October's Great Racing Experiment

Best running costume evah!! (Although it looks like a nightmare to run in)

I'm often asked if I get bored of doing Experiments, if I ever tire of looking for new ones or if blogging them ever gets tedious. My answer: Nope, not ever and I looooovvveee it! Truth to be told, I'd be doing my schizophrenic fitness thing whether or not anyone else wanted to read about it (although I'm sure glad that you do - it's so much more fun with company!). So hopefully you will forgive me for already starting October's Great Fitness Experiment without telling you about it.

Thus far, all 5 days of my Experiment has already found me sitting at the end of my treadmill having an adult tantrum. I'm ashamed to admit there were tears and a towel was thrown. Mercifully, Gym Buddy Megan snapped me out of it before I could really embarrass myself and told me sternly to get over myself already. Y'all, she used her mom voice on me. I had to shape up; I feared getting sent to time out. (She'd do it too.) So what would cause this kind of gym hysterics?

Running. Of course.

And not just any running! This year the Gym Buddies and I will be running Monster Dash. Two of my favorite passions combined: fitness and costumes! (Plus this race is known for its sick swag! Check out the finisher's medals!) Both Gym Buddy Megans are running the half marathon, Allison, Jeni and I are running the 10 miler and Krista is (probably) running the 5K. We've already stocked up on sparkly tutus, knee high Halloween socks and colored hairspray! I'm trying to talk them into fake facial tattoos. It's going to be a freakin' riot. So why the tears?

See, I've taken running for granted. It used to be one of those few athletic endeavors (after yoga and the circus arts) that came relatively easy to me. Oh not at the beginning it didn't - I began my foray into fitness by running up the hill next to my condo in Seattle in the predawn darkness, slowly and painfully - but eventually it seemed like one of those things that while I'll never be a pro at, I can at least do with some confidence. I could look someone in the eye and say "I'm a runner" and have them actually believe me. Most of the time.

But having the Jelly Bean 11 months ago (yes, it really has been that long!) has really thrown me off my running. You may recall when I was pregnant, I had to give up running around 6 months because of terrible hip flexor pain. That pain, which made it hard to even lift my legs much less do it repeatedly, continued for several months after she was born. (Side note: for those of you curious, I finally figured out the hip pain was from my abs being so weak. Once I stopped with the crazy ab routines - P90X, ahem - my hip pain completely went away! And I haven't had any problems since and have even been able to return to doing ab work.) All of this resulted in the farthest I'd run in about a year was maybe 3 miles.

The Monster Dash is ten miles.

At first I told myself I just wanted to finish. That I was just doing this for fun. But then my competitive streak took over - running 10 miles used to be a piece of cake, darnnit! - and while I don't plan on PR'ing, I'd like to stay under my goal time. That treadmill tantrum was because I'd only been able to maintain race pace for 6.8 miles. Today's run was better - nothing was thrown and the Gym Buddies didn't need to send me to bed early - but I'm still not confident I'll be able to run the race that I want. So, October's Great Fitness Experiment is to train for and run my first race post-partum. (And also to learn to chill the heck out and just enjoy the experience instead of making everything so hard for myself.)

September's Great Bootcamp Experiment went (and is still going, actually) fabulously! It's made me toilet sore at least once and our Smiley Trainer kicks my butt every single time. I love bootcamps and I think the best thing about them is their versatility. It's a different workout every week and you can shove practically any exercise under the umbrella of "bootcamp." Kettlebells! Bosu! Sprinting! TRX! Track drills! It's like a smorgasbord of fitness! You should definitely try one if you get the chance.

So - any of you signed up for fall races? Have you ever taken a particular ability for granted only to discover later that it doesn't come back as easily as you'd expected? Anyone else ever throw a gym tantrum?? (Please tell me I am not the only person who's done this!) Any tips for me on how to mellow out the crazy and just have fun with this?

Can Exercise Hurt Your Breast Milk? [A Study in Mother Guilt]

A mother's love - they say that nothing is more powerful. (At least if you believe Harry Potter, which of course I do. I'm a sucker for green eyes.) So if this is true then I know the second most powerful force on the planet: A mother's guilt.

Whether they hand it to you as you exit the hospital, a neat little package of the shame you carry for sending your precious infant to the nursery to spend his first night on the planet alone amongst the bright lights and loud noises or whether you don't discover the little box hidden like a pipe bomb under the baby seat that you realize you've installed incorrectly and yet have been using it to tote your fragile baby around for months, it is an inevitability. It hits you like a knife to the stomach twisting your innards as your mind races to all the what-could-haves and thank-God-it-didn'ts as you repeat the Happiest Baby on the Block like so many nursery rhyme Hail Marys in an effort to prevent the worst by imagining all incarnations of it. Once the guilt has finished consuming you from the gut upward in its fiendish flames, it settles in quietly, rock-like, deep inside your person. Some mothers carry their neutron-star guilt in their stomachs perpetually churning with acid, others in their heads in the migraine spot right behind their eyes, but I, I carry mine in my heart. With every beat of my own I can feel the pulse, like an echo, of the hearts of each of my children. From their utmost beginning their hearts have beat inside me - how could I not still be swayed by their rhythm?

I shall tell you all the facts. There aren't many, it won't take long. Indeed, on the grand scale of parental mistakes this one is perhaps minor. But it is the thing that it represents that so wounds me: my ability to hurt my children even while doing my best to protect them. But I am ahead of myself.

Anyone who has had a baby, seen a baby, read about a baby or just happens to have breasts will know what a contentious topic breast feeding is. Breast is best! The zeal imbued into this cannot be overstated. It's healthier for both mom and baby - it is a magic elixir that prevents health problems now and in the future! Plus, it's free. And yet, knowing this as all of us breast-endowed women (and most men too, I'd wager) do, how is that the vast majority do not breast feed? Or if they do, they don't do it for long?

I'll tell you why. It's hard. It may be a natural process but it sure doesn't come naturally. At least it didn't for me. Nobody told me how much it would hurt - like rug burns with the scabs getting ripped off every 2-3 hours around the clock - until the baby's suckling finally turned my nipples into pencil erasers. Nobody told me of the yeast infections passed back and forth like some insane game of hot potato but where the winner gets their mouth painted purple with gentian violet. Nobody told me of the stage where infants turn piranha and, literally, bite the one that feeds them. Nobody warned me of the nursing strikes, the engorgement, the clogged ducts, the cumbersome nursing bras, the mastitis, the banning of all medicine except worthless Tylenol, the double pump milking machine that is so similar to the ones they use on cows that you can't help but moo, the spontaneous public let downs at the mere thought of my baby's cry. (On an airplane, wetting a stranger's head no less! The only thing that could have made that flight more perfect was if my last name were Joad.)

I don't tell you this to discourage you from ever nursing but rather, having been through all of this multiple times, to explain to you why nursing means so much to me. I have fought so hard to do this simplest of things. To be the mother who can feed her baby.

But now for the facts I promised you. The Jelly Bean was born hale and hearty at 8 1/2 pounds, by far my smallest baby but fairly large as babies in general go. She took to nursing right away and at first all seemed to go well. She was back up to her birth weight by two weeks, just as expected. She pooped and peed like a champ. But along about 3 months, something changed. She stopped gaining weight. The doctor wasn't overly concerned. "Bring her back in a month for another weigh-in." I did. But at that check-up and every check-up that has followed, her weight percentile has continued to drop. Eventually the doctor suggested a lactation consultant who in turn suggested a number things of which I all tried. While she still didn't gain any weight, I comforted myself that she was meeting all of her milestones and seemed happy and healthy in every other measurable way.

