Here is my food plan for yesterday.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Breakfast
2  roll(s) Plain Chocolate Chip Brioche Roll	7
Subtotal	7
Lunch
187  g Potatoes, Old, Raw	4
1  portion(s) Salad Vegetables with a ProPoints value of Zero	0
1/4 pot(s) Chicken, Bacon & Sweetcorn Deli Filler	3
Subtotal	7
Dinner
1/3 jar(s) Tikka Masala, Medium	3
55  g Rice, White Basmati, Raw	5
165  g Chicken, Breast, Skinless, Raw	4
1  portion(s) Spinach	0
1  pot(s) Activia Activia Fat Free Peach	2
Subtotal	14
Any Time
1  medium Apple	0
1/2 bar(s) Oaty Flapjack Bar	2
14  g Chocolate, Plain	2
Subtotal	4
Food ProPoints values total used	32
Food ProPoints values remaining	0

Not a bad day all round. For the first time since my daughter was born I was able to stand in the kitchen and cook with no distractions and I loved it! In fact I have another portion of the curry in the fridge which I will use for Fridays lunch (I love leftovers!!).

I also made the effort to cook a jacket potato for lunch which was lovely served with a huge salad and the leftover sandwich filling I found in the fridge!

I need to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables that I am eating (think there are only about 3 portions in this day). I have filled the fruit bowl with apples, pears, satsumas and kiwi fruit and have moved it to the lounge so it is easily on hand which really encourages me to eat more!

Ok, baby is stirring from her morning nap so will have to love you and leave you.

I want it gone.

Its making me unhappy, uncomfortable and my clothes aren’t fitting properly. It has to go and the New Year is the perfect opportunity.

Tomorrow night I am rejoining Weight Watchers. I have been reading about the Pro Points plan and think it can work for me.

Wish me luck!

One year ago today I was anticipating going back to work following a miscarriage. Hubby and I had been married for 4 months and were ready to start a family. Unfortunately that pregnancy hadn’t worked out but by the end of January I was pregnant for the second time. This time I felt sure that the time was right for this baby and most of our year was spent preparing for her arrival. Now she is here our wishes have been granted and we are now excited for the next 12 months so we can watch her grow and develop through 2011!

My plans and resolutions for the next year are heavily influenced by my baby girl.

1. Strive for a balanced family life.  The pressures of family, friends, work and finances can be overwhelming sometimes. In 2011 we will work to balance these areas of our life and spend lots of quality time with Lily.
2. Keep control of finances. I am currently on Maternity Leave from work and money is tight. I would love to be able to be a stay at home mum at some point in the future, and keeping control of the spending is the only way we would be able to do that.
3. Improve our health and nutrition. I have weight I would like to lose this year, and I want to be able to set a good example to Lily in the future. More information on this in a later post…
4. Make time for the things that make me happy. One of which is blogging. I have always found myself wasting time on things which don’t make me happy, leaving me with not enough time for things which I enjoy. I hope to improve this in 2011.

I will talk about all this and more on the blog through 2011, I would love you to join me!!

I can’t believe its taken me so long to get this post written! On Monday 1st November I gave birth to my beautiful baby daughter Lily. She was born at 11.50am and weighed 6lb 10oz. We feel truly blessed to have her in our lives and its hard to imagine life without her!

On the Saturday I started having what I felt were contractions which were building in intensity and frequency. I had almost no sleep on Saturday night due to this pain but on Sunday morning they died down and I realised that this was not labour, just practice labour! Damn!!

So I convinced myself that I had days left to go and headed to bed early on Sunday night feeling fine.

At 12.30am I was woken by some really painful contractions and knew immediately that this was it. I decided to let the hubby sleep for a while and headed downstairs on my own. I used the TENS machine for some pain relief for a few hours.

By 4.30 I was really struggling with the pain and knew that we would need to head to the hospital soon. I woke the husband and we grabbed our bags and headed to the car. The car journey was awful – each corner and bump in the road was excruciating! When we arrived at the hospital I was assessed and was already 5cm dilated.

Over the next few hours the labour progressed until I was fully dilated at about 10am. By then I had moved onto gas and air for the pain which I found really helped.

