Losing Pregnancy Weight part 2

Wow, comments that get my juices going already. Lord, help me in this. Aria seems like she might wake up soon, but I still want to attempt to write some thoughts.

What is it about being a mom that suddenly makes us want to be healthy? Maybe it's the fact that we have children who are depending on us, completely dependent in some cases, suddenly we realize that our bodies are not meant to be trashed. At least that was my realization. I think when my body was just my own I thought, "It doesn't matter what happens to me, I can do whatever I want to my body." Then when I got married I realized it also belonged to Ben and it mattered to him. Now that I have babies, it matters to many more people than just me. :)

Another thing is just the fact that I want to teach my children to be healthy and how can I do that if I am unhealthy? Especially having a daughter, I want her to grow up knowing how beautiful she is and that she doesn't have to look like the girl on the cover of a magazine. I don't want her to struggle with binge eating the way I did and hate herself the way I did. I think I'm just going to have to pray about that one.

For some reason this thought just came to my mind, I don't know, maybe someone reading this just needed to hear this. Speaking of magazines... I want to encourage you NOT to look at magazine covers. I want to encourage you not to watch television shows with perfect looking, anorexic women whose hair and makeup is always amazing. I want to encourage you not to go looking through your friends perfect pictures on Facebook... I don't know. What I mean is that we as women have this horrible tendency to compare ourselves to other women. What I want to do is start looking at reality. When you are in line at the grocery store and have a tendency to gaze at those stupid magazines of women in their tiny bikini's (who really wants to see that anyways?) or how this movie star is "looking better than ever" I want you to just look up. Look at the old lady in front of you, look at how amazing her wrinkles are, think about how much life she has lived and pray that when you are that age you won't regret throwing away this season wishing you were someone else. Look at the guy who is checking the groceries, think about how he has a family and he is doing his best to provide for his wife and kids, pray for him. Look at all the different amazing shapes and sizes of people around you, listen to the tones of voices that God created all around and just be amazed at the creativity of God.

I want to stop looking at what Hollywood or whoever it is that is telling us what is or isn't beautiful. I want to start listening to what God thinks and sees as beautiful and worship Him in that place. I guarantee that if you leave the grocery store thinking about how great God is rather than thinking about how fat you look you will be less likely to go home and be depressed and just want to eat everything.

Okay, sorry, that was a little preachy, but I just had to say it.

I'm also going to post some advice to nursing mothers on keeping up a good milk supply. It will really help with the losing weight thing if you can be sure and nurse a lot. Make sure and drink lots of water. Drink drink drink. If you don't drink enough water then your body won't be able to make enough milk. Another way to stimulate more milk production is to just nurse a lot. Every 2-3 hours at first and make sure they nurse for 20 minutes on each side. Sometimes I even think of myself as a human pacifier, that when Aria is not happy I will just nurse her. She wants to suck, all I'm really doing is just hanging out, so why not nurse? I feel like sometimes Dr's look to just giving the baby formula too quickly and don't try to get the mom's milk supply up. I remember when Levi was about eight months old we went on a two week vacation and for some reason he decided that he suddenly wanted to nurse every two hours even through the night. I was waking up about 4 times a night to feed him. It was ridiculous and had we been home I would have just let him cry in his bed, he was eight months old for crying out loud. But we were with friends and family in close quarters so I just did it. By the end of the two weeks my supply had dramatically increased. That was about the time when Levi was moving from the 30-50 percentile up to the 75 percentile. It's amazing how God designed our bodies to produce milk, enough milk for our babies.

Another recommendation is to eat oatmeal, that helps milk production, get plenty of rest, don't eat anything too spicy in those first months, don't worry, they will get older and you will be able to eat whatever when their little intestines have developed better, maybe around 4-5 months old. Drink lots of water, did I say that already? :) A good resource for information is La Leche League. It's an organization of moms who breastfeed, like a support group. They are all about breastfeeding and how to help moms who are struggling with breastfeeding. Just look for when and where your local chapter meets.

Whew. I think I did it. Can't wait to post more.