NZ Baby Blog

Carrying on from the thoughts on Cake….

I went to my mums for a birthday afternoon tea with the aunts & granny, and there was a lot of cake. Breaking the rules I ate cake, way too much cake.

Feeding Ben later I felt dreadful. Tired with a tight headachy, almost coming down with a cold feeling in the middle of my forehead. My mum was sitting around saying she felt really tired as well. When I described the symptoms- yep she had the same feeling, “It’s the carbo crash” say I.

The what? Is that a medical term? Um no. I made it up. But basically it seems that if I eat too many carbohydrates - or more specifically refined carbos and sugar aka cake (white bread, donuts, you get the picture), then my body just kinda shuts down while it works out what to do with all the extra sugar.

…oh the choices, on the butt, on the thighs, no I’m thinking a bit of waist thickening is the trick…

Think that kinda bad feeling you get after a big Christmas lunch, but without all the ham and wine to bring it on.

What can you do about it? The best thing obviously is to notice what you just ate and vow not to do it again - fat chance. The thing to get rid of it is to go for a walk, however when you’re feeling like mrs blobby that too seems impossible. So you wait it out.

It’s a bit like a hangover really and every now and then you just have that one muffin (voldka martini) too many, and you’re paying for the rest of the day.

Another trip to the Dr’s, this time we passed the inspection so jabs were administered. Some screaming - but less than last time, and way less than the 4 year old who was next in line!

Anyway, today we discussed amongst other things loosing weight while breast feeding. Since Ben was born I’ve lost about 3 kg more than I’d put on while pregnant, although I’ve stablilised a bit now.

The trick to loosing weight, or at least not putting any more on I figured is Don’t Compensate With Cake. It seems to me there is quite a lot of cake involved with post birth activities. People bring cake, you go to coffee mornings and it’s all cake. You’re tired and feeling a bit down and/or cranky and there’s cake. People expect you suddenly to turn into a domestic goddess and make cake, and I’m constantly amazed at the number of new mums who actually do. Say no to the cake.

Why the epiphany? I had gestational diabetes while pregnant, and managed to control it with diet which is apparently pretty rare. I had a pretty hard core diet going, definitly no cake! After the birth, it took a few weeks for my system to get sorted, and thank goodness I did test clear from diabetes after 6 weeks, but I got used to saying no to cake. When I needed to eat more, to make more milk, I tried a proper cooked lunch and eating more cheese and crackers, and fruit.

I figured baby needs more protein and vitamins, it doesn’t need more cake - and your butt will thank you for it later. I suspect he doesn’t really need a lot of chips either, but those are proving a harder habit to kick.