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Lately, in random bullet points

March 15, 2017

It’s full-blown spring here today. Blossoms about to pop into bloom, temperatures creeping up past the mid 70s, and so much wind. A month from now we’ll be buried in 22 inches of snow, I predict, so I try to keep my expectations low this time of year, because for every margarita-on-the-patio kind of afternoon Denver hands out in March, she predictably levies a devastating penalty in the form of spring blizzards come April and May. And sometimes (gulp) June.

But, it’s lovely. It’s lovely to be able to kick the kids outside after school, and to run around with them barefoot with a soccer ball. And oh, speaking of backyards, here’s a little glimpse of our new one:

Let them dissect my broken blowdryer. Very STEM.

That’s right, we moved. #again. It’s a temporary stint in a town north of Denver, in the home of some friends who are living oversees right now, whilst our pristine, staged and mostly packed home sits on the market (hopefully not for much longer, c’mon St. Joseph!) and we search for a new one.

The short version of the “why in the name of all that is good and reasonable would you move twice in 7 months with 4 children” is that our house, a fixer upper if ever the term were applicable, has been fixed. To the level of our competence, and then some. About 2 months ago, after a major construction project in the basement necessitating lots of professionals and lot$$$s of drywall and electrical work, we kinda threw our hands up and were like, um, what are we doing?

We are not handy people. Painting, laying flooring, some light caulking? Sure. We can handle that. But when walls started having to come down, it turned out we’d gotten in over our heads. Happily for us, the market is white hot here in the Denver metro area, and so when we finished up the last bit of work in the basement in February, we made the call to list it, because hey, we don’t love it. And we didn’t relish the notion of spending the next 4 years of weekends at Home Depot. We have had so much peace (after the initial “wth are we actually thinking about doing this???), and it was very providential the way the dominos all fell, including having this amazing home to stay in while we sell it, thanks to the generous hospitality of friends.

So, this whole situation may seem a little crazy to some people, but we’re okay with that. We’ve done plenty of things in the short 7.5 years we’ve been married that have been conventionally crazy. We figured, why stay in a house that doesn’t work for our family while we’re in the business of raising that family? We’d rather get into something smaller, if necessary, if it means we can have our nights and weekends back and can actually spend time together when we’re home. The house was less than ideal before the cascade of interventions, and so this time, we’ll look smarter at things that really do matter with a larger family, like a sleepy street with less traffic, a more suburban location, and a better floorpan that allows for common areas where the 6 of us (plus our large extended families) can gather.

Come on, St. Joseph. You’ve got 5 more days.

Looks good without people living there, doesn’t it?

There are some bonuses about this extended staycation situation we’ve entered into, including living in a totally different part of our area that we’d never spend time in otherwise (new parks, friends we don’t usually see, a new parish) and it’s interesting and fun and inconvenient all rolled into one. It has been fun to see familiar faces we only get to see at holiday events or big parties, and it is interesting to see life in a different parish, and to feel both welcomed and totally, totally off our game because our kids are struggling with the layout/lack of grandparent support/different Mass times. It’s given me a deep appreciation for how wonderful our parish really is, and how much of it we take for granted. Also? The drive. OMG THE DRIVING. We didn’t pull the kids out of school because we knew the commute was possible (the family whose home we’re borrowing were also students in our school) but hot damn, going from a leisurely 7 am wakeup and out-the-door-with-daddy by 7:40 am to reveille at still-dark thirty and a frantic scrambling of eggs, cinching of belts, making of lunches and slurping of espressos – and all before 7 am – has been shocking. I know that most grown ups live this way. I just never wanted to be one of them.

“Let’s all go grocery shopping in the snow at 4 pm, it’ll be great!”

My Lenten practice has been to get up early and pray before the kids, which means something starting with a 5. This is not a happy reality for me, but surprisingly, my internal clock has adjusted and I have been waking up on my own around 5:40 most mornings. I have to go to be no later than 10 now, but I should be doing that anyway because, adulthood. It’s been a good practice in self discipline, which I sorely lack. But boy, by 7pm every night, I am d.o.n.e. with parenting, dishes, mopping, answering emails, all of it. So the standards of cleanliness are relaxing, and my need to sit and chill with the kids at night is taking precedence over the need to shine that empty sink or get one more hour or writing squeezed in.

