My Body, My Birth Badge, My Choice

I came across this image in my Facebook feed today. Take a moment to read its message...

That's a tall order for me currently.

I've always been dumpy to a degree, even back in primary school. I'm now a size 18 and not in great physical shape. At just under eight weeks postpartum I am out of maternity clothes and back into my jeans, which I am pleased about, but it's hardly the size and shape I want to be.

I've never had a huge amount of confidence in my appearance and to a degree have chosen to ignore my extra pounds, wearing baggy clothes and using a vast amount of boisterous character to distract. I guess it works more or less, but I certainly feel as though I'm the token tubber in my circle of friends.

Part of that lack of confidence can probably be attributed to my mother, who has always struggled with weight and has been on one diet or another for my entire life. It's worth noting that she recently found the diet that worked for her and has lost over four stone. It's also worth noting that having lost that weight she's been commenting on mine in her own inimitable style, for example she was concerned that I was actually putting on weight in pregnancy. There have been a few other unhelpful comments, none of them intended to hurt but still slightly infuriating.

I really don't want to pass that lack of confidence down another generation to Baby Badger (or Badger Cub for that matter, because image is also so important to boys nowadays), so it looks as though I need to give myself a virtual kick up the backside.

My Body. I have no one to blame but myself, but that also means that no one other than me is standing in my way.

My Birth Badge. I was talking to Father Badger earlier this evening about my stretch marks. I actually don't mind them: I've never been one for bikinis, so he and the little Badgers are the only ones likely to see them. I see them as a birth badge of honour, which is a good thing really - I really was huge by the time Badger Cub came out and the pattern on my tummy looks like a good bowl of spaghetti! I would however like them to be sitting on a tummy that was a bit less wobbly.

My Choice. It's up to me, entirely my choice, my decision, to get off my backside and do something about this. And it's time to do it.

Image: onyababy.com

Sweepstake: less cake or more spinach?

As a result of my referral to the consultant because of Baby Badger's early and precipitous delivery, I was booked in for a fasting glucose tolerance test and told that otherwise they were releasing me to midwife care and weren't interested in seeing me again. That was absolutely fine with me - it's a pain to travel to the main county hospital.

Wednesday was the day I became the human pin cushion. I fasted from after dinner the previous night and arrived at the surgery for my first blood test at 8:20 - absolutely starving, as I get up at 6am and don't do well without breakfast! The nurse seemed to take pity on me and said she would use a fine needle since she'd be doing it three times. Three vials came from the first needle, then I was packed off into the waiting room to drink half a litre of Lucozade.

I'd like to point out that I hate Lucozade. I also don't really drink fizzy drinks, so the result was that not only did I have to taste the Lucozade on the way down but also every few minutes as I burped over the next half hour.

9:15 and back in for another needle and another vial, the same at 10:20. Three holes in two arms, and five vials taken. Finally after this I got to eat the banana in my bag, ridding myself of the awful taste of Lucozade and making me feel slightly less light-headed and grumpy.

Twenty minutes later and I had my midwife appointment. The first thing they asked me? Did the nurse take the bloods we need? A quick check and the answer was no, so in went needle number four and two more vials. No fine needle this time either, but a whopping great needle poked in by the student midwife. Let's just say the bruise has developed to a nice black and purple medley.

As for the sweepstake? I returned from work on Friday to an answerphone message from the doctor: "it's nothing to be too worried about, but please call me about your blood test results...". Obviously, I got the message too late to call, so I'll have to wait until Monday to find out!

So, do you think I need to eat less cake (gestational diabetes), more spinach (anaemia) or both? Or something more exotic, but mentally I'm ruling that out. I'm doing what any self-respecting mum to be would do and eating as much chocolate as possible this weekend in case it goes on the banned list on Monday.

Image courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Improvements and blunders

I've not written much recently because things have really been getting on top of me: stupid pressure at work including trips away from home; never ending colds; generally feeling down. I finally feel as though things are on the up.

At the weekend I had a lie in both days then I spent most of the daylight hours in the garden weeding and chopping at the hedge. I went for a jog both days. I cooked two pretty decent meals, and over the week lost a couple of pounds.

It's amazing what a difference some sleep, some fresh air and exercise and a bit of a confidence boost can have!

Today I was especially tired from the aforementioned fresh air and exercise. So much so that a) I turned up to a dentist appointment 24 hours early and b) I lodged my foot well and truly in my mouth by asking if a colleague in another office had left the business only to find out they'd died before Christmas...

