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Greek Gods of Yogurt

August 29, 2011 By

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I wrote this post while participating in a blog tour conducted by Clever Girls on behalf of Dannon. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program but my opinions are my own.

For more information and recipe ideas, visit www.oikosyogurt.com or www.Facebook.com/oikos. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

By the time Jack’s dad and I split in 2008, I was underweight due to stress, depression, and a certain 2 year old stealing half my food (much tastier when it’s on Mama’s plate!). Not only that, but I was still breastfeeding Jack, which had the weight melting off of me. I didn’t have time or energy to keep up with my nutritional needs and before I knew it I was wearing size 0 pants for the first time in my life (LIFE, PEOPLE!). I was losing my curves and absolutely not happy about it.

David and I started dating in the fall that year and one of our favorite things to do together was eat. Just about every time we got together, we went out to dinner or he cooked for me with LOADS of butter or cream. Between that and eating lunch together daily, plus weaning Jack at 2 1/2 years old, I gained 30 lbs…and was steadily climbing. I am a small person and most would say PFFT, but none of my clothes fit me anymore and my BMI tipped to overweight.  30 lbs on a small frame like mine is a lot.

That was when I joined Weight Watchers. I wanted to get to a healthy weight somewhere between under- and over-weight, and I did it in a decent amount of time. I took a break from it for awhile when life got busy, but I’m back at it (albeit only via the online tool). With WW I can pretty much eat the foods I like, but I need to watch portions. Rather than eating cupcakes every day (which, yes, I absolutely was doing for a while – hey, they are half off between 2-3pm at work!) I now only indulge a few times a month. (I suppose I could find a diet cupcake but that is just BUNK.  Or, if I really wanted a cupcake that badly, I could, like, do exercise, but it’s not THAT important to me.)

So cream and butter aren’t in my diet much anymore except in small portions and in yogurt form. I had a thing for maple yogurt with cream on the top but that had to go.  I turned to Greek-style yogurt, which was slightly better points-wise, but had a hard time finding a nonfat type that I actually liked (NF Greek yogurt tends to be a bit sour, in my opinion). I then got the opportunity to try this nonfat Oikos Greek yogurt and I marched down to my grocery store to grab some.

Lucky for me, the Oikos yogurts were on sale 4 for $5. Woot! I was bummed they didn’t have honey flavor (my fave Greek yogurt variety), but I got peach, blueberry, raspberry, and cherry (the fruit on the bottom type). I promptly went home and ate the raspberry one and it was absolutely frickin’ delicious. It wasn’t sour like the other NF Greek yogurts I’ve tried, thank goodness! Also unlike other nonfat yogurts, the yogurt wasn’t thin and runny. I was a happy camper.

I popped into the WW tool online, plugged in the nutrition facts and found out that the Oikos yogurt is the same number of points as the nonfat stuff I’d been eating. SCORE!  (If you’re on WW, typical Greek yogurt is about 7 points and Oikos is 3 – even some of the FF yogurts out there are 4!)  So, uh, NO DUH I’d recommend it. Healthy, yummy snack for the win!

Two important pieces of info you will surely want to know:

  1. Dannon® Oikos® Plain and Fruit on the Bottom contains 0% fat, while the Dannon® Oikos® traditional blended varieties contains about 3% fat. Both are an excellent source of protein, twice that of most regular lowfat yogurts.
  2. Dannon® Oikos® 0% varieties contain active yogurt cultures and range from 80 calories (Plain) to 130 calories (Fruit on the Bottom) per 5.3 oz. cup.

Oh and another tidbit that I found interesting – Oikos is actually owned by Stonyfield Farms, makers of the little yogurts (one of the few that can be found in organic) I prefer to give my kid.  If it’s related to organic, that’s almost like it IS organic, right?  (Did you know if you have a carrot cupcake, it totally counts toward your veggies for the day?  ;)   You’re welcome.)

By the way, for you breastfeeding moms out there, yogurt contains probiotics, which ward off thrush (if you haven’t gotten it, that is).

I have partnered with Dannon to help promote the Dannon Oikos Greek Yogurt Series. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program, which includes writing about the promotion and product; however, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.

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Filed Under: Breastfeeding, Getting my groove back, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , Leave a Comment

If only this post was about bread

February 16, 2011 By

This post is going to be about yeast.  I know this is not a fun topic.  I have a few pregnant friends and that has brought the topic to the forefront of my mind recently.  I would hazard a guess that most of you have dealt with yeast and will do so again in your life.  It’s possible that you’ve had thrush while breastfeeding or took antibiotics for a bladder infection and then ended up with a yeast infection…  I sadly know more than I ever wanted to about yeast and so I thought I’d share.  Not the yeast of course, but the knowledge about how to destroy it.  :P

When I was pregnant with Jack I tested positive for Group B Strep, which meant I had to take antibiotics during labor.  Even worse, since my induction lasted two days, I received several doses of the antibiotics.  This effectively destroyed all the bacteria in my body, including the GOOD bacteria that prevents yeast overgrowth.  So when I started breastfeeding and things didn’t go so well with latching and my skin was compromised with cracks, the yeasty bastards attacked me and I ended up with thrush…which was surprisingly hard to treat and lasted for months!  This is not uncommon among new moms.

