Weight Obsession

Like most women, I usually think twice about what I eat. I can never eat anything without weighing the costs. When I was pregnant I suddenly started obsessing about calories in the opposite direction. My goal was to gain at least 50 pounds because I had read a bunch of research showing strong correlations between a large weight gain and birthing healthy-weight twins. I started looking at the calories of everything I ate, trying to switch to super high-calorie foods. It was a really counter-intuitive thing to do. In the end I gained 40 pounds which didn't meet my goal, but was pretty decent considering the weight loss I went through in the early months and the fact that I had to restrict carbs in the later months. I still feel kind of bad about not gaining more and having babies who were as small as they were, but maybe they would have been small no matter how much weight I gained.

Now I'm back to obsessing over every single calorie, but this time it's about Nora, and again I'm searching around for the highest calorie foods I can think of. At Nora's GI appointment she weighed in at 15 lbs 3 oz, and her average weight gain has been 7 grams a day over the past 2 months. That is not enough, so now we are to put canola oil into her bottle. When she turns 1 year old she won't be able to switch over to milk like most toddlers. She has to consume 700 calories a day for appropriate catch-up growth right now, so I do a lot of calculating. If I can get her to drink 16 ounces a day, that's 432 calories. So I need to get at least 270 calories into her via solid meals. That's actually a stretch since getting 100 calories into her at lunch and dinner pretty much stuffs her full. Okay, 70 calories at breakfast, and we should be good. Except for those days when she'll only drink 12 ounces. Then we're kind of screwed. I put avocado oil into a lot of her vegetables. I found sunbutter made from sunflower seeds, and that has a lot of calories, so I can give her some of that every day. Bananas and avocados are good. She hates eggs. She turns her nose up at beef (can't blame her). Yogurt is good. By the end of the day if we have a little cushion, and I know she'll make her calorie goal, I feel relieved. If she's behind and I know she won't make it up, I feel miserable.

Boy, if only I put this much effort into watching my own eating so carefully, I'd be able to lose that baby weight no problem!

When we were in the waiting room we talked to another mom of a 1-year old baby who is 14 and a half pounds. She said the doctor brought up the possibility of a gastric feeding tube. That baby is only a little worse off than Nora weight wise, so it scared me. Nora is growing well in length, and her head size is decent, so it's not like she's not growing. But her curve has flattened out again, and I guess I have to deal with the fact that we're going to be living with this issue for a while. It could be worse. A feeding tube would be much, much worse. I'll slip oil and butter into everything she eats every day if it can help us avoid going down that road.

Above is a picture of our little fashion plate.