And then she weaned herself. Or perhaps my milk gave out. I think the problem might have started with my breasts. I began to notice her fussing when it came time to nurse and despite her frantic sucking, the milk would not let down. Eventually she stopped trying to suck all together, straight-arming me and crying whenever I laid her down to nurse. I, always stubborn, refused to let the nursing go. I went for days trying to keep feeding her only to continue to be rejected. Finally, after a particularly teary session on both our parts, I gave up and made her a bottle of formula. She didn't like that either. At my wit's end, I called the beleaguered pediatrician again who said I either had to get her nurse again or to take the formula and it had to be done now. My milk was finished. I enticed her to drink the bottle by adding a sprinkling of Strawberry Quik powder to it (desperate times call for artificially flavored measures!).

I am happy to say that Jelly Bean loves her formula now (and we no longer have to spike it with Quik to get her to drink it). I am also happy to report that in the few weeks she's been on formula her weight bounced up to the appropriate percentile quite quickly. All's well that ends well. Right?

Those are the facts. Now for the questions. Was my milk compromised because of my obsession with losing the baby weight? Was her failure to gain weight due to my early and intense return to exercise? Or because of my very restrictive diet? It was during those middle months of my being a no-wheat, no-dairy calorie-counting vegetarian that she lost the most ground. Was my tumble into sane eating too late? The question that haunts me: Did I sacrifice my daughter's health on the altar of my own vanity?

My guilt may be misplaced. There are other explanations, other narratives I could tell for this story. (At the very least, the process of weaning has called down a hellstorm of hormones that alone could account for my angst.) And yet the guilt gnaws at me. I carry their very lives in my hands - how could it not?

If you're a mom - how did nursing go for you? Were you able to nurse and exercise with no problems? If you aren't a mom, what do you have irrational guilt about? Or are you one of those rare women (whom I envy) that is impervious to guilt?

New Mommies UNITE!

It seems everyone around me is reproducing! My friend had a baby in March and in May my brother and his wife welcomed their son Reeves into their family. While vising with them on Father's Day, my brother's wife asked how she could work out or lose some baby weight while at home with her son. Which prompted me to write this post. Between nursing, changing diapers, preparing meals (and cleaning up after those meals), visiting the playground, and trying to squeeze in a shower, being bored is something I'm sure new mothers WISH for! Life as a stay-at-home parent isn’t all about Bon-Bons and soap operas (thank goodness!). Stay-at-home parents work just as hard as those who clock in elsewhere, and often find themselves stuck in the same no-time-to-exercise trap that businessman and overworked employees find themselves in.

I'm not a mother, nor have I ever stayed at home with a child all day, but just because you're a new mother with a baby to care for does not mean you need to stop caring for yourself! Regular workouts can bring peace to your day and fitness to your body and new mothers need BOTH. If you’re desperate for fitness but can’t seem to find the time, all you need is some planning and a little creativity. Taking care of yourself makes you a happier woman, and therefore a better mother- so to all the new mommies out there who are trying to find ways to cram workouts into your busy schedule- hope this post helps!

1. Exercise with your kids. If your kids are old enough, let them bike while you run or rollerblade. Hiking makes for a fun family activity that keeps everyone shape. Or, create a fitness course in the backyard, complete with jump rope, jumping jack, and pushup stations- AND JOIN IN!
2. Invest in a jogging stroller or a “kid trailer” for your bike. When you’re pushing or pulling one of these, you’re sure to get a good workout—your kids will enjoy it too! Another current trend is the newly developed StrollerFit class, where parents (with their stroller-age children) utilize strollers for a cardiovascular and strength-building workout. Although not all areas off the class- it's something worth looking into at gyms local to your area!
3. Strap baby to you in a baby carrier. If your baby is too young to feel comfortable in a stroller, you can still exercise together. There are many comfortable baby carriers on the market, including slings, front carriers, and backpacks. Adding 10-20 pounds to your frame for a walk will boost calorie burn, helping you shed those extra pounds. So strap up baby and head outside for a power walk- TRUST ME carrying baby will really bust into those legs and glutes!
4. Join a gym with child-care, or add it to your membership. Whether you don’t enjoy the great outdoors, or you live in a climate with blustery winters or lots of rain, outdoor exercise with the kids is not always an option. On-site childcare facilities offer convenience, and the peace of mind that if your child needs you, you’re only an intercom page away. Some gyms even have fitness classes for kids, so while you pump iron, the munchkins learn how to do the grapevine or other fun activities. Get a list of gyms close to you, and call around for pricing, child care options, hours of operation etc. Then compare before you commit to buying!
5. Sign up for parent-baby yoga classes. If these are offered in your area, parent-baby yoga classes can help you build strength and stamina, reduce stress, and provide you another opportunity to bond with your child. Yoga enhances not only the body, but the mind and spirit as well!
6. Purchase some exercise videos. Yoga, Pilates, low-impact aerobics, and kickboxing can all be done on your living room floor with little or no equipment. Before you buy, rent a few from your local video store or check them out from the library to see which ones you like. Read reviews online, check youtube for video clips and samples, and pick one or two that look promising to you!
7. Improvise. If you miss your aerobics class because of a marathon naptime, pop in an exercise video or do lunges in the backyard with the baby monitor hooked to your pants. Don’t stress if you don’t get that perfect workout in every time. With exercise, doing some is always better than doing none, and often as parents you need to improvise around your child's schedule. Don't stress about it- just get creative and do the best you can!
8. Most importantly, put exercise on your “to-do” list. Make it a priority. If that means getting up an hour early for a run, then set the alarm and go for it. Write it down if you NEED to- write "EXERCISE" on your grocery list or list of chores! You’ll benefit in countless ways, plus you’ll be a happier, more peaceful parent for your kids.

Pregnancy: Attack of the Body Snatchers, Jillian Michaels Edition

Tiger Lady. That's what my oldest son christened me as soon as he could talk, thanks to my knees-to-navel stretch marks. (Note: that proud day was also the day I decided he was too old to shower with mommy anymore.) So I will be the last person to tell you that you can have a baby and bounce back to exactly the same shape you were in before having a human erupt from your loins. Even if you do get down to your pre-pregnancy weight - a touchy enough subject - most likely things will settle into new positions. (We won't even talk about the disasters that befall your nipples.) For every Heidi Klum in her Victoria's Secrets, there are a hundred Charlottes in our control-top tights.

And yet it still rubbed me the wrong way when Jillian Michaels said in a recent interview with Women's Health that she didn't want to get pregnant because of the effect it would have on her body:

There is no doubt that “The Biggest Loser” trainer Jillian Michaels has one of the best bodies in America, and given her childhood history of being overweight, it's something the 36-year-old has worked ultra-hard to achieve. So hard in fact, that she’s not willing to let it slide even to become a biological mother.

“I’m going to adopt. I can’t handle doing that to my body,” Michaels told the new issue of Women’s Health magazine. “Also, when you rescue something, it’s like rescuing a part of yourself.”

Not being an adoptive mother, I'm going to let that comment about "rescuing something" slide (okay I can't let it slide: Children aren't puppies. And also, adoption is not about fixing yourself. Now I'm done.) but I'm always a little leery when women tell me they don't want to biologically have children for fear of marring their bodies.

While there are many good reasons not to have children - and I am in no way saying that all women should start popping out young 'uns like a Pez dispenser (oh, if only labor was that easy!) - I don't think fear is a good one. Especially not fear of losing your looks.