Probably it’s a better way to live. But it has been hard. It’s like I was still coasting on the fumes of survival mode mothering and now I’ve been thrust into the bigger-leagues of “you no longer have any free time during the day unless you guard that 45 minutes of quiet time like a prison sergeant,” because without predictable nap times (hello, crazy school pickup commute and car naps) and without my beloved mother’s helper who is now a good 45 minutes south of us, I’ve been boots on the ground in it in a way I have become unaccustomed to. In some ways it reminds me of our year in Rome, minus the good coffee, the beautiful churches, and the astonishing loneliness. I guess it just reminds me of having to be more self-sufficient and learning to navigate a strange new place (but still, Target. And a mini van.) and not being able to call a friend or sister 5 minutes down the road for some back up babysitting or a quick La Croix.

And, speaking of La Croix. I have a problem.

Next week I’ll be doing a live teaching event for Blessed is She and I’m kind of nervous. I’ve got plenty of speaking experience under my belt from various mom’s groups, conferences, and retreats I’ve participated in over the years, but for some reason doing it remotely behind a computer screen has me a little more jittery. I mean, I don’t love public speaking to begin with, but I can do it. And afterwards there’s inevitably the huge smile and endorphin rush “I can’t believe I did that!” Anyway, if you want to follow along, you can resister here (and with a Blessed is She membership you have access to all this content, which is so good. I’ve listened to a couple amazing talks this month while I’ve been preparing mine – this one is especially good) and tune in next Wednesday night, 3/22, at 9 pm EST for “Grocery Store Evangelization: engaging in the missionary apostolate of your ordinary life”

I’ve spent the past year and some change experimenting with various dietary restrictions, having blood work and hormone levels checked, and adding different combinations of supplements to the mix. It seems like I might have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (I have been hypothyroid since my teens, and on thyroid meds) which is an autoimmune thyroid disease, and is a little overwhelming in terms of the lifestyle changes it demands, but, happily, for lots of people, it can be treated really effectively that way.

I’ve been gluten free for about a year (minus the inevitable gluten exposure from restaurant eating) and it has helped a lot, and now it seems that cutting out dairy is the next step. Which is …. uggggggggh. Just ugh. I love cheese and ranch. But not so much that I want to keep feeling like crap.

So, gosh, that aspirational stuff about God choosing your Lent and all that. Yes. (Did I mention that wine seems to be a terrible culprit too. 5 months off the mommy juice now, and missing it still.) Tequila and vodka seem to be tolerable, in small and occasional amounts, but I’m getting to be a really, really lame happy hour buddy. I have some girlfriends who are also exploring health problems right now and the persistent joke among us has been “welcome to your 30s, when everything falls apart.”

I’ve also crashed and burned with THM and have been trying to reincorporate the most helpful pieces of it (namely, the stable blood sugar levels that it delivers) but haven’t been following it religiously by any means. And that’s starting to show up on the scale. Or it’s stress that is showing up. But regardless, trying to get back in the habit of balancing out my meals with protein and separating fats and carbs by several hours. It really does help prevent crashy afternoon syndrome, and I still have about 18 stubborn “baby” (read: cool ranch dorito) pounds to shed.

Anything else missing from this novella? Oh, yes, I’m back on Instagram. It’s much more addictive than I remember, so I’m trying to only use it certain days of the week, and to resist the pull of the stoplight/carline scroll. It’s hard!

Finally, any good reading recommendations that don’t involve World War II? I’m a little burnt out on the genre after a slew of fantastic reads, and I’d like to get into some other fiction. Currently reading THM (again), this fantastic book Ignatius sent me to review, and something about some guy in Moscow that Kindle recommended to me that I do not love, at least not enough to recall the title.