At about 10.30 I started to push. This was the hardest part of the labour by far. Although the pain wasn’t as intense as the contractions had been, the pushing phase was physically draining and I really struggled to keep my energy levels up. The midwives were amazing, as was hubby, and at 11.50 I gave birth to a baby girl.

We immediately had skin to skin contact and decided to call her Lily, a name we had been thinking about for a few weeks. We spent a couple of hours just holding and cuddling her before being moved to the ward where we had some visitors and later spent the night.

We were allowed home at 3pm the following day and since then we have been in a bit of a spin! We have had visits from Grandparents, Aunties and friends. We have taken Lily for her first pub lunch (she slept through the whole event) and to the supermarket.

I have been breastfeeding Lily since she was born and am really enjoying it. I will write a separate post on this as I have a lot to say on the subject!

The hubby is back to work tomorrow so I will be caring for Lily on my own during the day. Wish me luck!

This ended up being a perfect lazy weeknight dinner.

Easy Meatballs and Pasta

These meatballs had cooking instructions for the oven rather than on the hob so I added them to a dish and placed in the oven for 20 minutes.

In order to keep things speedy I turned to this jar of pasta sauce and added to a pan to heat.

When the meatballs were cooked I added them into the pasta sauce and stirred in some fresh spinach to wilt.

Served over brown pasta with a sprinkle of parmesan and a twist of black pepper.

Voila! Easy pasta and meatballs!

Some days you really need a treat and this serving suggestion really hit the spot! Last night I had planned chilli for dinner (leftovers from the freezer) but at the last minute I really didn’t fancy it.

I usually serve my chilli with rice and sour cream. Yummy but I know I am missing out. There are loads of creative ways to serve a chilli!

At 37 weeks pregnant I am finding that by the evenings I am getting really tired, especially when I have been busy during the day. Yesterday I had lunch out with my friends from my antenatal class (I know, its a hard life!) and then spent a couple of hours on chores around the house. By 6.30 I was tired and not inspired to stand at the cooker – even though reheating chilli and boiling some rice is hardly difficult!

A quick exchange with the husband showed that we both fancied a treat but didn’t fancy the hassle of going out.

And then it came to us… we could make our favourite chilli nachos at home!

Chilli Nachos

Ingredients:

• 1 serving of your favourite chilli recipe
• Tortilla chips
• Grated cheddar
• Sour Cream
• Guacamole
• Salsa

Method:

• Add the chilli to a pan and heat over a medium heat.
• Put the tortilla chips into a bowl and sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese.
• Place under the grill until the cheese melts.
• Top the chips with the heated chilli.
• Top with your favourite toppings (we went for the full restaurant experience and used sour cream, guacamole and salsa).
• Dig in and enjoy!

Doesn’t this look amazing?? Ok not the healthiest but hey, everything in moderation! I am now inspired to try some other exciting serving suggestions for the rest of my freezer chilli!

Emma’s Diary give you vouchers for a couple of these packs through your pregnancy and this one is the preparing for baby pack which can be collected after you are 27 weeks pregnant.

All you need is a voucher which you then take along to Argos or Lloyds Pharmacy to exchange for your pack.

I called in at Argos today and collected mine. All I had to do was hand the voucher over at the till and I was given a collection number to wait for my pack as usual in Argos.

I managed to wait until I got home to break into the pack.

And I could immediately see some goodies!

The content of these packs will always vary so don’t expect your pack to match this completely, but hopefully it gives you an idea of what you might expect.

I got the following samples…

• Blackcurrant Fruit Flakes
• 2 Lansinoh Breast Pads
• 12 Bepanthen wipes
• Pak of Kleenex tissues
• Samples of Palmers Cocoa Butter products
• 16 Huggies Pure wet wipes

Definitely some useful bits in there!

Then there was the usual paperwork…

Most of this was adverts and competitions. The highlights were the Baby’s First Year leaflet and a development chart for the first year of baby’s life.

As you may have guessed, most of this headed straight to the recycling box as I had either seen it already or wasn’t interested. Shame there is so much waste in these packs.

So that was my Emma’s Diary Bump to Baby pack. Hope it was useful to see what it contained.

I am 7 months pregnant today and we have exactly 2 months to go until our due date. Doesn’t sound long does it?

I wanted to set some mini goals for the next month to help me stay focused and not panic too much about what we have left to do!