To finish on a positive note, we just watched Little Miss Sunshine. I've not laughed that much in quite a while!

Image: Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Happy Birthday to me...!

Happy birthday to me!
Happy birthday dear ****!
Happy birthday to me!

No, I'm not telling you how old I am, but it's somewhere between 30 and 40 and it's not a prime number.

For the last few weeks I've had the usual questions about what I want for a present, and the honest truth is nothing. There's nothing I'm itching to have and nothing particularly I need, and I really don't see the point of people buying me something for the sake of buying me a present.

I had a lovely pre-birthday. Yesterday, as their "present" to me, Father Badger's mum and sister came round and helped me weed a flowerbed. You've not seen the state of my neglected garden, so you don't really get the scale of their generosity! It's gone from three feet high nettles, goose grass, twitch and other assorted weeds to neatly isolated plants surrounded by bare earth. Wow. I say again: wow.

I also had a lovely birthday today. Father Badger took the day off work. He and Baby Badger ran errands this morning, leaving me to lie in until 9:30, I had breakfast cooked for me and then I relaxed in a lovely hot bath to melt away the aches from yesterday's gardening. Once I was up and dressed we went off to a local farm centre to show Baby Badger dexter cattle, geese and alpacas (but mallard ducks waddling past, quacking, were definitely her favourite). We had a lovely lunch at the cafe, with Baby Badger happily scoffing our peas, potatoes and spinach (and a sneaky bit of chocolate pudding). It has truly been a lovely family day together.

As an added bonus to the day, I stepped on the scales this morning to see my change of attitude this past week has paid off: 4lb lighter than last Monday! I've enjoyed a day off with extravagant breakfast and pudding at lunchtime, but I'll knuckle down again tomorrow and see what this week can achieve.

Image: Rawich / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Steps, sleep and missing my mocha!

Baby Badger has now been in her cotbed in the nursery for two weeks, and is doing remarkably well. She has been sleeping from 11pm until 7am quite happily, so I decided it's now time to work on an earlier bedtime so that we're established with a good night's sleep and a 6:30 start in time for my return to work in June. Obviously, it was never going to go smoothly.

Monday evening went well: she was in bed asleep at 7:45 ready for my mum to babysit for an hour or so, but woke soon after 10 (luckily I was home) screaming at the top of her lungs for milk - screaming so hard that she gave herself hiccups! I got her back off to sleep again, and she woke again at 3am. I've reminded myself that compared to a few months ago when she was waking 2-3 times per night, this was actually a good night! After the recent luxury of a full night's sleep, it didn't feel so good...

I'll put forward my excuses now: after a disturbed night, day two of the new healthier me was not quite as good as day one. I had two biscuits at Baby Signing, but I did skip my usual (much enjoyed mocha) and get a  mug of tea instead. I'm not sure that entirely balances out, but it's a step in the right direction! Speaking of steps, I managed 5,777 of them, again with a 20lb Baby Badger strapped to the front of me for most of them. She did do her best to help me make up for it however, as she ate going on half of my chilli pasta bake at Baby Lunchbox! Don't you just love Baby Led Weaning?!

Image: Michelle Meiklejohn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A new healthier me: day one

Today is day one of a new healthier me.

I'm not expecting overnight miracles. I'm not expecting to drop all my bad eating habits overnight. I'm going to try to chip away bit by bit at the unhealthy me; try to make each day slightly better than the last.

Today started with a few aches after a lot of digging in the garden yesterday, but I dragged myself out of bed as soon as Baby Badger had finished her first booby feed at around half past seven and got on with the day.

Food-wise it's an improvement on recent weeks. Muesli for brekkie, and toasted bagels with cheese, olives and apple for lunch (shared with Baby Badger). I had a slice of toast with marmalade mid-afternoon, which shouldn't have snuck in there, but hey ho. Dinner was chicken, boiled potatoes and asparagus with a little mayo. Also, only three mugs of tea today so, on balance, a pretty good day.

What about the dreaded exercise? My pedometer says I've done 6,015 steps, and most of those were done in my MBTs*. A good 3,00 or so were done with my 11 month old daughter in a sling, so that's got to count for something!

I'm counting today as a success. Roll on day two.

* If you don't know what MBTs are, check out the UK MBT website where they explain the benefits. I can honestly say that my leg and bum muscles feel like I've spent hours in the gym!