So, here are some tips for avoiding and eliminating all those yeasty bastards and ending your suffering as quickly and effectively as possible…

  • Cut out the sugar and dairy products – yeast feeds on it and you will have a harder time getting rid of a yeast infection if you are ingesting sugar and/or dairy.  Don’t forget about hidden sugar and dairy (lactose, fructose, sucrose, whey).
  • Stay dry – change pads frequently and make sure the affected area is getting enough air.  Don’t wear stifling fabrics (cotton is nice and breathable) and make sure your pads are adequately wicking away moisture from your skin.  If you have reusable pads, get rid of them until the yeast is gone.
  • Take probiotic supplements.  This one is a biggie, especially if you will be taking antibiotics; probiotics will restore good bacteria to your system.  I’ve heard some women say that these don’t work for them but that may be because some supplements contain sugar or dairy (lactose, sucrose, etc.) in the ingredients or the dosage is incorrect.  (This can be the problem with yogurt.)  If you have a yeast infection, ensure that your dose is at least 10 billion cells and take it 2-3 times a day.  Otherwise a “maintenance” dose is 1-3 billion cultures per day.
  • Other helpful supplements include garlic tablets and grapefruit seed extract.  I do not have direct experience with these.
  • Make sure you wash your laundry on HOT and don’t reuse towels between washings – this includes hand towels.  If you are a mom dealing with thrush, BOIL any pump parts, baby cups, pacifiers and bottles.
  • Wash your hands! (But not with anti-bacterial soap.)
  • Vinegar washes are helpful as yeast hates acidity.  When I had thrush I would use a vinegar wash after every nursing, then allow my skin to air dry before treating it with an antifungal cream (i.e. Monistat).

Also, a note for those of you who are prescribed nystatin – IT SUCKS.  Yeast has become highly resistant to nystatin and more times than not, it’s ineffective in treating yeast infections.

If you’d like to do some more reading and not just take my experience/word for it, go forth!  These are some great resources:

Dr. Jack Newman’s Candida Protocol

Breastfeeding Essentials – Could We Have Thrush?

Kellymom.com’s Thrush Articles and Resources

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Filed Under: Birth, Breastfeeding, Illness, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , 11 Comments

A Gift that Gives

November 23, 2010 By

Hey readers.  I hope you all will join me in helping my friend and fellow blogger Alecia raise awareness and funds for a rare disorder that her 9 month old niece suffers from called Food Protein-Induced Entercolitis Syndrome (FPIES).  Those suffering from this disorder cannot tolerate many of the proteins found in everyday foods, which can result in uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea after eating and can lead to dehydration and even fatal shock.  I know it kills me every time my son is sick – I can hardly imagine how awful it is when food is the thing that makes your child sick.  If you’d like to help, there are several things you can do:

Please pass this information on and keep Alecia’s family in your thoughts!

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He gets it from me.

August 28, 2009 By

Jack is a good eater.  I worried about this because his dad is definitely not a good eater (fruits and vegetables aren’t part of his diet at all).  I needn’t have worried, though!  I think between daycare and a few others in his life who will sit down and eat yummy foods with him, he has a fairly adventurous palate.

Jacks food repertoire includes:

  • soy beans
  • Baby Bel cheese rounds
  • carrots
  • little trees (aka broccoli) – steamed
  • salami
  • yogurt (right now he is on a Gogurt kick)
  • pasta
  • baked chicken strips
  • pretzels with peanut butter
  • PB&J sandwiches
  • tea
  • apples
  • bananas
  • rice & beans
  • cucumbers
  • bell pepper
  • peanuts, almonds
  • fruit & grain bars
  • peas
  • corn
  • tofu
  • bread & goat cheese
  • clementines
  • oatmeal
  • scrambled eggs
  • waffles, french toast

He likes his share of junk, too, especially chocolate, but he doesn’t get a lot of it.  Recently he discovered “real chocolate milk” (as opposed to “chocolate milk” which is what we called his milk for a long time) and has been asking me to make his milk brown.  We limit this to once or twice a week.  His favorite cookies seem to be David’s snickerdoodles (I can’t blame him – those things are gooood!).

It’s funny to me to look at this list now because even at a year it would take him a whole week to finish off a jar of baby food.  He was so not into solids for a long, long time.  Now he’s all about them and doesn’t even seem to remember nursing.  I guess he’s a fan of whatever he is doing at the moment.