In September I would like to…

1. Make a list for my hospital bag and make sure I have everything I need.
2. List everything we still need to buy for baby, and get most of it!
3. Finish work!! (My last day is the 1st October so technically not quite this month).
4. Tidy the garden
5. Organise the nursery
6. Organise the spare room
7. Grocery challenge to help us save some money
8. Create a budget for my maternity leave

So quite a lot to do then. Expect some updates on these as the month goes on.

So here is a quick ideas post for you…

Breakfast:

French Toast with berries and yogurt

Made using cinnamon raisin bread, egg, milk and cinnamon. Topped with strawberries, blueberries, greek yogurt and honey.

Cereal, berries and yogurt

One of my favourite brekkies to take to work. The yogurt is much more filling than milk on the cereal. This is Special K, Greek yogurt and blueberries.

Cereal, milk and berries

This time I had Shreddies, skimmed milk and strawberries.

Lunches

Tuna Melt Panini

Season a tin of tuna as liked (I like to mix in some sweet chilli sauce) and add mozzarella cheese for melty cheesy goodness! Toast on a Panini grill.

Served with grapes, blueberries and cucumbers.  

Cheesy English Muffins

Lightly toast an English Muffin, then add cheese (and I like Worcestershire sauce). Top with halved cherry tomatoes and grill.

Salad Bar

I was excited to find that my local supermarket has installed a salad bar. This was a great speedy lunch.

Served with a fresh buttered slice of bread.

Dinners

Slow Cooker Casserole

Look at our new toy!!

I have been wanting one of these for ages and we finally got around to getting one earlier this month. I figure that it will really come into its own when I go on maternity leave in October and after the baby comes I will be able to make some nice warming dinners with little effort in the kitchen.

For my first cooking attempt I made a chicken stew. Chicken, carrots, potato, onion, swede and leeks. Plus a couple of small dumplings – not healthy but they really make this dinner!

This was a great dinner – really tasty. I can’t wait to experiment more with the slow cooker.

Hope you enjoyed these quick ideas!

My personal thoughts…

In some ways my personal reaction to the changes in my body has taken me by surprise. I have always been negative about what I see in the mirror, and struggled to focus on anything but the negatives I could see. My body image started to change when I found out I was pregnant for the first time last November. It was an amazing time. For the first time I felt truly in tune with my body. I knew I was pregnant really early on – I felt changes in my body in the days following conception, and by the time I took a test 2 weeks later, I knew what the result would be. Unfortunately that first pregnancy ended in miscarriage 7 weeks later. While this was a really traumatic event for us, I was comforted by the fact that the whole thing happened completely naturally, with no medical intervention. Even at the moment I realised I was definitely losing the baby, something inside me said that it was happening for a reason. I was able to trust my body in my darkest hour.

So fast forward to February when I became pregnant for the second time. Again, I felt the changes in my body immediately, although not as strongly as my body hadn’t completely reset from the first time. I tried to relax through the early weeks leading up to my 12 week scan and trust that whatever happened was for the best. The relief we felt when we saw a strong little heartbeat at the 12 week scan was unbelievable.

From this point onwards, the physical changes have stepped up a gear. My belly became rounded and very quickly my usual clothes became too tight. This was a strange feeling. Usually, I would respond to this by trying to hide it while I lost a couple of pounds. This time, I was proud of it. In fact I was willing it to grow! I loved going out to buy maternity clothes for the first time (love those elasticated waistbands!).

Now, at 28 weeks pregnant, I have a beautiful big round belly. And its only going to get bigger! There is lost of advice about how much weight you should gain in pregnancy. And to be honest, I have ignored most of it. The midwife weighed me at 7 weeks, and I was weighed at my first scan at 12 weeks (I had put on 1.5kg) but since then, nothing. Instead, my bump gets measured at each midwife appointment (from 25 weeks onward) and is plotted on a personalised graph. As long as the measurements stay within the upper and lower limits on the graph everyone is happy. I did step on the scales out of interest for this post and have now gained 6.5kg since my 12 week scan. Not bad when you consider what my body is now carrying around!

I know I will gain weight faster and faster over the coming weeks and plan to go with the flow and enjoy it.

If you are reading this and are pregnant or planning to be pregnant my advice is to stay off the scales. Eat a healthy balanced diet (as far as your sickness will allow you to) and keep active. Trust your body through this process – its really quite liberating!