Jillian may be in a particularly unique position due to her job depending primarily on her physique but she certainly isn't the first woman who has voiced this concern. In a society that trades in sexuality and abhors aging it is often seen as a woman's currency to stay looking as youthful is possible. (The irony of living in a culture that worships sex but freaks out over the product of sex - see: men who love looking at boobs... until there is a baby attached to them and then they're "disgusting" - is a different rant for another day.) The problem with that is that everyone, even Demi Moore, will age eventually. The laws of physics will not be denied: Your body will move towards entropy. Not having children may buy you a few more years but in the end, everyone's boobs sag and their butts droop and their tummies deflate to bread dough.

Whether or not Jillian (or anyone else) ever has kids, or even wants kids, is none of my business. I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if she'd just said "I don't want to have children" or "I'm planning to adopt." Likewise I would have been fine with "I have a family history of illness I don't want to risk passing down" or "I don't have the resources to support a child" or even "I have a deep-seated fear of Ronald McDonald and the chance of running into that evil clown is exponentially higher with wee ones around and I'm just not willing to risk it."

Putting the blame on her body bothers me for two reasons: 1) I think her stance reinforces the view that pregnancy is an illness or a condition to be feared, rather than a natural bodily function for women and 2) It reads as if she is saying that women who have had children are inherently less beautiful and that our self worth should be tied to what we look like rather than who we are.

My last point may be purely speculative based on the wonderful experiences I've had with my kids but I also worry about regret. Call me biased (I did birth 5 of the little nippers after all) but I just think that if the only reason you choose not to have kids is fear of stretch marks and loose skin then there is a good chance you'll regret that choice when you realize you have stretch marks from puberty and loose skin from aging anyhow.

I'm not trying to come down on Jillian for speaking honestly; I just don't want her to miss out on an amazing experience because of something so ephemeral. You tell me - is Jillian just saying what everyone else is thinking? Did I misinterpret Jillian's meaning? Does fear of ruining your body impact your decision to have a baby? Do you feel like pregnancy has wrecked your body? Any thoughts on "rescuing yourself" by adopting a baby?


UPDATE: Jillian Michaels has taken to Twitter to further explain her comment. Like many of you suggested might be the case, she clarifies by saying "I never said I was anti-pregnancy or taht pregnancy ruins a body. I said that 'I can't put my body through it.' There are emotional issues and physical LIMITATIONS that have resulted in that conclusion. Some I have discussed publicly and some I haven't." [emphasis hers]

I want to thank Jillian for taking the time to clarify her comments and to apologize for misunderstanding her intent.

Fitness Advice: Do you Walk Your Own Talk? (Giveaway Post!!!)

Today Charlotte's roulette of unfortunate personal experiences is brought to you by the number one most feared word of fit folk everywhere. Nope, it's not "thong". Nor is it "Richard Simmons". (Because that's two words and, also, I happen to love him and his dance-tight clad legs.) It's also not "Whirlpool closed for cleaning" although that really does strike terror into my heart because you know it's not just routine maintenance that would shut down a jacuzzi in the middle of a busy gym day; you can bet your sparkly Richard Simmons branded thong (with attached tights) that bodily fluids are on the lam. (True story: One of the Gym Buddies recently witnessed a woman popping her man's bacne in the hot tub. There just isn't enough chlorine in the world to make that ok.)

The word is injury.

If you've been exercising more than a few days, you have probably had an injury. Perhaps if you are as klutzy as I am, you even have a collection of them. At this very moment I am sporting a nice bruise on my upper arm from walking directly into a stationary bike. That I had just finished riding. I also have at least 3 purple marks from where the Jelly Bean's carseat whacks my leg when I carry her in that back-spraining monstrosity. I also have a blackened toenail where I tripped over a weight stand and a spot on my jaw that is still smarting from where I punched myself in the face during Saturday's ultra sweaty Turbokick class.

To quote the ever-quotable Monty Python, these are merely a flesh wound. Sadly, I recently acquired an Injury with a capital I. The bane of exercise aficionados everywhere, these Injuries sideline you during events, wreak havoc with training schedules and are horrible for morale. Plus it makes me feel old. It's my hip, you see.

During my last pregnancy, if you recall, I had to quit running at about 5 months along because of excruciating hip flexor pain. While quitting running helped some, the pain increased until by the end of my pregnancy I couldn't lift up my legs to put them in my pants. I had to - and I'm not kidding you - use my hands and lift them sideways because while No Pants Day is regularly celebrated at our house it's not socially acceptable to take that party out on the street. Thankfully after Jelly Bean was born, the pain went away and I thought I was back to good.

So good in fact that I resumed daily exercise with Jelly Bean in a front pack, at one week post-partum and returned to TurboKick at 4 weeks post-partum. The funny part of this whole story is how I kept telling the Gym Buddies I was going to take it easy because I didn't want to get hurt. Specifically, I'd read a ton about what happens to the stomach muscles after childbirth and I didn't want to make my diastisis (the vertical separation between the abs) widen, or worse, pooch out. I even routinely admonished Gym Buddy Allison whose baby is 1 month older than Jelly Bean and has the most glorious red hair I have ever seen, to lay off the ab work and focus on the Tupler technique.

But why would I take my own advice? It's so much more fun to get injured! Plus it's great blog fodder, right?

Which is how I found myself a month ago back to lifting my leg (mercifully just the left one this time) into my pants with my hands. Stairs were painful. Climbing out of the car was misery. And TurboKick - with all it's kicking, duh - was excruciating. Did I stop? No. I just upped my whine factor. At first I thought the problem was with my kicking form. Then I thought I had strained a ligament by running again too soon. But neither stopping running nor modifying all my kicks to knee lifts (yeah I was awesome to watch) helped and the pain got worse.

Then it hit me: You know what I'd gone full-bore back into right after having a baby? Ab work. P90X's special ab ripper workout was ripping my abs in a wholly unintended way. I finally figured out that my stomach muscles are simply not strong enough yet to do any move requiring me to hold my legs off the ground (like bicycles or Russian twists or pretty much all of the TurboKick ab moves). My hips were kicking in to help my weak abs and the pressure on my lower back and hips led to the injury in my hip flexor. Within days of backing off the ab work and sticking only to moves where my back was supported and my feet stayed on the floor, the pain started to get better. Now, 2 weeks down the road I'm pain free. Thankfully it seems that I caught the problem before I permanently hurt myself. But boy howdy do I feel stupid.

On another gym front, however, I did make a smart move. I found the awesomest bra ever! Actually it found me by way of a review from superfit blogger Mama Sweat. She and I have many things in common - running, Minnesota, books that are taking forever to get published - but thanks to our four (each) happily breastfed babies, we also share weirdly problematic boobs (They change cup sizes every hour! They leak! They sag! Unless they have mastitis and then they're like rocks!). So when she blogged about her love of the "Handful" bra - how could you not love it with a name like that? (Tagline: Designed to flatter, not flatten!) - I knew I had to try one. This bra rocks. At first glance it looks as if it wouldn't be very supportive, what with those skinny straps:

PS> Thanks for all the nice compliments on my zebra workout tank! I love it too! Even better: I got it for 3$ on clearance. Some days the universe smiles.

But I put that bra through the works. It held up (and held the girls up) great through running, kickboxing, weight lifting and everything else I threw its way. Want to read more about the Handful and enter to win one of your very own? Click through to my giveaway page!

When it comes to fitness, do you "walk your talk" ? Or has anyone else ever get an injury from not taking their own advice? What's your scariest fitness word??

