Mommy's Pen

A writer's notes on family

You are here: Home / Archives for nutrition

nutrition

Burpee Till You Drop

by

I can barely walk this morning. I can feel every muscle in my legs and and arms. I want to bathe in Icy-Hot. I did seventy-eight burpees yesterday. What is a burpee? You start in a squat position and jump back to a plank, then do a push up, jump your feet back to your hands, then jump in the air and clap. Repeat. I am in fitness bootcamp.  My trainer is mean.  And she has a killer butt. I want one.

I eat a like a squirrel, combining small amounts of carb, fat and protein every three hours. A snack is half an apple, an ounce of cheese and a few nuts.

Why am I doing this? The long answer is this: if I don’t I’ll be diabetic. I was diagnosed with borderline type II diabetes last June. I control my blood sugar with diet and exercise. Both my grandmother and mother are diabetic. I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Nora. I was warned that it was something I would have to watch for in my forties and fifties. Then I had an extremely stressful period where I was working about seventy hours a week and caring for my child and household. My body broke. I stressed myself to the point of diabetes. I got it at thirty-three instead of fifty-three.

I could take medicine to control my blood glucose level, but I know grind of everyday life would provide me with excuses for not eating right and exercising.  I would have a crutch.   So, I get on the treadmill and run two miles as fast as I can (which is not terribly fast).

Why am I doing this? The short answer is this face:

The Best Pooper

by

One of my proudest moments as a parent was when my daughter’s teacher told me that Nora was the best eater and the best pooper in class.

Nora was calling bran muffins “cookies” until she was about 18 months old. Some of her favorite foods are olives, hummus, whole wheat bread, broccoli and tuna. She once asked for capers to be added to her casserole.

We never ask Nora to try new foods. If I suspect there may be something she’s reluctant to try, I won’t put any on her plate. I’ll give an ample portion to my husband and myself and nine times out of ten she is jealous of something she doesn’t have and will ask for some. I give her some of what’s on my plate and she feels like a grown-up.

It is not a magic trick to get a toddler to eat well. It’s a matter of consistently offering healthy choices. I’ve noticed that when we do have junk food in the house, it’s all any of us can think about eating. So it’s rare for us to have cookies or ice cream in stock. Often, when Nora asks for a treat, I reach in my pocket and pull out an imaginary piece of candy and tell her it’s pink. Then I give her some apple slices with peanut butter.

Considering that as a child I subsisted on bologna, macaroni and cheese, scrambled eggs and frosting, you’d think karma would dictate that my daughter would be picky. Luckily, this is not the case, and I continue encourage her healthy eating habits. Thankfully, poop is the least of my rewards for the effort.

Food

by

Last Saturday afternoon I broke with my usual healthy eating habits. I made “pigs in a blanket” from a pack of Hebrew National Hotdogs and a tube of Pillsbury crescent dough. Then I ate four of them. I suffered acute sodium overload. I was a cranky, sad mess until the salt was flushed from my system late Sunday evening. I had no patience for my daughter, blamed my husband for all my problems and sat around crying. It became obvious where I went wrong as my dry mouth prompted me to drain glass after glass of water. I knew I had only myself to blame. Then I thought, “how much of bad parenting and poorly behaved children is attributable to poor eating?”

Lesson: Stick with the whole grains and hummus. Bad food is bad parenting.