Happy hump day, may yours be filled with daffodils and spicy water.

motherhood, self care, THM, Trim Healthy Mama, Women's Health

Trim Healthy Mama: a {sorta} quick low down

October 6, 2016

So there’s this book that is about the thickness of a local phonebook, at least in it’s first edition. Which I did not read, because the revised second edition is what populated on my Kindle after no library wait at all (mysterious, for a friend tells me she is 50 out of 70-something on her library system’s waitlist. Guess I got lucky). And I read this book, in about a day or five, and it seemed to be sensible advice, if a little magical in thinking.

riiiiight, keep fats and carbs separated by at least 3 hours at mealtimes, and shoot for lots of protein and add a little collagen or gelatin to these smoothies and above all AVOID THE SUGAR.

And the weight will drop off.

But then, imagine my surprise when things indeed did start to move south on the scale. Though if you’re familiar with Dwija’s instagram, perhaps you already knew the punchline. #wow.

I’m not saying this is the simplest eating plan in the world to follow, because there is definitely a learning curve for how to properly combine (or rather, to not combine) fats and carbohydrates, but it does hold a significant advantage over, say, the Whole 30 because it doesn’t cut out entire food groups, nor does it require Draconian adherence to the rules. My favorite line of the sister-authors is “you’re only 3 hours away from your next slimming meal.” because I’d wager I’m not the first one to have ever blown a diet by letting a french fry or two slip through and then WELP, GUESS WE’LL START OVER ON MONDAY (shovels McFlurry into mouth.)

I like the balanced, this-is-how-a-grown-up-eats approach, and above all the lack of a starvation or total depravation angle. And the constant refrain that you are choosing to eat this way, and if you choose to “cheat,” it’s simply that: a choice. And one that doesn’t need to be filed under “shameful failure, do not proceed.”

One of the sisters is more of a natural foodie/purist who delights in fermenting her own sourdough and cultivating her own scobys (scratches head over spelling) for home brewed kombucha. The other one eats movie theater popcorn when she’s on a date with her husband. And then moves on.

That concept is the one I really like. The “make-the-choice-that-works-right-now-because-it’s-a-Christmas-party,” but that doesn’t careen into a spiral of shame and late-night burrito choices just because you “cheated.”

In other words, I think this must be what it’s like to eat like a grown up. And as a woman who was once, for a very prolonged period, a girl and then a young woman with an eating disorder, that has been a tricky balance to achieve. And continues to be. But I love the freedom THM gives, since you can eat pretty much all good food. Just not all at the same time.

Let me explain in a few quick paragraphs the basic parameters of the plan: (and this is as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s, so if your eyes are glazing over, feel free to disappear.)