Does Breast Feeding Help You Lose Weight?

Salma Hayek has an amazing rack - and I'm not talking about her ability to fill a sweater, er, movie role. They're amazing because of their ability to feed a baby. It's the real secret in Victoria's Secret - breasts are not just fun bags. They also squirt milk. Which I suppose could also be considered fun in some circles. Hey, I don't know what you do with your Friday nights.

But why am I talking about breastfeeding here on a health and fitness blog? (Besides the fact that it's midnight and that always makes me random?) Because of the old adage that breastfeeding will help you lose weight.

Answering Other People's Mail: Round Two
Dear Healthlink,
I had a baby 4 months ago. I 'm breastfeeding, but I really need to lose weight. I need to return to work in about two months and if I don't lose the weight I won't have anything to wear and I can't afford to but a new wardrobe. What can I do?

Healthlink gives a mostly appropriate answer despite being interspersed with little gems like "reduce your intake of all fats" (do they not know what breast milk is made out of??) and "Limit intake of breads" (how about starting with the ice cream or double fudge brownies?) but ends with "women who breastfeed will actually lose weight faster than those who don't."

Lactating = Lean?
Super-skinny celebs like Naomi Watts and Heidi Klum swear that breastfeeding was their key to losing their baby weight in like 0.3 seconds. Salma Hayek begs to differ:

“Yes, and I’m still working on it. I gained a lot of weight, I had gestational diabetes. The pregnancy was really difficult for me. I thought, as soon as this baby is out, I’m just going to lose the weight super fast, because I’m going to breast feed, and everybody tells you that if you breastfeed it’s going to come out like this, it’s a lie! It’s not true.”

“Except for a couple of exceptions, the only reason people lose weight like that when they’re breastfeeding, it’s because they’re not eating and they’re breastfeeding, and this is not good for the baby. You know how they tell you it takes nine months to get it, nine months to lose it? There are shortcuts, but it’s not good for the baby. So I’m taking my time. I’ve lost a lot, most of the weight, and I’m very proud of it because it’s been really hard work studying what kind of food to eat that’s healthy for me, healthy for the baby. But I’m still losing even if it’s slow, and I’ve been working out… and the rest is going to go when it’s time to go.”

Lactating = Ravenous
Mad props to Salma for telling it like it is. The only weight I ever lost breastfeeding was the 8 ounces of milk the little sucker ingested. And that always came back. In fact, my body seems to like to keep about 10 extra pounds of reserve stores while I'm nursing.* Have I mentioned that I give birth to 10-pound babies? That double their weight before 6 months? Apparently my body likes to play it safe with the little butterballs. Or maybe I drank too much hormone-laced (cow) milk while pregnant. Anyhow.

This particular little gem always made me so mad. It's hard enough that people expect you to lose the baby weight the way Paris Hilton loses chihuahuas but it really drives the stake in when people expect it to be easy for you. I know that some women lose weight while breast feeding. I also know that some women have eyelashes that touch their brows without mascara and cellulite-impervious butts.

How about you? Did breast feeding help you lose weight? Or did it just help you lose your breasts when you finished? (Now there's a fun post for another day!) For those of you who don't produce a whole food group out of thin air, what are your feelings about breastfeeding in public? Be honest - does it make you uncomfortable?

*A fact it would be good for me to remember these days in all my freaking out about my Last Ten Pounds.

This post sound familiar? Today is Greatest Hits day here at GFE. This originally ran in March 2008.

The Haitian Earthquake, Kourtney Kardashian's Baby Weight and Me

The little Haitian boy who greeted rescuers [after being trapped for 8 days] with a beaming grin as they freed him from a huge pile of rubble said yesterday, "I smiled because I was free -- I smiled because I was alive." Source.

There was an earthquake in Minnesota this morning. It was pretty small - I don't think it even registered on the Richter scale - in fact, I think it was localized just around our house. I was upstairs giving Jelly Bean her bath, despite her protestations that she is saving all that curdled milk in her neck folds for later, when two of her older brothers decided to start World War III over a solitary piece of K'nex (sadly, I suppose wars have been started over lesser things). There was a huge bang, the house shook and immediately I decided we were having an earthquake, never mind that Minnesota is the least earthquake prone place on the planet. What, don't you all immediately assume a natural disaster is occurring when anything is amiss? No??

For a brief second, my mind raced trying to decide which child I would save first and if I would be able to find my cellphone in the rubble. Of course it wasn't an earthquake, just my spawn. (In relating the incident later to my husband I said, "I think they're evil." To which he replied, "No dear, just malevolent.") And then I paused and wondered if there was a mother in Haiti bathing her newborn when their earthquake hit. Five minutes prior I had been blissfully admiring my baby's dimpled bum and writing today's post in my head. (Have you seen what OK magazine did to Kourtney Kardashian?! They stuck her on the cover holding her brand-new son with the title "My diet secrets: lose 10 pounds in 10 days!" On wee problem: They photoshopped her head onto someone else's skinny body and claimed she'd lost all her baby weight. For the love of new moms everywhere Kourtney set the record straight on Twitter both showing what she really looks like now - glowing and beautiful but not flat-tummied - and saying she has not lost all her weight yet. This is what we've come to: celeb rags now making up stories out of whole cloth! Who does this story make feel good? Not the readers who all immediately feel bad about not losing 10 pounds in 10 days regardless of the occupancy status of their womb. Certainly not Kourtney. Oh yes, it would be the people getting rich off of our insecurities. There, now you got the abbreviated version!)

And then suddenly I was hugging a soaking Jelly Bean to my chest and saying a prayer for every mother in Haiti.

That feeling was still fresh in my heart when I got an e-mail from a longtime reader turned dear friend, Dr. Jon. You may remember him as the doctor who personally vetted Dara Torres during the Olympic doping scandals. Or perhaps as the only person I've ever known to eat fugu, the fish that has a one in one thousand chance of killing you. When he's not writing eloquent letters that I then selfishly purloin for use in my posts, he's volunteering as a doctor doing humanitarian aid work. He has saved lives in almost every hotspot around the globe so even though he was supposed to be on vacation, when I first heard of the Haitian earthquake I had a feeling he'd find his way there. Sure enough, yesterday this arrived in my inbox:

[...] When you are amputating a leg, deep in the rubble of a collapsed building, having crawled and wormed your way in, dragging your medical kit with you, and an aftershock comes, you can't help but duck in case the pile collapses - pretty pointless, but a normal reaction, I'm told - and traps you along with the casualty . It gnaws at you and saps energy and strength in a very different way to working in war zones, but the patient comes first and that's just how it is . I'll admit I'm very, very tired, but the job HAS to be done and we have the skill set to do it .

Kourtney Kardashian's head on another woman's body takes on a whole new meaning in this light doesn't it? I have no words. God bless you in your mission Dr. Jon. Stay safe out there, ok? And write me when you get home.

For those of us who aren't doctors, MSNBC has compiled a list of ways to help the earthquake victims and those providing on-the-ground support. And surprisingly donating money probably isn't the best way to help at this time.

May all of you hold your loved ones a little tighter! Or at the very least, hold your celebrities a little farther away.

Birth Control and Weight Gain: Where Science and Reality Collide

Reader Joshua was so amused by this pic, he had to add on his own ideas: ""Burger King - Have it Your Way" It just lends itself to the product. And then, sad as it is, my mind starts racing to other brand names that could be used in this manner. "Doral - Taste Me, Taste Me" "Hungry Man - How Do You Handle A Hungry Man?" or "Hungry Man - A Man Handler" which seems more appropriate. I'm going to stop now because I could do this all day. (That was an intentional pun, by the way)." It cracked me up so much, I'm bumping his comment up here. Feel free to add your own in the comments!

