When Harlow was 2 months old, she was diagnosed as having a dairy allergy.  Since I was nursing her at the time, that meant I had to cut out all dairy.  I ended up relying heavily on “fake” food to make it through.  Lots of vegan “cheeses” and other pre-packaged foods that had a lot of ingredients, but not a lot of actual food in them.

Two months ago, after I had weaned Harlow and she had outgrown her allergy (Hallelujah!) I admittedly started really overdoing it with dairy foods.  I mean, let’s be real… I hadn’t had cheese or ice cream for almost a year!  I’ve been really out of control.

(Not my pictures.  Just some Google Image love.)

The time has come, however, to get back on the healthy eating wagon.  I’ve never been much of a cook, per se, so the things that I did make were pretty quick and easy.  It is time to dust off my recipe printout book and get back into more of a clean eating lifestyle.  More than the weight that I’ve gained back in the last two months (because oh, man, I have!) I just feel yucky all the time.  Sluggish, bloated.  Not the way I want to feel.

So here’s the plan:

• include a fruit or vegetable with every meal (ideally both)
• cut down on carbs  (I’m not going on Atkins or anything like that, but I have noticed that while my mouth LOVES carbs, I always feel blah when I eat too many)
• drink more water!  (I used to be the hydration queen, but for some reason since having the babe, I’ve been the worst at drinking water.  I’ve been mostly downing decaf coffee & ginger ale… not good…)
• I have GOT to cut down on sweets.  (Since being back on the cow, I’ve been eating ice cream and chocolate like it is my JOB.)

So, how am I doing with workouts?

I did go for one “run” this week so far.  It was terrible.  It is mega-humid out (Hi, Michigan!) and I could not breathe. at. all.  Plus, probably because of the lack of oxygen, my legs were Jello.

To top it all off, Harlow was a mess, which is so unlike her.  Girlfriend is cutting her second tooth (yes, she’s 15 months old today and is JUST cutting her second tooth), so she’s been  off her game the last week or so.  Poor dear.

I have another run scheduled for today, and NEXT Thursday, I have the opportunity to take a FREE yoga class on my day off!  Let me just say… I am SO excited!  I have not taken a yoga class in OVER A YEAR!!!  Yes, yes, I know… I was well on the road to becoming a yoga instructor when I found out I was preggers, but then it allll came to a screeching halt when the bump started to grow.  Since laying on your stomach and twisting are big no-no’s in the pregnancy world, that pretty much eliminated most of what we did in my classes.  You would think a decent-sized town such as mine would have a prenatal yoga class, but nope.

Ugh.

Anyhoosies.

The point is, I’m slowly getting back into the groove of things.  Plus, the weather is crazy today and is only supposed to reach the high 60’s, so that is just perfect running weather!

I’ll let you know how it goes!

And because this was word heavy, a couple of gratuitous cutie pics of the kids playing.