Are you a stay-at-home mom? Do you find it difficult to eat healthy since you are at home for most of your day and tempted to snack on junk food? If so, I can now relate 🙂 My daughter, Emma, is 6 weeks old old, and I am on maternity leave from my full-time web marketing position. I worked really hard throughout my pregnancy to exercise and eat healthy. However, right after I delivered, I felt that I “deserved” to eat some junk food … after all, I had just gone through 9 months of pregnancy and labor and delivery – I should be able to eat some junk food for a few days, right? Well, after a few days of eating cheesecake, apple crisp, ice cream, chocolate cake, carrot cake and brownies at the hospital, I felt pretty awful. haha. Maybe I deserved a few treats, but I might have gone overboard. 🙂 When I got home from the hospital, it was time to get back on track with my eating …

It has been very important for me to develop and maintain a routine throughout maternity leave, even though I’m home much of the time with an unpredictable schedule. I try to wake up at the same time everyday, eat breakfast at the same time everyday, and get my metabolism kick started. I have been training clients at random times depending on when I can get someone to watch my daughter. There have been several times that I need to bring my snack or meal to the gym and eat it in between sessions or on the way home. It is imperative that I do not let myself get too hungry in between meals and snacks. If I do, I am more tempted to snack on junk food when I get home – also, not getting enough nutrition or hydration can decrease milk supply. One of the best ways I ensure that I get enough calories/nutrients is to plan out my meals in advance. This keeps me accountable and less likely to grab junk food if it’s not on my food log for the day.

When I train clients in the gym, we focus on cardio and weight training, but we also discuss nutrition. I am not a dietitian or nutritionist, so I can’t create a diet plan for them, but I ask my clients to track their own food log on a free website called caloriecount.com. It’s a great tool that helps educate and hold my clients accountable in regard to nutrition. The site will help you figure out how many calories are necessary for you, and how to get the right amount of carbs, protein, fats, vitamins, calcium, etc. I often tell my ladies what I ate that day as a “good example” of how to get the right amount of calories and nutrients. Here is my food log from yesterday. Keep in mind, I am petite and require less calories than most women. It would be a great idea for you to log onto caloriecount to fill out a profile and figure out how many calories/nutrients you need in your daily food intake.

Breakfast:

• Mini Wheats: 200 cals
• Skim milk: 43 cals