As any woman of child bearing age knows, there is currently a large debate going on between the scientific community and women everywhere. It involves a lot of numbers, studies, anecdotal experiences, thousands of websites and, yes, lot of tears (hormones are involved) but it distills down to this:

Science: Birth control does not cause weight gain!

Women: YES IT DOES AND I HAVE THE HIPS TO PROVE IT.

Here's the problem - a very large and reputable study that came out earlier this year claims to have discovered once and for all that women on the pill don't gain any more weight than women not on the pill. These results don't jive with reality however.

Case #1, Gym Buddy X: Earlier this year she had the Mirena IUD, an intrauterine device that releases progesterone, put in. She immediately gained ten pounds and added an additional ten over the next few months. No matter what she did (and she is a very avid exerciser, I can vouch for that!) she was unable to lose them. She finally got it removed and lost 4 pounds that same week. Weight loss has been steady ever since.

Case #2, Gym Buddy Y: Recently she had the Mirena IUD put in after having a baby and while she had been steadily losing weight up to that point, suddenly her weight reversed itself and she has been gaining ever since. Obviously this does not make her happy.

Both Gym Buddies were told by their doctors that the Mirena did not cause their weight gain but reality begs to differ.

Men and Women are Not the Same
You might not have heard this but boys and girls are different. (Side note: thanks to Baby Sister, my three-year-old has discovered that not all people possess a penis - a fact he likes to point out loudly in public places. As in, "Mommy! Wook at dat lady! She not has a penis? Hey lady, you has no penis?!" Fun!) A man, once he has reached his adult size, may reasonably be expected to maintain that weight or close to it for the rest of his life. A woman however, if she chooses to have children will be forced by her biology to gain a lot of weight and then lose it in a relatively short amount of time and may even repeat the cycle multiple times if she wants more than one child. Even if she doesn't have children, her body still prepares every month for one and her hormones go up accordingly. All of this up-and-down with the weight and the hormones makes weight loss and maintenance an entirely different animal for women than it is for men. And so it is that hormonal birth control and weight become inextricably linked for us girls.

Which is why I can't buy the theory that birth control does not cause weight gain. Yes, I read the recent research showing that women on birth control don't gain any more weight than women not on it but there are several factors the researchers did not examine. For instance, the study only looked at one type of pill when there are many many hormonal birth control options available. In addition, other research has shown that birth control pills cause women to lose muscle mass. So it only makes sense to me that if our bodies gain fat and lose muscle during pregnancy through the use of hormones then the artificial manipulation of those hormones via birth control will also impact weight. Besides, a million anecdotal stories on the Internet can't all be wrong. Just Google "weight gain and birth control" to see what I mean.

Types of Birth Control
Not to get all 8th-grade health class up in here but basically you have two types of birth control: hormonal and non-hormonal. Non-hormonal sounds better right off the bat but currently it only includes two options - the Paraguard (copper T) IUD and condoms. The first works great - I had it before and loved it - except that it makes normal periods heavy and heavy periods unlivable, which is why I can't use it again. As for the second, well, if I have to tell you why condoms suck then you are probably still a virgin and don't need this advice. (Notice I did not mention the "rhythm method" as an option. I am so fertile that I don't even dare wash my husband's and my underwear together much less risk the calendar method.)

Which leaves us with hormonal birth control. You've got the patch, the shot, the Mirena IUD, the ring, 200 different types of The Pill and that weird thingie you get stuck under the skin in your arm. Did I miss anything? The problem, as it relates to weight gain, is that all of these options mess with your hormones. Most of them operate by simulating low levels of the pregnancy hormones thereby tricking your body into not ovulating. Low-level pregnant is not what I want my body to think it is.

After much histrionics (mostly on my part), fervent discussion whilst power walking the track with the Gym Buddies, conducting an informal Facebook poll (most popular answer? Abstinence... har, har, har) and hours of scouring weight loss sites, I have finally concluded that the three types of hormonal birth control least likely to make you gain weight are:
1. Yasmin (not to be confused with Yaz) - the pill marketed for PMDD.
2. The Nuva Ring
3. Ortho-tricyclin Lo

Unfortunately none of them are an option for me as I'm nursing. Why don't uteruses (uteri?) just come with an on/off switch?!

It is a cruel trick of our womanly nature that most of the ways to prevent pregnancy - a condition noted for its weight gain - cause weight gain. So what does a healthy-eating, frequent-exercising, mama-of-enough-kids do? Now that the Jelly Bean is out, I am trying to decide the best way to prevent any more Beans while at the same time dropping those last (always problematic) 10 pregnancy pounds. So help a blogger out: tell me your thoughts on birth control and weight. Did you gain weight? Lose weight? Go crazy? Which ones worked for you?

PS> I ran this post by my sister earlier as she's my inappropriate-joke filter (believe me, she has saved you guys from my warped sense of humor on more than one occasion) and her comment? "Charlotte, there is more to life than what you weigh." Which I suppose means that if 10 pounds is the price I have to pay to not get pregnant again, then perhaps I should just accept it and find more important things to worry about. Sigh.

My Unthankful Thanksgiving

I'll admit I wasn't feeling the gratitude today. (Which is okay, right? I mean I still have a few hours left to procrastinate my character improvement.) This morning found me walking the track at the gym, my baby in a front carrier and nothing to entertain me except my mp3 player... which was dead. So basically I spent an hour walking in small circles and muttering to myself like a crazy person, nary a Gym Buddy in sight. That last bit was the real problem. See, all the Gym Buddies were absent this morning because they were saving up their childcare hours so they could come to the big Turbo holiday sweatfest tonight. The one I can't attend because a) my baby is too young to go in the childcare and the gym management frowns on babies in kickboxing classes and b) my body isn't healed up enough yet to handle it.

To understand my extreme angst you must know this is no ordinary cardio class. Every year Turbo Jennie crafts a particularly torturous 90 minutes of kickboxing intervals interspersed with crazy dance moves that she calls her Holiday Mix. It's a total party and you burn mega calories the night before Thanksgiving so you can indulge guilt free the day of. (That's the theory anyhow - me and my neuroses are not into guilt-free anything. But I'm working on that.) I live for the Holiday Mix.

And this year not only am I condemned to the hamster wheel but I have to sit at home knowing everyone is having a great time without me, not unlike the time I went to a girl's-choice dance in high school only to have my date take off with my best friend and then watch as her date tried to get drunk by chugging bottles of breath drops. (In case anyone is wondering, no it didn't work but I ended up having to walk home anyway after they decided there wasn't enough room for me in the car.)

As I walked my bajillionth lap and pondered the incongruity of a Thanksgiving event making me seriously ungrateful, a news story popped up on one of the large screen TVs. "Burned boy facing lifelong recovery" was the headline, accompanied by a picture of a horribly burned child. Then his mother came on the screen, sobbing, "I'm just grateful he's alive!"

5 points to the Big Guy upstairs: I get it, my problems are small. (Note to self: God uses HDTV.)

After that I decided to use my laps to think about all I have to be thankful for. It wasn't too many before I came to see the wisdom in Chris Illuminati's Unthankful Thanksgiving post (yes Chris, I just used you and wisdom in the same sentence):

Thankful is minor. Thankful is the feeling when a stranger points out I’ve mistakenly dropped a wad of money in a crowded store or when the UPS guy puts the package in between the screen door and front door so it doesn’t get drenched, or worse, stolen. Thankful is coming home and the package hasn’t been stolen and I can forgo a call to Amazon and beg for a replacement.