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Growing Boy

August 28, 2008 By

Wow, I just realized I have only written four posts this month.  Crazy!  I don’t even know where all that time went.  I guess I’ll claim to have been sitting and doing a lot of deep thinking!

Jack seems to have gone through a growth spurt.  I didn’t really notice a change in his appearance but I did take note of the increased food consumption.  Suddenly his Medium diapers are on their last snaps and his clothing stash is pretty thin even though I just bought a bunch of summer clothes in June.  He has a few pairs of shoes that suddenly don’t fit him anymore, too.  It’s amazing how quickly toddlers go through stuff!  Of course, this all happens after his birthday party.  Isn’t that how life always goes?

I’ve been meaning to read up some more on toddler nutrition.  We still have Jack drinking whole milk but I do believe at some point we’re supposed to switch to 2% or something.  I am not too worried because Jack is good about regulating his food intake, and he still prefers mama’s milk over what he calls “chocolate milk.”  I haven’t made the switch because I vaguely remember reading an essay on staying with whole milk longer than 2 years.  Nevertheless, I’d better get on that research.  Knowing the answer will relieve my anxiety about the subject!

I was finally able to get Jack to come around on squeezable yogurt!  We found some organic yogurt in tubes and I figured the novelty would renew his interest.  He wasn’t too sure for a while there but over the last few days he has seen the light.  He asked for the yogurt last night and giggled after every sip.  He ate the whole thing.

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Where have I been?

August 22, 2008 By

Yeah, sorry folks.  I’ve just been so wrapped up in my life…

Jack and I have moved to our new apartment.  Joe is staying with us currently but it looks like he may have found a place to live up in the north bay, much closer to his place of work.  He is possibly starting his move on Monday.

The landscaping at the new place is beautiful, with streams running all along the property and ducks swimming everywhere.  Jack runs to the window a million times a day to look out at the ducks.  He LOVES the ducks.

Jack has been so incredibly amazing every day.  I am so thankful that he is in my life.  His smiling face keeps me afloat.  His daycare provider said to me yesterday, “Jack is always happy!”  He is right – Jack is an incredibly happy kid and I feel lucky to know him.

My greatest joy of late has been hearing Jack mispronounce words.  My favorites are:

“Hey mama, is that what inja says?”  (ninja)
“See the ellacracker?!”  (helicopter)

He seems to be going through a major growth spurt.  He is usually a pretty sparse eater but lately he’s been gobbling everything up.  He eats a cup of cheerios before daycare, then eats a full breakfast once there (Wednesday he ate FOUR pancakes!).  When he gets home he eats two cheese sticks.  Two days ago he finished his plate of beans & couscous.  Yesterday he ate pork loin at lunch like he was starving.  What a nice change!

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On the road to weaning

April 24, 2008 By

We are somewhat working on weaning.  Well, some say that weaning begins when solids are introduced, but that is not how I think of weaning.  Up until very recently, I have always let Jack call the shots on nursing.  Nursing is an important part of his nutrition as well as his emotional development, and I don’t want to take it away before he is ready.  With that said, I have found breastfeeding to be emotionally difficult for me throughout the duration, and I feel that I am reaching my limit.  I am trying to strike a balance that will work for both Jack and me.

As Jack has shown less interest in nursing and more interest in the world around him, I have begun to test the waters a bit.  I have really made an effort to get on top of solids to ensure that meals are prepared quickly when he gets hungry so that he is less likely to get impatient and decide to nurse instead of eat solids.  Consistency and proactivity about meal and snack times have been key.  Additionally, when he does ask to nurse I try to see if I can offer cow’s milk or water instead, or a hug if it seems that he wants attention.  This has been working really well, with only minimal balking from Jack.

I’ve stepped things up as of late.  Many a morning I have had to leave for work before Jack is up, so we skip our morning nursing session.  Some mornings we run late and although he asks to nurse, I offer him food or water or cow’s milk and he is perfectly content with that (although it surprises me every time!).  I have been attending group therapy directly after work on Thursdays and so we have delayed that post-work nursing session or skipped it in favor of a longer nursing-to-sleep session after I get home.  He has been sleeping so well lately that some days we are down to only one nursing session!

I’m going out of town tonight and I have thought a lot about what will happen while I’m away and when I return.  I know that some kids Jack’s age wean themselves when their mamas travel away for a few days, and I’m prepared for that possibility.  Still, I can’t really see that happening.  It would sure shock the hell out of me.  More likely, the remaining nursing sessions will continue to dwindle away until we cease for good some time in the fall.  That would be just about perfect, in my opinion.

While I’m looking forward to moving on from this stage of our relationship, I know it also signifies that Jack is truly starting to grow up.  That, of course, sends a little pang to my heart.  Nursing or not, Jack will always be my sweet son, my special little guy, my babyman.

