I'd like which is the most important component to pregnancy. It's really simply ridding yourself of processed foods. My breakfasts consist of 3-4 scrambled eggs and my morning smoothie-

1/2 apple
1/3 banana
1/4 avocado
1/3 almond milk
1/2 berries
1/3 carrot
1T chlorophyll

So yummy and tasty when you can't have any sweets. With my BMI being overweight I am not worried if I lose a fee extra pounds since as I like to say the baby isn't in my face  I knew I would just be getting rid of any extra unnecessary fat.

My lunch is salad with a few chicken tenderloins. Same for dinner... After 5 days my face slimmed back down and I was down 2lbs without trying a single bit!!! All I want is a healthy baby whether I gained 5 or 50lbs and I didn't have a chance to lose how much I hoped for with baby #1. If I regulate my body now and get it used to eating clean I will be able to continue even after the baby arrives.

I did it!!! Homemade mayo

     
       
         Have you ever wondered what makes that delish mayo?? well Mr. Hellmann tells me his is made with REAL ingredients... like soybean oil and calcium disodium edta( those words even pop up as misspelled as I type them) and because we are always just whipping up disodium edta at my house....NOT! Edta is actually used for lead poisoning soo.....just eat mayo if you're concerned you have lead poisoning??

BUT IT'S REAL!! With real ingredients- liars! I guess you could argue that EDTA is real... I mean it is...just not the real I want. 

So Pinterest came to the rescue as usual.

One egg and one cup of oil- I used extra virgin olive oil and it was pretty strong but tasty. I whipped it up and we love it! 

2 Weeks PP

        Today I am two weeks postpartum and down 13 pounds out of 19lbs!!!! I am so very very happy! All those brownies, ice cream, toast with peanut butter, Chick fil a nuggets that weren't eaten are soo worth it. The instant gratification of eating what you're craving is SOOO not worth the pounds that aren't so instantly gone and definitely not so gratifying.   I also realized that as of today I weigh less today at 2 weeks pp than I did last July at 3 MONTHS pp! So that was super exciting! Here is my last pregnancy photo and my 2 week pp photo!

                                                                                               

Nursing Dress Adventure (for sure)!

      So I wrote this post while I was expecting but was a little leery about publishing it before I actually tried it and it actually works!! It was extremely simple and zero hassle....

-the inexperienced 2 week nursing mother

     

        As maternity clothes wearing comes to close for me a new chapter begins- nursing approved clothing... I'm not sure which will be more challenging. I love wearing dresses, especially ones that have boat necks so I knew that wouldn't last with nursing.....or perhaps it can??? I found this adorable dress from Sweet Mommy-  and just thought the entire concept was the most amazing idea ever!!! Why can't Americans be as ingenious as the Europeans(or anyone else in the world!)

It is simply 2 invisible zippers in the princess seams!!!!

I really just didn't want three million knit crisscross dresses. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure how how they make it work and see if I could construct my own dress for way less the cost. I began by going through all our patterns in search of a dress with princess seams. I found this New Look pattern that looked practically the same

I cut out a little larger size than I would normally to make room for the two invisible zippers. I used regular zippers from JoAnn's but then realized they were a little stiff, wearable, but stiff non the less. I found Zipper Shipper mesh zippers....they are headed my way and I will try them on the next dress. update-This mesh zipper is much more pliable than your normal zipper, I will use the mesh zippers for the princess seams and regular for the back seam. So I began by cutting out the fabric (what a surprise right?)

As you can see I did shorten the bodice a bit I believe 1.5" just to be a little forgiving with a after baby look. I must admit it is a bit of a challenge creating a non maternity dress and in your 3rd trimester ;) 

This is where I added in the zippers before doing anything else

 So I began by just pinning and make sure your zipper IS upside down you definitely don't want the zipper tabs to be at the top while closed(you want it to hide under the dress tie when completed) Update- I did do it a little differently on my following dress making the lining first, in order that the bodice could be lined. Here are a few pictures showing how to line it then add the zippers

So you can see that the top is already lined I simply am sewing the princess seams and my zippers are in the princess seams

By the way these mesh zippers are AMAZING and much easier to use! I highly recommend them!

Then I sewed the shoulder seams- be sure to clip the edges to ensure as little bulk as possible where the zippers are-

Ta-da!!!!!!

Can you even tell there are zippers there?!?!?! 

Then I added the skirt and it is a pleated skirt I didn't follow the pattern for the pleats and simply added one pleat under each zipper(to help distract from the pp tummy) and in the back one under each dart(in the back)

Now since this was my first try and no sleeves were added so I plan on wearing a light sweater I didn't mind if the zippers on this one puckered a little. 

The finished tie is 70" long and 3" wide.  

I wore one on Easter and it was great!

French maternity pattern

If you're pregnant and have looked for maternity patterns you know how wearing it is! During my last pregnancy I used several different patterns and SOMEHOW made a dress-

I was determined to find an actual pattern. So I did a lot of research on Pinterest and found a french pattern- http://www.deuxiemearrondissement.bigcartel.com/product/robe-minuit 

In my desperation, I bought it...and totally looked past the point that I can't read French....but I dove in anyways buying 4 fabrics (as you can see I use different fabrics during this post). Thanks to my wonderful Mama I was able to decipher the directions but loved the simplicity and efficiency of the Europeans. I couldn't believe when I opened my package and found only this- 

                                                                             

                                                                   Yep, that's all of it!!!

I have never made a dress on the bias so kind Momma helped me by explaining how to cut on the bias.  We started with 3 1/2 yards and  was more than enough but better safe than sorry. I would definitely suggest a trial run or two before starting in but I just got lucky on the size.

 NOTE- EUROPEAN APPAREL FABRIC IS MUCH WIDER, UNLIKE AMERICAN FABRICS SO I WAS UNABLE TO CUT ON THE FOLD SO HERE IS HOW TO CUT ON THE BIAS. (SEAMS WILL BE ON FRONT AND BACK.)

We began by folding the fabric in half (it just worked out that I needed exactly half of 3.5 yards for the length of my skirt but would make it shorter next time). We used a marker to help us keep the grain line

                                 As you can see we just drew an arrow pointing downward

                               
               Then  at the fold we drew  another arrow but reassuring ourselves that if we unfolded the                                      fabric the arrows would be pointing in the same direction. 

 

Cutting on the bias but hopefully its easier to understand with these confusing pictures-  I have circled the piece of fabric that has the 2nd arrow

I cut a size large (the French must be VERY small) and with jersey knit it was pretty big so I made my seams along the "20" marker on the machine and for a not so stretchy fabric it was a little snug around the arms and bust so I am stitching at the 10 marker.

Happy Sewing

First- Sew the darts and sew the shoulder seams 

The main reason I love this dress is that there is no zipper! It has a teardrop opening in the back and its super simple!

sew the 2 facing pieces together and right sides together pin to bodice. Make sure the shoulder seams are lined up.

And pin all the way around it.

Stitch around and its easiest to stitch the teardrop last.

You can't see in the picture but I drew with a pen a teardrop shape and sewed around that...

Finished!

Now clip around the INSIDE of the circle 

clip the edges

Now for the sleeves-

Pin the sleeves right sides together

And stitch the sides of the sleeve and the sides

and attach it to the skirt!

            


                                                        Troubleshooting

If your skirt seams are WAY off like mine are (2nd dress I've done this to) What happened was that you sewed the side seams together and your seams