Don’t eat fats and carbs at the same time. Your meals are either E (energizing) or S (satisfying), and always built around protein. Now, this is an admittedly sad rule, because apples and peanut butter do not play nicely together in this universe. But! It’s for the sake of stable blood sugar, which, in turn, leads to pounds dropping off.
The authors purport that your body runs on a twin engine metabolism, burning either fat or glucose, and if you give it one of the two available fuel sources at a time, it will burn through that one injection of fuel and then look to your stored energy supply (read: fat) and start burning through that next. (This is the part that seemed a little wishful to me. But at 14 pounds lighter, I can’t be too skeptical.)
If you give your body both fats and carbs (glucose) in the same meal, your body will burn through both, never kicking into the reserve drive and burning your own stored fuel. If the meals are well-balanced, they’re known as an C meal, or a crossover. This is what pregnant or nursing women should shoot for to experience even, healthy weight gain (and then loss), and ensure a healthy milk supply. Is also a good template for growing children who are in no need of weight loss, but who can definitely reap the benefits of stable blood sugar. These meals look like more typical “healthy” meals: baked potatoes with butter plus steak or chicken plus grilled vegetables. All of those foods are good and healthy, but if you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll want to skip the butter on the potato (and swap it for a more glycemic-friendly sweet potato) and make sure the steak or chicken is a lean cut. Ooooor, swap the potato out entirely for a pile of broccoli or asparagus brushed with melted butter and loaded up with melted cheese and maybe some bacon. And maybe add a little crumbled blue cheese to the steak.
So, an E-meal might be: a bowl of oatmeal with a few berries on top + low fat cottage cheese + a sprinkle of a blood sugar safe sweetener (stevia or something like it. No fake sweeteners though, and no “natural” sugars like honey or maple syrup, since they’re still sugar once they hit your bloodstream.)
And a S-meal might look like a plate of bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee with cream (and a little collagen power mixed into it. Because it’s tasteless and mixes well into hot things, and adds as super punch of protein.)
And a Crossover meal might look like a Caesar salad with grilled salmon and a side of roasted sweet potatoes drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan. Fats and carbs, but evenly balanced. Won’t make you lose or gain weight.
There are also things called Fuel Puels, which as best as I can figure, are super low calorie snacks to tide you over or to help move the needle if you’re really wanting the weight to come off quicker. These would include smoothies made with almond milk, clean whey powder, a little cocoa powder and some of their approved sweetener, and maybe with a little frozen okra (one of their favorite ingredients for gut health, and surprisingly wonderful at providing thickness in soups, stews, and smoothies) and a handful of frozen berries tossed in. Another good fuel pull option might be some celery with low fat cream cheese. Or an apple with a couple almonds. These FP meals/snacks are the part of this whole program that feel the most “diet-y” to me, and the authors emphasize that they are optional upgrades for people looking to move the needle quicker, or are experiencing major blood sugar resistance.
Eat every 3 hours during the day. And don’t eat much, as a rule, after dinner time. It sends a mixed signal to your body when it should be switching into a different metabolic mode for sleep, and it keeps your blood sugar elevated when it should be tapering off in a healthy way as your metabolism winds down.
If you’re having an E breakfast and are hungry again in an hour or less, you can have a snack, but it needs to also be an “E.” Same with S’s. Match your closely-spaced (closer than 3 hours) snacks to your meals, if you must have them, or else you’ll trigger that cross-over mode where you’re burning both fuels and therefore not losing weight.
Don’t get stuck in a rut. As a dyed-in-the-wool early adapter of Paleo/Whole 30/Atkins/Southbeach/whaterver high protein thing is currently popular, it’s a little scary for me to eat oatmeal for breakfast without accompanying fats. Or to eat a dinner that includes brown rice or sweet potatoes but not butter and olive oil. But my body (so I guess bodies in general, if I can make a wild inference) likes the variety. So even though it’s tempting to eat nothing but S meals (because cheese), it seems to work best if I mix in at least 5 or 6 E meals a week.
Don’t take it too seriously. Obviously I veered wildly off the rails in Italy and drank all the wines and slurped all the cappuccinos. But because I don’t eat gluten, I couldn’t go too wild, so no pastries at breakfast and no cones with my gelato. And GF pasta tastes like sadness the world over, so even dinner was a somewhat subdued affair. But, I still managed to return to America with an irritated sweet tooth that is having trouble setting down. La dolce vita not for nothing.
You can do this no matter what your eating/cooking style is. Like to eat Paleo? This works for that. Like buying a lot of pre made ingredients and hitting up the drive though? Works for that, too. Don’t want to cook separate meals for your people? Definitely works for that. I’ve been making lots of sweet potatoes and rice and quinoa on the side and I either eat it or I don’t, but the kids hardly notice I’ve been cooking differently. We already don’t eat buns with burgers or brats, and if it’s Mexican night I just offer them corn tortillas or taco shells and wrap mine in lettuce. Which is the hardest part of this whole affair for me, so 60% of the time, I eat the dang tortilla. It’s a long game.

My hope is that this kind of lengthy synopsis is helpful to someone getting started with THM, and to anyone (hi, Christy!) who doesn’t feel like slogging through the entire book. But this is by no means exhaustive. I’ve found a couple great blogs for THM recipes, and there’s a ton on Pinterest. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes very second nature, and it’s easy enough to reset after, say, 11 straight days of “cheating” in a foreign country. Or trick or treating, I’d imagine.

This is not a great before and after shot, it’s more of a progress shot. But you can tell in the (sorry, blurry) left picture from August that I still look vaguely pregnant and my face and arms are bigger. Everything has slimmed out a little bit in the picture on the right, taken earlier this week, and while I don’t look pregnant anymore (yay!), I probably have another 20-25 pounds to go. Which is fine. Piano, piano. (Oh, and Dave has also lost about 7 pounds just from eating what I’m serving. Which is a pretty awesome bystander effect.)