Making it work for us

2 posts in 2 days?! What the what?!

I am going to try to document a little bit about the good (and maybe not-so-good) things as I learn to navigate being home full-time.

What is making it work for us right now:

1. I prep or start dinner during the babe's nap. She takes one nap nowadays (I know I am LUCKY!). Sometimes long (almost 3 hours yesterday!) sometimes short (35 minutes one day last week). Even if it is pretty short, I seem to have time to at least chop veggies/lay out ingredients for dinner. Right now, I have these sizzling on the stove:

Vegetarian Lettuce Wraps from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

We don't eat much tofu these days, but these are SO good and SO easy! I use coconut oil for cooking the tofu, add 2 cups cooked brown rice, a clove or 2 of minced garlic, and chopped green onion to ours, too. We use gluten free soy sauce to keep them friendly for my gf diet (which is going strong, although I have fallen off the endo diet...I love me some chocolate and red wine!). 

If my husband was home in time to entertain our daughter while I did dinner prep, I probably wouldn't spend her nap this way. But, it is what it is! He still gets home about 2 hours after Felicia and I eat (which is creeping up on Felicia's bed time). Cooking with a very "helpful" 18-month-old can be a challenge. So for now, this is the easiest way for me to get good, whole foods on the table for all three of us. 

2. We go to the park everyday before lunch as long as it is not raining or too hot (today was a too hot day so we've been a bit cooped up). Round trip, it is about an hour of walking/playing. It gets us out of our little 2 bedroom apartment and gets me some much needed exercise. Soon I'll have a running stroller, thanks to my sister who no longer needs the one she used with her kiddos. 

3. I try to read for at least 30 minutes a day after Felicia is down for the night. I just finished this one:

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Which I really enjoyed! I highly recommend it for anyone who wants or has kids.

I just started this one last night:

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I am in a book club with 4 girlfriends and this is the book we'll be meeting about in August. It seems a little fluffy so far, but I think it will be fun.

The power of food

I had an appointment today. Ponyo's heart rate was 142 beats per minute. My weight gain and belly size are spot on for 30 weeks, 4 days. And my iron (hemoglobin level) was up to 11.3! When it was measured last month, it was borderline low (like 10.8 or something). I guess they like to see it above 11 and I got it there by changing my diet for the last month. Nothing major, just lots more spinach (I eat a spinach salad or green smoothie almost everyday), lots of broccoli with dinners, tons of nuts and seeds (especially almonds and sunflower nuts, yum!), and a healthy amount of legumes (mainly garbanzo beans...Ponyo has a dance party every time I eat anything with chickpeas!).

I also cut back on dairy a little, especially when I am eating iron rich foods. Did you know that calcium inhibits the body's ability to absorb iron? I learned that from the little cheat sheet they gave me at the clinic.  So, no more cheese on chili, burritos, or my baked potatoes with broccoli on top. Instead I've been sprinkling nutritional yeast on my food. Growing up, we used to sprinkle nutritional yeast on our chili all the time. Thankfully my Mom gave me a jar a few months ago, so I had it on hand, and now I am using it instead of just having it take up space in the fridge. It has a cheesy flavor but is much more awesome than cheese when it comes to vitamins:

Eating a heaping tablespoon of nutritional yeast is like taking a high-potency B-vitamin complex. A serving will generally stock you up with a couple of days’ worth of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, and B12, and a substantial amount of folic acid. Nutritional yeast also packs a decent amount of fiber and protein into a pretty small, low-calorie package.  All in all, as cheesy-flavored toppings for popcorn and pizza go, it’s pretty impressive. (source)

It is win, win, win! I get to absorb my iron more efficiently, I get the satisfying taste of cheese (which I LOVE), and I get all those vitamins plus extra protein! Woo hoo! And nutritional yeast has no calcium in it whatsoever. Oh, and it is gluten free.

For anyone else struggling with low iron, eating foods rich in vitamin C helps your body absorb iron. So, I try to make sure that if I have a green smoothie, I include vitamin C rich fruits like mangoes or oranges in it. When I eat chili or a dish with garbanzo beans, I make sure there are tomatoes involved in the meal.

It seems that my body is very sensitive to what I put in it. Food and nutrition are such powerful things!