So, after my Vitalicious post, you now know I’m trying to lighten up on calories and be healthier, right? Well, I’ve decided to share my journey and in the process, share my tips, tricks, and recipes with all of YOU! Why you? C’mon, who doesn’t want a guilt-free way to enjoy all of their favorite foods!

I’ll start off by telling you the very short version of my weight gain-gain-loss-gain-loss-gain-loss story:

1) Weighed X in college

2) Weighed X+6 when I got pregnant with first child

3) Gained 55 lbs with baby #1

4) Lost all but 15 before getting pregnant with baby #2

5) After baby #2, I somehow managed to drop down to X-20 (I KNOW! Crazy, huh? I chalk it up to breastfeeding, not sitting down EVER, and forgetting to eat) within about 7 months - the new benchmark, Y

6) Held steady there for about 9 months, then it began to creep back up

7) In January of this year, I was back up to Y+10 - yuck.

Anyway, that’s the backstory.

I’ve always been very active (ran/walked several half and full marathons, used to work out every day) and didn’t pay a whole lot attention to what I ate, but tried to be healthy with the exception of my insane candy habit. I always had the mindset that I would work it off with exercise. My lifestyle this year, however, has been super INactive due to weather, time, kids, etc.

I decided that since I’ve reached the ripe old age of 28 and all studies show that women start to add a pound or so a year, I could very quickly become very unhappy with my weight. I mean, 10 pounds in about 4 months - that’s NOT good!

So, I lost the weight.

10 pounds in about 2 months.

I’m back down to Y and fully intend to stay here……..don’t want to lose more, definitely don’t want to gain. I’ve held steady here for almost 2 months and for the first time in my life, feel fully in control of my body.

Want more?

Next time in “Lighten Up”, I’ll tell how, and then after THAT, I’ll start sharing my fun tips, tricks, and recipes!

(This is also published at Counting the Weighs)

Michelle Obama is an inspiration to me. I’m not talking about her newfound international acclaim, her sense of style, or even her beautiful family. Oh, no. I’m talking about her vegetable garden.

That, and the fact that my friend who owns an Ace Hardware told me that vegetable seed sales are up 300% from last year, got me thinking that planting a vegetable garden with the girls would be a fun project. 

The plan was for the girls - and by girls I mean the three-year old, since the baby can’t even walk yet - to pick out the vegetables and help me plant them, care for them, harvest them and, eventually, eat them. 

As the snow fell and wind blew outside, we put Sheryl Crow on the kitchen speakers and set up all of our supplies on the island – seed packets of corn, green beans, carrots, two kinds of lettuce, and three indoor greenhouse containers full of peat pellets.

But these things never turn out as Rockwell-esque as I imagine them.

Just as we settled in, the plumbers showed up to fix the backed up drain in the kitchen sink. Which was great, really, since the sink was full of water and everything we had put down the garbage disposal recently. So they traipsed past us, spreading out their tools and turning on their loud pipe cleaner-outer-thingy.

“Helper” daughter spilled the watering can, got tired of pushing the seeds into the peat after trying it once and decided to eat the seeds instead. (If you’re a pediatrician and I should be worried about corn stalks growing out her ears, please leave a comment). The baby crawled off to play in the toilet.

At the same time, I remembered what corn stalks look like. Growing up in Iowa, I know all too well that when you get up close, corn stalks are tall, ugly and messy. Not exactly the look I’m going for in what, until now, has been my flower garden.

What was I thinking?

And then, just as I said to my husband “I have a feeling I’m going to regret this,” the three year old, with her dirty hands, dirty face and soaking wet pink leotard, leaned over, put her head on my chest and said, “Mommy, you’re my best friend.” 

Then I knew, there is absolutely, positively no way I am going to regret this. So what if the kitchen is a disaster, the kids are wet and messy, and the corn doesn’t look good next to the yarrow? I was missing the whole point – we were all having fun and making a mess together.  It’s about the journey, right?