Image: www.milletsports.co.uk

Tomorrow is the start of something new

It's been a good weekend. I spent a lot of yesterday pottering around, not getting a lot done other than relaxing and playing with Father Badger and Baby Badger.

Today was more productive: a lot of digging and weeding in the garden, plenty of laundry (boring) and a bit more playing - this time with the sticklebricks I found on a stall at a fete last weekend. Father Badger showed his typically male tendencies by immediately building a robot and something gun-shaped. I followed up with my OCD tendencies and filed them neatly into similar shape piles...

All dinner plans went out of the window as I was still digging at half past six, and we ended up having a takeaway. Obviously Baby Badger didn't have takeaway: she had yoghurt and banana, feeding herself like a big girl. Only she's not a big girl, she's 11 months old, so obviously a fair amount of the yoghurt ended up on her face, the floor, the chair, my shoulder (how?).

Tonight's takeaway is one (or possibly ten) takeaway too far. I've been thinking a lot lately about my health and weight, which is a good couple of stone too high. I've been trying to assess what goes wrong. I'm intelligent and educated: I know what I should eat, how much exercise I should get. I understand that a lot of the time I eat the right foods but too much of them. I also acknowledge that I am an emotional eater and can happily trough an entire 100g chocolate bar in one go if I think I'll feel better at the end of it.

What it appears to boil down to is willpower and motivation. A few mums have been tweeting about Thinking Slimmer, which claims to change your attitude to food rather than putting you on a diet. It sounds exactly what I need, even if I am a little sceptical.

Image: sundayhill / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Who said romance is dead?

I'll let you into a secret. I'm not romantic. Father Badger is the romantic one. One year my birthday present was a flower every Monday morning for a year, and he didn't miss a single week. Admittedly one week the flower was an ornamental cabbage but it does at least have originality!

The past few Valentine's Day presents have been homemade truffles (yum!) and one year a cookery book, which could be considered dubious on the romance front if you don't know him - the way to his heart is definitely through his stomach. I have to admit that I don't really subscribe to the whole Valentine thing (you see that romantic side coming out of me?), but I do get a card, mainly because I enjoy looking around for something fun and non-slushy. All I need on Valentine's Day is a hug and for Father Badger to tell me he loves me, but we do that every evening anyway.

Lately I've been getting really down about the remaining baby weight that isn't coming off. I do admit that it's at least partly due to the cake and biscuits(!), but when I don't get a good night's sleep I honestly struggle without a sugar fix. And I don't believe I've had a good night's sleep in the last year (probably sounding very familiar to you all...).

So... what do you think Father Badger gave me for Valentines Day this year? It shows that he cares, that he (sometimes) listens to me and, although again it's not what some would call romantic, I love him for the thought he put into it.

He got me three sessions with a personal trainer! Time to shift those lardons...

Image: Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Importance of Icecream

I've struggled with my weight most of my life. I started secondary school overweight and put on extra since university. I've never been huge but certainly slipped into the obese category on the BMI charts. I say "struggled" but, truth be known, I put very little effort into dealing with it until recently.

The big push came last year: I decided that it was soon going to be time to start a family and if I couldn't lose the weight before having a baby I certainly wasn't going to lose it afterwards. I also wanted to make sure I was as healthy as possible in pregnancy. I lost just over two stone from late January to September; nothing meteoric, but a good steady, maintainable pace. I came off the pill, waited for my first real period and then we started trying. Father Badger was rather disappointed: we'd told ourselves that it could take months of trying and he was looking forward to the process, but I was pregnant within a few weeks!

Morning sickness kicked off the weight gain: I was never sick, but required regular doses of "absorbant" food (such as Marmite on toast) to suppress the nausea. By month four the nausea had been replaced by permanent hunger and by the time Baby Badger arrived I was three stone heavier. I told myself that pregnancy was not the time to worry about it, nor were the first few months after the birth.

My period of grace is over... I've lost a stone and a half of the weight through the birth and retained fluid gradually leaving my system. Breastfeeding has no doubt also played a huge part in controlling my weight as I feed my continuingly large appetite. I have, unfortunately, developed a passion for Ben and Jerry's icecream, and I'm just not willing to go cold turkey so I've had to resort to exercise!

This evening I managed my fourth post-baby jog around the village (a mile and a half), this time without slowing to a walk, and I've signed up for a 10km road race in December. I fully expect to be last across the line but if I am it doesn't matter - it's something to aim for, something I'm doing purely for me.

Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net