My family and friends, the coming bundle of boyhood, the upward course of my writing career and the pending book are not things to be thankful for because they are much more. They are blessings. Blessings trump thanks.

[P.S. Do check out his book! He is hilarious and awesome.]

He's right. Not only do I have a million things to be thankful for but as the good Friar tells Romeo, I also have "a pack of blessings light upon [my] back." So while I still can't go to the Turbo Party, how cool is it that I have so many fun friends that I cried because I miss them? (I know, who cries over missing a cardio class? Me, that's who.) And how blessed am I to have 4 beautiful, healthy children? And a wonderful husband? And loving parents and siblings who are my best friends? And to be healthy myself? After I covered all the big blessings in my life (all of you blog buddies and readers also made the list!), I moved on to all the little things I'm grateful for. Like an indoor track so at least I'm not walking in the rain. And the fact that it's November here and it's still warm enough that we have rain! And binkies. Bobby pins. Books. (And the letter B, apparently.) Also: I haven't had an anxiety attack in over 4 days! The hormonal tides they are a' turning! Woohooo!

In the end I was even grateful my mp3 player had died or I never would have had this little schizophrenic chat with myself. I hope that all of you - whether or not you celebrate Thanksgiving where you are - will make the effort to consider your blessings today as well. Bonus points if you aren't as whiny about it as I was!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Trusting Your Hunger Vs. Exercising Willpower

These days, thanks to my transformation from walking womb to 24/7 milk bar, I am a girl with a hefty appetite. They say that nursing requires even more calories than pregnancy and I believe it. I'm not counting calories (yay!) but just guessing from the huge amounts of food I consume every few hours I'd say it's a lot. Like NFL linebacker a lot.

This frightens me.

But before we delve deeper into my neuroses, I have a confession to make: I have a serious case of envy for anyone who has figured out to eat when they're hungry. Yes, I am still trying to master this life skill that infants, dogs and the Tasmanian Devil do with gusto. Many of you blog friends have already figured out how to do this. Heather [who Eats Almond Butter], MizFit, Quix, Leslie [who Never Says Diet] and many others of you have written about how you made peace with your hunger pangs. And every time I read one of your inspirational stories I think to myself, "someday that is going to be me."

But someday is not today. And today I hate that I'm so hungry. It seems like a cruel trick of nature to saddle women who are still holding on to half their pregnancy weight with an appetite that makes werewolves look reserved. In the past I've embraced my hunger, sometimes too much, enjoying that dizzy emptiness. But being solely responsible for providing a little person's nutrition keeps me from going that route again. She needs calories and I can't produce those out of thin air.

So I eat. I eat mostly healthy things, albeit loads of them. Case in point: for lunch I ate an entire 1-lb box of baby spinach as a side dish. Who eats an entire pound of spinach in one sitting? Even Popeye exercised portion control with those puny cans. (We won't talk about the jumbo jar of mixed nuts that contains 35 servings that I ate in one week.) I also eat things I would never normally eat. Pizza, sausage, cookies and entire packages of gummy worms disappear before my kids even see them, much less get a chance to complain that I'm not sharing. I hate that I do that.

Every morning (question: When does morning start, exactly? Is it at the 12 a.m. feeding, the first official one of the new day? Or is it the 3 a.m. feeding because I can't get back to sleep after? Or perhaps the 5:30 a.m. feeding because dawn is hinting on the horizon?) I resolve to not eat everything in sight. And every evening I fall into bed disappointed with myself.

I suppose it all comes down to control. We're always told that the secret is to exercise more will power, control our appetite. But these days my appetite is controlling me. My hunger feels like an emergency that I must respond to. It will not be ignored, distracted or otherwise toyed with. If I do manage to stave it off, it slaps me down with a fierce case of of the low blood sugar crankies.

When I do finally manage to string a coherent thought together - no mean feat in this household - it scares me that I'm not even three weeks post partum and am already freaking out about food and weight. (But hey at least I'm not freaking out about freaking out!) I won't always be nursing so I should just trust my body and give it what it wants, right? Trust. Gah.

I have serious trust issues with my body.

Short of begging Geneen Roth to switch brains with me, what can I do? How do you tell the difference between real hunger and just eating? How do you strike that balance between controlling yourself and trusting yourself? Is it even possible to do both or do you fall into one camp or the other?

The Happiest Sadness: On having a baby after losing one

Have you ever been afraid that by loving someone so much you will lose them, simply because the universe hates a happy ending? It's a disturbing, paranoid and not really rational thought but there's a reason that the axiom, "It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all" exists. Loving someone can be scary. Because losing that someone is even scarier.

Of all the Big Things I have been through in my life, there is one I almost never talk about. At least not in a public setting. While I have no problem writing all about my sexual assault, the court case and the aftermath or going on TV to discuss my reincarnating eating disorder or 'fessing up to my myriad mental health issues (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), I don't often talk about the birth and death of my first child, my daughter Faith. The silence isn't because I don't remember her or because it's too uncomfortable or even because it feels unresolved. Rather, it's simply because it still hurts. And that hurt feels sacred because it's all I have left of her.

She would have been eight in September. It's been enough years that the pain is no longer that sharp, breath stealing, nauseating pain of immediate grief that makes you wonder if you can even get out of bed in the morning much less return to normal life. And yet, she would have been eight in September. The ache is there every time I see a child her would-be age. It's there when I stop to admire a beautiful girl's dress in a store and realize that instinctively I've picked up her would-be size. And now it is there when I see her baby sister, perfect in every way that she wasn't. Alive in every way that she isn't.

That long ago day the hospital put a rainbow on our door. None of the other rooms in the labor and delivery unit had door decorations. We were special. The rainbow was there to let the staff know that the room they were entering contained a dead or dying baby. Even still the anesthesiologist slipped and asked me if the baby had any health concerns he should know about. ("Um, all of them?") The silence after she was born was deafening. She died of Turner's Syndrome, a genetic condition that while not always fatal proved to be so in her case. There is no feeling to compare to going into a hospital pregnant and walking out empty handed, save for a tiny memory box tied up with a green ribbon.

I refused to let her death make me bitter. Still, it left a legacy. I had decided - not through any direct consultation mind you - that God did not mean me to be a mother to a girl. I was sure I would be bad at it. As three boys filled our home and our hearts, that idea grew stronger. I even told people that I couldn't have girls, almost willing it to be true so that I wouldn't have to deal with the inevitable fear and anxiety that would come with growing another baby girl.

And then God decided to show me that I should not put words in his mouth. We conceived a girl. At the midpoint ultrasound, the same point when we learned Faith was so sick, we cried with relief when the technician assured us that everything was fine with our baby. But even then I was afraid to think about it. I didn't shop for her (a situation remedied by our very generous friends) . I didn't paint the nursery (it is indeed still blue). But the most telling indicator of my fear was that I didn't write about her. I didn't chronicle her pregnancy like I did my boys'. I didn't write her love letters as I had to my other children. In fact, my journal is completely empty from the day I found out I was pregnant until the day she was born. I was afraid to hope.

Any mother will tell you that one child cannot replace another, even if we can't keep all their names straight when yelling at them to take their breakfast dishes to the sink. Yet as I held our newest daughter that first night I was surprised to discover that she filled a hole I didn't even realize that I had. Or at least wouldn't admit that I had. It wasn't her job to heal me and yet somehow she did.