Filed Under: Babyman, Breastfeeding, Milestones, Nutrition, Parenting 101, Working Mamahood Tagged With: , , , , , Leave a Comment

Food Update

February 6, 2008 By

Since my post last week after his pediatric appointment, Jack has decided that food is the best thing in the world.  Suddenly he is ravenous.  He’ll finish a whole box of raisins in a sitting, eat the corners off all the slices of pizza, and finished off a package of cherry tomatoes in a mere 3 days.  Can we say growth spurt?

He still isn’t drinking much during the day but luckily many of the foods we give him keep him hydrated and he still nurses like a champ when we’re together.  I have no idea what to do to encourage him to drink during the day, as no vessel seems to tempt him.

I like the fact that Jack can now tell us when he’s hungry.  Last night he gestured upward with his hand toward a box of Cheerios and opened and closed his fist while he chanted, “Moremoremore…”  It’s adorable.

Gosh, sometimes it seems these kids like to freak out their parents on purpose.

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18 Month Well Baby

January 31, 2008 By

I’m not sure why this happens every time we visit the pediatrician, but I forget to ask all of the questions I have saved up.  I even wrote questions down this time and didn’t ask them.  Stage fright, I guess.

Jack is 26 lbs. (he got on the big person scale!) and 32″.  He has dropped percentiles and is now totally average at the 49th (down from the 85th).  Since I forgot to ask about whether a mere 1 pound gain in 6 months was a concern, I sent an email off to the pediatrician when I got to work.  The doctor replied to say that the one pound gain is low and recommended we feed Jack more dairy and legumes.  Nothing I didn’t know there…very helpful, doc.  I can offer, but I can’t make the boy eat.  I particularly like the part where the pediatrician said “his weight is still within normal limits.”  He must have forgotten that the entire growth chart is “normal limits.”  He also suggested giving Jack whole milk…forgetting apparently that breastmilk is whole milk, and also the part where we talked about how Jack won’t drink anything other than a few sips of water (in addition to the 3-4 nursing sessions a day).  Can you tell I’m not impressed with the ped?

We got caught up on immunizations (apparently Kaiser has a more aggressive immunization schedule than our previous pediatrician’s office, so we were “behind”) and it actually wasn’t too bad.  Jack only cried for a minute and then the nurse distracted him with a star sticker.  We refused the chicken pox and flu vaccines.  Being sick with both of those things sucks but it’s not life-threatening.  We will consider chicken pox if he doesn’t catch it before middle school.

Overall I dislike well baby check-ups.  So far they haven’t been helpful at all.  Perhaps that is a sign right there that we are doing just fine on our own.

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Back to Normal

January 24, 2008 By

Our household is recovered.  Yay!!!  Jack seemed like he would never get well and then BAM!  He’s totally back to normal.

I’m stressing about his food intake, though.  Before he got sick he was hardly drinking any expressed breastmilk during the day, and only sips water.  Now he’s cut out milk completely.  Joe has tried sippies, straws, bottles and none of them seem to persuade him.  That may be okay since I nurse at least 3-4 times each day but he is not eating enough solid foods, either.  The best I can tell, he is getting maybe 400 calories a day from solids.  In total he needs about 1300 calories a day.  I estimate he gets about 400 from me but it’s (obviously) hard to say.  He used to be in the 85 percentiles for height and weight, but has dropped down to about the 30th.

We are visiting his pediatrician next week for his 18 month check up but I’m nervous because this is the first time I don’t feel confident about Jack’s intake.  I don’t have much trust for doctors and this one has never seen us before.  There isn’t anything we could be doing differently, though, so I know I shouldn’t worry so much.  Perhaps it is a phase, or maybe it will get better when he is back at daycare with a real schedule and other kids around encouraging him to do what they are doing.

Other than that, we’re spending our time talking about colors a lot.  With Jack’s recent discovery of crayons, he is fairly obsessed.  It’s not enough, though, to color by himself.  No, he wants to watch US color.  We’ve been pointing out the names of colors (last night we had a lesson about the colors of his diapers) and he’s been adding to his vocabulary.  So far his favorite is definitely yellow.

We’ve also been reading counting books and Jack pretends to count constantly.  It’s pretty damned cute when he randomly says, “two…twee…fah…”  I *think* he is starting to figure out the correct order but it’s hard to say.  Last night I showed him  how to hold  up the number of fingers but that is going to take a ton of practice.

It’s fascinating to me to see how kids learn.  I truly am amazed at how human beings function.  As I was sitting in a meeting at work today, I looked at the presenter and pictured him as a child learning the basics of math.  It was then that it hit me that someday Jack is going to grow up and be an expert on something.  It’s going to be so weird!

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