So I went straight out and bought the supplies for next weekend’s project – dyeing Easter eggs!

As a mother of 2 toddlers with an extremely busy life and a constant struggle to maintain a healthy weight, I’ve always had trouble finding foods that a) don’t have a million calories and b) actually fill me up for longer than 20 minutes. Sure, I could eat a gigantic bowl of cereal for breakfast, but it would end up having 500 calories and I’d be hungry again in no time! I know all of the rules - I need fiber and protein to stay feeling full - got it. Easier said than done! However, I’ve found my new favorite breakfast and snack EVER……

Vitamuffins and Vitatops from Vitalicious!

Yup, I’m a VitaMommy

These muffins and muffin tops (think Seinfeld, not the fat at the top of my jeans!) have only 100 calories each, are all natural, have oodles of protein and fiber and best of all, taste AMAZING. I eat 2 of them for breakfast every morning on my way to work and am more than full all the way until my morning snack at 10:00, and often have one for part of my lunch or for an afternoon snack. There are a huge variety of flavors, including many chocolate ones, and others including a bunch of bran varieties, corn, and banana nut. So far my favorites have been the Cranberry Bran and Golden Corn, but I’ve just ordered a bunch of the BananaNut and Triple Chocolate Chunk to try out.

The only bummer is that I can’t get these at any stores near me, but the shipping is great right from the company’s website and the product arrives still-frozen, ready for me to throw in my freezer. I just pop them in the microwave in the a.m. and I’m ready to go!

Oh, and another great bonus is that there are a bunch of great coupon codes that you can find in magazines or online, making these that much more affordable. If you’re really strapped for cash, you can actually buy the mixes and make them yourself! I haven’t done that yet, but may have to if I keep eating as many as I have been.

The best part? These make me feel SO good about myself in the morning after a late-night turtle cheesecake episode………..

(Also published at Counting the Weighs)

Note: This isn’t a sponsored post - if only it were, maybe I could’ve gotten some free product - yum! I wasn’t approached by the company to write this, I wasn’t offered free product……I just LIKE it and want to share it with you, one mom to another.

- Blogged with Scribefire -

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers living in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Quick: You’re completely swamped with work tasks, have a trip to pack for, and have inexplicably torn apart 3 rooms of your house in an attempt to reorganize - what do you do?

Bake, of course!

Seriously, this is what my day is like and add to it the fact that my husband is as crazy as I am and left me home alone with the kids so he could go to the hardware store to buy paint for the room HE tore apart. We’re insane. Anyway, when faced with a situation like this, I do what I’ve always done - avoid all work and bake (you should have seen my freezer when I was pregnant - I nested by baking!). In my defense, I couldn’t do anything REAL this morning because I was home alone with the kids - baking is an honest to goodness fun family activity, right?

Now, because if I’m going to gain 15 pounds this week, so are you I love you all and want you to share my yummy treat, here’s the recipe for the monster cookies that my children and I made a double recipe (I don’t just bake, I bake in mass quantities) of this morning - yummmmmmmm…………..

Monster Cookies

Oven 350 Degrees F.

1 stick butter
1.5 cups peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1.5 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp corn syrup
4.5 cups oatmeal (quick oats)
2 tsp baking soda
M&Ms - as many as you want!
chocolate chips - as many as you want!

Bake approximately 13 minutes - don’t overbake!

These cookes are to DIE FOR and the reason the recipe is slightly imprecise is because my friend and I forced this lady at a party a few years ago to sit down with us and recite the recipe from memory……..they’re that good.

Oh, and if you want to join my in my non-sleep state right now - drink what I’ve been drinking. Rachael (one of the mamas here) shared this (slightly modified by me) recipe and I’ve been indulging ever since:

Iced Coffee

Brewed and cooled coffee
Half and half
Coffee ice cubes
I add flavored creamer too for some sweetness

Heaven in a cup, I swear. I’m flying high………..

