My Desire to Have Another Baby Changed My Eating Lifestyle for the Better

A big topic of discussion in my family has been eating healthier. My husband grew up eating frozen dinners that had been thrown in a microwave while I grew up eating a bit healthier, being a vegetarian for 9 years. While I was pregnant with our son I gained a lot of weight and ended my vegetarianism due to medical needs. Since then my husband and I have moved 4 times and he has completed two years at school, moved on from a retail job to one he is very happy with. The stress of the years has caught up to us, however, in the form of added weight.

So when I brought up having another child sometime soon, we both started to take a look at our health. My husband won't admit it, but he looks fine. I on the other hand am medically obese. Losing weight before having another baby is very important to me because obese women suffer higher risk pregnancies. We decided that to feel comfortable with bringing another child into the world, and to give our son the best life possible, we needed to get in shape.

Since exercise really isn't the problem in our lives, we had to look at what we eat. One of the things my doctor told me is that exercise only makes up 20% of weight loss with the rest being comprised of what a person eats. It took me a minute to wrap my mind around food being such a big issue for me. I knew that I had a problem with some junk foods, not many... but some, and my biggest calorie intake came in the form of one tasty, evil liquid: fruit juice. I am a juice-a-holic.

So we started shopping in a way that supported our new lifestyle. My doctor suggested walking the perimeter of the grocery store while avoiding the middle aisles. This has worked well for our family. We begin with fresh fruits and salad mixes in the produce and move on to skinless chicken breasts on the back wall. After that we move on to frozen veggies and whole wheat pastas and some other healthy items. During my vegetarian years I was vegan for two of them, so I absolutely cannot stand milk, but 8^th Continent soy milk has a solid place on my grocery list.

Lately I have been thinking more and more about my previous vegetarian years. The reason I went vegetarian to begin with was that I wasn't very fond of the taste of meat. I still feel the same way so I have been thinking of going back to a vegetarian lifestyle. Of course my carnivorous husband has had some reservations about all those weird foods, like meat substitutes, veggies, and (are you ready for this?) tofu. Ok, he isn't as bad as I'm making him sound, but in reality foods like tofu do make him a little wary.

We are pretty much die hard pasta fanatics and while spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce can be an amazing dish, creamy Alfredo sauce is where it's at! But making an Alfredo sauce with cream can pack in calories and fat, so I decided to do something that would cut calories and add protein. Here is my cream-free Alfredo sauce recipe:

Cream-free Alfredo Sauce:

1 12oz. pkg. silken tofu
½ cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 tsp. olive oil or grapeseed oil

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into a saucepan and warm over medium heat. Serve immediately.
Customize by adding Romano cheese or an extra clove of garlic!

When I put this together I had no idea how it would come out. I know tofu has a reputation for being bland or having a hard-to-palate texture, but in my experience tofu can take on any taste and any texture. I poured the sauce over some fettuccini noodles and waited for the gags, but they never came! I had created a tofu-infused dish that my husband loved.

Since then we have been trying to incorporate meatsubstitutes into our diet while edging out those last few vices. I have been banning the purchasing of juice and doing fairly well. Drinking more water (with lemon, usually) has helped with my juice addiction. We even ate Boca's meatless hamburgers the other night! We are on our way to healthier lives and a new baby. It is safe to say I am incredibly excited.