"I'm so happy," I said to my husband tonight as I rocked our beautiful girl, my heart cracking with the enormity of it. Something in my eyes must have betrayed my fear of that happiness because he answered, "There is nothing wrong with taking joy in your child." Slowly I'm coming to realize that it doesn't mean I love Faith less because I love her sister so completely. And hopefully I'm learning to love her in spite of my fear of losing her. As Khalil Gibran says, "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. " Loving and losing are two sides of the same coin - we can't appreciate the immensity of love without experiencing the grief of loss.

I am so happy.

Tips for Losing the Baby Weight - That Really Work!

I am ten days past the scream-n-push Bodily Fluids Festival of '09 (Marilyn Manson should take notes) which means, of course, that it's time to talk about losing the baby weight. No, not because I'm feeling overly anxious about it - I'm too busy being anxious about being anxious! - but because I've gotten a ton of e-mails about it. Being officially The Nicest People on the Internet, none of you readers have been pressuring me but rather just wondering if I've found anything that works. Weight loss being the crapshoot that it is once you mix in genetics, socioeconomic status, general health, age and a host of other factors, nonetheless I have found a few tips that genuinely seem to make a difference. So far. (Please note I am only 10 days post partum and will not even come within five feet of my box of "normal" clothes yet.)

1. Have the baby. Okay, so that was a liiiiitle tongue-in-cheek but seriously when else in your life can you say, "I just lost 15 pounds in ONE DAY. Take THAT Jillian!"? Word.


Okay, from here on out, I'm serious. I swear.

2. Wear a belly wrap. I have a Taut (holla to also-momma-of-4 Brooke Burke!) but there is also the Belly Bandit, a host of medical compression bands and the low-tech-but-cheap Ace bandage method. At first blush, this seems like a bunch of hooey: Wear a big elastic belt and get a flatter stomach!! Except that many cultures have been doing exactly that for centuries. Women who have just given birth are in a special (read: anatomically freakish) place with their core. Your organs get all squished to weird places, your abdominal muscles detach from each other, all your ligaments get loose and your hips act as if they can't stand to be in the same room with each other. Using a compression belt helps bring everything back to its proper place and hold it there. My delivery nurse, a lovely woman from Trinidad, told me that the fact that Americans don't typically belly wrap after birth was a huge shock to her as everyone in her country did it and felt that not only was it more comfortable but it was medically advantageous. She was very impressed that I was doing it and even showed me a few tricks to use it properly (lay down when you put it on, start at the top and fasten it downward).

I'll admit I first bought the Taut hoping to flatten my abs faster after birth but when I first put it on in the hospital, I gotta tell you it felt good. Really good. It supported my back and my stomach and put just the right amount of pressure on my hips. The website also claims it helps the skin reattach and tighten up faster. Who cares if my stomach still looked 6-months pregnant? It felt awesome! And, yes, I honestly do think it has made my stomach flatter faster than it would have been otherwise. After having 5 children I feel like I'm in a position to compare. This is my first time using a compression band and I feel like this is the fastest my stomach has ever deflated. Besides - have I mentioned this already? - it feels so nice!

Downsides: it does make you sweaty, the velcro sticks to your underwear and can rip it, and they can be pricey. Also, just to manage your expectations, a belly wrap is not a corset or Spanx - it isn't meant to give you a smooth, flat silhouette. In fact, it looks a bit bulky under tight clothing but who's wearing tight clothing at this point, anyhow?

3. Eat your probiotics. This one works not just for preggos and post-preggos but for everyone. I first found this tip in Fit Pregnancy magazine in a blurb summarizing a research study that found that pregnant women who ate (or took via pill) probiotics every day had 47% less belly fat 6 months post-partum than women who didn't. You know I love my homemade yogurt so I figured this one wouldn't be hard to try. While the results are less easily observed in myself as a) I'm not 6-months post-partum yet and b) I'm a study of one, the original research was quite convincing and probiotics have been shown to help with not only weight loss but stomach health and even gum and dental health! Not to mention that yogurt - especially Greek yogurt - is a good source of protein and calcium. So unless you are lactose intolerant or allergic then this is probably one of those things that wouldn't hurt to try.

4. Lay off the intense exercise. At least at first. I've talked about this study before but research has found that initially for post-partum women, returning to intense exercise right away does not speed weight loss. Mostly I'm reiterating this here for my benefit, especially after Gym Buddy Krista threatened to roundhouse my butt if I returned to Turbokick too quickly. (And girlfriend kicks hard.)
5. Breastfeed? Pregnant women hear this advice ad nauseum (and really isn't there enough nausea already going on?): Breastfeed and the baby weight will melt away like magic! While breastfeeding does have a host of benefits for both mom and baby (my fave: it's free! I'm nothing if not cheap), the jury is still out on weight loss. For me in the past, I find that the weight comes off pretty easily in the first six months. That is until I get to the last 10 pounds. At which point my body decides it had better keep my thighs really well padded, you know, in case of famine or the need to double as Kim Kardashian. There is nothing I can do within the realms of good health to get those last 10 pounds off until I wean the little sucker. My goal this time around is to learn to enjoy my hips and boobs for the short time I actually have them rather than trying to fight those last ten pounds. That's what I have the rest of my life for, right?

For other women it is different though. I have one friend who actually complains that she gets too thin while nursing. Either way, they say nursing burns about 500 calories a day. Like a calorie deficit from exercise, your body strives to maintain equilibrium and will make you hungrier to compensate. (Seriously, you have not seen starving until you've seen me eat when my milk comes in. Small animals hide in fear.)
Conclusion
I am not not not telling anyone, no matter how pre- or post- or even non- partum you are, to worry about your weight. If you must worry, worry about being healthy. However, I know many of you girls think about this. I think about this! It's practically unavoidable in our culture. So I share these sensible tips less like a lose-weight cudgel to the head and more like a help-a-sister-out hug. Pregorexia is never a good idea.

Did I miss anything? Any of you have a great weight-loss tip?

Fit Pregnancy: Post-Partum Exercise and Dealing With Anxiety

Let's be clear: this is not my baby. If it were, there would have been twice as much tape plus a couple of pairs of scissors, some contraband Halloween candy and a spare brother or two caught in there as well.

Five Great Things About Having a One-Week-Old Baby
5. The explosion of pink! It's like a Pepto Bismol factory vomited all over my house. And I love it. Let's face it, I needed a little estrogen backup around here.

4. Having my husband home all week. Not only did he entertain the three boys marvelously but he also caught up on a bunch of home improvement projects. I have curtains again! (No thanks to the Tarzan-monkeys that pulled them all down in the first place. You know that phrase "hanging from the chandeliers"? It's not just a colloquialism at our house. That has literally happened. And yes, the chandelier came right out of the ceiling. They don't make 'em like they used to! Chandeliers, that is, not kids. As far as I know kids are still made exactly like they used to be. No, I'm not giving you instructions so don't ask. ANYHOW.)

3. Finding out how many people love us. I am still overwhelmed by all the gifts, meals, phone calls, e-mails and other acts of kindness that have come our way. (Truth to be told, I'm feeling a little undeserving. But grateful! Very, very grateful.)

2. I'm not pregnant anymore! I can see my feet! No more heart burn! I can put on pants like a normal human being again (well, I would be able to if normal pants fit yet.) If I suck in really hard I can imagine I have a waist again! Plus, my rack is awesome. Yeah, I said it. Seriously, this is so exciting for me that I would have put it as number one except that nothing trumps...

