Can I shout out Target for having nursing rooms? Yay for leaving the house!

Oh restriction, my old frienemy, welcome back to my life.

I started this blog a long, long time ago. Eleven years ago if memory serves. This blog baby is now a middle schooler. And my life looked a lot different back then. I was a working actress who needed to look a certain way. I was dating and felt immense pressure to be hot. I was young and childfree and had the time and disposable income to exercise all the time and buy only the best, healthiest foods. And I was disordered. What I ate and weighed and how much I exercised was what my life revolved around. I pretended it was all about moderation, but it wasn’t it was an obsession. Moderation has never been my strong suit.

And then I got married. Well, actually, I got engaged and tried to diet down for my wedding only to find that my metabolism had been totally destroyed by years of restriction and I worked really, really hard to fix it. And I stopped dieting. And I haven’t dieted since. Roy and I have been married for five years and I haven’t restricted my eating in all that time. I’m not going to say that I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m not. There are definitely times that I wish I were fitter. Thinner. Times when I stare at my closet and long for the single digit sizes shoved into the corner that I can’t bring myself to get rid of. But also, I’ve got things to do, kids to raise, a business to run and a house to keep standing; those moments are not what my life revolves around and having a life that isn’t dictated by restriction is nice.

And then I had Iris.

Turns out my easy baby—seriously, temperment-wise I totally lucked out with this kid—is allergic to milk and soy proteins. This is a pretty common allergy among infants and most kids grow out of it, but for now it means that I need to restrict my diet since I’m breastfeeding. Dairy isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but soy, soy is in EVERYTHING! I’m not dieting, or at least that’s not the intention, but I do have to restrict again and even though it’s not for weight loss purposes, all those instincts come flooding back and one restriction leads to another and to another. It’s so easy to fall back into old obsessions. And I’m working really hard to keep my diet brain in check. 

Speaking of obsessions. I swore up and down this time I wouldn’t worry so much about my milk supply and just supplement with formula as needed. But Ms. Iris does not do formula. She hates it and just screams when we try to give her a formula bottle. Not a great combo for a mama who struggles with supply, so I have to pump wherever we are and take one million supplements. Which is why I have a car pump and a house pump.

I’m hoping to use this switch up in my routine for good instead of evil. Over the last few years, as our expenses grew (hello mortgage and daycare, I’m talkin’ to you!) I’ve definitely erred toward more cost-efficient food than the elite healthy options that rocked my single lady fridge. But it’s not just the purity of the food options that have gone downhill as our budget got tighter; it’s the actual food I will eat. Ethan is a very picky eater and doesn’t eat much, but what he will eat I buy in bulk. Fresh fruit, I hardly ever eat anymore because he will, and I feel like I’m stealing food from my child if I eat an apple. The sprouted grain bread I favored before procreating was replaced by a soft, sweet, fluffy wheat bread he’ll eat. Fibrous cereal has been replaced by frozen waffles shaped like Mickey Mouse. It’s his fridge, I just live with it.

These new restrictions have meant that I’ve actually have to prioritize my own eating again. The other day Iris and I roamed the aisles of Whole Foods reading labels and filling a cart of foods that I can eat safely while breastfeeding her. I haven’t put that much care into feeding myself since Ethan started eating solids. It feels selfish to spend more money on myself. But I’m doing it for Iris so it’s somehow excusable.

Man, motherhood is a total mindf*ck.

Back when I was single and childfree the quality of the food I ate was of the utmost importance. Sure, I was starving myself, but the food I did eat, it was healthy, it was balanced, it was food that on some level meant that I cared about myself. So, I’m using this phase of babyhood as a chance to right some wrongs, wrongs in my past and wrongs in my present; to take the me of yesteryear who cared about what she ate and the me of today who doesn’t obsess about calories in and calories out, and meld them into a better version of myself. One who eats food to nourish herself, not just her children, because I don’t have to eat like a toddler. Right? Right! Right?

Wish me luck.