Now back to work. With chocolate on my face and jittery hands………….

I might as well start off clearing my conscience in my first post here, so prepare for a true confession.

 It’s not just the man in uniform mentioned in the title who turns me on. I also like to dally with a vertically challenged guy who goes by the name of Lucky. And there’s the animal attraction I have for another one named Tony. Yes, despite my husband’s best efforts to corral this filly, I’ve returned to my youthful indiscretions with children’s breakfast cereals. Let’s just say that one of the worst writing assignments I could imagine would be Adam Platt of the New York Magazine’s recent review of 100 “healthy” cereals plucked from the shelves of Whole Foods.

What I love are the ones that researchers at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found were less healthy than brands meant for adults. Oh, I’ve made the effort to grow up and eat better cereal, but even my Mini-Wheats are of the frosted variety. So, once my daughter got old enough to realize there was more to cereal than Cheerios and began pleading for Fruity Pebbles, I have to admit I was an easy target.

These sweet grains marketed primarily to our kids have been the topic of much debate for many years - such so that one of the top Google results on the subject is an article from 1991 called “Children’s cereal: beneficial breakfast or sweet snack?” While I would never say they were the best food for me or my daughter, I do think they’ve gotten a bad rap while some supposedly adult cereals get a free pass.

On a recent shopping trip where I was trying to buy “the right thing” for me, I selected Kellogg’s Smart Start cereal where the label promised a strong heart, whole-grain oats, antioxidants and low sodium. But, when I placed the box in my pantry next to my daughter’s choice of Fruit Loops Smoothie, I notice that my “healthy” cereal has a full six grams more sugar per serving than the kid’s cereal! Sure it wins on fiber, but hey, there’s more to health than our colons - my waistline for example. The Fruit Loops even had a full gram less fat!

From about as far back as I can remember, my two older brothers and I pretty much ate cereal for breakfast every weekday before school. And, every Saturday in front of the TV (back when cartoons didn’t run 24/7 on 10 different channels). Only on Sundays did Mom break out the pancakes, muffins or biscuits.  And, guess what. None of us suffered any means of malnutrition. None of us displayed childhood obesity. We didn’t get diabetes. And, we’ve all grown up to be fairly intelligent adults.

Plus, there’s good news on the horizon. Remember that comparison I did earlier where the only thing the grown-up cereal really beat the kid cereal on was fiber content? Well, General Mills, the nation’s second largest cereal manufacturer, has announced that they will convert all of their breakfast cereals into whole grain products. It’s a move that online doctor Dr. Greene says is projected to single-handedly increase American’s whole grain consumption by 1.5 billion servings per year.

So, now there could be even less to beat ourselves up over as mothers; and, more reason for me to give in to my urges for a quickie of Coco Puffs every now and then before heading off to bed with my husband. After all, there are enough challenges and sacrifices we make as mothers, can’t we have this little treat without feeling guilty about it?

No working Mommy should be without a jar of peanut butter in her larder.

When you’ve run out of lunch ideas, even the pickiest eater will usually settle for a thickly spread sandwich featuring PB with or without a partner flavor.

In our community, PB & Jelly (usually Welch’s grape) was the standard offering. My Connecticut relatives preferred honey as the sweetener. Some parents permitted the decadent Fluffernutter. A more exotic variation was Elvis’ famous peanut butter and banana combo.

George Washington Carver popularized peanut butter but refused to take out a patent on it because “he believed food products were all gifts from God.”

Packed with protein, fiber, Vitamin E, and other good stuff, peanuts and their products have a lot going for them. Nutritionists suggest using lower fat peanut butter, fruit spread, rather than jelly, and whole grain bread, to reap the benefits of PB & J while lowering calories, sodium, and fat.

A peanut butter sandwich, a cold glass of milk, and a piece of fruit: quick and easy comfort food with a reassuringly healthful twist. Serve it with pride - or grab one for a quick meal on the run, as you zip through another day as a Working Mom.