1. My sweet little baby! She is the squishiest, cutest, cuddliest, yummy-smellingest, most adorable, best baby ever! (You know, except for my previous three. What? Someday they are going to learn how to read and we all know Google is Forever.)

Five Not-So-Great Things About Having a One-Week-Old Baby 1. It turns out they can all be condensed into one bad thing: anxiety. Sure, I could whine about multiple night feedings, my kangaroo stomach, my milk letting down every 3 hours on the dot (tingly!) and everything else that comes with caring for a post-partum body and a new infant but really these things don't bother me much. At least not compared to the hanging-by-my-fingernails post-partum anxiety.

I've written before about how my version of the "baby blues" entails obsessive worrying and panic attacks - called post-partum panic/anxiety disorder - and how it gets worse with every child. I knew this was coming so I wasn't surprised by the heart palpitations and racing thoughts (5th time's the charm!). I think I'm dealing with it pretty well - I spend a lot of time meditating, talking myself down and basking in the atomic glow of my Happy SAD Light - but it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. With my last baby it seemed to peak at about 2 weeks post-partum and get better from there. I'm hoping for a similar arc with this one. In the meantime, thanks to all of my friends and family members that have babysat me in the evenings this past week!

Of course one of the hardest parts of this PPA is that I still can't use my primary coping mechanism: exercise. Now that I'm feeling much better after the birth, I'm anxious (ha! get it?) to return to real workouts and not just walking. But I know if I start too much too soon my body will slap me down like a WWF wrestler except instead of a chair over the head it will be mastitis (wow, just using that word makes me feel like a cow.)

Reader Rachel wrote to me a while ago asking what my post-partum exercise plan was. Here it is: not get sick. As we all learned from the infamous mice-on-mini-treadys studies, exercise in moderation boosts your immune system but too much makes you sicker than none at all. I started several days after her birth with just some seriously slow walking. Now that we've passed the one-week mark I plan on upgrading that to moderate walking and yoga. Week three I'm adding in some weights. I'm making myself wait to do anything hardcore like TurboKick until a month. Running we'll just have to wait and see as my hips are still completely disconnected and have the nasty habit of going in opposite directions when I walk.

What is your advice for coming back from a long exercise hiatus? Even if you've never been pregnant, almost everyone has had to work back from an injury, illness, surgery or other life event! Anyone else get post-partum anxiety?

Fit Pregnancy: It's Baby Time!

As many of you have now surmised, Thursday morning found me, my Husband of the Good Genes, and my Doula Beth in the Labor & Delivery ward of the hospital at the crack of dawn. I was feeling chipper, strong and so so ready to get this baby out! Despite all my best control-freak efforts to start labor on my own (I even did Turbo Jennie's PiYo class on Monday!) - and thanks to all of you for your suggestions; I tried many of them! - my due date had arrived and the baby had not. Given my history of 10-lb babies and my "extremely favorable cervix" (Why thank you, doctor! Can I get that on a t-shirt?) my doctor decided it would be best to induce.

Thankfully since I was already so far dilated and effaced, I didn't need a medical induction (a.k.a. the dreaded pitocin) and just required a little push to get me on my way. So we snapped one last pic of the babe on the inside:

And they broke my water which for those of you non-baby-makers out there involves the amniotic sac and a very long crochet hook. I'll let your imagination take it from there.

Doula Beth had some slightly unconventional ideas for how to get my contractions going from mild squeezes to full-on pain party. Did arm wrestling work? I don't know but the laughing sure took the edge off things! (Who won? We tied but I'm guessing it is only because she felt sorry for me being in labor and all.)


Next up were some vigorous side to side lunges. Between these and the hours of walking the halls, I definitely still got my workout in! I know I look like I'm in the stage production of Patch Adams here but things were actually getting ouchie by this point.

[THERE ARE NO PICTURES OF THIS NEXT PART!] After I started sobbing in the hallway, Beth banned more walking and I banned further picture taking. Sobbing quickly moved on to screaming and then total hysteria. I am not a calm woman in labor. We'll leave it at that.

After what felt like an hour of the most excruciating pain I've ever been in (although Doula Beth said it was closer to 10 minutes), I pushed once and Baby was here! First question: "Is she really a girl?!?"

Red bow says yes! (You know they come out with those on, right?) PS> For those of you wondering about her distended belly, it's because it's full of amniotic fluid still as my one-push wonder didn't get enough time in the birth canal to get it all squeezed out. It came out later. There was much vomiting.


I was one wiped mama but so very happy to finally be holding our long-awaited girl on the outside! They handed her to me, I apologized profusely to everyone in the room and... bliss:)

Welcome home, Baby!

Dear Readers, thanks so much for your support and encouragement during this pregnancy. You have no idea how much all your comments and e-mails helped! And many thanks to my mom and family and our many friends here for all the help here! Both baby and I are doing great and recovering at home now.

Much love,
Charlotte

Three Hollywood Halloween Trends That Need to Die

Every year Halloween provides an opportunity to let out the parts of us that we normally keep under wraps in a nod to polite society. For one day a year however, you are encouraged to be as violent, sexual, inane or un-PC as your little heart desires. Even given these lax rules there are still ways to cross the line.

Pregnant Cliches

While the rest of the world is dressing up as the Octomom for Halloween (and laughing at their cleverness), this year Octomom Nadya Suleman is sporting the ever-popular-among-drunk-college-freshman Pregnant Nun costume. That costume was old and unfunny even when I was in college. 8 years ago. It ranks right up there with dressing up as a pregnant bride, a pregnant man or a feminine hygiene product. The weird part is that she made her babies into little devils. I think most of us can agree that the roles ought to be reversed. Okay, not that babies should be pregnant nuns - that would be weird - but Suleman could definitely work the horns. I mean the only way her real-life pregnancy could have been more freakish was if she really had been a nun. Is it smart to call attention to that?

Child Hookers

With child sex trafficking being a very real and immense problem in our global society, it seems incredibly dense to me that any parent would let their child dress up as prostitute for Halloween. Sure there is an outcry every year over sluttified pre-teens in "bunny" "kitty" or "other cutesy animals that end in -y" making costumes out of lingerie and a pair of ears but Noah Cyrus (Miley's little sister) ups the ante on this trend. First, she's nine. Maybe I'm as old and lame as the Pregnant Nun costume but, um, she's in elementary school. (Well, at least I hope she's in school. For all I know she's one of those Hollywood kidlets who is "tutored" on whatever movie set she's currently working on.) The only time a fourth-grader should be this close to flashing her underoos is if she is hanging by her knees from the monkey bars. Second, as far as I can tell she's not even pretending to be anything. Other than a street walker in search of a corner. Would it have killed her to put on a witch's hat and thrown a cape over her shoulders? Or at least gave a shout-out to To Catch a Predator? (Edited: So I just noticed that she's standing on a red carpet. What if she's not attending a Halloween party like I assumed? What if she's just... dressed like this?!)

Padded Underthings... For Men

This last one isn't a Halloween trend but I'd still like to see it die. Calvin Klein jeans recently released a new line of jeans for men that promise "an enhanced profile." As in a padded fly. Journalist Michael Miller tried out a pair, concluding, "They were a breakthrough! Such comfort, such support! And yes, my confidence was bigger! It looked bigger, at least." While some women might be tempted to say this is just desserts for years of padded and push-up bras, girdles and Spanx, I'm going to say that I don't think this is progress in the right direction.

What do you think? Am I just not getting Nadya Suleman's unsubtle brand of humor? Am I being too much of a prude about wee Noah? Should men rejoice that they finally get their own line of shapewear? What's your most hated Halloween trend?