Home Stretch and Lactation Cookies

Well everyone, Sunday marks day 22 of my "21 Days" which means I would have officially completed 21 days of clean eats and working out. I'm still down 5 lbs, my workouts have not gotten harder, but they've not gotten easier...so there's that. I need to push myself. I had a goal to lose another 7 lbs before the end, but I'm just not sure it's going to happen. As far as eating, I've been doing great staying on track. My biggest "fail" was today, I made quesadillas for dinner, I made mine in a corn tortilla and put minimal cheese on it, but when the Farmer left a piece of his *loaded with cheese and sour cream in a flour tortilla* version, I finished it because I didn't want it to go to waste - rather than make myself another in a corn tortilla. So for the sake of the budget I had to "take one for the team"....I guess. But, honestly, it could have been worse. I'm going to push hard to the end here and eat less starches - we had potatoes with dinner last night - and load up on salads and veggies.

T minus 3 days and counting. And really, I don't think much will change come day 22...in fact, I'd like to start over again on Monday. I have a church lunch meeting on Sunday (which worked out perfectly) and I'm ordering Jimmy Johns, so I'm probably going to indulge...and then jump right back in on Monday for another 21 days. And so on....

Cooking has been a lot of fun! Trying new recipes and cooking with healthier fats, staying away from refined sugar, grains and starches and being completely gluten free (minus the 1/4 of a flour tortilla tonight) for the past 18 days has been wonderful. I haven't felt this good in quite sometime - hence not really wanting to stop! I've also been able to prepare some good, healthy meals for my incredible brother-in-law and his wife who just had triplets.

TRIPLETS.

As in: THREE babies. At. One. Time.

They are rock stars. These three, healthy, beautiful babes are just so beyond loved and their mom and dad are just rocking out at being new parents. I went to drop off dinner last night....I kid you not, the house was in order, the dog greeted me silently at the door and you could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. Marlie, Dylan and Dax slept peacefully, nestled comfortably in their own sleep-baby-gadget. I got to hold and snuggle sweet Dylan for a bit and I just couldn't get her precious face out of my brain for the rest of the night. I mean, seriously. I love those kiddos more than words.

Oh, and my sister-in-law, who also happens to be my hero, is breastfeeding all the babies. Like, exclusively. I mean, c'mon! So when she texted me and asked if I could look into some lactation cookie recipes for her - I was like HECK YEA, MOM!

Since I sucked at nursing my own babies, I find pure joy in helping this mom (and dear sister of mine) totally succeed at nursing not one, not two, but all three of her precious miracles. And I got to do more research on healthy foods, grain free baking and experiment with new recipes - duh! Win-win. These cookies smell so good! And you don't have to be a nursing mom to get health benefits from them. Flax seed, brewers yeast, fenugreek and oatmeal have tons of nutrients that keep all humans healthy - but the specific combination of those ingredients also happens to have a direct effect on milk supply for nursing moms.

I followed this recipe from Mother Nature Network to a T. The good news is I have lots of the fenugreek, flax meal and brewers yeast left over so I'll be figuring out other ways to incorporate these ingredients into treats for her! Not to mention, this recipe yielded 3 dozen cookies - which is more than usual for grain-free recipes. They tend to be on the smaller side, but this was like making a normal batch of chocolate chip cookies. My next endeavor is something cleverly coined "Booby Bites" - that's on my agenda for tomorrow!

So that's it. If you are a nursing mom and want to increase your milk supply - just head over to Pinterest! There are tons of recipes and ideas for using these ingredients (Flax, Fenugreek & Brewer's Yeast) and they're relatively easy to find (I bought all of them at Woodman's pretty inexpensively). Wish I would have had Pinterest when I was a new mom. Or when I got married...ugh, Pinterest wedding boards make me queasy. Oh the things I could have done!

Oh well, happiness cannot be pinned on a board.

Alright, here's to tomorrow going well - I'm excited to try some of the *official* Shakeology protein shakes - my cousin kindly sent me some samples. And I may sneak one of the lactation cookies ;)

Good night!
-The Farmer's Wife