Reward

I have recently discovered this great new diet. First, all you have to do is get pregnant. Grow the child inside of your body for approximately 40 weeks (give or take). During this time eat whatever you want and watch as, not only your stomach, but your hips, thighs and ass expand at an extremely rapid rate. This is mainly caused by all the cookies you will need to consume and the fact that pretty much all physical activity becomes nearly impossible. (This is including but not limited to: jogging, walking, climbing stairs, standing, breathing, motion in general etc.) And try to retain a lot of water if you can. Bags of potato chips in a single sitting help with this. Then give birth. The weight loss is incredible!! Oh, and also you have the pesky responsibility of now raising a child but, whatever. Minor detail.

Anyway, I kid you not, with the regiment I just described coupled with breastfeeding day in and day out, I lost 37 pounds in 6 weeks. But all joking aside, I did not expect to drop that much, that quickly and I am very happy with this change. However, my starting weight when I found out I was pregnant was not what I would call ideal. That coupled with the fact that when I did find out I was expecting I was too scared to sneeze too hard for fear I might dislodge the little noodle in there, I gained a teensy bit more weight (cough) 45 lbs (cough) than I wanted too.

So, about two weeks ago, Grant and I did a 6 day metabolism boosting diet. In a nutshell, it consisted of a low carb, high protein diet with 3 meals a day, 2 snacks and lots of lean protein, veggies and the occasional fruit smoothie. It really is the easiest thing to do and a common sense approach to a diet but you get mighty tired of salad by the end, to say the least. But it worked and thanks to the diet and my daily walks with my son, I lost 8 additional lbs. Woot! And as hard as it was, honestly it felt really good to eat completely healthy for a week. I suppose these so called "nutritionists" may be onto something.

But tonight I decided we deserved to treat ourselves. And the fresh scallops at Farmer Joe's Market in Oakland were begging for me to buy them. I basically tweaked this risotto recipe. I opted for no fennel because I find it offensive and I added red onion and sauteed oyster mushrooms that also looked AMAZING that day at the market. I then topped it off with three beautiful seared scallops. It was well worth 6 days of salads and grilled chicken. But, the weight loss was also worth it and I plan on doing the diet again on a more regular basis in an effort to lose more, and cleanse my body a bit. Now, if I can only find a diet that will do something about this gelatinous tire where my abs once were. One of the many other gifts my beautiful son has left me with.


(Photo by Grant Shellen)